Nonfiction / Marcy Rae Henry 

 

      I could nev­er tell Ran­di and Sandy apart when they were com­ing down the hall until one of them spoke to me.  Ran­di and I were cool, but she most­ly just said, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ Her twin on the oth­er hand hat­ed me in the way only one teenage girl can hate anoth­er.  I’d nev­er had class­es or even a con­ver­sa­tion with Sandy, but she’d walk behind me in the halls, snip­ping, ‘Look at that out­fit.  Lati­nas can’t be New Wave.  ¡Qué ridículo!’ 

      Ignor­ing her seemed to piss her off, so that’s what I did—until she start­ed mak­ing com­ments about my body.  Then I turned around and said, ‘You want a piece of this, mami­ta?   Sure are focused on it.’  And I shook my ass down the hall.

      Lat­er, my friends were gath­ered at my lock­er and Sandy strolled by. ‘Check it out.  It’s the bitch-bunch!’ 

      Corey asked her to repeat her­self and, being Sandy, she did. ‘Per­ras, todas.’ She dra­mat­i­cal­ly point­ed at us one by one and jabbed her fin­ger into Corey’s chest.

      Turn­ing to me, Corey said, ‘Hold these, please,’ and hand­ed me her books. Then she punched Sandy in the face.  Fists flew, hair was yanked and I burst into tears. Maybe it was the sur­prise of the whole thing. A crowd gath­ered and the Span­ish teacher ran out of her class­room unsuc­cess­ful­ly scream­ing for them to stop. She didn’t dare get between them, that’s what the secu­ri­ty guard was for, and when Big Mike strolled over, he sep­a­rat­ed them like rag dolls. In those days peo­ple in charge could pad­dle stu­dents, man­han­dle, yell at and threat­en them.  And yet, Big Mike nev­er raised his voice and rarely had to get more phys­i­cal than he did with Corey and Sandy.

      After the fight, the Span­ish teacher called Corey La Bruis­er. ‘Let’s ask La Bruis­er how to say, ‘I would have gone to the movies with La Llorona if I’d had the mon­ey… Be care­ful with the verbs.”  Some­thing that prob­a­bly wouldn’t fly today.  Corey sat in deten­tion for a week, a cou­ple of desks away from Sandy, and from there she snuck me a note. ‘I’ll always have your back.  Love, C.’

***

      Corey and I went to col­lege in neigh­bor­ing states, so we were able to vis­it each oth­er dur­ing breaks and once or twice dur­ing the semes­ter.  After­wards, she stayed in Col­orado, and I moved to Spain.  While I was trav­el­ing around, I’d drop her post­cards and write at length about love affairs, celiba­cy; bac­cha­na­lia, sobri­ety; the vicis­si­tudes of the earth and the stun­ning struc­tures built upon it.  Corey would write via Poste Restante. Same stuff: sex part­ners, poten­tial life part­ners, dream hous­es.  In Dam­as­cus I got a note say­ing, ‘Will you look for a Monop­oly board in Ara­bic?  I’ll love you for­ev­er, C.’ Incred­i­bly, I  found one and sent it to her around the hol­i­days.  When the let­ter I picked up at the post office in Cairo said, ‘Will you come back to be my maid of hon­or?’ I was sur­prised. We were still so young.  Or maybe just I felt that way.   But I sent a let­ter back say­ing, Dear Corey, of course.

***

      Back in Grana­da I planned to take my leave, head back to the States for the wed­ding and work until I’d saved up enough mon­ey to go to India.  Before that, I want­ed to get Corey some­thing spe­cial, some­thing adult.  So, I decid­ed to head to Por­tu­gal to check out the beau­ti­ful blue stoneware. 

      The first stop was Gali­cia, where I couldn’t under­stand a word of Gal­lego and where, pre-inter­net, I met peo­ple who didn’t know where the U.S. was in rela­tion to Europe.  –I assured them lots of peo­ple in the States couldn’t point out Gali­cia on a map.  In San­ti­a­go de Com­postela a cathe­dral hous­es the apos­tle Saint James’ remains, sup­pos­ed­ly con­se­crat­ed in 1211.  I stepped into a tav­er­na with­in the medieval walls and had an espres­so so delight­ful I decid­ed to order anoth­er.  By the time I wad­ed through pil­grims, wait­ed in line to enter the Romanesque church and found an uncom­fort­able pew on the right side of the transept, the caf­feine kicked in.  My heart began pound­ing. Every­thing in the chan­cel was gold­en and glow­ing.  My hands shook and my head hurt, so I put it between my knees. When I looked up, the High Altar was over­whelm­ing. I could taste stone, wood, met­al. Though I’d nev­er done so, I felt as if I might faint.  I won­dered if I should ask favor of the seat­ed fig­ure of Saint James dressed as a pil­grim or the four angels float­ing above.  When I stood up and clutched my chest, a cou­ple of peo­ple close by smiled and nod­ded at me.  They thought I was hav­ing a reli­gious experience.

      Walk­ing across the bor­der into Por­tu­gal, I thought of the only oth­er such bound­ary I’d tra­versed on foot and how my great-great-grand­moth­er wit­nessed this bor­der between Méx­i­co and the U.S. migrate south.  She crossed back and forth, saw peo­ple fight to get their land back and decid­ed to stay north of the new line. One day my great-grand­moth­er also crossed north for the last time. My grand­moth­er crossed back for short vis­its. Through­out col­lege, walk­ing across to par­ty in Juárez was as easy as stat­ing our cit­i­zen­ship on the way in, and slur­ring ‘Mer­can when stum­bling back into El Paso.  No i.d. need­ed, no papers looked at, no oth­er ques­tions asked.  Who knows how many have died in and because of the cre­ation of this border.

      Before the Euro, before Europe’s bor­ders became more porous, the first thing to do when cross­ing one was to change mon­ey.  Not long after doing so in Coim­bra, a city famous for blue and white ceram­ics, I spent most of it on a serv­ing set for Corey.  It was ele­gant, adult and heavy, and I’d hap­pi­ly hag­gled to get the price down.  I stayed in cheap hos­tels filled with oth­er peo­ple my age, peo­ple who talked about how stun­ning Lis­bon was.  Of course, I had to go, even if I knew my expe­ri­ence of it would be lim­it­ed due to lack of funds.  And yet, as soon as I stepped off the train with my back­pack and well-wrapped serv­ing set, some­thing told me to buy the weed I was offered. Con­tent to wan­der up and down the nar­row, trol­ley-filled cob­ble­stones and in and out of church­es, I scratched muse­ums, Cas­cais with the medieval Nos­sa Sen­ho­ra da Luz Fort and Citadel Palace off the list of places to vis­it.  The weed not only made long walks more enjoy­able, it helped with a long night of bed bugs in the first crap room I rented. 

    Next, I head­ed to the Algarve, famed for gold­en coast­lines rimmed with miles of cliffs and beach­es.  I hung out with a group of Alge­ri­ans who taught me about their coun­try.  At that point I hadn’t even seen Bat­tle of Algiers and hung on every word.  In a cheap but unbe­liev­ably clean and bug-free hos­tel in Lagos I met a Cana­di­an, an Amer­i­can and Brit and we all agreed to linger in Lagos where we shared food, drink, smoke and lied top­less on the sand for hours, blue in front of us and blue up above. We’d trade CDs for the day, lis­ten­ing to Deep For­est and Loreena McKen­nitt, writ­ing lists of books and music in each other’s jour­nals. Final­ly, sun-filled, lazy and only able to afford to eat ice cream, I knew it was time to head back to Grana­da.  With bus­es and trains out of reach, I decid­ed to hitchhike—something that wasn’t unusu­al for the place and time.

      A French woman in a con­vert­ible picked me up first.  She was play­ing B‑Tribe and said she always picked up women, espe­cial­ly if they were alone.  After­wards, I didn’t wait long before an Ital­ian cou­ple play­ing Eros Ramaz­zot­ti offered me a lift.  Because of their lex­i­cal sim­i­lar­i­ty, Span­ish and Ital­ian speak­ers can under­stand four out of every five words of the oth­er lan­guage.  So, we had 4/5 of a con­ver­sa­tion.  They told me about their medieval city; I told them about Corey.  Once I entered Spain I was picked up by a man in a small sedan who spoke non­stop in Por­tuguese which, though also a Latin descen­dent, sound­ed more sim­i­lar to French than Span­ish and I most­ly just shrugged, ‘No entien­do.’  Sud­den­ly, he pulled to the side of the road.  We were in a love­ly, forest­ed area; a place where I didn’t want to die.  He motioned for me to wait and jumped out.  I didn’t know if I should do the same, but if I had to bolt, I knew I’d have to leave the serv­ing set I’d been lug­ging around. 

      In the pas­sen­ger mir­ror I fixed my eye on the guy.  He pulled out a long knife.  It glint­ed in the sun­light.  I opened the door and as I got out to run, he shout­ed, ‘San­duiche!’ and held up a beau­ti­ful loaf of bread in one hand and the knife in the oth­er.  The bread dis­armed me.  I walked slow­ly to the trunk and watched him cut two slices of fresh bread and a thick hunk of cheese.  It was one of the best sand­wich­es I ever ate.

 

***

      My last ride into Grana­da was with a Span­ish-speak­ing truck­driv­er. I man­aged to break a plat­ter get­ting into his rig.  Corey didn’t mind.  At the wed­ding recep­tion I told the hitch­hik­ing sto­ry.  She toast­ed our friendship. 

      A few years lat­er she sent a let­ter to India to tell me of her divorce.  I sent back some Tibetan incense and a copy of Sid­dhartha.  By the time I returned from the Himalayas, she was about to mar­ry for the sec­ond time.  I’d been liv­ing off sav­ings.  She’d been build­ing a career.  When I told her about spend­ing hours in silence and med­i­ta­tion, Corey didn’t quite know what to say.  She talked about her cus­tom-made Mer­cedes and $400 bot­tles of wine, and I wasn’t sure what response she was seek­ing.  We went club­bing and she and her part­ner sand­wiched me on the dance floor. In a moment of music and mez­cal she whis­pered in my ear that I was invit­ed to the wedding/honeymoon in Hawaii.  Once again, I was broke and, as I would have been the only guest, I declined.

      After I moved to Chica­go our vis­its became increas­ing­ly spread out.  She came out a few times and I saw her in Den­ver when she was again divorc­ing.  Not long after, she almost stopped in Chica­go while on a busi­ness trip.  In freez­ing weath­er the city is known for, I took a bus and a train to meet her at O’Hare and she wasn’t there.  I called her cell from a pay­phone and wait­ed.  After a cou­ple of hours, hop­ing Corey was ok, I left.  Days lat­er I called her home.

      She answered and said, ‘I met a guy and well, you know, we end­ed up get­ting a room and I missed my flight.’

      ‘And you couldn’t take a moment to stop me from going to the airport?’

      Next time I was in Col­orado we made plans to hang out, but Corey got caught up jet ski­ing and we didn’t con­nect before I left.  We nev­er texted or emailed the way we used to write to each oth­er and didn’t always have each other’s cur­rent address and phone num­ber.  While she was very active on it, I’ve nev­er been on social media and a mutu­al friend told me in pass­ing that she’d seen a post about Corey mar­ry­ing a third time.  By that point we hadn’t seen each oth­er in years and if there was a fies­ta, I wasn’t invit­ed.  It wasn’t as if we’d bro­ken up.  She didn’t like my part­ner at the time, but I knew that wasn’t it—we’d had numer­ous part­ners dur­ing decades of know­ing each oth­er.  It was a nat­ur­al part­ing, brought on by change and distance. 

      Sev­er­al years passed and then, the pan­dem­ic.  And if not dur­ing a world­wide pan­dem­ic, when?  Corey sent an email.  We checked in a cou­ple of times.  When the skies opened up again, she came to Chica­go for a con­cert and, after­wards, came by for food and wine.  It was still that in between time when peo­ple and places had dif­fer­ent rules, dif­fer­ent bound­aries.  She found me more cau­tious about masks and trav­el than she was.  At first, I won­dered about her politics. 

      Then we talked about all the unbe­liev­able mier­da.  The tri­fec­ta of the virus, police bru­tal­i­ty and the splin­ter­ing of the coun­try.  We laughed and cried like we always had, act­ing out scenes from our lives.  There was no need to paint our­selves pret­ty.  To act like things turned out the way we planned.  I swore to always live just a short dri­ve from the moun­tains but end­ed up in Mid­west­ern flat­lands.  Corey built her dream­house, but when her third mar­riage was over, she end­ed up mov­ing around, lug­ging the Por­tuguese serv­ing set to each new place. 

      After trad­ing sto­ries about the Sandys of the world and the unavoid­able Sandys in our lives, she left.  And it was enough.  I don’t mean the mar­riages; there will be anoth­er.  We didn’t promise to stay in touch—we’d both be in Italy that sum­mer and would miss each oth­er by weeks—but we were updat­ed and we were at peace.

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

While shel­ter­ing in place in Chica­go, I found myself writ­ing essays about my abueli­ta and my home­town.  There’s so much more space in my South­west­ern town—between hous­es, peo­ple, on roads, side­walks, in stores.  In Chica­go I stood at the win­dow watch­ing a float squeeze its way down a one-way street as if it had lost its parade.  Grad­u­at­ing high school stu­dents’ names were spelled out in spark­ly let­ters over every inch of the long flat-bed.  It was inno­v­a­tive and ter­ri­bly sad. 

Well before the inter­net became ubiq­ui­tous, ‘Corey’ and I watched oth­er girls cat­fish in all the ways pos­si­ble in the 80s—calling peo­ple, pre­tend­ing to be some­one else, leav­ing notes in lock­ers pre­tend­ing they were authored by some­one else, send­ing piz­zas to some­one who hadn’t ordered them…  We didn’t real­ize the extent to which women and girls were pit­ted against each other.

We didn’t have the lan­guage, among oth­er things, to explain that we’d come of age in a world that embraced gen­der essen­tial­ism and assumed het­ero­nor­ma­tiv­i­ty. Lat­er, we under­stood we could say no to all the com­pe­ti­tions we didn’t sign up for. 

As some­one who’s nev­er had social media accounts, it’s inter­est­ing to look at how rela­tion­ships change as the ways we cor­re­spond have changed. Same goes for social expec­ta­tions, for per­son­al space.  Some of my stu­dents expect me to be per­pet­u­al­ly online.  Some peo­ple my age think something’s wrong if they don’t get a lick­ety-split response. 

After we’d both returned from our respec­tive trips to Italy, Corey and I emailed a few times about buy­ing one of those 1€ stone-crum­bling Ital­ian vil­las to refur­bish.  I won­der if she’s remar­ried by now.

Mar­cy Rae Hen­ry is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Xicana artist born and raised in the Bor­der­lands.  She has lived in Europe and Asia and had motor­cy­cle acci­dents in Mex­i­can Amer­i­ca, Turkey and Nepal. She is the author of We Are Pri­ma­ry Col­ors (Dou­ble­Cross Press), the body is where it all begins (forth­com­ing from Queren­cia Press), dream life of night owls (forth­com­ing from Open Coun­try Press) and red deli­cious (forth­com­ing from danc­ing girl press) and recent­ly won the May Sar­ton NH Prize for Poet­ry.  Her work appears or will appear in Sala­man­der, Epiphany, PANK, The South­ern Review, Worces­ter Review, Best New Poets and var­i­ous oth­er jour­nals and has received a Chica­go Com­mu­ni­ty Arts Assis­tance Grant, an Illi­nois Arts Coun­cil Fel­low­ship, a Push­cart nom­i­na­tion, and first prize in Suburbia’s Nov­el Excerpt Con­test. MRae is a dig­i­tal min­i­mal­ist with no social media accounts and an asso­ciate edi­tor for RHINO Poet­ry.  marcyraehenry.com