Butterfly yellow, p.14
Butterfly Yellow, page 14
What the hell? He does as requested and talks some more.
The Island
My lungs found air. An empty but capped plastic oil jug bobbed within reach. Clutched it, bounced, waves served as feet. In the distance, silhouettes jumped into the sea as our fishing boat burned. Much laughter from the pirates, whose boat sped away amidst screeches of the engine and screams of captured girls. One long-haired silhouette leaped overboard. I counted eight dark heads atop the sea.
My feet grazed sand. Solid, grainy, ticklish. Such joy to stagger, then crawl, then shed my entire body of the sea. Full weight pressing on palms, on knees. I rolled onto land and threw up.
Other tattered bodies crawled on land. Brown beings ran toward us. Without strength to scream, I curled into a pill bug, arms helmeting my head.
“Không sao, không ai làm gì cháu đâu.” A female voice, southern accent, flew out of a seemingly benevolent gut, repeating, “Don’t worry, no one will harm you.”
Remaining curled, I peeked. A woman, smeared in flaking mud from crown to toes, even on her eyelids, lifted me by my arm. I would know she was Vietnamese even if she had not spoken. High forehead, almond eyes, sharp cheekbones, full lips. Her iron arms, calloused hands surprised me. She was used to work, used to strife.
So unlike Mother, who quoted poetry and attended to her beauty and seemed to lean against Father for strength. And yet she scraped the pirate with her nails. Her throat was slashed because of me.
The woman and an equally muddy helper dragged me to shade. As if by magic, a young coconut punctured with two holes popped into the air. Juice, sweet with a linger of tree fat. I had forgotten such a treasure existed. Sugar overpowered salt until every taste bud bloomed. My eyes closed.
I awakened to hands slathering cool mud over my entirety. It was dusk, when mosquitoes fat as flies began their hunts. They shrieked in frustration, demanding a feast, but the hands worked fast providing armor as I drank more sweetness.
The other eight survivors, equally masked, began calling for their own. One man patted every muddy face, frantic for his wife and two young sons. He plunged back into the sea, diving to look for them amid swirls of diluted earthy brown. No one had the quickness or the strength to stop him. A mother wailed for her children. A young boy scanned the sea for his father. A long-haired girl close to my age whimpered for her grandmother. The captain of our fishing boat lamented, “I ask for everyone’s forgiveness.” He disappeared inside a thicket of green.
Muddy, damp faces spoke the names of those floating at the ocean’s depth, or even worse, those inside the pirates’ clutches. There had been fifty-seven on a boat meant for ten. The vigil took time. I added Mother’s name, Ðỗ thị Mỹ Thu. As soon as I spoke, whispers confirmed that I was a girl. Maybe those on the boat always knew but allowed Mother and me the false safety of our disguise.
A savory smoke rose and my stomach convulsed from hunger. On a wild banana leaf, an offering of a grilled fish the size of my palm. I was made to chew slowly, a thumbnail morsel at a time, waiting to understand if my stomach will accept flaky fish, crunchy scales, chewy eyeballs, and a tail that shattered like a firework. I felt lucky to receive another coconut, lucky to lie down on palm fronds.
My stomach rejected every bite of fish, every drop of sweet water, also emptied of every remnant of the ocean. Undaunted, more muddy hands offered more grilled fish, more coconut. This time I entered sleep with a calm belly.
Hằng’s stomach drums as she licks her lips, prompting Ly-Roi to jump up and pull at her, listing food after food that they should be eating right now.
“Du gô.” She tells him to go, not meaning it. The warmth inside his grip, the rhythm of his breaths, have become as necessary as her own skin.
She yanks him back to sitting. He grumbles and sighs. It matters not what he’s saying. As long as he stays and talks.
Next morning I awakened to screams of hải tặc, hải tặc, pirates, pirates. Fingers pointed, voices alarmed as we ran toward the hills and wondered why pirates would harm us on land. Women and girls were shoved inside rock crevices. Mine also held the girl who jumped from the pirates’ boat. Her grandmother had watched over Mother and me. The rock walls, slimy and damp, stank of rotting crabs. A light opposite the sliver entrance roared with waves, the way back to the sea.
Someone tossed into our cave two long reeds, hollow, alongside instructions to jump if found. Stay under and breathe and drift until rescued through sticks poking above water. Do not let the pirates see you. Do not let the pirates see you. The last warning was repeated until it encircled us like pythons.
Lying down, Hằng tries to slow memories sitting like a house on her chest. She keeps her shirt buttoned by hand. She takes tiny breaths, forcing into her mind something happy. What would she yearn for if life had granted her a warm, indulgent past? What if the last six years were simply a continuation of family, school, friends, drawing, and studying? What would be left to want?
Blank. She tries imagining something simple, a bowl of cháo, thickened with bone broth and scallions. Then sleep.
As soon as her eyes close, his buzzing lullaby stops. She jolts back to sitting as Ly-Roi stirs and twitches. Pulling his arm once more, her eyes widen and entreat him to keep talking.
She knows to add a smile.
Sappiness
For once, LeeRoy figures he might be all talked out. Told her so. But H is stubborn. Plopped there like it’s the most logical thing in the world to hand your body over to nature and hope for the best. He half wishes it would start hailing again, great big bombers, forcing her to shelter like an owl at high noon.
“I bet Mr. Morgan is cooking up some kind of scrumptious lunch, maybe chili with corn chips.” He stands. “Fine, chips are too much to hanker for, but our cranky boss does fire up a mean chili.”
Instead of standing, H points to something and smiles even bigger. Darn it if she doesn’t have a right dimple. Why had he not noticed until now? Of course, she’s never smiled this long and deeply before. LeeRoy follows her index finger, and sure enough there’s a mouse twitching out of a hole in a hill. Man, just his luck that H has got bionic eyes, the mouse blending right into white-gray-brown rocks.
“That there is a Palo Duro mouse, I swear it doesn’t exist anywhere else on God’s green earth. They only get to be four inches, with a tail just as long, and they love to squeeze into crevices in the canyon walls. Good luck to their predators. And you’ll love this, they eat mostly seeds. This one is probably sniffing out all the seed droppings the hail brought down and deciding whether it’s hungry enough to risk being a snack for a rattlesnake.”
H keeps up her grin. Who knew she has a soft spot for mice? They’re cute and all, with a twitchy reddish-brown face and pudgy white belly, but nothing worth sitting on mud and shivering for.
Now H points at a horned lizard. He tells her it’s a threatened species. She points at a ladybug, green and yellow, at a beetle, black with horns.
“C’mon, H, you know how many little things are living it up in this here canyon?”
She doesn’t answer, keeps pointing. He spills out the facts. That’s what he gets for having a memory like Krazy Glue. Once he reads something, it sticks. It would serve her right if a bobcat comes out. That’ll get her up and running right quick.
But truth is, he does like seeing her happy. Somehow, that is taking precedence over what would make him happy, namely a gorged belly and long, warm days roaming rodeos. What has happened to him? How did he turn into such a sap? And his sappiness might be hitting overdrive: starting to feel lucky he got to hang with her for the summer.
As LeeRoy sits and talks on about roadrunners, he’s not altogether sure she’s listening. So still, chin to bent knees, staring into the damp canyon, once again mulling over something he altogether can’t see. But God forbid if he should hush up.
The Cave
Inside our tiny, slimy, dark cave, we both scratched. Hundreds of crawling somethings burned like arrows as they burrowed beneath skin. Our fingernails sawed against mud and skin and blood and muscles. I growled, quietly.
Outside the cave, the world was set on fire. Smoke and suffocation, as if red pepper sauce were flicked into eyes, matches were lit inside nostrils. I clutched the girl’s hand, each of us ready with our reed, stepping toward thuds of waves. She yanked free, mumbling “Never again the sea,” then ran through smoke into flames. Pirates shouted, the girl screamed. I jumped into foam.
Waves slammed me against rocks, shocked away the itches, dissolving my muddy armor. Salt wiggled into nose, into throat. Coral sliced into legs. Eyes squeezed against pain, I imagined ribbons of blood diluted to pink, more ribbons, more red, as strips turned rose then paler and paler before blending into the blue green.
My head exposed itself. Such pleasure to breathe through my nose. I heard screams among thrashing waves. Not possible, but anguish flooded the world nonetheless. Plunged back under. Made myself stay inside water. Endless passage of time as my lips shriveled while fingers clamped onto the reed, my one chance for air, for safety. Was it possible to sleep while engulfed within a sea? Seemingly a day a night another day, only to be told later the devils left within an hour. I surrendered to the currents, at times opening my eyes to see what creature stabbed dozens of holes every time my body bashed against rocks. Hard purple balls the size of fists, covered in nails. Pointy ends waiting.
My reed was yanked. I was dragged and eventually touched sand, was led toward a women’s corner blanketed in broad leaves and warmed by circles of ground fire. The long-haired girl lay on her stomach, banana leaves as a bed, a palm frond covering her bottom. Her back was charred and sandy, a gathering of blood trickled to her knees, beginning between her legs. She gnawed her clenched fist.
Muddy women washed her back with coconut water, our only liquid without salt, trickling away each grain of sand to expose pink flesh beneath blackened skin. They applied a gooey ointment of forest medicine. When they started to lift the palm frond, the girl squirmed and sucked one shushing breath. They let her be. Wait, they told each other, until she has reclaimed her presence. One woman fanned away mosquitoes, another dripped coconut water upon her lips. All the while the girl whimpered.
Each Inhale, Each Exhale
LeeRoy has never seen H so downtrodden. With anyone else, it would be downright proper to hug it out and offer, “It’ll be all right.” With her, though, he’s not dumb enough to test a hug. And whatever she is seeing with those faraway eyes won’t turn out all right just because he says so.
With the rain gone, the sun is fighting through the clouds. Soon humidity will grab ahold of him and eat up what little energy he has left. They have to get on back. And it’s a given mosquitoes will sense blood and, finding perfect puddles for breeding, suck them dry.
“Uh, H? How about . . .”
He stops himself. She’s hugging her knees as if squeezing blood from them. She sighs, just once, but heavy enough to squash a barn. LeeRoy hasn’t got the slightest idea what will help, so he keeps at the one thing she’s asked for.
“Bet you don’t know that longhorns live here too. An official state-recognized herd! The Spaniards brought cattle to Texas in the 1500s and plenty escaped and took their chances in the great outdoors, like we’re doing now except better equipped to get pelted with hail and all. I mean, they can sleep standing up so who cares if the ground is wet. Did you know that cattle lying down means it’s gonna rain soon? Anyhoo, their descendants roamed all over Texas until the early settlers rounded them up and made a good living. A bull can fetch a thousand now, can you believe it? They are hardy, I’ll give them that, surviving on nothing but poor pastureland. I’m betting they have the toughest neck muscles in the world, lugging around them horns.”
LeeRoy gets on all fours and swings his head like an overburdened longhorn, mooing for effect.
Nothing. Man, she’s a tough audience.
LeeRoy peers into her far-off face, where even her blinks seem immobilized. It might be best just to sit and breathe with her, matching each inhale, each exhale. Like her, he sits with legs bent, chin on his knees, arms in a wrap-around. Their upper arms touch once again. He leans into her. She leans back, so slightly. Not much, but enough to keep him there.
The Worms
As shock flattened, itches resurged. How I scratched. An herbalist gave me and the girl a strangling drink bitter of every herb, leaf, bark. Drowsy, my will receded to the sky. I let them unravel salty undergarments, then lay me down on my own layers of leaves.
The girl and I squirmed with itches, scraping arms, nape, sides. Soon, twine tied our fingers. Two women fanned away mosquitoes while others stone-sharpened hairpin tips, dipped in coconut water boiled in their own shells on fires fueled by their own husks. Tiny airholes were pricked on our skin touching the leafy beds. It felt ticklish, compared to the holes made from the thorns on purple creatures. Once we were deemed to have enough openings, hot water expanded under us, wilting green banana leaves.
The herbalist whispered that they crave warmth, abandoning hot for hotter, slimy walls for our blood, our blood for boiled water. What are they? No answer, just more liquid, more steam. Beneath my skin, slitherings began slow and continuous and so itchy my eyes burned. Finally, something bored through my back to plunge into the bath. I was turned on my stomach, where coral had gashed thighs and shins, where purple creatures seared many holes. No need for pin pricks. More slitherings, more crazed itching. Until a soft dullness of nothing. I was instructed to stand, to witness hundreds of tiny white worms swimming in elation. The water was released while writhing bodies remained captured. The leafy mattress was coiled and thrown into flames.
The girl would not turn over, would not get up. Water was poured on her seared back, pink flesh exposed. No need for pinpricks. Liquid and heat over and over until tiny white heads sniffed the air and crawled onto her steaming skin, following the red tracks they had inked. Each worm was picked off and sizzled in the fire. The girl did not sigh, did not stir. She did stop whimpering.
Someday
H has got her forehead on her knees. LeeRoy hears quick, stuttering breaths, stifling a full-on cry. She seems as bad off as a fox gnawing a trapped leg. If she would look up, he could point to the sun peeking through and black birds giddy at the bonanza of exposed worms.
“C’mon, H, things surely were rough but you don’t gotta stay tough. You gotta right to cry, and Lord knows I’ve tried . . .”
LeeRoy claps and lets out a tight-gut laugh. Without even trying, he’s rapped.
I know enough
to know it was rough
so you don’t gotta stay tough.
Poof oof ugh ugh ugh.
Go on and cry,
only right that you try
to let red soak into your eyes
and release everything to the sky.
Poof oof ugh ugh ugh.
He stops. No one needs to clue him in on how bad that was. But it does get H to peer right at him. Her eyes are red and puffy, but by God she’s half smiling.
“Du rai pô-èm?”
“If you want to call that a poem, then sure thing, I wrote a poem.”
“Bét pô-èm.” Her eyes, still red, are laughing.
“Bad? If you think you can do better, go at it, missy.”
H gets quiet again. Oh no, she can’t go back to that eerie, distant stare. There’s only so much he can take. But H stands, one hand still gathering the neck of her shirt. LeeRoy jumps up. Yes, this is more like it. She’s looking at the ground. Fine, maybe for a direction to head on back. Then she picks up a stick with the free hand. Not really strong enough to be a walking stick, but she’s tiny, maybe that’s all she needs.
She starts writing on the soggy ground, line after line. LeeRoy makes out “homes, bones, gold, karma, skin, kind.” The tiny marks over vowels in “hải tặc” sink under the weight of mud. She scribbles out that phrase. Soon all her words rejoin the muddy slake and she throws the stick in a huff.
LeeRoy stumbles on a way home. “Know what would work a whole lot better? Pencil and paper. And you know where I have plenty of both? That’s right, back with reliable Red. Let’s go check on her, no telling what the hail has inflicted on my poor truck.”
Thinking of Red getting pelted and abused gets LeeRoy so agitated he starts walking away from the canyon. Everything has a time limit. H’s just ran out. It’s Red’s turn.
He looks back at H. “Well, c’mon, it’s not like your clothes are going to dry themselves.”
H’s saying something.
“Speak up, will ya?”
She doesn’t. Her lips keep moving. LeeRoy throws up his hands. “After all this time, now you decide to tell me something?” What choice does he have but to walk on back.
Even next to her, he has to lean down to hear. H talks/sings clear and sure, accounting for every contraction and past tense and plural in a steady rhythm. Every syllable gets released like molasses, turning her into some other speaker altogether. Instead of pissed-off snakes, her s sounds enter the world as slowly leaking tires.
They ranked us low, they con-fis-ca-ted our homes,
still we claimed Father’s bones and fled toward unknowns.
They ripped away our gold, they slashed our fa-mi-lies,
still we bit and jumped and knew karma will avenge upon fi-na-li-ties.
They bored into our flesh, they scorched red roads on our skin,
still I find Brother and our future will begin.
For every stomach that reeks along-side cruel minds,
there’s one like yours that can’t help but be kind.
LeeRoy jumps up and down, slapping his thighs. “H, you’ve done rapped. Slow as all get-go, but it’s a genuine rap. You’re surely the first Vietnamese rapper in all of Texas.”
H stands before him, blinking. LeeRoy forces himself to stay still and not scare her. Her rap replays in his mind. Like with reading, once he hears something it sticks. Every half line hints at hours of backstory. He could soak through two, three hailstorms with her and still not get at all that’s scrambled inside.
The Island
My lungs found air. An empty but capped plastic oil jug bobbed within reach. Clutched it, bounced, waves served as feet. In the distance, silhouettes jumped into the sea as our fishing boat burned. Much laughter from the pirates, whose boat sped away amidst screeches of the engine and screams of captured girls. One long-haired silhouette leaped overboard. I counted eight dark heads atop the sea.
My feet grazed sand. Solid, grainy, ticklish. Such joy to stagger, then crawl, then shed my entire body of the sea. Full weight pressing on palms, on knees. I rolled onto land and threw up.
Other tattered bodies crawled on land. Brown beings ran toward us. Without strength to scream, I curled into a pill bug, arms helmeting my head.
“Không sao, không ai làm gì cháu đâu.” A female voice, southern accent, flew out of a seemingly benevolent gut, repeating, “Don’t worry, no one will harm you.”
Remaining curled, I peeked. A woman, smeared in flaking mud from crown to toes, even on her eyelids, lifted me by my arm. I would know she was Vietnamese even if she had not spoken. High forehead, almond eyes, sharp cheekbones, full lips. Her iron arms, calloused hands surprised me. She was used to work, used to strife.
So unlike Mother, who quoted poetry and attended to her beauty and seemed to lean against Father for strength. And yet she scraped the pirate with her nails. Her throat was slashed because of me.
The woman and an equally muddy helper dragged me to shade. As if by magic, a young coconut punctured with two holes popped into the air. Juice, sweet with a linger of tree fat. I had forgotten such a treasure existed. Sugar overpowered salt until every taste bud bloomed. My eyes closed.
I awakened to hands slathering cool mud over my entirety. It was dusk, when mosquitoes fat as flies began their hunts. They shrieked in frustration, demanding a feast, but the hands worked fast providing armor as I drank more sweetness.
The other eight survivors, equally masked, began calling for their own. One man patted every muddy face, frantic for his wife and two young sons. He plunged back into the sea, diving to look for them amid swirls of diluted earthy brown. No one had the quickness or the strength to stop him. A mother wailed for her children. A young boy scanned the sea for his father. A long-haired girl close to my age whimpered for her grandmother. The captain of our fishing boat lamented, “I ask for everyone’s forgiveness.” He disappeared inside a thicket of green.
Muddy, damp faces spoke the names of those floating at the ocean’s depth, or even worse, those inside the pirates’ clutches. There had been fifty-seven on a boat meant for ten. The vigil took time. I added Mother’s name, Ðỗ thị Mỹ Thu. As soon as I spoke, whispers confirmed that I was a girl. Maybe those on the boat always knew but allowed Mother and me the false safety of our disguise.
A savory smoke rose and my stomach convulsed from hunger. On a wild banana leaf, an offering of a grilled fish the size of my palm. I was made to chew slowly, a thumbnail morsel at a time, waiting to understand if my stomach will accept flaky fish, crunchy scales, chewy eyeballs, and a tail that shattered like a firework. I felt lucky to receive another coconut, lucky to lie down on palm fronds.
My stomach rejected every bite of fish, every drop of sweet water, also emptied of every remnant of the ocean. Undaunted, more muddy hands offered more grilled fish, more coconut. This time I entered sleep with a calm belly.
Hằng’s stomach drums as she licks her lips, prompting Ly-Roi to jump up and pull at her, listing food after food that they should be eating right now.
“Du gô.” She tells him to go, not meaning it. The warmth inside his grip, the rhythm of his breaths, have become as necessary as her own skin.
She yanks him back to sitting. He grumbles and sighs. It matters not what he’s saying. As long as he stays and talks.
Next morning I awakened to screams of hải tặc, hải tặc, pirates, pirates. Fingers pointed, voices alarmed as we ran toward the hills and wondered why pirates would harm us on land. Women and girls were shoved inside rock crevices. Mine also held the girl who jumped from the pirates’ boat. Her grandmother had watched over Mother and me. The rock walls, slimy and damp, stank of rotting crabs. A light opposite the sliver entrance roared with waves, the way back to the sea.
Someone tossed into our cave two long reeds, hollow, alongside instructions to jump if found. Stay under and breathe and drift until rescued through sticks poking above water. Do not let the pirates see you. Do not let the pirates see you. The last warning was repeated until it encircled us like pythons.
Lying down, Hằng tries to slow memories sitting like a house on her chest. She keeps her shirt buttoned by hand. She takes tiny breaths, forcing into her mind something happy. What would she yearn for if life had granted her a warm, indulgent past? What if the last six years were simply a continuation of family, school, friends, drawing, and studying? What would be left to want?
Blank. She tries imagining something simple, a bowl of cháo, thickened with bone broth and scallions. Then sleep.
As soon as her eyes close, his buzzing lullaby stops. She jolts back to sitting as Ly-Roi stirs and twitches. Pulling his arm once more, her eyes widen and entreat him to keep talking.
She knows to add a smile.
Sappiness
For once, LeeRoy figures he might be all talked out. Told her so. But H is stubborn. Plopped there like it’s the most logical thing in the world to hand your body over to nature and hope for the best. He half wishes it would start hailing again, great big bombers, forcing her to shelter like an owl at high noon.
“I bet Mr. Morgan is cooking up some kind of scrumptious lunch, maybe chili with corn chips.” He stands. “Fine, chips are too much to hanker for, but our cranky boss does fire up a mean chili.”
Instead of standing, H points to something and smiles even bigger. Darn it if she doesn’t have a right dimple. Why had he not noticed until now? Of course, she’s never smiled this long and deeply before. LeeRoy follows her index finger, and sure enough there’s a mouse twitching out of a hole in a hill. Man, just his luck that H has got bionic eyes, the mouse blending right into white-gray-brown rocks.
“That there is a Palo Duro mouse, I swear it doesn’t exist anywhere else on God’s green earth. They only get to be four inches, with a tail just as long, and they love to squeeze into crevices in the canyon walls. Good luck to their predators. And you’ll love this, they eat mostly seeds. This one is probably sniffing out all the seed droppings the hail brought down and deciding whether it’s hungry enough to risk being a snack for a rattlesnake.”
H keeps up her grin. Who knew she has a soft spot for mice? They’re cute and all, with a twitchy reddish-brown face and pudgy white belly, but nothing worth sitting on mud and shivering for.
Now H points at a horned lizard. He tells her it’s a threatened species. She points at a ladybug, green and yellow, at a beetle, black with horns.
“C’mon, H, you know how many little things are living it up in this here canyon?”
She doesn’t answer, keeps pointing. He spills out the facts. That’s what he gets for having a memory like Krazy Glue. Once he reads something, it sticks. It would serve her right if a bobcat comes out. That’ll get her up and running right quick.
But truth is, he does like seeing her happy. Somehow, that is taking precedence over what would make him happy, namely a gorged belly and long, warm days roaming rodeos. What has happened to him? How did he turn into such a sap? And his sappiness might be hitting overdrive: starting to feel lucky he got to hang with her for the summer.
As LeeRoy sits and talks on about roadrunners, he’s not altogether sure she’s listening. So still, chin to bent knees, staring into the damp canyon, once again mulling over something he altogether can’t see. But God forbid if he should hush up.
The Cave
Inside our tiny, slimy, dark cave, we both scratched. Hundreds of crawling somethings burned like arrows as they burrowed beneath skin. Our fingernails sawed against mud and skin and blood and muscles. I growled, quietly.
Outside the cave, the world was set on fire. Smoke and suffocation, as if red pepper sauce were flicked into eyes, matches were lit inside nostrils. I clutched the girl’s hand, each of us ready with our reed, stepping toward thuds of waves. She yanked free, mumbling “Never again the sea,” then ran through smoke into flames. Pirates shouted, the girl screamed. I jumped into foam.
Waves slammed me against rocks, shocked away the itches, dissolving my muddy armor. Salt wiggled into nose, into throat. Coral sliced into legs. Eyes squeezed against pain, I imagined ribbons of blood diluted to pink, more ribbons, more red, as strips turned rose then paler and paler before blending into the blue green.
My head exposed itself. Such pleasure to breathe through my nose. I heard screams among thrashing waves. Not possible, but anguish flooded the world nonetheless. Plunged back under. Made myself stay inside water. Endless passage of time as my lips shriveled while fingers clamped onto the reed, my one chance for air, for safety. Was it possible to sleep while engulfed within a sea? Seemingly a day a night another day, only to be told later the devils left within an hour. I surrendered to the currents, at times opening my eyes to see what creature stabbed dozens of holes every time my body bashed against rocks. Hard purple balls the size of fists, covered in nails. Pointy ends waiting.
My reed was yanked. I was dragged and eventually touched sand, was led toward a women’s corner blanketed in broad leaves and warmed by circles of ground fire. The long-haired girl lay on her stomach, banana leaves as a bed, a palm frond covering her bottom. Her back was charred and sandy, a gathering of blood trickled to her knees, beginning between her legs. She gnawed her clenched fist.
Muddy women washed her back with coconut water, our only liquid without salt, trickling away each grain of sand to expose pink flesh beneath blackened skin. They applied a gooey ointment of forest medicine. When they started to lift the palm frond, the girl squirmed and sucked one shushing breath. They let her be. Wait, they told each other, until she has reclaimed her presence. One woman fanned away mosquitoes, another dripped coconut water upon her lips. All the while the girl whimpered.
Each Inhale, Each Exhale
LeeRoy has never seen H so downtrodden. With anyone else, it would be downright proper to hug it out and offer, “It’ll be all right.” With her, though, he’s not dumb enough to test a hug. And whatever she is seeing with those faraway eyes won’t turn out all right just because he says so.
With the rain gone, the sun is fighting through the clouds. Soon humidity will grab ahold of him and eat up what little energy he has left. They have to get on back. And it’s a given mosquitoes will sense blood and, finding perfect puddles for breeding, suck them dry.
“Uh, H? How about . . .”
He stops himself. She’s hugging her knees as if squeezing blood from them. She sighs, just once, but heavy enough to squash a barn. LeeRoy hasn’t got the slightest idea what will help, so he keeps at the one thing she’s asked for.
“Bet you don’t know that longhorns live here too. An official state-recognized herd! The Spaniards brought cattle to Texas in the 1500s and plenty escaped and took their chances in the great outdoors, like we’re doing now except better equipped to get pelted with hail and all. I mean, they can sleep standing up so who cares if the ground is wet. Did you know that cattle lying down means it’s gonna rain soon? Anyhoo, their descendants roamed all over Texas until the early settlers rounded them up and made a good living. A bull can fetch a thousand now, can you believe it? They are hardy, I’ll give them that, surviving on nothing but poor pastureland. I’m betting they have the toughest neck muscles in the world, lugging around them horns.”
LeeRoy gets on all fours and swings his head like an overburdened longhorn, mooing for effect.
Nothing. Man, she’s a tough audience.
LeeRoy peers into her far-off face, where even her blinks seem immobilized. It might be best just to sit and breathe with her, matching each inhale, each exhale. Like her, he sits with legs bent, chin on his knees, arms in a wrap-around. Their upper arms touch once again. He leans into her. She leans back, so slightly. Not much, but enough to keep him there.
The Worms
As shock flattened, itches resurged. How I scratched. An herbalist gave me and the girl a strangling drink bitter of every herb, leaf, bark. Drowsy, my will receded to the sky. I let them unravel salty undergarments, then lay me down on my own layers of leaves.
The girl and I squirmed with itches, scraping arms, nape, sides. Soon, twine tied our fingers. Two women fanned away mosquitoes while others stone-sharpened hairpin tips, dipped in coconut water boiled in their own shells on fires fueled by their own husks. Tiny airholes were pricked on our skin touching the leafy beds. It felt ticklish, compared to the holes made from the thorns on purple creatures. Once we were deemed to have enough openings, hot water expanded under us, wilting green banana leaves.
The herbalist whispered that they crave warmth, abandoning hot for hotter, slimy walls for our blood, our blood for boiled water. What are they? No answer, just more liquid, more steam. Beneath my skin, slitherings began slow and continuous and so itchy my eyes burned. Finally, something bored through my back to plunge into the bath. I was turned on my stomach, where coral had gashed thighs and shins, where purple creatures seared many holes. No need for pin pricks. More slitherings, more crazed itching. Until a soft dullness of nothing. I was instructed to stand, to witness hundreds of tiny white worms swimming in elation. The water was released while writhing bodies remained captured. The leafy mattress was coiled and thrown into flames.
The girl would not turn over, would not get up. Water was poured on her seared back, pink flesh exposed. No need for pinpricks. Liquid and heat over and over until tiny white heads sniffed the air and crawled onto her steaming skin, following the red tracks they had inked. Each worm was picked off and sizzled in the fire. The girl did not sigh, did not stir. She did stop whimpering.
Someday
H has got her forehead on her knees. LeeRoy hears quick, stuttering breaths, stifling a full-on cry. She seems as bad off as a fox gnawing a trapped leg. If she would look up, he could point to the sun peeking through and black birds giddy at the bonanza of exposed worms.
“C’mon, H, things surely were rough but you don’t gotta stay tough. You gotta right to cry, and Lord knows I’ve tried . . .”
LeeRoy claps and lets out a tight-gut laugh. Without even trying, he’s rapped.
I know enough
to know it was rough
so you don’t gotta stay tough.
Poof oof ugh ugh ugh.
Go on and cry,
only right that you try
to let red soak into your eyes
and release everything to the sky.
Poof oof ugh ugh ugh.
He stops. No one needs to clue him in on how bad that was. But it does get H to peer right at him. Her eyes are red and puffy, but by God she’s half smiling.
“Du rai pô-èm?”
“If you want to call that a poem, then sure thing, I wrote a poem.”
“Bét pô-èm.” Her eyes, still red, are laughing.
“Bad? If you think you can do better, go at it, missy.”
H gets quiet again. Oh no, she can’t go back to that eerie, distant stare. There’s only so much he can take. But H stands, one hand still gathering the neck of her shirt. LeeRoy jumps up. Yes, this is more like it. She’s looking at the ground. Fine, maybe for a direction to head on back. Then she picks up a stick with the free hand. Not really strong enough to be a walking stick, but she’s tiny, maybe that’s all she needs.
She starts writing on the soggy ground, line after line. LeeRoy makes out “homes, bones, gold, karma, skin, kind.” The tiny marks over vowels in “hải tặc” sink under the weight of mud. She scribbles out that phrase. Soon all her words rejoin the muddy slake and she throws the stick in a huff.
LeeRoy stumbles on a way home. “Know what would work a whole lot better? Pencil and paper. And you know where I have plenty of both? That’s right, back with reliable Red. Let’s go check on her, no telling what the hail has inflicted on my poor truck.”
Thinking of Red getting pelted and abused gets LeeRoy so agitated he starts walking away from the canyon. Everything has a time limit. H’s just ran out. It’s Red’s turn.
He looks back at H. “Well, c’mon, it’s not like your clothes are going to dry themselves.”
H’s saying something.
“Speak up, will ya?”
She doesn’t. Her lips keep moving. LeeRoy throws up his hands. “After all this time, now you decide to tell me something?” What choice does he have but to walk on back.
Even next to her, he has to lean down to hear. H talks/sings clear and sure, accounting for every contraction and past tense and plural in a steady rhythm. Every syllable gets released like molasses, turning her into some other speaker altogether. Instead of pissed-off snakes, her s sounds enter the world as slowly leaking tires.
They ranked us low, they con-fis-ca-ted our homes,
still we claimed Father’s bones and fled toward unknowns.
They ripped away our gold, they slashed our fa-mi-lies,
still we bit and jumped and knew karma will avenge upon fi-na-li-ties.
They bored into our flesh, they scorched red roads on our skin,
still I find Brother and our future will begin.
For every stomach that reeks along-side cruel minds,
there’s one like yours that can’t help but be kind.
LeeRoy jumps up and down, slapping his thighs. “H, you’ve done rapped. Slow as all get-go, but it’s a genuine rap. You’re surely the first Vietnamese rapper in all of Texas.”
H stands before him, blinking. LeeRoy forces himself to stay still and not scare her. Her rap replays in his mind. Like with reading, once he hears something it sticks. Every half line hints at hours of backstory. He could soak through two, three hailstorms with her and still not get at all that’s scrambled inside.
