Rodeo

You run around like a crazed horse during recess. After school, you continue to run, passing by your mother’s apartment and other apartments, all with cherry-colored doors and brass numbers. You rush into the shared laundry room. Your little brother, Alfonzo, follows you inside. The room is small and dark. There are no windows. The dryer and washer rattle and play off each other’s rhythm, but then the dryer stops. Against the wall, there’s a shelf with three compartments. A few muddy bicycles have been thrown to the floor. Behind you, your brother stands. He’s wearing a blue shirt with a cartoon image of a green dinosaur. Behind him, there’s the doorway that leads back to the courtyard.

You crawl inside the dryer and tell Alfonzo to turn it on as soon as the small door closes. You tell him to keep it going for eight whole seconds. You want to be a cowboy like your Old Man. He’s a real vaquero. And you think twirling around inside a metal box is a good way to learn how to ride bulls and bucking broncos.

At seven, you’re old enough to know the dangers you’re placing yourself in, so you fasten a bicycle helmet. The black-nylon straps pinches the skin under your chin. You get into a comfortable position, cushioning your knees with someone else’s cotton shirts and colored underwear that smells like sweet lavender.

When the dryer door shuts, your little brother climbs to the top. His small feet hit the sides; his body is heavy enough to bend the thin metal. Hearing the clicks from the twists he gives the knob makes your heart beat fast with excitement. You’re about to ride the most ferocious bull, you imagine.

Alfonzo presses the ON button, hops down, and begins to count his fingers.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Your little brother opens up the dryer, and the pitterpatter-pitterpatter-pitterpatter of the machine comes to a halt. Alfonzo sees you curled up like a ball. Your face is tucked into your chest and arms. Alfonzo says your name. He pokes you. He tells you to wake up. But you don’t speak. You don’t move, so he runs out of the laundry room.

Your mother is in the kitchen swaying with a broom in her hands: her bare feet moving to the music of a cumbia playing on the radio. She’s singing along when Alfonzo grabs her by her flowered-patterned sundress. He pulls her away from the dirt, dust, balls of fuzz, and loose little-green army men she has piled.

Your mother sees you inside the dryer and pulls you out. There’s a faint sound of static electricity. After she lays you down on the cold, hard ground, she removes the bicycle helmet off your head.

The red welts that cover your face and arms will form into tender, black and purple bruises.

Your mother says, “Jaime.”

You awaken and rub your eyes; your hands smell like fabric softener. When your vision becomes clear, you see your mother kneeling in front of you. Her hair is long and wavy and black. Her eyes are wide, and her body shakes. You prop yourself up with your hands behind your back and look at your brother. Then you see the dryer, smile, and ask Alfonzo, “Did I go for the full eight seconds, like papá?”

Your words, your grin, the glint in your eyes bring tears to your mother. Her hand comes down hard across your face, sending you back to the ground. “You are not your father!” She yells and yanks you out of the laundry room and drags you past the courtyard. Your mother pushes you into her room. She slides your pants down, slides your underwear down. Your skin begins to feel hot. She tells you to lie flat on the bed, face down, and from the corner of your eye, you see her grab the iron and bend the electrical cord.

She begins to whip you.

“You won’t run out and do whatever you want!” Whip! “You won’t make my hair turn grey!” Whip! “You won’t carve my face with wrinkles!” Whip! And you’ll never be like him! WhipWhipWhipWhip!

You cry. You scream. You kick and beg your mother to stop. But she’s not listening. You’ve never seen her this mad. You want to run away, but you know that would be worse. In any case, she’s holding you down with her forearm firmly across your back. You can’t go anywhere, so you close your eyes and wish that you were all grown so no one could cause you this much pain.

When you open your eyes, you find yourself in a little town called Porterville. You know about cars and how to fix a busted radiator. You’re tall, but still growing. You have a lean body and a small snake and eagle tattoo on your left arm. Your mustache is just beginning to come in thick, and you think about letting it grow out.

But you’re not alone. You’re with a seventeen-year-old named Lupe, sitting on the edge of a bed, with your hand underneath her shirt. She feels real nice, and she smells nice too, like a mountain spring, you think. Your body is having a conversation with hers, and you pursue that conversation by telling her that you want to ride her. She laughs at the word “Ride,” and you feel foolish. But she leans back and lies flat over the bedcover. You mount her, and you get this feeling that she’s going to slip out of your hands. Her whole body is smooth with sweat; her long dark hair sticks to her and your skin like clingy cellophane. The room you are in is hot and small: there’s one night table, a lamp with a tilted shade, a bed that shakes from the two bodies on top, an AC that doesn’t work, a telephone, a clock that flashes 7:48 in red, and a Zenith television showing a Chevy commercial: Seger says they’re built “Like a Rock.” A couple of brown bottles of Modelo, that you swiped from the 7-11, are on the floor next to your faded Levis and leather boots, flecked with mud. A musty odor ripens. Through the window, the sign outside says: Vacancies (four HBO channels, free pool, only $58). The sun has begun to set. And the outlines of telephone posts and wires cut across mountains, which look like they’re built out of red clay and dry moss.

—

Francisco Uribe is a 2018 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow. His short fiction has been published in Huizache Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, and several other publications. Currently, Francisco lives in Long Beach, California, and works for a nonprofit organization where he mentors at-risk youth.