Scorpio

The oppressive heat should have been a deterrent. The white-washed walls, chipping, dirtied in systematic patterns of where hands brushed painted dirt as the students passed, some hurriedly, others lingering, couples resting up against the walls to snatch a stolen moment from their otherwise rigidly organized days.

It should have been a deterrent, just like the risk of scorpions, which sent a shiver down my spine should also have been. And perhaps they were, insofar as they left droplets of uneasiness in the far corners of my sub-conscious, as I stepped off the Blanca Estrella line in this dusty town. Nonetheless, I swung myself off the bus, stylishly avoiding the madly pedaling bici-taxi, only to trip on the curb, scrape my right hand and provoke my first of many visits to the local pharmacy. I had arrived. Now, where the hell was he?

We had written letters for weeks, months, letters of pining, aching lonely need. Reminiscing on the brief and miraculous month we had spent together on the island, constructing plans of a life together, pooling talents, forging ahead. When we met, he was working as a waiter, and I was between careers, and the sex was absolutely amazing. That was it, the thing that clouded my judgment more than anything else, the promise of impassioned primal soul-crushing sex, sweat rolling in waves from our bodies as we disentangled ourselves from the white linens. There the heat was bearable, but only because of its absolute impermanence, the knowledge that I would soon be returning to the frozen hinterlands of Vermont’s northeast kingdom. There even in the summers the chilled lakes offered respite from the heat, and with the setting sun, a pleasantly calming cool that required wool sweaters and work-softened denim. Sleep would come, under the stars, lulled by the final crackling of the dying embers. That was the life… leading campers deep into the heart of the mountains, galloping across open fields, and the physical exhaustion that would come after the days of equine grooming, hauling and organization of several hundred young ‘uns.

Not so here. There was no promise of respite from this infernal broiler, and even the white-walled concrete spaces did not chase away the savagely uncompromising sun. He sidled into the bus station fifteen minutes later, the sarcastic flare in his black eyes, looking me up and down, undressing me, and deciding how the evening’s acrobatics would begin. My anger melted as his arms enclosed me, one hand pulling my neck back so that my chin jutted forward, exposing my jugular to his powerful mouth, the other hand caressing just under the curve of my back left pocket. The anger melted that day, but it set off flashing red lights, warning signals, and the quiver of uneasiness that I had sensed upon initial impact with the dusty ground.

The ride up the mesa to his family’s ranch was bumpy, but mostly uneventful, the spectacular mountain view spread before me, as we puttered along, bouncing over rocks for the lack of shock absorption. His dark hand, an open palm, caressing and guiding my eyes to the fields that his family cultivated. The heat continued to bear down on me, and the unseemly, unfeminine sweat trickled in rivers down my unwomanly chest, in dark stains beneath my armpits, between my legs. When we arrived, we were greeted by a gorgeous young girl, dark curls cascading down her back, curved legs partially obscured behind the swish of her curve-clinging cotton dress. She took my hands in her fresh ones, no miserable heat trapped under her skin. She kissed my cheek, and then with what I thought seemed like a fiery glimmer in her eyes, turned to him and received him, kissing just a little too long, with both hands on his face.

That was weeks ago, and now I was standing, staring into nothingness, as the hum of the motor outside grew in intensity, the giggling of the children as they caught me snap back into reality, back into the present moment, the scorching heat, the dirty walls, my obligations as their new instructor. I strolled back inside, the recreo having ended, and stood in front of the room, twenty pairs of black eyes on me. Waiting. Waiting for what? “Señorita debemos empezar ya?” The freshest, most charming little girl challenged. Señorita… that was what I was, after all, no ring on my finger to legitimize the nights spent, sneaking into the bedroom that was only his, with the much-too-small bed, that creaked so that we generally ended up on the floor. Cold and dusty, and inspiring the fear of the deleterious creatures

Last night I had a premonition that I would finally see a scorpion: the blonde kind, with deadly poisonous, viciously curling tail. I knew that I would see one. And in the morning, treading quietly as I returned to my still-made double bed, barefoot against all recommendations, but in line with my stubbornness, I practically let out a scream. Spiders, bats, even snakes, they don’t scare me, but these tiny malicious creatures set a fear in my heart that is inexplicable by all rational thought.

Of course if there were blonde things to fear, they weren’t the scorpions, I embodied, even with my short black hair, and boyish body, the “güera” the feared fuereña who was here to steal away the one man that had anything to offer this pueblo. It wasn’t my fault. I did not choose to fall in love, in fact I don’t think we ever do, because we would invariably pick someone better for us if we had the choice, but I never did feel at ease here. Eyes were always peaking out from behind the sheets-that-stood-for-curtains, hanging in the dark rectangular holes. There were no doors on the houses here, there was really no need, and shutting a door would not only lock in the swelter, but would invite more curiosity than the privacy that it should imply. I still couldn’t get used to this idea of community, not in the sense of "what is yours is ours and what is ours is ours, too."

Each day his family made me feel a little less welcome, a little more like the stranger I was. At first they had indulged his fancy. Of course, he was the prodigal son, home with wads of dollars and a plan for new cash crops. José Manuel never could do wrong, and all the girls in the town sighed as he passed, his jaunty swagger requiring admiring eyes.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been worried yet, maybe the way he would brush me aside, patting me paternally on the shoulder, the very strong shoulder, when it was time for meal preparation was nothing more than a way for him to try and create peace among his sisters. But the uneasiness of the scorpion was akin to the uneasiness that I felt each time Marcelina walked in the room, her bosoms rocking, hips swaying, curls cascading behind. Even I wanted to reach out and touch the soft skin of her face, feel the cool of her hands, and I couldn’t mistake the eyes cast in José’s direction and the reception of those eyes, as if there were a secret pact between them, and that I was not really here, after all, a figment of my own imagination.

Was I really there? Half the time, I would feel that if not for the dust that rose in little swirls in front of my scuffling feet, I made no impact whatsoever on this place. The mountains veered sharply towards the sky and the dark green fields taunted me, as I was left behind: there were crops to be planted there was soil to be tilled. Marcela would swish by, just after the students were released to their homes for lunch, with a basket in her hand, off to feed the men, their hungers assuaged, and her laughter carrying back up, over the hills to my happiness-deprived ears.

I needed a horse. José Manuel indulged my crazy gringa fantasies and procured one of his neighbors beasts of burden, the poor animal so decrepit and over-worked, I made it my duty to rise before the sun and caress its flanks, brushing to the approximation of a sheen which was impossibly distant due to extended mal-nutrition. In the afternoons while the women worked, together, in a club to which I would never belong, I would take this beast, whose name became “Gabacho” to match his new owner’s alienation. We would ride into the hills, his trust for me painfully gained with bites at fingers and stomping feet. We wandered up the sides of the mountains, he would wait while I squatted to examine the different incrustations in the side of the hills. Curious, he would nuzzle into me, and only during that time did I feel truly at ease, alone, far from the watchful eyes and the wondering. Far from the heated passion - me growing tired of the heat, and passion growing old with the wear of the weeks and months.

It stopped bothering me to watch the way José Manuel’s eyes would rest on Marcela’s plump bottom, in fact, I began to imagine my own hands on her, chasing his gaze, secretly wishing that I too could receive the warmth that expanded out of her and into him, when they thought no one could see. I could see, and by the time I realized I was really too far into this bizarre love-triangle to envision a clean way out. I was, after all, betrothed to this man, and I would in fact be marrying him after the next harvest was in, in time to celebrate in grandeur, with 300 cases of beer and another 100 of Tequila. The party, it seems, would not be about our union at all, a rather insignificant event in the eyes of the pueblo. It would never legitimize my otherness, but it would make for a good excuse to bring in some loose women, who I would surely know. Only I didn’t. There was no one from my world - I had no world anymore - that would be welcome in this celebration. It had taken on a life of its own, and Marcela’s presence was eternally required for the arranging of menu and alcohol, the renting of tables and chairs.

Mine became ever more scarce. Gabacho and I traveling farther and farther, deeper into the wilderness, we stumble upon some pinturas rupestres. I wondered if the people who painted on the walls did so to remember or forget. There were so many questions and no one of whom to ask the answers. The escape began to take on an urgency of its own. And still the heat pressing down, withering crops down to bleak prospects, and the river running dry.

And then it happened. We were out beyond the fields, returning from hours of nothingness, wandering aimlessly and descending, a scorpion scuttled across my path, stopping only to sting Gabacho with its raised scepter-tail, sending him into panic, racing, racing, and stopping short, throwing me forward, crashing among the brush, to find Marcela prostrate, weeping, bloodied. My mind forgot the pain, for a moment, forgot Gabacho, who would inevitably die for his weakened state, and just stared unselfconsciously. Through her tears and torn cotton dress, and through her pain, she saw me. For the first time - another woman, gazing into the dark pools of her eyes. She saw me and immediately I knew what had happened, how could I not? I knew and it didn’t matter, not anymore. I said nothing, as words were superfluous. I buried my face in her breast, breathing in the perfume of sweat and blood and sex and threshed grain. I lifted my mouth to hers and kissed her, gently, deeply, her hands gripping my cropped hair. I lay down beside her, staring up to the sky. Surrounded by impossibility…together… alone… we silently wept.