ORANGE MESSIAHS by Scott A. Sonders (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

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“Yeah,” Carlos said, “she’s right. I’d probably wind up getting my probation lifted and my ass thrown back in the can.”

I smiled. “Yes, but then, at least, you’d be a famous convict.”

“No thanks. I’m not interested in being any kind of a convict, from now on.” He paused and smiled impishly. “Well, at least I’m not fuckin’ my sister. Some people are motherfuckers, but not you Jonah. You’re a dyed-in-the-wool, genuine, grade-A, top-of-the-charts sister-fucker.”

Carlos chuckled at the humor he imagined was to be found in his wordplay. He was, however, the only one that laughed. Much of the time he was his own best audience for what Ramona called “his very dark attempts at stand-up comedy.”

We passed through San Clemente without President Nixon or his Secret Service ever being the wiser. There was no toilet paper left on anyone’s lawn and there were no arrests made.

No one talked for a long time. Most of the journey went like that. A hundred miles of silence and soaking in the view, then a dozen or so miles of breezy conversation, then each of us again lost in our private reverie.

Outside of San Diego, we veered east on the I-8. Ramona did the driving, I did the navigating, and Carlos was happy just being chauffeured, with the back of the microbus all to him self. Ramona had decided who would do what. She didn’t like the driving technique of either of her passengers. “Too hell bent for leather and very unconcerned with your own mortalities” was how she put it. She did trust me to read a map, though. She figured that, “Anybody studying to be an architect should at least be able to read a map.”

In another hour that felt longer, we reached the ramshackle town of Calexico and crossed the border into Mexicali. Again, there were no arrests. The highway from there descended the dry mountains and bee-lined through an even drier desert. The sky, sand and sea blurred into a bright white blue. It was so dry it hurt to inhale. The taste of the air was acrid. The road became a long black snake about to shed its old hoary skin, severely blemished with ruts and potholes.

After enduring another three hours, some small dark dots on the tedious horizon grew into the outline of a scattering of crusty, timeworn buildings. Before these, and on the outskirts of town, loomed a dilapidated billboard. Its surface was scarred and blistered but the neatly chiseled, whitewashed letters were still clear in their candid proclamation of “THE CLAM MAN.”

In another hundred yards, a lively array of crooked, palm thatched huts and an old adobe house sprouted from a jumble of desert sand, craggy rock and broken promises called highway. In front of some frond-covered trellises were several large steel barrels, filled with steaming clams, as announced by that proud but derelict sign. Closer to the cafe was another, smaller banner with assorted menu prices. Cold beer was listed, but the word “cold” had long since been crossed out.

As we approached that motley but going concern, Ramona broke the silence with an inspired bellow. “There he is! My favorite uncle. Tio Gordo. He’s the one I’ve told you about. He’s the Clam Man!”

Carlos stirred from his road weary reverie. He also had fond memories of his corpulent Uncle Manuel, who’d been affectionately nicknamed Gordo for his unmistakable girth. And as an almost mechanical but tired challenge to his sister’s one-sided claim of kinship, Carlos responded with some obvious annoyance in his voice, “Oh, I forgot you’re an only child and our sainted mother’s brother has only one niece and no nephew.”

Ramona hastily interrupted, “Oh Lord, what bug is up your butt now?”

“It’s just so typical Ramona. Always tripping over your ego. Why don’t you practice a little more of the consciousness that you’ve supposedly achieved through that stupid yoga book? In case you’ve forgotten, he’s my uncle too.” Carlos was hot, tired and spoiling with contention.

Ramona was impervious to his sarcasm, like pure gold to most acids. She maneuvered her flower-powered bus off the asphalt, across a shallow roadside ditch and onto the flat pebbled parking area near the shanties. She shrieked again, “Oh my dear God, he’s even fatter than I remember. I wonder if all those kids are his.”

Pausing for a reflective moment she added mischievously, “How could he make babies with all that fat around him. He doesn’t seem able to get close enough to his wife to make her pregnant.”

She giggled this last observation and winked at me. Then, she averted her eyes for a moment—shy and vulnerable; even though I already knew most of her private thoughts, and all of her private anatomy.

Ten or eleven offspring of the Clam Man, in various shapes and sizes, came scrambling to greet our Microbus. It was pandemonium in a foreign language. As it was, in my best Spanish, I could barely muster asking for a room or food or a drink, or how much anything might cost.

The children were dressed gender specific. Boys wore plain white shirts and khaki trousers, sullied throughout by a medley of scuffs and stains. Girls were adorned in mistakenly festive dresses with bright satin ruffles and taffeta swirls. By comparison, Sunday mornings in Los Angeles found the local senioritis dressed for church in much cleaner and far less flamboyant fashions.

The oldest of the crowd greeted us first. She was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty, on the tall side, thin, almost frail. In contrast, she wore faded blue jeans, a checkered flannel shirt and scuffed cowboy boots. Her voice was the texture of clover honey and burgundy wine. From timbre to inflection, she could have easily been mistaken for an even more willowy Ramona.

The introduction was courteous, absurdly formal. Curiously, she addressed me first, in an English barely spiced with an extremely mild salsa accent. “Hello, my name is Marisa Maria Carla de Santiago-Batista. I’d like to welcome you and my cousins to our town of San Felipé. To enjoy your visit, I’d be pleased to help with anything you might need or wish to ask.”

Damn, but when her speech ended, she averted her eyes as if embarrassed, almost seductively, just as Ramona had done only moments ago in the van. It was easy to see they were related. But in mannerisms? I’d often witnessed the influence of genetics, but this was the most impressive.

Two things occurred to me from this meeting. One: a strong hereditary factor was obvious in the genes of this family. Two: since Marisa spoke English like a cabin attendant for Mexicana Airlines, I surmised that she had learned the language either though her employment or through some private and English speaking school that wasn’t locally available.

I was only partly mistaken. Carlos was soon to tell me that his cousin Marisa had always been her father’s darling. It seems that Gordo had left Ciudad Juarez shortly after his older sister, the mother of Carlos and Ramona whom he idolized, had effected her celebrated swirl across the Rio Grande. He had then worked his way to Chicago and beguiled himself into Northwestern University.

With everyone involved in having lunch and making extended greetings, Carlos took me aside and over a beer, two oranges and a fried clam sandwich, told me the rest of the story.
Soon after graduation, his uncle Gordo had succeeded in a succession of rapid-fire promotions to the top of a prestigious – and this was a real kicker for me – architectural firm. But the material trappings of El Norte, and what he’d sought from the promise that was America, had simply let him down. He was not happy. He’d found the end of the rainbow. But the pot of gold was already gone, and the rainbow itself had faded to black and white.

Abandoned by his American wife, he took his six year old daughter and fled the cold winds of Lake Michigan for the balmy breezes of the California Gulf. He remarried, had nine more children and took to the eccentric occupation of selling steamed clams by the roadside.

Hence, Marisa was not an international airline attendant. Instead, she’d been born and briefly raised in America. Her excellent command of the English language, inflected by a subtle but unambiguous accent, stemmed from living the longer portion of her years in a sleepy Baja California village.

Publicly, Gordo was The Clam Man, a simple but quirky leviathan. I soon learned, however, that he’d once plied my own desired profession as an architect, and had moreover abandoned it. Much as I’d imagined myself, he was the daddy Steppenwolf, a get-back-Jack Kerouac archetype. Protest personified. The definition of dissident. And back then, I fancied myself dissident and dangerous with capital “D’s.”

And here I’d met his daughter Marisa, the phantom epitome of rural girl, yet somehow holding the key to a secret safe-deposit box, filled with urban family roots and middle-class treasure. And here I was, responding to her lead, holding out my hand in greeting, a stranger in a strange land. My garden variety words couldn’t, by a long shot, match the thoughts that buzzed through my head.

It was my M.O., always trying to come off more cool than my awkward appearance allowed. I tried to think of something hip, something that would make me sound suave, something that would mask the hopeless freak that was inside my skin. I wanted to say something witty. I wanted to be charming. But all that stumbled from my mouth was, “Hello Marisa.”

I hyphenated the sound of “hello” as if it were two distinct words. But in a microseconds, I realized that saying “hell-low” instead of just “hello” probably came across as pathetically lame instead of urbane and cool. In those same microseconds I became embarrassed and hoped no one would notice.

It felt like an eternity before my dry mouth could offer some additional banter: “Not being a relative or anything, I guess I’m just sort of excess baggage. You know, just along for the ride.

Well,” I paused, “not exactly along for the ride, really. I mean, I wanted to come. I mean, there was no way I wanted to spend my week off school without my girlfriend and best buddy. So, did Ramona ever tell you about me?

Marisa nodded, but I didn’t wait for her answer. Instead, I tried my best to sound charming and said, “So, do you think it would be okay if I take you up on your offer to show us around?”

Again I felt my words had screwed up. I had never felt worthy of Ramona’s attention. I had remained perpetually insecure in her love for me. As a result, rationalization or otherwise, I was simultaneously committed to Ramona while remaining an unabashed flirt. I felt that what I’d just said to Marisa came across like I was moving in on her right in front of Ramona’s face. I couldn’t help myself.

I was afraid of how Ramona would react if she saw me flirting with her pretty cousin, but I could stop myself from digging my potential grave just a little deeper. Maybe I’m a sucker for punishment, but, even while comprehending what an asshole I was, I still couldn’t bring myself to let go of Marisa’s attention.

“I’ve been to Rosarita Beach on the Pacific Ocean side,” I said, “but it didn’t feel anything like this.” I paused for effect, “Have you ever been there?”

She seemed pleased by my interest, but somehow remained ostensibly unaware of my somewhat ulterior intentions. She