What a productive day thus far… I’ve searched the internet for hours, posted comments to journal after journal and done just about anything else I could to avoid real work. About every hour or so I’ll drop back over and spend about five minutes of moving text around, throwing up a picture or what not before returning back to the distraction on the web.
Maria and Lupe – part 1
Enrique Marta tried to put the bag in the undercarriage of the El Norte bus. Maria said thank you but no thank in fractured english. He let go, nodded and bowed. Lupe danced in small circles while watching the exchange and rolled her eyes after catching him licking his lips as he walked away. Men always did something like that to Maria Garza Soto Cruz. Lupe always saw them.
Lupe handed her own weaved bag to the white haired bus driver and followed her mother onto the brightly striped bus. AS they rode along, Lupe watched her mother’s reflection in the smoked glass window. She watched it lift and drop with each bump from the dirt road. Lupe knew for sure that her mother belonged in the movies. Beautiful and strong. More beautiful than the woman in the picture show they saw once. It was a western on the big screen with horses and deserts like the one they were in now. It was a love story too where the white man loved the mexican girl from the village. Mi amor’. Mi amor’ was all she ever said.
They had been on the road for awhile when Lupe heard the bus driver say something in English. He then repeated in Spanish that they were about to make a stop. He said not to wander to far. They had thirty minutes to rest, stretch their legs. Desperezarse. Lupe looked out the window and wondered where they would wander that they would not see or be seen. A flat desert rolled out in front of them. There was nothing else but a cactus and mountains. They were so far in the distance they looked like ants.
Dixie's Road Trip 