Category: #LatinxWriters

Creative Nonfiction: Serenity in Ruins by Kim Vasquez

Serenity in Ruins

by

Kim Vasquez

 

The moment I opened my eyes, I knew it would be a bad day. The throbbing pain on the left side of my head made it clear that I had a migraine. I was already overwhelmed with everything I had to do, and the migraine made it worse.

My husband and I had just purchased an apartment in the heart of Old San Juan. It was a beautiful old colonial full of charm and history. And it was a lifelong dream of mine to own one. But the amount of work I had to do to get it ready for the renters that would, hopefully, help us pay the mortgage was almost a nightmare.

So, I got out of bed, determined to find coffee and some serenity. I decided to take the morning off and wander the old city, soaking up the sights for the millionth time. Usually, I could stare at one of the old buildings for hours, imagining the lives that had lived there or sit on a bench in the plaza all afternoon, enjoying the cool breeze while people-watching.

But this time, it wasn’t working. I kept thinking about everything I had to do. The pain in my head was piercing, and the warm air just felt hot and sticky. I felt myself getting cranky. And every beautiful old building I looked at just flashed dollar signs at me.

I headed to the store to get an iced something with caffeine. And as I passed a ruin of what a hundred years ago was some family’s home, I stopped. I had seen this particular ruin too many times to count. But this time, it called out to me.

So, I got closer as thoughts of how many repairs and cleaning it would take to fix the building popped up in my mind. And I got crankier. But I still crossed the street and looked through a dilapidated wood frame that at one time had been a window. The boards that had covered it had partially fallen away from time and decay, but the Spanish colonial wooden bars were still strong.

As I looked in and saw the deterioration and collapse and the piles of garbage, a ginger cat stared back. He stood out from everything around him, and it wasn’t just because of the color of his fur. It was also because of the calm and serenity that emanated from him. I could feel it travelling through the air and washing over me.

I’m not the type of person who claims to talk to animals and hear them respond. However, that day and at that moment, I could swear that that cat had communicated with me. Or maybe it was the Universe speaking through the cat. I don’t know. But I felt it—a calmness and a sense that everything was going to be okay.

My migraine loosened its grip on me and a weight lifted as I looked at that cat. And the cat remained motionless as he stared back.

I smiled and walked away, and a sense of relief washed over me. Everything was going to be fine; I could feel it.

From then on, every time I was in Old San Juan, I would pass by those ruins and look for that ginger cat, but I never saw him. Not until three years later. Pandemic restrictions were starting to ease up, and I travelled back to Puerto Rico to check on our apartment. I was stressed and anxious about everything happening and decided to walk around my favorite colonial city. Without realizing it, I wound up in front of the same ruins. And, again, they called out to me. So, I decided to look in, and there he was.

The ginger cat stared at me just like it had before. And just like before, I felt a calmness take over. As I walked away, I smiled. Everything was going to be okay.

Fiction: The King of Aloe Vera by Tomas Moniz

The King of Aloe Vera

An Excerpt by Tomas Moniz

 In which we meet the protagonist Reyes Miguel Calderón and learn of his appreciation for libraries, his fight against blindly following the Dewey decimal system and his run in with the cigarette butt bandit

Rey loves the Mission branch of the San Francisco Public Library on 24th and Bartlett and his only remaining weekly obligation: a volunteer shift in the kids section.

He appreciates the building’s architecture with its huge arched windows and art deco chandeliers in each of the four stories, the wood floors and eight foot tall industrial shelving crammed with books, the various community meeting rooms lined with posters of celebrities exhorting people to read, the gilded metal drop slots. Despite the security station hastily installed at the entrance, the library’s a welcoming place for everyone, information free and accessible, books and magazines and technology stations and newspapers from across the country (though he proudly continues to have a home delivery subscription to the SF Chronicle). Outside: grey stone and a massive ficus tree, the leaves from which Rey has a weekly battle sweeping away. Even the encampment of the homeless who crowd the opposite sidewalk, Rey doesn’t mind. He recognizes many of the residents from the numerous other encampments that line so many streets in this neighborhood including his own: Shotwell Street.

In fact, Rey can proudly name all the branches, and begins to: Anza, Bayview, Bernal… as he considers the cart of returned kids books to shelf, but is interrupted from his metal exercise by Alma, the branch manager, an irritatingly upbeat young woman with glasses, the frames thick and chunky and fashionable.

Alma says, Hello Rey. Please remember our conversation. Thank you and I appreciate you so much.

Rey mumbles, Yesyesyes but thinks: Does any kid ever search alphabetically for a book?

He wheels the cart back to the kids room: carpeted with a floor that undulates providing small hills and berms that children can climb on or roll down and lean against as parents read books out loud.

Rey over the past few weeks has been arranging the books by color. The joy that rushes through him when he tells a kid who ventures into the section: want a purple book? A green one? The child almost always laughs. The parents always either look bemused or act irritated.

Of course, Alma has patiently reprimanded him a few times not only for this choice of book organization but for others he’s attempted in the past as well: shelving by size, shelving in piles, shelving randomly to encourage surprise and cultivate acceptance, all ideas soundly rejected by the library establishment.

Rey knows Alma coddles him because he’s in his 70s and a volunteer at the branch for the past decade, and generally Rey would never lean into that coddling, but because it gives him a bit of autonomy he acts surprised and compliant.

I just thought that kids might like to learn their colors while also selecting a book.

That very well may be true, but Rey, they also need the consistency of being able to find a book in its proper location. You remember what that’s like.

I most certainly do, Rey says nodding yes exaggeratedly .

Alma then adds, And Rey, perhaps you can also remember that you have a few books overdue as well.

She pats his shoulder and arches her eyebrows.

Despite the chagrin Rey feels at the library’s lack of imagination, of vision, he cherishes his time here.

***

After begrudgingly shelving them all correctly, he rolls the empty cart back to the elevator, and in front of him is another reason he loves the library: kids. Waiting at the doors, pushing the down button over and over is a child wearing a Batman outfit. He holds a Batman doll. He’s radiant. The kid looks at Rey and whisks his cape around his face.

Rey says. I love your Spiderman outfit.

The kid looks at Rey like he’s foolish, but Rey smiles wide.

Rey struggles with this desire in him to show affection through teasing, to needle for attention, to set up contention as a way to connect. He blames his father. Sometimes his mother. It’s the final reason he loves the library, the countless hours spent in the San Leandro Main Library as a child, a refuge from his father when he was around and from his mother when she was angry.

Which was respectively infrequently and often.

The adult with the child intervenes saying, Are you Spiderman?

The child laughs like some wild thing.

They all enter the elevator.

The adult says to Batman, Can you push the number three for me?

The kid bounces like he’s waiting for more numbers to push, like he’s been told he can only push the numbers people request.

Without missing a beat, Rey says, Can you push the number ten for me.

Even though he’s going to the first floor and despite the fact that there are only four floors in the building.

The kid stops bouncing, staring at the four buttons, and makes this growl, something between frustration and delight.

The adult looks at Rey.

Rey smiles and says, No one else is here, just push them all.

***

Outside on his break, Rey notices once again a handful of cigarette butts lined up in a little design to the left of the entrance, clearly within the 100 foot No Smoking Zone. Every shift he sees that someone creates shapes and lines with discarded filters. He leans down to study the creation because the culprit clearly does it with forethought, even using half smoked cigarettes to create longer sides for the shape of a rectangle or maybe it’s a zero or perhaps an outline of a box. Rey can’t tell. He gets a slight sense of satisfaction at their failure.

He’s noticed similar cigarette butt designs adjacent to his very own stoop. Rey considers if this is a trend: smokers creating images with discarded filters? Regardless, Rey reads them like a taunt. Like who brazenly and cavaliery leaves them so carefully designed. Like obviously the person could have picked them up and removed them. But no: here they are.

He looks around. He eyeballs the sidewalk tents looking for someone with a guilty presence. He wonders if it’s personal.

He decides to take the elevator the four flights up to the staff room to get the so-called broom, with its cheap white plastic handle and green synthetic bristles, to sweep up the butts. The elevator door opens and a person stands ready to exit. Rey’s unsure whether they’re a man or woman because of the SF Giants hoodie pulled up over their head. That should have been the first warning of trouble: the SF Giants, Rey a lifelong Oakland A’s fan. But then he sees the cigarette dangling from the person’s lips.

Rey can’t prevent himself from reacting. In fact, he doesn’t really even try not to.

He says, You have to be kidding me.

The person says, Relax. It’s unlit.

And steps past him but pauses.

I know you. You’re Rey. You live on Shotwell. I do too.

I know everyone who lives there. I’ve never seen you.

The person removes the cigarette and looks directly at Rey and he does recognize her, no longer a sullen teenager sauntering up and down the sidewalks before and after school hours or hiding out on his stairs.

She says, Wow. Why are old men always so arrogant? I’ve basically lived my whole life on that street.

 I’m not arrogant, Rey says.

I hope I never get old. Looks like somebody might be…, and she proceeds to tap the side of her head making her eyes wide and round,…getting a little soft.

She then steps away from the entrance and fake inhales as the elevator door slides shut.

I have a perfectly effective memory, he raises his voice but she’s already gone.

In the staff room, he grips the broom, remembering the multiple requests he’s also filed for the library to acquire an actual broom like the one he once made, one with effective corn fiber bristles and a sturdy wood handle, but this too has been denied without response each time.

Nobody appreciates the wisdom of old men. It’s wisdom not arrogance.

And then it hits him. He puts two and two together. How could he have not immediately seen it: the line of cigarette butts in front of the library as well as right next to his stoop.

The young woman basically admitted her guilt: that she lives on his street.

Coincidence? He thinks not.

However, maybe she’s correct: his ability to deduce conclusions has faltered. The evidence was all right in front of him and he worried more about defending his memory rather than using his intellect.

He pictures his To Do list that he’s been compiling for over a year, aptly titled Loose Ends and Final Wishes, all the necessary things to accomplish before October 1st. Although it disturbs him to add to rather than subtract from the list, the possibility of catching the cigarette butt criminal in the act delights him: catch the bandit.

And just to be safe, Rey, after sweeping up the evidence, approaches Alma like a concerned patron to lodge a complaint about a young hooded woman smoking within the smoke free zone.

Creative Nonfiction: Feeling Trans by Keagan Wheat

A complete transcript is below

Feeling Trans

by Keagan Wheat

  1. I sit at our family table next to Gavin, a trans guy in the thinnest tank top I’ve ever seen. He pushes up his sunglasses.

    I’m going to the pool for sure today.

    It’s been far too long, Jay adds.

    I cave to following the group to the pool.

    I agreed even though swimming had become draining. It was no longer a choice to wear a one-piece suit. It no longer felt like something simple and fun to do. At my age, it was weird to want to retrieve toys from the bottoms of pools. The depth popping my ears and removing most sound. Diving to the bottom with the slight pressure almost hugging me, always appealed more than doing laps or play fighting.

    This pool with exclusively queer and trans people didn’t feel like I needed context to understand. I took my shirt off quickly and awkwardly, as if I were trying to change shirts without anyone seeing much. I didn’t have another shirt though. I stood with my shoulders turned in wearing only powder blue trunks and a tan binder.

    I’ve never played catch like the most stereotypical college-age guys at a beach before. But Oliver brought a nerf ball to the pool. I played catch with two other transmen forming a triangle. Gavin taught someone how to throw a spiral after complimenting mine.

    Later at this pool, I hang on the edge talking to Gill about Halberstam. I complain about the only essay I’ve read from Halberstam, while Gill delves into some of their questionable actions. I’ve never had this long of a discussion about a theorist outside of a class.

     I need to take off my binder though, an awkward safety interruption. I grab my towel walking toward the exit, but I’m held up by Aden. They meet me, with stepping in front of me, grabbing my shoulders in an easy sort of way. They look into my eyes, I can tell even through their sunglasses.

    I’m so glad you ended up getting into the pool, they smile with all the conviction of someone who knows what keeps me from the pool.

    I’ve never smiled so easily without feeling it coming. I’ve never felt like I deserved someone else’s pride or appreciation.

 
A full transcript of the episode is below.

Starry, Starry Light

“Every star may be a sun to someone.”

― Carl Sagan

 

Every time you would take

us to el mueso when mis

hermanos and I would run

off, muchas horas despues

we would find you with

headphone Walkman in

your ears escuchando

your favorite Don McLean

cancion, on repeat, standing

in front of the one piece

you would gaze, mirandolo

contemplating the palates

parado frente a la obra de

arte, in love con la noche

en el lienzo, the peaks

curling above el pueblo,

imaginando todos en la

cuidad dormiendo while

sus ojos focus amazed

at the glowing estrellas

amarillas beaming circulos

so many waves of azules

swimming en el cielo sky.

I wish haberte preguntado

what made this Van Gogh

piece su pintura favorita.

I imagine the colors like

Vincent’s brushstrokes

would instantly reflect

like olas in the sky and

ripple your secreto sadness

in waves. Instead of kneeling

in church, the museum became

one of your most devoted

sacred espacios, sus ojos

no longer watching Dios,

the only hymn you live

to oir, concentrating on

this starry night, with your

eyes gleaming, los colores

would sing to you— no

longer trieste listening

always picturing paradise,

focusing on your favorite masterpiece

seeing you, Don McLean

in your ears siempre serenading…

Mami’s eyes always resounding

with the brightest of blues

glimmering vida colors of delight.