Friday, March 2, 2012

The Mexican Wife...

"At the corrida we'll sit in the shade
And watch the young torero stand alone
We'll drink tequila where our grandfathers stayed
When they rode with Villa into Torreon..."
- Dylan, Romance In Durango

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - That last time they'd been to visit her in-laws, Claudia Gonzalez had decided she'd give up on her husband, Rafael. Something told her life was passing by in a blur, days simply moving from one to the next, her fairy tale dreams long-gone and Rafael in the same rut. She would tell him, and then she would announce the decision to her family. Eighteen years of marriage and she had little to show for it. Her 19-year-old car, one she'd gotten while still in high school, moved along with a loose fender. "That's my life right there," she'd said to herself when it became clear Rafael had no interest in fixing it.

On the morning she planned to visit with her mother, Claudia stopped at the mall and walked into her favorite dress boutique. Maybe a new blouse would make it easier, put her in just the right mood, the best frame-of-mind to do what she'd been wanting to do for months. Rafael had been absent from her side of the bed for just as long, their once-hot romantic interludes a thing of the past. Frustration, she would tell her mom, had led to desperation. She needed fresh air.

Inside the store, Claudia walked the aisles and settled on a display for colorful nylon blouses. Rafael hated nylon; he was a 100% cotton guy, and he liked to see her shop at better stores. Nothing grabed her eye until she spotted a blouse in orange and yellow. The weather still called for warm clothing, but this far south in he country, well, tomorrow might bring 90-degree heat, was her feeling. She took the blouse from the rack and walked back to the fitting room, where a young attendant helped her to a stall. Claudia's clothing at home rested between dark-browns and grays, clothes for a woman 10 years older. Rafael liked her in conservative garb, nothing showy and especially nothing sexy. This blouse was a bit of a sparkler. When she looked in the stall's mirror, she could see right through the material to the bra cups and her cleavage.

The ring off her cellphone rousted her from the moment.

"Yes, mother, I'm on my way," she said, after answering.

Claudia took the blouse and walked it back to its place on the display. "I'll come get it later today," she told the store clerk. Shortly, she was walking outside the mall toward her car. On the boulevard, she snaked around delivery trucks and other vehicles. Her mother had coffee and pan dulce waiting. Claudia worked on her speech. She would run through all the problems she and Rafael faced, all the arguments, all the debt, all the fighting, all the deceptions. She needed this talk with Mom. Claudia gunned the engine and swept around a city bus lumbering past the tall palm trees that lined the street. This was a good day to end something, so that something new could begin.

At her mother's house, Claudia took little time in getting to the news. Her mother gasped, and then reached across the dining table to clasp her daughter's hands. "I'm done," Claudia said, bringing an end to her side of the conversation. A brief silence filled the small kitchen and Claudia could only lower her head. "Don't," her mother said next. "Hold your head high, and don't even think about crying." Claudia smiled and reached for her coffee cup.

Minutes later, she was back on the road, driving toward the shopping mall. She would go back to the dress boutique. Traffic was lighter as she drove while listening to a love song by Phil Collins coming out of her dash radio's speakers. A string of green lights at arriving intersections seemed an omen, she thought. Overhead, a bright sunball had cleared away the morning fog. It would shine all day long.

At the dress shop, Claudia beelined for the blouse rack and found the one sexy blouse she'd tried-on earlier. Taking it, she turned to head for the register, but stopped after a few steps.

Reaching toward a chrome, upright rack to her left, she grabbed a pair of red, crotch-less panties and let out a little laugh...

- 30 -

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

this should be a movie. Made in the valley. we have enough two-bit actors. ha ha ha

Yolanda said...

Claudia is living the life of the Valley, nothing but fu)(*& losers. Like Tony C. Losers,fakers, wannabees, drunkards, drug addicts,womanizers, mama's boys, unemployed, in food stamps, welfare recpients, mecaid users, you guys tell it like it is.

Anonymous said...

John Hooker better get plenty of Viagra, brother you are going to need it. 41 and the girl is 18, she looks like his daughter, side bar.

Anonymous said...

I'm beginning to think Jerry McHale never matured past the adolescent stage. He seems to be obsessed to the point of addiction to sex and believes that everyone else is too. There are rehab clinics for that.

Rod said...

the Paz Files is writing stuff Valley writers keep under wraps. But it all goes to the border culture. We are great and we are awful! thankz

Anonymous said...

I knew McHale had a loose screw, but now he proved it.

Anonymous said...

this sounds too much like my wife, man. Wow! And I hadn't even seen it in her, but it's there. She's shopping for clothes more and more now. should I worry?

Anonymous said...

If every woman gave up, like Claudia and saw what they were marrried to. Hell, there would be plenty of lose women. Valley women marrie losers, just to say, I am married.

Anonymous said...

Este pinche Valley esta lleno de vatos arrastraos, que valen pura ching*&*&*a.

Max said...

Great story. Put the mirror to our faces, Paz Files! Man, we suck. my ex is now living with my old best friend, and he recenlty had a heart attack. que no, cabrona!

Anonymous said...

valley wives are to blame for their situation. they dress like sluts and gain too much weight. and when they talk, it's all pocho. no class around Harlingen that's for sure.

Anonymous said...

Pa-Martinez, I don't know how you can take it, from the two mutha fukas, Chapa el enano, y su pinche amigo el tamalero.
Muda fucka's both are cowards, Juan ran to the police when the hillbillie went after him. And Chapa hid under his ex-wife dress, when drug dealers, shot his mouthie son in law, pinches cobardes, los dos, mutha fuckas.

Anonymous said...

Claudia, if you are looking for man, I mean, a real man, just say the word. I won't disappoint you.

Anonymous said...

Juan Ortega el tamalero is kissing chapas rear end. Lambiscon, para eso me gustabas, miedoso, gallina, cobarde.

Patrick Alcatraz said...

ANON:...There's nothing to take from Chapa and Ortega. One operates a comatose blog of nothingness, while the other contributes nothing but his fat shadow to the city scenery. Chapa's blog is so obscure no one would fear being seen on it. He dumps on me when he feels lonely, when he sighs and sighs and sighs about the lack of comments. Psychiatrists know it as the Pendejo Syndrome... - Editor

Tio Manolo said...

Juan Ortega is a damn coward as is the other SOB. Juan walks around downtown, thinking he is important.
Juan buy yourself a shoe shine box, my shoes needs cleaning.
El Zorro

White wing hater said...

Side bar: So my good man Darrel Royal is going bananas, isn't he kind of old. To bad he was a good coach.

Chcko de la 12. said...

To all my good friends from Brownsville. Yolanda Begum, is a lot prettier than Erin Hernandez Garcia. Saw them both during Charro days.
Yolanda is older than Erin, damn Erin is obese. Yolanda is a good middle age womna, good looking to.
My vote: Yolanda.

Anonymous said...

The older, fatter, and meaner that Rush Limbaugh gets, the more preoccupied he is with other people's sex lives. He said that women who get birth control should be forced to send in video's of themselves having sex. Does he know Jake personally or he is just channelling? How about a video of him when he was out buying illegal drugs? No point in asking for a video of him having sex because I don't think he could make one, even if he was all alone. Guess he's kind of like Jake in that one too. You can't convince me that the poor unfortunate women that were married to him did not use birth control that was paid for by insurance, otherwise we would have a bunch of fat, mean, ugly kids rolling around.

Tony Tormenta said...

Mesissa, the brownsville city council woman, looks beat up and tired. Ya esta veterana.