Woman Hollering Creek

On the day of her eleventh birthday, Rachel finds that she is growing younger, rather than older. The first-person narrator begins her story by reflecting on what it means to be a year more mature and concludes that unfortunately maturity does not happen all at one. A wiser outlook is not achieved on the single day of one’s birthday. Instead of simply becoming a new age and seeing and feeling life from a completely new vantage point, the other years of life “rattl[e] around like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box” (7). Even as an adult, one can feel like they are still three and need to have a good long cry, as the narrator’s mother sometimes does. An 11-year-old might still feel five and want to sit on a parent’s lap.

By age 11, Rachel wants to feel fully in control of her emotions but instead, on her birthday, she becomes distressed by an incident at school. Her teacher, Mrs. Price, digs an old, ugly red sweater out of the classroom closet and demands that someone claim ownership of it. Because Mrs. Price doesn’t seem to hear Rachel’s meek “not mine,” the musty oversized sweater is heaped onto Rachel’s desk. When Rachel tries to nudge it over to the far corner of her desk with her pencil, Mrs. Price gets annoyed and insists that Rachel put the sweater on. Rachel does as she is told but falls apart in the process.

While the whole class watches, Rachel begins to sob, making “little animal noises” and finally buries her head in her “stupid clown sweater arms” (9). Though it was supposed to be a monumental day full of birthday cake and new maturity, instead it’s a day of humiliation. Rather than wanting to be older, Rachel ends up wishing she could somehow become small enough to become invisible and completely escape.

This short vignette paints a portrait of a boy named Salvador whose childhood includes caring for his little brothers while living in poverty. Salvador is effectively a tiny adult, one who must wake his brothers, feed them, get them ready for school, and, after school, must get them back home again. He is routinely late, arriving in wrinkled clothes and full of mumbled apologies. No father figure is on the scene and his mother has a new baby to care for. His quietude suggests resentment and sadness that his childhood is passing without him being afforded a chance to truly enjoy it but he is uncomplaining and simply does the best he can to manage a load he shouldn’t have to shoulder.

The narrator recounts the sights, sounds and smells of going to the movies with her parents and little brother. When a sex scene starts, her father gives the kids money to step outside of the theater and buy some snacks. Kiki, the narrator’s little brother, likes to run up and down the aisles, and it is the narrator’s job to stop him from eating food off the floor or climbing in front of the screen. Her father sits transfixed and her mother curls up in her seat, worried about rats scurrying by her legs.

The narrator’s favorite movies are those featuring Pedro Infante because there are no sex scenes, just lots of singing and a big happy ending. Even boring movies, ones with too much talking, are satisfying because the narrator can curl up and get cozy, her mother’s sweater propped between her head and the armrest. If she and Kiki fall asleep, her parents carry them out. The narrator enjoys pretending to be asleep, even after she rouses some in the car, because being tucked snug into her bed is the best part of all. 

The narrator and her sister love Barbies and improvise as well as they can to maximize their family’s limited toy budget. Sensitive to fashion trends, they create their own “sock dress” for a Barbie and are saving their pooled allowance to get a Barbie dressed in a Jackie O outfit or some such professional ensemble, perhaps “Red Flair” or “Solo in the Spotlight” (14). They’ve already decided that money’s too tight to be bothered with boy dolls. They pretend with an imaginary Ken doll and devote their playing to crafting new outfits and storylines gleaned from soap operas, full of love triangles and secret affairs.

But the sisters’ luck changes when their family happens upon a flea market full of Barbie dolls. “Career Gal,” “Sweet Dreams” and other coveted Barbies are there, and even in their original Mattel boxes. A big toy warehouse burned down the day before, the girls learn, and the result is this sudden bonanza of dolls. They can hardly contain their excitement as they eye the toys, the clothes, the accessories.

They take their toys home, happy with what they have, even if one Barbie has a melted foot and they all smell like smoke and the boxes are sooty. They’ve learned not to complain and instead to make do with what they have. Another sock dress can be improvised to hide the melted Barbie foot. 

Micaela, Alfredito and Enrique are in Mexico, visiting their “awful grandmother” who is awful in the kids’ minds because of her overwhelming piety that keeps her in church for hours while the kids wait outdoors for her to finish up her long and involved prayers. The “awful grandmother,” as she is repeatedly called by Micaela, takes it upon herself to ask God’s forgiveness for a whole host of amusingly nicknamed family members—Auntie Light-skin, Uncle Baby and Uncle Fat-face, “the blackest of black sheep” (17). The awful grandmother is intensely devoted to La Virgen de Guadalupe and joins the crowds who coming hobbling towards the church on their knees, black shawls enveloping them, crossing themselves over and over again.

Meanwhile, the three kids play outside, passing the time as well as they can. The “awful grandmother” has forbidden them from visiting nearby shops and street vendors that sell comic books and candy. They aren’t allowed to go venture into the cemetery behind the church or up the steep hill nearby. They can only wait and while they do, they play very American games, imagining they are Flash Gordon or a B52 bomber that is fighting the Germans.

It’s a long and arduous wait, passing the time till the grandmother wraps up her elaborate prayers. The kids are interested when a couple, who look out of place, the man in shorts and the woman in pants, approaches them. The woman speaks to the kids in Spanish, asking if they want some gum. They take the offered gum and pose for the photo that the woman precedes to take of them. She is shocked when the kids begin to speak in English to one another. “But you speak English!” she says to them, feeling betrayed (20). The only explanation the kids can offer is that they are “Mericans.” 

The unnamed narrator’s abuelito owned a tlapalería, or hardware and paint store, in Tepeyac, a central meeting spot in Mexico City. As a child, the narrator spent countless hours in this town square, watching the workers at the shoe-shine stalls attend to customers, alongside vendors selling fried food and holy cards featuring images of the Virgen of Guadalupe. Each day, at closing time, the narrator and his abuelito would walk home together, to their house at 112 La Fortuna Street. Now, that space is just a memory.

The family hardware shop has been sold and redone as a pharmacy, the quaint magic of the place lost forever. The streets are busy with more cars and less street vendors. The old house itself has changed, with the elaborate green iron gates removed and the family’s name taken down as well. The narrator now lives in America and this fond childhood place is only a memory and the home of images, sounds and smells that no longer exist. The tactile feelings almost still remain though—the money his abuelito counted at the end of each day, “soft and wrinkled as old Kleenex,” and his grandfather’s held hand “fat and dimpled in the center like a valentine” (22).