Read Online A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin - Free Book Online Page B

didn’t just hold my hand, like some patients do, but clung to my neck, sobbing, Mamacita! Mamacita! The only way he would let Dr. Johnson examine him was if I held him cradled like a baby. He was as tiny as a child but strong, muscular. A man in my lap. A dream man? A dream baby?
    Dr. Johnson sponged my forehead while I translated. For sure he had a broken collarbone, at least three broken ribs, probably a concussion. No, Muñoz said. He had to ride in tomorrow’s races. Get him to X-ray, Dr. Johnson said. Since he wouldn’t lie down on the gurney I carried him down the corridor, like King Kong. He was weeping, terrified, his tears soaked my breast.
    We waited in the dark room for the X-ray tech. I soothed him just as I would a horse. Cálmate, lindo, cálmate. Despacio … despacio. Slowly … slowly. He quieted in my arms, blew and snorted softly. I stroked his fine back. It shuddered and shimmered like that of a splendid young colt. It was marvelous.

 
    El Tim
    A nun stood in each classroom door, black robes floating into the hall with the wind. The voices of the first grade, praying, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. From across the hall, the second grade began, clear, Hail Mary, full of grace. I stopped in the center of the building, and waited for the triumphant voices of the third grade, their voices joined by the first grade, Our Father, Who art in Heaven , by the fourth grade, then, deep, Hail Mary, full of grace.
    As the children grew older they prayed more quickly, so that gradually the voices began to blend, to merge into one sudden joyful chant … In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
    I taught Spanish in the new junior high, which lay at the opposite end of the playground like a child’s colored toy. Every morning, before class, I went through the grade school, to hear the prayers, but also simply to go into the building, as one would go in a church. The school had been a mission, built in 1700 by the Spaniards, built to stand in the desert for a long time. It was different from other old schools, whose stillness and solidity is still a shell for the children who pass through them. It had kept the peace of a mission, of a sanctuary.
    The nuns laughed in the grade school, and the children laughed. The nuns were all old, not like tired old women who clutch their bags at a bus stop, but proud, loved by their God and by their children. They responded to love with tenderness, with soft laughter that was contained, guarded, behind the heavy wooden doors.
    Several junior high nuns swept through the playground, checking for cigarette smoke. These nuns were young and nervous. They taught “underprivileged children,” “borderline delinquents,” and their thin faces were tired, sick of a blank stare. They could not use awe or love like the grade school nuns. Their recourse was impregnability, indifference to the students who were their duty and their life.
    The rows of windows in the ninth grade flashed as Sister Lourdes opened them, as usual, seven minutes before the bell. I stood outside the initialed orange doors, watching my ninth-grade students as they paced back and forth in front of the wire fence, their bodies loose and supple, necks bobbing as they walked, arms and legs swaying to a beat, to a trumpet that no one else could hear.
    They leaned against the wire fence, speaking in English-Spanish-Hipster dialect, laughing soundlessly. The girls wore the navy-blue uniforms of the school. Like muted birds they flirted with the boys, who cocked their plumed heads, who were brilliant in orange or yellow or turquoise pegged pants. They wore open black shirts or V-neck sweaters with nothing under them, so that their crucifixes gleamed against their smooth brown chests … the crucifix of the pachuco, which was also tattooed on the back of their hand.
    “Good morning, dear.”
    “Good morning, Sister.” Sister Lourdes had come outside to see if the seventh