Read Online Chango's Fire by Ernesto Quinonez - Free Book Online Page B

“The End” we get. Mom would hear in the news about some earthquake in India or some mud flood in Colombia and she’d see them as signs of “The End.” That still hasn’t changed. But not me, I got fed up. I wanted to do something with my life other than just wait for the world to end. Maritza went to school and graduated college. She studied civil rights, and when no one in Spanish Harlem was buying her socialist agenda, she began to save the world using the very God she had made fun of me for once believing in.
    â€œHere’s the address, Julio. Hurry.”
    â€œAll right, all right, God.” I say and take the piece of paper she’s handed me. I cross the 59th Street bridge, not feeling groovy at all. So I’m thinking that this is a Planned Parenthood branch or some back-alley shanty Maritza knows about. Instead this clinic is located on Northern Boulevard, the aorta of Queens. The clinic is right smack in the center, where all types of businesses hit you at once—dentist offices, real estate brokers, jewelry stores, restaurants, banks—they waren’t hiding anything.
    â€œYou have to come inside with us,” Maritza demands. The girl is still shaking.
    El Centro de Cirugía Plástica
is not a name used in disguises, it’s not called that to divert attention, it’s called that because that’s what it is. Surgery. The plastic kind.
    I park the car.
    I walk in and, except for Maritza and the frightened girl, the waiting area is empty. The room is a soft pink and there are tastefully framed posters of beautiful women on the walls. A television is playing MTV
en Español,
with the volume down. Shakira is shaking her Arab roots like she has been thrown in a body of water right in the dead of winter.
    The door swings and a woman walks in. Her hair is beautiful, her legs long and slender, her breasts the size of baseballs, with a perfect rise you only get from implants.
    â€œSo,” the woman says coldly, writing on her clipboard, “she needs to be a
señorita
again?”
    â€œYes,” Maritza answers for the girl, who all of a sudden starts crying like her mother had died in her arms.
    â€œIt’s all right sweetie,” the woman says, laying her hand on the girl’s knee,
“es muy simple, no tengas miedo.
We’ll sew it back up like it was before, like nothing has happened.”
    â€œWill she need anesthesia?” Maritza strokes the girl’s hair as the girl cries on her shoulder.
    â€œNot much, just local.
Mira
sweetie,” the woman tells the girl whose head is buried in Maritza arms,
“no te apures, todo se cose. Serás virgen de nuevo.
“
    â€œNo sé lo que me hará,
” the frightened girl sobs,
“él cree que soy virgin
…”
    The girl can’t finish her words before breaking down. I think she can’t say that her father might kill her if her husband brought her back as damaged goods.
    The woman with the clipboard isn’t moved, like she’s heard all this before. She even whispers a little curse when she writes something down incorrectly. She begins to erase it, candidly speaking to Maritza.
    â€œDon’t worry, the doctor is licensed and knows what he’s doing,” she tells Maritza. “Your cousin will be fine. We do this all the time. We leave a small opening unsewn for the, you know, her period. But everything else is put right. Her hymen will be intact like before. He won’t know a thing. On her wedding night, the walls will be tight and there will be blood on the sheets. Sign here.” Maritza signs. “I need the credit card,” and that’s when Maritza points at me.
    I back away slowly, like a gun has been pointed at me. I see Maritza telling the woman to take “her cousin” inside for the doctor to start the operation.
    I exit the clinic and walk to my car. Maritza catches up with me.
    â€œWait Julio, wait,” she