James Villanueva's Open Salon Blog

How I Learned to Fight

Tue, 3 Aug 2010 11:08:44 -0400

He stares at me, then at the hot sauce sitting on the table in front of us, then looks my way again and laughs. I cry.

As I wipe my tears and allow the snot to run down my face, I realize I am an official crybaby. At the age of seven, it’s the worst thing in the world to be known as. Of course, I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. I was just a sensitive boy trying to eat a nice slice of oven pizza and now it had been ruined at the hands of my Evil Kenevil of a cousin, Junior. Who doused the slice with hot sauce while I was away from the table getting more Orange Kool-Aid.

Junior is visiting again this summer and with him comes the barrage of pranks that he prides himself on. It’s always the worst two weeks of my summer and I long for the hot sun to fade away and welcome in the delicate fall that made West Texas somewhat pleasant following the hellacious summer.

Mom is no longer around, she moved to Southland last year. She met a man, they fell in love, and he took her away from me. I had grown accustomed to it though and now all I want is pizza. Now that has been taken away from me and on that summer afternoon, I had had enough.

Tears – be gone.

Junior isn’t nice. He’s the tough one who uses my weakness for his pleasure. “I need to toughen you up,” he says every afternoon as he pounds me with clumps of dirt left over from the turbine tractors in the cotton fields. “You need to be tough so you don’t turn into a faggot.” I have to admit, his intuitions were far keener than most seven-year-olds, but that still didn’t prevent the tears from falling from my face as clumps of dirt swells in my eyes and become a muddy goop that hangs from my eyelids. The tears only make him worse, I take it for only a few moments longer before shattering wails leap from my body.

I have no control.

The pizza, however, is my last vestige of wimpy-ness. The final straw. The last of hurrah!

It’s time to stand up for myself. The past two weeks, because I had become so much more sensitive since we last met, he had only gained power. During these two weeks, he has pushed me off the roof of our house, doused me with water grenades, and forced me to join him in the torture of a poor innocent frog whose only mistake was crossing his evil path on a soggy day after the rains.

He sure did toughen me up.

As his twisted dark head bounced up and down from his hysteric laughter, anger swelled inside of me like an over inflated balloon. The tears stopped coming and, even though I couldn’t tattle because who would I tell? Grandma is so wrapped up in her afternoon Telenovella she doesn’t have the time to deal with this hooligan at the lunch table. I’m on my own. This is my battle. I could take a stand or forever succumb to his evil twisted logic.

I do not regret the events that occurred on that hot summer afternoon. I lose no sleep over the mean spiteful things I said. The tears that fell that day dried from my mind as quickly as they were absorbed into the hot Texas sand as they fell from his face. The moment we left that table and we were out in the fields of cotton, alone, I tackled him down and wailed into him as if each punch were one of the many tears he once made me shed.

Sure, the power and force behind a couple of seven-year-olds may not be much, but to me, it was the ass whoopin’ of a lifetime. I gained power and pleasure as I grabbed his hair from the back of his head and shoved it into the hot sand. Spit, snot and blood became part of the ground where I jammed his face, over and over again, into the rows of plants where cotton bulbs had not yet bloomed.

I left him out in that field, baking under the sun, and ran to the bathroom to clean my hands of the dirt and blood. I could hear his crying and wailing coming from outside as I looked at myself in the mirror.

I have no tears. I have no emotion. I take a double look, making sure it’s me.

Red Pumps

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:07:04 -0400

I’m five-years-old and my little red Hot Wheels toy car is cruising on the side of the couch. Suddenly, the giant fluffy blue road of the couch arm ends and the car crashes off the cliff.

Luckily, the car lands on its wheels – off I go.

Then, another crash; right into mom’s giant red pumps. I love those pumps.

“Watch it,” mom says. She is wearing a blue dress with her red pumps. Her shoulder pads could rival a line backer’s. Bright blue eyeliner shoots out from her eyes, red blush shoots from her cheeks. She looks as though she was putting her blush on in front of a turbo fan.

There’s the pink lipstick. Bright pink. The kind of pink, I’m sure, that isn’t even manufactured anymore for fear of sun glares on the highways.

“Where you going,” my voice is small and shaky, but I clutch onto my tears.

“Out,” she rolls her eyes at me; her tiny mistake she made at the age of fifteen. “You’re grandma’s watching you tonight. I’ll be back to see you, promise,” she gives me a hug that bloomed from the awkward conversation.

Mom leaves. I watch the back frame of her line backer’s build from her shoulder pads as she makes her way out the door. I don’t see her again for another week, only for her to pack her bags and move to Hale Center, Texas, a small town forty-five minutes and everlastingly away.

Must not cry. Nobody likes a crybaby. Boys don’t cry.

I return to my little red Hot Wheels that, luckily, lands on its wheels again – off I go.

Me and My Damn Reputation (Part 1)

Thu, 8 Jul 2010 12:07:59 -0400

It’s 1988. I’m seven-years-old. I’m not giving a damn about my bad reputation.

A new sound has overcome the room in my grandma’s house that mom and I share. Joan Jett blares, day and night, in the room. Its mom’s favorite new cassette tape and we’re jamming out to the hard rockin’-kick assin’-scream mania that is The Jett, with piles of clothes splayed out on the bed as we fold my Captain Planet tighty-whities.

Mom flips her jet black hair to the beat.

I pretend to flip my curly afro along with her.

“I don’t care what the people say,” Joan Jett’s raspy voice blares from the speaker. “They don’t matter anyways.”

“I don’t care about my damn reputation,” mom and I shout, flinging tighty-whities across the bed. “No. No. Not me.”

Mom’s dyed her hair again. I don’t like it all that much, too black. But I don’t say much because it makes her look more like Joan and I’m absolutely infatuated with the woman. I don’t even mind too much when mom tries to hug me and her metal studded leather jacket pokes me in the face. She promises to buy me one of my own from the flea market in Lubbock – can’t wait.

The next day at school, the memory of jamming out to Joan Jett floats into my head as Mrs. Hartsfield hands out sheets with humming birds printed on them to color. Kristina Moore, of course, will win the coloring contest that’s about to commence.

She always wins the coloring contest Mrs. Hartsfield hosts every afternoon. I don’t care though because the prize is to have your coloring hung behind Mrs. Hartsfield’s desk - Big Whoop - I would much rather win a leather studded metal jacket or, at the very least, a Tootsie Roll.

Kristina grates my nerves like shredded cheese. Can’t stand the girl.

She’s as tall as a flag post and as skinny as a lamp post – no lie. Her curly blond hair, which Mrs. Hartsfield thinks is adorable, along with every other thing Kristina does or says, is more of the ratty look than adorable if you ask me.

I don’t give one good damn about Kristina Moore.

I am ashamed to write what I did to Kristina’s creation that day, but you have to understand my annoyance of her museum of colorful flowers, birds, trees, houses and gingerbread men that surrounded Mrs. Hartsfield’s desk.

There she is, miss thang, sitting behind me, her hair bouncing up and down frantically as if her talented coloring ability was kept in her curls. She was creating another one of those masterpieces, shortening the Kelly Green Crayola with each stroke.

As we finish our Crayola creations, mine not nearly as bright and shiny as Kristina’s of course, we passed them down the rolls of little desks we’re chained to during the day. When Kristina’s sheet fell into my hands, I had to do it. The black crayon burned my hand and soon I was scribbling black wax across a teal humming bird. Kristina’s perfect little picture was no more.

A scream comes from two seats back. It’s the same scream I remembered from the playground two days ago when Kristina fell from one of her perfectly executed cartwheels. “What is James doing?” Before I know it, Kristina is snatching her sheet from my hands and wailing at the top of her lungs as though I killed one of her damn puppies she’s always going on and on about.

Off to the principals office, again.

… And, once again, I don’t give a good damn.

Meeting Mrs. Baxley

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:06:08 -0400

In preparation for my year long journey into the history of Slaton, I had to speak with someone who was there at the beginning. Not necessarily the beginning of Slaton, but of the 1900’s.

Onie Baxley, although one of Slaton’s newest residents (moving to the town in 1997), she is still one of our wisest. After celebrating her 101^st birthday this past weekend, I picked up my pen and pencil and raced to the Slaton Care Center to hear her story, in her words.

Baxley’s story is that of death, heartache and, every so often, glimpses of hope that moved people forward in a black and white world.

“I was born June 19^th, 1909,” she said, sipping from a cup filled with Dr. Pepper she gripped in her right hand while staring out at the courtyard of the Slaton Care Center. “Do you like my watch?” She asked, lifting her small wrist as if it were weighted down by dumbbells, showing me the watch given to her from a grandchild who joined her in celebration of her 101^st.

“It’s beautiful,” I yelled into her ear. Throughout the years, her hearing has slowly slipped away. I felt awful having to yell at her, but it was the only way we could correspond.

We sat together, just her and me, a smile as big as the moon crept across her face.

“You’re a nice young man,” she said. My cold, harsh demeanor as an objective reporter melted away. My shoulders relaxed. She continued smiling.

“Thanks,” I yelled again.

Onie pointed to a place next to her bed. I followed her small shaky finger and my eyes landed on a blue photo album. I reached over and grabbed it from the desk propped neatly against her bed, as if reading her mind, she says, “Yes.”

Passing the photo album to her, she reached out and I helped her place her glass of Dr. Pepper onto a table in front of her.

Surrounding us, I noticed all of the pictures of family throughout the past years. “Let me help you,” I yelled, taking the cup she struggled to place on the table. She opened the album when her hand became free.

“This is my mom,” she said, smiling. There is a worn photo of a woman in a beautiful blue dress. The regal woman looked out of the photo that was placed firmly in the album that sat on her lap. “I was born June 19^th, 1909,” she said, continuing her story in her soft voice. No yelling. “My mother died a few weeks later. My dad told me that they were visiting my oldest sister, Lola, to see her first baby. They got ready to go home. She started riding in a buggy and she died in my dad’s arm on the way to their home.”

I stared at the picture, trying my hardest to remember the image of the young woman who brought Mrs. Baxley into this world. I looked to see that Onie was doing the same.

Onie continued to tell me about stories when she was young; stories of growing up on a farm in a small west Texas town. Stories that involved horses, wolves, and her 11 siblings that helped raise Onie after her mother had died. In my head, however, I tried to remember the woman from the picture that, even more than 100 years later, continues to help Onie find sleep in a new century. A mother she never knew but begins her story, 100 years in the making, with.

“It was nice to meet you,” she said after telling me her stories. “You’re a really nice young man,” the same smile spreads across her face. For a moment, I smiled back as the hot summer sun raged from the window.

I leaned down and yelled, “Thanks for telling me your story,” into her ear as if shouting into a canyon hoping to hear an echo.

“In life,” she said as if now reading my mind. “There’s a lot of heartache, but you just…” She trailed off and stared out the window once more. “I’m sorry,” she said. “My mind just isn’t what it used to be.”

When Mr. Rogers was my Homeboy

Thu, 3 Jun 2010 10:06:20 -0400

Back in the day when Kraft’s Macaroni & Cheese was a mighty fine meal & Mr. Roger’s was my homeboy, I discovered an unbelievable province that made me yearn to minimize my already petite body to a more mouse-like size, hop on a tiny toy trolley, and make my way into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

I’m pretty sure King Friday was my first love which explains some of my more interesting mate selections. But, of course, at four-years-old I am unaware of this.

Mr. Rogers influenced my life in three ways; 1) My fascination with sweaters, 2) my adoration for penny loafers, and 3) my desire, at the time, to be miniature – Smurfkin size.

As a tiny tot of a boy, it shouldn’t be all that tricky.

Smurfland here I come.

I try it all.

I try taking super hot baths, which only scold my skin but doesn’t shrink me. I sleep in the fetal position; all scrunched up next to mom’s side like a petite bean, hoping to not grow much more than the 3’2 I already am. I would be a beast in the Land of Make-Believe, a giant in Smurfland. I try slithering beneath the bed and, by magic, surface as a totally small, totally smurfkin sized new boy. I even try stacking Encyclopedia’s on my head, walking around like a beauty queen in training, hoping this may do the trick.

Nope. No Shrinking. I shoot up to 3’3. Mom is happy as she measures me against a wall in the small closet in the room we share because we still are living with grandma. I am frustrated.

I step out of the closet as she makes her way to a mirror.

“You are one strange child,” mom rolls her eyes, which are smothered with blue mascara, as I pick up the pile of books and stagger across the room with S-V on my head. “You’ve been hanging out with your grandma too long,” she says, as she begins meticulously lining her eyes with more black eyeliner.

Mom, with her 19-year-old girl trendsetting ways, is still in her 80’s glam phase. Who could blame her? She is wearing faded jeans and a bra with an open denim jacket that she cut the sleeves off of. She insists on smearing bright red, almost hot pink, blush across her face. Her enormous rose colored eye glasses, the bottom of coke bottle type of eye glasses, can't mask all the blue eyeliner. Not enough for my grandma at least who hates that she insists on wearing this outfit to Sunday dinners with the rest of the Villanueva tribe.

“Why do you wear those stupid outfits?” Grandma asks as we make our grand entrance, mom in her bra and jacket combo, me with my Prince t-shirt and tight black track pants. It always angered me when grandma made fun of our clothes because I love the bright colors. No one can pull off teal and neon green like mom can. Grandma is in her usual after church dress, red with white polka dots, of course she has an apron to cover her boring attire. I never speak up though, she’s grandma and I’m just a wee tot sadly growing by the minute it seems. I make my way to a corner in the kitchen to practice my shrinking.

I’m squatting, squeezing in my shoulders and closing my eyes tight. That should do it. Then there’s a knock at the front door.

Grandma motions me over to the stove and hands me a bowl of good ole’ Mac and Cheese. “Here,” she says, “eat now before everyone arrives and takes up the seats.”

I sit in the green kitchen that reminds me of avocado innards. For a moment, I try to shrink myself down to the size I imagine would fit into an avocado when I hear mom’s voice coming from the front door.

It isn’t a happy voice.

“James,” grandma says turning away from the stove and taking me from the chair. She grabs my meal and carries the bowl of Mac with her. “Go to the room and watch Mr. Rogers.”

“I’m still eating,” I say, as she guides me by my right arm. Grandma’s heavy hand pulls me roughly. The bowl of Mac and Cheese looks as though it’s glued to her other hand.

“You can eat in your room,” she says. I stop squirming. TV and Macaroni, I’m sold.

Mom’s voice continues booming in the background. I hear a man’s voice also, but I’m too caught up in Mr. Rogers and his land of Make-Believe to bother.

That is, however, until mom screams. A door slams.

I drop my spoon onto the floor. Cheese goo clings to the brown carpets. I run to the window and watch as a man bangs on the door once more before yelling, “He’s my son.” He bangs again. “I have a right to see him,” he yells.

The man, a tall black man with slick black hair, leans his head onto the door one last time before stepping away and driving off in a blue car. Mom and grandma yell for a few minutes. All I can make out is grandma saying, “You’re lucky the rest of the family isn’t here yet. You know what they think of that man.”

The house settles for a moment and Mr. Roger’s voice is louder than usual. My spoon still grips the carpet.

I crawl under the bed I share with mom and try, once again, to shrink.

To be minute.