It seems to work better [INAUDIBLE]..
I always carry a rose.
[LAUGHTER]
I've got lots of books here.
It's really tacky to bring your glasses and a sock, isn't it?
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
I did that.
I was reading somewhere at a nice University in California.
And I said, if it's a really good year,
I'm going to buy a glass case.
And everybody-- four people sent me glass cases.
And here I am, back to the sock.
So don't bother to send them to me.
I'm going to start out reading some
of "Yes is Better Than No."
And this is a novel that--
the reason I wrote it is because I
happen to have a little job which
wasn't as formal as saying that you're doing family counseling.
But more or less, that's what I was supposed
to be doing with an organization called the Association
for Papago Affairs.
And I was supposed to go and talk
to people who'd left the reservation
and moved into Tucson, were having problems
and see what they needed.
And really, they all had wonderful survival skills,
much better than I did.
The first day that I went out on this job,
I brought six people home with me.
And so I didn't--
I wasn't just marvelously professional at it.
But I drank a lot of coffee and had a lot of good friends.
And I got to know all the good shrines around South Tucson
and just, in general, picked up a little information.
And I had kind of, I guess, a primal distrust of authority
and people behind desks.
And so I was helpful in some ways to these people.
But they taught me a lot more.
So I'm going to start off reading
a little bit about St. Jude who sort
of the center of this book.
St. Jude really liked all the people in that neighborhood
and did a lot of wonderful things for people.
Helped everybody he could.
"It's good to have a Saint out in the fresh air,
not always cooped up in a church.
The Papago people like to be outside themselves.
The desert is more their home than any house could ever be.
Besides, you need a Saint here where you have your problems.
Not too far from the B29 bar, not too far from the pool hall.
From his cement and river rock grotto,
Jude can see the police shoving and kicking
the winos into the paddy wagon.
Here glass shatters, the bottles hit the street.
He sees thieves and whores as well as old women
in black mantillas.
Out on the reservation, all the ancient shrines
not touched by white man's religion or natural hillsides
and rocks and crevices.
A shrine can be wherever spirits let their powers hover,
places where wind whistles out of the Earth, prayer feathers
tied to thin green twigs, rocks that hold
magic shapes that are powerful.
Of course, you don't expect too much from a Saint in town.
After all, he's not elder brother.
But he's still a lot friendlier than cops or social workers.
And another thing in his favor--
he never says a cross word.
What other white hands are pressed every day
by so many dark ones?
Every now and then, he does the kind of thing
you'd expect of a Saint on the street
by keeping a drunk out of jail some night,
Jude can make a quarter shine up from the gutter
when you need it most, can make it
gleam like abalone shell in the moonlight,
can make a poor wino's eyes focus on that quarter
even though he can't see the cars in the road.
There are worse miracles than that."
[LAUGHTER]
Maria Vasquez is one of the main people in the book.
And we'll start out a little bit with her.
"Down the street from the B-29 bar is the shrine of St. Jude.
Stiff armed and staring into space, St. Jude.
Dry bougainvillea leaves in his plaster hair today,
but fewer candles than usual.
Yesterday, a drunk vomited on a poor man,
pouring out his excuses, his grief, his thunderbird wine.
They had to take away the candles.
[LAUGHTER]
Today, Maria passed us on her way to the B-29 bar.
But she only glances.
Not so much as a sign of the cross, not really even a nod.
Jude, I'll be back.
Don't worry.
Maybe I'll spend the night.
We'll watch the moon rise together yet.
How would it be to spend the night with a Saint anyway?
Her mother had once said, remember,
nothing is impossible to the Saint.
For myself, I ask Saint Martin first.
But second, I go to St. Jude for impossible needs,
for impossible situations, situations like this life.
And she had smiled as she said it,
that was before Maria left the reservation.
So long ago that nothing had ever
been impossible enough to force her to seek out St. Jude.
Now, dear God, she knows them well enough
to dispense with formality.
Just half a nod.
Maria walks down the dusty sidewalk slowly, evenly,
as though she were moving barefoot across the desert,
as though that journey might take all night,
all week, a lifetime.
The foot falls solidly to meet the Earth,
feels the pull of the Earth.
You can tell that walk a block away.
She comes to the B-29 bar.
Going into its darkness means passing
from the harsh reality of town into the safety
of a mystical home.
A sacrament crossing the doorway.
Believe me, Jude-- there are more sacraments than those
the priest mentioned.
Outside, the light of the hot desert sun.
Inside, the dimness of a cave.
Outside, street noises.
Inside, the soft easy sounds of Papago language.
Not much English, and the English
that is spoken by Indians sounds like Indian anyway.
Resting in the hollows of the throat,
each word coming out soft as a baby rabbit.
Papago language has the right sound for people of the desert.
It holds the quiet of the mesas, it
rolls words into the natural shapes
of breathing so they come out of the mouth,
feel soft around the edges, small winds that might blow
across the hill of summer weed.
That kind of sound.
It's a language too quiet for anger.
Let them have English for anger and authority and commands
and papers to sign.
Even a social worker would not sound so important perhaps
if she made Papago sounds instead
of words that come flying out of the mouth as stiff as boards.
You feel their sharp splinters in the air.
Maria slides across the beer-sticky wooden bench
and sinks back into the crumbling pink plaster which
clings to the adobe walls.
Breathes in, breathes out, believes
it's the only breath she's drawn all day.
The mood here is slow and quiet in spite
of the deafening jukebox music.
Purifying in its terrible intensity.
Time never moves here.
Noon, midnight, 3:00 AM--
it's all the same at the B-29.
Maria's friend Rose comes to sit beside her.
It isn't for a long time yet, maybe half an hour,
that Maria says, I don't have the house anymore.
You didn't pay?
I'm paid.
I'm paid for another week still.
She finishes the glass of beer, pours another
and sits looking into its depth.
The man that brought all those papers,
he came and nailed it up today because it's not
fit to live in, that one.
Rose shrugs.
They both accept the fact that the invisible rules
by which their lives are governed
are completely, desperately, insanely senseless.
There is no use trying to understand them.
Haven't they all been told 1,000 times--
but those are our regulations, Mrs. Garcia.
There's nothing that we can do about it.
Sorry, Mr. Escalante.
But we all have to abide by certain rules.
No, Mrs. Gonzalez, if we let you, they'd all be asking.
So Maria had not said to the man from the health department
that, yes, she knew it was bad with all
those holes in the wall.
But still, it was all she could afford.
And where would she and the five children
sleep tonight if he went ahead and nailed
the board across the door?
Now she only says to Rose, since I'm paid up for almost a week,
we'll just sleep in the yard.
Maybe it won't rain.
Maybe.
At least he didn't say the yard wasn't fit to live in.
Just the house.
You sure?
She isn't sure, of course.
Here in town, they change the rules every day.
Out there on the reservation, when
the fine balance of the world is upset,
there are still things that can be done.
But there's no ceremony or song or blessing
in the medicine man's bag that will help you
against white people that nail boards across your door."
I need to tell you now that one of the people, Mrs. Domingo,
has won a swimming pool at the County fair.
And--
[LAUGHTER]
--she's out there all the time because every year,
she makes baskets at the fair.
And this year, she won the pool.
And when they came to tell it to bring it to-- well,
not to bring it to--
to tell her how they're going to fix it,
where they're going to build it, they
found out that she doesn't have any water.
And she gets her water from a neighbor's hose.
And she doesn't have any electricity.
And she makes them go ahead and dig the pool anyway and do
everything with steps going down,
everything except the water.
Because we all know that the morning that she won the pool,
she had told St. Jude that she really needed some help.
And they figured that he couldn't really
give her the house she needed, but he could work out
the swimming pool.
So he did.
So she has a pool.
And she's getting a remodeled builder
to come and put a roof over it so that they can live in it.
And the whole neighborhood is pretty excited about it.
But Maria has, meanwhile, been to the welfare office.
And she's told them that she's sleeping in the yard
and her house has been boarded up by the health department.
And they've told her that they can't give her any money
to help her rent a house for her children
because their purpose is to help people who
are taking care of children.
And she's not adequately taking care of her children.
And that if she rents a house, has an address,
that then she will be able to receive money.
And so she's kind of in a quandary
because if they will give her the money
first, she could rent the house.
But it's hard to rent the house first
to be able to get the money to rent a house.
OK.
I do have water, wait.
"For four nights now, Maria has awakened before dawn,
believing there is a man near her.
She turns and opens her arms and feels her belly come alive.
But there isn't any man there.
She's on the mattress in the yard,
and the baby Carmen is beside her.
Errol Flynn usually rolls off the mattress in the night
and sleeps flat as a lizard against the Earth.
That's where he is now.
Maria sits up and puts her feet in the warm summer dirt,
looks at the stars.
When the sky turns its first pale orange in the East,
she's already putting a few sticks of mesquite wood
in the stove to make a pot of coffee.
She takes an empty 5 pound lard can and walks
across the alley to get water from the hose
by Mrs. Domingo's fence.
Here, people are still asleep outside
and the children and the dogs are curled up on blankets down
in the empty swimming pool.
When she gets back with the water,
her own children are beginning to wake.
And she tells them, I got a job to go to today.
A white lady, Ana says.
You better go, Amelia says.
We need the money to get a house.
But Errol Flynn just laughs at Amelia.
That's not enough money for a house, is it, mama?
Maria shakes her head.
It's OK for food.
Not a house, Errol Flynn says.
Me, I'd rather have food.
They have last night's beans wrapped in tortillas
and they all drink a little coffee
with canned milk and sugar.
Before Maria leaves she hangs the can of water
in the mesquite tree and tells them, listen,
if white people come around, just
say we left some of our stuff.
We don't live here.
We could tell them we're going back to the reservation,
Amelia says.
How about that?
Maria shrugs.
Whenever things are bad, she talks about going back
to the reservation.
She's probably said it 100 times.
Going to take you kids back to Ventana
where my aunt is, maybe over by big fields,
build us a house out there.
But the children know they aren't going back.
Half the time, the Indians have moved
to Tucson will say to each other,
don't know what I'm doing here, I must be crazy.
Or they'll say, you notice the old people on the reservation?
They got all the secrets.
They know a lot of things Indians in town
don't know like what the town children ask--
Indian things, secrets.
Maybe it's true.
Maria remembers those secrets.
The power and eagle feathers and in songs and dreams
and dances and stones and the power in animals.
Desert animals know so much more than poor stupid people
about how to live on this Earth.
Horned toads and deer and coyotes and mountain
lions, snakes, spiders--
they've lived here longer than people.
Maria brushes her hair, ties a scarf over her head,
and looks around for her shoes, Frayed tennis
shoes from St. Vincent de Paul, secondhand store.
She has been working for Mrs. Quincy now for three years.
One day a week.
She can make it.
Mrs. Quincy always asks her, how's the family.
Maria always answers, OK.
Today, it's the same thing.
OK, fine, Maria says.
She's never told her that Jose Vasquez left a long time ago
and that they don't have a house right now.
And when she doesn't turn up for work for a week or two,
she never tells Mrs. Quincy why.
Or if she does say anything, it's
just one of the kids was sick or I went to the reservation.
Never the truth.
Never the hangover 10 days in jail or the fact
that you don't have a dime for a phone call
or a quarter for a bus.
Never the feeling that, holy mother,
how can I make it over there this morning.
Today, as she scrubs floors and waxes
and washes windows and irons white shirts,
Maria keeps glancing toward the mountains where
clouds are beginning to gather.
That doesn't mean rain yet.
Maybe not rain today at all.
Maybe tomorrow.
By the time she gets off the South side bus,
there's the faint faraway sound of thunder.
How many months has it been?
People around the street corner in front of the B-29
are all looking up at the sky too.
Who doesn't have a roof that leak somewhere?
Who doesn't have a window or two without glass?
Who doesn't have mattresses outside where
the nights are cooler?
Yet the town Papagos all feel a strange distant excitement
at the thought of those first summer rains.
You can see the Indians have a secret look about them
when the rains come.
For even if they miss the saguaro picking fruit
and took no part at all in preparing wine
for summer rain making, they're still touched by it.
It's still for them.
And who's been away from home so long
that he doesn't feel a surge of well-being
when the first drops flat against a dry burning Earth?
Errol Flynn and Ana and Amelia are waiting
at the bus stop for Maria.
Maria knows why and nobody has to say it.
But Amelia says it anyway.
Give us the money, mama, before you get beer.
Somebody might steal it or you might get drunk and lose it.
Maria hands the money to Ana.
I'll just keep one quarter.
You go to the store and then put what's left in the tin can.
OK.
I won't stay long, just until dark.
The children go down the street toward the Chinese market,
and Maria opens the door to the B-29.
As soon as she goes in, the dimness enfolds her.
And she stands there by the door until she can see.
No hurrying now that she's here where
she's been headed all day.
Rose lifts her head toward Maria,
and Maria goes to the table where Rose and Lopez
sit together on a wooden bench.
There's a man on the other side.
Another Papago.
Maria thinks she used to know him,
maybe when they were kids at Phoenix Indian School.
Before either one of them were fat.
Nothing yet to show whether he's the one she dreamed of.
All four give a greeting in Papago.
Rain yet, Rose asked.
Maria shakes her head.
Maybe tonight.
They better get a roof over that swimming pool
before the rain comes.
We might have to swim in it yet, Lopez says.
He nods toward his cousin across the table.
Says to Maria, this guy's been helping me all day.
We've been to the dump, getting good stuff to make the roof.
Some real good tin.
Good boards too.
They pour a glass of beer for Maria.
She brings out her $0.25, but the man beside her--
she still doesn't know his name--
pushes it back to her so she knows that the dream was true
and this is the man.
No sign from her, of course.
She doesn't even glance toward him.
She's glad he's fat.
She'd hate to go to bed with a skinny man.
Hate to feel a man's ribs or shoulder blades or thigh bones.
A man should have a belly round as a hill.
There should be enough of him so a woman can
feel warm and safe against him.
You want to know he won't blow away
with the first little wind that comes across him.
Then if the woman is soft and plump and round herself,
they can roll easy as foxes in the sand.
After a long time, Lopez tells Maria, this guy, my cousin
Manny, is the smart one.
He's a detective.
Maria hopes it's a joke.
That doesn't sound like an Indian job.
But Manny nods.
That's right, I'm studying for that kind of work.
Detective school?
It's a mail order, he says.
I got the book.
I study every night.
I send in papers.
Maria is shaken: faith could send her any man.
A man who drank and didn't work at all, maybe a man who
did a little building or picked melons or chopped cotton.
But she hadn't expected a man from detective school.
Well, he'll sure catch me if I do anything wrong.
I pay $4 a week for the lessons, he said.
Ace training school, Parker, Ohio.
He could keep us all out of jail,
Rose says, if we were arrested.
Manny shrugs.
But they all look at him, impressed.
They have four more glasses of beer each.
From time to time, someone opens the door
and they all look toward the darkness.
But somebody who is closer always says, no rain, not yet.
So they settle back and talk, and Maria
feels Manny's leg against her.
Finally, he says to her, listen, you got a desk at your place?
I need a desk to do my detective lesson.
Maria looks embarrassed, but Rose laughs.
No desk, man.
She got no house.
Manny shrugs.
Just an orange crater.
Something would do, I guess.
I got cardboard boxes.
That's all.
That might do, he said.
Sure, that would be fine.
Manny reaches down on the bench beside him
and brings up his loosely folder of Ace lessons.
Opens it to lesson 3.
Reads aloud.
Always sit at your desk to prepare your lessons.
[LAUGHTER]
Be sure your desk is neat.
Paper should be carefully stacked.
Pencil should be sharpened.
Your fingernails should be clean.
Your clothes neat.
Remember, you are a detective.
Maria knows how important this man is.
As important as a social worker.
Important as the man who books you into to County jail.
The loan company man, the judge schoolteachers--
that's the kind of people who have desks.
And of course, detectives too.
Maria doesn't know him well enough yet to ask questions.
But Rose can ask, listen, what did you do for a desk before?
Did you have one?
I just done two lessons over at Yuma
while I was picking oranges.
I sat down on the ground, but I checked off
the place where their paper said, is your desk neat.
How do you check it, Lopez asked.
Yes or no.
Man, I checked it.
Yes.
Well, if there's such smart detectives,
how come they don't know you're lying?
Manny shrugs.
I bet they would have thrown me out of school
if they knew I didn't have a desk.
Sure, Rose said.
A detective has to have one.
But you can see he's smart in white man's ways
as well as Indian ways.
If he can fool a detective school,
maybe he could fool a social worker.
He'd know what to say to them.
Maria is a little drunk now.
Happy and warm, and her arms and legs
feel as loose as the leaves on a mesquite branch.
She knows that this whole month has
been a time of great good fortune in the neighborhood
with St. Jude handing out that swimming pool to Alma Domingo.
So now it might be Jude himself sending this smart Papago
detective to solve her own problems.
Of course, Maria hadn't asked Jude for a man.
When she passed the shrine yesterday,
she didn't even light a candle.
So she nodded her head and thought,
look, I could do with some flour and some lard and maybe
a house.
But she would never have asked for a man.
But Jude help with something really hard like a house.
You can't ask a Saint for everything.
You have to do something for yourself.
The truth is Maria has never done very much for Jude,
and he's never done very much for her, until now.
But Jude can see that this is no ordinary man,
this fine, fat, smart detective.
Maria lifts her glass, makes a silent vow
to Jude, good old wise friend Jude.
Where are you living, Manny asks Maria as he rolls a cigarette.
Outdoors, she said, across the alley by Domingos.
Just across from the swimming pool.
I got to stay there and help them roof that thing,
Manny says.
I figured I'd sleep over there.
It's sure nice sleeping by the pool, Lopez says.
It's a real pretty place, Rose says, even without water.
Manny turns to Maria.
We could go sit in that car over there.
You know that old car?
Sure, Maria says, if somebody not already there.
Of course, they know that somebody is probably
in the car.
This time of night, it will either
be lovers clinging together in the backseat
or some poor wino who's been locked out of his own house
and falls asleep in the front seat with the doors open
and his feet dangling out.
Maybe kids smoking marijuana and laughing.
Even stray dogs know about that car.
In this part of town, a car, whether it runs or not,
is to be admired.
You see one parked in front of somebody's house
for months at a time, maybe years,
waiting for a new motor, battery, tires.
Girls come and sit in it in the evenings and boys
lean against it casually as they smoke,
as they pass around the bottle of wine, as they tell jokes.
Even the old car in the alley still
has its bits of fringe hanging from the back window
and a scene on the dashboard and a new Vote for Ramirez
sticker on the bumper.
When Maria and Manny get to the car, they hesitate.
But there's no sound at all.
Finally, Manny goes up close and peers in.
He opens the door gently.
With your permission, Mr. Flores.
You better go on home now.
Hauls out the sleeping man, empty wine bottles
still in his hand.
The old man stands there for a minute,
unable to focus his eyes.
But Manny puts the straw hat on his head
and turns him in the direction of the friendship mission.
Then Manny opens the car door for Maria,
and she steps in, sinks back, comfortable, dizzy,
vaguely aware of the far off smell of coming rain.
Somewhere back in the mountains, rain.
Rain sending the scent of greasewood bushes cutting
through the hot desert air.
The car is all right, but Maria wishes they were on the ground.
Their large plump bodies are cramped in the back seat.
They need air, space, Earth, hillsides, arroyos, valleys,
sand.
You know that park down the street, she says.
I know it.
They get out of the car and start walking.
Maria has left her shoes in the car, but it doesn't matter.
She has never liked to feel shoes on her feet.
Anyway, there's grass at the park, and it's soft and cool.
This is a small park.
More like a Plaza in a Mexican village.
Just a few benches and a small fountain that
doesn't work anymore.
Oleander curved walk, marijuana growing among the trumpet
plants in the cement plant-- trumpet
vines in the cement planters.
It's late now and the park is empty
and the lights are off, except the one at the street corner.
Manny puts his Ace training school notebook on the bench.
And they lie under the dark bending oleanders.
Maria almost wishes she hadn't had so much beer
because she's afraid she won't remember tomorrow how good it
felt to have a man again.
She's afraid she'll forget some moment of it.
But suddenly, the sprinklers come on.
Manny yells out.
He's on top of her so he feels it first.
He rolls off and covers his face with his arms.
The next curve of water hits Maria,
and she rolls over on his stomach
and lies there with her face in the grass, cursing gently.
Manny grabs his shoes and pulls on his pants,
and Maria runs heavily beside him
through the high arches of spray to the cement walk.
They sit on the bench, wiping water off their faces.
Be careful you don't drip on my detective papers, Manny says.
Not me.
After a while, they walk back down the alley.
But this time, they see a man and woman getting into the car.
Hell, Manny says, we sure got bad luck.
It's OK, Maria says, you come to my bed.
So they walk on past the car, down the dusty alley,
to the backyard where Maria's cardboard boxes are scattered
and her children are sleeping.
Errol Flynn is rolled out of the bed
again, is curled up on the ground.
Maria lifts the baby onto the mattress with Ana and Emilia.
And then she comes back to Manny and touches him and thinks,
so this is where Jude wanted him after all.
Manny finds a place on the ground for his Ace Detective
notebook.
Covers it carefully with his shirt and pants.
See how he folds them.
Maria knows her own would be in a heap wherever they fell.
Just at the moment that he puts his heavy round
body next to Maria's, they feel the first slow sweet drop
of summer rain.
Not hard rain, not carried on the wind.
It's light and tender, and each separate drop
comes alone, taking its time, easy and gentle.
It lasts only a few minutes, more like the memory of rain
than rain itself.
The children don't even know they've been rained on.
But Manny and Maria pull a torn piece of sheet over their heads
as though they were being drenched,
put their arms around each other and begin to laugh.
People who are used to being crowded together,
the whole family in a room, learne
to keep their lovemaking quiet as animals in a burrow,
quiet as a hill of grass moving in the wind.
And the children learn that the night
is full of adult sounds that might be laughing,
might be crying, somebody's dreaming, whispering secrets.
The children always listened, but they can't be sure.
It's just part of their sleep.
Sometime, toward morning, there's another drop or two.
Still not much.
Not enough to make corn grow.
Maybe you better get you a house, Manny says.
Maria nods her head against him.
I can't until I get the welfare money.
And I can't get the welfare money till I get me an address.
That's their rule.
Maybe they need to know where to send the money.
Manny must know about rules.
He's probably buried the whole book.
He'll know what to do.
They say you need a house number, no?
She nods, rubs her hand along his face.
It sure would be a lot easier if I had the money first.
He sits up in bed.
I think I got it all right.
We'll go ask Alma Domingo, can you use her house number.
Maria doesn't understand that first.
They got so many people there.
No, he said, all you need to borrow the number
on the mailbox, not the house.
Just the address.
But over at welfare, they'll think you got the house too.
That's right.
How would they know?
They lie down again.
You could even put some of your boxes
and maybe your cook stove over there.
Then if welfare came around, they'd see your stuff.
It's so easy after all.
You have to know how to look at white people's rules.
You can't expect them to make sense in an Indian way.
Maybe when [? I'itoi ?] showed them his ways of planting
and hunting and curing illness and bringing rain and keeping
harmony, even how to make saguaro wine for the rain
making feast, he should have also told them about
understanding white people's rules.
It's your detective training made you figure out what to do,
Maria said.
Yeah, I guess it is.
She doesn't tell him, of course, that Jude sent him to her,
put him in her bed just so these problems would be solved.
All she says is, I'm going to make
you tortillas as soon as it's light enough to see.
But they go to sleep and the sun is up when they wake.
Jane and Amelia and Carmen are sitting on the bed with them,
looking at Manny.
It takes him a few minutes to open his eyes.
Hi, the children say.
Manny nods to them.
Listen, Amelia says, did you find us a house last night,
mama?
Not really that, Maria says.
But I think maybe we found us an address.
A number at least.
I'd rather have a house, Amelia insist.
Me too, says Jane.
That comes next, Maria says, not even sitting up.
First the address."
What time is it?
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
I want to read you a little bit more than this.
But I want to work up to children's books.
Let me see.
Yeah, let me read a little bit more of this
and try to read it faster.
[LAUGHS] It's impossible for me to tell you
what's happened between that and the next chapter.
Let's see.
They've got Mrs. Domingo's swimming pool roof
and a lot of people are living in it.
And more than just Maria are trying
to use that address with their various social workers.
So they have to be very careful who comes.
I mean, nobody can really be in it.
But when you see a social worker that you recognize coming,
you're supposed to be over there and say that it's your place.
And whichever children there are your children.
They can't tell.
But then there's been--
in town, there has been-- and Maria
has had some problem convincing her social worker
that she lives there.
But there's been a group of Chicago Indians in town.
A Red Power meeting has taken place
down in the swimming pool.
They wanted it to be in the swimming pool
just because they wanted an Indian place.
And they misunderstood a lot of what was said,
and partly because the old people insisted
that the meeting be held in Papago.
And these people don't speak the language, of course.
And they believe that it's an insult to the Indian youth
of the town not to have the swimming
pool filled with water.
They're demanding water whereas, of course,
the people there know that it's meant to be a house.
But they also misunderstand about Maria,
and they think that she's living outside
because she's demanding to live in a traditional primitive way.
And they're very proud of her.
And they insist that a reporter come to talk to her.
And somebody at this meeting takes her picture
even though she tries not to.
So it's been in the paper.
And she knows now that Mrs. Agnes Waterman is going to come
and it's going to be bad.
"There is no other way.
It has to happen.
Mrs. Waterman will come.
Her anger will shoot out.
She'll have the book of rules in her hand,
and that book will show that Maria Vasquez must be punished
for lying to a social worker, for pretending
that she has a house to live in, for using somebody else's house
number.
Maybe for other things too.
Who knows how many rules she's broken this week?
Who knows what the punishment will be?
Not jail, Maria hopes.
We better go before she comes, Ana says.
We could be at somebody else's place for a while.
Maybe over at Gonzalez.
It's true.
An Indian will take you in.
An Indian will share what little room
he has, and won't ask how long you're
going to stay camped on his floor
and how much money you brought.
Out on the reservation, they say that in the old days,
if one man killed a deer, everybody ate.
When there was hunger in a village, food was divided.
Cactus, fruit, or mesquite beans or roots, it was all divided.
Good luck was divided.
How can goodluck belong to one person alone?
To a Papago, that makes sense.
Forgive him for it.
Here in town, it's hard for a Papago
not to want to share with his brothers
the way he did on the reservation.
But here, you have to be careful to keep the Anglos from knowing
about it.
You find out it's against the law
to share your welfare food with a family down the street
even though those people are just as hungry as you are.
Yes, you find out it's against the law
to take in someone else's children.
Nobody knows why they have such rules.
Things that make sense to an Indian
are against the law in the Anglo world,
you just have to remember that.
Maria knows she could take the children and move somewhere.
That's true.
Still, she won't do it.
Somebody makes her wait for Mrs. Waterman to come.
Mama, maybe she won't read about you in the paper.
Maybe she won't find out.
She'll find out.
You think she'll be mad?
Sure, she'll be mad.
Even Manny is surprised that she doesn't
want to gather up her cardboard boxes and go and hide.
They could say you're trying to defraud the government,
he says.
The US government?
That or the County, either one.
But remember, I didn't get no money.
No money and no house either.
That won't matter.
Just the way they see it.
For some reason, of her own, Maria
knows she's going to wait for Agnes Waterman.
She'll hear what that woman has to say.
She'll find out the name of her crime
and let things end as they will.
Get it over with this time.
Let it pass.
What's in your head anyway, Manny says.
She doesn't know.
People ask that like it's a simple question.
But it's not.
That's the hardest question in the world--
what are you thinking?
Still, she shakes her head.
All she really knows that she's alone.
She's got nobody.
Even with Manny inside and the kids running back and forth
and half the town over by the swimming pool, watching
the water pour into it at last, Maria is alone.
Today, she knows that.
Her only companion is the child in her belly.
And she doesn't try to fool herself
into thinking that's very much companionship.
Even if she had a beer right now,
that glass wouldn't be enough of a friend to help her.
Anglos who come to see the swimming pool, always
walk around now looking for Maria's place too.
They've seen the picture in the paper and read about her.
Indian woman rejects housing.
And they want to talk to her, but she doesn't
know what to say to anybody.
It's easier to go sit in the shack with Lupe
and rock her new baby.
It's good to move back and forth humming as she
waits for Agnes Waterman.
That's where she is when Mrs. Waterman finally shows up.
There's a knock, the kind of knock Anglos
make when they don't have all day to stand there
in the hot sun at the door.
When she hears that sound, Maria stiffens.
Still holding the baby, she opens the door.
Well, Mrs. Vasquez, I didn't expect
to find you sitting in a house.
When Anglos say something like that, they want an answer.
But Indians don't mind just looking at them
blankly for as long as the Anglo wants to wait.
After all, it wasn't a question.
Doesn't demand an answer.
Is this where you live or not?
Maria shakes her head.
She still hasn't really opened the door.
One minute.
She has the baby back to Lupe and goes outside
and sees that, yes, Mrs. Waterman does have some kind
of book of rules in her arm.
Mrs. Waterman is standing in the shade of the Chinaberry tree,
waving her purse at the dogs to keep them from sniffing her.
Come over here, Mrs. Vasquez.
But Maria says, no, we better go to the alley,
to the place where I got my stuff.
She starts walking very slowly.
Mrs. Waterman walks much faster.
Gets there first.
She notices everything, even the beans and the pan
on the wood stove.
All right, Mrs. Vasquez, I'll say what I have to say fast--
children in this County live in houses.
And if a mother doesn't care enough about her children
to house them properly, she doesn't deserve those children.
Do you understand that?
Yes.
Well, you ought to because we've been over it before,
but you don't seem to care.
I care.
Well, this time, we have to take the children away from you.
They'll go to foster homes.
But the time ever comes that you get yourself straightened out--
what?
She's surprised.
She had only expected them to punish her, not the kids too.
Mrs. Vasquez, those children are what we call neglected.
They don't have a roof over their heads
because their mother doesn't care to give them one.
At least in a foster home, they'll have a roof.
I won't let them go, Maria said.
She stands with the sun in her face,
her legs wide, her hands on her hips.
Well, it's best for them.
Now look, you have to sign the papers.
I'll just explain them to you.
No, Maria says, I won't sign.
Then we'll take them with a court order.
You've had every chance in the world, Mrs. Vasquez.
And I've put up with a lot from you.
And now this newspaper thing to get yourself a little publicity
not wanting a house.
Well, that's my business, Maria says, not yours.
They both look up, surprised.
Maybe Maria is even more surprised than Mrs. Vasquez.
This isn't the way she talks to white women.
Her voice is low and quiet and steady as ever.
But the words sound like somebody else's words.
And my kids are my business too.
Mrs. Waterman raises her own voice in reply,
her words come fast.
No Indian could talk that fast.
Well, I'm not making up my own rules.
I'm telling you the law.
And I don't care about that law.
Maria Vasquez, she's busy with these words.
She raises her head.
For the first time in her life, she
looks directly at this woman.
She faces her.
Holy Mother, she's one of those Papago
warriors in Gabriel's painting.
Feels like she's got eagles flying [AUDIO OUT]
whether she's shaking or not.
Maybe she is crazy.
Now you listen to me, Mrs. Vasquez.
I'll be here at 10 o'clock in the morning,
and I expect you to have those children ready,
right here and ready to go.
Well, they're not going, Maria tells her.
Mrs. Waterman's face is red.
We'll see about that.
Maria feels the breath coming up into her lungs,
feels desert winds moving into her body.
Everything is unexpected, magical.
There is a force in her, a strength-- get out of my alley.
[LAUGHTER]
Just get the hell away from here.
She's wildly alive.
She feels fine.
Go on, I said.
Get out.
Mrs. Waterman whose face is flushed with disbelief.
I'm trying to help.
Maria swings around, grabs a thorny branch right off
the mesquite tree where the water can is hanging.
Raises the branch high in the air.
Warrior woman.
Mrs. Waterman backs away.
She looks quickly toward her car waiting at the curb.
One hand reaching toward that car, she calls out,
I'm getting the police right now.
You just wait.
Maria can't stop swinging that stick.
It's still in her hand when the car drives away.
And Indians began to come over where Maria is.
She finally turns around and faces the mountains.
That's all she wants to see-- mountains, strong, hard, bony
mountains.
Somebody has told Manny, and he comes running down the alley.
Errol Flynn too, Ana, Amelia, Mrs. Domingo, Lopez.
They know what's happening.
But even so, they don't believe it.
Mama, you were yelling at a white lady.
Maria throws her stick down under the tree,
starts gathering up her clothes.
What are you doing, Manny wants to know.
We got to head for the reservation
before the cops come.
Manny tries to put his arm around her,
but she doesn't need comfort.
You can hide out somewhere in town.
Sure we can, mama.
No, we're heading out there.
That's where I got to go.
I'll get me a house there.
How are we get it, Anna asked?
Will they give it to us?
Maybe we'll build it.
I'm not going, Manny says.
I've got enough to do in town.
I can't go out there now.
Anyway, you don't have to go either.
You know that.
In a way, I have to.
Maria feels that loneliness again,
lying like another child inside her.
It's OK.
She makes a place for it.
A box would be too hard to carry.
She begins putting things in paper bags.
One bag for each child.
Not much, a few clothes, a pan, cold tortillas for supper.
I wonder if there's somebody who give us
a ride just to the edge of town where we can hitch.
Somebody around here must have a car.
Mrs. Domingo nods.
There's a kid over there with the car.
Gabriel's friend.
That red car.
I think it's running.
She goes to ask him.
Ana and Amelia run to find Carmen and Jane.
And Maria pours water in a glass jar,
puts that jar in one of the paper
sacks, stands looking at her possessions scattered
on the ground.
Maybe you could sell that old wood stove for me,
she says to Manny.
We'll come in and get the money sometime.
We'll look around for you.
He reaches in his pocket and hands her $2.
You take this now though.
I don't know what you're going to do.
Man, you're crazy, taking off like this.
Manny, who knows everything, knows nothing now.
Even though he's still here for another minute or two,
she knows it's all over.
She's alone.
There isn't much time.
Everybody knows it won't take long for the police car
to arrive.
You can count on 10 minutes, 20 at best.
If the kid with the car doesn't come soon,
they'll have to start walking.
But he comes.
You want to ride?
Out South, Maria tells him.
Just there by the highway.
Somebody will stop for us there.
Get in.
It's not often they're in a car.
They don't really know anyone who has one.
And Carmen has never been in a car at all, not one that runs.
Only the one they play in.
Mrs. Domingo stops them.
Maybe Carmen ought to stay here.
I'll keep her or any of them.
Any of the little ones.
Maybe the big ones could help you with the house.
But the baby just be in the way.
Maria shakes her head.
Seems like I want them all for company right now.
So they go.
All of them sitting close together, not saying a word.
Lot of Indians are standing there,
watching as they drive away.
Manny too.
Two blocks away, Maria says to the driver,
what if I stopped for just one second over there by Jude.
He shrugged.
He wouldn't go there himself.
But he slams on the brakes when he gets to the shrine.
Be careful if you don't want the cops to see you.
They come right down the street.
It's for 1 minute only.
There is nothing to say to Jude either, really.
Still, you feel like he's your best friend in town,
and you don't leave without at least a nod.
It would be good to give him something to remember you by.
But when all you've got stuffed into a few little paper sacks,
he'll forgive you.
Well, Jude, old friend, come on, the boy behind the wheel
calls out.
So they're on the way.
A glance at the B-29 bar as they go by.
The cathedral, the secondhand store, people Maria knows.
Nobody sees Maria Vasquez passing by in that red car.
Nobody waves goodbye.
It's not far to the highway that takes you
through the reservation.
They say that highway keeps on going West
until it reaches the ocean.
Maybe it's true.
Now the car stops.
Here's where they get out.
Each one except Carmen carrying a paper bag.
They watch that red car turn back to town,
watch it out of sight.
They move to the side of the road, back in the dirt,
facing the direction they want to go--
West, toward the lowering son.
They're close to the mountains now.
Jagged, rough little mountains.
Piles of cactus and rocks.
Maria is impatient.
After a lifetime of quiet waiting,
she's surprised at herself.
Come on, somebody pick us up.
Take this crazy Indian home.
It's a while, maybe an hour.
Then a blue pickup truck stops, and they climb in back.
Maria ties her scarf over her head.
They turn their faces to the wind and ride in silence.
It seems so fast, so beautiful to be
rocked in the back of that truck, wrapped up in wind,
dust stinging them roughly.
Maria sings as they drive along.
You can't really hear her over the noise
of the truck and the wind.
But the children look at each other.
They've seen her drunk, but they've never
seen her like this.
They don't know her.
She doesn't care.
Opens her mouth and wails out.
It isn't sad, not angry, the way her voice was when
she yelled at Mrs. Waterman.
She feels it's more like the way a coyote
calls to the moon or the way a hot cries when wind lifts it
or the way a mountain lion plays with his own voice.
So they're going home.
She's glad it's in the back of a truck,
remembers the truck that brought her over the same road
the first time she came to Tucson.
God, I should have jumped.
At the edge of the reservation, the truck stops.
The man comes around and says, well, this is it.
I've got to turn here.
Maria nods.
Anyway, they're this far.
They're on Papago land.
How much farther are you going?"
What am I doing?
"How much farther are you going?
He looks at them as they climb out.
Away, Maria says.
Like a reservation woman, she moves her head
to point the direction.
The truck drives off and leaves them standing there
by greasewood bush, all of them looking around
at the open desert.
The youngest ones are quiet as a bunch of rabbits.
They're field mice.
They're her own desert creatures,
brownness prairie dogs, dry as lizards.
Look over there, she tells them.
See, that's Baboquivari, that's the Papago sacred mountain
where I'itoi lives.
They turn their faces toward that high rough cliff.
Even Carmen looks that way.
Papagos like to be where they can see that mountain,
she says.
You're safe when you see it.
Then we're OK, Amelia says.
Can't no cops get us?
They watch the mountain while they walk.
Maria doesn't want to stand any longer.
She has to be moving.
That's what her body tells her.
So that's what she does.
She knows that's how you stay alive--
just doing what you must.
Like any coyote back in the hills,
like any skinny weed bending down so
its roots won't be blown out of the sand,
like any rattlesnake moving to the warmth
of a rock in the sun.
And right now, all she has to do is walk down the reservation
road with her kids.
All she has to do is keep singing like a fool."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]