American River Review 2022 - copy - Flipbook - Page 75
Mama Said
Cathy Arellano
“Always have enough money for car fare and a phone call,” she told me
and my sister innumerable times. When I was growing up, carfare was a nickel
then a dime. Ten cent pay phones were on every corner. She told me that she
had needed her bus money and had to use a pay phone one night.
She didn’t tell me more than that when I asked for more. I was young, and I
understood her message as much as I could at the time. Now that I’m older, I
ache thinking about the cost she paid for that lesson to be etched upon her two
daughters’ psyches.
“Bring your own money when you go to a dance club. Don’t accept
drinks from a man.” Years before “date rape” became part of our everyday talk.
She wasn’t around by the time I turned 21 and was in Amelia’s, the dyke bar
across from Busy Bee Market where my cousins and I made daily trips throughout our childhood for two pound bags of pinto beans, Mahatma long grain
white rice, dozens of Mi Rancho tortillas, so many loaves of Kilpatrick’s bread
that Jesus must’ve thought he was at a wedding, cows of Foremost milk, and
tons of iceberg lettuce, and other dull produce.
I was recently “out” and young and looked both. An older Latina approached me and started a conversation. She said she was an artist, told me the
title of her work. I knew it, told her I couldn’t believe I was talking to someone
whose work I admired. She showed me her driver’s license without me asking.
“Now that you have my address, let me give you my phone number,” she said
without waiting for me to respond.
I hadn’t noticed her address, but I had seen her birthday. She looked
younger than she was. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a receipt and
a pen. She wrote her info.
“Can I buy you a drink?” she said as she handed me the paper which I accepted
without thinking.
I hadn’t been thinking about Mom who had died about five years
earlier, before I “came out.” But when the woman handed me the paper, Mom’s
words came to me.
Buy your own drinks. When you go to a dance club, have your own
money. Don’t let a man buy you a drink or he’s going to think he’s buying more
than that.
“No thank you.”
“It’s just a drink.”
“I know.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No, but thank you.”
“Why not? You’re in a bar. Don’t you want to drink?”
“Well, yeah, sure, but-“
“Are you over 21?” she asked with wide eyes.
“Yes, I’m over 21. It’s just that…my mother told me to never let a man
buy me a drink.”
“I’m not a man,” she said laughing.
“I know.”
“Women are different,” she said smiling. “You like women, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Well then…Bartender!”
“No thank you,” I said walking away.
“Call me!”
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