Mexican Day: A Tinkering Story

CAUTION: This story deals with harsh contemporary themes including racism.

2014

Palm Shadows

Unit 118

Wednesday

8:12 a.m.

It was Mexican Day.

Shirley awoke to a cacophony of blowers and mowers and trimmers and sprayers, punctuated by harsh foreign phrases and derisive cackling. Not a peep when she ventured outside, which she strove mightily to avoid doing before 11, when the HOA sent them packing.

Her sole contact had been the winter prior, when the Mexicans had thrice sheared her oleanders nearly to the nubs, and despite her patient but stern explanation of the issue and the need for its resolution, the Mexicans apparently had miscomprehended her instructions and decapitated her aloes, as well.

A Mexican brushed past Shirley’s patio, clippers in his canvas-gloved hands, and Shirley turned her vertical blinds and glanced beseechingly at the bearded, vaguely European man on the beige wall opposite. The man on the wall offered up kind blue eyes tinged with pain; a thread of blood trickled from the woven tangle of thorns circling his wavy auburn hair.

It didn’t help. Shirley settled into her recliner with the Mother’s Day mug she’d ordered from Amazon (a nice verse from Proverbs), hoping to drown the sound of milling Mexicans with Fox and Friends. That Robin Roberts was all right, one of the good ones, but Shirley wasn’t about to listen to any garbage that came out of that runt Stephanopoulos’ smarmy mouth. That left the local channels, and all she needed was a small platoon of Mexicans in suits and skintight dresses to take her mind off the Mexicans outside in their sun hats, orange vests, and jeans.

Shirley defaulted to a beaming Joel Osteen and settled back. It wasn’t that she was racist or anything. Her church back in Racine always anted up to get the Blessed Word to starving Africans or Chinese villagers. Her minister had admonished his flock to show only the love of Christ for the gays, else you could never get them into God’s house and set them back on the literal straight and narrow. A group from her former winter congregation even traipsed down to the Muslim mosque in Phoenix in the hope of bringing the Arabs from Allah to God. You had to offer the olive branch from time to time.

She looked again to Jesus, who regarded her, it seemed, with sympathy. The hum of Mexicans gradually faded -- she’d check the oleanders after the coast was clear.

Shirley perked momentarily; her nostrils flared at the unmistakable perfume of cheddar and caraway, an undernote of hops and barley and home-ground sausage. She hadn’t fixed her mom’s brat-and-beer chowder in months, and with the diabetes the Indian who’d taken over Dr. Nordstrom’s practice had diagnosed, all that was in the fridge were bags of Dole mixed greens, Weight Watchers entrees, and her Diet Decaf Pepsi. Fleetingly, Shirley entertained carnal thoughts that could lead only to Applebee’s or Denny’s, but as she righted herself, the aroma simply vanished.

Burnt toast, the speaker at the senior health fair had warned. The smell of a stroke, in the absence of actual burnt toast. Shirley pondered if somehow, the anomalous smell of Wisconsin chowder might signal a short-circuit somewhere else, and she forced herself to recite the books of the Bible. As she rounded the countdown with Revelations, she smiled gratefully at the man on the wall and rebuked the temptation of dense, meat-laden soup.

A lawn mower erupted in the common between her condo and the nice young couple who still appreciated their country enough to fly two flags from their patio. Though the HOA board eventually made them take down the second one over some PC nonsense. I mean, the man had transferred to Gilbert from Alabama or Arkansas, possibly Anaheim, and certainly had the right to some hometown pride.

The Mexicans’ riding mower roared toward her patio, drowning Joel’s sermon on humility and the meek, and Shirley cranked the volume until the reverend practically shouted the glory and the glass angels on top of the entertainment center clattered and capered as if enraptured by the Spirit. She peeked up. Jesus smiled down with approval.

**

Shirley belched again, stretching Mr. Waffles’ name into six syllables. The chowder had been a horrible idea, and after the rest was gone in a couple of days, she’d promise, pray to be a good girl. She could sense Jesus’ sorrow as she mopped up the second bowlful.

“WAFFLES!” she bellowed into the Arizona night before remembering herself. Despite repeated notices on the mailboxes and at the monthly poolside meetings, Shirley’d refused to restrain her boy. It wasn’t like that beastly shepherd the dyke at the end of the lane paraded past twice or three times a day, sending poor Waffles into hissing, pissing fits of terror with its hyperactive “curiosity,” or that beady-eyed killer pit on the other side of the complex, laying surely in wait as the Mexicans’ overstimulated litter hugged and tugged and frolicked about it like a pagan rite.

What if one of the hellhounds had slipped the leash?, Shirley pondered with an icy spike to the chest. Or a coyote – the new construction eating its way across the Valley was driving them more and more frequently into Gilbert, though the libtards tried to put it all off on the global warming hoodoo. The icicle thawed as she spotted the double glint of yellow – Mr. Waffles’ eyes catching the gibbous moon that provided the only light over the common.

“Hey,” Shirley growled. “Get it in here, mister! I’m missing Judge Karen!”

The glowing eyes blinked twice, and they flickered as the calico tom approached. Then they disappeared, seemingly as the obstreperous feline turned back toward someone – a mere shadowy edge of someone just beyond the white pine she’d been after Danzer and the rest of the HOA to level. Probably the lezzo, out relieving her monster on the grass.

“Wafflessssss,” Shirley hissed hoarsely.

Mr. Waffles turned into the moonlight, and his double beams again twinkled. Just as a second set of eyes blinked into view. Two luminescent orbs embedded in the barely shadow just beneath the lowest-hanging pine branch. An inch or so beneath the limb the Mexicans had newly trimmed to meet Palm Shadows’ eight-foot conifer canopy restriction.

Shirley slammed and latched the patio slider. Breathing harshly, she peered out at what had to be some kind of drone or a double flashlight beam to identify where you intended to leave Rover’s steaming log. It blinked sluggishly, the perfectly round, perfectly inhuman orbs eclipsing and reflecting the three-quarters moon. Some seven feet below, Mr. Waffles peered back, his eyes indecipherable but seemingly placid.

Then Shirley’s fingers squeaked down the double-paned glass as the white orbs dipped and Waffles’ placid amber eyes levitated roughly four feet above the gray-green turf. Shirley’s lenses clicked against the patio glass as she mutely awaited the final screams of her precious being pulled apart by whatever satanic abomination had drifted into the subdivision, of said abomination loping off to enjoy its late-night snack in private.

But Mr. Waffle’s eyes glittered and blinked as it continued to stare, now unblinkingly, toward the terrified old woman across the lawn. The moonglow captured a shadowy movement – neither aggressive or advancing; simply a rhythmic movement accompanied by Waffle’s yellow eyes narrowing nearly to slits. Everything seemed to stop except that moving shadow, and Shirley heard it, a low rumble, like a muffled motor across the common. She prayed maybe the nice patriotic boy or his wife might venture out, frighten the intruder or at least distract it toward larger, tastier prey.

Then she recognized the sound. It was stroking Mr. Waffles. And Waffles was entranced, purring in a way he never had during brushing or Kelly Ripa. Shirley’s horror ebbed as a wave of resentment flowed. When the purring ceased and the yellow eyes reemerged at ground level. When a plump orange-and-white face appeared on the stucco patio wall and then expectantly at the glass, Shirley rapped once on the pane.

“No,” she told Waffles. “No. You spend the night out there with your new friend.”

But Mr. Waffle’s new friend had vanished. Shirley resolutely turned back toward the sound of America’s astringent judge reading her law to some ghetto plaintiff. Waffles almost immediately settled onto a glider cushion, glancing occasionally and hopefully into the inky commons.

**

8:03 a.m.

Thursday

It was Mexican Day – an undercurrent of harsh laughter, small machinery, and no-doubt profane foreign babble was cutting through the Kilmeade boy’s exuberant report on Mr. Trump’s continued efforts to bring Barack Osama to bay.

A shadow passed the front window as Shirley slid her Jimmy Dean sandwich into the micro, and she frowned. With a pop of the knees, she craned into the flatscreen and eyed the timestamp in the corner. Unless Kilmeade himself had choreographed the Fox & Friends chyron, it was Thursday. The Mexicans had rampaged through the previous morning, Shirley might add leaving her bougainvillea a flayed mess.

Danzer supposedly knew the eighth contractor the fourth management company had approved over the hoity old fart’s seemingly eternal tenure, and he’d probably angled a second day’s work for the old bandit and his crew, with a split for himself.

Shirley looked into the kind visage of her Savior for assurance, and blinked. Jesus smiled down, compassion and sympathy in his deep espresso eyes. She blinked, then fairly fled for the kitchen and Jimmy Dean, and the repatriated Mr. Waffles galloped off for the guest bedroom. Shirley punched in the digits that would deliver blessed breakfast, then dialed up Joel, and within minutes, she was consoled, however temporarily, by the pervading scent of fried walleye and cheesy potatoes with the cornflakes on top.

**

“Hola!” The voice was smooth, youthful, and definitely Mexican. Shirley had never messed much with her phone settings, and she’d answered only on the presumption it was the Medicare folks and she’d finally get the opportunity to settle their hash.

“I don’t need or want it,” she barked, flinging her fish into the hatchback. “Unsubscribe me or whatever.”

“No, no,” the Mexican chuckled. “This is Reverend Silva, James – I’m Pastor Denson’s new assistant here at Pin Oak Lutheran. I have a twofold mission today. We’re trying to catch up with some of the members we haven’t heard from for a while…”

“I got a church out here, and I don’t plan on coming back.” The brass, er, set, chasing her out here for a monthly pledge. Figures if they’re hiring guys like this, Shirley reflected.

Didn’t miss a beat, this one. “Well, I’m grateful to hear you have a church home.” Shirley was heading back to her church home as soon as she could get rid of Reverend Jim here, although she’d avoided eye contact with Jesus since the morning. “I have some people out in Mesa. How’s the wea—”

“What’s the second thing?” Shirley demanded, juggling her Idahos and the Kelloggs and the flip phone.

“Yes. With the crises in Africa and Asia, we’re recommitting to refugee outreach—”

She snorted nastily. “I barely got room for me and the cat.” Whoring little traitor, she added silently.

“Oh, no, no. We’re putting together a refugee welcome committee, to help guide the congregation in meeting the needs of our new guests. We want to meet a few times on Zoom, at a time agreeable to everyone. We were thinking, given your special circumstances—”

“I don’t have a Zoom,” Shirley snarled. “What I do have is some walleye about to go bad. And don’t you think we have enough freeloaders swarming in here?”

“That rather surprises me, considering…” James murmured.

“Adios, Reverend Jim,” Shirley sang and hung up best as the antiquated phone allowed.

**

8:00 a.m.

Friday

KPXQ (“Where hope is always on!”) roused Shirley as the Friday morning sun streamed into her bedroom window. She’d slept poorly the previous night, keeping a vigil on Mr. Waffles inside the back slider even after banishing the animal to the patio, and she slapped the Westclox into silence. At one point, Waffles had disappeared into the darkness. Shirley dared not venture from her kitchenette chair, and when the prodigal tom leapt back over the stucco half-wall, she squeezed her eyes shut lest he’d invited his leviathan friend over for a piece of the lemon cream cake his mother’d stomped back into the WalMart for following the upsetting exchange with the Mexican preacher.

She’d bidden good riddance to Wisconsin soon after her dust-up with that woman at the Target who didn’t seem to grasp basic English even as Shirley railed at her and her alien brood. The folks at Pin Oaks, who she’d thought would applaud her loyalty and patriotism, reacted to the news report, the viral video footage with cool detachment, even a bit of disgust. No surprise Reverend Jim had found a gig in that den.

No matter. After a chocolate chip Eggo and a cup of Folgers with Joel, it was off to the Skechers down on Baseline for a new pair of clearance walkers and maybe some Cheat Day chicken fried steak at the Black Bear Diner. Shirley aimed the remote, and was blinded by a white snow of static. She’d hit the wrong buttons last night trying to focus on both the 9 o’clock FOX update and the feline-loving monster lurking out back, and wound up in the settings before giving up. Realizing she’d roamed off-channel, Shirley now toggled up, and was rewarded by the immaculate evangelist’s gleaming caps.

“Dios nos fortalece cuando lo buscamos genuinamente y nuestro corazón está alineado hacia Él,” Joel promised in a voice about two octaves below Osteen’s range. Shirley fell back onto the sofa, waggling the remote and punching away until Reverendo Osteen vanished.

Then the blowers and trimmers roared to life. A shadow filled nearly the entire front window, and for one millisecond, 118’s tenant considered pulling the blind cord. Instead, she cowered in the cushions as laughter erupted under the manicured pine and Shirley’s thawing Eggo sweated on the kitchen formica.

**

It was in the patio shed, tucked into a floral dish towel, concealed in the coil of a leaky, desiccated old hose. Shirley’s gun safe, NRA-endorsed for those without a coffee table.

One of the widows at the Tea Party Auxiliary had conferred it to Shirley after Mr. Hannity warned of the invading horde of cartel gangsters and traffickers swarming across the border with a wink and a nod from President Osama. It terrified her, and into the closet it went, for a rainy day.

Or Mexican Day.

**

9:55 a.m.

Saturday

“Heading for the meeting?”

It was Dodge, the “new” guy from across the way. A tubby buffoon who wore vaguely distasteful shirts with cartoons or snowflake quotes, who small-talked with the Mexicans, and who seemed to have struck up a friendship with the little dyke and her hellhound. An ex-reporter, which only made things better…

Shirley glared at the fool, who had a red patio chair under his arm. The board had called a special HOA meeting after the strange explosion at Mr. Cross’s and the reports of prowlers and according to one renter, a wolf or even bear roaming the complex and the nearby park and soccer fields.

“I’m looking for Carroll Danzer. I wanna know what the he--, what the heck is going on.” She peered left and right. “Boy, they sure cleared out fast enough before the board meeting.”

Dodge frowned and smiled simultaneously. Today, the T-shirt was some leering old psycho in a white coat with a ray gun. God knew what that was about. “Um, you know, I thought they were here Wednesday, like usual. Sarah complain--, commented on the way they’d trimmed the oleander bushes. I mean, Danzer should be at the pool by now, if you want to have a word with—”

But she was already halfway to the pool.

**

“The crazy old bitch had a gun,” Reynolds told the EMT who’d helped haul her out. “We were all over there, about to start the residents meeting when she just comes running through the gate, waving that pistol or whatever in the air. She was yelling at Mr. Danzer, the board president, something about Mexicans and terrorists and monsters. Then I think she just slipped or maybe stroked out, ‘cause she just keels over into the deep end. Jesus, got signs all over not to run on deck.”

“Vieja loca senorra,” the paramedic lamented. He looked down into a face that reminded him somewhat of his own abuela. “Todo está bien ahora, tía.”

**

The woman hovering over Shirley appeared neither alarmed nor a recognizable resident of the Palm Shadows. She was almost inconceivably lovely — if you liked that kind, Shirley mentally grunted — and smiled down with loving serenity.

“You a nurse?” Shirley croaked. The young woman tinkled like a wind chime, and her laughter rustled across the hazy, featureless plane where Shirley now found herself.

Rather, the nymph’s delight had been taken up by a huge throng of equally, ethereally stunning girls. All bore the same somehow unsettling serene smiles, and all were…Arabs. Shirley wondered if somehow she’d wandered into a terrorist cell or some SI spring photoshoot for the overseas edition.

“We are here, for you,” the ringleader purred, echoing her host “mother”s assurances so long ago and stroking Shirley’s cheek with intense adoration. “We have saved our gifts solely for you, fatati al-aziza.”

Shirley wasn’t much for metaphors, and the women converged so quickly, she didn’t get a chance to tally the just short of four-score pure and until now chaste emissaries “Masau’u” had dispatched as Shirley Contreras’ eternal “reward.” There was no word in Masau’u’s language for irony or karma, but Shirley’s abrupt epiphany was as a feast…

And Mr. Waffles rumbled blissfully as Masau’u stroked his velveteen skull…