Prose
The Want
From Huizache 6
Octavio Solis
First Christmas back from college and El Paso is a stark and lonely place. My dad’s asleep in his easy chair. Mom’s got the caldo de pollo simmering on the stove for me. But something else simmers in my private heart. This want deeper than carnal grinds me down. This unquiet urge slowly reams me out.
I’m locked in my room, poring through my high school yearbook, studying the florid signatures of all my pretty classmates beseeching me to call whenever I’m in town. Hearts for punctuation. Smiley faces dotting the i’s. 2 Sweet 2 B 4 Got 10… What can they possibly mean except U R 4 Got 10 already?
The Eight Incarnations of Pascal’s Fifth
From Huizache 5
Fernando A. Flores
Of the eleven sailors that drowned saving the civilian vessel Louisa Marcondes from sinking into the roaring soup of the Pacific, five were destined to keep returning, crossing paths in different lives.
In a linear timeline, the first incarnation fated them to be remembered as the Green Children of Curlywee, later interpreted as a Scottish folk tale about three boys and two girls with a green skin tone who appeared delirious and grief-stricken, all of them shivering, muddy, and holding hands, making throaty sounds like grinding glass to communicate.
The Presidents at Table
From Huizache 5
Alia Volz
In my twenty-seven years in this country, I’ve met every sitting President, with the sorry exception of Mr. Obama. They didn’t always meet me, but I met them.
“Can I take the plate now, Mr. Bush?”
“More water, Mr. Clinton?”
Depending on the shift, I was a food runner or busboy, sometimes both. I tried to address each man by name, to feel those powerful syllables crackle in my mouth. Clin-ton. Ray-gun. I tried to act natural, though always with perfect respect.
My Father’s House
From Huizache 4
Rubén Martínez
I returned to my hometown of Los Angeles after the better part of a decade away, lured by a job, by thoughts of impending fatherhood. My wife Angela, pregnant with twins, and I start to look for a house just as the real estate bubble reached its mad height, tearing a grand canyon through the social fabric and opening up the greatest disparity in wealth since the robber barons. Even with the offer of a massive no-interest loan from my Jesuit benefactors to help with financing, we couldn’t find a place to live. We were always outbid. On 1,000 square-foot houses going for 850K even though they were within sight and scent and earshot of the Golden State Freeway.
A Bedtime Story
From Huizache 2
Michele Serros
A week into our marriage, I insisted to my new husband that we buy a new bed, immediately. Two older couples we both highly respected, Happily Married 20 Years and Happily Married 38 1/2 Years, advised us that there wasn’t just one secret in keeping a marriage happy, but rather two: a good refrigerator and a good bed.
“So, how much does ‘good’ cost?” I asked Happily Married 38 1/2 Years.
And as so many happily married couples do, they answered in unison. “About eighteen hundred.” “For both the bed and the fridge, right?” my husband asked, hopefully.
“No,” they laughed, again simultaneously. “Each. But if you have to choose, a good bed..
Changes in Altitudes
From Huizache 3
Domingo Martinez
South Padre Island, during the off-season, is not for the faint of liver. The real cast-iron kidneys run free from September to February, during the grey months, when the hotels roll up their sandy stoops and bring in their umbrellas for the season. It’s during that time of year when people choose the seclusion and separation from mainland Texas to find whatever it is they’re avoiding, or run away from what they’re looking for, or might be looking for them.
This is where seasoned drunks and fishermen go to retire. People from all over the world come here to live out their