El Rio by Jane-Jack Morales
Had it not been for her long black hair you could not have said if she were a boy or a girl standing there, knee deep, feet wide apart in the Río Hule. She was naked, except for her once lime green shorts, which were now faded to pistachio. She stood still, but even so, her presence there rippled through the air, into the water, even rose like a mist over her head into the green on the horizon. Maricella knew exactly where she was and she knew she belonged there. The river stones were mostly smooth. They pressed pleasantly into her chubby feet, rearranging the small bones inside so perfectly that she fit like a puzzle piece into the riverbed. She held her hands out a bit from her body to counter slightly the push of the water against her calves. The stones clicked and crunched together under her step but were not slippery. A murky wisp of mud appeared, then quickly cleared as she took a few steps deeper. She paused again, noticing that the water was colder from a little spring leaking somewhere underneath. In the morning slanted light the surface of the river in some places was multifaceted, a gel, like moving liquid crystal.
Behind her, on the low side of the river bed, was a wide beach, paved in rocks and chalky gravel. Scattered bushes grew there in the thin mud when the river was low. She had often watched as her Tía cut expertly at these bushes to make brooms for sweeping the tamped earth yard around the house. Maricella was alone with the broom section of the river today. No one was gathering, no one had parked on the rocks to wash their car at la orilla. There were no gravel trucks manned with shovelers, noisily and rhythmically heaving the gravel up into the trailer bed. There was only the sound of water moving, distant female voices, birds, insects, and an occasional invisible cow mooing in the distance.
She was not ready to immerse herself, so she leaned down to scoop up water in her palms, dribbled it over her crown several times to cool it, as she knew everyone must do. Even toddlers knew to do this, to avoid getting sick, to avoid the shock of the cool of the river climbing up into the warmer body and bursting too suddenly into the head. Clearing the water from her face with her hand, she watched a floating vine pass by. Buoyant, bright green with waxy leaves on curly stems, standing on top of the surface, it drifted silently by her in the current, a little world of its own, peacefully on the move.
Across the river, on the high green bank facing her, downstream just a bit, Maricella caught movement from the side of her eye, heard a rustle. Turning, she saw a shine of coppery brown, and then a head came up, Aurelio’s horse. The mare flicked her ears, her full body radar settled onto Maricella, who responded with immediate attention. They held each other like that, looking at one another, listening, in a pause, while the air and current moved gently between them. They were interrupted by one, then two, then three other horses that came over the hill and picked their way down the steep bank to the waters edge to drink. The girl and the mare continued regarding one another. Finally the mare stepped down, out of the tall grass, into the gravel, dropped her muzzle precisely, and began to drink.
Downstream, Maricella could see her mother and her Tía rinsing clothes in the river’s side channel that had big smooth rocks, perfect for spreading clothes. Wearing their skirts hiked up and tucked in to the waist so that the hem fell high on the thigh, they scrubbed first pants and skirts, then shirts and underwear on flat rocks. In the middle of the river, far upstream from the washing, her oldest brother surfaced, shook the water from black, thick hair and adjusted his goggles while holding his machete aloft. She was not yet old enough for a machete but when she did turn 8 she would learn to sharpen it, to use it all by herself, and use it not just for cutting banana leaves for tamales.
A hawk cried and circled overhead. The girl tipped her chin up and watched while the stern bird glided over and finally flapped out of sight. Maricella checked her surroundings reflexively, and then dunked her body and her head down into the river, closing her eyes. She gripped the river bottom to brace against the current and screamed as loud as she could into the water, until she ran out of breath. She came up for air and immediately plunged in to scream again. She loved doing this, did it almost ritually, though she did not know why, except that it made her laugh and feel very good. She got out of the water, walked to the path. She mounted her silver sting ray with it’s rotted banana seat and no fenders, and rode toward her mother and the washing.
Maricella gathered and folded her clothes quickly and draped them over one side of the handlebars where she could hold on to them. She pushed off, swung on to the seat and rode effortlessly to catch up to the women walking together on the path. At the last minute, rather than slow down as she approached, she swerved, then sailed past Tía Sonya. Her wheels bumped off the path, into the grass, but she got around and as she regained her balance she turned to look back over her shoulder at her elders and shouted ” Ándale chicas!” Peals of laughter rose behind her like little butterflies suddenly startled up into the trees. Maricella rode on toward home, shirtless, pedaling hard, her uniform clutched at the right handlebar and tied to the left, her imaginary machete.
Artist’s Statement
I write to explore, to understand and to share my experience and my imagination. I was born near the Mexican-American border and have spent much of my life crossing back and forth across that hyphen. I am lucky to have married into a large, rural Mexican family. With “El Río” I tried to give a sense of family, community, belonging to a place; then pair that with a playful and powerful little girl’s potential to bring change.
Jane-Jack Morales was raised in Tucson, Arizona, near the border with Mexico and moved to Texas for college. She became an Occupational Therapist in 1983 and has worked with people with disabilities and chronic pain for forty years. She always wanted to be a good writer, to share healing stories. She has a home with her husband in Veracruz, Mexico, where she has lived on and off. She will be retiring from her therapy practice to live in Veracruz permanently and will be free to practice writing full time. She has work published in Pinhole Poetry.