Lipstick con Chorizo

By Tommy Villalobos

A Chicano romantic-comedic-drama. Of sorts. Two combustible sisters take generous swipes at each other’s cabeza; one young man seeking love, displays his plumage while a young woman yawns; a son wants to be somebody, anybody; and one Grand Méjicana is a stellar cook, animal importer (when the sun goes down), and cultural cop. All engage in a fierce hunt for hidden wealth.

Interspersed into the lively dialogue is the culture and milieu of East L.A., which in the story could substitute for any barrio anybody ever heard of. In otras palabras, it could take place any place. This story is for all you who love Comedy or Romance or Drama; and for all of you who hate Comedy or Romance or Drama.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tommy Villalobos
• Release date: Jul 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301048595

Tommy Villalobos

Born and raised in East Los Angeles, I have always loved reading and writing. My goal in life is for people to read what I'm writing and then double up laughing, dislocating something. But modest giggles are OK, too.

Book preview

Lipstick con Chorizo

Published By Thomas Villalobos At Smashwords

Text Copyright 2013 Thomas Villalobos

All Rights Reserved

To my wife Gloria Anna and son Tommy Jr. for their inspiration, love and cariños.

Y

To Armando Rendón, El Editor Somos en escrito online literary magazine, for his help and unwavering support.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1

The sun, which is such an agreeable fixture in and around Southern California, had to work overtime this day to get through the haze and onto the streets of East Los Angeles. On such days, East Los seemed to sit on a remote planet 200 hundred light years away from Mother Earth. The sun took on the appearance of an overripe tangerine in an off-blue sky, sharing its rationed light with the Lydia Télliz palace (for it was an impressive dwelling). It was High Noon of a June day.

The Lydia Télliz domicile dominated a block on City Terrace Drive. It was far enough forward toward the street to catch all the Hip Hop streaming from passing cars and the strident barking of dogs. The pale sun was trying to illuminate the dwelling’s rich rose bushes, vibrant lemon tree, and its twin jacarandás decorated with clusters of purple blooms. Cement block fencing topped with decorative Spanish wrought iron encased the whitewashed, Spanish-style home like a special glass enclosure protecting a precious stone.

The dim sunlight was reflected on every petal, every leaf and every square inch of city pavement except on the heart of Ernest Télliz, the 26-year-old son of Lydia Télliz. Ernest appeared to be a gawky Azteca soldier who had not eaten after several rigorous campaigns into the far reaches of the empire. He was gazing in a sullen and trapped sort of way at an object that had just appeared on the sidewalk down the street, and growing.

The object increasing in dimensions was an advancing Méjicana, an unmistakably agitated Méjicana, quick-stepping, flushed face, eyes resembling two good-sized eggs, sunny side up, struggling to maintain her dignity as she tromped the pavement before her. Everything on City Terrace Drive spoke of a fine dignity with a quick ability to correct the improper, but nothing more so than the image of the Grand Señora Rosa Calatarudo Risna, known throughout the neighborhood as Doña Risna.

In East L.A., some venerable women carry themselves with composure and solemnity. Others, keeping up to what current trends dictate, are flexible and open to engage in any brio that crosses their paths. Doña Risna was clearly of the former class, a class of women from Méjico that has had a pipeline to East Los Angeles as far back as anyone who scratches his cabeza and makes an effort can remember. Their decorum and equanimity reaches the level of majesty. Unless circumstances dictate otherwise.

Oiga, Señor, Ernesto, said the now nearly full-sized Doña Risna, breathing rapidly, I saw Pete in your house yesterday.

On an extended head-trip, as he often was when he stood on his porch in the sun, Ernie continued to gaze upon the charging elder Joan of Arc in the guise of Doña Risna who was aiming to set things aright in the Wild East of L.A. He was mesmerized by the normally composed figure of Doña Risna appearing to be someone looking for chingazos. He could now distinguish her features that alleged the world was upon her shoulders topped by Jupiter.

She was flushed and appeared to have just seen El Cucuy. He could now hear her breathing, which was strained as well as rapid. She stopped in front of Ernesto’s semi-conscious form. He appeared to be deliberating whether she was a vision or irritating reality.

¿Qué no me oyez, Señor? said Doña Risna, still breathing heavily. Show some life, hombre. Speaking out does you good like a vendedor en la calle. That’s what keeps them happy.

Who wants to be a happy vendedor en la calle?

¿Qué?

I wouldn’t be one. Not even a happy one.

Well, anyway, I woke you up.

With a powerful effort, Ernie kept his eyes on her eyes, giving him an unpleasant feeling. He then looked away and gave the off-blue sky a dirty look.

Lousy life, he said, still looking at the off-blue sky.

At times, sí.

Dog’s life.

Life can be llena de triste, sí, Señor.

Ernie resented her agreement although stated in support of his wail of woe.

A lot you know about tristezas, he said hotly, for hotly was the only way he could say anything when in his present state. You’re a viejita with no more worry than getting to church and deciding what old dress to put on before you get there. Know what I mean? Ever been in County?

The woman jumped toward the off-blue sky.

¿Qué?

You haven’t. See, you don’t understand.

Ernie fell into a moody silence. He was thinking of his lack of funds, a constant reminder that he was under full dependence on his mother, Lydia Télliz, a sometimes real estate agent and singer/dancer/actress wannabe, and a domineering grand dame of her world.

He came out of his intermission with a grunt. He now had an urge to take this senior into his confidence, hiding nothing.

You know what I am, Doña Risna?"

¿Qué?

A bird in a cage.

No me digas.

I’m a gusano.

You just said you were a pájaro in a jaula.

I’m also a gusano. A miserable, stepped on Hey-you-come-here! of a gusano who can’t see the sun because of all the dirt covering him. What are those things they have in China?

Lámparas that don’t work?

Peasants. I’m just a peasant. I’m told to go here, go allá, stay there, don’t stay here. I’m treated like a dog. A stray. With fleas. And the thing about it, I used to be on my own, girls throwing themselves at my feet so that I had a hard time walking down the street. All that is over now.

No me digas.

Símón. All gone. Ran through it. Wasted my youth, spent money like it grew in my madre’s garden. This should be a lesson to all East L.A., Señora, not to waste what you have.

Órale. I see.

Being the fool, wasting your life. Worthless. If you don’t have worth, where are you?

Así es.

‘Así es’ is right. Can you lend me five hundred bolas?

No, Señor.

Ernie had not really expected a loan. But one night cruising Whittier Boulevard and seeing dazzling, shiny cars filled with pretty, shiny women illuminated by bright lights, and needing gas for his 1958 convertible Chevy Impala, as well as brakes, he thought it worth the effort to hit her up for the cash. Grand women from Méjico packed their money away in colchónes, coffee cans and hoyos in the backyard, and he believed they should willingly share their wealth with hard-up neighbors.

How about a hundred?

No, Señor.

Ernie ceased and desisted. He saw it was a mistake to talk about a misspent life with this Grand Méjicana who wouldn’t understand. He stood scowling darkly, and then smiled. He remembered that good ol’ slap-on-the-back Pete Simala had come to this sorry house yesterday. This changed everything. She was a prime source of coins. Petra Antonia Simala was his mother’s sister.

I have to see my Tía Pete Simala, he said.

I have to see your mother, Lydia, Señor, she said, her breath fully restored.

Pásale-pásale.

Gracias, Señor.

The woman made a regal entrance, and Ernie, feeling a little sleepy, decided to sit on the porch swing, thinking that later on would be a better time to hit Pete in order to reorder his finances.

It was the worthy bato taking a rest.

Doña Risna was in the kitchen with a glass of iced tea. Lydia had provided the refreshment with a promise to return. Doña Risna frowned as she drank the tea on this warm day. Her demeanor became agitated. The Télliz cat, a fat Persian, brushed itself against her leg. She kicked the feline in the ribs, which sent it flying against a cabinet, hissing then scrambling away. There is a time for scratching a cat’s chin and there are times for a good patada.

When Ernie Télliz, in their conversation on the porch, had described Doña Risna as a viejita with pointless concerns, he had been deluded, as casual observers of Grand Méjicanas often are deluded. Grand Méjicanas, like iguanas, hide emotions behind wrinkled skin and colorful displays, iguanas choosing varied skin coloring, Grand Méjicanas colorful shawls and language. Her present concerns were of the most serious nature and she was inwardly chafing.

It was because of Pete Simala that she was inwardly chafing, as she had been ever since she arrived here yesterday. She was cursing the idiot fates that had delivered Pete now and asking herself repeatedly what would happen. The woman knew too much. Her future depended on Pete’s silence. That question was causing Doña Risna to squirm as if she were sitting on a bucket of squid.

She heard loud bustling from a closed room across the hallway. Duty of womanhood, stern daughter of her Méjicana ancestors of appropriateness, decorum and dignity, or something like that, she abandoned her morose posture, once more taking on the air of an upright, bring ‘em on Doña Risna.

The closed door harbored a small studio/office with glass doors that opened into a cheery garden filled with a wide variety of small trees, flowers, plants, and proactive slugs. It caught the noonday sun, and for those who appreciate such things, a telephone pole stood at attention just beyond the garden wall. Pete Simala sitting at a large desk beside the glass doors, a laptop on, of all places, her lap. She was too busy to admire gardens or telephone poles. She was in the process of writing her sister Lydia’s portfolio for a movie company looking for a Latina dancer to hotfoot it behind the leading lady and man while they exchanged breathless whispers and sighs.

Pete was an easygoing, energetic, friendly Chicana in her late thirties built along charitable dimensions, wearing comfortable overalls. India could be one way to describe her, high cheek bones, caramel complexion, with large, ready-to-laugh eyes of bright hazel highlighting her bloodline and made her , if not spectacularly beautiful like her sister Lydia, definitely striking. Everybody liked Pete Simala, even in Los Angeles, where it is frowned upon for anyone to like anybody.

She ceremoniously raised her hands, then began to type softly and speak loudly. Her voice was a saucy contralto, and Jimmy Atañya, a young friend of hers who had worked with her at the L.A. Daily Times, said she was likely to use it as if she were trying to get the attention of a boy and his llama high on an Andean mountainside. Jimmy informed her that she had a fallback career as a hog caller in the Ozarks.

She bellowed as she typed, Dancing! Let me tell you about my dedication to dancing, first learning as a hesitant, eager, wide-eyed girl of fourteen…¡Mentirosa! You were already in your late twenties…and nothing hesitant or wide-eyed about you. You were a—

The door opened. Doña Risna appeared. Pete held up a hand. —people-shoving worldly chola…Doña Risna!

I thought it was you, Señorita.

From one end to the other.

Estoy en acuerdo, Señorita.

Just the person I want to be interrupted by, Doña Risna. If I don’t get some input soon, I’ll be blabbering like a fading soul in the desert. Have you ever written a portfolio for a has-been dancer?

No, Señorita.

It is draining to the soul and the mind.

I wouldn’t doubt it, Señorita.

So will you give me some of your wisdom from the depths of our culture, going back to your parents, grandparents or some ancient dicho from antiquity you picked up in the streets and byways of Méjico?

¡Cómo que no!

From what my sister told me, you should get online and charge for your wisdom. Always there, wisdom for the asking. A modern Confucius with a Latina swagger. Never refuses a request.

No, Señorita.

Pete, who had been sitting with her feet on the desk, slid them off and set them firmly on the carpet. She set her laptop aside, wheeled her chair closer, and stared into the green eyes of the Grand Méjicana, the sage of City Terrace. This was her first opportunity to chew the rag with her.

I hear you are direct and to the point, Hermana Risna. I also understand you are, at the same time, reserved, as a rule. But at the moment, it seems as if you want to say something to me but are stifled, corked, embarrassed and smothered by circumstances.

Si, Señorita.

Don’t be. I now see you have a conscience. I also know your secreto, Doña Risna.

Si, Señorita.

I recognized you the moment I laid eyes on you. Yours is the face that sticks out even in a shoving and pushing mob at a Black Friday sale. I bet you wanna’ know what I’m going to do about it?

Si, Señorita.

Pete smiled. Her smile, enchanting as all get out, lit up her face as if some inner MP3 Player had been cranked up and she was hearing music no one else could hear. Doña Risna, seeing it, was relieved. The load that had been weighing on her espalda and corazón since yesterday afternoon when she encountered Pete in Lydia Télliz’ sala was lifted.

Ningúna cosa, said Pete. My labios are sewn shut. The terrible truth will be buried with me when and if that happens. So lighten up, Doña Risna, and let’s hear that cackle of yours, which they tell me can be heard all the way to Belvedere Park.

Doña Risna refused to laugh. Señoras of her dignity and bearing from Méjico refused to laugh under the circumstances. To laugh now would be to violate the code of modesty established as soon as there were sufficient amounts of Señoras of proper age in Méjico to establish said code. The code was carried north and has roots in barrios from Durham to Walla Walla. She did permit a corner of her upper lip to move slightly upward and looked upon this noble woman with adulation, which woman of her age group reserved for personages like Vicente Fernández and La Virgen de Guadalupe.

She had no such adulation for the members of the jury that five years previously had sent her up the river to do time in what the L.A. Daily Times, as written by Petra Simala, Pete’s byline, described as justice for decent people everywhere.

I am grateful for your Alzheimer’s, Señorita. It has come at a good time in my life when I want to move on and re-invent myself into something resembling an honest vecina.

¿Y por que? You are what you are. You’re the best cook the State of Zacatecas ever produced. I heard and ate proof last night. Walk into any house on the West side and they will pull you in and lock you up only letting you out to feed, cook and scrub.

Si, Señorita, but there are reasons I want to stay around here.

¿What are they?

Personal razones, Señorita.

Hey, privacy is sacred to me. Within limits. Anyway, I won’t rat on you.

Muchas gracias, Señorita.

I’m sorry if I have caused you to spaz. It must have been a terrible shock when you saw me yesterday walk into the living room as you were talking to my sister.

Si, Señorita.

You must have felt like the first person to see La Llorona come down the camino griping about her kids.

It was just like that, Señorita.

Pete lit a small cigar.

Funny you remembered me. But I suppose a defendant in a major trial can’t help noticing a newspaperwoman sitting right behind her everyday for three weeks.

I have always liked to watch people, Señorita.

Too bad I gloated when they sent you up.

Si, Señorita.

But you have to admit, you had it coming.

With both barrels, Señorita. ¡Pero fíjate! Don’t talk so loud, Señorita. The walls are thin and gente nowadays have big years.

Big what?

Ears, Señorita.

Oh, ears! True. They do, huh? What was it like in Corona? then whispered Pete.

Muy feo, Señorita, whispered Doña Risna.

Not one of Cali’s better inns, whispered Pete in agreement. Hola, Ernie, said Pete, returning her voice to her normal Exceptionally Loud.

Ernie, his nap ended, wobbled at the glass doors.

Doña Risna left the room, her back the object of a scornful and censured glare a rejected bato gives a Grand Méjicana’s back whose Grand Méjicana’s front has denied him five then one hundred bolas. He wobbled to a sofa.

I need to talk to you, Tía.

And you will, my relative. Get a load off your mind. Dios mío, Ernie, said Pete with the honesty of an aunt of 26 years and counting, you’ve aged a ton since the last time I saw you. My jaw dropped several feet yesterday when I saw you. You are a bipedal collectible, something people shove in their attic because it’s seen better days. Your hair looks like a brush with missing bristles.

I’m thinking of getting hair replacement therapy.

No good. There’s only one way for emerging baldness. A French dude came up with the idea after downing a few bottles of good wine and several loaves of bread. The guillotine. Living with Lydia will do that to a person’s pelo. I can’t imagine a quicker way to turn a fine head of hair into a dozen struggling spikes than sharing four walls with my sister.

Ernie felt like humming to her words. Tía Pete, he said to himself, had always been a cool ruca. Being the son of a woman who felt money was to be collected and taken out and admired once a year depressed him.

It’s a sad life, he agreed. She oppresses me, Tía. I’d be better off at Folsom. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to her dancing there.

Does Lydia practice a lot?

24/7.

Torture. Of course, it’s her career. Good for her. Keeps her content and non-threatening. You know, happy.

Ernie held up his hands toward her.

Do me a favor, he pleaded, don’t mention vendedores en la calle.

Which vendedores en la calle would those be?

The ones who are happy.

Are vendedores en la calle happy?

Doña Risna says they are.

A throaty laugh escaped Pete Simala.

Doña Risna! If my lips weren’t sewn shut, I could tell some juicy tidbits about Doña Risna. She is not what she seems.

Like life.

She is someone you don’t know. That’s Doña Risna. What a woman! I bet you look on her just as an everyday sort of pickled Méjicana, the kind you see in the movies bawling because of this or praying because of that. Let me tell you, our hermana Doña Risna has her other side. But like I said, my lips have fiber threads in them, so don’t even go there.

Ernie was baffled.

Was she your camarada going way back? I mean, like, you only got here yesterday. Did you know her from before?

Yeah, and in a bizarre way. But don’t go there I said.

I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t care about Doña Risna. I swore off of Doña Risna. She hurt me.

You don’t say? ¿Y por qué?

I asked her for a little loan a while ago, ¿y que crees, said Ernie, sincerely upset, "she refused me. She said ‘chale’ like she didn’t even know me. The woman probably has a fortune stuffed in her colchón y más in her girdle. Gracias a Dios for tías like you, Pete. You wouldn’t do