“Do you think I have a dark side, Carolina?”
Pulling his lips toward hers, Carolina whispered, “It’s what makes you sexy.”
“How so?”
“When you kiss me,” she said wistfully, “it’s like putting a match to paper, a spark to kindling wood. And when you put your arms around me, I know you could either protect me or destroy me. Yes, you have a dark side, Fulgencio. Thank God, you have a dark side.” She chuckled mischievously and pulled him down atop her on the sticky red vinyl seats.
Consumed by lust, Fulgencio cast aside his fears and doubts—thoughts of the family curse slipping from his mind like beads of condensation off a pane of glass—as the heat from their enmeshed lips and bodies steamed the windows.
Thirteen
Fulgencio and his friends elevated their games off the field to alarmingly violent heights. They rumbled for the bat of an eyelash, over the fickle whims of a girl, and—just as frequently—over racial insults hurled by the local White elites at the displaced and impoverished Mexican Americans whose land had been conquered a century earlier. Through that conquest, fortunes and social positions had changed hands, as had command over the laws and their enforcement. So it was that a place with a Spanish name was lorded over by Northern newcomers determined to exact their authority to maintain control and fill their coffers.
Penny loafers and sneakers clashed with boots and huaraches. Bowling shirts and leather jackets competed with guayaberas. Convertibles fended with motorcycles. Jeans, Vaseline, and back-pocket combs were universally appealing as jukeboxes played and hips swayed and fists flew. In the midst of it all, Fulgencio’s senior year advanced in a frenzied blur.
As racial tensions boiled over throughout the South, along the border, the dynamic of discrimination and prejudice manifested itself in an ongoing struggle between gringos and Mexicanos. Certain establishments featured signs refusing entrance to Blacks, Mexicans, and dogs. Frequently, at the movie theater, the park, the beach, or even on the streets of downtown, Fulgencio and Carolina’s romantic reverie was disrupted by a scathing racial insult, a crude joke, a snide remark, or a judgmental stare. And not once could Fulgencio allow the affront to pass unconfronted.
At first, Carolina pleaded, “Why can’t you let it go?”
“Because you deserve better,” he answered.
“Someday things will be better,” she insisted. “We just have to be patient. Times are changing, and people will change with them.”
“Some people must be pushed toward change,” he replied.
He admired her for looking to the future. He supposed that was why she could see past his last name, and the shade of his skin, and his family’s poverty. But he could not resist the pleasure he extracted from the numbing impact of his fists thundering against giving—and deserving—flesh and bone.
As Fulgencio’s opponents on the football field failed to provide a challenge, he increasingly turned his energies elsewhere. Dance halls, coffee shops, alleyways, to him they all seemed like stages for their taboo affair and his resulting acts of vengeance. The closer he grew to Carolina, the more aggressive he became. He became increasingly afraid of losing her, of others scheming to steal her away or come between them. He could not fathom life without her. And as his high school graduation neared, he dreaded the gnawing realization that he would be leaving for college while she would be staying behind to complete her senior year. Doubt crept into the dark corners of his mind, whispering ethereally in disembodied words that rang dissonantly and inexplicably in his ears. Atle ipam motta and anel niteitta, the ancient chants that had tormented him occasionally in the past, now washed over him with growing regularity. How could he possibly be good enough for her? Were the bigots who disapproved of their relationship fundamentally right? How could a pobre méndigo like him be worthy of her? And could he cling to her from afar? Inside his tortured soul, the insidious seeds planted by backward naysayers sprouted and grew into vines strangling his heart, undermining his confidence. Next to her, in their accusers’ eyes, he secretly felt shamed and dirty while she gleamed glorious and clean.
God forbid an innocent boy flirt with Carolina, for he would be pulverized before he could even realize what hit him. And, of course, with Carolina’s beauty blossoming daily, the formula was an equation for disaster. When people spoke of her looks, elegance and style, they often compared her to Grace Kelly. How could he, practically a mojado, a wetback, cling to the likes of her? Didn’t she belong with one of the rich white boys with Anglo names that flowed in English and matched those of the heroes in the schoolbooks and movie stars on the silver screen?
His insecurities and jealousy intensified with every passing day. The audible rage he had been tortured by since childhood left him no safe quarter; the train roaring up from Mexico seemed to never end, its cryptically encoded letters spelling the mystifying words he heard as he demolished anyone who looked Carolina’s way.
“Your losing control, Fully,” she told him fearfully one night as she cleaned his wounds in the back seat of the car.
“Control over what?” he asked, holding her close.
“The dark side you told me about,” she whispered. “I’m worried you’ll take things too far, hurt someone too badly, ruin our future for nothing.”
“Sometimes I feel so confused,” he admitted. “Why am I so angry? You’re all I ever wanted. And I have you.”
“Is it my fault?” she wondered aloud. “Am I to blame? Does the way I act and dress draw too many stares? Should I change my style or do something different with my hair?”
“No,” he replied firmly. “You’re perfect.”
“So are you,” she cried alongside him, wiping the blood from his hands after each skirmish. “I love your passion. It’s something that’s always been absent from my life. You make me feel alive. I thrill watching you fight almost as much as I love hearing you sing. It’s wrong. And I know it. But I can’t change the way I feel.”
Thus, their behavior became complicit. Ashamed yet exhilarated, he understood she used her beauty to lure their prey. Night after night, their lips moistened by the blood of their victims, their hands groped and clawed at each other’s flesh. Steam on the windows. Sweat on the vinyl. Each night a discarded article of clothing closer to the ultimate and forbidden union the nuns and brothers claimed would damn them to hell. At times—as they swayed rhythmically, teetering precariously on the brink of abandoned release, her eyes ablaze, her curls spilling around their intertwined bodies—they wondered if hell could really be all that bad as long as they were sentenced to share its consuming fire forever.
But in the end, Fulgencio’s sense of duty would prevail. He’d nudge her gently away and pray for forgiveness, patience, and the will to wait for the day they could be joined as one under God, preserving her honor. Their frustration knew no limits as they were both consumed by desire. Each yearned to be the vast ocean in which the other drowned.