THE LITTLE SOLDIER

It is with the usual anticipation that I enter her shop. "Lulu! Como estás?" "Tommy!" She is with a customer. "Have you come for your manicure. I'll be through in ten minutes." "I'll be back." I walk a block to a kiosk and peruse a girlie magazine. My mind manipulates me with Fabiola's many affairs. I envision snakes writhing around her at the bottom of a pit. "Why did she have to give herself so easily?" I hiss at myself. "Did she never fear a day of reckoning or did she fail to appreciate that during the heat of sex she would reveal all her secrets to me?" Then I think of the others she has purposely avoided mentioning. I am 25 years older and she will survive me by many years, a large part of the early segment spent forgetting me while she's fucking others. I am twisted with repulsion and revenge and seek retribution. How could she fuck so many guys? And I know she's hiding shit from me. By the time I return to the shop, I'm ready to fuck. "Are you going to lock the door." We retreat to the bathroom and exit ten minutes later. I'm never in a hurry in Matamoros. I have no immediate destination. The mañana attitude prevails. I stay for a manicure. She trims the hairs on the back of my neck. "Three times in three weeks. Is that a record?" "I'm at El Bravo every day. I think about visiting you more often, but I don't want to become a nuisance. I smoked a joint before I crossed the bridge. Goddamn dope makes me horny. When's Tomás returning?" "Friday. How's the paper?" "After my hectic schedule of writing columns for years, I walk around Matamoros happily lost. I am a nobody and I'm enjoying it. I have been thinking about writing a novel to determine if I have any serious talent." "What would you write about?" "It would be about the border. I don't know anything else. I've tried to start something when I'm at El Bravo doing nothing, but the writing reads like a journal. Then I think that I may have a talent as a poet, but I put a few rhymes together and they sound like jingles." "Maybe you should concentrate on shorter stories." "I knew that there was a reason I came here besides getting my nails cut. That's a good idea. Do I need to throw more imagination into our trysts?" "Why imagine when you have the real thing!" I leave Lulu thinking that I have cheated on Fabiola again and worried that I may be passing the trucker's VD to her. I've lived with guilt as long as I can remember, but I've become inured to the pain. The first time my parents sent me to the corner store on my own I stole a package of soldiers, which I stuffed in my pants. I was five and I couldn't resist the little green men in their various attack positions. They were summoning their general to lead them into battle. The owner saw me pilfer the package and called my mother and father to inform them that I would be arriving with stolen merchandise. Both my parents were waiting with their arms folded across their chests. I proudly delivered the quart of milk they had requested. "Is there anything else, Tommy?" "No, Daddy." "You don't have anything hidden in your pants?" I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. "You don't have anything you shouldn't have?" "No, Daddy." "You know it's a sin to lie. You wouldn't lie to your mother and father, would you?" "No, Daddy." "Why does it look like you have something in your pants?" "Where, Daddy?" "In your pants." "I don't have anything in my pants, Daddy." "Are you sure?" "Yes, Daddy." "Let me take a look, son." He unbuttoned my pants and extracted the package of soldiers. "What are these?" "I don't know, Daddy." "They look like soldiers to me. How did they get into your pants?" "I don't know, Daddy." I started crying. Dad left to return the loot. My mother held me in her arms. "I want you to buy Tommy his soldiers," my mother ordered my father upon his return. "What!?! You want me to buy your son the soldiers he just stole? What kind of lesson are you teaching him?" "You can't expect a little boy to know the difference between right and wrong. If he had known better, he would have paid for them. He never asks for anything. I want you to go back and tell Mr. Sanchez that we had given Tommy permission to choose something for himself. He didn't know he had to pay." "Do you know how embarrassing it was for me to return the package? Now you want me to return and buy it! I'm not going to do it." "Then give me the money and I'll buy them. My son is not a thief. He didn't know better and I'll explain that to Mr. Sanchez before he spreads vicious rumors about your son." She stalked out the door. I sat on the couch as my father glared at me. But he was powerless once my mother had made the final decision. She returned and passed my father without addressing him a word. "Here, mi 'jito. Give mommy a kiss. Now go to your room and play like a good boy, but don't forget the next time you go to the store that you can't take things without paying for them. Do you understand?" "Yes, mommy." "I love you, Tommy." "I love you, mommy."