Not so undercover anymore.
“Every gun makes its own tune.”
— Blondie, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
“Ross” (*see disclaimer at the end) had almost been hunted down in an old hotel in Jerusalem, drank beer with a midget in Berlin, and slept on the deck of a boat on the way to Crete. He’d traveled the entirety of Route 66 and taken photos of every ghost motel and café. He nearly moved to Mexico to marry a girl. He owned an assortment of World War I rifles and vintage handguns. He’d read everything and met everyone.
NOTE: This article was originally published in LatinoMetro on June 7, 2012, three years ago today. Daniel and I later joked that I had unintentionally written myself into the article. Little did I know that I had literally written myself into his life. We’ve now embarked into a new chapter, where we collaborate on creative projects, as well as the great project of living life on this earth.
***
Several years ago, I ran across the written work of Daniel Reyes, when I started to get serious about my own blog – Chronicles of Undercover Mexican Girl. I was curious. Who was out there? Was there anybody else like me? Were there any “Latino” writers trying to make sense of their cultural identities, re-capture childhood experiences, document present-day adventures?
Continue reading “The Films and Writings of Daniel Reyes: Rambling Between Cultures”
(Warning: Do not read this if you have an aversion to loose, dead hair. There are graphic images.)
Every morning before I take a shower, I comb out all the loose hair on my head, as I lean over the bathroom sink, to make sure it doesn’t make a mess on the floor. I have somewhat thick and wavy hair – and I have a lot of hair. Currently, it’s just past my shoulders, so a single hair pulled straight is anywhere from six to eight inches long.
I’ve been writing since I was a little kid. That might sound cute, but I wrote because I was a lonely child with a bad case of anxiety and shyness and only one or two friends at a time, sometimes none. Or at least, that’s how it felt. I was convinced I’d be alone for the rest of my life, growing up to be a lonesome spinster with long white hair and only a garden to keep her company. Sometimes, I still feel that way.
by Alexandra M. Landeros
Written in November 2014 for submission to The Austin Chronicle short story contest. While the story was not selected, it’s currently under revision for future submissions. Excerpt below.
As the night went on, the musicians attending the festival were getting rowdier, drinking beer and whiskey, picking on their instruments around the campfire until they slurred the lyrics and distorted the melodies. Although the official program was over, the campfire parties went on all night. Aurora wished she could let herself loose.
But the more everyone drank and laughed, the quieter Aurora would become, drifting into silence, barely brushing her fingers against the strings, whispering the words. She put her guitar away, no one noticing, not even Jake. She walked over to him, lightly tapping him on the shoulder. He turned, still playing his guitar.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Jake.
“I’m going back to the tent.”
“You’re being a sad-sack. Why don’t you just enjoy yourself?”
“Everyone loves your songs, Jake, easy for you to say.”
“So play ones that people will like.”
Aurora walked off without replying, and about ten feet away, she turned around, hearing Jake sing one of the tunes everyone loved, a tongue-in-cheek song about the border patrol. You sound just like Randy Newman but with Terlingua soul, people would tell him. While the other musicians wore t-shirts and flannel shirts, Jake stood out in a vintage suede jacket embroidered with a desert scene and scuffed cowboy boots. You have style, they’d tell him.
If it hadn’t been for Aurora, Jake would never have known about this festival, out in the middle of nowhere in Terlingua, a quicksilver mining ghost town near the Mexican border in the northern Chihuahuan desert, with the nearest city about seventy-five miles away. She was the one who had inspired him to write the song about the border patrol anyway, when she told him about one of her cousins from Mexico who had crossed over illegally to Arizona.
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