Like Son
Praise for
Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties
“Lemus is a truly talented storyteller. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
“A spry debut from a writer who’s got the skills.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“An edgy, exuberant debut novel. The sex is fun, rollicking, and a little dangerous; the characters are young and guardedly optimistic … this is an intriguing novel sure to attract readers searching for something urban, lively, and a bit different.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A warm tale of ‘princess dyke’ life in L.A.,
Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties
is a well-crafted and very refreshing debut novel, a welcome contribution to Chicana letters from the new generation.”
—Ana Castillo
“Lemus’ debut, a gen-X coming-of-age story, has a breezy tone that keeps the pages turning. Engagingly told … this tale will charm and earn this first-time author a following.”
—Booklist
“Lemus’ language shifts as fluidly as her heroine’s gender. Think Anaïs Nin translated by James Ellroy … Her sentences at their best are so condensed, so packed and hot, they’re on the verge of exploding … Bursting at the seams with pizzazz and invention, Lemus shows enormous promise.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Lemus’ dynamic language and pacing … offer deep insights into
familia
and
cultura
without an ounce of heavy-handedness.”
—Latina Magazine
“
Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties
is both outrageous and glorious … It’s a wild ride that’s worth every damn cent you spent for the ticket!”
—Helena Maria Viramontes
“An edgy and risky debut that leaps over clichés and lands in the center of the modern-day intricacies of a new generation … Felicia Luna Lemus will indeed be declared a trail-blazing writer.”
—El Paso Times
“Lemus’ writing on love is intoxicating.”
—Ruminator Review
“Toward the end of the story, Nana, one of the wisest characters of
Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties,
exclaims: ‘Dear Mother of God. Is that a boy or a girl?’ Paraphrasing Nana, I dare to ask: Dear Mother of God. Is that a novel or a challenge? Nimble and well-written, this is also a book of transgressions, and a breath of fresh air.”
—Mayra Montero
“Stripper friends, valium-popping moms, lovable Chicana grandmas, and fuckable best friends … this novel reads quickly with its tight prose, rich imagery, and emotion-dappled scenarios … [It] unfurls gritty-hipster-queer-lust stories ready to be devoured.”
—Flaunt Magazine
“First-time novelist Felicia Luna Lemus is fiercely intelligent …”
—The Advocate
“A distinctive and original narrative voice …
Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties
captures the messy, pinball reality of a young, urban dyke princess, struggling to carve out a place in the world.”
—Lambda Book Report
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Akashic Books
©2007 Felicia Luna Lemus
ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-21-7
eISBN-13: 978-1-617750-53-3
ISBN-10: 1-933354-21-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006936533
All rights reserved
First printing
Front cover photograph,
Nahui Olin, 1924,
by Edward Weston; Collection Center for Creative Photography ©1981 Arizona Board of Regents.
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
For T
5 March 2003. Ash Wednesday.
New York City.
A
ll things considered, the flight home was uneventful. I watched a dumb romantic comedy, and I ate soggy broccoli and a dinner roll from the crummy free meal when it came around. After the trays were cleared, I stood in line and brushed my teeth in one of the tiny metal bathrooms. My left arm swollen and throbbing in its plaster cast, I took some aspirin. Eventually, I crashed for a few hours and tried my damnedest to prepare for a time-pressed dash out of the airport.
Finally, three in the morning, careful of my broken arm and the scabbed skin on my chest, I hopped a locked gate and walked across Tompkins Square Park to the Temperance Fountain.
The Temperance Fountain—a Victorian stone structure of humble elegance, distant cousin to the crumbling WPA fountain my father courted my mother at before they totally hated each other. The Temperance Fountain—also not so entirely unlike like the Mexico City fountain where my father’s mother sat when she broke Nahui Olin’s heart. Family cycle come full circle, there I was, a man of thirty, standing at a fountain, taking my turn.
The wind picked up, and I smelled pine. No forests anywhere nearby, only patches of dead landscaping and dirty ice all around, the woodsy olfactory effect was merely a pleasant by-product of the Christmas trees Municipal Services collected all January and crushed into mulch. I reminded myself that the smell, crisp and refreshing as it may have seemed, was still one of decomposition. A sharp gust of cold air cut through my clothes. Chills shivering up my spine, I breathed into my hands for warmth and continued waiting.
I’d wait all night if that’s what it took. Damn, I’d wait for the rest of my life if I had to. And why not? I had only nothing and everything to lose.
My father would have understood.
CONTENTS
1 March 1995. Ash Wednesday.
Los Angeles.
T
he doctors tell me I’m dying. Let’s go for a nice lunch,” he said.
What a fucking crappy way to wake up. Still in bed, I pressed the phone closer against my ear. “Dad?”
“I’m at the V.A. in Westwood,” he said. “Main entrance.”
And, before I could answer, protest, or even just ask a question—like
Where have you been for the past fifteen years?
—he hung up. My father, Francisco Cruz: the ultimate drama queen. Eventually, he would even die on Father’s Day. At sunrise. With me at his side. Seriously. He was such a theatrical bastard. This being the case, it came as little surprise when, although we’d been estranged since I was a kid, he called out of the blue to announce both his impending death and his desire for a lunch date.
As if the fates would have allowed it any other way, I had the day off from my crap job stocking bins at Aron’s Records. So, after I hung up the phone, I pushed myself out of bed and got ready to meet my dad. The prospect of seeing my father must have left me looking scared or just simply like shit because one of my roommates stopped me as I was about to walk out of the apartment.
“Frank, everything okay?” Jen asked.
And this may not seem like much, but it was. That’s not to say Jen was some sort of bitch who didn’t care, it’s just that she and her boyfriend, Ted, ususally minded their own business. Really, they were perfect roommates. Both referred to themselves as “preppy punk,” like it was their way of trying to impress me, like they were so transgressive and cool, but honestly they were pretty square. Comfortingly predictable, sweet, and dull, Jen and Ted were grad students at UCLA, older than me and way more mellow. We all liked each other enough, none of us flaked on our bills, we cleaned up our own messes, but, like I said, it wasn’t typical that I’d get in their space or that they’d get in mine. So anyway, given Jen’s sudden concern, I figure I must have looked like a total wreck when I was leaving to meet my father.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I replied and continued out the door. “Thanks, though.”
Jen didn’t seem convinced. There was no reason she should have been. She stood in the doorway of our Echo Park apartment and watched as I crossed the street, like she thought I might pass out or throw myself in traffic. I got in my rusty tin can little car, forced a smile, and waved to her as I drove away.
Forty minutes of crosstown side roads hell later, I pulled my car up to the hospital’s main entrance red zone. A man sat on the concrete slab bench near the automatic sliding glass doors. My father. I hadn’t seen him since I was eight, but I would have known him anywhere.
In fact, my father and I looked exactly alike. Rather, we shared nearly identical features. But whereas I was dressed in post-teen skater slop, he was dressed to the nines. Fedora cocked on his pomade sleek head, his brown wool three-piece suit slightly wrinkled from a night spent in the hospital, but no worse for the wear, he looked like a Hitchcock flick leading man. Polished wingtip shoes, pocket square, cashmere dress socks—this was the way he had always dressed.
Case in point:
When I was in kindergarten, there’d been a big weekend carnival at school. It was the most awesome event of the year. There were tons of rides and booths. My favorite booth was the one where kids threw ping-pong balls into fishbowls, and if a kid got enough balls in, the carnies would give them a little plastic bag filled with water and a goldfish. I didn’t win a fish, but I did get the consolation prize—a fish-shaped cutout made of red plastic paper like a spotlight gel. You were supposed to hold the plastic-paper fish in the palm of your hand, and depending on how its tail and head curled, it predicted your fortune. There were instructions on decoding the curls printed on the little white and red envelope the fish came in. My fish’s sides kept curling up. I don’t remember what that meant. Really, the curling was just a matter of body heat affecting the onionskin-thin plastic, but to me it was pure magic.
Anyway, the carnival had been on one of my dad’s weekends. And that event marked the first time I realized my dad was unlike everyone else’s dads. All the other fathers were dressed in totally casual outfits—jeans and trainers, some with turtlenecks and denim jackets, others with V-neck sweaters over T-shirts. Almost all of them had shaggy hair and sideburns. They simply looked cool. When we got home from the carnival, I asked my dad why he didn’t wear comfortable clothes like theirs, why he went to the barber shop every week and shaved twice a day.
“Don’t ever let anyone call you a lazy wetback,” he said.
I had no idea how that was an answer to my question. I tried asking my magic fish, but upon closer inspection, its envelope claimed it could tell me only if I was in love, lucky, or tired.
Fifteen years later, I’d been dealt enough jabs—including one incident in junior high when a group of kids threw handfuls of pennies at me, called me a “beaner queer whore,” and were only reprimanded by the lunch supervisor to
Sit down and eat
—that I’d come to understand my father’s reasons for wanting to present a polished front. His attire and grooming was passive resistance of a most dignified form.