"Marina Dreams"

Years ago I met a young woman who acted older than she was. She explained that her parents still acted like children, so she was forced to grow old for them. I wrote the short story “Marina Dreams” with her in mind. It originally appeared in The GW Review and later in my novel in stories Evacuation Plan. The story also won first prize at the Deep South Writers Conference in Lafayette, Louisiana. I spent the prize money eating Cajun food. I’d offer you a bite, but instead here’s a story…

Photo by Joe O’Connell

By Joe M. O’Connell

Marina was my older sister by three years. She was only sixteen, but Mama said Marina is older than anybody, at least since Grandmama died. Every morning Marina crawled into my bed when my eyes were crusty with sleep and told me dreams.

“It was so real, Marco,” Marina said, her dark eyes wide. “Grandmama called from a pay phone. I could hear this other lady with a Yankee accent behind her telling Grandmama to hurry up, and dogs were barking.”

Marina’s lips turned down and her whole face tightened. “I said, ‘Grandmama, do you know where you are? Do you know you’ve been dead to our Texas home for five years?’ Grandmama didn’t speak at first, then she said, ‘Oh, that explains a lot.’

“When I asked about Heaven she wouldn’t answer. ‘I really must hurry, Marina,’ Grandmama said. ‘There are people waiting.’ She whispered with the other woman for a second and they both laughed. And she said, ‘Tell Marco to take out the garbage and not get into fights at school.’ “

I asked Marina, “Did she say anything about Mama?”

Marina smiled and leaned back on the bed. “I told Grandmama that Mama didn’t mean anything when she called her a fat, old cow. I said, ‘Mama was just being Mama, and she was mad that she couldn’t go dancing because you wouldn’t stay home from bingo and baby-sit us.’

“Grandmama clicked her tongue. ‘I’m not mad. My daughter-in-law is a foolish little girl, so different from you. That clock radio was awful pretty, though.’ “

Grandmama won a clock radio at bingo but it was broke up when the drunk cab driver sent Grandmama sailing through the sky and left the stuff from her purse, radio dials, and plastic slivers scattered like confetti. At least that was what Marina told me.

“What else did Grandmama say?” I was finally starting to wake up.

“She said, ‘Take care of everybody. They think they can’t make it without you. And I’ll see you real soon, Marina.’ Then she hung up.”

Marina put her hands behind her head and closed her eyes. Telling me dreams seemed to suck the life out of her. Her face lost color and her hands began to shake. I let her sleep and went and tried to make breakfast for Mama. Mama was born in Greece. Marina said Mama’s parents brought her to South Texas to tame her and keep the wild boys away, but it didn’t help. Papa came from Mexico. He left home for adventure. Papa said Greeks and Mexicans go together everywhere except in the kitchen. Mama’s tortillas were fat and fell apart. Marina did the cooking and cleaned the house.

Mama built fancy doll houses and sold them to rich people. She worked on a bunch at one time because that way she didn’t get bored. Once a month Marina and I had to finish them so Mama could pay the rent. Papa played accordion in a Tejano band, but he only lived here sometimes and his pay shrank on the way home. Most of the time he was on the road squeezing out notes. While he was gone, Mama went to dances most every night. She said her feet couldn’t stay still. When Papa returned, he and Mama didn’t leave their room. Sometimes they yelled at each other, but mostly they pinched each other for fun.

“Your Papa thinks I’m his instrument and he can squeeze me any time he wants,” Mama would say and then wink. “He doesn’t know who is really conducting this orchestra.”

Papa was crazy about Marina. Last year he had worked extra hard so he could save enough money to throw Marina a party for her quinceañera. This was a party for when a girl becomes a woman. Mama said it was a stupid idea. Mama said she was too young to have a grown daughter. Papa laughed and kissed her behind the ear.

“Everybody will know that my Marina has become a woman. There will be a mass with candles and a party without end. I will invite the whole town to get fat off the finest meats and crazy drunk from the coldest beer,” Papa said.

We didn’t see Papa for a month, and, when he did show up, all he did was sleep. Marina said he played his squeezebox in bars as far away as Louisiana to save up for her party. Mama bought bright white and pink cloth to make a fancy dress. Then she sewed fringe and bells on. It shined and jangled like something you might see on TV, only one of the sleeves was longer than the other. Marina had to straighten it out.

Marina was always in the kitchen. Grandmama taught Marina to cook, but she never could interest Mama in anything Mexican except Papa and dances.

“It’s because Mama got married so young,” Marina said. “She and Papa didn’t get to be teenagers, so now that they’re getting old they’re trying to make up for it.”

Marina understood everything, and it was hard to get her mad. During the plans for the party, she was all little-kid laughter one minute and tired sighs the next.

The morning of the quinceañera, Papa was one big grin, and Mama was holding his hand. The priest was waiting, the dress was made, the house smelled of chiles and chocolate, and the dance hall was full of colored streamers.

Everyone was invited. Papa patted his cheeks and said, “My little girl is a woman. Soon I will be an old man.”

Mama cleared her throat and kicked him.

“Marina is the only one allowed to get old in this house,” she said. “I’m not going to stay married to any old man who is full of worries.”

Then Marina walked slowly, carefully down the stairs in the dress Mama had made. She looked like an angel. Only during the night her hair had turned as white as a cloud that holds no rain.

***

“I flew up to the treetops and held on there,” Marina said. Marina flew a lot in her dreams.

“The leaves were soft in my hand. I could see our house below—you need to patch the roof, Marco. Then I let go and stretched my arms above my head like Supergirl. Papa was playing his squeezebox somewhere, and I could see the notes. I flew sideways and plucked them from the air, one by one, and ate them.”

“What did they taste like?”

“I got one bad one that tasted like okra. I was flying faster and faster, passing cars on the highway heading for San Antonio. Then I saw something shining by the side of the road and swooped down to get a closer look.

“It was a suitcase made of the finest leather. I opened it and found a stuffed bear, a bicycle, a puppy, three baseballs, a spinning top, earrings made of gold, and fifty toy soldiers fighting over a flag. I scratched under the puppy’s chin and closed the bag tight. With the handle sagging in my hands I could only fly about two feet off the road, so I dropped down and decided to walk home. I walked for hours and the bag got heavier and heavier. One of the soldiers shot a hole in the bag and the bullet bounced off my shin. See the scar? I had had enough and knew it was about time to wake up and tell you my story, so I put the bag down and flew home.”

I rubbed my eyes. “You left it all behind?”

“Almost,” Marina said. “Before I flew away, I stuck my hand in the bag and grabbed this for you.”

She opened her hand, and it was the spinning top, only it had stopped moving.

“This is life,” Marina said and twisted the top in her fingers. It danced across the floor. “In motion it is a thing of beauty. If you let it slow down, the chips in the wood begin to show and the fancy paint begins to fade.”

I carried the top in my pocket to remind me of Marina’s dream.

***

Marina met Ernesto when the carnival came to town. Usually fairs set up on the edge of our city with their Ferris wheels and dizzying rides. This time the trucks paraded through downtown to a big empty parking lot for a Buick dealership that closed before I was born. One tired old elephant slowly led the way while the children grabbed at his tail. Ernesto was the lion tamer, but the lion was really a bobcat with its claws pried off. Still, Ernesto walked with his head in the air, and his white shirt had not a speck of dirt on it. Of course, his blue jeans were filthy, and his big toes stuck out of his ragged shoes, but his green eyes and greasy pile of black hair kept you looking so it was hard to notice anything else.

But Marina didn’t see him at all. The other girls from the high school crowded around the bobcat cage asking Ernesto questions about the sad beast. Marina, with the white hair that scared most boys her age away, was looking in the other direction. All she saw was the acrobat woman in a bathing suit covered with sequins and a hat made of ostrich feathers. “She is the most beautiful creature,” Marina said. I saw a tear sneak down Marina’s cheek. To me, the woman looked no different than Mama fancied up to go out dancing, and big purple bruises were scattered on the woman’s legs. But Marina stared in awe.

Marina talked Mama into going to the show that night—Papa was off somewhere playing his instrument. The three of us sat in the front row of the plastic bleachers and laughed as the clown’s junky car sputtered backwards and shook ahead, burping blue smoke.

Then came the lady in the shiny swimsuit. Marina clutched Mama’s shoulder and pointed as the woman climbed a tall ladder. Mama kissed Marina’s cheek. “You are my girl after all,” Mama said and laughed. When the woman reached the top of the ladder, she put a rope in her mouth, dropped her hands to her sides and spun in circles like my top. I could see Marina’s eyes spinning around her head in time with the sparkling lady.

When Ernesto came out with the bobcat, every girl in the place had her mouth hanging open, including Mama. But not Marina. She stared at the place where the spinning lady had been. Ernesto noticed her stares and looked up, too. Seeing nothing, he shrugged and decided he must get the attention of this white-haired girl. I think Ernesto liked the challenge. He danced with his bobcat. Still Marina stared up. He dressed the beast in a baseball uniform and beat it with a plastic bat. He stuck his head sideways into the bobcat’s mouth. No use. Marina stared upward as something began to spin inside of her. Mama sat up straight and smiled. I think she thought Ernesto was showing off for her, certainly not for the daughter who was so very old. Mama blinked her eyes at Ernesto and her cheeks turned a deep red.

***

“The circus elephant’s eyes were so beautiful and sad,” Marina said. “I could tell by looking in them how very hurt he was at always having to perform for his peanuts. He seemed to be begging me, so I looked down at my chest and found a zipper. I pulled it down slowly and walked out of my skin. The elephant smiled and nodded his head. He stretched his trunk down and found his own zipper. He left an empty sack of gray in the sand. We put on each other’s skins like Halloween costumes.”

Marina was so alive this morning. Her hands fluttered through the air as she described the dream.

“It’s not easy to be a circus elephant,” she told me. “You have to watch where you step and the children tease you. But it is fun to have a trunk. I learned to fling rocks at the bearded lady. But I could not fly when I was an elephant, so I had to put my Marina skin back on and come tell you my story.”

Marina and I collected empty soda bottles and turned them in at the 7-Eleven so we could buy tickets and go back to see the spinning woman each of the next three days. Mama stayed home and started moving like a madwoman, building twelve doll houses at once. It wasn’t like the bill collectors were calling, but Mama would not sit still for a moment. Every day Ernesto’s act got more dangerous. He would stick the bobcat with pins and then wrestle with the creature as its teeth tried to enter Ernesto’s neck. He would wear the animal like a hat and spin him around until they both were dizzy. Finally, on the fourth day Marina’s eyes turned to the lion tamer and she laughed at his stupid bravery. Ernesto dropped the bobcat in the dirt and walked over to kiss Marina’s hand. I saw her hand begin to shake. At that moment Marina looked just like Mama to me.

Marina started crawling down the gutter drain at night when Mama was asleep or out dancing. One night I followed Marina across town and through the tall grass. I saw her meet Ernesto at the edge of the creek where Papa sometimes hunts crawdads. Marina dropped her nightgown in the rocks, and her body glowed almost as white as her hair. Ernesto stripped down to his skin, and pushed Marina into the water. I watched them splash in the creek and imagined Marina trading her skin with Ernesto, just like she did with the elephant. I thought they must be in love. The carnival packed up. It was headed to San Benito next, but Ernesto stayed in our town. I think he slept in the trees and waited for Marina to come to him at night.

Marina never mentioned the spinning woman again, but I know she thought about her. Ernesto got a job in the novelty store in the mall selling fake dog vomit and black light posters of Elvis. The high school girls would crowd around the lava lamps to talk and Ernesto made sure they bought something. He was on commission. I sat on the bench outside eating a corny dog and watched it all. One day I looked through the glass and saw a woman holding Ernesto’s face in both hands. He shook free, and she slapped him and ran out of the store. It was Mama.

“Marco, go home,” she said. “It’s not safe for you here.”

Papa came home later that week to find the house littered with sections of dollhouse. Half-empty paint cans were drying into colored slush. Tiny roof shingles littered the floor. Worse yet was Mama. She walked around in her housecoat and her hair looked like a ball of yarn unwinding.

“Where the hell have you been while your family falls apart?” She screamed at Papa and ran into the bedroom.

Papa’s squeezebox groaned as he dropped it to the floor. Papa rushed into the bedroom and I pressed my ear up to the closed door to hear.

“Querida, what have I done? Did someone talk about the women in the dance halls? They are my fans, I can’t ignore them. I have to earn a living for my family, yes? Come kiss me and we will make up like before.”

“Before your daughter wasn’t the source of gossip for the town.”

I imagined Mama with her hands on her hips, her eyes on fire.

“What do you say, you crazy woman?”

“I say your daughter is sneaking off with a circus boy, and the neighbors are talking about the trash that lives in our house. If Marina’s Grandmama were alive, she would be dying of shame. I tell you, that wicked girl will make us old before our times.”

“Why are you so worried about getting old, Querida?” Papa said. “Worry only puts lines around your eyes. Be like me, let the music of life keep your feet tapping.”

Mama screamed. “Old? I’ll tell you old. That circus boy Ernesto tried to touch me in places you don’t want to know about. That’s how old I am! Our daughter is dating the devil.”

Just then Marina walked in. Her cheeks were pink and she skipped into the house. “What is it, Marco?” she asked.

“It is a nightmare,” I said and ran up the stairs.

***

“I felt something icy slide along my foot and around my ankle,” Marina said, and pulled the covers over us. “I decided that if I didn’t move it couldn’t hurt me. So I shut my eyes tight. It wove its way up my body in rings. I could feel the pointed tongue flutter on my belly. It tingled there. I held my breath knowing it would soon squeeze my chest. It whipped around my body, tighter and tighter, but I did not look. I could feel its scales pushing into my skull, stealing my thoughts.

“The pain was a dull sound that got shrill like an approaching train. I opened my eyes wide and Grandmama was over me, smiling down. She bent closer and opened her mouth over mine. Her eyes were dead. I knew then that she would drink the life from me if I let her. I reached my hand wildly in the grass growing around my bed and clutched something. It was a pink stuffed elephant from the carnival. I slapped Grandmama in the face with it and she melted like rain. Hold me, Marco.”

***

Marina did not argue when Papa commanded her to stay away from Ernesto. I think she figured Papa would be right back on the road with his accordion and then she could do as she pleased. But Papa didn’t go. His squeezebox sighed with loneliness in the corner. During the day Papa helped Mama finish the dollhouses and at night he sat on the front porch. The red glow of his cigarette guarded the door and the gun in Papa’s coat was ready to deal with unwelcome visitors. I imagined Ernesto waiting in his tree for Marina, leaning his weight from one branch to another. Sometimes he dozed off, but he jerked awake before he fell. I wondered what Ernesto’s dreams were like and if Marina floated into them.

***

Marina stopped telling me her dreams. The third day that Marina didn’t come to my room, I tiptoed to hers and peeked in. Her skin and hair had became paler. “Go away, Marco,” she said in a whisper dry like gravel. “I can no longer fly.”

After that Marina only left her room to use the toilet. I noticed her face and body had got rounder and that she walked bent over like she was scanning the floor for the eggs of dust bunnies. She would not talk to Mama and Papa.

“I can hold out as long as you can, Marina,” Mama said when she brought a tray of something that was supposed to pass for food and dropped it outside the door. Mama had traded the housecoat for a flowery dress and her hair was in pigtails. “Why must you be such a baby, Marina? We have you in our hearts.”

The dollhouses were everywhere. Papa put on his Sunday suit during the week and went out to sell them to shopkeepers in all of the towns of South Texas. But even he could not keep up with Mama. She built houses like a woman possessed and she would not let anyone help her. Little girls everywhere dreamed of Mama’s fancy houses and their parents struggled to pay the price. Money poured into our home like green honey, but Mama did not stop. Marina stayed in her bed and dreamed secret dreams.

Mama and Papa stopped talking to each other in sentences of more than five words.

“The houses sold well today,” Papa would say.

“Buy more wood and paint,” Mama would reply.

Papa did not sleep. His face turned gray and drooped from the nights spent guarding the porch. No one had seen Ernesto. He no longer showed up for work at the novelty store and sales were said to be off. I imagined him out in the woods watching the red dot of the cigarette as it traveled up to Papa’s mouth and down again like a cherry on fire.

Then one night Papa’s eyelids became too heavy and he fell into a deep, dreamy sleep. I awoke upstairs to the sound of an owl outside my window. His bird questions were loud and demanding, but I had no answers. Then there was a crash downstairs and a gunshot.

I ran to the staircase and saw Papa swinging the pistol in the air. “Get back in bed, Marco,” he yelled up at me. “I will protect my house.”

I raced to my room and stuck my nose against the cold window. I saw Ernesto running from Papa and the gun. Ernesto was carrying something. He swung it around and knocked Papa to the ground. The last I saw of Ernesto he was disappearing into the night cradling Papa’s squeezebox.

In the morning I heard Papa load the rest of the completed doll houses into his truck—except one Mama left in front of Marina’s door to cheer her up—so they could be sold in town. I looked out the window and did not recognize him. The suit was baggy and he walked as if under gray water. He honked once for Mama and they drove away. I knew they would not return for hours.

I thought I heard the owl again, but knew it could not be so in daylight. The sound was faint, like a mouse crying in the wall. I opened my bedroom door and realized the sound was coming from Marina’s room. I opened the door and saw Marina’s bed had become huge. She seemed but a tiny dot in a huge sea of sheets.

“Marco, I have a dream,” she said.

“Not now, Marina. You are sick. Let me get a doctor.”

Her tiny chest forced its way up and down and her cloudy white hair was damp. “Listen first, Marco. Please.”

“Okay,” I said and sat on the edge of the bed.

“In the dream I am asleep in my bed, but our house has no roof. The sun shines down on me, warming my soul.” Marina’s eyes smiled at me. “I got up and stretched my arms twenty feet over my head. It felt so good to move about. I walked downstairs and out the front door. Mama was painting the house a bright pink. ‘Whatever you do, you mustn’t drink from the river,’ she told me.

“I looked out across the river and saw Grandmama on the other side in a rocking chair doing her knitting. She smiled and said, ‘I told you I’d see you soon, Marina. When I’m done with those baby booties we will have us a long talk.’ I could hear her words, but she must have been five miles away. She looked back down at her knitting, then she seemed to remember something. She looked up and said, ‘You’re too old to be drinking from that river, Marina.’ “

Marina’s voice became softer and softer. She pulled me close to whisper the rest of her dream.

“The sun was beating down on me and I was dripping sweat from the heat. But it felt so very good. I stripped off my clothes and sat in the grass watching Mama paint and Grandmama rock. The more I watched them the drier my throat became. My teeth were turning to sand and my tongue swelled like the elephant’s trunk. I was so very thirsty.

“I waited until Mama was concentrating on painting the shutters and dashed across the field. ‘Stop that this instant, Marina! Act like an adult,’ Mama yelled behind me. I reached the river’s edge and knelt at the bank. Grandmama shook her head and said, ‘Save some for me, dear.’ I dunked my head in the water and breathed it. I could feel it flow out my fingers and toes. I began to float. I rose up over the river. Mama and Grandmama waved from below. They became tiny specks as I went higher and higher into the sky.”

Marina’s eyes began to flutter. “Marina, I’m scared,” I said.

Her eyes cleared and she smiled at me. “Marco, I just returned to say goodbye. Grandmama says to be a good boy,” she said, and closed her eyes.

I did not know what to do. I almost tripped over the dollhouse in the doorway as I ran downstairs to look for something, anything. Medicine, heavy weights to put on her feet and pull her back. All I found were dollhouse parts. I grabbed an open can of black paint and brought it to Marina. I poured it on her hair and worked it in. My hands began to turn to night. Somewhere behind my eyes I could see Marina getting smaller and younger by the second. She was flying again. Then Grandmama’s wrinkled, gray hands came down from nowhere and plucked the dollhouse up into the sky like it was a cloud. I saw tiny baby Marina float into the little pink doorway. She was laughing when Grandmama shut the door tight.