tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-407058407753345083.post3315315484950674168..comments2014-12-07T11:04:05.115-06:00Comments on Postcard Fiction Collaborative: Ex-PrezAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15559084906353145855noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-407058407753345083.post-44710555280885367962012-06-23T11:47:59.852-05:002012-06-23T11:47:59.852-05:00Hi, guys.
A friend and fellow writer here in San...Hi, guys. <br /><br />A friend and fellow writer here in San Antonio came across our post for May and was inspired. Here's the excellent result.<br /><br />The Truth by Dos Talamantes<br /><br />This is Bill’s idea. This visit to what he calls The Graveyard of American Heroes. In reality it’s a host of white men immortalized in marble behind a brutal chain-link fence with little chance of escape—it almost seems fitting, like idle inmates in a prison yard. They added Regan he says as makes his way through the open gate, caliche dusting the car and I’m already bored because it’s hot and he will likely lecture us on the brilliance of trickle-down economics and the Cold War victory, things we learned in school. Mr. Gorbachev, tear this wall down he keeps saying and each time he looks to my mother and me for some sort of agreement or a smile of assurance but I always look away. Looking away helps me ground any sort of confidence he may gather before it takes flight and I think he knows this. But my mother doesn’t. She looks at his profile and repeats the Gorbachev phrase in broken English to Bill’s delight. <br /><br />Arnold, look at the look in Ronald’s eyes, don’t they look like the eyes of a man with vision, a man that understands the direction our nation needed to go he asks and I can’t get past the fact he calls me Arnold when my name is Arnulfo and I don’t answer. To answer would mean I’m okay with it, okay with this. <br /><br />Mijo, Bill asked you a question my mother says apologetically and looks for some sort of obedience in the backseat but I ask when we’re going home and she mouths a Mexican adage that accuses me of being ungrateful in the midst of graciousness. It’s enough to make me correct Bill with the truth: It’s Arnulfo not Arnold, Arnulfo, like my dad I say and the word dad startles my mother enough that she stretches into the backseat and quiets me with a vicious pinch. <br /><br />Bill half listens to the suppressed uproar and waits for my mother to attend to the problem, like a patient pedestrian faced with a rambunctious dog, he lets the owner address the misbehavior and it works. And I look out, closed-lipped, into the cemetery of white men and think about my father who is still very much alive in Mexico.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15559084906353145855noreply@blogger.com