Do Tampons Take Your Virginity?: A Catholic Girl's Memoir (13 page)

Rogelio was short, fat, dark. He had greasy, curly soccer hair and a wife and four kids at home. By the time I started working at his restaurant, Rogelio had fucked his way through the entire wait staff. Girls adored him. They fought over him. They put notes on his car, followed him around, flirted with him on their breaks. It was insane. One server, Mandy, used to come to work
without panties
just so she could entice him to fuck her in the walk-in freezer or in the office.

Rogelio was never satisfied with just one, so the jilted ones got mad. Women went crazy for him. Psycho, even. One time, a particularly crazy one went to his house, smashed all his car windows and screamed on his front lawn, “I’m fucking your husband!” That was embarrassing for everyone involved. Luckily, Rogelio’s wife wasn’t home. He called the police and got the crazy bitch arrested.

Rogelio even borrowed money from co-workers for an abortion. More than once, actually. I thought that was a bit much. Last I heard, Rogelio was still married—his wife oblivious to his dalliances.

I couldn’t say anything. I
also
fucked my kitchen manager, Oscar, —in the office, no less.

Oscar and I met at Castillo’s. At the beginning, I despised him. He was conceited, arrogant—full of swagger. Of course, all the other servers adored him. I couldn’t understand it!

One girl in particular, Jayne, was obsessed. She invited Oscar to her house for private parties. She would draw little maps with directions to her house on napkins. Then she would go outside and leave the napkin on his windshield, tucked underneath the wiper blade. I saw the napkins sitting on his car at least a dozen times.

“Jayne, why do you like
Oscar
? He’s
such
an asshole!” I asked.

“Oh my god! He is soooo fucking hot! I want him to go out with me. I would suck his dick right now,” She swooned.

“Seriously? You’re so nasty; ugh! He’s such an arrogant prick. He’s not even cute.” I frowned and looked over at Oscar, who was helping another waitress at the register. She was flipping her hair and batting her eyelashes, her hand firmly on his bicep. I looked back at Jayne, who grabbed a napkin roll and began simulating fellatio. She was talking to me, but her eyes were on Oscar’s dick, bulging through his pants.

Oscar turned around and winked, “Jealous, eh?”

Both of the other waitresses giggled.

“Jesus Christ! You are the dumbest group of bitches I’ve ever seen!” I rolled my eyes and stomped out to the patio to smoke. I couldn’t watch these idiots fawning over that asshole anymore.

Oscar pursued me for a year and every time I said “No,” he tried harder. I could have complained to upper management, but part of me enjoyed the chase.

In the end, I fell for him just like all the others. Along the way, his conceit and swagger transformed itself into confidence and charm. Looking back, I’m sure he didn’t change— only my opinion of him did.

Oscar was fun. He made me feel alive and happy.

It’s always a mistake to fuck your manager because you
might
just marry him.

We’ve been together for ten years now... and counting.

CHAPTER 5

2004,
AGE
31

When I finally got pregnant, I was over thirty and it was completely unplanned. I was lazy, stopped taking the pill, and Oscar and I were just using the Hail Mary method (pulling out).

Panicked, I made my first appointment with a “baby doctor.” Doctor McCann was a chubby Irishwoman with wild red hair and kaleidoscope reading glasses. Her breasts were enormous and she moved them about with her hands when she sat down.

“Doctor, what am I going to do? It’s not a good time for me right now.” I put my face in my hands.

“Well, do you want kids or do you want to have an abortion?”

“No... I don’t know. I guess I want kids...
eventually
.”

My obstetrician looked at me like I was the dumbest bitch on earth. “Missy—you’re over thirty.
Over thirty!
What the hell you waiting for? Your eggs aren’t getting any younger.”

“Uh, well.. I’m trying to go to graduate school...” I stammered. It wasn’t convincing.

She shook her head at me. “Guess what, missy? I’ve got news for you... there’s never a good time to have kids. Never. You’ll never have enough money and the timing always sucks. That’s motherhood. Get used to it.”

I cried. Then I laughed. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

They asked me a million questions. Did I smoke? Had I ever been abused? Did I use drugs? Did I want to be tested for STDs?

Yes. Yes. No. Yes.

I quit smoking cold turkey and started taking vitamins. They tested my blood. I was Rh-negative, so they had to give me Rhogam injections; otherwise, my body would reject the fetus. I was considered high risk because of this.

I stopped craving sweets and started craving raw meat and hot peppers.

“You’re probably iron deficient,” my doctor said.

They drew blood again to make sure. They gave me iron pills, but the cravings for raw meat didn’t go away. I ate bloody-rare steak and jalapenos for nine months. I lost weight. Dr. McCann got mad at me.

“Listen up, Missy! Pregnancy isn’t a
fucking
diet plan! Stop
losing
weight!” she yelled.

In the end, I gained only fifteen pounds.

I worked full time until the very end. My water broke while I was volunteering at the county animal shelter. The hot liquid ran down my legs and pooled into my shoes. It felt like pee. I called Oscar, who became frantic.

“Jesus! I’m coming to get you! Don’t move!”

I laughed, “It’s fine, baby. I’m all right. Take your time.”

And I was right. We went to the hospital. I fought for a natural birth, and resisted their attempt to give me drugs. I was in labor for three days. Eventually, they gave me Pitocin, which is a drug that increases contractions. It was horribly painful and I passed out a few hours later.

They rushed me upstairs for an emergency Caesarean. The doctor gave me three epidurals, but couldn’t numb my lower body, so they gave up and anesthetized me completely.

They cut me open and tore my son out of my body. My scar is over eight inches in length. I missed the entire birth of my son.

I awoke hours later, shaking from the anesthesia. I didn’t remember anything. My husband was by my side. He grabbed my hand.

“Hi, baby... I’m so happy... to... see you,” he whispered. His face was pale and his eyes were bloodshot from crying.

“Baby, you look terrible.” I croaked. My voice was horse because they intubated me.

“I know. You scared the shit out of me.” He smiled.

My wonderful husband never left my bedside. The orderlies wheeled me into the maternity ward, and he held my hand the entire way.

Then the nurse brought me my son. He was rolled up in a little flannel blanket, wrapped like a burrito. His skin was bright orange, with a huge mop of shiny black hair that trailed down his forehead and temples. He was jaundiced, and would stay in the hospital under sun lamps for another week.

My little son was hairy and orange, like a baby orangutan.

He was also the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.

2006,
AGE
33

When I was still in college, I decided to stop talking to my father altogether. I broke all contact with him. The last time we spoke, it was on the phone. He told me I was “an uppity mule that needed a good beating.” I hung up on him. I never spoke with him again.

Years went by. I cut him off completely. Zero contact.

When I married my husband, my father was not invited. He called my house a few times, but I never answered the phone—I let it go straight to the machine. I never called back.

When my son was born, my father tried to communicate with me. He wanted to see his only grandchild. He sent messages through my cousins. I ignored him.

I was invited to a cousin’s wedding, which my father attended. He wasn’t invited. He just showed up. I didn’t expect him to be there; my cousin had guaranteed that he was not going to attend.

I didn’t notice him come in. He snuck into the church, sought me out, and deliberately sat behind me.

During Catholic Mass, the priest directs everyone to shake hands with their neighbors.

“Peace be with you.” Shake.

“And also with you.” Shake.

I shook everyone’s hand in front of me, and then I turned around to welcome the people sitting behind me. And there he was; my father, with his hand stretched out. I was shocked. My mouth dropped open. Everyone in the pews stared at us. It was a family wedding. They knew about me. They knew about my mother. They knew about my father.

“Peace be with you,” he said. His hand trembled in the air.

He smiled at me. It had been over fifteen years since I had seen him in person. He looked small... shrunken. His hair was white and he was bald in the front.

My eyes narrowed and I gritted my teeth. I felt sick; my heart raced and blood pounded in my ears.

Father reached out a little further, offering his hand to me. Countless times, that same hand had risen to strike me. Now my father, bent with old age and filled with regret, extended his hand, silently begging me to take it.

I turned around. My father’s hand stayed there in the air.

He had begged me... BEGGED...

I left my pew and went outside with my son. We went home.

2008,
AGE
35

We were invited to have Christmas with my husband’s family. It was a drunk Mexican Christmas. The party was in a nice trailer park in Sunnyvale, California—if you can imagine a nice trailer park. Outside, five cars were parked in one space. There was no room to open the car door, so we crawled out of the back seat windows: husband, kids, me. Everyone.

All the keys were in a fishbowl by the front door so that you could move any of the cars if you had to leave.

We were in charge of the liquor. We brought three giant cases of beer, six bottles of tequila, and lots of other assorted liquor.

Everyone crammed into the kitchen and the living room, sitting on folding chairs and other mismatched furniture.

The living room had a huge seventy-two inch plasma screen TV. Who needs a heater when you have that? Next to the TV, there was a framed picture of Pope John Paul II kissing the hand of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Everyone took turns rotating through the tiny kitchen, which had a table crammed into one corner and almost no space for anything else. They had a huge vat of Pozole, which is a pork stew made with hominy. It had the biggest corn kernels I’ve ever seen in my life. They were the size of quarters. When I asked about this, no one had a real answer for me.

“What kind of corn is this? It’s the largest corn I’ve ever seen. Where do you buy it?” I asked.

“At the store. It’s big corn. It’s Pozole corn.”

“No, I mean—is it hominy? What type of corn is it?” I asked again.

“No, it’s not hominy. Hominy is white, and it comes in a can and the taste is very different. This is big corn; Pozole corn.” That was the official answer. So if you ever want to make your own Pozole, just go into the supermarket and ask for “big corn.”

Portuguese people eat lots of stews, too—but nothing like Pozole, which is red, greasy, and delicious. The ingredients are these: pork (with all the bones and skin, etc.) and giant corn. Then, after the stew is made, you chop up onions, cabbage, radishes, and little herbs and then add them to your bowl of stew. You also squeeze lots of lemon into the bowl and most Mexicans add salt after-the-fact. I don’t know why these little vegetables aren’t added to the stew while it’s cooking, but apparently it’s a texture issue because Mexicans love their stew to be crunchy and taste like lemon.

There were about twenty-five people at the family gathering, and at least half of them were minors, but even so, all the alcohol disappeared very quickly.

The younger men, including my husband, had nicely-trimmed goatees. They wore almost identical outfits—black boots, jeans, and tight, black long-sleeved shirts. They looked like identical twins. All the male cousins tried to outdo each other with increasingly exaggerated tales of masculinity, although they had to be careful because all the wives were present.

Somehow, all of my husband’s cousins are named Juan.

Juan Carlos, Juan Antonio, Juan Horacio... and Oscar got a little pissy with me when I couldn’t tell them apart.

“Babe, which one is he? What’s his name again?” I whispered and pointed. I kept forgetting.

“Hey, what’s your
problem
, Marie? Get your head out of the clouds and pay attention. It looks rude.” Oscar said. He didn’t want me to embarrass him.

I got angry. Under my breath, I hissed, “It’s not my fault— can’t your family pick an original name? How come all the men are named Juan? Christ, show a little fucking originality. And it doesn’t help that you all have nicknames, either.”

The use of funny nicknames is ubiquitous in all Catholic families, not just Latino ones. When I was a kid, everyone called me “ladybug” and my brother was “onionhead,” because my brother’s hair was so blond. As I got older, “crazy bitch” replaced “ladybug” as my father’s preferred nickname for me.