Mario Alberto Zambrano - Loteria

All I did was make sure my hair was out of my face.

In Mom’s bathroom I’d sit on the toilet and watch her take out her rollers. She’d paint her eyes with different shades of orange and cover her lips with a tint of red, spray perfume on her neck and under her wrists, then walk into her closet and slip on a dress with the back zipper left open. With her high heels hooked on her finger and her earrings in place and her necklace sitting above her collarbone, she’d turn around and ask, “How do I look?”

“You’re beautiful,” I’d say, and she’d walk out the bedroom door.

I remember the smell of Papi’s cologne as he walked down the hallway, the sound of his black leather boots against the wooden floor. Gray pants. Button-up shirt. I wanted to be the mini version of him. Dressed like twins. But I had to wear a dress.

After Papi and Mom moved to America we didn’t have our family anymore. I remember Abuela Topazio, Mom’s mom, but only a little. She died when we were young. Mom used to show me pictures of her holding me when I was a baby, when she lived in Reynosa before we moved here. Sometimes I’d act like I remembered things to make her feel better. “She used to make us caldo , right? With bits of ground beef? We’d put ketchup and lime juice in it to cover up the taste of animal fat.”

Abuelo died too, when Mom was a teenager. He was coming home from work on the bus and some dog stepped out in the middle of the road while the driver was telling someone to sit down. He swerved into a ditch and the bus tipped over.

Mom was the only girl, the only child, no brother, no sister. Her tíos lived too far south to ever see them.

Tencha is my tía , Papi’s older sister by two years, and we call her Tencha because it’s easier than Hortencia. When we’re together she says to me, “We’re tight, mama. Somos iguales. ” She came with Mom and Papi when they left Reynosa, and my Tío Carlos, Papi’s younger brother, stayed in Mexico with his two sons, Memo and Félix, mis primos . We never met Papi’s mom, Abuela Luz, who I’m named after, because she died too.

Now that I write it down it seems everyone died, and maybe they’re next to You sitting around a table playing games. The only one left is Buelo Fermín, Papi’s dad. He doesn’t do much but sit in his rocking chair and cough loud. We used to visit him in Reynosa during summer vacation, sometimes Christmas, but all we did was listen to him tell stories about when he was a boy. How he’d spin a rooster by its head only to snap it off and watch it dance until it died.

After coming to Magnolia Park we met our second family after Papi met Pancho. And it was with them we played Lotería every Sunday after church. Maybe that’s why they felt like family. There was Buelita Fe, Pancho’s wife. Then Tía Elsa and Tío Fernando, Tío Jesús and Tía Hilda. They weren’t our real aunts and uncles but we called them tíos because it was easier. Then there was Gastón and Miriam, the youngest like me, then Luisa, four years older than Estrella.

At home, before leaving to see them, we’d be dressed and smelling good and walk to the car to head over to Pancho’s house. I’d walk slowly so I could see them in front of me, Papi, Mom, and Estrella. And when it was sunny, so sunny I had to squint, Mom would wear her movie-star hat with a blue ribbon around it. She’d see me walking behind them, all slow, then snap her fingers. “Luz! Get your butt over here and put your shoes on.”

And I would. I’d crawl into the backseat and put on my shoes and we’d be off to go see the Silvas.

You heard about Memo? He blew up his hand with a firecracker. They said his fingers flew off in pieces and it looked like his hand had been eaten by a dog. Tío Carlos called and told Papi, and Papi told me afterward. He said they were at the hospital. “Why didn’t he let go?” I asked. “Your Tío Carlos said it just got stuck in his hand.” “How stuck? What do you mean, stuck?” It didn’t make sense. When we’d go to Reynosa Memo and his friends would always light cuetes . But their firecrackers aren’t like the ones here. Cuetes in Mexico are made of cement and look like pieces of thick chalk. “One of those gray ones?” “Yes, Luz, one of those gray ones.” “Really? I can’t imagine how much that hurt.” “Well, go pray for your cousin.”

Maybe this was Your way of punishing him. For that time when I lost a bet in marbles and was pissed because I was good at canicas , but every time I threw the ball Memo would push me off balance and he’d win. Then he told me to go with him to the back of the store, where they put the chickens. He was older than me, already a man, Tío Carlos said. He wasn’t mean, always included me in games and asked me if I wanted to go somewhere, to some mercado or to the Plaza de San Pedro to throw rocks at pigeons.

It was just the two of us. Everyone else went to el rancho with a friend of my Tío’s and Estrella was with Mom. Papi was somewhere, I don’t remember. Memo took me to the place between the fence and the coop and he grabbed my hand and put it between his legs, like if he was sharing a secret. And what I felt was a baby’s arm. I remember it throbbing in the way a gallina’s wings tremble when you hold it between your hands. “What do you want me to do?” I said.

“Masajéalo,” he said. “Despacito.”

His thing got bigger and harder and he licked his lips. Then we heard the back door of a house slam and he pushed me away and ran back to the house.

The night I found out he blew up his hand, I waited for all the lights to turn off in the house.

“Estrella?” I said.

She was sleeping. I snuck up next to her bed and kneeled on the floor, pushed her shoulder. “Estrella? Wake up.” “What?” “Guess what?” “What?” She made that face like if she were looking at the ugliest thing in the world.

“Memo blew up his hand con un cuete and now he has just one finger left. The rest of them blew off.”

“So?”

And that was it.

Sometimes I like to write in the morning after I wake up because in a way I feel like I’m dreaming. No one else is awake and my thoughts are the only thing I can hear. There’s a cleaning lady who comes to mop the hallway, and the way I know she’s there is because of the smell of Pine-Sol coming in from under the door. It reminds me of Mom and the way she liked to clean.

And today, look who I turn over from the top of the deck, La Dama.

Every Sunday, without fail, Pancho Silva and Buelita Fe expected us over at their house. We’d arrive and she’d be boiling water for fideos and he’d be wearing his cowboy hat, slumped in his armchair watching luchadores on a black-and-white television. Their house was a block away from the interstate, but with all the branches surrounding the screened-in porch it felt like a tree house.

The first thing I’d do when we got there is run inside and sneak into the shoebox under the cabinet where she kept Lotería tablas . I’d find mine at the bottom without even looking, just feeling with my hand like some blind person searching for a coin. She had sheets of Lotería rolled up like wrapping paper from when she’d go visit her sisters in Mexico. I used to cut the images out and make my own tablas . I’d arrange them the way I liked so that I didn’t have to choose a board that came already packaged. One time I wanted to cut out sixteen images of La Sirena and make a tabla filled with sixteen mermaids. Like that, I’d win whenever she was called. But I figured it’d be boring to play that way, so instead I cut out images of La Araña and glued them to the corners.