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Chapter 35: Life alone with NalaA very sick and weak Nala is healed by faith, and Max
I didn't fit in right away at The Arizona Daily Star. Part of it was my own insecurity, my inheritance from Mama. Part was overhearing comments from some of my co-workers about how I and some other Hispanic and black journalists had been hired for our color or our ethnicity, not for our reporting and writing skills.
I thought: Maybe they're right. Fortunately, there were people here who helped. City editor David McCumber pushed me to leave my post on Neighbors, a weekly section, and go to work writing daily news for the Metro section. Edie Auslander became a mentor, pushing me as well. I started landing important assignments. I went to Mexico City several times. I followed the Sanctuary movement, an underground railroad composed of churches across the country that was sneaking Central American refugees into the United States and aiding them once they were here. Photographer Ron Medvescek and I even crossed the border into the United States illegally with them. My stories appeared on the Front Page, and they mattered. Pieces of my Sanctuary stories ended up in Esquire magazine and the New Yorker. Recruiters called from The Los Angeles Times and the former Dallas Times Herald. I was one hot chica. I stayed. Mama wouldn't leave Tucson. I wouldn't leave Mama. But I became more secure and more comfortable here. This is my town. And this newspaper, well, now I feel like I own the place. By 1982, Mama and I were alone in the rental on West President Street. My four cousins had all moved on. My brother Raymond had gone to trucking school in Phoenix in 1976 and was driving 18-wheelers across the West, delivering soda to Texas, New Mexico and California and bales of cotton - cotton he once picked - to California for export. All of Mama's pollitos had flown the nest - except me.
It was the right thing to do. She had given of herself to everyone. It was my turn to give back to her. I've had my fun working, dancing at nightclubs, and drinking way, way too much. I believe it was Mama's endless prayers to God and the santos that took care of me when I was younger and a vata loca. I never crashed, and I made it home many nights who knows how. When I walked through the door, there was Mama entreating God and the santos with prayer, holding the rosary. She was still cleaning motel rooms and needed her sleep. But, she'd stay awake praying until I made it home. I can still hear her angry, yet relieved voice: ``Carmen, estas borracha. Ve y acuestate.'' (``Carmen, you're drunk. Go and lie down.'') Yes, I know it was her prayers that kept me safe. In 1983, I lived and worked in Hermosillo, Sonora, for nearly three months, chronicling how our neighboring compadres survived the peso devaluation that was drowning the country. I talked to Mama by telephone often and she never told me she was sick. She did not tell anyone. When I returned, I found Mama pacing the floor like a woman gone mad, holding her rosary and scratching her left arm. ``I haven't slept for nights. Take me to the hospital,'' she said. Mama hates hospitals. But she was crawling out of her skin, hallucinating - seeing snakes - as a result of medication she was taking for her gastrointestinal problems. I called her doctor immediately and blasted him for not telling us about the side effects. He called in a prescription to a pharmacy to counteract the hallucinations, and Mama was much better by morning. She stopped taking her medications cold turkey, and lost all faith in Western medicine. Months passed. Mama had trouble passing food through her esophagus. She ate little and refused to see a doctor. She prayed. I worried. She grew weaker. And she refused to stop working. I thought Mama was dying. I prayed to God for answers. My comadre, Aida, told me about a man named Max who treated people with teas and herbal remedies. Take Mama to an herbal healer? Back to the days of the curanderos? I talked to Mama about Max and she perked up. ``It all has to do with faith. I believe in that, and I believe God will help me,'' she replied. So, we were off to see Max. Max was a dark-skinned, black-haired man who spoke with an almost eerie calmness. His brown eyes seemed to pierce my soul. I did not trust him, but Mama liked him immediately. He ignored my questions. Be quiet and listen, he said. Max studied Mama with his eyes. He said Mama was nervous and that I was the cause. ``Let her work if she wants to work. Back off,'' Max said. How did he know that I was after Mama to stop working? Max helped me to understand that work was life for Mama. She would die without work because she would feel useless. I began taking Mama each week for her gallon of tea boiled from plants Max would find in the desert on the Tohono O'odham reservation. Mama became stronger. She could eat and she was walking at a fast pace, head held high once again. Mama was treated by Max for more than two years before he weaned her off the teas and told her she no longer needed him. I ended up liking and trusting Max. It took me a while to convince Mama to let me find her a medical doctor. When she started feeling sick again, she allowed me to take her. She was so scared, but I found a good doctor who treated Mama and performed a yearly endoscopy, a little ``Roto-Rooter'' treatment for her esophagus. In the early 1990s, medication was developed that has made it possible for Mama to eat all foods, and she no longer needs to go for her ``Roto-Rooter'' treatments. In 1993, Mama finally quit cleaning toilets and making beds for strangers. But she didn't quit on life. Her burial gown stayed packed away. At age 77, she was needed at home to help raise a new family.
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Ch. 1: Field of death
Ch. 18: The New Deal
Ch. 24: Cotton pickers and copper miners Ch. 27: The family doubles its size
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