Photo by Roberto Reposo on Unsplash
by Patricia Bidar
If I could travel back with you in time, we’d stand side by side on the San Pedro Street overpass, hurling Christmas oranges onto Studebakers and Packards, innocent savages screaming, “Bombs Over Tokyo!” We’d gather our brushes and creams and head for the bars on Central Avenue: shoeshines for 5 cents. If we spotted your father drinking there, I’d honor the deal you’d struck: neither one of you would snitch on the other. We’d stride over the pedestrian bridge into Tijuana with your aging flapper grandmother and strike poses before zebra-painted donkeys, “Mexico” curlicued on tasseled hats over our pudding bowl haircuts. Back at home, we’d knock on neighborhood doors, selling the lace ornaments your mother made and stiffened with sugar water; she left school to have you at 17. We both of us would graduate, stay slim and blonde as Kim Novak, stay single and free and circle the globe, packing light: a book, a pencil skirt, a pair of capris, and seven cashmere sweaters.
Patricia Quintana Bidar is a western U.S. writer. Her book of short works, Pardon Me For Moonwalking, is coming from Unsolicited Press. Twitter is @patriciabidar. See more at patriciaqbidar.com
