The Straitjacket Diary: #5

The Orogeny of Identity

From the days on the Border,
to the nights on the Green, these mountains of Me, I'm beginning to see. With the hands of my heart and the eyes of my mind, I am revealing every lie that I find. I didn't understand the words they'd say, yet my pride had me play with 'em anyway.

I don't play games anymore.

Can't stick with an act,
that's short on the fact.




The Siege of Ojinaga.

Friday nights were the best because you'd don some Wranglers with your typical Chihuahuan attire which included a cowboy hat and a pair of boots. Your boots had to look rugged and full of wear or else you hadn't really been anywhere.

Viernes meant Friday. It was during these nights that we'd hop into a beat up Chevy S-10 and drive into the city of Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico. A dusty old pearl in the middle of the vast Chihuahan Desert. Crossing the border meant driving over a heavily lighted bridge up and over the Rio Bravo or as gringo maps read; The Rio Grande River. The water here was often higher than the water in El Paso.

Water in El Paso? Chale!

A trickle, perhaps, but hardly a river ever flows through this western-most city in Texas. Much of the water that flowed here between Ojinaga and Presidio came out to the Rio Conchos which is the main tributary downriver of El Paso Del Norte.

Pase.

The green light glows at us as we make entrance into another country, another culture, and yes, another system. La Trasviña y Retes was the local drag in this somewhat populated city. Street life here was alive. Vendors selling all sorts of stomach pleasing edibles, be it fruit, veggies or a pig. Now, it wasn't food you knew but it was good and thats all that mattered. Those were the days of my youth. Driving in a truck to somewheres else. With liberty in my pocket and innocence blinding my ways, I stumbled on.

The lights of bars and clubs.
The smell of smoke and dust.
The air of sex and lust.

Vamanos!

Las Quinceñeras y Las Bailas were the dances of celebrated rites. With bottles of Carta Blanca to chase the holy shots of Sotol, I'd been celebrating like this all those Friday nights. Dancing at the Internacional and drinking at the Estancia. I was immersed in the sea of a different culture. One not of my own but rather one of ours.

"No hay Sabados sin Sol, ni Domingos sin borrachos"

My hooness do this?
This Visual Understanding.
Gestures giving meaning to the now.

Lipread?
Lipbleed.
Big Bada Boom!
I'm outta the room.
Use your hands?
He understands.
Use your lips?
It only slips.
Big Bada Bang!
Just another "Dang!"

Monday morning came around and I was back in school in Presidio, Texas where the red, white and blue would flap in the howling wind. Back in the classroom was the flaproom where the flapping and the clapping of hooness was prevalent. Spanish tongues and white walled buildings. It's the system's attempt to americanize a crop of future tax payers.

Hee-Haw! brays the Jack of an Ass.

Me do do? Deaf have?
That remained to be seen.

I sat in class without an interpreter everyday. I pretty much didn't give a $h!t about what was expected of me in the classroom. After years spent under the scope of measured hooness instead of honored trueness, I sure as hell didn't give one dook of a darn. I went to school for attendance reasons and social experimentation but never for reasons of my own. Who the heck was I anyway?

In my drunken stupor, I was Deaf.
In misunderstanding hooness, I was Deaf.
In my raging anger and contempt, I was Deaf.

But everyday, I got up in the morning and took a shower. I'd dry my hair, put on my aid, look in the mirror and say to myself. "Why is it so hard to say you cannot understand? Why do you play these games with yourself? When are you gonna be you?"

Oh, the energy it takes to climb these mountains of Me!