Luis freely admits his disappointment with his cousins is why he refuses to learn English, even though it might help him with his business. And, his uncle doesn't exactly help things....
-- Fijate, Miguel, last month, while you were busy partying on the other side with your gabacho family and paisanos, por el cuarto de julio, verdad?-- He laughs, claps me affectionately on the arm, then frowns, -- Last month my uncle came to Tijuana with papers of ownership he has for our grandparents' graves. You know the main cemetery above downtown, on the hill, yes, that's right, the one that's all watered and green with good stones and tombs and all, yes, that one. He comes over from the other side and has the grandparents exhumed and cremated, because, he says, he wants the grave plots for himself. Won't even live here, but he wants the graves.
I wonder briefly what tangents and trajectory variables the transcultural sociologists would use to analyze this event. Those classes at the Humanities Center are reshaping my thought patterns. I look at my friend. He is waiting for my response. -- That's strange,-- I venture.
-- Yes, and he insisted that some of us still here in Tijuana witness this. So my brother and I went. What I had forgotten was that this uncle's first wife, my aunt, was also buried there, after she died when they'd only been married a year.
-- No?
-- Yes. Right on top of her mother. That was thirty years ago, when I was only a child, but ay, Miguel, she still looks as beautiful now as she did then.
-- What did your uncle do with...?
-- With my aunt? Oh, he had her cremated, too.
Silence. Blink.
-- How could he...?
-- You mean how, legally?
-- Yes.
-- Well, my grandmother left ownership of the plot to her daughter, and then, when she died, he, as her marido, inherited it.
-- Oh.
Historias [index]. |
Tijuana Gringo |
Copyright 2001 Daniel Charles Thomas | email: thomas@masinternet.zzn.com OR tijuanagringo@yahoo.com |