Rigoberto González - Autobiography of My Hungers

Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies

David Bergman, Joan Larkin, and Raphael Kadushin
SERIES EDITORS

rigoberto gonzlez

The University of Wisconsin Press

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The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

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Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data

Gonzlez, Rigoberto.

Autobiography of my hungers / Rigoberto Gonzlez.

p. cm.(Living out: gay and lesbian autobiographies)

ISBN 978-0-299-29250-8 (cloth: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-299-29253-9 (e-book)

1. Gonzlez, Rigoberto.

2. Authors, American20th centuryBiography.

3. Hispanic American gaysBiography.

4. Mexican American gaysBiography.

5. Gay menBiography.

I. Title. II. Series: Living out.

PS3557.O4695Z46 2013

813.54dc23

2012032924

for my nieces,
Halima, Annika Violet, & Gaaj Setareh

for my nephew,
Andr

for my godson,
Pablo Ricardo

bless the smallest biggest joys

acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge the editors of the following publications in which these works first appeared.

The Bloomsbury Review: pseudonym

Brevity: sketch

The Cimarron Review: potato

Green Over Katchina: kill

Hamilton Stone Review: outcast

Huizache: crooked, fire, juguete, lift, and witch

Many Mountains Moving: clown, insomnia, rain, and voracious

Pilgrimage: biology and empty

The Portable Boog Reader 3: bleed

Ro Grande Review: ghosts

Urhalpool (online): invisible and martini

xQs (online): dream, glove, and papi

A number of these pieces have also appeared, in slightly different versions, in the following anthologies: The Moment (New York: HarperPerennial, 2011), edited by Meghan Smith; From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction (Maple Shade, NJ: Lethe Press/ Tincture, 2011), edited by Charles Rice-Gonzlez and Charlie Vsquez; Waters Edge (St. Paul, MN: Open to Interpretation Series, 2012), edited by Douglas Beasley and Anastasia Faunce; The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction (Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2012), edited by Dinty Moore; Best Gay Stories (Maple Shade, NJ: Lethe Books, 2012), edited by Peter Dub.

Thank you to Mara Melndez, for your sharp and sensitive editorial eye. Thank you to Rick Barot, for encouraging me to find a home for this book. And much gratitude to the Corporation of Yaddo, for that timely one-month residency in the summer of 2011.

like many Mexican children, I cleaned the piedritas out of the uncooked beans before they went into the potmy meal-prep duty to help my overwhelmed mother as she spun around in the kitchen. The process was simple, but time-consuming: a pile of beans was placed at the edge of the table, Id hold a bowl just below the edge to drop in the clean pieces, and Id pick off the debrisdried-up seeds, miniature twigs, tiny stonesall of the undesirable, inedible stowaways. These would be set aside in a pile of their own, to be tossed at the conclusion of the cleaning.

I refused to dispense with my pile of detritus too soon since these were the fruits of my labor, the nuggets mined out of the sack. They were much more interesting than the beans, which huddled in the bowl, boring as clones.

I enjoyed holding up the small stones, especially, admiring the complexity of each shape, its many sharp corners, and the dark beauty of its coat gleaming with the light. If I pressed my thumb and pointing finger together, the stone would vanish, but I could still feel it, embedded there inside my flesh. So small a thing, but it had texture and strength. And sound. When I flicked it on the For mica table it tapped a rhythm the entire way until it leaped off the edge, delighted, it seemed, by its luck, its freedom, and its soloist song.

duty

for the households without washing machines, the place to do the laundry by hand in Zacapu, Michoacn, was at La Zarcita, the lake on the other side of town. My father carried the basket of clothes on his shoulder; my mother held my hand as we made the journey to the concrete washboards. We were still only three in that family, but my mother was pregnant.

Since this was womens work, my father took me to the part of the lake where young people swam. I squatted at the edge, making the surface of the water ripple with the tip of a twig. I forgot all about my father standing at a distance, he too lost in thought as he looked at my mother kneeling at the washboard, a white mass of suds expanding around her. They were in their early twenties, chained to domestic responsibilities and anxious about money. But I didnt know this yet. I only knew that they were all mine.

An empty bag of laundry detergent floated in front of me, its plastic body bloated with air, so I snagged it with the twig. One more game: I tried to fill it with water. But when I leaned forward I fell into the lake. My father and the sound of the women washing disappeared.

When my father pulled me out, I was too stunned to cry or complain as I stood naked in the sun, my shirt, shorts, and socks splayed out on rock. I had seen this sight the night before: a tinier version of my clothing stretched across my mothers lap, which was too crowded to sit on. I prayed my father, shaking his head at my stupidity, didnt make the wish I had made last night: for the clothes never to be filled with flesh.

piedrita

I find my little brothers baby sweater in the bottom drawer and something

compels me to try it on though even my little brother has long
outgrown it.

His shoes look like odd tiny cubes so I dont even bother.

But his pacifier, plucked right out of his mouth, fits

into my mouth just perfectly. Now, how to climb into the crib