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Story Six ~ Kathryn B lood was up to his anklebones. His Wellington boots were orchid red. The humid room smelled of death, and he wasn’t used to the stench. As bile came up from his throat to his mouth, he gagged. He glanced around the kill floor to see if anyone noticed. Next to him, his compadre with the missing fingers made a hard slice from throat to belly. Down the line, another man ripped back a hide. Another man tied off the intestines. And another shaved flesh from the head until it was as transcendental as Longhorn skulls floating on the walls of Texas restaurants. Can I get used to this, he wondered? A man gets accustomed to anything, he reminded himself. As I was settling into the plush emerald velvet seat, my friend pointed out a man standing by the entrance to the theater. He wore a dark, square-shouldered leather jacket with red piping that edged the collar and curled around the front pockets. He had on a black silk shirt, dark pants, and gleaming pointed-toed cowboy boots. He was average height with thinning dark hair, and he laughed easily with the man standing next to him. My friend said, “See that good-looking guy? That’s my cousin, Dagoberto García.” As the lights dimmed, the last of the five hundred patrons moved to their seats, filling the theater to capacity. It was amphitheater style with the rows in a semicircle, back row highest, descending to front-row seats at stage level. Dago sat across from us. The Teatro de los Héroes in Chihuahua City was filled with patrons, politicians, and artists who came to see the play La Mujer que Cayó del Cielo (The Woman Who Fell from the Sky) in honor of its author, Victor Hugo Rascón Banda, the beloved Mexican playwright. He was to be honored by the governor after the play. House lights blackened as stage lights rose. The stage was mostly dark. A spotlight lit an abstract window made of prison bars suspended in air. Below the window, behind bars of a jail cell, a frightened woman in a long flowered dress crouched in shadow. Another spotlight focused on two policemen playing cards, talking. One officer asked where they found her. The other explained she was eating from a refrigerator in a private home. The first one said where did she come from? That’s the big mystery—she doesn’t speak English, said the other. Both men agreed that since she didn’t speak English and her behavior was crazy, they should lock her up. The play was about Rita, who walked 1,500 miles from Mexico’s Barranca del Cobre to Kansas. She was arrested and placed in a Kansas mental hospital for ten years because her unrecognized native language was thought to be the “guttural noises” of a mentally ill person. She was a Tarahumara Indian. Although she spoke no English and couldn’t communicate , an American judge declared her mentally ill and placed her in a psychiatric hospital. It was a riveting, true story about a journey that haunts the landscape between three cultures. In the dark, I looked across the row at Dago. He was absorbed in the drama, never taking his eyes from the stage. When the play and speeches were over, we moved to the lobby for champagne and hors d’oeuvres, hundreds of people laughing gaily for the media’s flashing camera lights, or intensely arguing over the treatment of Rita and others who migrate to the United States. My friend introduced me to her cousin. He was gracious, easy to talk to, even with my choppy Spanish. I apologized for not speaking fluently. Careful, he said leaning close, they might lock you in a mental hospital for not speaking the language. We were momentarily interrupted by a woman next to us talking in a loud voice. She was dressed in a long purple chiffon gown, her black hair wrapped high on her head, diamonds dangling from her ears. We looked around. “See,” Dago whispered, “we are surrounded by the elite of Chihuahua.” “Looks like politicians over there,” I said. “You can spot them a kilometer away,” he laughed. The men were in tuxedos. The women next to them were a dazzling rainbow of silk, jewels, and scarlet lip gloss. “Looks like they are from Barrio Volvo,” I said. “More like Barrio Mercedes,” he added. “Speaking of politicians, what...

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