By Edward Garza
Nola likes that I’m learning Spanish, though she thinks twenty-six is a little late. “Why don’t you already know Spanish, Ernesto Guerra?” Nola says the first time we’re at the movies, rolling the r’s. (Most people just call me Ernest.)
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Annie Hall ends and we’re back in the sunlight, arms woven. Right away we see this guy, a Chicano, getting arrested in the parking lot, handcuffs snapping against his wrists. The cop is this brassy redhead. Breasts like hurricane sandbags.
“What’s ‘wife’ in Spanish?” I ask Nola before bringing her hand to my lips, pecking it.
“Esposa.”
“How about ‘to handcuff somebody’?”
“Esposar.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Move along–nothing to see here.”
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Edward Garza works as a consultant at the Writing Center at the University of Houston, where this May he will earn his Bachelor’s degree in English Literature. He is Editor-in-Chief of the literary journal The Aletheia.
