El Golondrino
by Renato Escudero
Tony Miramontes wanted to be a country superstar in tight Wranglers. Before he made his journey al Norte and signed with Talent International, before he got Jimena pregnant, he worked at a resort in Cancún, where he served margaritas to visionaries, like Jimmy Buffet and Kenny Chesney and other renegades that ran from the Texas Rangers, or just insisted to lose their fame in the waves of the Gulf under a Mexican sun. Some of these Artists took their guitars and Stetson hats everywhere, even snorkeling. Tony watched them swim, strike some chords, sing verses to a circle of bikinis, and jot down notes on used cocktail napkins.
“What do you think, Amigo?” a skinny guy in black silk once asked him. He was a dark fellow, and Tony at first had thought he was a paisano.
“Muy bonito, Don Walker, el coro está bien pegajoso.”
“Don’t you think there’s too much beer in the chorus?”
“Ni mais, hombre, la Corona es buena cerveza.”
It was the morning after that worried Tony, because when Jimena went to clean their rooms, they gave her CDs and offered to take her for a ride on their tour buses.
“Qué te dijo el gringo guey?” Tony would ask her in linen closets, as he hugged her, kissed her and yanked the CDs from her apron pockets. Later he would listen to every note in his boom box. The jealousy ran two ways: jealous of the Artists’ drunk eyes on Jimena, jealous of their talent encrypted on silver discs.
“Ay mi amor, he jus give me his autograph.”
“En las pantaletas otra vez?”
“No mi cielo, ju think I’m a puta?I tole him my boyfrien’s un singer too, and then he say he must to catch a plane.”
Karaoke night came once a week without fail. Tony sang “Should Have Been a Cowboy” in perfect English. One would think he spoke the language. In fact an American in a jogging suit and a hole in his throat asked him if he had any material of his own.
“Jimena!” Tony yelled across the smoky lounge. “Jimena!”
She showed up with daisies in her hair and said to the American, “Tony Miramontes sings what ju put in front of him. He jus can’t speak the Englich.”
“Would he be willing to audition for us?” the man asked her, giving her a glossy card.
Tony intercepted the card and said, “Si patron, con mucho gusto.”
One day he would open for George Strait with his first and last top ten hit, “The Sparrow in Me.”
When the sparrow flies,
And gets lost in northern skies,
All that he can do
(Is sing) ‘Coo-coo-roo-coo coo.’
But that would be much later. Tonight he had to go home and help Jimena fix the old water heater and ask her how many more CDs she had hidden away in linen closets.
Renato Escudero received his MA degree in English (Creative Writing) from San Francisco State University, where he has also taught and is currently an MFA candidate. His stories have appeared in CIPACTLI, REED MAGAZINE, SLAB and THEFANZINE.COM. Renato is the winner of the 2008 John Steinbeck Award for the Short Story, and was selected as a finalist in the INDIANA REVIEW 2008 Fiction Prize and the NEW LETTERS Literary Awards 2005. He’s working on his first novel. He lives in Alameda, California, with his family and new baby boy.
