Camo

Rosalinda lived with her mother and two younger brothers, Pedro and Juan, in the Heart of Lubbock neighborhood. Her Uncle Tio and Uncle Estaban lived nearby and visited often. Another uncle, Uncle Ramon, had moved back to Mexico a few years ago; or rather, one time when they were visiting, he refused to come back to the USA. Rosalinda's mom and her grandparents left him there; what could they do? He was eighteen and old enough to make his own decisions.

Estaban claimed it was because he didn't want to join the Army, and there was some truth to that. A lot of Mexican kids joined the Army as a way of being more American, of fitting in, but Ramon didn't want to fit in. He was tired of trying to fit in. In Mexico he figured he wouldn't have to fit in; he'd already be Mexican. How wrong he was, but you can't tell an eighteen-year-old he's wrong.

One day Rosalinda bought two camo shirts, a brown one and a gray one, in a Lubbock store, because she liked them. At the time she had no idea that they were related to the army, or even hunting; some people said it was all about hunting, but when she bought them, it was just because she liked the design. But soon after, when she was wearing the brown one, Trent, a white kid in her class, taunted her, and asked her what she was doing wearing a shirt like that, as if Mexican kids shouldn't be wearing shirts like that. When she came home Uncle Tio and Uncle Estaban were visiting, and she told the story. They got mad. Both of them had joined the Army. Estaban was going back for a second time around. 

Estaban said yes, the shirts originally came from the Army. But Mexican-Americans joined the Army all the time; they were just as American as anyone. They had a right to wear those shirts. Their niece had a right to wear them. She should wear them anytime she wanted, Estaban said.

Uncle Tio listened quietly. He was Rosalinda's favorite; when she was a young girl, she didn't know that "Tio" meant uncle and just thought it was his name. Everyone thought that was kind of funny but kept calling him "Tio," at least in the family. Outside the family everyone called him Ernesto, which was his real name. Ernesto was a painter; he painted houses. At night he was tired and ate a lot, especially when Rosalinda's mom cooked. 

Rosalinda's real decision was whether to tell Ricardo, a friend of hers in school, what Trent had said. Ricardo would beat Trent up, Rosalinda was pretty sure. Ricardo was looking for an excuse to beat Trent up; if she'd told Ricardo, that would have been a good enough excuse. Rosalinda didn't like Trent. On one side of her, she wouldn't mind seeing him beat up. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. 

At the dinner table they talked a little about Ramon. Ramon had trouble getting a job in Mexico because he was too American. People said he thought like an American, and he even talked like one; he hardly knew the Spanish language anymore. He was having trouble down there, but he didn't want to admit it; Tio had heard that from other family members. 

Estaban brought up the camo shirts again. He said he'd gone hunting several times, and you wouldn't even want them for hunting around here. The original idea was that if they looked like branches and leaves, black and brown and all, they would look like the woods and fit in. But there weren't that many woods around here. If you wanted to fit in you'd wear plain brown. But he also said, they don't really mean anything. They're just shirts. Anybody can wear a shirt. 

Later on Rosalinda asked Tio whether she should tell Ricardo about what Trent said. She told Tio that she was pretty sure Ricardo would go straight to Trent and beat him up. Tio told her, it's better not to get involved. Ricardo will probably fight Trent eventually anyway, there's no use getting in the middle of it. Forget about it, Tio said. Rosalinda tried. The closest she could get to forgetting about it was not wearing the shirts anymore.

Many years later, Rosalinda was sitting with her mother at her garage sale, and the two camo shirts were together, for sale, barely worn. Her little brother Pedro was now grown and about to go off to the Army. A white woman with twins came by and bought the shirts for a quarter each. Her mother knew her, she said later, because she was a neighbor; she didn't live too far away. In fact she was Trent's wife; she and Trent were now about 22, as was Rosalinda, but Rosalinda didn't know the wife. She knew, though, that Trent had gone off to Afghanistan and had been killed; that had happened maybe a month ago. She had seen a tear in the woman's eye as she'd bought the shirts, as if she were thinking of Trent when she did it; the shirts, though, would fit her twins perfectly. 

Tio had come by to help set up the sale, and he came back later to put it away, especially the heavy tables. Estaban came by too, but Estaban had been injured in the war and couldn't walk; it was always a huge production for him to get his wheelchair out of the van, which he had to park over on the side, so that he could get out, and come over and join everyone. Ernesto had the worst time, because he couldn't work, and he had to use his wheelchair everywhere he went. The worst thing, he said, was that his leg had been blown up, basically, in an accident, he wasn't injured by the enemy, but rather by someone misfiring something on our own base. 

Everyone was tired and hungry after the garage sale, and they ate a lot. They spoke English when the grandparents weren't around, because it was easier (This was the downfall of Ramon, Tio said). They mentioned the neighbors they had seen at the sale; most of the ones they got along with at least stopped by to say hello. Some would probably never say hello. It was unusual that they'd had a sale, but in the end, Rosalinda felt that it was even more unusual that Trent's wife had come over, as if she'd known those shirts were there all along, as if she needed them.  That was a kind of grace, or coming full circle, in a way. 

Outside, there were signs of a dust storm picking up, turning the air a kind of brownish color. This would be trouble for Estaban, who would have to load his wheelchair into the van, and who wasn't such a great driver even in the good weather. Rosalinda was glad she wasn't married, wasn't taking care of anyone, and wasn't going anywhere; she took comfort in her mom's little decorations around the house. After dinner, her uncles argued about baseball, and she took a nap on the sofa, but she dreamed about soldiers, soldiers who were running around some faraway desert place, and who had no choice but to look like soldiers.