Sabrina & Corina: Stories

The narrator begins this story by stating that the character Michael looks older than his 33 years. Michael works at a marijuana dispensary on Colfax Avenue, and is having an affair with Alicia, the protagonist of the story. Michael and Alicia used to date, but Alicia is currently married to Gary, a 54-year-old White man who is an auctioneer from Nebraska. Whenever Gary goes out of town for his annual auctioneers’ convention, Alicia spends the night with Michael. The story takes place on one of these nights.

Alicia gets into Michael’s teal Nova, which is pristine on the outside and very messy on the inside. When she spots some spray paint canisters in his backseat, she tells him that he should keep them in the trunk, because their friend Joaquin got charged with a felony for tagging last summer: “Only because that pendejo couldn’t outrun the bull. Besides, someone has to make these invasive yuppies uncomfortable. Weedy motherfuckers. Growing out of control,” Michael replies (180-181).

Alicia tells Michael that they need to go to the botanica on Lawrence Street. She tells them that she needs to get an herbal remedy for Gary’s dogs, Kane and Oscar, whom she says are suffering from fleas. However, she is pregnant and seeking an herbal means of abortion. This is her second pregnancy, and she has not informed Gary of it—despite Gary’s desire that she give him a son. When she found out, she felt a dread that was akin to grief.

Alicia and Gary have been married for two years. He owns “the largest farm and automotive equipment auction yard in Denver” (181). When he met Alicia at a meeting for the Univision television network, he’d been hoping to add the Spanish-speaking populace to his audience: “You […] have a great fuckin’ nose” was his pickup line, and it worked (182). The narrator adds:

Alicia grew to call him her rancher, her vaquero, her daddy. Gary simply called her by a childhood nickname—Ali Bird. She liked him to call out, with his auctioneer’s tongue, this name in bed. All her names, really. Alicia Monica del Toro, and, later, Alicia Monica del Toro Parker (182).

The botanica is located next to a restaurant called Tacos Jalisco, and Michael insists that they stop in there before going to the botanica: “It [is] packed with a few Mexicano families, several Chicano rockabilly couples, and of course, a smattering of Anglo newcomers, white kids in Carhartt hoodies and Red Wing shoes, the clothing of work they’d never know” (182). As a blonde girl aggressively eyes him, Michael scornfully says that, although he will have sex with these types of White people, he hates them. He also keeps trying to get Alicia to drink shots of Hornitos tequila, but she makes the excuse that she’s trying to lose weight.

It has been ten years since the first time Alicia went to the botanica. Back then, Alicia’s father was dying of liver cancer that was caused by his work in the uranium mines outside of Denver. He had been prescribed very strong painkillers which were causing cognitive side effects. It was especially wrenching to Alicia when he called Stephanie, which was her mother’s name. Her mother was a White woman named Stephanie Elkhorn, who abandoned the family when Alicia was four years old. Alicia’s abuela Lopez had insisted that Alicia’s father deserved “to die with dignity of mind” (183). She wrote down a list of herbs, which Alicia took to the botanica.

At the botanica, Alicia is about to speak to the man behind the counter when a woman enters the area through a beaded curtain. In her broken Spanish, she asks her for an herb called neem. The woman asks her what it is for. Alicia shows the woman her canary diamond wedding ring, and then, while turning her back to Michael, points to her womb. The woman tells her that the herb is not guaranteed to work, and that it will also hurt. Alicia nods, and the woman goes into the back room. She returns with an urn and instructs Alicia to steep the neem leaves for half an hour. Alicia thanks her and gives her cash.

Outside the botanica, Alicia comes clean to Michael about the real purpose of the trip there. He tells her that she should tell Gary. Alicia contends that the pregnancy is neither Gary’s nor Michael’s business.

They park the Nova near an abandoned building on 23rd Street and then walk toward the river, where a row of Section 8 apartments stands. They find a hole in a chain link fence bordering the Union Pacific rail yard and slip into it. Alicia thinks about her tag name, K-SD, and relishes the idea of her name journeying far and wide after it’s emblazoned on a train. Michael lights a cigarette and, lit by the flame, his face looks young again. They reminisce about all the time they’ve spent together in the yard in the past, tagging together: “I always think of you, Mikey. When a train rolls by my place at one A.M., it’s all you,” Alicia says (187). He then teases her about thinking about her in the same way, and then telling whatever girl he happens to be sleeping with about her.

The first time Alicia was pregnant, the baby was Michael’s: “A clinic doctor prescribed a pill that knifed Alicia’s insides for three days and two nights. On the third day, dizzy and partially blind with pain, Alicia staggered into the kitchen, where she found Abuela Lopez standing at the counter chopping pork with a butcher’s knife” (189). Abuela Lopez became very angry with Alicia when she learned the truth about her malady. She also asks why Alicia didn’t ask her to share her knowledge about herbal abortions, as that was all they had prior to the development of the pharmaceutical Alicia had taken, and she was an expert: “Abuela Lopez knew what plans to use, the temperature at which to sip the tea, how many cups for how many days, how long the cramps would curl Alicia’s insides, and to what extent she should expect tenderness in her breasts” (188).

Alicia and Michael agree to tag a freight train. Alicia marvels about the energy that animates her while she is tagging. While she does endless designs for work, tagging trains unleashes an artistry in her that is incomparable.

As the pair work on their piece, Alicia thinks about a kid that they once knew, who died in the yards at the age of 16. Mid-signature, he stepped backwards onto the tracks and was run over by a freight engine. A poem appeared next to his unfinished work: “May your journey be an endless track / may your trains keep rolling / may your name be completed when you’re back” (189).

Alicia and Michael are soon disturbed by two police officers, one of whom briefly catches Michael in the ray of his flashlight before Alicia and Michael take off running. They tear through the yard, evading the officers, although it soon appears that they will be caught. Thinking quickly, Alicia trips Michael and then mounts him, while pulling up her sweater and unlatching her bra. She tells Michael to be quiet.

The police find them and Alicia feeds them a story about how she and Michael are newly engaged, and apologetically acts as if the police have just caught them when they were about to make love: “I’m so embarrassed […] We were on a night walk, celebrating. We’re having our first baby,” she says (191). She also gives a false name—her mother’s—and says that Michael’s name is Gary. The police are gruff, but they let them go with a warning. Once Michael and Alicia have made it out of the rail yard, Michael thanks her for saving them. He also says, “Alicia del Toro Parker, I can’t see you anymore” (192).

On Alicia’s thirtieth birthday, Gary takes Alicia to a cabin he owns in southern Colorado. There, Alicia gazes up into the sky. She says, “I’ve always been able to find the North Star. It was one of those things my dad taught me, so that I’d never get lost. What does it mean that I can’t find it tonight?” (192). Gary teases her, saying that she can’t find it because she is drunk. Alicia lies: She looks back up into the sky and says that she can now see the North Star.