"AT LEAST HE'S A DOCTOR"
Dreamed 1982/4/7 by Chris Wayan
My name is Maria Elena. I'm sixteen now. My family's Venezuelan, but I grew up in Puerto Rico till last year, when my dad got a one-year job in Caracas and we moved back there. So I'm enrolled in a new school, where everyone laughs at my accent and calls me American. I try to make new friends, but it's hard, because my mom discourages me from socializing! She's paranoid, just keeps repeating "You'll get pregnant, you'll get pregnant" more like an order than a warning! Just because she did with me...
I try to laugh it off, "Oh, motherrrrrr!" But I can't have friends over at all.
But maybe she senses the truth. I did get a boyfriend soon after we came here, and we do fuck, and I don't use contraception. But he's not a student, not a boy, he's a man. A doctor, in fact.
My mom finally catches on. She blows up at first and grounds me even worse than I was, but I make it clear I'll run off if she doesn't let me see him. Eventually, she gets resigned to it. Neither of us wants to get married yet, but he's generous and my mom can say "At least he's a doctor." He's an ob/gyn specialist in fact--that's how we met, in the local health clinic. And he's willing to help us sneak into the USA illegally, where he has citizenship. He'll get my dad a job there. They finally agree--Venezuela isn't in good shape these days.
So now it's two months later. I like the mainland. I'm happy here... My mom stopped nagging. Everything seems okay... till my dad comes home early one day when Arturo's at work. My dad doesn't waste time. "Did you know your boyfriend is blackmailing us? He wants a cut of what I earn... and no complaints about him sleeping with you, either... or he'll turn us all in as illegal immigrants."
So THAT'S why my mom's gone silent! I hated her nagging, and was grateful that she stopped, but now...
I ask around, now that the blinders are off. Turns out I'm not his first. He's fucked other girls who were his patients. AND he encourages girls who already have boyfriends, especially Latinas, to be sexually active with no contraception, so they'll get pregnant, and he'll get more ob/gyn business. He doesn't care if it's abortion or a baby, it's all business! And business is good. The business of America is business.
He's just your friendly neighborhood fetus farmer.
I get so mad at him, I turn male! I'll confront him man to man!
I snarl "We're through! Give my dad his our money back! And then GET OUT." He laughs and pulls out a quarter and two nickels sharpened to a razor-edge, and slashes at my crotch! Cuts me slightly, then holds up the coins red-edged with drops of my blood, and says "That's all the money you'll ever get from me. Now YOU get out."
I start hitting him, but he pulls a scalpel on me. I grab it from him and slash at HIM, cut his hand. He stares in disbelief at the small cuts on his hand, OUTRAGED.
So he can give pain and blood but can't take it, eh?
He renews his attack. As I defend myself, the knife grows! I cut him again on the hand. He attacks me again in a fury. A third bloody slash across his hand, and I say "Hey surgeon, if you keep this up you won't be able to do your abortions any more."
But he keeps coming at me, and I keep cutting. Whatever it takes.
And I wake.
NOTES THE NEXT DAY
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