• Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen

latinopia.com

Latino arts, history and culture

  • Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen
You are here: Home / Blogs / ZOMBIE MEX DIARIES 12.02.12

ZOMBIE MEX DIARIES 12.02.12

December 2, 2012 by JT

THE OPEN PALM PENDANT.

After seeing the Open Palm pendant around Pearl Gonzalez’s neck, my first impulse was to chase her down the hall and immediately ask her about it. But then my zombie self-preservation inner voice said, “Hold up, Lazo! Think this through.”

Okay, I said to myself, let’s be logical. First, either Pearl doesn’t know what the Open Palm pendant means, that it’s related to being a zombie. Or else she does.

So let’s look at the first option. Say she doesn’t know. It may that she just picked up the pendant innocently at some jewelry store and doesn’t know that it’s some kind of symbol or alert to zombies. But I can’t very well ask her.

But if she DOES know what it means, then how does she know? Does she know La Señora Falcón? Could she lead me to her? But then my asking her about it might alert her to the fact that I’m a zombie. I’d be exposed. Vulnerable.

I couldn’t just pretend I hadn’t seen it. This was too important to my identity–something still very much confused. I was very much in need of answers. And I was certain that the pendant, or a least the Open Palm hand symbol, was a key to my identity.

I finally decided the prudent thing to do was wait until the next time I saw her. Whether she was wearing the pendant or not I’d ask her about it. I’d tell her I was interested in getting one for my mom’s birthday. That should get a conversation going and perhaps from her responses I’d get a better sense of how much she did and did not know about the significance of the pendant.

All night long, all I could think about was Pearl and the pendant. By dawn I was determined that I wouldn’t wait to run into her. I’d seek her out the minute I got to school.

I arrived early to my first period class in the Four Hundred Building and waited outside the entrance to room 323. I figured we could talk before class started. But the passing bell sounded and it was time to go inside and still no Pearl. I took my seat and Mr. Hanna started the class by telling us a joke. This was Hanna’s way of warming up the class– a joke a day.

The joke was about a gorilla walking into a bar and asking for a beer.

“So the bartender serves the gorilla the beer,” Mr. Hanna said, “and tells him, that’ll be ten dollars. The Gorilla digs into a waist wallet he is wearing and pulls out a ten dollar bill and hands it to the bartender. The bartender says, “Hey, if you don’t mind my saying so. We don’t get too many gorillas coming into this bar.” The gorilla takes a sip from his beer and says, “At ten dollars a beer, I’m not surprised!”

The class erupted into laughter and just then I saw Pearl enter into the classroom. She went to her seat and smiled and waved to me as she sat down.

She was wearing the Open Palm pendant!

The forty minute class seemed endless! But as soon as the passing bell rang, I jumped up and got to Pearl as she was walking out the classroom door.

“Hi, Pearl!” I said.

“Hey, Lazo. How you doing?”

“Oh, I’m cool. Hey, got a question for you.”

By now we are out in the hallway. I pulled her aside. I figured I’d start off casual, not make to much of the pendant.

“Pearl, that sure is a cool thing you got hanging around your neck.”

She seemed a little taken aback.

“Oh yeah, it was a Christmas gift from my dad.”

“Yeah, pretty cool. It’s an open hand, eh?”

“Yeah,” she smiled “With this crazy little butterfly inside.”

“Right a butterfly.”

There was an awkward moment of silence. Then a strange look came over Pearl face. She looked into my eyes.

“Do you know what time it is?” She asked very pointedly.

“Huh?” I said.

Did this have something to do what Mrs. Falcón had told my mother? It was Mrs. Falcón who had given my mother a carved version of the Open Palm Hand to hang by our door when she had resurrected me from the dead. She had told my mother that I would understand the meaning of the symbol when the time was right.

I could see Pearl was getting a little fidgety. She was waiting for an answer. Was this some kind of code or password situation? Some signal to which I was supposed o respond? I didn’t know what to say.

Suddenly Pearl looked at the clock in the hallway.

“Look it’s almost 9:05. Passing period is almost over. Got to get to my second period class,” she said quickly, “Gotta go Lazo.”

“But wait. That pendant, Do you know where your dad bought it?”

“Not sure,” she called walking away. “I”ll ask him for you.”

I barely made it to my second period class on time–it’s a little hike down to the football field bungalows.

I could hardly focus on my biology teacher Mrs. Hewitt’s lecture on the Mendel and his pea experiments. I was just as confused and ignorant about the pendant and Pearl as I had been yesterday when I first saw the pendant.

I kept going over and over my conversation with Pearl. She had been very deliberate when she had asked me, “Do you know what time it is?” Like she was expecting me to say something special. Like she was waiting for a password or something. What should I have said? Or was I making all of this up? Was it all in my imagination?

I wasn’t until after lunch (I had gobbled my brain tacos in secret under the football bleachers) that it hit me what I had to do.

I had to stop pussy-footing around. I had to get at the bottom of this mystery once and for all.

I tracked Pearl down as she was leaving her last class in the One Hundred Building.

“Pearl, “ I called out.

“Hi, Lazo. What’s up?”

“I know the answer to your question.”

The smile left her face and a very serious look came over her face.

“My question?”

“Yes, I know what time it is.”

“You do?”

“It’s time for the butterfly to take flight.”

Pearl was perfectly still for a long moment. I couldn’t read her face. What was she thinking?  Then, a smile slowly spread across her face. She stepped forward and gave me a warm hug. She held me for a long moment. Then she stepped back, shaking her head back and forth to herself. “Oh, Lazo, I knew it! I knew it! You ARE one of us!”

“Us?” My head was reeling. I must be dreaming.

“Lazo, I’m a zombie too!” Pearl said.

Copyright 2012 Lazaro De La Tierra and Barrio Dog Productions Inc.

Filed Under: Blogs, Zombie Mex Diaries

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 12.09.23

December 9, 2023 By wpengine

The Virgin de Guadalupe and the Origins of Mexican National Consciousness The apparition of the Virgin de Guadalupe on December 12, 1531 on the hills of Tepeyac, Mexico signaled the beginning of a new spiritual era in the Americas. With the visitation of the Virgin, natives who had resisted Catholicism turned to the Brown Madonna […]

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 12.02.23

December 2, 2023 By wpengine

Andres de Tapia Wrote An Eyewitness Account of the Conquest in Mexico in 1519 Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier of fortune who served under Hernan Cortes in the conquest of Mexico, provided a brilliant eyewitness account of the conquest of the Aztec Empire. Published in 1568 as The True History of the Conquest of […]

MIS PENSAMIENTOS with ALFREDO SANTOS 12.09.23

December 9, 2023 By wpengine

Bienvenidos al ultimo ejemplar de La Voz para el año 2023. Parece que no, pero este año pasó medio rapido para mi. El el caso mio, me pusieron un pacemaker en enero porque me andaba cayendo. Como decia un doctor, “the top part of your heart was not talking to the bottom part of your […]

TALES OF TORRES TRUMP 11.24.23 TAKE TRUMP AT HIS WORD

November 25, 2023 By wpengine

Trump is a Dangerous Menace and He is Showing What He Is: Take Him at His Word by Luis Torres In the current media landscape we usually hear or read bits and pieces of the human pendejada that is Donald J. Trump. He seems to be in hiding, to a degree. Mercifully, we can tune […]

More Posts from this Category

New On Latinopia

LATINOPIA WORD JOSÉ MONTOYA “PACHUCO PORTFOLIO”

By Tia Tenopia on June 12, 2011

José Montoya is a renowned poet, artist and activist who has been in the forefront of the Chicano art movement. One of his most celebrated poems is titled “Pachuco Portfolio” which pays homage to the iconic and enduring character of El Pachuco, the 1940s  Mexican American youth who dressed in the stylish Zoot Suit.

Category: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature

LATINOPIA EVENT 1966 UFW PEREGRINACIÓN (PILGRIMAGE) MARCH

By Tia Tenopia on March 19, 2013

The effort to organize farm workers under a union contract has been a long and difficult struggle. In 1965, César Chávez and Dolores Huerta created what would become the United Farm Workers Union. From the onset they  faced many obstacles, not the least of which was how to get dozens of California grape growers to […]

Category: History, LATINOPIA EVENT

LATINOPIA ART SONIA ROMERO 2

By Tia Tenopia on October 20, 2013

Sonia Romero is a graphic artist,muralist and print maker. In this second profile on Sonia and her work, Latinopia explores Sonia’s public murals, in particular the “Urban Oasis” mural at the MacArthur Park Metro Station in Los Angeles, California.

Category: Art, LATINOPIA ART

© 2023 latinopia.com · Pin It - Genesis - WordPress · Admin