It was just another dark, cold night in Philly. Santina pulled the single chair out from under her splintered, second-hand table to sit and struck a match. The sulfurous smell filled the tiny apartment easily, but she didn’t mind. The smell was better than the streets. She gently pressed the flame to the wick of a lone candle. Using the same match, she lit a cigarette hanging from her lips before shaking out the flame. As shadows flickered across the peeling wallpaper, Santina leaned down to her journal and began to write.

“I was amazed to find that Gringolandia was just as dirty and smelly as Mexico. Qué sucio. I’ve only been here for a few days and I can feel the pangs of homesickness. Here you have to bribe, kill, or fuck someone just to get a bottle of tequila, and nothing like back home. The tequila these Anglos get their hands on is worse than burro piss. At least they have decent cigarettes.

I don’t know what drew me to Philadelphia. In my home town, you only come to Gringolandia for política. I have no interest in such bullshit. But to these Anglos, everything is politics. I’m learning that faster than I learned English.

At least I was able to acquire this hole in the wall apartment. Don’t ask me how—you don’t want to know. Down below there are children starving. At night, the streets keep me up with the sounds of their desperation and anguish. I guess I wasn’t expecting to hear the same sounds I heard when I was back home. The pain is the same, just with a different accent. They linger on the stoop of the apartment building, pissing and cussing one second, begging you for food the next. It’s hard to keep from kicking them aside like flea-ridden dogs.

It’s only taken me a couple days to find an acceptable group of eses to hang with. Help me put my ear to the ground and hear the thunder of this city. The clouds are showing me arsenic. I think I’ll start small to get my feet wet. Don’t need another mess like the one I created back in Mexico. At least I’m not property of some panzón. I’ll cut another cock off if I need to. Fuck tradition. Fuck propaganda. I’m here now. I’ll cut down anyone else who gets in my way.”

Santina took a final drag of her cigarette before putting out the butt on the table top. She grabbed another and lit it with the withering candle. She took another deep drag, sucking in the smoke as if her life depended on it. Scraping her chair back from the table, she pulled her red satin pumps off one, then the other. Still with the cigarette hanging from her red lips, she undid her matching dress, letting it slip to the floor. She stood at her window, looking down on the grimy Philly streets. As she stood in the candlelight, she glanced down to the poor saps on the street, but her eyes didn’t see soot and sadness. All she saw was the promise of new life blood.