Tracie Tales

I fell off the wagon last week. Funny thing is, I already had this ready to go, but I just didn't get a chance to upload since I wasn't really around a computer. I will owe a second post this week. 

The prompt was:

Find a person or moment in your previous writing and expand it.

If you were a fan Gabriel Iglesias from the beginning, you might know the name Felipe Esparza. He’s one of the guys with Iglesias in that story he tells about getting pulled over on their way to Vegas during the Hot and Fluffy Comedy Central special. Yeah, I’m a bit of a fan.

Anyway, Felipe Esparza is the spitting image of Tracie. Well, minus the facial hair. She also had this slur due to some dental issues caused by a car accident she was in as a kid. She dressed like a straight up Chola because well, she was one. She also wasn’t very nice.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I really did try to be friends with her. Jorge and I were cool with each other and I wanted to be cool with his girlfriend, too. I’d seen so many of my family members treat my brother-in-laws like crap and then they became permanent parts of the family and there was all that bad blood. I didn’t want that to happen anymore. I never understood why we couldn’t just include them in our family.

Pretty soon though, it became apparent that Tracie did not like me. Like I said, Jorge and I were cool. We had a great relationship. He was the epitome of a big brother from the very beginning. He was always there when I needed help, scolding, or saving. I don’t think she liked that. In fact, I think she felt threatened by me.

So, she did what any girlfriend would do. She tried to make us believe that my brother who didn’t curse, drink, or smoke was a total different animal around her. If he was, I didn’t care. It’s not like it was going to ruin my life if he let out an f-bomb every now and then and had a beer.

Then, she accused my brother of messing around with me. Which, honestly, is  A. disgusting and B. fucked up. I mean, seriously?

When her nefarious plots failed, she accused me of “needing to get laid” and being a lesbian. This plot wasn’t nefarious, but plain 'ole stupid. It was also evident that when I’d tried to be friends with her, she didn’t listen to anything I said. And in reality, she was the one that was a lesbian. She came out of the closet after their relationship fizzled out.

All the while, she tried to create a wedge between my family and me.

I wasn’t a saint in all this. I egged her on with my quick wit. It also didn’t help that sometimes Jorge would laugh at jokes I made at her expense.

Weekends of my junior and senior year, I usually held down the fort at the adult foster care my mom ran while she spent some time out in the real world. However, one Sunday, my mom wanted me to join them for church and then a trip to Target to get me a couple of things I’d been wanting.

Jorge and Tracie met us at mass and all was well until we got to the car. Tracie was seething. Still, we went to Target, looked around, and made our purchases. We were planning to go get some lunch, but the Target trip wore down Tracie’s ability to suppress her rage. I don’t remember exactly how it all started, but we wound up in front of her house with mom and me in the car, Tracie and her sister on their lawn and Jorge trying to calm both of us down. By this time, she’d punched my brother’s windshield causing the glass to break, lunged at me from the front seat, and had my mom's nerves on edge. I had put up with years of her talk. She had broken the proverbial camel's back long ago, but this was her day of reckoning.

“I’m gonna kick your ass,” said Tracie sounding like an angry Daffy Duck.

“Come on then, do it!” I shouted.

“No mi’ja! Jorge, andale! Vamonos!” cried Mom.

“Just calm down,” my brother told both of us.

“No,” I replied, “She wants to fight, lets go.”

“Come on then, you little bitch,” said Tracie.

“Yeah,” chided Chana, Tracie’s sister.

At some point, Tracie had acquired a cinder block was threatening to throw it at me.

Somehow, we ended up leaving without her touching a single hair, but she’d made her threats about following me home from school. I had really wanted to fight her though because even though I would most likely get my butt kicked, I could have sent her to jail. I was a minor at the time and she was well in her 20’s.

Afterward, my brother hugged me as I cried the rage out and promised me that it was over between them.

It didn’t end.

He kept seeing her behind our backs. She kept making cameos when she wasn’t invited just to get a rise out of me.

Eventually, she started coming around again and I let go of the rage a little. By this point, I was done trying to be her friend. It was apparent that a friendship between us would never happen. I openly made fun of her without giving her or my brother's feelings a second chance. If the coin were flipped, I wouldn't have kept someone like her around. I couldn't understand why he did.

One day, I was in my room watching TV when I heard her arguing with my brother. Then, I heard a hit. I got up to see what was going on to find her hovering over my brother and punching him. Remember that rage I had let go of? It came back full force.

Before I knew it, I had her pinned on the bed by the neck, telling her, “If you ever touch my brother again, I will kill you!”

When I let go of her, she coughed and coughed, walked out of the house, and peeled out of our driveway as Jorge ran after her.

I’m not proud of these moments. I could have handled them better for the sake of Mom and Jorge. But I learned that sometimes, people, especially Tracie's breed, need to see the full force of your rage. After that last incident, she left me alone. If she talked shit about me, she made sure it was far, far away. If she wanted to mess with my brother, she made sure she was out of my reach. She also understood that if I was around, she shouldn’t be around.

I imagine that their relationship suffered for it, but Jorge and her continued to date for a couple more years. I am forever grateful that he didn’t end up marrying her. The topic of Tracie is a sore spot for my brother. He wants nothing to do with her.

Still, Tracie is like a reoccurring nightmare. She friended my older brothers who can make some pretty dumb choices. She is also friends with someone I was friends with in high school. And she continued to try and have a relationship with my mom even after Jorge married and had kids.

Fortunately, I haven’t had the privilege of seeing her again. But I guess if I did, I’d just pretend she was another stranger in the crowd. Good riddance!