“Woman Hollering Creek” is told in third person. Its central character, a well-brought-up young Mexican woman named Cleófilas, bored with her life, tired of waiting on her father and brothers, and inspired by the romance of soap operas, has married a Texas man and moved north of the border; in due time she has borne a son. Her husband, whom she has discovered is stupid, boorish, and unfaithful, beats her, and she would leave him but she doesn’t speak English and doesn’t know how to get away. Pregnant again, she visits her doctor and confides in the office nurse, who calls a friend; the friend picks up Cleófilas and takes her and her little boy to the bus station to return to her father.
Two voices speak in “The Marlboro Man,” a dialogue between women friends about “Durango,” whom a friend of one of the women used to date and upon whom the other used to have a bad crush, although she never met him. The one who had met him shares some information about him, but since there have been several “Marlboro Men” in ads and billboards, the two decide they don’t know if they’re even talking about the same “Durango.”
“La Fabulosa: A Texas Operetta” is narrated by a voice that might be one of the speakers in the previous story. She tells the story of Carmen Barriozábal, a legal secretary in San Antonio who had a brief affair with a young corporal in the army, then dismissed him and took up with a Texas senator. The corporal tried to kill her and himself, but failed; there are different versions, says the narrator, of what became of him, but Carmen broke up with her senator and started seeing a professional wrestler.
The speaker in “Remember the Alamo” is a man (Rudy Cantú, stage name Tristán) who, after suffering homosexual abuse as a child, has become a professional dancer. He describes his life, his relationship with his mother, sisters, and father, and the wild adulation of his fans—a tribute well deserved, he suggests. He says he has successfully forgotten the squalor and sadness of his earlier life; he has left all that behind for the artistry and the daring of his career. Tristán’s narrative is occasionally interrupted by groups of names: all Latin names, masculine and feminine.
