Mexican Shoots Himself in the Chest by Stanley Delgado

Winner of the 2019 Los Angeles Review Literary Awards, in the category of flash fiction.

Final Judge: Brittany McLaughlin

Netta says Alessandra killed herself. We’re in bed, Lily asleep with her nose buried in my armpit. Netta stares at the ceiling. I don’t even know an Alessandra.

My cousin, remember? A little fat. Dentist. Single.

I tickle Lily’s neck, just to make sure she’s not awake; five-year-olds shouldn’t hear about this stuff.

Well, yeah, Netta says. It was an overdose.

We’re both quiet for a while, pretending to fall asleep. I had a friend who overdosed, once. But he survived it. Marco with the sad eyes who laughed a lot.

Not a lot of Mexicans kill themselves, Netta says.

What?

Alessandra is one. But I can’t think of a lot.

I don’t bother thinking about it, I say. Lily spent the whole day piling her toys in our room. Teddy bears, baby dolls. All of it. And who’s going to clean it?

Name a famous Mexican who’s killed themselves.

I can’t.

She grabs her phone. Siri, name Mexicans who have killed themselves.

A little pink-and-green spiral pulses on the screen, thinking… 

I don’t know how to respond to that.

Ha! she shouts, I flinch. She starts tapping, typing.

Calm down, Lily’s sleeping, I say. I pull the blanket just over her ears and see the bits of dried chocolate milk on the little hairs of her upper lip. Tomorrow she will learn how to clean up after herself.

Wikipedia says only five Mexican celebrities have killed themselves. Four girls, one guy.

Ever? I could name five Hollywood actors from like last year.

Pina Pellicer? Netta says.

Don’t know her.

Sleeping pills. Lucha Reyes? ‘The mother of ranchera music,’ apparently.

Kinda familiar.

Wikipedia says, Acute intoxication by unknown substances.

‘Unknown’…? I look around the room. I don’t want to look at Netta, talking about this. I see Lily’s baby doll, the one that keeps its eyes open unless you cradle it in your arms and put its head back. Its eyes are open, blue, staring at the ceiling.

Lupe Velez: Seconal. But it says it could’ve been murder.

Lily is sleeping, I say.

The last one! Miroslava. Seconal, too.

Miroslava? Doesn’t sound Mexican.

It isn’t! Netta acts like this is all just gossip. It says she was born in Czechoslovakia and her parents moved to Mexico, to escape the Nazis. Her big break was winning a beauty contest.

She wasn’t even Mexican and she won?

I pull the blanket up to my chin, covering Lily’s entire head. How can I sleep comfortably while making sure Lily doesn’t suffocate, I’m thinking. 

Well, that was depressing, Netta says. She shuts her phone off.

I push the blanket back down under Lily’s ears. Didn’t you say there were five?

Oh. Yeah, huh. She looks at her phone again. There we go, last one: Pedro Armendariz. Shot himself in the chest. Never heard of him. She shuts her phone off but doesn’t fall asleep. I can hear her blinking. So I hold her hand.

I actually have heard of him, though, just a little. He studied law, journalism, stage-acting. Maybe I saw a documentary? I don’t know why I know, just one of those things. His big break was reciting Hamlet to a crowd of tourists, and a filmmaker just happened to be there. He must’ve said something like, Stick with me, kid, and you’ll go straight to the top. At least Pedro shot himself in the chest, and not the head. Anything but the face. They probably dressed him up real nice for the funeral. I’m sure the casket was wide, wide open.

Stanley Delgado’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Glimmer Train, Gulf Coast, Puerto del Sol, Paper Darts, Mud Season Review, and elsewhere. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he is currently finishing his BA. He can be reached at stanleydelgado.com.