For Love

Long Beach, CA Summer 1959

“Push!”

“Mabel, you have to Push!”

“Where is my mother?” Mabel grunted.

Mabel, an eighteen-year-old Hispanic girl was just two months from finishing her senior year at Long Beach High. Originally from New Mexico, Mabel moved to Long Beach, California to escape her abusive stepmom two years ago. Mabel moved in with her mother and her two sisters on the Southside, hoping for a better life. Instead, Mabel was greeted with much of the same. In fact, Mabel felt, given her current situation, she may have made one of the biggest mistakes of her life when she left New Mexico.

“Push! Mabel, Push!”

As the baby cried out, Mabel’s vision started fading to black. Her body gave out in exhaustion. Somewhere from the dark she could hear the faintest voice, the voice of the doctor, “Congratulations, Mabel. It’s a b…”

Long Beach, CA Autumn 1958

“Oh fuck off!, You know I’m retired.” Lydia exclaimed.

“You sailors are all the same, like feral fucking cats when you come to port. Looking for an easy meal.”

Lydia was a crass, chubby Hispanic woman. Her years had caught up to her. However, in her past life, she was a beautiful Latina woman who was known for her long brown curly hair that touched down in the middle of her shoulder blades. She was well kempt; with beautifully patterned hand-made-form-fitting dresses she would pair with her seductive red lips. People would often say she had the unique ability to “walk in both worlds”, wherein she was educated enough to seduce businessmen, but had the life experience to hold her own with the sailors.

She was well known in this area of Long Beach. Having spent months at sea cramped in vessels without a woman in sight, the sailors would make it to shore, shit, shower, and shave, (as they would say it), adorn their best aftershave, newest jeans, and tightest white T-shirts. No sooner would the ship be tied up before the sailors were seen hitting the City hard. Once they had drank every drop of liquor, they would meander down the alley, clinging to one another, and bang on Lydia’s back door.

It was true, Lydia was “retired”. She hadn’t had to work in almost a year. In her eyes, her doorstep had been blessed when a shy 16-year-old girl knocked on her door two years ago. This allowed Lydia the freedom to work as she pleased. She now had the ability to leave her two younger children at home with Mabel, party all night, or even days at a time, not that she wasn’t known to take those liberties already; only now she had someone to blame if things went awry.

Wanting to please her mother, Mabel agreed to help step up and carry on the family business. After all, she had witnessed these events, like clockwork, every weekend and it was all she had known for the greater part of her late teen years.

The man was handsome, a shy twenty-something year old sailor. Mabel and he sat up talking for hours. He joined the Navy at age 18, looking for something, anything… and had seen things which most people had only read about in books. After four years he left the Navy and joined a merchant vessel where he would spend upwards of six months at sea. He didn’t have kids but didn’t write off the idea. He enjoyed boxing on the ship, working out, and meeting new people in new lands. Mabel could tell he was nervous. She wondered to herself if he could tell she was nervous too.

“Mabel, wake the fuck up, it’s time to go” Lydia squawked.

“Mom?” Mabel struggled.

“Mom, where is my baby?” Mabel was in pain and groggy, she was starting to remember where she was, but the room was spinning.

“I said get up; we have to get out of here. You know they charge by the day here and, thanks, to you we can’t afford it.” Lydia said with disdain in her voice.

“Mom? Where is my baby?” Mabel sobbed.