#faust.

▓ ▌now playing :: hypnotize – notorious b.i.g.

when lourdes is eight years old, she learns that all names have meanings. elated to have something that sets her apart from the ‘jessicas’ and ‘ashleys’ of her grade, the sting of being othered isn’t lost upon her. with a skip in her step, she hugs her books close to her chest and grins the whole way home. when they meet their mother, maite lopez in the yard, tending to her tomatoes, they ask her what her name means. it takes a great deal of elementary self control not to roll her eyes as she sees the reverence on her mother’s face when she speaks of la virgen maría. lourdes is disappointed to be named for a mother in a world where the mother is rarely elevated as holy. maite is framed with tomatoes–not roses or filigree-but she doesn’t let bad things happen; she gets shit done. lourdes thinks that maybe her mother is a better santa maría than some woman that occasionally appears in her dreams with a blue cloak made of stars. celestial beings are made of stars; they sit in the heavens looking beautiful while the world cries its wishes from below. celestial beings are like stars, because wishes don’t come true.

smart girls make their own dreams come true and lourdes is a smart girl. she’s good in her classes, enjoys music–lying on her back in her bunk bed that she shares with her sister and a younger cousin, she lets her body sink into the mattress. god, who doesn’t love a beat. lourdes is thirteen when their brother francisco joins the army and her memories of the san carlos reservation she was born on have almost completely faded. maite and jaime remember well. they provide well enough for their family, but each child has to earn their own way in the world; it costs just to exist in it. francisco figures he will be the first in the family to go to college. he doesn’t expect to be the only one.

in high school, lourdes spends all of their free time at concerts, clubs or with their ears engulfed by what jaime teases as mickey mouse headphones. they buy their first record player and ignore the mundane homework they’re sent home in lieu of hunting down records and mixing beats. maddisyn pratt, the simpering sycophantic girl lourdes likens to the blonde in the craft, begins to outshine the campeon lopez front runner for valedictorian and lourdes is too lost in a sea of daydreams, beats and hooks to care. the criteria for the princeton scholarship they had hung their future on falls out of reach and into the hands of a girl whose name means ‘son of maud’–it’s even worse than lourdes’ and they turns their nose up at it.

graduation day lacks its intended charms and a girl who’d lived her whole life being told she was destined for great things feels the weight of failure. jaime and maite bring red and yellow roses to the ceremony. they scream in the stands and bring noisemakers; they are a charming embarrassment. just the right level of ‘too much.’ for one day, no one talks to her about college or work or the future. they celebrate with tres leches and she falls asleep on the couch with a sweet taste humming on her tongue, headphones up full blast.

the daydream dies. college might not be an option, but lourdes is expected to pull her own weight. she floats from waitressing job to barista job to receptionist, but nothing really sticks. lourdes’ tapping feet are restless and they carry her from tedium to tedium. there is nothing that satiates her hunger. it doesn’t take long for her to figure out that college would not have served to fill the void either; the only thing that makes a difference is the music.

▓ ▌now playing :: atomic – blondie

noemi luna is a sweet uwla school of business co-ed with long dark hair and stars in her eyes. when lourdes meets her at the music festival, hair braided around roses, they realize that maybe this woman really could give birth to gods. the pair stay up talking and sharing songs until the sun comes up. lourdes believes in dreams again. noemi is stardust and iron. they make a pact with themself to memorize everything noemi loves: seafood, fruit smoothies, the soft feel of worn denim, sand between her toes, and the sensation of long nails combing through her soft, dark hair. lourdes loves exactly two things: sensation of nothingness they feels before slipping off to sleep to a dope track and noemi. it’s a much shorter list.

at noemi’s encouragement, lourdes reinvents herself; she is so much more than a drink slinger in some weak club where girls get in free to offset the gender binary and the skewed ratio found therein. lourdes mixes tracks; changes names. they were never worthy of such a title and they grin easily when noemi suggests ‘faust’ to her instead; lourdes is sick of being someone’s virgin and they are no one’s mother. maite loves to see the spark in their daughter’s heart again and doesn’t bat an eye at all the time the girls spend together. not until nearly two years later when faust’s reputation as dj placentagram keeps her out all night and she finds that her daughter and noemi seem to have a more and more difficult time keeping their hands off one another. maybe it’s just a phase; lourdes has always been such a good girl.

maite’s worst fears are confirmed when her daughter announces the seriousness of their relationship–the intent of marriage–on a warm, autumn thanksgiving afternoon before the pies are even sliced. they remain untouched for two days while faust packs their things with bleary eyes and clenched fists, making crimson crescents on her palms in the places where they’ve lost an acrylic nail. it took too much on faith to think that since their parents could accept her music that they could accept noemi too. jaime shrugs his shoulders after kissing his daughter goodbye with the weak defense of ‘... your mother.’ faust grimaces and spits back ‘a mí, plín.’

noemi and faust aren’t ready to get their own place, but fate forces their hands. with a bank account barely above the red, faust stores their stuff in her car and sleeps in noemi’s dorm room. the gaudy purchase of barely legal tinted windows proves more useful than frivolous. dj placentagram attracts a modest local audience and she makes enough, but the constant late nights and stress of a move take their toll. noemi loses her scholarship when her grades slip. her parents are supportive, but they don’t have the kind of cash to cover tuition. it’s time for her to find a job and since she has to wait until fall rolls around to repeat the semester, she’s got a lot of free time.

the job market is rough. noemi has no experience short of an ‘in progress’ underneath her education section. the entirety of her resume gushes with inexperience. the unemployment office is a crapshoot and most days are spent lounging in sweats, cruising craigslist for job offers. faust takes care of the bills in the meantime, but it’s nowhere near enough to save for tuition. they move out of the dorms with her salary, find a pretty good apartment too. one morning after a big event, faust finds a small, windblown cat by the trashcans. she is the color of smoke and soot; the couple name her belial, clean her up, and initiate her into the family. the apartment begins to feel like home.

▓ ▌now playing :: i’ve been thinking – handsome boy modeling school feat. cat power

faust beams at noemi over the somber reminder of her mother on the coffee table. it’s a cold, november day and the family pozole recipe steams up noemi’s glasses as she lists off her craigslist prospects for the day. she’s particularly excited about a position at a salon that boasts she’ll be making $400 a day after being trained. faust jokes that anything’s better than another fake modeling gig and noemi agrees. she sets up a meeting for later that week.

the details of the meeting are lost on faust. things that matter? noemi has a smile on her face when she comes back, flashing fresh pressies and the tentative explanation that the wages are tips only. she tacks on quickly that most of the girls say they pull in plenty to live off of with that. several of them are single moms and noemi swears that they were all wearing designer jeans, rocking fresh manicures, and boasted of the job seeming more like a family than anything else. in hindsight, faust can recall every red flag no matter how small. they should have known better. besides, they remember noemi reassuring them, it’s like super safe. she’d seen some guys working security in there and some of the girls even live in the condos above the place. maybe there’s a hint of willful desperation in her girlfriend’s voice; faust knows she’s tired of struggling and if it turns out a mess, it’s only until the semester starts back again in the fall.

the edges of the dream begin to chip, but are hardly noticeable at first. like noemi’s manicures, the woman gets good at filling in spaces. faust’s following becomes a bit more substantial. sometimes they make it out of inglewood to spin records. it takes her away from home more than she’d like, but she doesn’t notice the difference until they starts returning to an untouched bed, a hungry kitten, and a house that smells cold.

noemi is evasive, distant. the stars in her eyes have gone dim; there’s a fog that obscures them. an occasional cold night alone becomes a string, a constellation. on the surface, faust bubbles. they are wrath and it comes out in their music; people fell in love with them for the fire, but destruction turns those very people away. fear makes a hearty tinder. noemi doesn’t pick up her calls; noemi’s number gets disconnected. the fear grows, fertilized by volcanic ash. faust makes better fires.

▓ ▌now playing :: hail mary – 2pac

francisco is back from his tours and he’s strong and loved by her parents outloud ( unlike the infrequent texts of check-ins papa sends here, afraid of their mother’s wrath more than faust’s ). after faust goes the the address on the fridge and finds no trace of a salon, they arrive on his doorstep with a cat carrier in their hands and the request for a gun. soldiers always have guns and big brothers like francisco never learned to say no to a lip pout and a crocodile tear. faust still sees him as the boy who cried at the fox and the hound; he is the man who facilitates her deal with the devil. he teaches them the ins and outs of the sig sauer p226. he doesn’t ask them what they’re doing when he helps them file the serial number; he’s noted noemi’s absence.

heart in her throat, she’s almost choking to the beat of her own pulse. the sound of paper burning goes unnoticed, beneath the car stereo as she smokes to calm her nerves. i ain’t a killer, but don’t push me, she agrees, revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin’ pussy. her hands shake against the steering wheel as she drives the streets searching for noemi. she’d know her anywhere, but the shock of her appearance makes the track skip a beat ( or maybe it’s just her heart as she holds her breath ). she lets the engine purr to life and hangs back for a few blocks until she finds her girl’s destination and takes a mental note of the address. the patches on the leather vests are burned into her mind. she’ll be back several times before she makes her move; each time she’ll lose her dinner in the same parking lot on her way back to their apartment. each night she’ll fall asleep alone. at least for now, belial is better off with her brother.

after days of staking out the property, faust in convinced that noemi resides there permanently. for the first time in her life, faust prayed to the virgin mary. she prayed to the stars in the sky. she prayed to the devil. if nothing else, she hoped she could at least make it out with noemi alive. it’s easy to take out the first men. with her slinky slip dress, fishnet tights and combat boots, they think it’s a gag–she’s a new girl or something. women are commoditized; their agency is robbed of them. male hubris blinds them from the consideration that the beautiful woman might actually be serious. the realization burrs itself into their heads in the shape of a bullet. twice. after the first two, it’s easy. it’s like playing call of duty with francisco and she pushes the stark depravity of the easiness deep inside herself. if she is to save noemi, she has to let go of human decency. her mother’s voice tells her not to stoop to their level, but it’s precisely the level she needs to be a hero and faust doesn’t give a shit about being a hero. she gives a shit about getting her girlfriend back.

when she comes upon noemi, she is shocked by her appearance. the warm, shining girl is dull and timid. she lowers her guard and gun, speaking softly to traces of the woman she loved. distracted, faust is tackled by one of the girls who busts her nose with a mean right hook. something sparks within noemi and she clocks the girl over the head with faust’s estranged glock. the two depart on shaky legs to the car and drive to the beach where they watch the sun rise together; shoulders barely touching, feet buried beneath the sand. faust does not make a move to touch her despite her greater urges to wrap her arms so tightly around her that she’d leave impressions in her skin like those left behind by bras and tights and too-tight socks.

▓ ▌now playing :: you’re so cool – hans zimmer

reunited at least, noemi tells faust the truth about her dehumanizing work with delicate fingers shakily wrapped around a mug of hot tea. she flinches at the gentlest touch and faust knows their relationship will never be the same. noemi will never be the same. her nails are still pristine, but the hands they belong to are weathered; she has been through hell. whatever money she earned, it was not hers and it never reached her belly. they spend the next several months healing. maite makes them meals and sends them to the house with francisco and jaime connects with noemi’s parents to pay their bills . no one asks or prods. no one hovers or pushes or smothers–least of all faust, who stays up late nights with a gun in her hand, gaze hard on the locked apartment door. they don’t even see the murders on the news; neither girl knows what that means.

when noemi slowly begins to leave the apartment and build her confidence, faust is proud. it’s a slow process, but eventually she is able to function on most days. she goes to therapy, but never gets into specifics. she still screams in her sleep most nights, but she lets faust hold her close. dj placentagram returns to her work, but her following has taken a hit. still, it feels good to make her own money again.

▓ ▌now playing :: six inch – beyonce feat. the weekend

on one bright day, noemi tells her of running into an old friend–one of the girls who didn’t make it out that dark night. they are both unsurprised that the girls they’d left behind were still suffering. it makes her blood boil and she can see an old flicker in noemi’s eyes. faust recognizes it in her–the need for blood to fill old wounds–a baptism in vengeance. they make a new trip to francisco’s friend; they make a deal for more guns. noemi has her revenge with faust close at her side. the two of them earn a reputation for the second set of executions and they realize that there is a lot of trash worth taking out.

crime doesn’t pay; but vigilantism sure does. the girls make a mint turning over the more nefarious characters in the city. they don’t hit up small time dealers. blood runs down hill just like shit; they cut the heads of serpents and leave the scales alone. it starts to get dangerous for the girls; people know las sirenas. people prepare for these stunning shooters who rob the robbers. they’re no saints and they don’t play at sainthood. faust knows they are devils, but evil is stronger than neutrality and she never thought too much of moral fiber.

nobody asks the girls how they support themselves; both families know they’ve been through hell and back. things are broken inside and between them, but broken things still work if you can find a new function for them. families can still work–relationships can still work–if you turn them into something new. they are baptised in blood; their wishing stars are diamond studs in earlobes. some days they hold hands like the old days, but things are still broken–they are still new.