LISTEN TO OSMANI OCHOA READ “THE FLOWER INSURGENTS”
Sylviana Rivera wiggled and wobbled to pick up the brick. In runway-ready stiletto heels and charcoal-lined eyelids dripping with sweat. Her honey-brown eyes reflected the smoke and flames of the cop car burning in front of her. A few feet away, a protestor graffitied in pink and sky blue hissing spray paint—“FUCK ICE”—over the side-doors of a white/green border patrol F150. Benny Chuparme, the Juan Gabriel drag king, sang ‘Querida’ while standing above the top of the window-shattered vehicle. His recent break-up with Irene helped him deliver the saddest performance in the history of protests. His snot dripped to the V of his wide-open lips and his face tilted upwards, his arms outstretched to the flickering stars like JuanGa would at the Bellas Artes sold-out concert during his Mexico City heyday.
“Whose Streets?! Our Streets!” The massive crowd around him called back. The crowd continued marching forward as an ocean of Colombian-Dominican-Guatemalan-Haitian-Honduran-Mexican-Nicaraguan-Palestinian-Puerto Rican-Rainbow-Salvadoran-Venezuelan flags waved against the summer breeze that drifted across (occupied) DTLA. Early on, this was spun as The Flower Riots. Benny finished his number and flung purple petals into the air that rained down above the heads and bubblegum pink wigs of the protestors, like soft confetti. He retreated down to the tear-gassed, smoggy pavement to join Sylviana and the group.
Sylviana had finished her set at The New Jalisco Bar earlier that night. She was elated to have earned the highest tips all month, so she could send more money home for her Amá getting treated in Guadalajara for a breast lump that had spread to a few nearby lymph nodes.
“¡Tenemos que ir a la protesta! Honey, did you hear that orange man is sending 2,000 National Guard troops over here, gurl?!” Sylviana said while she flicked her cigarette as the others weighed in.
“Oh fuck no, not on our watch. ¡Vamos ya!”
“¿Quién chingados se cree este ojete?”
“Hell yeah! Let’s go and show these girlies how it’s done—” Sylviana winked and gathered her stubby fingers into a fist as she sprang from the stool. “Stuff your chichis and grab your bricks, nenas… y nenes!”
Benny reached shakily for theirs.
Jenny from the Cock clutched her brick and slowly wrapped her candy-coated claws around it.
Marsha P. Divine tapped a wooden staff against the beer-reeked floor, then made her brick tremble and levitate.
Xila María River Red twirled towards it with a pale yellow python draped across her sun-burned shoulders; she quickly darted for the brick as if she had The Flash’s superpowers.
Sylviana wiggled and wobbled to pick up her brick, as she had many times before. She crimson blossomed again–a Flower Insurgent reborn.
