The first time Javier Zambrano experienced it, he was four years old. JFK had been assassinated the week before, and the country was still in the throes of mourning, Roman Catholics like Javier’s family suffering this violent loss more than others.

Javier stood still, silently watching a stray calico cat carefully make a path through the succulents that lined the fence in his abuelita’s backyard. The Los Angeles sky was clear save for a few fainthearted clouds, the midday temperature already hitting eighty degrees even with the sun sitting low in the sky, the same sun that warmed the boy’s back through his favorite faded green T-shirt. The calico, suddenly sensing Javier’s presence, stopped its progress, its left forepaw frozen above a level patch of grass, and set its eyes on the boy. Javier smiled, wondering what it would be like to creep through his abuelita’s plants with such perfect control, one paw at a time.

And then it happened.

Javier blinked, the low-hanging sun, now in his line of sight, making the long shadow of a figure jut toward him. Who was that? A boy, like him. Wearing the same faded green T-shirt he wore. Javier blinked again, realizing that he was much closer to the ground than before. He looked down and saw one white and orange paw firmly on the ground, the other lifted before him, frozen in mid-step. Javier looked up and recognized the boy as himself. A wet foam of fear covered him, and he closed his eyes as tightly as he could. When Javier opened them a few moments later, his line of sight had returned to where it had been, sun at his back, and he was watching the calico.

Over the years Javier gradually learned to exert some control over his ability, but that control was far from perfect. First, he learned that he could not enter a person—or animal—he knew too well. Too much connection seemed to block his ability, although he certainly had tried—especially when his father beat him. Second, Javier could use his ability no more than once a year, and even then only if everything fell into place perfectly. Third, while in another person or animal, he retained some measure of control while enjoying the particular skill, knowledge, and experience of his host. And perhaps most important, Javier discovered that he could remain in another being for months at a time while the real Javier went about his life as he would normally.

As the decades passed, Javier grew more cautious with the targets he chose, honing his ability as if in preparation for a great goal, a history-altering finale. For he’d learned while in college that he could use his ability not only on people he met or saw from afar, but also on those he encountered solely through television, radio, magazines. Another lesson Javier learned: never could he aim his ability at a target with intent to cause harm, gain a selfish advantage over others, or fulfill carnal desires. That’s not to say he didn’t try; Javier was no more perfect than you or I. But once he knew the restrictions of his ability, he aimed to stay within those constraints, feeling a bit chastened and quite embarrassed by his failings as a person.

So, over the decades Javier went to college, married and divorced quickly before the age of twenty-five, then twenty years later married Celia Norte, who had sole custody of two teenage boys from a previous marriage. Javier worked several jobs until settling on a comfortable career with the city’s building permit department which, combined with Celia’s salary as a paralegal for a large law firm, allowed them to purchase a lovely 1923 Craftsman house northeast of downtown that kept their commute within the realm of reasonable as the boys attended Loyola High School.

But he kept his ability a secret from his beloved Celia—and everyone else, for that matter. Throughout the years, before and after he had married, Javier had experienced many remarkable things: flying through the Los Angeles skies on feathered wings and in the cockpit of a Cessna Skycatcher; lecturing two class sessions of a course titled “The Oceanic Imaginaries: Postcolonial Literatures” to graduate students at UCLA—despite majoring in economics while in college; conducting Mahler’s Adagio Symphony No. 10 at Walt Disney Concert Hall; fabricating thin sheet metal products that eventually became rain gutters, outdoor signs, and ducts for heating and air-conditioning; delivering three babies in one day.

His wife never suspected that he possessed this special ability—of course, how could she?—but Celia was particularly impressed by Javier’s rather eclectic and precise knowledge of airplanes, music, literature, sheet metal, and medicine, to name a few of the many interesting subjects Javier could opine on. She had married a savant, a kindhearted, sometimes distracted savant.

And Javier grew accustomed to his ability, figuring it would be something he would utilize until his death. But one night he realized his ability had a purpose beyond self- improvement and experiential diversity.

Javier and Celia lay in bed as talking heads on television gesticulated in an almost disoriented manner. When the stunned commentators called Pennsylvania, Celia could watch no longer; she had fallen asleep weeping, her face partially buried in her pillow. Javier still stared at the screen. Celia had predicted that this could happen—she could see the momentum—but until this moment Javier had optimistically believed that America would never, ever reward such a man with its highest prize. After all, this was a man who had based his candidacy on a promise to build a great wall to keep Mexicans—criminals and rapists, to use his words—out of the United

States. People like Javier’s long-dead abuelita, one of the kindest souls he had ever known. No! Not in Javier’s lifetime. Never, ever.

And when the networks called Wisconsin—giving that man enough Electoral College votes to become the forty-fifth president—Javier knew the identity of his next target. This would be the greatest test of his special ability. It would require control, will power, a resigned acceptance that he would be away from his family for four or even eight years. But Javier had to do it. He had no choice. It would be Javier’s one heroic chance to make America great again.

***
From How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press, 2022).
First published in Roanoke Review (2020).
© 2020 by Daniel A. Olivas.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

Daniel A. Olivas is the author of ten books and editor of two anthologies. His books include How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press, 2022), The King of Lighting Fixtures: Stories (University of Arizona Press, 2017), Crossing the Border: Collected Poems (Pact Press, 2017), and Things We Do Not Talk About: Exploring Latino/a Literature through Essays and Interviews (San Diego State University Press, 2014). Daniel's plays have been produced for the stage and readings by Playwrights' Arena, Circle X Theatre Company, and The Road Theatre Company. Widely anthologized, Daniel has written for many publications including the New York Times, The Guardian, El Paso Times, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Huffington Post, High Country News, La Bloga, BOMB, and the Jewish Journal.