A Nation of Amor

by Christopher McConnell

  “But in Texas they don’t go in for readin’ law books. I spent thirty-seven days in one cell. My meals came through a slot in the door. No books, no TV, no music. I figured my lawyers had written me off like a bad debt.

  “For some reason, I was then upgraded to a more swingin’ solitary block where cell doors were barred rather than solid. We were spaced along the corridor so that I could just make out another cell to my left, about 15 feet away. If I squeezed my face against the bars and somebody else reciprocated, I could make out the features of another human being.

  “My thirty-eighth day on the job, a suitor skidded a Snickers Bar across the floor, scoring a goal through the gap at the base of my door. What, no flowers? I told him to fuck off and tried to return the love token. My effort stranded the packed full of goodness bar halfway there or halfway short, depending on your disposition. Then he called to me, ‘Rey? Rey Matos? It’s me, Guillermo Centeno, from Dayton Street.’

  “Well motherfuck me! This guy in a cell across from me, he was a King, we went to grade school together, he was in that boiler room for kindergarten, he knew about Mrs. Kmet, my gloves … After two years living the Sacco and Vanzetti story, after seeing the heartland of America on ten tax dollars a day, after working my way up from suicidally solitary confinement to morosely solitary confinement, I find an old friend. What a coincidence! Right. Motherfucker was put there to broker information in return for the warden clipping a few overgrown hairs from the nostrils of his sentence.

  “Why should old Guillermo be any different? Like everybody else, he believed in my guilt, but as I was handy, figured on using me to see what he could make out of my hide. Guillermo did get word to my lawyers. A day later I was upgraded to the suite I had paid for, TV in the dayroom, three squares at a table, communal showers and weightlifting. But I told Guillermo nothing.

  “There it is, that jailhouse mindset for you. Every motherfucker’s got some scheme to pass up, over, out, or through to the promised land. Transfer to Rayford and I’ll see my kids a few times, this lawyer gonna get me out for real, I got retrial comin’ next year …

  “Don’t believe it. Sometimes you can’t see the bars of your jail, so you got to reach out and grab for them. The bars of your cell are like those invisible spider webs in the cellar. You only know them when you feel that foreign itch on your face, bitter taste in your mouth.

  “The bars of your cell are at the Chicago River, keeping you from getting jobs in the Loop. At Grand Avenue, when the hairs on your arm stand up at the thought of stepping from the hood on to Folks turf. Bars at the revolving doors of college administration buildings, at the door of the GED Exam room in Harold Washington College on Monday. Bars anywhere that Puerto Ricans aren’t supposed to be.

  “And when somebody did get parole? Always went out and fucked up. Warden sends you right back to your old cell. Where all your cellies laugh at you for missing them so much. Y’all come back now, hear? That ain’t no parole, just riding the rails in a circus caravan. Peering out between the bars everywhere you go. Never truly believing you got any business leaving that animal cracker cell.

  “After a while, you don’t want to leave your homeys. Back here in the hood, you’re so used to the clank of steel doors it all seems natural. Like dropping out of school, like dealin’ on the corner, everything bar coded in black and gold.

  “Even El Cuarto Año is a jail. No use gettin’ out on parole and passing the exam when your partner’s still inside. Because no matter where you go or what you do, that monkey in the cell whispers in your ear, ‘You should be back here, not out there.’

  “That’s why everybody has to pass. We want to destroy the jail, not open the doors for a few good inmates. Entienden? I want this fucking school to be obsolete. So that when you pass, your brothers and sisters at Clemente know they can do it too, so your children know. So nobody gets left behind to haunt us.

  MARIZA DEL RIOS

  June 15, on Division Street

  Mano says,

  “I ain’t no baby-sitter Mariza.”

  That’s right. You’re her father, and if you think I wouldn’t change that if I could then you got no idea of what Mariza Del Rios be about. But this is no time for bustin’ out. The Kings got my little Josie, passin’ her around like she’s a new toy. Big, bad gangbangers goin’ coochy coochy gettin’ their dirty hands all over her new cleaned blanket. They make everything dirty. When I was pregnant, every time I come in from the corner there was a smudge on my belly from all their hands touchin’ it. As if the fat stomach wasn’t even mine, but some kind of crystal ball for everyone to rub on and get some luck.

  Mano won’t join in, like he’s embarrassed that I come out to the corner in front of his bro’s. Like I don’t even know this guy no more. Got a dead look in his eyes these days, starin’ over my shoulder at Division Street running away from us into the sun. When was the last time he looked me in the eye?

  Mano says,

  “Don’t be out here today. The corner’s hot.”

  Was it ever cold motherfucker? All I ever wanted outta life was to be with somebody a little older that had more experience. Somebody who would know things and make it easier for us. What do I get? A seventeen-year-old asshole.

  I say,

  “Please Mano, I can’t get nobody else.”

  P-Dub tries to hand him his daughter but Mano turns his back and walks away. Oh no, you ain’t walkin’ out this time bad boy. P-Dub looks like he has a good hold of little Josie, he’s held a baby before. Does he have a kid or not? I chase Mano down the sidewalk to where he’s poutin’ with his back to me.

  I say,

  “I swear Mano, I’ll never ask you for anything else. I gotta take the GED on Monday. Just one day. Watch Josie for just one day. Please Mano.”

  He turns to me now and if he could stamp his foot and hold his breath until I give in I bet he would. But he’s on the corner, got to keep his pimp, so he just grits his teeth and talks real slow.

  Mano says,

  “It’s my birthday Mariza. I ain’t watchin’ no baby on my birthday.”

  This I don’t believe! I bet he’s fucked up I ain’t bakin’ a cake. Probably wants me to get some party hats and blowers for him.

  But it ain’t that, even I know it ain’t that. It’s what that dead scared look be all about. A kind of reckless stupid that shows he don’t care for nothing no more. I’ve seen it before. Monday, June 17, Mano’s eighteenth birthday. I want to say it, but revenge don’t look like it will taste too sweet. You ain’t such a little boy no more Mano. Be a man. Because Husky the cop’s gonna take you down on Monday. Isn’t that right? Grew up too fast Mano. Played a man’s game with the cops since you were 13.

  You’re the oldest little boy on this corner. Big man with a gun, big man sellin’ reef, big man for when every hole in the hood passes by. But after Monday you’ll be cryin’ like a baby down at 26th and California. Just like my cousin Nelson, he was a bad ass gangbanger too. Mama took me down there when I was about ten years old. I think Mama took me with her because she couldn’t find a baby-sitter either. Dios, I bet if Mama and I could talk to each other now we would have a lot more in common.

  Mama looked like iron in that jail, but I knew she loved Nelson. She never had no boys and Nelson was always her favorite nephew. I seen that many times when a family never had boys. How a nephew or a neighbor can have a place in her heart for the son she never had. Mama always had a soft place for the wild ones, tough guys, the Kings. I guess Mama and me ain’t so different.

  All Nelson’s little girlfriends usedta come cryin’ around to Mama about how they loved Nelson so much and why couldn’t he stay with just one girl. And Mama liked that. Down to the ground. Mama liked how Nelson could make all those little girls miserable. She sat patient and listened but never ever offered to help. Never took up any little girl’s case with her Nelson.

  When she took me along to see him she said I was Nelson’s sister. Mama didn’t tell me she was going to sa
y that. Mama liked telling somebody, even if it was only the guards at the jail, that I was Nelson’s little sister.

  So noisy, a big room like the old gym at school. Rows and rows of tables and chairs, on one side men dressed in jail blue, on the other side women and children. I guess men don’t visit men in jail, at least I never saw one. Just hundreds and hundreds of women with babies in their arms, other little ones crawling around under the tables. Like some big family social, a fiesta, but no food or dancing. But there was a photographer in the corner of the room, with his shiny backdrop and one of those cameras you got to go under a little curtain to use. I thought to myself, who wants to get their picture taken in jail? But if you can’t see daddy no other time?

  Mama walked slow up to where Nelson was sitting and I remember thinking that it was about the first time since he was twelve that I didn’t see him with a square hangin’ from his lip. Nelson wore a crew cut when nobody would, his bullet head made him look even tougher. With his hair so short his scalp glowed through and he almost looked blond. Nelson was all jumpy, jiggling his legs under the table, his eyes bloodshot and with that black eye look from being too tired. He hunched over on his elbows trying to get his face close enough to whisper at mama’s iron look.

  There was only one chair so I stood next to Mama. I stood so straight and still a car couldn’t knock me over. I knew that if I tried any stuff like picking at myself or getting antsy and lookin’ around too much she’d beat me right there in front of Nelson and everybody else.

  Nelson said,

  “Tía, you got to help me.”

  But Mama’s face was stone, and even if I wanted to reach out and put my arms around Nelson, I didn’t. Without words, Mama was tellin’ me I couldn’t.

  Nelson’s eyes got all teary and then he couldn’t hold it back no more. He wasn’t loud about it, but he was cryin’ like a baby. Mama’s expression stayed the same.

  Mama said,

  “Be a man.”

  But he was, all grown-up and tough and macho, and in jail. I guess he just didn’t like being a man …

  Those fools are swinging little Josie like a rag doll so I walk back and grab her from them.

  All I wanted was a stroller. I end up with a backpack for the baby. P-Dub stuffs her into it like one of those papooses. But this stupid thing is too big and I get so scared that she might fall out so he jams the blanket in around her until she’s stuck for real. I hate this thing, like when I was pregnant, I can feel Josie but I can’t see her. What I need is a rear view mirror so’s I can look over my shoulder to see if she be laughin’ or asleep or grouchy.

  Walkin’ back to Mano I can feel her tiny hands playing with the back of my hair. Funny, how I know that however hard her little hands could pull, it would never hurt me. He’s lookin’ over my shoulder again, but not at Josie, and not even at his street, but to the places we all go inside ourselves sometimes.

  I say,

  “Mano, it might be your last chance to see Josie for a while.”

  When Nelson cried like a little girl he was lost to mama. She never talked shit about him anymore. Mano’s eyes get wet, soon a tear will come out of the crinkles at the corners. Ain’t much space for tears when you be lookin’ into the bright sun down Division Street. So now what do I do? Mano ain’t my cousin, he’s Josie’s father. I can’t just put him away in memories because he ain’t the man he was supposed to be. Whatever that was …

  I say,

  “Pass by the crib early, at 7 o’clock. I’ll have everything ready. It’s warm now, take her to the park. Lay her down after lunch. I’ll be back before she wakes up. I’ll write everything down for you.”

  Mano rubs his knuckles into his eyes to hide the tears, he looks like Josie does when she wakes up. Her little tiny fingers do the same things as us grownups. When he’s done it’s like that dead look passed with a cloud. Mano folds his hands over his chest and looks over my shoulder.

  Mano says,

  “That’s straight. But after this, I ain’t with you no more Mariza. I got a different lady now.”

  And I’m a balloon that just got popped. All that hot air burning inside me but at least it kept me full, running on something, and now it’s all gone and maybe it’s only because my bones know better than my dizzy head that if I fall over I’ll hurt Josie. Even my knees stay straight.

  Mano’s head jerks up real quick like a dog smelling the garbage in the wind. He scopes down the street.

  Mano screams,

  “They cappin’!”

  Loud enough to make everybody start runnin’. I’m like a traffic cop, Kings streamin’ and runnin’ to each side of me. Mano’s gone. All I can see are the soles of their all-stars blurry down the alley.

  But I can’t run. If I run, my back be to the guns and I’d be savin’ myself by using Josie like a shield. So I turn around and face it. A blue Chevy, cruisin’ slow and now it’s all sound and smoke.

  The guns go,

  “Pow pow pow pow pow pow …”

  A hollow sound in my face like a whole pack of M80s goin’ off, like beatin’ an old tire with a baseball bat, like, like … I can’t turn around, I can’t go away from it, hide, cover up, because if I move any kind of way Josie will be in front of the guns and not me. I raise my hands over my head to cover up her head behind me and walk backwards into the brick wall until I can feel Josie against it, my body in between her and the smoke and the hollow explosion sounds.

  It is! It is! Just like some movie, and the smoke starts clearing and the car goes screech and I didn’t even see the punk’s face who was shootin’ at my baby. I look all over the street and there’s only me and Josie. Never seen Division Street so empty. We finally and completely alone.

  How did I do that? How did I know without even thinking that I can’t run down an alley and put Josie in front of the bullets? When everybody else knew to get out as fast as they could how did I know to walk backwards slowly until I felt Josie’s back to the wall and then she’d be safe? Only because I believe that somehow I could never let a bullet go all the way through my body to get to hers. Could a little piece of death go through me and hurt her? I don’t even know that either.

  Where are the Latin Kings? Down the alley hidin’ behind garbage cans. Mano left his daughter to get shot. He saved his own ass while I stood here in front of the Folks that want to kill him. They shoot at each other from cars.

  Now I can see that sun what was setting in Mano’s eyes, peeking over the edge of Division Street way down to where I can’t see anything anymore. And it’s me and Josie and there’s nobody else in the hood, in the world for us. And there never will be. Not after today.

  What do I have? Maybe I don’t have a crib no more? It’s Mano’s house. Maybe his new lady is pregnant too? Maybe I got to get out of there soon. So what do I have?

  Me. Me and Josie. No family, no house, no friends, no lovers, no clothes, no money, no job, no education. I got this hood, which is just all those Nos piled up on top of each other.

  When Rey passed by last week he left the blue piece of paper with my name on it on the kitchen table. He didn’t even say much. He knew I wouldn’t listen anyway. On Monday I’ll thank him for not saying anything. Rey fixed it all for me, paid my registration fee and saved me a seat for the GED test. He never even asked me. Rey laid the blue piece of paper on the kitchen table.

  Rey said,

  “Come take the test if you can Mariza.”

  And he gave Josie a teddy bear. She didn’t have one. I didn’t have a bear either, but I had an Eeyore. A donkey from Winnie the Pooh cartoons, always looking for his tail that was lost but could get pinned back on when it was found. The tail on my Eeyore could do that too and I would lose it on purpose just to spend the day looking around the house pretending I didn’t know where it was, but then when I got tired of the game, or mama got tired of watching me play the game, I would go find Eeyore’s tail and pin it on his butt. And Eeyore never said ouch when the pin went in.

 
; Even after Rey left I wasn’t sure. When I stepped to Mano just now, I still wasn’t sure. In the back of my mind I still knew I could wake up Monday morning and Mano could come by to watch Josie, but he would be back in the crib and maybe he would see the place and us and feel comfortable for all he’s been missing for the last two months. And if he did, maybe with a smile or a kiss, I knew I might leave the blue piece of paper on the kitchen table and fix him something to eat and we could play with Josie together for the day and talk about things that we could do together as a family. Yeah, that was always back there in my mind.

  Because if I did get Mano to come back and like me on Monday morning it would be a good excuse not to take the GED test. Maybe even an excuse good enough that I could live with it for years and years without driving myself crazy. Cuz I need an excuse not to go into that test room on Monday. But it can’t be just any excuse.

  What if I fail? What if I go in there and really try hard to pass the test and I don’t? I guess even a bad excuse like I couldn’t find a baby-sitter would be easier to live with for the rest of my life than failing. Because failing would never be an excuse, it would be admitting I ain’t smart enough. It would be a piece of paper written on it that says Mariza is too dumb. I can’t take any more proof of that.

  I wish today was Thanksgiving. I wish that I knew how to pray. Everybody who I could blame all my problems on has left me alone to get shot at on the corner of Division Street and Western Boulevard. But how can you thank people for treating you like yesterday’s news?

  Mariza Del Rios, a nurse. Someday. All I got is time. If I don’t pass the test Monday I’ll ask Rey to take me back in the school next year. I’ll figure some way to go to school and take care of Josie as best I can. Josie loves me. She’ll understand. And then I gotta go to college. For years and years more, whatever they tell me I gotta do, I’ll just have to do it. And then …

  No Mariza! Stop dreamin’ and gettin’ all ahead of yourself.