On Valentine’s Day, he handed her flowers and a heart-shaped box of chocolates. No one had ever done that for Coco. Valentine’s Day was Foxy and Richie’s anniversary. Coco found that auspicious. She spontaneously asked, “Yo, Frankie, you want to live with me?”
Coco reasoned that she had back evidence on Frankie: he was from the neighborhood, her big brother’s friend. She’d shared with him her important secrets—her enduring love for Cesar, her hurt over Wishman’s denial of Pearl. Mercedes seemed to be reserving judgment, but Nikki and Nautica already called him Papi. He said he felt so close to Pearl that she seemed his own. When Octavio gave him work, Frankie bought Pampers for Nautica. He contributed toward Foxy’s rent. Coco believed if the proposal were a bad idea, Foxy would have stopped her. But Foxy wasn’t paying close attention to Coco.
Coco planned to return to Troy and get settled. The housing authority had offered her a three-bedroom apartment in Corliss Park, near Milagros. Frankie would join her as soon as he’d earned enough for the move. He wanted to hook up cable because he liked the sports channels; he also promised to spring for wall-to-wall carpeting, an indulgence for Coco, whose size-four feet were used to linoleum. Said Coco, “Cesar’s not the only one who deserves better, now that I found a man who loves me and my kids.”
Coco and the girls moved on a windy day in March 1995. The first thing that Coco did—even before plugging in her radio—was to mail Cesar her phone number and new address.
Cesar did not love Giselle; he loved Coco. He liked Giselle, but the marriage was initially a mercenary move. He had to be legally married to qualify for conjugal visits, and he needed a girl who could be relied on to visit and to keep money coming into his commissary account. His friends occasionally contributed, but they were in and out of prison and in and out of solvency. Rocco remained his primary contact, but Rocco was changing. His wife had told him to straighten up or risk losing her and his baby girl; after he’d completed work release (scrubbing pots and pans at a restaurant), she’d steered him straight to AmeriCorps. Now Rocco was working as a youth counselor at a housing project. He still talked the hoodlum game, but Cesar sensed a shift.
Cesar badgered Coco and Roxanne to bring his daughters and they usually didn’t. Elaine managed to send him the odd food box, but she struggled. Lourdes couldn’t be counted on. Life on the inside wasn’t anything like his previous bid as a juvenile in DFY. The lonely old-timers around him were depressing. Most never had visitors and didn’t get mail. Cesar had proposed to Giselle as soon as he suspected Coco’s latest pregnancy. Giselle suggested that they wait a year, but to his relief the engagement lasted just six months.
Giselle was wary of Cesar’s hoodlum lifestyle; so many of her relatives were in prison that her mother had had to raise nine children who were not her own. She’d been cautious, even back when they were only passing neighborhood friends. Giselle remembered seeing Cesar zip by on his bicycle. He was always moving, playing, making faces, never staying still. Years later, she’d run into him on the corner of Tremont, his skinny neck drenched in gold. He’d reminded her of Mr. T. She worried about the risk of flashy jewelry. “Put them inside,” she suggested.
“For what? That’s what I got chains for, to put them outside,” he said.
“You might get robbed,” she warned.
“I ain’t gonna get robbed.” Cesar grinned. He lifted his shirt and showed a .45 caliber, snug in his waistband. The next time she ran into Cesar was at her sister’s, when he was a fugitive.
Giselle hid the engagement from her mother, who remembered Cesar all too well from Tremont. The weekend Giselle snuck off to get married, she told her mother she was going away with a girlfriend from work. Cesar had been transferred to Clinton, a maximum-security prison near the Canadian border; as Giselle’s stomach churned with nervousness the entire seven-hour bus ride there, a few of the other women tried to calm her.
There was a network of support and loyalty among some prisoners’ wives. The regulars informed other wives if a mistress had sat in their rightful visitor’s seat. Guards, too, sometimes hinted to a woman about a guy’s two- or three- or four-timing, or “accidentally” shone the ultraviolet light on another woman’s signature that had been penned in invisible ink. Some of the guards seemed jealous of the inmates’ ability to attract such pretty, young visitors. Some visitors ended up dating guards. Prisoners joked that the guards were so uptight that they must have had less sex with their at-home wives than the inmates had in trailer visits. Veteran wives counseled newcomers about regulations and circumventing regulations, important lessons they’d extracted from protracted dealings with the correctional bureaucracy.
The rural town of Dannemora, New York, was isolated and, to the minority women who visited inmates there, unwelcoming. The outer wall of the prison towered over one side of a stunted main street. Opposite, someone named Ting had a monopoly on local business: Ting’s Store, Ting’s Break-out Saloon, and Ting’s Hotel. The visiting women pooled money and rented a room to shower off the long bus ride and freshen up before crossing the street and heading in.
Rooms at Ting’s were dumpy but tidy. On the back of the door was a sign listing the prison’s visiting hours, along with information about free coffee and where to find the ironing board. But Cesar had warned Giselle not to stay at Ting’s; he’d heard that an inmate’s girlfriend had been raped there, and he’d provided Giselle with the name of a local prisoner’s wife. The woman had followed her husband to Dannemora and rented rooms to other visitors. The lady dispensed advice freely—she’d had her own prison wedding—and charged only $25 for three nights, including meals. Giselle checked in and found it difficult to sleep.
Giselle was organized. She brought every document she needed for the wedding—a $25 money order for the marriage license, proof of the premarital interview, a blood test, her ID, the rings. The next morning, she tugged on a black dress and slipped into a pair of black pumps. She said, “I looked like a widow instead of a bride.” Cesar’s maroon shirt matched his maroon Filas, which peeked out from under the cuffs of his prison greens.
Cesar was so nervous as they waited for the prison chaplain that he spilled a cup of Pepsi on his shirt. A friend of Cesar’s and his girlfriend stood witness. The ceremony took three minutes, including the exchange of rings. Cesar had to remove his and pass it to the guard so it could be re-received. He later retrieved the ring from the package room, after it had been inspected for contraband and registered as his property.
The bride and groom couldn’t take pictures on their wedding day. A marriage qualified as a “special visit,” and the chits that inmates exchanged for Polaroids were only to be utilized during regular visiting hours. Giselle later thought it just as well she hadn’t been photographed. She couldn’t stop crying, and what kind of picture would she have made—a bride with bloodshot eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Mercedes! Mercedes! Mercedes!” called out the priest during Mercedes’s joint baptismal ceremony one late-April 1995 day. Dying lilies from Easter decorated the altar from which he exuberantly proclaimed his message to the perplexed parishioners; his accent was hard to make out. He was also having difficulty pronouncing the children’s inventive names, but he spoke with great gusto about something having to do with their state of grace. Rocco and his wife, Marlene, had made arrangements for Mercedes’s participation, and Coco and the girls had traveled down to the Bronx. Frankie was already in the city, dealing for Octavio outside of Foxy’s building to make some extra income.
A lacy white dress with tiny pearl beads and a sparkly crown with its own veil had transformed the ordinarily jean-clad Mercedes into a child bride. They’d all shopped for the outfit on Fordham just hours earlier. Mercedes’s beauty, and Rocco and Marlene’s generosity, made Coco emotional. “It’s like she’s getting married, it’s like I’m not ready for that,” she said.
“Mercedes! Mercedes! Mercedes!” the priest sang out again. Rocco whispered to Mercedes, “It’s
probably the only name he knows how to pronounce.” When it was her turn to approach the altar, Rocco held her hand and lifted her over the font. The priest gave unintelligible instructions.
Coco whispered, “Say ‘I do,’ Mercy.”
“I do,” Mercedes repeated. The priest spoke again.
“Say ‘I do,’ Mercy,” Coco prompted.
“I do what?” Mercedes asked.
The water washed her forehead. Mercedes seemed crestfallen when Rocco placed her down. He brought back her smile with a funny face. The priest shouted, “Mercedes! Mercedes! Mercedes! Welcome into this new life!”
But it was the old one that exerted its pull. After the ceremony, they collected Rocco’s daughter from Marlene’s mother and decided to share a livery cab to Tremont. Coco wanted to show off Mercedes to Lourdes; Rocco and Marlene were going to visit Rocco’s mom. Rocco amused the little girls on the ride over with his priestly gobbledygook: “Gadooms slaksfds larsedfiskish!” He explained to Coco that he felt bad that it had taken so long to get Mercedes baptized, but even though Marlene also worked and they lived with her parents, it had taken well over a year even to begin to get on his feet after his release.
On Tremont, near the steps of Lourdes’s old building, Mercedes savored her last few minutes in Rocco’s arms. Rocco shared a story: “Your daddy sat here with his head in his hands and cried and cried. ‘You get in a fight?’ I asked. He had a toothache!” Rocco laughed.
After saying good-bye, Mercedes led Coco and Nikki toward Lourdes’s, causing a stir on the block. A drunken woman holding a miniature can of Budweiser crooned over her beauty until a man stomped to shoo the woman away.
“Everybody is staring at you, Mercy,” said Coco.
“So?” said Mercedes self-consciously.
“You hear her? ‘Everybody’s looking at you, Mercy.’ ‘So!’ I can’t wait to be taking her to my mother’s block, everybody be sweating her,” Coco said. Mercedes turned left, headed for Mount Hope. Two men were standing outside the corner store.
“Esa es la hija de Cesar,” one said. That’s Cesar’s daughter.
“She’s beautiful, God bless her,” said the other.
“Qué linda.”
“She looks so grown!”
“She’s making the whole block sweat! She’s like a little Jessica!” Coco said.
Mercedes bolted for Domingo, who stood beside his hamburger cart. In warm weather, he sold burgers—and drugs on the sly—in front of Lourdes’s building. Domingo knelt to the ground and lifted Mercedes up.
“Domingo, where’s my present?” she asked. “Mommy, can I have a hamburger?”
“You know I don’t have any money, Mercy,” Coco said. Domingo plunked one on the grill and promised to bring it up.
Lourdes no longer lived in the studio with Domingo; she was staying in a small one-bedroom across the hall. The apartment belonged to a neighbor named Maria. Maria’s young son had brought Lourdes home one evening, after he’d found her sleeping on the roof. According to Lourdes, Domingo had given Roxanne and Justine—Roxanne’s daughter with Cesar—Lourdes’s bed. Lourdes ended up staying on with Maria, who was dying of cancer. She nursed her and took care of her two unhappy kids. Maria’s cousin, a tall, quiet Panamanian man named Emilio, also lived there. Lourdes and Domingo remained on fairly good terms, however; she seasoned the meat for his hamburgers and sometimes watched over the cart. They continued to sell drugs to friends and neighbors on the side, and he gave her tens and twenties in a pinch.
The day of Mercedes’s baptism, Lourdes made the gestures of fussing over Mercedes, but she seemed irritable. Domingo delivered the burger in a napkin. Lourdes tucked a dishtowel around Mercedes’s neck. “Be careful of your dress, Mercy,” she said, lighting a cigarette.
“They went all out for her,” said Coco. “The dress cost a hundred and twenty dollars. The shoes cost thirty dollars. The veil costs twenty dollars and they bought the tights.” Lourdes murmured in response, but her eyes, which were glassy, stayed on the Spanish-language news. The silence seemed awkward. “Mercedes be crying for her sister,” Coco tried. “Justine, Justine, always crying for her.”
“Oh,” said Lourdes.
“I’ma go now,” Coco said.
Nothing.
Then Lourdes said, “All right then, Mami,” and pushed herself up from the couch to see them off.
“Can I have a dollar?” Mercedes asked brightly. Lourdes ambled over to the dark bedroom, where Maria lay, and returned with one.
“Can I have a dollar?” Nikki echoed softly.
“You split it both ways,” Lourdes said wearily. While the girls were putting on their coats, Mercedes held up the dollar, covered her mouth with it, playfully raised her eyebrows, then made the dollar snap.
“Don’t do that, Mama,” said Lourdes, and snatched back the bill. Mercedes jerked away, surprised. Lourdes added, “All the peoples touched this, it’s dirty.”
Coco headed toward the doorway. Lourdes ushered the girls after her and scolded Nikki, who’d crouched over to inspect a little shrine behind the front door. Mercedes absentmindedly placed the dollar near her lips again. Without warning, Lourdes backhanded her across the face. Mercedes howled—she seemed as surprised and betrayed as she was hurt.
“I told her not to put money in her mouth,” Lourdes said flatly, grabbing Mercedes roughly by the head and pulling the child’s face into her gut. “Mami, it’s dirty, it’s not good,” Lourdes said, sounding soothing but stroking Mercedes roughly. The mixture seemed to work. Lourdes finalized the deal with a bruised banana, which Mercedes shared with Nikki in the hallway while they waited for the elevator, which never came. They took the stairs. Two boys leaned over the rail, spitting down to the entryway. “Lourdes, they spitting out here!” Coco yelled up. A door opened, Lourdes said, “Stop!” without conviction, then the door slammed. “I feel she treats me different,” said Coco of Lourdes. “I don’t feel comfortable no more.”
Coco liked upstate life at first, although nighttime scared her. She wasn’t accustomed to being close to the ground, so near outdoors. The kitchen windows had no curtains. She said, “And the trees be flying. I feel like somebody’s face be there.” The stairs squeaked when she walked to fetch a bottle for Nautica, so Coco huddled up with her children on a bed of sheets on the living room floor. She didn’t have any furniture yet.
She felt safer when Frankie visited. For Mother’s Day, her sister mailed cookies and candy, which lifted her spirits. Foxy called. Cesar and Jessica called collect. Coco switched between Cesar and Jessica on call-waiting. “I was going back and forth and back and forth, ‘Hold on, hold on,’ giving them messages, then I said, ‘Yo, Cesar, call me back later, your sister wants to talk to me.’ But that was just to get him off the phone.” She wanted Jessica to herself.
Jessica confided in Coco about Torres, albeit cryptically, mindful that the prison might be taping the call. “She sounded happy to me,” Coco said.
Frankie, however, wasn’t thrilled by Coco’s nearly daylong calls, and it created tension between Frankie and Mercedes. One afternoon, after chatting with Cesar most of the afternoon, Coco hung up contentedly.
“Fuck that nigga,” Frankie muttered.
“Don’t say that about my father,” Mercedes said. Or, if Frankie asked Mercedes to do something she didn’t want to, she answered, “You’re not my father. I ain’t gotta listen to you.”
Coco admired her daughter’s nerve, but Mercedes and Frankie also drove Coco crazy with their bickering. Mercedes begged for cartoons; Frankie wanted sports.
Fun triumphed over rules at Coco’s, where the door was always open: the neighborhood children congregated in and around her apartment. Frankie came and went; Serena whiled away her free time in the house or in the yard. Coco’s grass couldn’t withstand all the action. The surviving patches were soon worn down to mud, sprinkled with Cheez-it dust. The array of scattered broken toy parts resembled children’s rooms in prisons. On the brick wall below the wh
ite siding near her front door, Serena chalked in screwball script “Coco’s House.”
Coco let Serena and her friends Rollerblade around the kitchen and the living room. The music was always on. Even after a church finally delivered donated furniture, the bedlam stayed pretty much the same. The house was hectic but usually happy—unless Coco was yelling, and even then, the children didn’t pay her much mind. Her yelling was spontaneous and full-bodied, bursting with exasperation, whereas Milagros’s could be scarier—colder—her anger so concentrated that the children automatically stilled.
If Jessica knew what to say to make you feel better, Coco knew what to do. Even on the worst days, Coco would drop whatever she was doing and dance. Dancing never needed an excuse. Mercedes swayed stiffly, self-consciously, but Nikki was agile and shameless—Foxy had taught her how to dance Spanish. Even Nautica, still in diapers, tried out the latest moves. She’d plant one hand on the linoleum, butt in the air, and squat in time to the music as she flapped her other arm like a butterfly. Everyone clapped. No matter how silly Coco was acting, she always noticed those children like Serena, hiding on the sidelines. She’d shimmy over and reach her short arms out. “Come on, Mami,” she’d say. Serena was too bashful to join in, but she shone in the joyful lightness of her aunt. Sometimes Coco just pulled Serena in and got her moving. “You crazy, Títi,” Serena would giggle.
Serena helped Coco with the kids. She changed diapers and doled out handfuls of dry cereal, filled bottles and cups with sugared juices, spooned rice into mouths. She comforted Nautica when she fell down the stairs. Nautica was always crashing into things. She had the same corkscrew curls and tightly wound physicality that Cesar had had as a kid, but she was slightly bowlegged and tripped when she ran. Coco’s girls adored Serena. Coco often said, “I’d take Serena with the quickness.” She welcomed Serena’s companionship on her own as much as on her girls’ behalf. If Frankie stayed over, however, Milagros did not let Serena stay the night.
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro Page 29