Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro

by LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole

  Mercedes’s eyes fixed on Jessica’s tattoos. “Everything on your body says ‘George, George, George.’ ”

  “Cuz that’s my man,” said Jessica.

  “Your ex-man,” Mercedes corrected.

  “My man,” Jessica said emphatically, meaning the current George, although their relationship was effectively over. George disapproved of Jessica’s ongoing flirtations with other men; Jessica resented waiting for George to sneak away from his wife. The situation had became so bad that Jessica had resorted to blocking the door when George tried to leave her apartment; a few times, she’d hidden his keys. George wasn’t returning Jessica’s pages and, lately, not even Serena’s.

  Jessica tugged on a pair of black leggings, pulled on the jacket, and adjusted the zipper low on her chest.

  “What you call that?

  Funky Brewster style?” Mercedes asked.

  “Freaky style,” Jessica said. Meanwhile, Serena squealed with delight and ran past, Big Kevin chasing after her, trying to retrieve his CD.

  “You better calm down!” Jessica shouted to anyone. Baby Kevin cried from somewhere. The baby daughter of the new girl from Brooklyn roamed around untended, sobbing rhythmically; Brittany eventually led the child into the kitchen and fed her. Jessica hollered for someone to get the boys. Outside, Matthew and Michael were pouncing on a discarded mattress that was teetering like a seesaw on a pile of trash. The kids ignored her. “How can I leave if they don’t behave now? When I’m here? Why they gonna behave when I’m gone?” she complained. “If you keep it up, I’m not going out!” Jessica threatened to no one in particular. “How am I supposed to trust you alone if this is the way you’re acting HERE?”

  “Don’t worry, Títi, I’ll calm them down,” Mercedes said reassuringly.

  Jessica’s cleavage earned an appreciative glance from the off-duty cop at the entrance to Casablanca, a small club in Albany. The bouncer took her $10 and requested her hand for a stamp. “Who is George?” he asked, smiling. Jessica grinned and drifted after Coco, who headed to the dance floor in a small back room with a low ceiling.

  Two muscular men in their thirties or forties in dress slacks leaned against the opposite wall. A woman in a leopard Lycra top with black-feather trim sat at a tall cocktail table, the heels of her stilettos hooked around the bar of the stool. Three obese white girls in thick sweaters huddled beneath an air vent clogged with dust. Coco wanted to dance—she had prayed for Spanish, but it was hip-hop night. Still, music was music to Coco. She was out on the dance floor before she’d even finished her drink.

  The DJ, thrilled to have a customer, crooned to the beat, “New York’s finest! New York’s finest!” Coco beckoned to Jessica. Jessica demurred, nursing her White Russian. She was captivated by her reflection in the mirror that ran along one wall. “See that bouncer? He’s looking at me,” she said, but Coco had danced off, out of earshot. Jessica watched herself possibly being watched in the mirror.

  Attention worked differently with Coco—it opened the door for the undiluted Coco to break out. On the dance floor, a boy orbited her like a happy vampire. She returned his challenge and shimmied right up to him. He backed off. Coco reached for Jessica’s hands. Jessica swayed a little bit but said she needed a Spanish song.

  More people arrived. Younger boys danced in groups. They kept on their name-brand coats despite the rising heat. Albany styles—Pelle Pelle leather, puff coats—had already risen, peaked, and died in the Bronx. Someone busted a beer bottle over someone else’s head. “Everyone here to have fun, everyone here to party! Manhood,” the DJ intoned, “could be proven on the street!” The crowd got sticky. Coco danced until it became so crowded that she couldn’t move. Finally, Jessica and Coco decided to leave.

  Coco stood on her toes to ask the bartender for a cup of water and hurried ahead to de-ice the lock on her car. Jessica lingered around the exit, and the bouncer stared at her breasts again. Jessica slowly followed his gaze, as though she were looking at someone else’s body. Their eyes locked on the way back up. Jessica laughed richly.

  “Who’s George?” the bouncer tried once more.

  “My son that passed,” Jessica said, raising her eyebrows mournfully, her lips in a sexy pout.

  On the ride back to Milagros’s, Jessica looked out at Troy’s empty streets. It was nearly 4 A.M. She regretted dressing up; Albany’s style was casual compared to clubs in the city. Jessica gazed at the empty factories, a furniture warehouse, The Alpha Lanes, where Serena and Cristobal would go bowling the following night. Past the Sno-King, boarded up until summer, and the strip mall where Price Chopper had been replaced by Family Dollar.

  “I miss my kids,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Jessica still wanted to be a mother. When she filed for full custody of Serena, Milagros didn’t contest the application. She believed that Serena would be safe with Jessica, and she was exhausted by the months of battling—with Serena in person, and with Jessica by telephone. Milagros still had Brittany, Stephanie, Matthew, and Michael to raise, and now—on alternate weekends—Baby Kevin. She also said she was losing patience with kids.

  Shortly before Serena’s custody hearing, Jessica went to celebrate a friend’s birthday at Jimmy’s Bronx Café. There she met a weight lifter named Máximo. Máximo’s body was outrageous: his chest was cut, fatless; his back was V-shaped; the muscles on his butt were visible through his slacks. Máximo asked Jessica to dance. He glanced at her cleavage and suggested she pull her jacket closed. Jessica appreciated the gesture of concern. His demeanor was reserved, polite. “He sounds Italian,” Jessica said.

  They became a couple. Máximo worked as a recreation specialist at a state park, and to supplement his income, he sometimes performed as a stripper. He lifted weights six times a week. Inspired by Máximo’s healthy example, Jessica no longer fried her steak; she baked it. Instead of cake for snacks, she nibbled fruit. Máximo dreamed of a career in law enforcement. There were always going to be criminals, he said, and there would always be a need for people to catch them. He had five children, about whom, Jessica said, it upset him too much to speak.

  Jessica hoped Máximo was “the one.” He called her back when she paged him, and she paged him frequently. He kept her informed as to his whereabouts. He wrote Jessica love notes on his computer, left her tender messages on her answering machine, offered little gifts—a Beanie Baby, vanilla flower gel. She expressed interest in losing the weight she’d gained in prison, and he promised to help her, although he told her that he liked her body just the way it was. Within days of their meeting, she eagerly brought Lourdes to meet him. Lourdes promptly warned him to treat Jessica properly because “my daughter’s been abused enough.” Lourdes then crowned him her son-in-law and ordered Jessica not to play head games with him. On the ride home, Jessica told her that Máximo attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice, although, in fact, he hadn’t actually started classes yet. Lourdes worked up a yelp. “Not everybody gets to go to that college,” she shouted, as though a victory had been won.

  In March of 2000, Jessica quit her job; she said that her boss was disrespectful to her. Moreover, the hours had not been ideal. Jessica wanted a job that was strictly nine-to-five, so that it wouldn’t intrude upon her responsibilities. “When five o’clock comes,” she said, “and I have to go home and cook and take care of my daughter, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Lourdes and Emilio, who had recently been evicted again, moved in with Jessica and agreed to help with the rent. Emilio’s height and the apartment’s low ceilings gave the place the feel of a bunker; the couple did their best to dodge Jessica’s foul moods.

  But Jessica’s was better than the friend’s place where they’d been camping out since their eviction—a one-bedroom with two young children and six other adults. The friend didn’t always come home, and Lourdes got saddled with her grandchildren. On weekends, her housemates snorted coke and broke night, amused by the macho antics of the three-year-old who eagerly pas
sed the blunts around among the guests. Lourdes couldn’t go to bed because the party was in the living room, and the living room was where she slept. She was getting too old for such nonsense, and swore she was going to have another heart attack.

  At Jessica’s, Lourdes and Emilio slept on a futon in the narrow hallway, which also served as Jessica’s kitchen. Jessica was compulsive about keeping a clean apartment: she wanted the floor swept and mopped each night; the bathroom sink and shower wiped after each use; no dirty dishes or crumbs—ever—in the kitchenette. Jessica also threatened to evict her mother if she caught Lourdes smoking cigarettes. Like an adolescent, Lourdes snuck them at a nearby park, where she killed time while Emilio aimlessly circled the block. Lourdes bought detergent at the dollar store, wheeled the dirty clothes to the Laundromat, did the grocery shopping, and prepared dinner every night.

  Máximo soon joined the household. Lourdes resented Jessica’s blind generosity toward him—at least compared to Jessica’s stinginess toward Lourdes herself. Máximo held a state job; the man flashed a credit card; Lourdes labored; Emilio shared his veteran’s benefits. So why did Jessica glare at Lourdes when the mail brought in the bills? So the man bought her daughter a pair of sneakers. What about the house that needed the food he happily ate, not to mention rent? Lourdes mocked her daughter’s ability to sustain such open faith in love.

  Yet Lourdes still prided herself on the very same thing. When she had become pregnant at seventeen, by her first love, Jessica’s father, her mother had ridiculed her for her stupidity and kicked her out. “My mother used to tell me, ‘Take the mens for what they got,’ ” Lourdes recalled. “If I woulda used my figure and my beauty, I wouldn’t be in the Bronx, honey. I would be in a mansion, living.” Her logic was convoluted, but it got at a deeper truth: both mother and daughter had often used their looks to get by, but that only made the times when they hadn’t more meaningful to them.

  Jessica’s ambitions weren’t gigantic, although they might have seemed so when set against her circumstances: she dreamed about getting a house big enough for her five children, and Máximo’s five, and not having to work. She was no longer employed, but she was working hard at the relationship—feeding Máximo, listening to him, giving him money, tweezing his facial hair.

  That same March, Jessica and Lourdes traveled to Troy for the custody proceedings. They stayed at Milagros’s. The following morning, Milagros went to work and planned to meet them at family court. Serena fed and dressed her twin brothers and put them on the preschool bus; then she, her mother, and her grandmother watched the movie Gremlins.

  Serena and Jessica cuddled on the love seat. “You didn’t notice my new tattoo,” Jessica prompted Serena coyly. She lifted her chin to the light and showed the mole. “You like it?”

  “I told you already,” Serena said, brushing her away good-naturedly.

  Jessica told Serena that the friend who’d given her the mole had promised to make over the six Boy George tattoos for free. She outlined her revamped body with her fingernail—the poem on her shoulder she’d cover with a butterfly. She then turned, gracing her shoulder with her chin; she’d blacken the George in the heart high on her right thigh. She wanted a new tattoo on her ankle: the two masks of drama, the inscription inverted—Cry now, Laugh later—in recognition of her new approach to life.

  “What are you gonna be,” Lourdes asked, “a newspaper?”

  “That’s art,” Jessica said.

  “That’s fucking disgusting,” Lourdes said. “When a man kisses you—”

  “If a man can’t handle it, that’s his problem,” Jessica interrupted.

  “—Property of George across your ass?” Lourdes finished. She kept her eyes on the TV.

  Serena went upstairs and dressed. Serena’s bedroom walls were covered with magazine cutouts of Puff Daddy, Whitney Houston, Ginuwine, and Lauryn Hill. Beside them she’d hung photographs of Coco with her cousins, and of Jessica, alongside drawings Jessica had mailed from prison. In one, a melancholy angel dropped a handful of hearts from a sorry cloud. On the old entertainment center that she used for a bureau was a favor from her cousin’s quinceañera: a virgin bride afloat in a champagne glass, purple and white ribbons spilling from the rim. Serena and Jessica had already started to plan Serena’s sweet sixteen—two years would give them time to save. Jessica wanted to rent a hall and a limo. Serena daydreamed about passing out pamphlets the way promoters did for nightclubs; about the banner, announcing her party, ribboning behind the Goodyear blimp. She wished Cesar could be her ceremonial father, but he wouldn’t be out in time. Jessica popped in a house tape she’d brought, which Máximo had lent her.

  “Jessica! Serena! Turn down the music!” Lourdes yelled. Then she joined them upstairs.

  Serena outfitted her grandmother in a pair of sweats and guided Lourdes’s aching feet into sneakers, a gift from Cristobal. Lourdes shimmied to the music. Serena giggled. “I don’t know how I got to fit in my granddaughter’s shoes,” Lourdes said dramatically.

  Cristobal had also given Serena a necklace that read I Love My Baby, but she couldn’t wear it because the clasp had broken. Serena chose Mickey Mouse earrings and the nameplate necklace Jessica had given her; Jessica had bought all her girls gold nameplates with the money from the lawsuit that hadn’t gone into George’s car. Serena liked jewelry, but she forbade her mother to wear the necklace with the boxing-glove charm that Jessica had retrieved from Lourdes; Serena had heard about how Boy George used to mistreat Jessica, and she didn’t like what it represented.

  Everyone at family court but Serena agreed that Serena should finish the school year in Troy. Serena would also stay with Milagros for the summer and complete her internship at The Ark. The Ark, a nonprofit art, technology, and job preparation center, operated out of a first-floor apartment in a high-rise project. The mood of the space was airy, even though there weren’t many windows, and not much natural light. Serena loved going there. After school, she would drop her bookbag and plunk down in front of a state-of-the-art computer. As she waited for the modem to connect, she spun around on the office chair. Self-portraits of public-housing kids surrounded her, alongside message posters—Keep It Afloat—and African proverbs and quotes from Olive Schreiner intended to boost the teenagers’ self-esteem.

  One project involved developing her own Web site, on which she posted her autobiography, divided into sections—past, present, and future, as though the categories were conceivable and clear. It read, in part:

  My name is Serena. I am 14 years old. I am Puerto Rican, 100%. . . . My favorite subjects are English and Math. Lunch is my favorite time of the school day because I get to talk with my friends. . . .

  I lived in the Bronx for 8 years. I miss it. Whenever I have vacation, I go down to my grandmother’s house. . . . I always go to the corner store to buy candy. The candy is much cheaper down there than up here. . . . My birth mother was put in prison when I was five years old. . . . I decided to move in with my twin sisters’ godmother because they were living with her. She took me in with no problem. None of us are her real kids, but she still took all of us six kids in and raised us as her own. My birth mother is now out of jail, and I am moving with her to catch up on our relationship. . . .

  In the future, I would like to be a teacher. I would first like to finish high school and go on to college. When I’m done with school, I would like to work on getting a nice house and getting a good job. Then I would like to get married and have two kids, a boy and a girl. Then I just want to raise my kids. When they are all grown up, I want to travel the world.

  I want to teach kindergarten class because they are easier than older kids. I would like to go to Fordham University. It is in Bronx, NY, where I used to live.

  Serena never finished her Ark internship, though; her grades in school were so awful that Milagros made her quit. As soon as the year finished, Serena moved to the Bronx.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Frankie’s heady weeks as a doting father had fo
r the most part ended by the time Coco took a job at Ames. Frankie still bought things for La-Monté, but during Coco’s shifts at work, Mercedes was in charge. She was exhausted, like her mother, and cranky. She lost her temper with her sisters, and sometimes she hit them—hard.

  Meanwhile, a measure of peace characterized Cesar’s days. He was receiving a lot of visitors. Elaine loved to drive. She took her sons and Jessica’s girls to visit their uncle; when she could, Elaine took Justine and Giselle and Gabriel as well. Much to Lourdes’s disgruntlement, Elaine didn’t always invite her along on these expeditions. After Jessica got clearance from probation and a proper ID, however, Elaine arranged a family reunion. It was the first time Lourdes and her four children had been together in almost ten years.

  Upstate, the twins would brag about the visits and show Mercedes the latest Polaroid photograph of Cesar. Her cousins seemed to know more about her father than she did. Giselle was pregnant, and her belly was bringing her closer to Cesar’s sisters, especially Jessica. Coco fumed, “So much they talk about family. Why they pushing my daughters to the side?” In July, the fighting between Frankie and Mercedes reached a crisis point. Desperate, Coco sent Mercedes down to spend a few weeks with Foxy.

  Foxy was living with Hernan, the Vietnam vet, of whom Coco still disapproved. Hernan had moved from his barren room in a boardinghouse to a small studio off the Grand Concourse, which Foxy had transformed into a cozy nest. She had been approved for SSI because of her psychiatric condition, and her matchmaking days were done. By all appearances, Foxy was enjoying retirement: she had her new homegirls and her Newports and her bottle of Yoo-Hoo. Hernan, a few yards over, had his beer and his buddies and his dominoes. It was summer; the women from his block didn’t know her personal history; they hadn’t witnessed her hard times, and Foxy kept the conversations light.