Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair)

by Perez, Rosie

  “Come over here, baby. Here’s the album cover. I saw this group in 1962. [Yes, he repeated himself—he did that constantly.] Wow. Man, could they jam! You like jazz? I love jazz. All the greats, I love them.”

  He looked at me, waiting for a response. There was nothing. He put on Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy.” My eyes widened as I recognized it immediately. I love him!

  “That was recorded in 1948. I love Nat King Cole—very classy guy. You know a Jewish man wrote that song? Oh yes.”

  Next was Benny Goodman.

  “The King of Swing! He’s Jewish too. First man to let blacks play in a white band. He could play almost like a black man too, and his drummer, Gene Krupa—great drummer. Yeah. I love Benny. But Tony Bennett’s my favorite. You like him?”

  I nodded yes. Actually, I loved him. And loved Benny too. I recognized him from the old movies. “Jimmy Stewart played him in this movie,” I peeped. Dad beamed!

  Tia, my father, and I headed into town. As we walked down to the end of the road to catch the gua-gua, my father took my hand. I didn’t pull it away. My hand felt so little in his. Of course, my father knew everyone on the minibus, including the gua-gua driver. Dad held court, spewing his infamous corny-ass jokes.

  I was in awe of Aguadilla, known as the Jardin de la Atlantico. It was a beautiful, tiny, quiet, sleepy, poor, beach bum, surfing town on the shores of the northwestern tip of Puerto Rico. The town was so tiny, with its one traffic light, that you could drive around it within five minutes. The town’s main square, named La Plaza de Rafael Hernandez—after Puerto Rico’s most famous composer—was surrounded by small pastel-colored shops that stood side by side, with a chapel at the head of the square. Directly across the street was one of the beaches. It was beautiful! I ran to the water and stood at the edge of the shore, mesmerized. Tia tapped me on the shoulder.

  “This town is where our people are from. Boricuas. You know Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, came here. Oh jes! He did! Ay, I hate sand. Let’s go.”

  I looked around for Dad. He was standing just a few feet away, watching, waiting, desperately wanting to be a part of the bond that Tia and I had. I forced a smile his way. That was all he needed. He clapped his hands together, and with a little hop and a skip, he walked over to us. “How about I buy you a coconut soda? Would you like that?” Not the damn coconut soda again. “Yes, please.” Well, what else could I say to this guy?

  We later went up to see my great-aunt, Amelia Serrano, who was my grandfather’s sister. Ismael’s father, my grandfather, passed away when my father was a young kid, and many have said that he never got over it and suffered even more when his mother passed when he was in his early twenties. So, my great-aunt Amelia, who also was a gifted piano player, therefore became the pillar of the Serrano clan. Everyone called Amelia, Tia Aya (pronounced eye-ya), and she was black as the night with starkly bluish-green eyes, skinny with a muscular wry build, and she held a command. She was so strong in her character, so strange-looking; I couldn’t stop staring. Her husband was extremely tall and dark-skinned, strong, silent, with a sweet demeanor. They had two sons and a daughter named Rosie! I felt like a part of the family, instantly.

  The house sat up on a little hill on the side of the mountain. It was pastel peachy-pink and had a large kitchen. There were vegetables and fruit all over the tiled counter in the center. Ropes of garlic wrapped around each doorway. I asked Tia Aya why there was garlic everywhere.

  “To keep the evil spirits away,” she said.

  The look of terror that washed over my face made everyone laugh.

  “You have evil spirits here?”

  “There are spirits everywhere, Rosita. Good, bad, indifferent.”

  “You mean like witchcraft or something like that? That’s against God.”

  “There’s nothing evil or spooky about anything if there isn’t anything evil and spooky in your soul.”

  Tia Aya then looked at me, smiled, and winked. I smiled back. Even though she freaked me out, I liked her so much. I wanted to stay with her, learn everything I could from her, but the influence of the Home and Catholic dogma was eating at me, trying to convince me she was bad for not believing the way they did. I forced myself to block out the Home’s creed.

  The backyard was filled with mango and avocado trees. A couple of chickens were squawking about in the back of the yard, along with the cutest little black-and-speckled-white pig. His name was Miguel, and he captured my heart. I smiled at him, and he waddled up to me and smiled back and playfully butted me with his snout up against my belly. I was in love, just as I was in love with all the doggies and horses at Miss Connie’s friend Jan’s house. I played with Miguel the entire afternoon.

  Then Tia Aya came out back, grabbed one of the chickens, and broke its neck! Right in front of me, and acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened! I screamed at the top of my lungs. She looked up at me, kind of chuckled, and started to pluck out the feathers.

  The next morning, Tia and I went to see my other great-aunt. She lived in a two-room wooden shack with a dirt floor. When we knocked, this skinny, hunched-over, 110-year-old woman opened the door. She had shocking white hair and no teeth. She touched my face with her arthritic bony hands and told me I was pretty. We only stayed for coffee. Tia didn’t want to exhaust her.

  Tia and I drove all the way back to the outskirts of San Juan to spend the last night at the house of her oldest brother, Tio Monserrate. He lived there with his wife, Blanca, and their two kids, Albin and Mickey. Albin was around sixteen; Mickey, who was about fourteen, looked just like Tia! Tia was acting so strange. She cried the whole five-hour drive to his house. Then, when we got there, she stayed outside on the sunporch and wouldn’t go inside. When she saw Mickey, she started to quietly cry again. Years later I found out that Mickey was her son and that my uncle kept him after they put Tia in a “hospital” after her divorce. Tio Monserrate was supposed to give him back when Tia was released, but never did and legally adopted him. Tia never got over it. She cried the next morning and on the plane ride back. I promised that I would never forget her, that I would never make her cry, ever.

  • • •

  When I got back to the Home, I hated it more than ever and was even more determined to get out and have a successful life and career, like Mary Tyler Moore on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I had been to Puerto Rico. I had met Tia Aya and walked along the shores of my ancestral home and heard about the island’s saga. I had met Tio Monseratte and Titi Blanca. I had climbed mango trees and played with Miguel the pig. I had fallen asleep to the sounds of the little Coquís. I had met my history, and it made me feel present and validated. I knew now that I belonged to something, and it gave me strength to believe I could do anything.

  • • •

  It was Sunday. I was eight years old and waiting to hear about being picked for the Group Home upstate. The Home was putting on another Peanuts play. I was cast as Lucy. I wanted to play Peppermint Patty, or Kathy. I had moved on from wanting to be Linus since he was a thumb sucker and I was trying desperately to stop sucking my thumb.

  My mother was coming for an afternoon visit. Since she would stand us up the majority of the time, I didn’t bother to go up to the main office to wait for her. But during rehearsal, I was told that she did in fact come. I immediately judged myself for not rushing out.

  It was a typical visit: I kissed my mother on her extended cheek, ate the Puerto Rican delights that she so deliciously cooked, and uttered about two sentences. I told my mother that I had a rehearsal and couldn’t stay. “Oh,” she said, with a slight pause. “I was going to pierce your ears today. You don’t want to stay and get pierced?” Looking back on it now, it was the first time I saw her hurt. I didn’t register it at the time. Instead, I declined and went back to the auditorium.

  At the end of rehearsal, I saw my mother waiting for me at the entrance of the auditorium with ice cubes and a needle and thread. When I saw that needle, I didn’t want anything
pierced—shit was big! She insisted. She pleaded. I relented. She sat down and placed me in between her legs, with my head on her lap. First was the freezing of my earlobe—that was agonizing enough. I kept telling her that I had changed my mind. “No, it’s gonna be okay. Be still,” she said as she squeezed her legs tightly, squishing the air out of me.

  Then came the needle—it hurt like hell! I yelled my head off. I’d had enough and tried to push off her knees so that I could get myself out from between her thighs. Bad move. She pushed me down, grabbed my hair at its roots, punching my head at the same time, and told me to “hold the fuck still!” She dug that freaking needle all the way through. Shit hurt like hell! But I was more pissed than hurt. She did the other ear, pulling the thread through, tying it at the ends, and then smearing on a huge goop of Vaseline. “There,” she said, smiling and sweating with satisfaction. “You look so cute. You like it?” I nodded yes. “Make sure you move the string back and forth so it doesn’t get stuck.” I nodded yes again and told her I had to use the bathroom. I hid there and didn’t return for the rest of the visit.

  Later that day and all through the night, I kept showing off my pierced ears, bragging that my mother had done them. Weird.

  Thinking about that incident afterwards, I wonder if she did it because she knew my father had told me that he was my father and that I had gone to his house and met the rest of my family. I wonder if that was a desperate action to not lose me completely, to tell me in her own nonsensical way that she loved me and was worried and maybe even jealous. She was like that. She had weird moments of misguided sincerity that would break your heart.

  At least that’s what I told myself. It was way better than the other side of the truth.

  I had to do that a lot, to see more than what was on the surface in order to still have hope and find the good in people and not become hardened like some of the kids had become in the Home. Yet, I also had to stay strong and let the abuse from my mother and the Home roll off my back. I had to believe that I was going to get out of this place one day and live with Tia or even Dad. And if that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, I was still on the list for the Group Home, and I wasn’t going to mess that up with acting out.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE EIGHT girls were chosen for the Group Home—eight to sixteen years of age. The prerequisites were high grades, good behavior, or both. I was selected—yay!—as well as my half-sisters Betsy and Terry. We were all gathered in one of the dorms and told that the Group Home would change our lives significantly, meaning it would be a better-designed stepping-stone from institutional to civilian life. You see, the pressure of “making it” after leaving the Home was intense. The nuns always stressed the importance of getting accepted to college, being able to support yourself, getting married, etc., so that we would be prepared for the outside world once we left. Many fared well. But a few didn’t. We would constantly hear stories.

  Some kids whose parents took them back permanently didn’t always make it. They couldn’t readjust, or were subjected to abuse. They would end up on the streets, in jail, or even back at the Home if they were still under the age of eighteen. Some who were orphaned or abandoned and who spent most of their lives at Saint Joseph’s, then were released into society once they turned eighteen with no one to go to, didn’t always do well either. Post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological factors would hit them as well—hard. They would end up on the streets too, or drug addicts, or emotionally disabled—some to the point of not being able to function as well as they knew they could. This haunted me.

  I, being the youngest—only eight years old—asked Mr. Neil, if I was scared to go to the bathroom late at night, would there be a light left on? That question was probably more about the big change and the pressure of succeeding in the program. The eldest girl blurted out, “God, she’s such a baby. I don’t want to go now.” Mr. Neil told her she didn’t have to go; she could stay in the Home. She quickly recanted. I marked her comment, so I could make sure I kept my distance. It wasn’t that I was afraid of her; it was that I didn’t want any irritating drama that would suck me in. I did the same with Betsy. All of her jabs were button-pushers. I didn’t want to mess this opportunity up. At least I had Terry and Olga Lopez. Terry and I were more like friends than sisters but it was still a good thing. She would crack me up so much and loved hanging with me just to make me laugh. Olga, well, Olga was a star at the Home. She was extremely smart, never got into trouble, and the nicest, funniest, and nerdiest person ever—so, of course we clicked.

  We drove up in a station wagon, about two hours upstate from Saint Joseph’s. Terry and I melodramatically sang along and acted out almost every song played on WABC Musicradio, trying to out-funny each other, especially on the song “Feelings” by Morris Albert—talk about drama on the high seas. I took in the pertinent road signs—the Route 9 post, the bridges, the gas stations—just in case I needed to get back to Tia’s house.

  The modest two-story, five-bedroom house, complete with a single-car garage, sat on top of a small mound that spread out over a quarter-acre of plush green grass. It was in fact one of the cheaper houses in the middle- to upper-middle-class rural-suburban neighborhood lined with well-manicured lawns. What the hell did we care? It was awesome in comparison to the dorms. The bedrooms were crazy big. The basement, which was the designated playroom, had a pool table that doubled as a Ping-Pong table and a hi-fi stereo record player. Four bicycles sat waiting for us in the garage. And there was a big fat television (yay!) in the corner of a tacky red-and-gold-decorated living room—happy-happy, joy-joy!

  A couple of the maintenance workers we were all familiar with from Saint Joe’s were still painting when we arrived. I overheard one of them complaining about the long work hours with no overtime. This tall, chubby, middle-aged black man caught me listening from the corner of his eye and quickly interjected, “This is not about us. This is about giving these kids a new start. If ya’ll want to go, then that’s on ya’ll. I know I’m gonna stay and finish what we started for these damn kids.” I cocked my head to the left and inquisitively stared at him. I wondered if he was sincere or felt compelled to say that because he was caught.

  We went outside to see the rest of our new world. The green grass, the big full trees, and the freedom were exhilarating, but I couldn’t take it all in. I worried that our new neighbors might not accept us. I worried about Crazy Cindy. Although I was ecstatic to leave Sister Renata and the Home, even if it was for the Group Home and not Tia’s or Dad’s house, leaving my best friend behind was very painful. It seemed so unfair to me that she didn’t get to go. I mean, if someone needed another chance at life it was certainly Cindy. We just hugged and said good-bye. It was weird. You would think it would’ve been a more tearful moment, but I think we were both so sad to the point of being numb. And I kept worrying about being farther away from Tia and Brooklyn—would she be able to find me? But I didn’t spend too much time worrying because it was so damn pretty outside and there were no nuns, not a damn one in sight—God bless America two times!

  The next-door neighbor, this white man whose house was separated from ours by half an acre, was hanging out of his second-floor window when he saw us walking by and screaming out, “Heil Hitler!” with a Nazi salute, repeatedly—I kid you not! My internal reaction wasn’t, Oh God! This man is such a racist. It was, Great, the whole neighborhood knows that we’re from the Home. Here we go again. Looking back, it was naive of me to think no one would know—eight girls, various ethnicities, all from the city, most not related, living in a house with white Group Home parents. Thank goodness not every family in that neighborhood was like that neo-Nazi. There were a few really nice people up there. Even the Nazi’s teenage son didn’t share his father’s racism—we actually became friends.

  The first Group Home “parents”—and yes, there were many to come, how’s that for stability—were these white, gray-haired senior citizens who greeted us with serene, laid-back smiles. The
geezers were all about being relaxed and eating lots of good food. Yay! There was so much food served at dinner. And we got to serve ourselves! No lining up, no unison prayer with that insane clapping at the end, no nuns—nothing! Just food! And we were allowed to have seconds and thirds—double yay! Seriously. I would daydream about food—good, high-quality, fattening food—a lot. I mean, I even went so far as to steal food from the Home’s kitchen! I remember salivating and staring at the “outside” kids’ homemade lunches, wishing I had a Ring Ding or a sandwich with more than one slice of meat.

  We had great counselors who came to the house almost every day: Maurvive, Beth, Janis, and this man whose name I’ve forgotten. All were white, smart, caring, and dedicated. Maurvive had a sheepdog named Citizen that she brought over daily. I took to him like crazy. I’d never expressed love the way I expressed love for that dog. I even used to have him sleep in my tiny twin bed with me. She eventually gave Citizen to us after she moved on a year later—everyone considered him mine after that.

  Beth taught me poetry and spoke with me about my dreams for my future. Janis introduced me to Todd Rundgren, Paul Simon, Led Zeppelin, and Paul McCartney and Wings. And one of them introduced me to Burt Bacharach! I loved, loved Burt Bacharach! The girls gave me shit for it, saying that I wanted to be white for liking something other than Gladys Knight and the Pips.

  Unfortunately, Grandma and Grandpa didn’t last past two weeks. Two of the older girls found marijuana in their bedroom, and they freaked out! The girls jumped on their bikes and tried to ride all the way back to Saint Joe’s—a two-hour car ride down the Hudson—to tell the nuns. They ended up flagging down a cop along the road. The cops found two brown paper shopping bags filled to the brim with pure homegrown weed. Scandalous! The geezers were arrested that same day. Although I was brainwashed, I mean a believer, in the Catholic Church—sorry, cheap shot—I didn’t want to see them go. Their sedate approach was such a nice change from the strict, uptight regime we had been subjected to.