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

  Saint Joseph’s sent over a woman named Miss Carmen until they could find replacement parents. Miss Carmen was cool, but she followed most of the Home’s instructions to a tee, like enforcing the monthly chore chart that hung in the kitchen. We were each assigned a set of daily “charges,” as the chores were referred to, that were inspected and double-checked every single day. Good thing Beth and Janis stayed on. Especially Beth. She would take me riding in her Karmann Ghia around the countryside as we’d listen to Joni Mitchell and talk politics—Kissinger, President Carter, etc. I loved that. Beth also talked about her weight constantly, which made me understand Miss Connie’s diet pill—popping and made me aware of my own fixation. I had gotten so chubby—okay, fat—from eating all of my feelings. The other girls would taunt me about my chubbiness, especially Betsy. It started to get to me, and I began to get obsessed with my weight. No, I didn’t diet. Are you kidding me? With all that good food we had up there? I just felt like shit for being so fucking fat. It was all that I could think about, especially after being used to everyone telling me I was so cute. I know, shameless, but true. One day Beth taught me this poem, which still whirls in my head:

  Isn’t it a pity that I’m not the prettiest girl in the world, but sometimes when I feel like kicking up my heels in the sun … I’m the loveliest one.

  Well, something like that.

  I had turned nine years old. Tiffany and Brett Rivera were selected to be the next Group Home parents. Tiffany was white, always wore a low ponytail and no makeup, and was very moody. I liked her most of the time, but never let on to how much her grumpiness annoyed me. I was getting good at placating people. Speaking of assholes, Brett was a big one. He was pompous, arrogant, short, and rather chubby with a potbelly. Yet, he thought he was fine as hell, which he wasn’t, and that his shit didn’t stink, which it did. I couldn’t stand the guy, he creeped me out at first glance. I never wanted to be alone with him and made sure I never was. He knew it too, which created a constant tension between us.

  Brett and Tiffany did do a good job of keeping order, but Brett held the threat of their authority over us constantly. The GH parents were required to keep a record of absolutely everything that happened each and every day—from what we wore to what we did outside and with whom, to all of our disobediences—in a huge journal kept under lock and key. This record was sent down to Saint Joseph’s at the end of each week for review. If a problem developed (based solely on the Group Home parents’ account, mind you), you were sent to Dr. Tisby for further evaluation. And Dr. Tisby could send you back to the Home in a hot second and possibly Graceland Hospital. That was power, and Brett loved to exercise it. At least Tiffany did have good intentions despite her cranky disposition.

  That Christmas I didn’t go home, either to my mother’s or to Tia’s. Why? I don’t know or maybe I forgot why. In any case, I felt unwanted but played it off, as usual. My half-sisters, to my surprise, didn’t get to go home either. Tiffany made a wonderful Christmas morning for us and the few other girls who stayed behind. She decorated the house, with our help, to a tee. The Christmas tree was big, bright, and perfectly trimmed by all, with a bunch of presents underneath. And of course, I kept playing Johnny Mathis’s Winter Wonderland album nonstop—love him! It felt like a Christmas that people on television had. And I was so happy that Tiffany got me a bathrobe that fit. Because of my weight gain, my other robe could barely close—God, I got so fat. Brett ended up ruining the day for me because he kept asking if my “bad, nasty attitude” was the reason why my mother didn’t ask me home for the holidays. Who does that? Sick ass.

  • • •

  Spring arrived. Terry and I snuck out the window onto the ledge of our bedroom to watch the tiny clusters of stars twinkle in the night air. We were in the middle of our one-liner corny joke contest—don’tcha love it! We were supposed to be downstairs watching television with the rest of the household. Although it wasn’t a rule, we all had to do almost everything together, all the damn time—so annoying. Brett came looking for Terry, calling out her name—not mine. I instantly got suspicious. Terry was around fourteen or fifteen years old and had a body that wouldn’t quit. I had noticed him noticing her hourglass figure on the sly.

  We got busted. After a long-ass reprimanding, he told me to take my shower downstairs and go to bed. Wait. Why only me? And why downstairs when our bathroom was upstairs, five feet away? Terry looked shaken, like she knew what was coming. “I’m gonna take a shower too.” Brett grabbed her arm, telling her to stay put. I freaked out, mind racing to think of something to stop this!

  “You’re not allowed to grab her like that! I’m gonna tell Mr. Neil!” I said.

  “Go to the bathroom! Now! Or you’re on restriction!”

  “No,” I flatly stated.

  “What did you say to me?”

  I paused for a moment, scared shitless.…

  “You just doubled your punishment! Two weeks’ restriction.… Come here. Now!”

  I shook my head no. Brett then stood up. His size and anger scared me. Terry held her hand out.

  “No,” she blurted out. “Go, Rosie. It’s okay.”

  Oh no! I pretended to go down the staircase, but quickly ducked into the upstairs bathroom. Then I heard smack … smack … smack! Then silence. Dag, I just had to find out what was going on. I slipped out of the bathroom, went back to the top of the stairs, and stomped on one step over and over, pretending that I was coming back up. I walked back in.

  “I forgot my bathrobe.”

  Terry’s eyes were cast away. I took my time getting my bathrobe, glaring at Brett. He looked back at me—“You little shit,” he said—then got up and walked downstairs.

  Terry and I went into the bathroom. She began brushing her teeth with her eyes looking straight into the mirror as if nothing had happened. I started to quietly cry. She turned around and wrapped her arms around me, slumping with an exhausted, muffled sobbing, making sure that no one could hear. She then pulled back and made a funny face. I smiled back and left it at that. I never asked her what happened, ever.

  Within less than a year, Brett and Tiffany were gone without an explanation. I didn’t find out the real reason why until forty years later. One of the girls reported to Mr. Neil that Brett had raped her, and she was afraid that it was going to happen again, to another girl he’d been eyeing. I thought of Terry. And the worst part is that no cops were called. They arrested the senior citizens for smoking a fatty, but no cuffs came out over the rape of a child. Sick.

  And to add insult to injury, Maurvive came to take Citizen, my sheepdog, back to live with her. I was devastated. I barely interacted with any of the girls after that, except Olga Lopez and Terry.

  Terry started to act like a real sister to me after that. She taught me how to ride a bike after many attempts and crashes into the big fat tree at the bottom of the hill. She taught me how to fight too. I used to just slug with one arm, which didn’t always prove to be effective, especially with my other half-sister, Betsy. Her attacks went from verbal to physical. Why? Who knows? Even though I always fought back, her size and power were too much. She would beat the shit out of me, especially since I wouldn’t stop fighting back.

  Terry could kick some ass. It came naturally. Plus, she used to help one of our brothers train for the Golden Gloves, though he never made it. She would take me out back and begin jabbing me in the face until I learned how to take a punch and, more important, how to move my head out of the damn way. Duh! Imagining that I was Muhammad Ali helped me stay in there, because those punches hurt like hell. Every time I got in a shot I would quote Ali—“I’m a bad man!” Terry would die laughing. The next fight Betsy and I had, I didn’t win, but I surely didn’t lose. I got some good licks in, especially a nice body shot to the stomach—we never had a physical altercation again. I gained her respect, sort of. I wish it had come in a different form, but I got it. And I began to understand my love for boxing. It takes dedication, hard work, guts, and belief to go
toe to toe with someone. Whether you win or lose, you know you had what it takes to just step in that ring and face your fears.

  Papi’s government photo—that’s when he was bringing brutal-sexy back! Holla! First apartment in New York. Abuela (Grandmother) Carmen, Dad, friend, his wife, Tia (seated, don’t know who she’s holding), Augusto on the floor.

  My glamorous mom. This is how I remember her looking every day. [CREDIT: Courtesy of Sally Pabon]

  Saint Joseph’s Catholic Home for Children, aka “the Home,” looking appropriately gloomy. That’s how it has always felt to me. To the left is the girls’ dormitory, to the right is the nuns’ quarters, and underneath, the cafeteria.

  When I went back to the home forty years later, the nun in the middle recognized me and told me that she used to sneak me cheese sandwiches because she felt so sorry for me when food was withheld as punishment. She added that she remembered me as “so nice, so funny, so sad.”

  The Group Home in Wappingers Falls. Middle-class suburbia at its best. Good times and not so good times.

  Me and my two half sisters with Group Home parent.

  “My” first dog, Citizen. I loved him to pieces.

  My pretty sister Carmen in Puerto Rico, the summer she got tits—ha!

  Me, my little cousins, and Tia. Happy times!

  Me in high school.

  A night out at Florentine Gardens with college friends and a Soul Train dancer (middle).

  Me and Tito in house in Puerto Rico.

  Tupac and me at the Soul Train Music Awards in 1993. We were kindred spirits. I really miss that guy. [CREDIT: Wire Image]

  Me, Debi Mazar, Madonna, and Marion Wade at the GMHC AIDS Dance-a-Thon.

  1988, Do the Right Thing. With Martin Lawrence (in red shirt) in a piece-of-shit rental apartment. Heavy D & the Boyz. On the video set for “We Got Our Own Thang.” [CREDIT: Brian D. Perry for Beezo Photo Archives LLC]

  Me and my cousin Sixto on the set of the TV series House of Buggin’, starring John Leguizamo.

  On the set of White Men Can’t Jump. That movie was the most fun I’ve ever had filming. [CREDIT: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation/Photofest]

  My ex-husband, Seth Rosenfeld.

  Tia’s first ride in a limo! She got her hair done for it.

  Puerto Rican Day Parade, Johnny Leguizamo and me. I was the Madrina (Godmother).

  Tia and me in her first apartment I was able to pay for!

  My mother, Lydia—after her AIDS diagnosis. Her looks were gone but not her spirit.

  Oscar night! Me, Dad, and Carmen.

  CHAPTER 16

  TIA HAD moved again, this time to Suydam Street in Bushwick. Half of the area along the East River was a cluster of factories that Tia would slave at. The other half was residential, mostly poor. Bushwick was more segregated too, racial incidents were rare, and you knew which blocks to play on and which ones to stay away from. Weird thing, there was a lot of intermingling going on, especially with Puerto Ricans—hence Juan Epstein from Welcome Back, Kotter. (Okay, that was corny, but true.) But for Puerto Ricans, blacks were a no-no. You were scorned, and people gossiped that your unborn baby would come out with nappy “bad” hair and dark skin—not kidding, folks.

  On a home visit, walking to the corner store for my mother, my oldest half-brother—the one who showed me his thing—pulled up in front in a car packed with his friends. One of them, this black kid, smiled at me. I smiled back and waved hello. My brother jumped out, smacked the shit out of me, and pulled me in close and whispered, “Don’t you ever look at a fucking moreno [black guy] like that, humiliating me in front of my friends!”

  “But he’s your friend!”

  “I don’t give a fuck what he is!”

  I loved Bushwick. Really. I especially liked it in the wintertime because there was nothing to do and no place to go—and I mean nothing, like carajo land for real. All you could do was go to a bowling alley down the block or a skating rink all the way over in Ridgewood, but who the hell wants to go bowling every day in inches of snow? On visits, Tia and I would hole up in our third-floor, shotgun three-and-a-half-room apartment for days, cooking, playing records, watching television—all the bad novelas, The Honeymooners marathons, old movies, especially Jerry Lewis. (God, she hated him, except when I’d imitate his iconic dance down the stairs in Cinderfella.) Ooh, and she hated when I played Queen, which I’d love to do just to get a rise out of her. “Why dat guy [Freddie Mercury] has to be so weird all de time?”

  I loved the summers too. In the summertime, Cookie was in charge of me while Tia went to work. She had moved in with her baby’s daddy on Melrose Avenue and Flushing in a dilapidated tenement that she kept clean as hell. We spent hours listening to Frankie Valli’s “Swearin’ to God,” People’s Choice’s “Do It Any Way You Wanna,” and so on, doing the Hustle in her kitchen for the longest time while my wet set dried. She would use the money Tia gave her for my lunch to take us to the matinees in Ridgewood or at the Commodore movie theater back in Williamsburg while she and her friends joined the majority of the audience in lighting up “loose joints”—I didn’t realize till years later that I’d be high as a mofo from the contact. I saw almost every gangster and inappropriate R-rated movie offered during the ’70s: The Godfather (parts 1 and 2), Dog Day Afternoon, Hustle. Before we saw Rosemary’s Baby, Cookie told me that it was a film about me.

  Some of the best times I had on Suydam Street were just hanging on the block, mostly on the stoop all day into the night, cracking jokes and hanging with the kids on our street—Luis, Vinnie, Anthony, and Jeanette, who became my new best friend. My cousin Lorraine was best friends with Jeanette’s sister, Joanne. Lorraine and Joanne were the party girls. We were the “cool nerds” and loved holding court with our witty, stupid, corny repartee. Jumping rope, playing stickball, or listening to the latest gossip from my cousins and neighbors was mad fun too. I loved when my father would hang with us too. Whenever he would visit after his ship would pull in at the West Side Highway piers, he would love to hold court, as usual, and flirt with all the old fat ladies on our street.

  But there were three things I hated about Bushwick. Number one: my mother moved there as well, about twelve blocks from us. Although I spent most of my visits with Tia, sometimes she would tell me that I should go see my mother. Number two: the danger of the neighborhood constantly kept you on guard if you stepped off your block. And number three: the hard drugs that Bushwick was infamous for and the effect they had on my cousins. Yeah, they would smoke weed and drink a bottle of cheap liquor, but Bushwick introduced them to heroin and cocaine. In fact, they used to call Knickerbocker Avenue “Heroin Alley”! I remember kicking used hypodermic needles to the side so that we could play jacks in Knickerbocker Park (now called Maria Hernandez Park).

  It was sad, because during the day Knickerbocker Park was where the older Italian gentlemen came to play shuffleboard in their fedoras; elderly ladies sat in rows on the park benches or on their folding chairs, feeding the pigeons, knitting, and gossiping; teenage girls with their hair and makeup done up coquettishly strolled by hoping for a whistle from the boys playing baseball or basketball with their shirts off; and mothers sat by their strollers, watching their kids play tag. It was quite lovely and peaceful, but come nightfall, forget about it!

  My oldest cousin, Titi, loved to take me along whenever she hung out. Her girlfriend was having a house party at her new high-rise apartment in Queens. I had never seen an apartment like that before. I only saw tenements and projects. Everything was new—new stove, new refrigerator, new bathrooms. And it was the first time I saw someone make habichuelas rojas guisadas (stewed red beans criolla style) from a can—shocking! Even Titi was shocked. Her friend kept apologizing for it, saying she was a career woman, too busy to soak beans overnight and then slowly stew them all damn day. And the beans came out slammin’! Go, Goya!

  Then the night came, along with six or so guests. I was the only child in the room. Salsa and soft white light
ing was replaced with a red lightbulb and the grooving R&B sounds of Bobby Womack. That was when the joints and alcohol came out. Titi made me go into the bedroom, saying that I could watch anything I wanted. She’d be back soon, and then we could go home. I didn’t want to stay there, but I was excited that I could watch Police Woman starring Angie Dickinson—I loved her!

  It was getting pretty late, and I was worried. I quietly peeked through the bedroom door and saw a woman tying a thin, brownish rubber hose around Titi’s bicep. Then a man leaned over and put a needle in her arm. From all of the R-rated movies I had seen with Cookie, like Panic in Needle Park starring Al Pacino and Raul Julia (love), I knew exactly what was going on. My heart sank to see my cousin-sister getting high on heroin! I had to focus. I had to get us out of there and safely back to Tia’s.

  I quickly went into Titi’s purse, looking for money so that we could get back on a bus or the subway. She had about six dollars on her, enough for two tokens or a gypsy cab. I tucked the cash in my pants and timidly walked down the hallway.

  Titi had started to nod out, her eyes slowly closing and opening. “I want to go home,” I said. She was too gone to respond. I tugged on her arm. “Come on, we have to go!” Her friend tried to lead me back to her bedroom, slurring, “Go … TV, ’kay. We’ll … be … go … ’kay, baby?” I shrugged her hand off of my shoulder and started to cry—loudly. Everyone panicked! They all started stumbling about, shaking her awake. She finally came to, kind of. She tried to hold her hand out for me, but it fell off the table, making her head slam facedown on the table. Boom! She was so high she didn’t feel shit.