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

  “Remember when we pulled off Sister Renata’s veil and she was bald?” Cindy weirdly said, as if she were continuing a long-ass conversation.

  “Yeah!”

  “She really beat the shit outta us that time. You know, it’s ’cause they can’t have sex. Their pussy gets dried up and makes them go insane.”

  Although it was an old joke of hers, we both laughed.

  “What happened?” I sincerely asked.

  “… The counselor. She called us trash and told me I was crazy and ignorant. When she pointed her finger in my face … I didn’t mean to do it … but …”

  “I know you didn’t. I understand.”

  I did understand. No, I wouldn’t have gone so far as stomping her face in, but I got it. Cindy offered a faint smile, then pulled out a Polaroid picture of her and a guy wearing an orderly’s uniform.

  “He works at the nuthouse. We did it.”

  “No way! Really? Did it hurt?”

  “No. Not really. You did it yet?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Of course not, corny,” she said. “You know everyone calls me Fish Eyes now?”

  I busted out laughing. She laughed too. Then we hugged each other as she cried quietly on my shoulder.

  An hour or so had passed as we spoke about stupid things like her new inappropriate boyfriend and César trying to fuck me down in Puerto Rico.

  “You look different,” she said all out of the blue.

  “It’s the bangs,” I explained. “No more big forehead sticking out,” I added.

  She laughed.

  “No. You do look different, like an ‘outside’ girl. You’re gonna make it. I always knew it.”

  Tears fell heavy from her bald eyes. I cried too. Why didn’t they pick her too? Why did they leave her here to end up like this?

  “Hey, Cindy, don’t get into any more trouble, please. Or they win. Remember?”

  She nodded. Then she grabbed my hand and told me I was still her best friend.

  On the way back to the Group Home, I kept telling myself that I had to keep it together and not lose it again or I might snap like Cindy did.

  I never saw Cindy again after that visit. I had tried for a time to stay in touch. We had spoken a couple of times on the phone, but when she was released from the Home, I never heard from her again. But I never stopped asking for her and surely never forgot her, ever.

  • • •

  I think I was fourteen by the time all the paperwork was done. I’m not sure. Nigel, our counselor, was waiting for me inside the van to take me on my final ride to the Metro train station.

  I thought I’d be doing cartwheels. This was the end of a life that I’d wanted desperately to leave for years, but the sadness from the other girls, who I thought hated my guts, threw me. Especially when the girl I had the big fight with started crying as she waved good-bye, mouthing, I’m sorry. I waved back, apologizing too.

  I jumped in the van.

  “How’s life working out for you, Rosie?”

  “My life’s a black hole, Nigel. But thanks for asking.”

  We both sort of laughed.

  He looked at me and then asked me what I wanted out of life. I told him that I wanted to go to college, get a job as a legal secretary to pay the bills, then try to get a job at a marine-life study lab as an assistant and eventually get a nice apartment of my own and bring home groceries in a brown paper bag like Mary Tyler Moore and Marlo Thomas.

  “Why limit yourself? Why be the legal secretary and not the head of the firm? Why be an assistant and not the head scientist? Why not shoot for a house instead of renting from someone else?”

  I stared back at him. I always thought that I was imagining and expecting the best for myself. I was challenged and also perplexed by my own low expectations. Maybe it stemmed from constantly hearing my school guidance counselors and other adults always cautioning me not to dream too high. Say that to a kid a hundred million times and they just might begin to believe it.

  “Yeah, well, ‘when your head says one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses.’ That’s Bogart, Key Largo.”

  He liked that one, sort of smiled back at me.

  “Life dealt you a shitty hand, Rosie. There’s no doubt about that.”

  “Gee, thanks. Cheer me right up, why don’tcha?”

  He shook his head with a laugh.

  “You can always ask for new cards.”

  “Yeah, right.… How?”

  “Just by asking. You’ll figure it out. Especially when you get tired of holding on to that hand.”

  Whoa.

  As the train took me toward my new beginning, I wanted to purge all those years stuck in the system through screams and tears. All that came was a big lump of some kind of emotion that hung silently heavy in my throat.

  • • •

  Tia was quietly giddy as she pushed her plump body up to the third floor. She opened the door and gestured with her hand, drawing my attention to the small hallway that separated the tiny kitchen from the back two bedrooms.

  “Look, Rosie! For you.”

  I didn’t know what to say, how to respond. Tia had turned the little hallway into my own bedroom—a small bed pushed to one side and a small dresser to the other. This was the first time I’d had my own room—seriously. Okay, so it was in a hallway, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. (Sorry. That’s so sad, it cracks me up.)

  “This is for me?”

  “Jes, all for you. I’m so happy you’re here. I hope you’ll be happy with us again.”

  It was too much. I didn’t know how to take in that amount of joy. I sat quietly on the bed for a moment.

  “Thank you, Tia,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears.

  “But why you cry? You’re here now! Don’t cry. Please.”

  CHAPTER 21

  I WAS quiet for most of the first several weeks back. I stayed in a lot, close to Tia. When she was at work, my days were spent listening to Burt Bacharach, featuring Dionne Warwick, and my Romeo and Juliet album, the 1968 movie version starring Olivia Hussey (love!), moping about for hours longing for Freckles, or sitting still on my bed, not knowing what to do or where to go, waiting for Tia to come home, just like Freckles probably did with me. And when I did get up, I cleaned obsessively! Imagine that! I thought I’d love not being forced to clean, but I couldn’t help myself, the messiness freaked me out. Yep, those penguins got inside.

  Although Tia cleaned every week, she was still messy. She hated being in her American Express and would rip off that girdle and all her clothes the minute she walked in, throwing them about in exchange for her bata. Too tired to clean after dinner, she would let the dishes pile high. And as a result, at night you would have a cutoff broomstick by your bed to bang on the floor two, three times so that the mice would scurry away when you needed to go to the bathroom—not kidding.

  I’d save up my $2.50 weekly allowance from her and buy mouse poison or traps without her knowledge so I wouldn’t embarrass her. I’d clean every inch of the apartment, then report to Tia, waiting for her inspection and approval—weirdo—but would receive an appreciative yet troubling smile instead. And I kept asking permission to do everything, from cooking an egg to taking a bath, to going to the corner store for a Snickers bar. I felt lost without a regimented schedule and someone to report to.

  I had a lot of bad nightmares too—of Sister Renata trying to kill me, of the Home, of my half-brother trying to molest me, and of my mother punching me or at times trying to kill me too. I would wake up in the middle of the night breathing heavily.

  “Rosie! Rosie! Rosamarie!!! You having a bad dream again. Come on here. Please!”

  “I’m okay, Tia. Go back to sleep.”

  Lorraine, Cookie, and Millie acted as if it wasn’t a big deal that I was back, despite my weirdness. That was a good thing, whether it was a concerted effort or not. The block acted in the same vein. No one brought up my time in the Home. I didn’
t know if they knew about the Home or assumed that I was living with my mother and began living with Tia for some private reason. I thought they were being respectful, but later I found out that years before, Tia made my cousins swear not to tell anyone my business about being in an institution. It was private family stuff and that was that. And it didn’t only apply to my situation. We were just as private about Lorraine’s business too.

  Lorraine’s mother abandoned her when she was an infant, and she was left out on the street. Tia heard about the baby at work, left early, scooped her up, and took her home. Tia found out who the mother was, met with her, and asked her if it was okay that she keep Lorraine as her own. The mother agreed. We were so private that I didn’t even know about this story until I was thirteen and heard it through gossip.

  One of the kids on our block found out about Lorraine, ran back to our stoop, and told everyone. I happened to be there and was shocked and upset. I ran back upstairs to find Cookie and told her what the kid said. Cookie ran down, slapped the shit out of the kid in the face in front of everyone, and told him to never speak of our family again or she would beat the living hell out of him. Not another word was ever spoken about it. And that was that.

  I don’t know when it exactly happened, but after a while, being home with Tia, it happened, not just like that, but eventually—happiness.

  It was still summer, and it started with dinner. Lorraine was out hanging with Joanne. I stayed in to wait for Tia. She was working late, until after ten. I knew she would be exhausted, so I decided that I’d cook dinner for her. I made one of our favorites: boiled eggplant with sautéed ground beef in sofrito over white rice. I also prepared a red onion and tomato salad. Tia didn’t eat enough veggies, but at least she would eat that.

  “Look, Tia! I cooked!”

  “Ay, my goodness! Why?”

  “So you don’t have to.”

  “That is not why you’re here. You know that, right?”

  We ate and talked for hours about this and that. I did it the next night and the next. It became the norm, me cooking about three nights a week. Sometimes Don Luis, Tia’s good friend, would come by. That’s when I would cook something special, like a bacaloa salad or bisteak con sequoias over arroz blanco. I’d make coffee and lay out the gallettas for Doña Gladys, our downstairs neighbor, if she came up after she had finished the dishes.

  This got me out of the house and acquainted with Bushwick, shopping for food. I would be so shy handing the local butcher or fruit-stand owner food stamps to pay for the groceries. They would make me feel better by not making a big deal out of it, casually asking me how Tia was, offering a free slice of something, telling me they’d see me next Tuesday. Soon I’d find myself stopping to hang out on the stoop with Luis, Anthony, Vinnie, and Jeanette on my way back. Then things took off.

  I started to become a part of the neighborhood, going to house jams with Lorraine and her best friend Joanne—Jeanette’s sister. We loved getting ready too, doing our hair and makeup for hours—just like Titi, Millie, and Cookie used to do! We’d take just as long getting all pretty just to go to Coney and flirt with the Italian and Russian boys on the boardwalk, taking the subway down, listening to the different boom boxes that would tune in to the same station if Teena Marie’s summer hit song “Square Biz” came on. I loved hanging up at Car Barns Hill (now known as Grover Cleveland Track and Field), hanging on the cement bleachers with my friends, looking over the East River at the Chrysler Building, having my own Saturday Night Fever daydreams. And talk about Saturday Night Fever moments! My favorite thing to do was walking all the way down to and over the Brooklyn Bridge by myself, just to have time for my own thoughts, discovering the beautiful neighborhoods like Clinton Hill along the way, saying to myself that I would own one of those beautiful brownstones one day.

  I got a job at Wyckoff Hospital, first as a candy striper pushing the book cart to patients’ rooms, then as a typist in the medical-records department. I would still make the rounds to the elderly patients, making jokes, singing show tunes with them to cheer them up—I know, nerd. But I liked it. I even began to venture into the city on my own, taking in the Museum of Natural History fifty times over—super-nerd! Taking trips, back and forth to Puerto Rico, to Dad’s, to Tio Monserrate, or up to Tia Aya’s became the norm. And … wait for it … I started to lose all of my emotional weight and my figure was in full bloom—holla! Looking cute was top priority in Bushwick, especially for a Puerto Rican.

  I still kind of hated going over to my mother’s house, but there were times when it was enjoyable. Lydia could be so entertaining, so funny and quick. And my half-siblings were fun at times too. I loved dancing with them in the living room till holes were burned through my socks, playing cards, having long, intelligent, captivating debates over politics or social issues. I even loved hanging in the basement with one of my half-brothers—not the molester, of course—as I’d help him train for the Golden Gloves that he never made it to.

  But the bad things overshadowed everything. Lydia wasn’t the tidiest, but once her husband left her for another woman—a couple of years before I came home—she didn’t keep things as clean as she used to. By the time I did come back, she had moved again, and the filth in the already run-down apartment was way beyond imagination: rodent droppings, an unbelievable amount of cockroaches and roach sheddings, unnecessary clutter, hundreds of empty shopping bags stuffed into needed closet space, bills stacked here and there, etc. The kitchen walls held on to old grease and nicotine residue, which made them look grayish and muddy. There was a huge hole in the ceiling over the tub where rats would run back and forth on the exposed two-by-four. The building was eventually condemned, but my mother didn’t move because she didn’t have to pay rent anymore. The weirdest thing I hated the most was the nails hammered into the living room walls that my half-brothers hung their clothes on. It all drove me crazy, but I couldn’t clean too much or my mother would get suspicious and paranoid that I thought I was better than she was.

  There were also the relentless and spontaneous explosions. A physical fight could spark up in seconds flat over nothing, literally. Like a game of cards with my half-brothers. “Why did you play that spade?! You fucked up the whole fucking game!” Then a card could be flipped in your face or the table shoved into your stomach. Another classic was how one sibling or another would gang up on you through mental and emotional torture for days, turning everyone against you. Like talking about how horrible a degenerate you were over some minor incident, all day, every day, as if you weren’t in the room. The taunting would get to the point where you were wishing for your death because that would be the honorable thing to do for being such a piece of shit. And the constant threat of getting molested was a good one too. Oh, and let’s not forget about Mom’s occasional hard-ass slaps to the face and constant insulting jabs. Those were strong deterrents as well.

  One time, it was around 6:00 AM or so. My siblings were asleep. I had gotten up early enough so that I could sneak out to Tia’s. Unfortunately, my mother was already up, sitting at the small kitchen table and preparing to put on a full face of makeup while having one of her conversations with the wall. I stepped back, trying not to embarrass her during her “chat,” while still stealing a peek at her natural beauty. It was the first time I’d seen her completely clean-faced.

  “Who’s there?” she quietly screamed out.

  Shit! Panic!

  “Me. Rosie. I have to use the bathroom.”

  I cautiously made my way toward the bathroom that was inside the kitchen. She put her hands over her face, hiding, embarrassed not that I caught her talking to the wall, but that I saw her without her makeup.

  From inside the bathroom, I could hear her softly singing in Spanish like a beautiful songbird. When I gently crept back out, she asked me to sit with her.

  “You know I used to sing in nightclubs in Puerto Rico? Oh yes,” she said with pride. “But then my husband made me stop. He was jealous—of my talent. Men are
like that. They get scared of your confidence. Everyone came to see me. But.…”

  She trailed off without finishing. She looked so sad. It was the second time I’d felt sympathy for her. The first time was when one of my half-brothers, after getting hit with a wire hanger and belt numerous times by her, grabbed the belt and started swinging back. It was horrifying to witness. My mother cried a river the entire night, hurt and shocked, as the neighbors surrounded her, wiping witch hazel on her face to calm her down. I remember the rest of us kids hovering in a corner, watching, crying. Horrific scene.

  But I digress.

  My mind drifted, wondering how she had looked singing in a nightclub. Was she dressed in a cocktail dress or a long tight-fitting gown? Was the place a café or a large ballroom at some tourist hotel? How did she wear her hair? Could she have made it big if her husband hadn’t forced her to quit?

  I was startled by the snapping sound of her compact and found Lydia staring at me.

  “God, you’re ugly, just like your father,” she said, all disgusted and shit.

  “I know. You say that all the time.”

  Why the hell did I say that? She looked up at me with one of her sly smirks.

  “You know your father left me when I was eight months pregnant? Oh yes. Left me and my children and went back to his wife. But everyone made me the bad guy.”

  The familiar uncomfortable silence hung over us for a moment.

  “I have to go to help Tia with the Saturday laundry.”

  I kissed her extended cheek and left.

  • • •

  After we finished Saturday’s early supper, I sat on the edge of Tia’s bed as she got under the covers.

  “Tia, what happened to your husband?”

  “He left me, for another woman,” she said defensively, with a slight grin.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She laughed for a moment in reflection. “You know what hap’pined? I came home early from work and found him in bed with my friend. Oh jes. I went to de bureau and started packing a maleta. ‘Minguita, please don’t leave,’ he says. I said, ‘I’m not leaving, I’m packing your stuff!’ Ga, ga, ga!”