Cinnamon Girl

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Cinnamon Girl Page 4

by Juan Felipe Herrera


  9/30/01 Sunday, late night, at the Cinnamon Palace

  playa boricua

  See my bed?

  Show Rezzy, a crumpled roll

  of newspapers, cardboard pillows, Mamá’s rebozo

  and a fancy old velvet blanket of palm trees

  and parrots, just like uncle DJ said, life is a playa boricua,

  a Puerto Rican beach.

  And we got food, Rezzy.

  Light another candle in the cellar.

  See this little shoebox. Thass our dining

  room table and see here inside this box, there’s

  cheese and crackers, candy and some

  soda cans, oh, and bread, got lots of bread,

  thass our refrigerator.

  Come, Rezzy, sit, sit, just wait a minute.

  Okeh, I know what you’re thinking,

  Wula, this is not a bedroom! Okeh, okeh, right?

  Wait, look.

  Cup my hand and scrape it against

  the floor and hold it up next to the candles

  by my bed.

  See?

  What?

  Closer!

  What? Dirt?

  You can’t see it?

  Here open your hand, Rezzy.

  Let me pour it on you. Now?

  It feels so fine. Wula. What is it, Yo’?

  Looks like dust, huh?

  Kinda silvery, huh?

  It’s the voices, Rezzy.

  It’s all the voices.

  They came flying down the stairs of every

  city building after the Twin Towers

  came crashing and then they hit bottom.

  Thass why they talk to me. Thass why we are here,

  Rezzy, are you listening? We are going

  to put them back where they will rest,

  back where uncle DJ fell too, okeh,

  repeat after me okeh—

  Down the long white stairs in the night

  all the falling voices you will cure of fright . . .

  Down the long white stairs in the night

  all the falling voices you will cure of fright . . .

  Give Rezzy some school sandwich bags

  from Mamá’s kitchen and an empty shoebox.

  These are little apartments

  for the voicedust, okeh, okeh, I say

  Uncle Beto!

  Uncle DJ!

  Squint through the dust still flowering

  gray in the cellar.

  Where are you? In what mouth or cave or bodega

  of cinders and concrete?

  Why do I call him? Stupid, huh?

  Donde estás? Where?

  Breathe. I breathe.

  Never

  thought about

  breathing.

  It is like beginning something.

  New.

  In the cellar, gray light.

  Gray walls.

  The halls

  at school are gray too.

  The floors shine, wave

  and then

  they dissolve.

  Down-down we go.

  Cellar of shredded leaves

  rivers, forgotten explosive oceans, Rezzy and me

  laughing and swimming

  holding hands. Remembering

  just a few seconds ago

  when we were

  thirteen.

  Kneel like tía Gladys on the hospital floor,

  it makes me feel like I am with uncle DJ

  in some weird way. Scoop, scoop the voicedust

  with our hands, scoop, Rezzy sings, a little nervous,

  Come little voices,

  come little ones,

  we are taking you back home,

  come now, come.

  10/1/01 Monday, late night, at the Cinnamon Palace

  ballet

  Yo’,

  we got two hundred and seventy

  little voicedust baggies

  in shoeboxes now! Smiles

  with circles under her eyes.

  Red rings

  around her lips from drinking too many

  cherry sodas.

  Yo’, are you listening to me, wula?

  You know uncle Rummi is probably going crazy

  wondering where I am too, you know?

  He’s probably saying, Where is that fatty-girl!

  That’s what he calls me. Where’s that baby-barrel?

  When are you going to lose all that pudding?

  In America girls have thin necks like swans,

  that’s why ballet is so beautiful. And it’s not belly,

  it’s ballet, can you pronounce that, Rezan, let me hear

  you say ballet, now! He gives me a candy,

  Here, learn with a sweet.

  I see Rezzy’s eyes grow shadows and her

  lips stretch into wispy waves, smeared and jerky.

  Rezzy slumps down on our cardboard bed.

  Bows her head and sighs. Drags to the corner

  of the cellar with a candle and slides down

  to the floor. Scoops voices. A rat scurries into a pile

  of rotten rags smashed like brains.

  I don’t want to go out anymore, Yo’.

  She says shaking her head.

  Okeh, okeh, Rez.

  Hold her hand. Okeh.

  You cannot show your face

  You cannot leave a trace . . .

  I say to myself.

  I know what we’ll do, Rez.

  Take her hand and lift her up

  and swing her around our palace

  as if we are dancing ballet—

  Glide across the stone stage. Fly.

  From now on, Rezzy

  we’ll trade places. I’ll be you.

  And you’ll—be me. Me.

  Me?

  10/2/01 Tuesday, evening, Loisaida on to Broadway

  fades

  After we run home

  from Sister Lopez’s Tarot Card Shoppe

  Rezzy pastes on a tight halter top and pounds

  herself into a pair of pink gypsy bell-bottoms.

  Gotta be like you, Yo’, right and you like me?

  I wrap a thick cloth around my belly and put

  on an extra pair of pants. Wear serious shoes.

  All I need is a pinafore, heh, I tell her,

  Heh.

  Yeh, this way nobody will know us.

  And we can know everybody, Rezzy, yeh.

  Jus’ like Sister Lopez said—

  You cannot show your face.

  You cannot show your face,

  Rezzy copies and licks a PowerBar.

  Not going to eat, Yo’, this way

  I’ll lose all the pudding—like a swan.

  Gonna get on a Zoney diet! She laughs.

  What? Rezzy sucks on an orange and squirts

  my eyes. Laughs. You donkey.

  Shuts her eyes, makes a face

  of a naughty bus driver, lets a seed roll off

  her chalky-white tongue.

  Stop posing! We have stuff to do.

  Rezzy freezes. Her face

  drops the smiles. Silence. Only the dust seems

  to say things—Hurry! Hurry!

  We both bounce up,

  spin around our

  cardboard boxes and folded clothes

  on the floor. Except we switch clothes

  and sides of the bed.

  Stuff more baggies into our backpacks.

  Come, Rezzy, we have a ways to go.

  Hold her hand and walk upstairs.

  Climb and peek outside the Cinnamon Palace.

  Jump a bus.

  Pass Maiden Street and Broadway.

  A fireman

  on a high crane shoots water

  into a blue-gray box of wires and torn concrete.

  Clock on a storefront

  stutters and starts. Things are on

  and off. In between there is strange static.

  Like when the TV breaks

  and the channels forget how to speak


  and where to aim. Hear sirens.

  Sniff, sniff, something’s on fire.

  It is the earth, I can’t explain it,

  Rezzy answers weird.

  We scoop voicedust

  from the bus seats, scoop more dust.

  Scoop.

  Rezzy turns her head, in a daze,

  slowly, as if looking for something

  that used to be there, like a deli or a little dog,

  but she can’t find it now.

  I can’t explain it, she repeats.

  I open my backpack

  and pick a few poems out of my cereal box.

  These poems are about you, Rezzy,

  I tell her to cheer her up a little. Listen.

  e dge

  Rezzy flies me

  a note in

  hot orange

  ink:

  Guess what, Yo’?

  I am going on a Zoney diet.

  Just chicken and pastrami,

  wula! Pulls a beaded strand of hair

  down to her dark lips. She looks

  sooo cute. Her eyes blink fast

  and her smooth skin is sweaty sweet.

  September 1, 01

  rezzy scrapes off her fingernail polish

  then she scrapes a scab in her head

  in between her braids, under her baseball cap

  she tastes the blood on her finger

  tastes like bacon she says,

  scratches her elbow, giggles,

  then her armpit. She listens to

  the Dixie Chicks. At St. Mark’s, we sit

  on the stairs with Cicatríz and stare at the guys

  coming to a poetry reading—

  ooooh, uuuuh. blah.

  September 3, 01

  stick out my

  tongue at rezzy

  Trace my hand

  on a blank sheet of paper

  five squiggly candles

  five soft towers of heat

  five ways of talking at the same time

  to five friends—

  Rezzy,

  Alma & Carmela (they’re always together)

  Jenikajade &

  McKenzie.

  September 6, 01

  Rezzy coughs, sniffs the air,

  bites her crunchy fingernails.

  Get off at the Cinnamon Palace

  where we started.

  Let’s sneak to the hospital to see uncle DJ!

  I ask her. Can’t, Yo’, just can’t.

  I am going back

  home to see uncle Rummi.

  She empties

  her backpack of dustvoices, piles them into mine.

  I’m in enough trouble as it is, wula!

  Leaves with her head droopy.

  She whistles funny and fades.

  Rezzy fades.

  10/3/01 Wednesday, F train to Coney Island, night

  halloween

  Hey—Moondraggin’?

  Is that you?

  Dressed up for Halloween,

  Ain’t that weeks from now? WashUdoin’?

  A blurry boy calls me leaning on the door

  to the Cinnamon Palace.

  You gettin’ chopped? Look like

  you been smokin’ the pipe. Bugged out yet?

  Why you wearin’ Rezan’s rags?

  You’re out of it, man! Haven’t seen ya’

  at school. Remember me? Hey . . . it’s just me

  Zako, at your service, as they say.

  His smooth weasel voice. I remember.

  So what are you? A witch? A scarecrow?

  Grabs the coil of shirts rolled around my waist.

  Spins me—to him. You from California, huh?

  Nah, I say, Puertoricans are from here.

  You be one crazy girl. Total wack.

  Zako lights up and says as he puffs,

  Come . . .

  on . . .

  portee . . .

  reecan . . .

  I’m a smokareecan.

  You don’t know nothing, do ya’?

  He tells me and gives me a mean look.

  I notice a bruised bump

  on his forehead from long ago,

  underneath his skin, a torn cloud,

  a falling flag.

  Hunch my shoulders like Rezzy

  and say nothing. My chest doesn’t move.

  I don’t know where my breath goes.

  Maybe after a while you don’t need

  to breathe, huh, uncle DJ, I whisper. Huh?

  Come on, Rezan, oops, I mean, Rezzy,

  Wait, wait, hold it, excuse me, I mean,

  Zako jokes and laughs—

  Yo’. That’s your name, isn’t it?

  Yolandah . . . huh. You and me got the same trip.

  Everyone calls me Zako. But they don’t really

  know my name. I mean, my for-reals name.

  It’s Zacarías.

  Can you say it?

  Za-ca-rías . . . Zac . . .

  Shhh . . . Just say once.

  Thass right, Yolandah. Promise

  never to tell Marietta or anybody, eh?

  Yolandah . . . you listening or what!

  My name’s not Yolandah.

  My name’s not Rezan. It’s not me

  or you or we or this or that or what!

  Man, you’re so chopped, Porteereecan.

  Porteereecan? Thass not my name either.

  What-what did you say?

  My name is noche—night,

  You can’t touch it, you think you see it

  but you can’t. That’s what these clothes

  are made of—black

  nightdust.

  I say things to get out of things

  but I just get tangled up and tired, uncle DJ.

  So tired. But I can’t let him know

  what I’m doing. Can’t let him know

  about the voices asleep

  in their little baggie-beds downstairs

  in the Palace. Gotta get him away from here

  so he won’t find out. Hear me, uncle DJ?

  Man, you are loaded—mumbling

  to yourself and all that. Come on,

  Yolandah . . . I’ll show you how

  to get really high.

  Okeh, okeh,

  I say through a hole

  in my head into another hole

  in the streets.

  We take the F train

  to the last stop. Grabs my hand,

  Welcome to my island. Zako says

  with a long skinny voice.

  Welcome to Coney Island, dude.

  Take a hit!

  Zako pops

  his short pipe into my mouth.

  Maybe if I smoke a little I can rest.

  Maybe if I loosen up a bit

  I can breathe, maybe,

  like I used to

  in the sweet winds of Iowa.

  In . . .

  out . . .

  In . . . in . . .

  In.

  The night sky squirms

  neon cobras

  blue-fire snakes, pink

  dragons on

  old women faces

  flamey makeup

  look at

  their narrow

  wasp

  waists

  like

  sucking

  on a tube

  of mustard, sad-eyed

  girls flap

  their hair

  hot lipstick gloss

  and candy hairspray

  sticks to the air

  they scream

  they sing

  the dahk-dahk of darts

  and a thousand ant people

  down below

  bubble in circles around me

  but it

  is only

  me

  and Zako

  up way up

  in a painted metal cage

  crazy cars and faces

  crashing

  in space.

  Been on the Zyklone
before?

  Zako asks me. It’s like a giant hungry

  dumb lizard. Wish it would come rolling

  down, dude, on top of the world!

  Zako squeals into a shovel of air

  pouring over our faces.

  You hear me, Yoland . . . I mean, uh . . .

  Call me Yo’, okeh. I tell Zako,

  trying to shake off the hot-cold wires

  buzzin’ and snappin’ in my head.

  Take a deep-deep breath. But it gets

  jammed up in my nose. Wish I could see

  Puerto Rico, like uncle DJ says:

  Una playa boricua will cure you for life!

  All I see is black waves, flashes

  and watery-dots, and sharp streaks thin

  as hairs. A giant flat clock by the moon.

  Almost midnight.

  Make up a story

  In my head—barely breathing—

  Bet mamá Mercedes sits by uncle DJ

  and pull-pulls her pomegranate-colored rosary

  from herself. Where is my Yolanda María?

  She’s asking. She’s been gone for three days!

  It’s her manda, she’s pulling. Just as I am

  spinning my manda here in the air.

  She rubs each bead as if it was

  a seed, a river, she presses it

  as if it was a mountain,

  a machete from Cidra,

  as if she was holding her father’s hand

  across the oceans, as if he never forgot her

  so far away waving adios

  leaning on a small wooden bohío in Caguas,

  thick green leaves

  at his feet and the violin voice of the coquí frog

  in the blue-green night air. Papi Reinaldo

  rolls over on his side of the hospital room.

  Mamá kisses uncle DJ’s hand buenas noches,

  then sits back in her own small frame

  and closes her eyes, her lips open

  with my name again and again and her

  hands shaky. Mamá?

  All I see are the gooey heads

  of Zako and Rezzy exploding

  puff-puffing the night smoke,

  gettin’ chopped, gettin’ loaded,

  next to me. Sucking in, in, in, then—

  Zako wraps his arms around Rezzy.

  Lisssen to the ocean, he says

  with his teeth out. He smears his

  face against her cheek,

  Come here, lisssen. He pushes her head down

  into his shirt. For a moment, I see Rezzy

  with Zako, she looks up and asks him,

  Aren’t you going out with Marietta?

  But, it isn’t Rezzy I am looking at.

  Me. It’s only me

  afraid and shattered.

  10/4/01 Thursday, Avenue D, Loisaida, dawn

  flamenco

  Slouch on a pile of gypsy clothes

  on the floor of the Palace. Rezzy gone.

  Where did she go?

  My head’s wired, tight. Gotta keep

  the voices calm. Under my pillow. Some

  in my China chinelas, my Chinese slippers.

 

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