The Accidental Native

by J. L. Torres

  “She could be your model,” I added.

  “Licenciada Matos is a great mentor in so many ways,” Ms. Roselló said. I noted: loss of points for ass-kissing.

  “I would love to have grandchildren,” Julia said, laughing at me and Ms. Roselló.

  I felt my face blush, and thankfully the food came at that moment and that subject dropped to the table like an unwanted side dish. Yeah, I thought, perhaps you can be a better abuela than mother. But it stayed in my head, like other thoughts better censored during the remainder of that meal.

  I walked a tightrope between anger at her conniving maneuvers and genuine pleasure at having an unexpectedly delightful lunch date with an intelligent, appealing woman. What restrained me was the memory of that unfortunate restaurant outing in Lares, which I preferred not to repeat. So, I went with the flow and enjoyed the company of Ms. Roselló, who was, after all, an innocent bystander.

  Ms. Roselló slid over a business card with her home number on it while Julia was in the ladies’ room. I took it with a smile and a “thank you.” I would never call her. She could be my soulmate, for all I knew, but I wasn’t ready to accept yet another one of Julia’s guilt-ridden offerings, this one more insidious than the others.

  I didn’t respond to Julia’s chit-chat in the car. When I parked back at her building, I looked straight at her.

  “What the hell was that, Julia?”

  She rolled her eyes and clucked her tongue. “Is it so bad that I introduced you to a beautiful, ambitious young woman?”

  “Did I ask you to pimp for me?” A stern look.

  “Where do you get this mouth of yours?”

  “That’s what it feels like.”

  “Fine. I won’t do it again. Live your miserable lonely existence.”

  “Hey, I’m doing okay, thank you.”

  “You don’t look happy, René.”

  “Maybe that’s because I’m not, okay?”

  There was a moment of silence and then she went for the door.

  “You know, I’m trying to do my best,” she said, looking out the window, still holding to the door handle. “But I’m really getting tired of your hurt-child drama.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes,” she said turning around, facing me directly. “Grow up, René. People make mistakes, everyone has to move on.”

  With that, she seized her purse and bolted out of the car.

  Nine

  * * *

  It’s a given that a single guy in a relationship must at some time introduce the girlfriend to the parents. At the point when we were quasi-living together (an arrangement involving personal toothbrushes and a few articles of clothing burrowed away in one drawer in each other’s apartments), Erin and I decided to “share our happiness” (her words) with family. We didn’t think much of it. Erin’s folks were liberal New Englanders who only gave me a hard time for being a Yankee fan. Dinner at her folks was pleasant, full of good conversation and excellent wine. We both thought we had jumped over the biggest hurdle, because I had always bragged about how open-minded my parents were. And despite their political liberalism, Erin worried that her parents might harbor issues with her dating a Puerto Rican. She and I both knew progressive politics don’t always immune people from fear of difference. So, we were both very happy when Erin’s dad welcomed me to the family. Actually, it was scary for me because I realized that the meet-the-parents visit was this significant moment in a relationship full of expectations. But it was still a promising event. And we both kind of assumed that if the McMahons were on board, the Faltos would be a piece of bizcocho.

  I told my parents that I would be bringing Erin to Thanksgiving dinner, or La Cena, as it traditionally known in my family. I spoke to Mami, and the silence on the phone was deafening.

  “Who’s that?” Mami asked, finally.

  “Erin, you know, the girl I’m seeing.”

  More silence, then, “Ay, Rennie, you know La Cena is a family thing.”

  “Mami, I’m serious about Erin. I think you and Papi should meet her.”

  “You planning to marry this girl?”

  “I don’t know—maybe. We haven’t broached that topic yet.”

  “Well, when you decide, then you can bring her to La Cena.”

  “Jeez. What’s with the formality? It’s Thanksgiving dinner, for God’s sakes.”

  “I don’t feel comfortable with strangers in my house, Rennie.”

  “She’s not a stranger to me.”

  “But she is to me.”

  “Well, I’m bringing her or I won’t go. Mami, I’ve been over to Erin’s parents’ house, and they welcomed me with open arms. I can’t believe you’re acting this way.”

  She sighed into the phone. “This girl isn’t Puerto Rican, is she?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Is she Latina, at least?”

  “No, Mami. She’s American, like the rest of us.”

  “Don’t get politically stupid on me, okay. You know what I mean.”

  “Look, I’m just calling to tell you I’m bringing her along. You got a problem with that or not?”

  After a few seconds of hesitation, she conceded. I hung up the phone in shock. Where was my liberal, open-minded mother, who talked freely with me about drugs, alternative sexual lifestyles, sex and STDs, and other topics most parents would prefer to avoid?

  She must have disappeared into the ethnic meal she always prepared for La Cena. A Puerto Rican Thanksgiving is a hybrid of American and Boricua culinary tastes: a turkey covered with pepper and spices to approximate its otherwise bland taste as much as possible to lechón, or roast pig; it is accompanied by arroz con gandules, or pigeon peas in yellow rice; candied yams; pasteles, that is, Puerto Rican style-tamales in banana leaves; and potato salad, which must include heaps of mayo, eggs and, for that Spanish touch, red peppers and olives. The typical pies are served, of course, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone to find some flan, tembleque or arroz con dulce as desserts.

  Erin was amused by all of this, and she committed the biggest faux pas: she ate very little. Wouldn’t touch the pasteles, nibbled at the rice, ate a sliver of turkey, and afterwards confessed to me, with a whiny voice, that she missed the traditional dinner. For some reason, that bothered me, and her finickiness did not go over well with either one of my parents.

  They were both pleasant, but the conversation was thin, too guarded for a holiday meal. My usually garrulous parents, who loved to tease and laugh, and on these occasions were known to get up and dance to a salsa tune playing on the stereo, remained as reserved and laconic as any WASP family ever seen on television or film. Erin had this stupid, fake smile screwed on her face the entire evening, even as she picked through the food, setting the red peppers and olives from the potato salad to the side. I wanted to bang my head against the table at one point.

  The only amusement for me, I hate to say, during the entire evening was watching Tío Bennie, the only other dinner guest, drink himself into a stupor, as he did every Thanksgiving. He wasn’t really an uncle, but my parents had known him for decades and I grew up calling him tío. After his wife died and he sunk into depression and alcohol, my parents occasionally invited him to weekend dinners and holiday meals. He would drink like a mad man, chugging beer after beer, and at one point while sprawling on a recliner would start blabbering and then crying. Soon after, he would fall into a sonorous sleep, his jowls shaking from the jagged breathing.

  “That didn’t go like you wanted, did it?” Erin asked me on the drive back from Jersey. She had been quiet, staring out the window. Unusual for her; anytime I drove her car, she was super vigilant to the point that she sometimes made me so upset. I stopped and turned over the wheel to her.

  “You think?” I answered.

  We both laughed, but it stung me a bit. I felt bad for Erin, but I couldn’t or wouldn’t apologize for my parents. She wasn’t exactly endearing herself to them. There had been some type of barrier in t
hat dining room, where it came from I don’t know. But I knew the silences and inability to converse freely went deeper than lack of topics. We were all liberal, well-educated, intelligent people, but something happened, and I did not know what.

  I visited my parents a week later. They had not mentioned anything about Thanksgiving, even in our telephone conversations that followed. I filed the incident under lack of chemistry, but when I sat down for a cup of coffee, both of them sat down at the kitchen table, hands folded, their faces solemn like someone had just died. They wanted to talk, my father said.

  “That young woman, Erin,” my mother began. “She’s a good person and whatever decision you make we will respect. It is your lives, after all.”

  “But,” my father interrupted, “she doesn’t exactly have the mancha de plátano.”

  This was the phrase for someone who looked Puerto Rican, or even Latino. So called because you can no easier rid yourself of your Puerto Rican look than erase a plantain stain.

  “I told you she was white.”

  “White? M’ijo, she’s like a walking bag of flour,” this from my liberal mother. They both laughed at this.

  “She’s in dire need of some sun,” my father added.

  “This is racist, you know that, right?”

  “Ay, please. We think she’s all right. We’re just having fun at your expense.”

  “But,” my father again interrupted, “have you really thought the possible consequences of marrying someone not of your culture?”

  I stared at them like I didn’t know them.

  “I can’t believe both of you. Where does this come from and where’s it going?”

  “We’re not opposed to you marrying her, Rennie. God forbid, we would never.”

  “But,” my father interjected, “let’s not be blinded to the differences and what they might mean.”

  “Like what?”

  “Will she be willing to raise our grandchildren to know their Puerto Rican heritage?”

  “Grandchildren?”

  “Rennie,” my father again piped up, “ours is an oppressed, colonized people losing its culture and history. We can’t marry and blend and forget our roots. Where will we end up?”

  My mother started crying, to my amazement. “Oh my God,” she said. “What if they turn out to be asimilaos, ashamed of their Puerto Rican grandparents?”

  “Then they’ll be just like their father.”

  I snatched my jacket and keys and went for the door.

  “You’re not an asimilao!” My father blocked the door, wagging a finger at me. “We have both taught you about our history, our language, your roots. This is a Puerto Rican home, and we’re proud of who we are, and we’ve taught you to be just as proud.” The fierce look scared me—I had never seen it on my father.

  I nodded and looked down. All I could say was “bendición.” “Dios te bendiga,” they both responded, tired and despondent.

  Ten

  * * *

  The older professors, the seasoned veterans with thirty years or more, tell me how little faculty members know about each other, even in a college where a tour of the campus takes less than fifteen minutes. How few friends they make in the course of an academic career. They become obsessed with work, with the petty, departmental dramas that lead to breaks from colleagues. The jaded college professor looks out of windows, isolated in the ivory tower of his or her own making. Too tired to extend a hand, too busy to notice or care about their struggling brethren, to chat with anyone other than a fellow committee member out of obligation and necessity.

  I was a bit disappointed at their attitude, but I’d been there only a couple of months and that’s how I felt sometimes. I knew few people other than those in my department, and even then, only a handful that I spoke to.

  “Circulate, network,” Julia would tell me. “You don’t go out enough.” A new worry for her: that I was becoming a recluse.

  But the college was not conducive to socializing. Many professors taught and went home—all we needed to complete the factory feeling of the place was a punch clock. When news came about someone from another department who had cancer, it was like news from another front, or some foreign country.

  “Migdalia Rosalbán,” Micco said, “over in Business—breast.”

  Micco threw himself into his office chair. He was bothered in that half-agitated, frustrated way. Knowing Micco, he was not so much worried about poor Migdalia, but about being the next cancer victim.

  “Don’t drink the water,” he said. I looked at him, surprised.

  “I mean it,” he added.

  I recalled what Stiegler had told me, and I asked if that had any bearing on what he was saying.

  “Buried ammunitions—toxic shit—before the Army left,” he said.

  “Buried? Like right here on campus?”

  “We might be sitting on top of it.” Both eyebrows arched.

  “Why would they do that?”

  “What normal person understands the minds of fucking militarists?” he said with a smirk.

  With that, he gathered his classroom materials and scooted out the office, leaving me bewildered and a bit worried. He popped his head back in.

  “Are we still on for lunch?”

  I stared at him and nodded, remembering that Micco had agreed to drive me around to car dealerships. I had accepted that in PR a car’s a necessity, at times wishing I had taken up Julia’s offer to buy me a car. So I asked for Micco’s help, and he agreed if I bought him lunch.

  Having lost my parents to fanatics with explosives, Micco’s information did not set well with me. Could any of that stuff explode? Maybe it was an idle rumor, propagated by the island’s anti-militarists. You could not deny the unusual number of cancer cases on campus, though. I remembered Stiegler’s breakdown of cases. Was Stiegler right? Were we all breathing or drinking some carcinogen?

  I peered out the window, down to the cemented walkways and barriers in front of the Nameless Academic Building. And then farther south to the distant parrot green mini-mountains forming part of the Cordillera Central, the Picos de Baná, flashing behind the foamy clouds. Seeing this vegetation, in all its tropical wonder, made it hard to believe that dangerous environmental risks lurked so close by.

  Owning a car would make me see the gradual degradation of the landscape. Traveling the curving two-lane highways would bring me closer to pollution, discarded refrigerators and stoves, soiled Pampers and beer cans tossed by the roadside. I understood that the greenness of the island, like so many other things in Puerto Rico, gave the people cover for destructive habits. Everyone on the island was bewitched, under a spell of ignorance and denial.

  When I went with Micco to buy a car, these were not my thoughts, of course. I needed to get around, and the rickety buses spewing Co2 would not cut it for me. I once took the bus to Caguas—to transfer my driver’s license—and the trip took forever and involved more chattering among passengers than I cared to eavesdrop on. I took the local bus rather than the express, which ran down the autopista, the three-lane superhighway. I got the panoramic route that gives you the shits every time the wobbly bus swerves around a mountain. That was enough to make me want a car.

  After receiving my first paycheck, I decided to find a car. Micco volunteered to drive me around, promising to steer me away from shady dealers. We drove out to Caguas, the dealerships in Baná not worth it, according to him. Later I found out he took me to a cousin, who kept referring to each car I scoped as a definite “tumba-panty.” In other words, a vehicle that would make the ladies drop their drawers. I ended up with a black, manual Civic—not high on the list of tumba-panties, but okay for my needs and budget.

  Micco was unimpressed with my choice. He tried to convince me that women liked a man with a muscle car. This, from a short man with receding salt-and-pepper hair who happened to own a red sports car. In my new car, I followed Micco to the restaurant he had selected, an obviously upscale Italian restaurant in Caguas. It was an en
joyable meal, and I savored the food and the wine, even with the conversation about toxic poisons hidden under our feet.

  With the rush to move from army base to college, no one had thought about any lingering explosives. The U.S. Army certainly did not inform anyone of any possible danger. And all the politicians wanted the afterglow of accomplishment and progress attached to a new college; they buried the facts about the ordnance. Stiegler had done some internet research and found some information on it. He handed Micco a file full of documents downloaded from government websites.

  “The Army isn’t hiding anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Fort McKenna is part of the FUDS program.”

  “Fort McKenna? FUDS?”

  Micco sighed and wiped his mouth, impatient in having to bring me up to speed.

  “Before the college, there was Fort McKenna, you know that, right?”

  I nodded, although I hadn’t known the name.

  “Well, the Army still refers to it as Fort McKenna and it’s on the FUDS list—Formerly Used Defense Sites. It’s the Army’s responsibility to clean up after themselves, and that program does it.”

  “Stiegler got this from the Army website?”

  “U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—look it up,” he said, pointing his fork at me.

  “Holy shit. Why don’t they tell people?”

  “Puerto Ricans don’t like knowing the truth—don’t you know?”

  “I’m beginning to see that.”

  “Well, it’s not something you want to shout from the rooftops—who knows, maybe we never got the memo.” He speared a clam and slurped it into his mouth, washed it down with wine.

  “Stiegler told me the cleanup is supposed to have started a few years ago, but either they’re doing it real secret like, or they’re just bullshitting us, because I haven’t seen any kind of movement in that direction.” He paused for a minute, lost in thought. “Unless all that infrastructure construction they keep talking about isn’t about replacing pipes.”