The Accidental Native

by J. L. Torres

  “What are they cleaning?” I asked, drinking the last drop of wine in my glass.

  “HTRW, hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste.” Micco stopped cutting his veal and looked at me.

  I stared at him.

  “I’m not kidding—it’s all there, check it out.”

  The bill arrived. More sticker shock looking at it than the prices of the cars I had checked out. I just gave it a tarjetazo—which in the local vernacular means paying it with plastic and adding to your debt.

  The next morning I found Stiegler’s folder on my desk. It was all true. And, worse, the “relative risk” level of the Fort McKenna site was deemed “high.” How was it that no one knew about this stuff? Or if they did, no one cared enough to make a stink about it? But, then, what could one demand when the U.S. government was officially doing something about it? An article in the folder reported government agencies searching the waters off the coast of Oahu for hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride and mustard bombs dumped there in 1944. A congressman said no one knew where exactly these munitions were and what their impact on health and the environment would be. Great, I thought. And that’s Hawaii, a state.

  Other articles and newspaper clips about contamination in Vieques—another mess. On one of our trips, Julia took me to “La Isla Nena,” the popular nickname of the smaller island.

  “The Navy would bomb targets on the island,” she explained, “without any concern for the people or the fishermen, or the high incidence of cancer in Vieques.”

  I glanced at the placid turquoise water, trying to imagine it with destroyers blasting the beachhead.

  “Then that stray bomb killed David Sanes, a civilian working for the Navy,” she continued. “And ignited the national outcry that led to the closing of the base. Some of us had been working decades to close it down, or at least trying to get the Navy to stop their bombing exercises.”

  The Navy had resisted until the uproar escalated into persistent protests and media attention. They left but all the contaminants remained, along with the health risks and rising cases of cancer and other illnesses.

  Marisol stepped into the office, holding student papers, a roll book and a textbook close to her chest. Today, she had put on less make-up, had her hair back to its natural color, up, and the effect was pleasing. Simple suited her, but she didn’t know it.

  “Listen, I have tickets to see Fiel a la Vega.”

  “Feel a whatsis?”

  “Fiel a la Vega—a rock band. I was going with my friend, but she cancelled out on me. Wanna go?”

  For some reason, I didn’t believe this friend existed. I was not in the mood, but she gave me a pout and a few c’mons.

  “Okay, why not? Hey, I got my new car. I’ll pick you up.”

  “Let’s do dinner before. I know a whole bunch of nice places.”

  “Sure, great.”

  She exited and I closed Stiegler’s folder, which was marked with the radioactive symbol. On a Post-It, he had scribbled and underlined three times, “We are all fucked.”

  Working in the middle of a possible cancer cluster was worrisome, not what I signed up for, and I grew angry at the silence of the university’s administration. I wanted to talk to the Rector, organize a group of faculty and students to get answers. These thoughts quickly dissolved. Squatters occupied my house, and I didn’t have a clue how to get them out. The college, hospitable but alarmed at my lengthy stay in the “guest house,” informed me that they could give me until the end of year, and then I had to find another place. Micco told me house rentals in Baná were hard to come by, apartments scarcer. I tried talking to the Riveras but to no avail. They liked the house, they said, and had no intention of moving out. They insisted they were being wronged.

  It had taken me weeks to gather the necessary information requested in the grievance form. I called a lawyer and set up a meeting, and he agreed to meet me for lunch. I made sure it was in a fast food place. By now, I had become hip to the concept of cachetear, or “getting over.” People seemed to glorify in getting something for nothing. No act of charity or favor seemed free; people always expected something. It would be rude to ask for this something—you had to know what you should offer if you were the recipient of the favor. If Micco drove me around to car dealers, then lunch was thrown in the mix, and from his perspective, it was almost a given that he would choose a pricey restaurant. Cacheteando. If this lawyer were to take his valuable time to see me—a client—I would pay for lunch. But he would eat hamburgers and french fries.

  We met in a Fuddruckers, one of the fast food chains sprouting like weeds throughout the island. Licenciado Martirio Ledesma was waiting for me at the front entrance, as we had arranged. He was a squat man with a big gut, a barrigón, as they say around here; he had attached earlobes and thin, almost feminine, lips. Ledesma wore a plain, starched, white guayabera. No mustache—and I immediately liked that. Micco had recommended him. He represented many of the faculty, having taught as an adjunct with the college before starting his practice. Micco mentioned that his English was impeccable, and that’s what sold me. He extended a delicate hand, unusual for someone of his girth, I thought.

  Seated in front of a turkey burger and onion rings snuggled in a plastic meshed basket, I skidded the manila envelope with the papers across the greasy table. Ledesma took a hearty bite from his Boricua Burger and dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The official complaint.”

  He slid it back. “Hold on to it. We’re not even close to that yet.”

  He smiled when he saw the puzzled look on my face.

  “Sorry, my friend. But we must legally transfer the property to you first.”

  “And how long will that take?” He chewed and stared at me with a perplexed expression, a cross between impatience and surprise.

  “Professor Falto,” he dabbed his little fingertips on the napkin as he talked. “If we are going to make this work, you must be patient. These things take time; it’s complicated.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m living on campus and paying rent, and these … these lowlifes are living in my parents’ house for free.”

  “They have rights, too,” he said.

  Again, the righteous, offended look of the insider, pitying me, the estranged one, who had lost his humanity as a Puerto Rican—how can you want to throw these poor people out on the street? What’s wrong with you?

  “Look, you can’t go into a court in Puerto Rico with that attitude. The judge will not tolerate it.”

  “Well, maybe I should squat on the judge’s property and see how he likes it.”

  Ledesma pursed his lips, took a swig of the colossal drink he’d ordered, and sighed. “Falto, just get me your parents’ title, marriage certificate and your birth certificate. With those I can begin the inheritance process.” He fingered a steak fry.

  I had access to all my parents’ papers now. Dad had left behind an organized file cabinet with every important document imaginable, including the infamous birth certificate which Julia had shown me. I thought about the lengths to which they went to keep this document from me, always providing any other alternative form of proof of citizenship which I had to present in person. They got me a passport, and faithfully renewed it, under the guise of its being indispensable for all the traveling we were going to do. And we did. By age fifteen I had several stamps on that passport, but I didn’t know they had also obtained it to help them hide the truth of my biological mother.

  “I can get those to you in no time—so this shouldn’t take long, right?”

  “We will have to announce the case in the national newspapers and wait a month.” He waved the fry around, pointing to an imaginary map of Puerto Rico.

  “Why?”

  “In case there are other possible inheritors who may want to petition to disqualify you from the inheritance?”

  “Disqualify me, for what?”

  “There’s a series of things
… Most likely they do not apply to you, but we have to go through that process. It’s the law.”

  “Of course, it is.”

  I saw myself on the streets, living in cardboard boxes, the Riveras walking by, laughing at my arrogance and naiveté. Maybe Julia should know about all of this, I thought. He inhaled the rest of his meal and left, leaving his card behind. I thanked him, for what, I don’t know.

  I remembered Marisol and the concert—I didn’t want to call it a date. Hadn’t really thought about it that way. But just thinking about that made me nervous. I just wanted to get out—in my new car, drive around, put some mileage on it, see the sights. Having a car was great, although I wasn’t crazy about driving in Puerto Rico. Recklessness was the way of the road. It’s as if you put mice into little cars within an enclosed box. Civility falters amid the chaos and absurdity of so many cars lined up without moving. I was in a strip mall in Caguas, another consumerist way station dotting the cemented island. Although I was only fifteen minutes away, I had to worry about making it on time because it was Friday and close to 3 pm; people would soon be taking off early from work and the traffic jams were legendary.

  By the time I got home, it was time to get ready. Marisol told me she wanted to arrive at the restaurant around five, in order to have a “leisurely meal” and talk. You can’t do anything leisurely when you have somewhere to go afterward. But these were her plans. I was basically tagging along, playing chauffeur. I showered, shaved, threw on some comfortable clothes, no cologne.

  The dinner was fine, nothing out of this world. I can’t even remember the restaurant or what we ordered. I think it may have been Mexican because Marisol must have drunk something like margaritas. She was vibrant, ebullient by the time we arrived at Roberto Clemente Coliseum for the concert. It was packed with a strange mix of young dudes sporting surfer wear, old long-hairs, women in hermetically sealed jeans and high heels waving their free curly hair along with the miniature Puerto Rican flags they carried. I understood the diverse crowd when I saw the two bands. The warm up band, Arlequín, played MTV sappy, pop stuff: their ballads, in particular, cloy and at times almost spacey. Fiel de la Vega was totally professional; you could tell from their faces—a bit worn and calm—that this was just another gig.

  I could not capture all the lyrics; they were coming too fast for my limited Spanish. In important points, Marisol would bend over and shout a translation, one time getting close enough that I could feel her warm, boozy breath on my ear.

  Then, the lead singer tossed his long ponytail back, sat on a stool and started playing his acoustic guitar. Marisol grabbed my arm, almost digging her fingernails into my skin, and brought me close to tell me that this was a great song. It was something about how no matter where you were, even on the moon, you would always be a Boricua, a Puerto Rican. A pretty song, but I could not comprehend the lyrics, which had the audience spellbound. They looked like zombies waving Puerto Rican flags, swaying to the numbing melody. On Marisol it had a different effect, or perhaps patriotism made her horny, because she gripped my thigh and started rubbing it. Another musician picked up a violin and started playing the sweet melody. Marisol put her two pinkies to her lips and whistled. Everyone, and I mean every soul in that venue except me, knew the lyrics to this song, and the concert became a collective communion of song, flag-waving, nationalistic intoxication.

  The roar at the finish of that number was deafening, but more so was the reaction when the group began its hit song, “El Wanabi.” Marisol grabbed me and took me out to dance in the aisle, along with others who had already broken ranks. Dancing everywhere, people clapping hands to the rhythm. Marisol shook her hips, made the red jersey dress sheathing her body electric. As her wavy hair dropped over her face, I had the urge to sweep it out of her eyes and kiss her. Maybe she read my mind because she threw her head back and laughed, then threw her arms around my neck, and to the music churned her hips against mine.

  As I was driving her back home, Marisol told me to head toward Baná instead, and just when we were approaching the Baná exit, Marisol broke from her lethargic state.

  “Keep driving,” she muttered.

  “Why?” I asked. “Just do it,” she said.

  And we drove another ten minutes or so. As we approached the Jíbaro Monument, Marisol directed me to turn into a dark parking area. She made me maneuver into a grassy area, some distance from the actual parking.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Didn’t you tell me you wanted to see El Jíbaro?”

  “At this hour?”

  “It makes sense after a concert like that; you’ll appreciate it more.”

  Marisol grabbed my hand, threaded her fingers through mine, and guided me through the darkness, along the grass, up an incline, toward a fenced-in area. We reached the open gate and a cement walkway led to the monument. The area was poorly lit, but you could make out the two figures huddled together, atop a massive rectangular marble pedestal. We climbed up the stairs leading up to the two figures: a woman, hair tied back in a bun, sitting with a child; a man standing, hand on her shoulder, holding a hoe, staring into the distance. The immediate resemblance to Grant Wood’s American Gothic was unmistakable, to me, anyway. These faces could have come from the American Midwest.

  Marisol took out a penlight from her purse and shone it on an engraving on the northern panel. In a respectful, serious tone she translated: “The jíbaro is the man of our land, cultivator of our homeland, genesis of our race and authentic expression of the Puerto Rican experience.”

  Then she walked to the southern panel, and again translated: “The jíbaro has always been the symbol of our collective identity, the synthesis of the virtues of the Puerto Rican people.”

  “And what about her,” I kidded, but she didn’t get my attempt at a feminist joke.

  Marisol was lost in the moment. Silently, she turned and headed down the cement stairs, and headed back to the car, lighting the way with penlight in hand.

  I felt bad she had taken the time to show the monument to me and I had left unmoved. How could this mass of stone and a few overblown words bring out such a somber demeanor in anyone? I stared at them and saw a woman lost in her child’s gaze and a man with tired, sad eyes.

  When I returned to the car, Marisol was seated, staring ahead, twirling a strand of curly hair. I sat down and was about to start the car when she put her hand over mine. Her eyes glistened; they looked down once and met mine again.

  She glided across and kissed me. A soft kiss, a peck really. She must have seen something inviting in my eyes. She kissed me harder, and I could not resist. I could not say no to her, not then and there. She climbed on top of me, slipped off her underwear, unbuckled and lowered my pants and underwear, and breathlessly told me to adjust the seat. I did, with one hand, as the other bunched up her dress.

  We made love like two high school kids on the last day of summer. Her passion kindled my dormant desire, and by the end, the Civic was rolling as if on water. Her last words, when she reached orgasm, resonate in my head today as when they broke the black stillness of that cool Cordillera night.

  “Dios mío,” she screamed, “¡qué vivan los nuyoricans!”

  Eleven

  * * *

  My familia consiste of Mami, Papi, sester, Magi, brodels, Tato y Axel, me, this server, and the dog Sashi. Mami has 42 years. Papi has 45 years. I biggest in famili. Than come Magi, Tato, Axel. We live in the camp in Ciales. Papi work en a factoría Mami dame of house. We not rich not poor. I like my house. Have my proper habitation. My famili very united. Like go to movie and famili things. Organize party for all famili, much cousen, aunt, oncle, abuelos, much fun. Reunite over much food to celebrate be together …

  I could not read any further. I had read these compositions for hours, and it was like transcribing ancient hieroglyphics. My eyes were becoming crooked, blurred from the strain, my head throbbing from the effort and anger. Anger because these students had received English instruc
tion since the early grades right through high school. Anger because I could separate the best compositions from the abysmally bad, and upon investigation find that the former lived in the best, fenced-in neighborhoods, their parents were most likely lawyers or doctors, and each one had attended a moderately priced private school. Those students having attended the expensive privates were now at an Ivy League school stateside, or if they had ended up here, were taking Honors English. And, why, of all things, did I assign them to write on family? Even the most unintelligible scribbling pulsated with family love that came across as a birthright.

  Outside, a misty rain was coming down. I usually ran in the evening right before dinner, rain or shine, but I loved running in this type of weather. Running in the rain, I get some thinking done. The slapping of running shoes against rainy ground is like a thinking metronome. I jumped into my shorts, a Mattingly Yankee T-shirt, laced up my spanking new Nikes and headed outside.

  Although small, the campus had enough acreage for a good run. There was a wide oval area used by some of the college’s teams as a temporary field. The real field was in construction going on five years. I was just starting, not even completing my first lap, when I saw the young, green-eyed woman who had offered me a ride. We had bumped into each other on campus a few times, once at the college hangout. She had just finished her run and held that reflective pose familiar to runners: head up, hands on hips, breathing hard. From behind, she looked wonderful. Her tight shorts outlined a shapely bottom tightened by exercise. She had the youthful legs of a runner, muscular and without a trace of cellulite, tanned a hue darker by the sun. Her strong legs were sculpted down to thin ankles hugged by athletic socks and New Balance running shoes.

  My intention was to say hi and move on, but she smiled. Like an idiot, I stopped moving forward and ran in place staring at her radiant face. Today, perhaps because of exercise, her green eyes appeared vibrant. She had her hair up in a ponytail, accentuating the bronze, flushed oval face.