by J. L. Torres
I ran to the side of the house facing the corner, jumped up and grabbed a fistful of lights. They came down, crashing to the ground. For good measure, I stomped on them, delighting in popping them into a pulp. Down came the twinkly small lights, the Three Kings ornament, wishing I had a sledgehammer to smash the entire house down. Lights turned on across from me, and I started to run down the steep hill, stumbled and tore a hole at the knee in my pants, cursing the Riveras under my breath.
Who knows how many winding side streets I walked before finding one I knew. Hobbling now, my knee hurting. A young woman walking in front of me turned, startled. She clutched a canister of pepper spray. She saw me and relaxed. Green-Eyed Girl.
“What happened to your leg?” she asked, looking down at my torn pant legs.
“I’m okay,” I said. “You’re out late.”
“Yeah, coming back from a party. You mind walking me back to my hospedaje?”
“Sure, if you don’t mind me limping along.”
At her door, she thanked me, and I said “no problem.” She hesitated and told me she could help me with the knee, but I said not to bother, I was close to the Guest House. And she glanced my way, sending that look any guy with decent radar can read. Any other situation, it would not have been easy to turn her down. She, too, looked splendorous in her mini skirt and high heels, her hair dazzling around her stunning face, her green eyes crackling with unspent energy and passion. Oh, so easy to get lost there, I thought. To get lost and forget myself in this young woman’s desire, that bronzed body, soft and voluptuous.
I grinned stupidly. “Good night,” I said, struggling on my descent to La Tirilla. From where I stood, the campus Christmas tree shone brightly and lonely.
That night it was easy to say no. Because with every pained step I took, another answer kept surging in my head, and with such pain I knew it had come too late.
Back at the Guest House, I replayed a message from Julia. A long one. Her voice a bit slurred. In the background, upbeat voices and music. The office party she had invited me to. She called to invite me for Christmas dinner.
“Just you and me.” The phrase laced with loneliness and sadness.
I called back to accept. “I’d like that,” I said. “Just you and me, Julia.”
Seventeen
* * *
The Christmas ball was huge, and clear, more like a crystal ball to my young eyes, although much lighter. I held it in front of my eyes, panning it, and through the open areas that did not have the special silver trimming, I could see through it, getting a kick out of the blurry, distortions of my mother and grandparents, and everything else in their apartment living room. It was like looking at circus mirrors.
“Okay, Rennie, give me the ball,” my mother said.
I handed it to her, carefully, because this was one of the early Christmas decorations my parents had bought together to celebrate the holiday as a family, after I had been born. Mami put it in a prominent area of the tree, a big beautiful fir. I liked closing my eyes and breathing in its piney scent that blended with the smells of the pernil and other holiday foods drifting from Güeli’s kitchen to make that Puerto Rican aroma of Christmas, so distinct and memorable.
It was probably a week or so after Thanksgiving, the traditional time to trim the tree. Mami was decorating the tree by herself, while Güeli cooked half the menu of any criollo restaurant. Papi had gone to buy beer and ice. Buelo Wiso sat in his recliner, watching TV and drinking a Budweiser, complaining how it would never be as good as Schaefer. He would never help Mami with the decorations, but liked to tell her about the bald spots.
“Allí, put one there,” he would command.
“Why don’t you get up and put it yourself, Pa,” my mother would tease.
“Eso e’cosa de mujeres,” he responded.
Mami would look at me and smile, then whisper: “Guess drinking beer and sitting on one’s fat behind is man’s work.”
I’d giggle and look at Buelo’s buttocks spreading across the recliner with the duct tape patches.
“Don’t be talking about me to the boy, Maggie.”
“You know we love you, Pa,” she said and hugged him as he remain seated, his tattooed arms reaching back to embrace her from behind. His tats mesmerized me. He had served in the Navy and emblazoned across his right forearm ran the letters, U.S.S. Wasp, the carrier on which he had spent a good portion of his naval career as a mechanic. He had a dragon on the other, a cross and a heart with a knife on his right biceps—who knows what other parts of his body held ink. These were not the modern types of tats you’d find in studios—which Buelo Wiso considered “mariconadas,” or “faggotries.” For the longest time, I thought he was referring to puppets on a string when he said that. His tattoos were traditional, done in blue, with perhaps a dabbing of red.
Those Navy days were long past. These days, Buelo liked to sit and drink his Budweiser in his Schaefer mug, watch a baseball game, or oddly enough, bullfights televised on the Spanish channels. He sat quietly as the procession of horses with picadors poked at the bull, and whatever followed until the matador came into the ring. And even then, he appeared unmoved, as the matador made his passes and finally killed the bull. Perhaps he’d make a snarling comment about the little Spanish “puppet’s” too tight pants, but he reserved outbursts for when a bull would have his day and with a brutal thrust throw the poor son of a bitch ten yards. Then Buelo’s fat torso would rise a bit, his massive buttocks edging on the recliner, his right hand snapping its fingers like Puerto Ricans tend to do in amused excitement, and he’d yell in glee, he’d celebrate the bestial victory, however temporary.
But usually, Buelo would sit, a toothpick clinging out of his mouth, his big forearms slung over his round belly, and with wide eyes and an innocent voice comment on things.
“He loves to provoke,” my mother would say.
“And he’s an expert at it,” my father would add.
Buelo and Mami had a long running feud over the status issue. He was pro-statehood.
“He’s a pathetic pitiyanqui,” my father would say.
My mother, who often said worst things regarding her father’s American chauvinism, would defend him then.
“He fought for his country, Juanma, like many Ricans in that generation. What else can you expect?”
“His country?”
“Ay, please don’t start. If Puerto Rico had a navy, then we could talk, awright?”
But when Mami and Buelo got into it, it got ugly. They would scream and she would throw things, not against walls to smash, and never at her father, but perhaps a book slammed on the table, a ratty sofa pillow hurled across the room. He’d point a sausage finger, tell her never to set foot in his house. Poor Güeli, used to the fights, would leave for the supermarket or cocooned herself in her bedroom to watch the novelas. In a soft voice she would beg for peace, but father and daughter wouldn’t listen. They were in that loud, tit for tat, rapid fire, forget dialogue, it’s a matter-of-who-can-yell-the-loudest-over-your-opponent Puerto Rican mode.
“Ay, Dios mío,” Güeli would say, sighing. Then under her breath, uncharacteristically, would say “Jodía política,” fuckin’ politics, and head back into the bedroom.
As a child witnessing these verbal battles, I never quite understood the content. Only the often repeated words entered my consciousness: “estadista,” “independencia,” “pitiyanqui,” “comunista.” When he got patriotic, he would argue in English, and I’d pick up a few sentences. Things like, “Without the U.S., Porto Ricans would still be eatin’ bananas and shittin’ in letrines.” Or, “You should get on your knees and thank the good Lord you are an American.” But it would calm down, both combatants moving to a corner, distracted by something else, yet you could almost see the fumes emanating from their heated heads.
It depended on his moods, I guess, plus the amount of alcohol consumed. Buelo was not an alcoholic, but during special occasions he’d slam down a few, and he was not a l
ovely, charming drunk. And anything could incite him, get him going. That day, I remember looking at all the trimmings, the multi-colored lights with which Mami had circled the tree—all the decorations, each having a singular, significant importance. Being six or seven years old, I blubbered out something about Santa bringing me a gift I wanted badly. Don’t remember what exactly, probably never will, but I do remember as if a camera had closed up on Buelo’s face, my grandfather’s eyes withering, his enormous presence withdrawing, back into the sofa, his upper lip snarling.
“Oh yeah, Santa Clos?” he said.
“Yeah, Buelo.”
He pouted his lips in that snarky way.
“I don’t think so, nene.”
“Why not?”
He pushed himself toward me, an effort that made him breathe heavier, and put his face as close to mine as possible, his breath smelling of beer.
“Because he don’t exist, Rennie, that’s why.”
My mother stopped midway in circling the tree, silver garland hanging in her hands. Her eyes fixed on her father, who had a full-blown sneer on his face. And he took a sip of beer. An exchange of words, harsh, and they were off. Güeli even screamed at Buelo.
“What do you mean, Buelo?” I screamed, now crying. “I’ve been good.”
When I started crying, my mother slapped my grandfather on the arm hard. Buelo got up, and Güeli got between them.
“You respect me,” he yelled.
“Right now, it’s really hard, Pa,” my mother said. They reserved the hardest things to say in English.
I didn’t care about their bickering. I wanted to know then and there if or not the man in the red velvet suit would be bringing me that special present.
More yelling, and I was crying out loud now. What had I done? The words did not register for me.
“What does ‘exist’ mean, Mami?” I asked.
“Your Buelo is just playing with you,” she said.
“Stop,” he screamed. “Tell the boy, Magda, tell him the truth.”
My mother looked at him, amazed, her eyes, I remember so well, blazing with anger, perhaps even hate at that moment.
“No more lies, m’ija,” Buelo was saying, out of breath now. “He deserves to know.”
More words in Spanish, flung at Buelo like knives, as Mami squeezed me, now crying in her arms.
Güeli shaking her head, stood up and said something to Buelo, in the most solemn tone I had ever heard her speak. She pointed a finger at him and left him with his head down, cradling his hands in front of him.
Minutes later, he told my mother, “Nena, I’m sorry.” And then he began to cry.
Watching that tattooed man, weighing over 250 pounds, weeping with such fervor, scared me out of crying. I still see him in that battered brown leather recliner, the tears falling off his nose, his head down, an arm extended as a peace offering to my mother. My mother took his arm and held it up to her cheek, and she bent down and kissed Buelo on the head.
“Buelo, don’t worry, Santa’s gonna bring you something too,” I said.
And he looked at me, hugged me hard and kissed me.
“Yes, he will baby, and he better bring you something, or I’ll kick his fat ass.”
José Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” came on the radio, I smelled Buelo’s Old Spice aftershave, saw Mami sniffling, wiping her nose on her red Christmas sweater, and I felt better that Santa would bring me that present. From the kitchen, Güeli started singing the lyrics, and out floated a cloud of heavenly aromas stemming from the kitchen, her hands holding fresh coquito mixed and put back in the rum bottle to serve it from there. I felt so warm, surrounded by people I loved, surrounded by sounds, smells, memories, the sort that come back stronger than ever to haunt you.
Eighteen
* * *
Licenciado Ledesma had a tic which signaled bad news. I had met him enough times to pick this out: a rotating of the right shoulder, accompanied by a little clearing of the throat, which prefaced the unwelcome information he was going to lay down on you. Reassuring in a way, a sign of a person with a conscience at least, who hated delivering news that would make his client irritable and unhappy. For a lawyer, that was the closest he could come to being virtuous.
His secretary led me into his modest office, and he stood up. Right away the shoulder got moving and the throat started making noises as he extended his manicured hand out for a handshake. He had phoned, left a message on my cell, and I was happy to receive it because I thought the Riveras had been evicted. Two weeks ago in this same office, I had signed a barrage of paper making me the legal owner of my parents’ house. Ledesma handed me the deed with a smile.
“You’re now a property owner and a Puerto Rican taxpayer. God help you.”
I didn’t know about Hacienda, the tax department, but as his secretary gave me the latest tax bill, I thought it could not be worse than the fleecing I was getting from the licenciado. But I paid happily, thinking the big mo was with me.
“We’ll initiate an immediate Demanda de Desahucio,” he had said. At my puzzled face he translated: “Eviction process.”
I could not believe the judicial system was finally taking my side.
“It’s pretty straightforward from here,” he added, leaning his big torso forward, his demure hands coming together in a somber gesture of gravitas. “Recently, the Puerto Rican Legislature amended the process, which now should take no more than two weeks. The Riveras will have 10 days to leave, once they are served with papers.”
“My heart bleeds for them,” I had said. “Don’t let the door hit your fat asses.”
Ledesma had frowned at my remarks and told me he would contact me when it was all resolved. So, finally I was summoned, thinking resolution, but here was Ledesma rotating his shoulder like some overused major league pitcher and clearing his throat like he was trying to dislodge something stuck to the back of his adenoids.
He had me sit down, asked if I wanted coffee, not a good sign coming from an attorney who bought his suits from Sears. I just stared at him. In our budding attorney-client relationship, he had become accustomed to my impatience and the facial signals that said, “Just give me the fucking bad news.”
“There’s been an unexpected development,” he said.
“Oh, do tell.”
Not missing a beat, used to my sarcasm, he informed me the Riveras had acquired a legal aid lawyer to represent them.
“I thought you said this was straightforward.”
“These two are good at what you Americans call, ‘milking the system.’”
“So, what are you telling me?”
“They’re like professional squatters and will use the legal system to keep living in a place as long as they can.”
“But there was an eviction process, right?”
“Process, Falto. You said it. And the process allows them to present their case.”
“But I own the house, and they are not paying rent. How much of a case can they have?”
“Well, technically, the rental contract was not between you and them. Their case is not between landlord and tenant. They have recurred to interdicto posesorio, or at least their lawyer has, alleging that since your parents became deceased, there was a period when no one legally owned the house and they were in possession of it and thus have a claim to it.”
My look must have been amusing to him, because he chuckled. I was certainly not in a jovial mood, but the absurdity of the situation and his reaction made me laugh too. And we both kind of laughed for a few seconds until we could do nothing else but sit in silence.
“I can’t believe this,” was all I could say.
“It’s a frivolous argument, Falto. You have to understand that it has no legal standing, but the court must hear it and juridicate. They are just buying more time.”
“Great. Meanwhile I’m living in a guest house, and they’re entrenched in the house that represents my parents’ retirement dreams.”
Ledesma pursed his t
hin lips, his eyes saddened as he stared at the legal paperwork in front of him.
“Sad but true, amigo,” he said, nodding.
“Well, do what you have to do and get them out.”
He stood up and stretched out his hand. He stared at me more seriously than ever before.
“These are bad people, Falto. You will have your day in court, trust me.”
I shook his hand, paid the secretary the hefty bill and walked into the cool, bright January morning, feeling violated and used.
Walking back to the Guest House from Ledesma’s office, it hit me how quiet and desolate the town was. The students had departed for the Christmas recess, the losa professors back in their precious San Juan, the area faculty visiting family somewhere else on the island or the States. La Tirilla eerily silent, El Pub, the college hangout, closed. A relative ghost town.
Back home, I threw on a tee, laced my running shoes and jogged until I lost track of the laps, falling on the bench under the giant moss tree where I had talked to Mari that day. Sweating, breathing hard, I lay back on the cool concrete bench and peered through the tree’s leaves, thinking about Mari, wondering what she was doing.
After the blow up in the parking lot, she called and apologized, but I couldn’t get her to see me. She wanted time to think, she had said. No, she had said “needed.” And then she added, “You should do some thinking, too.” I ached to be with her. That basic fact trumped any other thoughts, and I’d let that carry me anywhere she wanted me to go. What else was I supposed to think?
Birds chirped on the tree above, and suddenly I hated that I could hear birds singing. I was the only person on campus, except for the guard at the entrance of the college. My colleagues had gone off traveling somewhere, an inspirational idea. I headed back to the Guest House and started packing a carry-on. After a quick shower and slipping into cargo shorts and a clean tee, I roared away in the Civic, heading east to Fajardo.