by Iris Gomez
“What’s that?” I asked, getting serious.
“Glue,” he said as he inhaled deeply. “Want some?”
“What are you doing that for?”
“It’s good.” He flashed me his baby smile. “Wanna try?”
“No. I have enough mental problems.” I watched with concern as Pablo tossed his head back, seemingly dizzy, and laughed.
“I have pot too,” he admitted, reaching into his pocket for a joint and matches. He started lighting the joint.
“That’s illegal!” I said angrily as I reached forward to snatch it away.
But Pablo was quick, pulling the joint back with a sly grin. “Who’s gonna find out?” he asked, gesturing toward the desolate grounds.
“If they did, Pablo,” I explained patiently, “you could get arrested. Or deported. Or both.” Black versions of our future were the only kind I could foresee.
“They have good pot in Colombia,” he joked, not taking any of it seriously while smoking.
“The only good thing,” I replied dourly, “would be seeing Abuelo.”
“I hardly remember him,” Pablo said, then offered me the joint. “Take a turn.”
I shook my head. “Drugs are bad for you, Pablo.”
“Not this,” he urged, holding it out with an impish grin. “Just try it.”
I frowned at the marijuana, but Pablo kept shoving it at me teasingly.
“Okay, okay,” I said finally. “Let me see.” I took the joint and briefly inhaled. “Hmm, no menthol,” I remarked blandly.
Pablo laughed. “Hold it in more, Gabi.”
“All right.” I tried another puff, then gave it back. “That’s enough.”
As Pablo stretched out on the grass and smoked, I resumed my somber discourse on life after deportation. “We’d have to go to school in Spanish,” I pointed out. “That is, if we even got to go. Maybe in Colombia they’d make us live in a home like Tía Julia or maybe in a mental institution with Papi.” Depressing only myself, since Pablo was in the dark about the family’s legal dilemma, I decided to drop the whole business. I was feeling lightheaded anyway, maybe from the pot.
“What did Papi make you do today?” Pablo asked.
“College applications!”
“What?”
I giggled. “Not really.” I told him about the wacky letter and suddenly I was laughing so hard I felt like crying.
Pablo watched me quizzically out of one eye until I finally tumbled backward onto the grass beside him. “Oh my God,” I said, catching my breath. “And get a load of this—he wants to study your old social studies book. To study!” I wiped a tear from my eye.
For a minute, we both remained silent.
“Yeah, pretty fucked up,” Pablo said at last, getting up to look for his glue tube. When he found it, he pocketed it again and added, “You know, Papi could still invent something. Like that drill thing. You can invent things even if you’re loco.”
I sat up. “No, Pablo. I don’t think so. I think there’s something seriously not right with his brain. It’s not the fake nervios Mami blames it on either. All those motor tics, that blinking, and the hand thing.”
“Yeah, and don’t forget the swallowing,” Pablo reminded me.
“I have to focus on not listening to him,” I said grimly. “Like, block the words from coming into my head.”
Pablo nodded. “Yeah. Keep it together. Or you could split all the time, like Manolo.”
“I guess.”
We stopped at Manolo’s store on the way home and told him the pathetic letter story. Before we left, he promised to borrow the store’s heavy-duty stapler for my exhibit construction.
That night after dinner, Manolo came into my room to help me create the frame. Afterward, I worked diligently on my display while he sat drinking a Coke and watching. After a while he spoke up and said he’d figured out what was going on with Mami’s frequent absences to Camila’s house.
I shot up straight. “She’ll kill you if you tell Pablo.”
“Hey, I’m the one who helps the old lady,” he retorted, meaning repairs I guessed. Manolo was good at those. The store owner had even given him a hammer that he forbade any one of us to touch. Manolo hammered back kitchen drawer fronts that fell off, put on washers to stop leaks, changed lightbulbs. But while he’d raised his stature in my mother’s eyes, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his accomplishments would never amount to much. My mother would wait forever for my father to resume his manly duties again.
Pablo and I began tricking my father after the Miami-Dade disillusionment by leaving out small sections of paperwork. Once, a couple of weeks into that, Pablo even managed to temporarily avert typing duty altogether. My father had gone to gather his papers and Pablo dashed into the bathroom. Papers in hand, my father followed in that direction. “Pablito?” he inquired outside the closed door. There was no answer.
“Where did your brother go?” he asked me.
“I don’t know, Papi,” I said, retreating nervously back into the kitchen. As my mother gave me a suspicious glance, I gazed back with all the innocence I could muster. Then I returned to check on my father, still standing with his hand on the doorknob. When he saw me, he emitted a goofy “Ha!” and pushed the door open, then looked around in confusion. There was no one inside. If he’d thought to move the bath curtain aside, he’d have found the window obviously utilized for Pablo’s escape. Instead, my father only shuffled to his room and didn’t even ask me to type.
How guilty I felt for conspiring to make him sicker in the head than he already was. But it was only a small way of trying to pass the craziness back, to keep it off me. I had to resort to trickery, or he would take over my mind.
Before I’d realized it, though, my mind tricked me right back.
It was the moment they passed out the red, blue, and yellow ribbons for the winning Youth Fair exhibits. The colors of the Colombian flag, I’d pointed out to Lydia when I’d proudly turned in my own elegant and well-constructed—not to mention thoroughly researched and documented—Miccosukee land exhibit. Adorned with sketches of native people in their natural habitat before the conquerors arrived and excerpts of Sentinel articles blasting the excesses of south Florida development, The Misuse of Science illustrated how badly artificial drainage had damaged the Everglades and literally siphoned off the Miccosukee land from right under them. In contrast to my father’s incomprehensible manuscripts, my exhibit exposed the truth beneath The World We Live In. It deserved a ribbon, at least a yellow one.
I could only blink like my crazy father when the names of the boys who’d won were announced. I couldn’t believe it—my own country, taken from me.
“They only have three to give, Gabi,” Lydia rationalized afterward.
“It’s not fair, Lydia,” I blurted.
“Óyeme, chica, don’t get bummed about every little thing.”
“It’s not little,” I insisted, slamming my locker shut. How could I explain to her why I felt so betrayed?
“Want to ride downtown?” she urged, trying to be nice.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but thanks.” That was Lydia’s hobby to avoid returning to her own empty home. Since the divorce, her mother was always out trying new boyfriends, and Lydia’s brother Emilio was hardly home either since he owned a car now. It was a lonely life for Lydia. Sometimes I rode the bus to keep her company. But not that day.
“Well,” she said, offering me her cigarettes, “take a couple.”
“Okay.” I tucked one into my case. “Thanks.”
I waited until the downtown bus arrived and waved her and Alina off. The area where they were headed was a depressing land of discount department stores and urinated alleyways. That ride would not have cheered me at all.
As I crossed the street and waited for my own bus, I stared forlornly at another new strip mall with a batido stand in front. Actually, it was a wrinkled Cuban guy who had attached an awning to an ice cream wagon and started selling
mango and banana shakes from a blender he rigged up with an extension cord connected to the beauty salon behind him. Ladies in rollers and painted toes came out, ruining their lipstick on his shakes. Bits of the Old World—or the Third World, as Mr. Lanham would say—poked through the fancier development my exhibit had railed against.
I rode my bus to my stop, got off, and trudged the long blocks home. New houses and driveways being built were unhappy reminders of the time elapsed since my father had had a real job. The construction workers I passed were dark from laboring in the sun, and you couldn’t tell who was Cuban and who wasn’t until the familiar chirp of the “Oye, niña” began.
At home, I found Mami cutting mangoes. I swiped a piece, kissed her cheek, and sauntered off quietly to my room, hoping my father wouldn’t notice I was home.
No such luck. No doubt he’d waited all afternoon with his ears perked up like a dog hoping to be let out. “Mi’jita.” There he was, scratching at my door.
I shuffled some books around. “I have homework, Papi.”
“Bueno,” he said. “After.”
It was a tricky dance, trying to keep him at bay with work-sheets, English papers, and, until today, my exhibit.
Morosely, I considered that the winning exhibits had touted Ultrasonography: The Future of Swine Breeding; Phosphorus in Crop Fertilization; and that old standby, Pasteurization. Maybe those county farmers had been upset by my exhibit’s anti-agriculture slant.
But was the problem losing? Or was it thinking I would win at all? Why had I let my thoughts take over—like my father, convincing himself he was writing a thesis instead of gibberish?
I lay in my bed. If only I could share my worries with someone....
When my father shuffled in later, I pretended to sleep. In the distance I heard Mami say, “Déjala que descanse.” Let her rest.
When I woke, the sun had set.
For some reason, I took out my grandfather’s poem. It wasn’t the comforting kind, but at least it reminded me of him, and that was comforting. My mother’s indifference to the poem had reassured me that my grandfather wasn’t obliquely telling me he was dying or anything horrible like that.
Don’t say no to me, Light, constant. Illuminate this solitary shore.
Was he telling me to ask God for help?
[ THIRTEEN ]
THE SHADOW OF MY GRANDFATHER’S POEM grew ominous when I found my mother holding his photograph in my bedroom after I returned from school a few days later.
In a small voice, I said, “Hi Mami,” and sat down fearfully beside her.
My grandfather smiled back at us from the photograph, his hands tucked inside the pockets of his guayabera. He looked amused that someone thought his picture worth taking.
“Your Tía Julia resembled him,” Mami told me mournfully. Then she spilled out the sad news of her sister’s death.
A surge of momentary relief filled me that my grandfather hadn’t passed away, but I quickly tried to summon up heartfelt grief over Tía Julia, whom I couldn’t remember well as she’d lived in some institution since before I was born. When Tío Paco joked once that it was a place where old ladies recovered from being unmarried, Mami had slapped his arm while he cackled at his own wit.
There would be no joking now.
“I’ll have to go,” Mami told me ruefully.
“To Colombia?” I asked, startled.
She nodded and put an arm around my shoulders. “I need to see my parents.”
“Papi too?” I probed nervously.
“No. That would cost too much.”
“But who’ll stay with us?” I asked, trying to quell the mounting anxiety.
My mother shook her head. “Nobody.” Her gaze drifted, not really seeing the room. “It’s only for a few days, mi’ja. You’ll look out for your father as always. I’ll talk to Pablo about behaving himself. And you know Manolo’s responsible.” She rose and put my grandfather’s picture back.
They were to go for ten days—Mami and Tío Paco. Another sister sent my mother her ticket, after which Mami began calling around to ask relatives to keep an eye on us. “Fernandita promises she’ll look in on you,” she comforted me vaguely.
With school about to end, I worried about how I’d manage my father full-time. What if, while she was gone, he came up with some crazy impromptu visit to the bank to demand his millions? What if he got into a fight with someone? But every time I opened my mouth to beg Mami not to go, her sadness over Tía Julia’s empty life and death silenced me.
That Saturday, my brothers and I sat outside and watched Tío Lucho drive away with our mother. My father couldn’t go to the airport because Tío Lucho was due at work directly afterward.
As the hours passed, my feelings of unease coalesced into a more specific fear that something might happen to Mami’s plane or that the immigration officials—God forbid—might never let her back because of what my father had done. All day, I tried to reassure myself, but my worries began to spread into each other: If Mami never came home, I could be chained to my father forever. I would be locked away in our house like Tía Julia in the institution. Tío Paco’s black joke echoed in my head. How would I ever attain freedom, if the only route my parents accepted for a young woman to leave her home was marriage?
The next morning I left the pot of café con leche prepared on the stove before heading to St. Stephen’s. At Mass, I lit a candle and prayed for my mother’s safe return.
When I got home, I found Fernandita with her boyfriend, El Loco, in our living room. They’d brought pastries that my father and brothers were demolishing.
“Such a good girl, going to church when your Mami’s not home,” Fernandita said with her pretty smile, then hugged me to show that she meant it.
El Loco started to have fun with my father. Enunciating loudly, he asked my father about his “work.”
“Bueno,” my father began, launching into refinery talk.
Eyes big and round, El Loco examined my father as if genuinely listening for a few minutes, then suddenly burst out laughing. “That’s great, Roberto!” he said, slapping my father on the back.
My father laughed too, though none of it was funny.
I saw Fernandita giving El Loco the eye, but he ignored her.
Fernandita said they wanted to take me out to a Colombian restaurant in Hialeah. From the corner of my eye, I checked my father’s reaction, but he didn’t seem to object.
Fernandita added, “Just you, nena. Let’s let the boys play and keep your Papi company.”
I turned to my father. “I can leave some sandwiches made,” I offered.
“Muy bien,” he said, smiling.
Fernandita followed me into the kitchen to help.
On the way to Hialeah, she tried to give El Loco the what-for about teasing my father, but El Loco only tried to make out with her, while I pretended to study the most interesting highway in the world. Though I was glad to get a break from home, these two embarrassed me and provided further confirmation that male-female entanglements should be avoided entirely. I was grateful when we finally parked in front of the restaurant.
El Cerro Maravilloso was not as marvelous as the name suggested. The tables were set with stained tangerine tablecloths and plastic flowers, and a fan hung from the ceiling. El Loco ordered a beer and with the same mock laugh he’d used with my father told me to order anything—beer or even aguardiente, that colorless liquor only men drank.
“No seas idiota,” Fernandita reprimanded, giving him The Look.
El Loco laughed and blew her a kiss.
I ordered a Pepsi, forlornly wishing they’d taken me to McDonald’s, which was air-conditioned and offered French fries we never got at home. As Fernandita handed me the menu and said everything was good, El Loco ordered sancocho and leaned his chair back on its hind legs, his beer glass askew. Although I didn’t want to align myself with him, I ordered sancocho too, since Mami hardly cooked that anymore.
El Loco gave me a chummy smile. Tall a
nd slim, with curly hair, he had eyes that laughed even when he wasn’t joking. I was wary of him, above all, because of his nickname. Why would anyone be called The Crazy One if he were all right in the head? Of course, Latinos threw the word “loco” around loosely. This made it possible to think that some people who weren’t crazy, in the medical sense, might actually be so, which made it harder to distinguish the people who probably were crazy. Like my father. Maybe calling more people “loco” than actually were was a way to hide the true craziness floating around and our shame over them.
Afterward, El Loco ordered an overly candied and slightly revolting dessert for me. On the way home, I regretted it big-time. The unforgiving heat cooked the sugary guava into the meat already inside my stomach, making me nauseous.
As we arrived at my house, Fernandita encouraged me to call if I needed anything while my mother was away. “Don’t be afraid,” she reiterated.
A suspicious part of me wondered why she had put it that way. But I just said, “Okay,” and thanked them for lunch.
The house was hot. My father was at his desk safely surrounded by pages of accent marks and exclamation points.
Too stuffed to do anything else, I went to rest on my bed and wait for the churning in my stomach to stop.
A short while later, Manolo burst in. “Pablo fell. He can’t stand up. His leg hurts.”
We ran to the yard, where Pablo was leaning back on his hands, his legs splayed in front of him. Johnny from across the street, a mangy dog, and an ugly older kid who owned the dog surrounded him.
Pablo shielded his eyes from the sun while smiling affably at me.
“What happened?” I interrogated him roughly.
“I think his leg is broken,” the ugly kid said.
“It was their fault,” Pablo added, pointing at Manolo and Johnny. “They didn’t hold the dumb dog.”
“He was jumping from the tree,” Johnny volunteered. “Trying to land on Petey’s dog.”
Pablo started laughing.
“It’s not funny,” I let him know. “We’re gonna be in big trouble.” I turned to Manolo for ideas. “What are we supposed to do now?”