Try to Remember

by Iris Gomez

  “You asshole!” Pablo shouted, kicking the door. “I’m gonna kick your face in!”

  “Yeah, you try it!” the other asshole yelled back.

  “Pablo, it’s over!” I interjected.

  “No, it’s not!” He shoved me away, gave the door another kick, and muttered, “I know what I’m gonna do.” Pushing past the cousins, he ran out to the yard.

  “Hey Manolo,” I called through the door. “Stay in there until he cools off.”

  Pablo started a very noisy banging in the yard.

  “Wait here, guys,” I said to Luchito and Cari, who looked nervous. “I have to see what Pablo’s doing. Marisol, don’t let Manolo come out.” For once, my older cousin seemed willing to follow my lead.

  Before I got outside, the front door slammed. Oh no. Dalmaned or not, my father would surely have an attack and kill us all. Panicking, I raced to the front with my cousins trailing me.

  “Mami!” I was so relieved to see my mother walk in, blurry-eyed but intact.

  “What’s this racket?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Pablo and Manolo are fighting each other!” Cari burst out tearfully.

  “Manolo’s locked in his room,” Luchito volunteered.

  “Where’s my father?” Marisol searched past my mother.

  “What?” Mami gazed through her blur while putting down her pocketbook and patting Cari’s head at the same time. “Oh, your father had to do some errands,” she replied distantly as she tried to get her bearings. “Where’s Roberto?”

  “Mailing letters,” I said quickly. “Don’t worry. It’s not Papi. It’s the boys. Pablo’s going crazy and won’t stop trying to hit Manolo.”

  “How can that be? Where are they? What’s that sound?”

  The pounding racket had intensified. Pablo was screaming, “I’m gonna kill you, asshole!”

  My mother rushed to the hallway outside the boys’ bedroom as the rest of us followed her. “Pablo!” she reprimanded him. “Put that hammer down this instant!”

  He was pounding the door with the claw side of Manolo’s cherished hammer, the one Manolo proudly used to repair all the things my father had abandoned.

  “Pablo! Stop that!” Mami ordered. “Don’t you see you’re going to break the door?”

  But he continued to hammer, becoming as enraged as my father when he’d attacked my mother over the checkbook. It was terrible; as if Pablo didn’t hear us; as if nothing existed for him but that door. His face was so contorted by hate that I hardly recognized him.

  “Luchito,” I whispered. “What were they fighting about?”

  “The glue.”

  “What about it?”

  “Pablo sniffed some, but then he couldn’t find the tube and said Manolo musta took it.”

  “Did he?”

  “How would I know?”

  We watched as my mother chaotically commanded or cajoled Pablo to stop, though nothing seemed to work.

  I tried too. “Pablo,” I pleaded. “Papi’s gonna get home soon. It’ll be so bad! Cut it out, will you? Please?”

  But he only hammered harder. Suddenly, the white paint cracked and a deep split rent the wood. My mother cried out, “The door!” She glommed herself onto Pablo’s arm and hung there to keep him from raising the hammer anymore.

  Pablo growled, “Get off me!” and shook her violently.

  Weeping, my mother began calling his baby name. “¡Pablito! ¡Ay Pablito!” Then, with a low moan, she crumpled like a baby herself onto the floor.

  “Mami!” I shook her. “Get up!”

  But my mother kept lying there feeling sorry for herself. She was crying.

  “Oh my God.” I looked at Marisol, who was transfixed by the expanding fissure in the door. Luchito was a mirror image of her, the two of them totally useless. I could hear poor Cari whimpering into a cushion somewhere. If someone didn’t stop Pablo, I realized, he was going to break open that door and hammer Manolo to death.

  I ran to the phone, but my finger trembled in the O slot. How could I possibly call the police? That was like spitting in the face of all our efforts to save my father.

  But this wasn’t my father’s fault—no one would punish him, right?

  He would be back soon, though.

  But I couldn’t call the police against my own family. I just couldn’t.

  Why oh why hadn’t Tío Lucho returned yet? Where was everybody?

  Then I heard another crack! Succumbing to terror, I just dialed. “It’s an emergency!” I cried, after the operator switched me to the police. “My brother’s trying to kill my other brother!”

  Only after I hung up did the sense of doom strike. Weakly, I dropped to my knees until comfort arrived in the form of a memory: my kindly fourth-grade nun, whispering, “It’s in God’s hands, child.”

  I got up and went to ask Marisol and Luchito to help drag my mother into the living room, where she fell into a weeping trance, listlessly reciting the Hail Mary while Marisol held her hand and Luchito and Cari timidly watched.

  Then I went back to work on my brother. “Pablo,” I pleaded softly. “Don’t you know you’re acting like Papi? Remember the checkbook? Won’t you please cut this out before the police come?”

  “Shut up! Get away from me!”

  Afraid of getting whacked with the hammer, I stood back as wood pieces splintered and flew off. The hole in the door was now big enough for his arm but still too small for me to see where in the room Manolo was hiding. With relief, I finally heard the police. Two large men with sticks—an older black man and a young white guy with dark hair and blue eyes—clodded into the house and overwhelmed our tiny hallway. How grateful I felt for their size.

  “Why don’t you back up, hon?” the older one said. He waited for me to move before sidling up behind Pablo, who’d now carved a hole almost big enough to climb through.

  “You’re gonna be sorry, asshole!” he yelled. In his own crazy world, he didn’t seem to notice or care that the cops had come.

  “Okay, buddy,” said the older officer, who grabbed Pablo’s right arm while the young guy grabbed the left. “Gimme the hammer.”

  Pablo tried to shake them off to lift his leg across the hole, but the cops twisted both his arms until he cried out. They forced the hammer out of his hand, and the younger cop snapped cuffs around his wrists. Swiftly, they walked my brother out of the house toward the police car in front.

  A minute later, the older officer came back. “Okay,” he said calmly as he took out his pad. “What’s all this about?”

  My mother shook her head tearfully.

  “Why don’t we start with your son’s name?”

  She mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Pablo Roberto de la Paz,” I added quickly.

  “How old is he?” The officer looked back and forth between Mami and me.

  “Fourteen,” I said.

  He asked a few more questions, but most of her responses consisted of helpless whimpers, so I ended up answering. When the officer had finished, he wrote something on a piece of paper that he handed to her.

  I heard someone at the back door.

  Grabbing Luchito, I ordered, “Come on,” and ran frantically to the back door. I blocked the threshold while shoving my frightened cousin toward my father. “Luchito has to show you something, Papi,” I said nervously, shutting the door after them. Then I raced back to see if the officer was done, breathlessly asking if he could take my brother with them until he calmed down.

  “That’s what we’re doing, young lady.” With his pen, he pointed to the address on the paper he’d given Mami. “That’s the Juvy Unit where you can bail him out.”

  I shook my head, not understanding but feeling extremely anxious for the cop to leave.

  “Let him sit there a while,” said the officer. “He doesn’t have to be released for six hours. That’ll cool him off.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.” I moved toward the door to urge him out.

 
My father and Luchito entered the living room just as the cop was leaving. He half-turned, held up a hand in greeting, and exited, while I held my breath in fearful anticipation.

  “What are those men doing here?” my father interrogated my mother suspiciously.

  She stared back, her hairdo undone and her eye makeup smudged. At least she’d stopped crying. “Ay Roberto,” she said wearily.

  My father’s jaw tightened. “¿Qué hacían esos hombres aquí?” he repeated.

  My heart began to flutter all over again.

  “I’ll explain it to you,” Mami said quietly, picking up her pocketbook and lifting herself from the couch. Then, to my great relief, she managed to lead him away toward their bedroom.

  I remembered to go tell Manolo it was safe to come out.

  He was shaking in his bed. “Where’s Pablo?” he asked.

  “The police took him.”

  “He’s under arrest?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, bending to pick up a piece of door from the floor. “Why were you guys fighting?”

  “It was—” Manolo shook his head. “Pablo just got too high, Gab.”

  “Oh no! Do you think he had pot on him?” Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  Manolo shrugged. “Hope not.”

  I stared at the shards of wood in my hand. Frowning, I threw them into a wastebasket and tried propping a chair in front of the door to cover the hole. But the slats of the chair were wide, and the deformity was too big to hide.

  My cousins were never so glad to see their father.

  “You kids really missed me, eh?” Tío Lucho smiled as Cari clung to his side, but my mother insisted on taking him out front to talk out of my father’s earshot and ours.

  “Pshh! We saw more than she did,” Marisol observed.

  “Yeah, but you know how it is,” I answered wearily.

  “I feel sorry for you. You’re the only one in your family with any sense.”

  Ordinarily, a compliment from the ever-critical Marisol would have been an honor. But now, I felt too tormented over having turned in my own family to appreciate it. “It’s not anyone’s fault, Mari,” I muttered, confused about who needed more defending, my family or me.

  “Huh,” she said, arms crossed.

  We heard my mother crying again.

  “Your mom has a lot to cry about,” Marisol said with a sympathetic sigh, surprising me. “If you want to sleep over at our house, you can,” she added.

  “We have to get Pablo,” I said, with increasing nervousness about what the consequences would be for having gone outside the family.

  “Oh, I forgot.”

  An hour later, Tío Victor and Tío Paco arrived. They came and greeted my father and Tío Lucho in the dining room. “Siéntense, por favor,” my father said, pointing a fork at the chairs.

  Mami had told my father that neighbors called the police when the boys got rowdy. Though upset by that, my father had no clue that Pablo was at a police station. Luckily, the uncles’ arrival took his mind off the incident. As usual, my uncles had acceded to Mami’s strategy of not telling the truth.

  “No, no, Roberto,” Tío Victor answered my father now. “That’s not necessary. We’ve eaten. We’re going to have a smoke outside. Relax, we’ll talk.”

  “Buen provecho,” Tío Lucho said, patting my father’s shoulder. My father finished his dinner while the uncles had their powwow in the front. Mami sent me out with a tray of tintos.

  “Tell them I’ll be right out,” my father called after me.

  I walked carefully so the hot coffee wouldn’t spill. The evening breeze had picked up and was blowing acacia blossoms through the air. I put one hand over the three small cups to keep any red petals from falling into them.

  “Gabriela,” Tío Paco said, taking one of the cups without thanking me. His interpersonal skills seemed to have gotten worse since he’d bought that big Opa-Locka house so far away—the family couldn’t visit frequently enough to help him keep up his manners. “Why did you call the police?” he challenged me now.

  I stared in surprise. “You know why, Tío. Pablo was going crazy. Trying to kill Manolo.”

  “First of all,” my uncle said, downing his coffee and fitting the cup back into its saucer, “never let those words come out of your mouth again.” He handed the cup-and-saucer set back.

  “Second of all,” he said as he lit a cigarette, “don’t ever call the police without permission.”

  “But Mami fell apart, Tío,” I explained.

  “Why didn’t you call me, mi’ja?” Tío Victor asked. His tired brown eyes sloped forever downward.

  “I didn’t think there was time. I mean, before Pablo broke down the door or something really bad happened… and I thought Papi might come home and start attacking somebody like when—” I gulped. Had my mother told them about the checkbook? “Like when Pablo broke his leg,” I finished desperately. “I thought Papi could get arrested or something and all that deportation stuff would start all over again!”

  “Did you think about getting your brother deported?” Tío Paco inquired caustically.

  Appalled, I answered, “They don’t deport kids, Tío.”

  “They do so,” he countered.

  “But I—”

  “Gabrielita,” Tío Victor interrupted gently, “the problem is, the police are often more trouble than help.”

  Even agreeable Tío Lucho nodded and sighed. “No matter how long we live in this country, mi’ja.”

  “Now we have to go to the station to get your brother,” Tío Paco added. “Your mother doesn’t need this.”

  Stumped for words, I couldn’t begin to exonerate myself. But all I’d wanted to do was get help. “I didn’t know what else to do,” I offered finally.

  “Now you know,” Tío Paco ruled. “Come on. You better come with me. No point in upsetting your mother more by seeing Pablo in that place.”

  Tío Lucho and Tío Victor headed inside to say their good-byes. Afterward, they climbed into Tío Lucho’s car, with Manolo, who was to spend the night with the cousins. “Bye, Gabi,” he said.

  “Bye.” I waved longingly at everyone in the beat-up Buick and went over to Tío Paco’s shiny Chevrolet.

  “Where’s the address?” he demanded rudely.

  How fiercely I wanted to slap him right then. Instead, I gritted my teeth, turned, and went inside to retrieve the slip of paper the cop had left. “Here,” I said, handing Tío Paco the paper and getting into his car.

  As we drove away, I made one last effort to redeem myself. “I didn’t tell anyone to take Pablo to jail, Tío,” I said quietly. “I asked them to take him somewhere to calm down.”

  My uncle turned on his radio and didn’t reply.

  I rubbed my hands together and listened to the sentimental boleros of his generation: slow songs, full of flowers and longing. Out the window, the passing city scenery became seedier. As dusk became dark, all you could see were the shells of down-trodden buildings with their broken-eyed windows and the occasional coconut tree survivor from the city’s pest eradication campaign. The only light in this land of faint hope was the blue-and-white neon sign of the police station.

  At the station, they directed us to the Juvenile Detention Unit. My uncle signed release forms and gave the Spanish-speaking officer twenty-five dollars. He handed my uncle a pink hearing notice and a bail receipt. When I started to explain the tiny English print to my uncle, Tío Paco grabbed the forms from me in annoyance. For the first time that day, I felt like I might break down and cry. The things I did well—reading and explaining—he wouldn’t let me do.

  My uncle took a bunch of quarters from his pocket and nodded tiredly at the vending machines. “Go get yourself a soda.”

  We sat for twenty minutes until Pablo came through the heavy door. His face was streaked, his hair mussed, and the top buttons of his shirt were torn off from the fight.

  “Pablo,” I said.

  My uncle stood and patted my brother�
��s back. “Let’s go home, mi’jo.”

  On the ride home, Pablo sat in the front seat but barely answered my uncle’s questions.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “Nothing.” He pulled a pink wad out of his pocket. “Here’s the court stuff.”

  My uncle said, “Give those to your sister.”

  Pablo passed the crumpled papers back without looking at me.

  “Your father doesn’t know any of this,” my uncle warned Pablo, as if he wouldn’t have figured that out. “Keep it that way.”

  Pablo nodded and stared out the window.

  We rode in silence, my uncle not even turning on his radio. Maybe he was contemplating the long drive back to his empty house in Opa-Locka.

  “Pablo, you want some of this Coke?” I asked.

  Pablo didn’t answer. He didn’t speak to me at all during the ride home.

  When we got to the house, my mother hugged him like there was no tomorrow while my father watched with a perplexed smile.

  “¿Qué pasa aquí?” he asked, finally sensing that something had happened.

  “Nada, nada,” my mother said. “Some good-for-nothing boys tried to fight him. He’s all right now.” She patted Pablo’s shirt closed over the missing buttons.

  “A fight!” My father’s voice cracked.

  For the first time, I understood what made my father’s voice rise and crack like a girl’s sometimes: fear. But what did he have to be afraid of?

  “¡Ay Roberto!” she said impatiently. “¿No ves que el niño está cansado?”

  But if my father didn’t see that the “child” was tired, Pablo made it clear by removing her hands and stating in English, “I’m going to bed.”

  “Manolo’s sleeping at Luchito’s,” I volunteered.

  “Do I give a shit?”

  His first words to me. I bit my lip.

  Mami told me to heat up his dinner while she and my father escorted Tío Paco to the car.

  It was quiet in the kitchen. When I opened the refrigerator, I saw the lime halves I’d cut up earlier. Tears smarted in my eyes, but I fought them back. It wasn’t my fault that the fight had started, I told myself with a deep breath. It wasn’t my fault that Papi was a maniac—and that Pablo was now one too. That Mami had given up, leaving everything to me.