Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish

by Pablo Cartaya

  “Mom, I’m sorry about, you know, about saying that stuff at the farm.”

  “I’m going to be honest, Marcus. What you said, it hurt. A lot.”

  “I know,” I say. “I just feel angry sometimes.”

  “And I don’t like this new habit of pounding on things when you get upset. That’s not you, Marcus. It’s this whole dad thing. It’s got you all wound up.”

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’ve just been bottling up this thing about my dad for a long time. I don’t know. What I do know is that I messed up. I just want things to be normal again.

  “I shouldn’t have said those things, Mom. You don’t deserve that.”

  “There are two things in this world that matter to me most. You. And your brother.”

  I nod.

  “Believe it or not, I’m trying to protect you. I just didn’t want you to get your hopes up. To get hurt. But Darma made me understand that this is something you need to do. Have needed to do. You deserve a chance to talk to him.”

  She squints her eyes. I can’t tell if it’s the sun beaming down on her or that she’s actually smiling.

  “Can I hug you now?” I ask.

  She laughs and opens her arms out. “Always.”

  We hug, and then she puts her arm around my waist and pats my side.

  “Come on,” she says, leading us to the place Sergio and Hilda call a chinchorro. It’s a little trailer with banners hanging from it displaying Coke ads and a sign that says BIENVENIDO.

  Charlie and María come out carrying a few cans of something called Coco Rico. Charlie hands one to me.

  “Ready to be a good guy, Slugworth?” he says.

  “Yeah, man,” I say. “I am.”

  I open the can and take a sip. The fizz and coconut taste are instantly popular with my taste buds. Another sip turns into a gulp, and soon it’s almost gone.

  I toss the can in the garbage and head inside with my mom, Charlie, and María.

  The place is pretty dark, and even though there are a few lazy fans spinning overhead, it’s still pretty humid inside. I move around them, careful not to hit myself. Angela and Hilda chat at the far end of the bar with the lady serving beverages while Sergio talks to a tall guy with chest hair that puffs out from his tank top.

  María selects some music from an old jukebox in the corner while my mom and Charlie take seats on one of the high tables in the middle of the room. A few people start grooving on the makeshift dance floor, which inspires Angela and Hilda to leave the bar area. In all this commotion, I don’t notice Sergio approach. He says the guy he was talking to is Archie. This must be his place.

  “The last time your dad was here was about two years ago,” Sergio says.

  “Did Archie say what he was doing?”

  “He said your dad was trying to set up a chinchorro tour for people visiting Puerto Rico. He asked Archie if he wanted to pay to have his chinchorro listed as one of the stops.”

  “Seems like a good business,” I say. “These places are pretty cool.”

  “It’s a great idea,” Sergio says. “Your dad has never had trouble with great ideas.”

  It seems like my dad tries a whole bunch of things but never seems to finish any of them. Maybe he’s been trying to start all these businesses over the years to make some money doing something he’s good at. I understand that. But to be gone so long. That’s what I don’t get.

  “I can call Tío Pepe,” Sergio says, interrupting my thoughts. “Tía Darma said your dad and him stay in touch occasionally.”

  “I don’t want to have you keep driving us around, Sergio,” I say. “You’ve already helped out a lot.”

  “Marcus,” he says. “You’re family. ¿Entiendes?”

  I nod. I understand. At least I’m starting to. Sergio gets up and makes a call while I sit silently for a moment. My mom orders more Coco Rico for everyone.

  I gulp it down quick again. I tilt the can to try to catch the remaining drops. This. Is. Good.

  Sergio sits back down and puts his phone on the table. “Tío Pepe is very excited we’re going to visit him in Manatí. He’ll try to send word for your dad to come as well. And he’s planning on roasting pernil!”

  “What’s that?” Charlie asks.

  “Pork,” he says. “It’s delicious.”

  “Remind me,” my mom says. “Tío Pepe is the uncle with the house on the beach?”

  “Sí,” Sergio confirms.

  “How many family members do you have?” I ask.

  “We. We have a lot,” he says. “Tío Pepe is more like a distant cousin, though. But he’s family. Like you.” Sergio pats my back.

  It’s still weird to think about.

  “We should get going,” Sergio says. “It’s a bit of a drive.”

  Tía Darma says Tío Pepe and my dad stay in touch. Maybe he’s actually going to come.

  Before we leave the chinchorro for good, I take out Danny’s camera again. I snap pictures of Archie’s old jukebox. I snap pictures of the COCO FRIO sign above the little bar. Snap. Snap.

  “It will be late by the time we get there,” Sergio says. “But you’re going to love Tío Pepe’s house!”

  “Thank you, Sergio,” I say.

  “I know this is important to you,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I at least pay for gas money?” My mom tries to hand some cash to Sergio.

  “Your money is no good here,” he says.

  “But the guidebook says the money in Puerto Rico is exactly the same as the rest of the United States,” I say, confused.

  “It is,” Sergio says, refusing my mom’s money. “But this is something I wish to do for my family.”

  Angela and Hilda approach the truck and take Charlie by the hand.

  “I know you need to study, Angela,” Hilda says. “We could take a cab back to Tío Ermenio’s house when we get to Manatí.”

  “No way. Abenteuer!” Angela says, squeezing Charlie.

  “Adventure!” Charlie says, smiling from ear to ear.

  Is my brother speaking German now?

  SEVENTEEN

  MOONLIGHT PERNIL

  We arrive in Manatí and I see a black billboard along the side of the road that reads HACIENDA ESPERANZA RESERVA NATURAL.

  “We are in the area,” Sergio says. The entire backseat of the car has fallen asleep. I have too much on my mind to rest.

  There are grasslands filled with endless purple flowers whipping by our windows. Up ahead, a huge house sits on a small hill.

  “That used to be a sugar plantation,” Sergio says. “One of the biggest in the nineteenth century. Much of this area is a nature reserve now.”

  The sun starts to set across the horizon.

  Sergio notices me staring out. “We’ll find him, Marcus,” he says.

  “You think he’ll be there?” I ask. “At Tío Pepe’s?”

  “When we were kids, your dad and I used to run along the beach at Tío Pepe’s and pretend we were racing horses. Our feet would splash along the shore as we galloped. He always beat me.”

  “Really?”

  “He has long legs!”

  I have long legs too. But I don’t do sports.

  “Do you know what you’re going to tell him when you see him?”

  “Not really,” I say, because I honestly don’t know. I’ve been so busy this entire time, trying to find him. The thought makes my chest feel funny.

  “You’ll know what to say,” Sergio says. “Just go with your gut.”

  I nod.

  After a few miles, we finally see the blue from the ocean in the distance. Charlie says he’s hungry.

  “Well, you are in luck, because the pernil should be ready to serve when we get there!”

  We twist down a few streets and finally ar
rive at a small house at the edge of the road.

  “Is that it?” I ask, wondering how seven more people are going to fit in such a small house. But then again, we fit seven people into this truck.

  “Oh, it’s big inside, Marcus,” Sergio says, parking the car. “And you can’t beat the backyard.”

  We all tumble out of the car and head to the front door. When we approach, a smell like I’ve never sniffed before wafts up my nose. I take a deep breath in.

  María walks past me through the open door.

  “You’re not going to knock?” I ask.

  “It’s family,” she says. “No need to knock.”

  “If you say so . . .”

  There is a large painting of a flamingo right as you walk in. Several lamps made out of mason jars filled with light bulbs dangle from the ceiling. I take Charlie’s hand, but he wiggles free and walks ahead. I guess he doesn’t need me. Meanwhile, Hilda bounces around, inspecting everything, while Angela carefully examines every painting in the bright orange hallway.

  “Schau dir das an! Look!” Hilda says, pointing at two swings attached to the ceiling.

  “Tío Pepe has eclectic taste,” Sergio explains.

  Tell me about it. The smell of delicious food keeps the group moving forward. My stomach rumbles. I guess I’m hungry also. Or maybe I’m just nervous that my dad might already be here. We walk through the kitchen and into the large living room. Instead of couches, there are two rowboats stuffed with pillows and a cushion.

  María goes to one of the rowboats and lies down, stretching her legs. “I love these boats,” she says. “I used to play pirates on them with my dad when I was little.”

  Sergio stands by the doorframe and watches his daughter. “She remembers,” he says in a hushed tone.

  He doesn’t say it quietly enough, though, and María overhears him. “Don’t start getting sentimental, Papá.”

  “I won’t,” he says.

  Tío Pepe rushes into the living room, but before I can see what he looks like, he wraps María in a bear hug and doesn’t stop kissing her forehead for, like, five minutes. He speaks about a hundred miles an hour.

  María seems to melt into her uncle’s arms. “Tío Pepe!”

  Tío Pepe is wearing a bright orange tank top, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. He sports a gray mustache and a backward baseball cap. He’s got, like, twenty shiny bracelets around his wrists. He turns to me and starts rambling in Spanish.

  “Sorry,” I say. “No hablo español.”

  Tío Pepe laughs and comes toward me with his arms out wide. “Soy Tío Pepe,” he says in a way that sounds kind of like he’s singing a really happy song. “I’m so glad you could come!”

  He turns to María and makes a gesture like he’s measuring me. “¿Cuantos años tiene este niño?”

  “Catorce,” María says.

  “Wow!” Pepe blurts out before continuing in Spanish.

  “What did he say?” I ask her.

  “He said what everybody says about you, Marcus. You’re big for a fourteen-year-old.”

  We all walk outside, and the smell of food fills the air. Through a walkway of twisting trees, I see cliffs forming around the shimmering dark water ahead. It isn’t totally dark yet, so I can see the ocean rumbling against the rocks and the beach up ahead. Charlie, Hilda, Angela, and María run to the shore. A few other people I don’t know stand around, drinking cans of Coco Frio and mingling. Apparently, cooking outside in Puerto Rico is an open invitation to everyone in the neighborhood. I scan around but don’t recognize my father anywhere.

  I follow my brother to the beach. My mom stays behind, talking to Pepe and watching him turn the pork. It really is a whole pig cooking inside a huge metal box covered with a sheet full of coals. I take out my camera. Snap. Snap.

  My brother inches toward the water. But when the waves crash in, he runs away. I aim the camera. Snap. Snap. Snap. As with the fruit and vegetables on Tía Darma’s farm, the photos can’t fully capture the colors that emerge when the final rays of the sun hit the water. It’s warm outside, but there is a breeze rushing against the waves. I watch them ramble against a huge rock a few hundred yards out. The water rises over the rock and tries to push it, but it can’t. That’s what I feel like most of the time. A rock constantly pushed by millions of drops of water and my brother is on the beach and I’m hoping the water doesn’t wet him.

  “You know, the Rio Grande de Manatí twists its way out to the Atlantic.”

  Sergio walks up next to me and watches the waves and the moonlight now taking over the sunlight.

  “I used to hike through those mangroves over there,” he says, pointing to the twisty trees along the path to the beach. “And my brother and I used to climb up that rock way over there.” Sergio points to a large rock at the edge of the water that extends out into the ocean.

  “I forgot you had a brother.”

  “A younger brother,” he says. “He’s no longer with us.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “He was a captain in the US Army,” he says, still looking out to the ocean.

  “I didn’t know Puerto Ricans could serve.”

  “Oh yes,” he says. “Very much so.”

  I think about the guy in uniform on the plane. He was on the same flight with us all the way to Puerto Rico. Sergio tells me about a whole bunch of decorated Puerto Rican men and women who have served in the United States military.

  “He served two tours in Afghanistan,” Sergio continues. “My parents had already passed away, so it was just him and me. I didn’t want him to go.”

  “Why didn’t you just stop him?”

  “I tried at first,” he says, looking at me. “But I realized it was what he wanted. He wanted to serve.”

  I look out to the beach at Charlie, who’s running around with María, Angela, and Hilda.

  “My mom lost her parents when she was twenty-two,” I offer.

  “Yes, I remember,” he says. “Your mother and father bonded over both having lost parents to illness.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say. I wonder why my mom never mentioned it. “Seems like something she would’ve told me. She hasn’t told me a lot about her time with my dad. Up until a couple of days ago I didn’t even know I had all this family. I had never even seen the ocean.”

  Sergio stares for a moment. “Marcus, you’ve just spoken more than all your words combined over the last three days.”

  I shrug. “I talk,” I say. “I just don’t see the point in talking when you don’t have to.”

  Sergio laughs. “Very true.”

  “So why do you think my mom never told me about our family down here? Seems like it could have helped.”

  “I think sometimes we try to protect those we love from hurt. You know what that’s like.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I know how much you want to protect your brother,” Sergio says. “I admire you for that.”

  I nod. “How do you say ‘the sea’ in Spanish?” I ask him.

  “El mar,” he tells me. “Spelled m-a-r.”

  “That’s funny,” I tell him.

  “Why?”

  “That’s what Charlie used to call me when he was little.”

  “Mar?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m the big, bad, terrible sea, I guess.”

  Sergio laughs. “You’re big,” he says. “But you are none of those other things.”

  I watch the waves calm as they rush to the shore. Maybe nighttime has made them sleepy.

  “Come on,” Sergio says. “That pork smells like it’s ready to be eaten!”

  We all shower and change first, just to freshen up after a long day on the road. Tío Pepe gives us some spare clothes and shoes.

  “Ponte sandalias,” he says, handing me a pair of flip-flops d
ecorated with the Puerto Rican flag. “Too hot for sneakers.”

  I put the sandals on and they’re actually a little big on me. That’s a first.

  My mom is wearing a summer dress and . . . makeup? Charlie comes out in a tank top, sunglasses, and slicked-back hair. He’s strutting around, barefoot.

  “Man, put some shoes on,” I say, but he ignores me. He hears the music playing outside and starts shaking around like a fool. Three days in Puerto Rico and my brother thinks he’s a professional dancer.

  By this point, over forty people have gathered in Tío Pepe’s backyard. My dad isn’t one of them. Almost everyone is dancing, including my mom! She looks over to me and I shake my head.

  I’m not dancing.

  I rest against a palm tree and watch the whole scene unfold. Where is he?

  DAY FOUR

  EIGHTEEN

  PISA Y CORRE

  We end up staying the night at Tío Pepe’s house. My mom called Ermenio and let him know so he wouldn’t worry. Morning comes and I wake up to Charlie shoving me over and over again.

  “Get up, get up!” he says.

  “Man, I’m trying to sleep!”

  “He emailed!”

  My eyes feel like a garage door that’s opening and letting in too much light. I feel around the edges of my bed—I’m in one of Tío Pepe’s rowboats. My arms and legs are stiff from barely moving a muscle all night. It was scary sleeping in this thing! I was afraid I’d bust the boat open.

  “Wake up!” Charlie repeats.

  He’s not going away, so I swing my legs over the side of the rowboat and break free of the tight space. Charlie shoves my mom’s phone in my face.

  “Look,” he says.

  “You took Mom’s phone?”

  “I was playing Clash of Clams,” he says. He loves that game. “The email!”

  I take the phone from him and rub my eyes. I can’t believe it.

  Hello, Marcus,

  If you are all still in Puerto Rico when you get this, come to the Maravilla Resort and Residencies in Dorado.

  I’ll be working there.