Abuela went to her makeup bag on the television set and reached in for a mirror and eyebrow tweezers. She tied a huge overhand knot in the curtain to let more light in, then examined her no-eyebrows in the mirror.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed, pulling out a single hair at the top of her face. “I sat around tweezing my eyebrows and playing with my hair, waiting for Emilio to get home from work.”
That explained her missing eyebrows.
“Did you ever have any fun being married?”
“At the beginning we did. We used to go dancing. Sometimes we would even go to the Escambrón Beach Club in San Juan.” She started to giggle again. “It was such a long way off from Ponce, we had to spend the night sometimes. It was fun. The only bad part was that there was only one road that went from Ponce to San Juan. It was so curvy we called it Piquiña, because there were so many sharp turns, it gave everybody itchy goose bumps who traveled it.”
Abuela put away her tweezers. I was glad. Her plucking was giving me goose bumps. Digging around in the makeup bag, she came up with a jar of Pond’s cold cream and slathered it on.
“Oh, God, that’s when I really saw terrible things.”
“What terrible things?”
“Have you ever heard of the Depression?”
“I think I’ll learn about that next year in school.”
“Well, you’ll learn it was very bad in the United States, but you might not learn that it was ten times worse in Puerto Rico. Children dying from starvation and tuberculosis every day. People living in straw shacks, with no water. Families sleeping on the floor. Children with no shoes.”
A flash of shame crossed Abuela’s face. “But I was young and didn’t care anything about the Depression. I would paint my nails red and pin my brown hair up.” She stopped, and then added, “It used to be brown in those days.”
Abuela continued with her story. “After a while, Emilio started to just come home and eat, then go out with his friends.”
“He never took you with him?” I asked.
“No — I liked it better when he brought his friends over to the house.”
“Because then you wouldn’t be alone?”
“No, because they always talked about the Nationalists. I learned the most by being quiet while I served them coffee. They hated the leader of the Nationalists, Pedro Albizu Campos, for saying all of Puerto Rico’s problems were because Puerto Rico belonged to the United States.
“Anyway, the more Emilio’s friends came over and drank, the more they blamed everything that went wrong in Puerto Rico on the Nationalists.”
Abuela went back into her room and came out with two sticks of incense.
“You know, I found this handsome black man selling these in the street — I had to buy some.” She lit them and waved them around. “Smells good, right?”
By now her curls had relaxed, and rolling her hair up had actually made it look smoother than ever. She put a scarf over the lamp, and the room got pink. This new light made her look different. Younger.
“I got pregnant almost right away so I began to spend more time with my mother. It was good. It also gave me a chance to get away from him.”
“Get away from him?”
“Well, I can’t say that I ever really loved him, and in those days, it was perfectly accepted that a pregnant girl would want to stay with her mother — so I took advantage of that. Emilio agreed and left me off at Mami’s when he went on duty that day of the massacre. My mother and I went to church and then went to the Nationalist parade. After the first shots, everybody screamed and ran, and my mother grabbed my hand and wanted me to go home with her. It was terrible. I never saw a man dead in the street before.”
She pulled up the flabby skin on her cheek to see how it looked, frowned, and went on with the terrible story.
“Then we went home and waited for Emilio to pick me up. We were in a daze, like in a dream. My mother and I made some surullitos de maíz, and the three of us, my father, my mother, and I nibbled, wondering what was to become of our little town of Ponce.
“Emilio finally walked in. He was white as a sheet, trembling, scared. We asked him what had happened.
“He said, ‘I was following my órdenes. They were not supposed to march. They were supposed to do what they were told.’
“Evelyn, I remember my mother turning away to make coffee for Emilio, and my father respectfully nodding.” After pursing her lips a bit, Abuela went on.
“I asked my husband what he was told to do.
“‘To stop the march, what do you think!’ Emilio snapped at me. My mother gave him coffee, and he sucked it down like a little boy with his milk and then said he had to go back to his headquarters. I spent the rest of the evening sitting in a rocking chair on the wraparound porch, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time.”
Abuela fell silent. I could see her face as a young person coming through her features. “Anyway,” she said finally, “life just went on like nothing had happened. Emilio picked me up the next morning and we went back to the countryside. But things were never the same in my heart. A revolution began there I could not control. In the following weeks when my husband came over with his friends, I saw them as being loud macho guys, but really weak.”
Mami came in then. “What is that smell?”
We were pulled back into the smallness of our apartment.
“Just some incense, Mami,” I said, annoyed at the interruption.
Mami shook the knot out of the curtain angrily. Then, looking around for other things to be unhappy about, she zeroed in on the candles. “Why are these candles lit in the daytime?” Now Mami focused on the bag of rollers and the tumble of makeup on top of the television. “And what about this mess?” But then her eyes cut to Abuela’s pictures of the massacre, and that made her pause.
“Why are you bringing this into the house? Will you ever be done with it?”
“I am just showing Evelyn about herself.”
“By telling her lies about her grandfather?”
“It is not a lie.”
Mami pointed to the man in the photo. “This is not him!”
“Yes, it is!”
“No, it isn’t!”
Like two little girls fighting over something they couldn’t do anything about, this fight went on and on. I hated seeing Mami and Abuela argue. I slipped out of the living room and went up to the roof.
They didn’t even notice I was gone.
Later that night, when Mami and Abuela were both out and my stepfather was at the bodega, I looked through Abuela’s album to see if I could tell if the shooter was my grandfather.
But the pictures Abuela had shown me earlier were not there. Somebody had ripped them out.
That night as I slept on my sofa bed, I dreamed there was a policeman on the roof of my building shooting flames on everybody down in the street. In the dream, when I tried to stop him, the killer had no face.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out who took the pictures. Mami and Abuela were going at it first thing in the morning.
“Why did you do that?” Abuela asked Mami.
“Because I am sick of hearing about something that happened a long time ago. He was a policeman. It was his job to do what he was told to do. Like a policeman in this country.”
“Tearing up old newspaper pictures does not make it go away. Tapando el cielo con la mano como siempre.”
My mother paused with a deeper exhaustion than usual. “I am not trying to cover the sky with my hand.”
“You always did,” said Abuela.
“This is my house,” Mami said.
“That’s right, it is your house,” Abuela said slowly.
Mami and Abuela each slipped into their respective rooms, closing doors behind them.
I dressed in the emptiness, then went downstairs. I walked toward Migdalia’s stoop. It was as if she were waiting for me. We hadn’t seen each other since the Young Lords set the garbage on fire and here it was, al
ready Labor Day weekend. I didn’t tell her about all that was happening between Mami and Abuela. “Miggy, did you see the article about Young Lords in the newspaper?” I asked.
“No, but I saw us on television. I mean not us, but all the people and our neighborhood.”
“But I guess a revolution has to come to El Barrio.”
I was eager to share Abuela’s stories.
“You know — it’s not really the first time Puerto Ricans have stood up for themselves,” I began carefully. I told her everything Abuela had shared with me about the Ponce Massacre. Everything except the stuff about my grandfather being one of the shooters.
Migdalia listened. “Wow, Evelyn, your grandmother is some lady. No wonder she’s brave enough to sweep up garbage — and wear eye shadow the color of the sky.”
The sun rose high above us. It was hot but felt good on my face.
“Let’s try and find señor Santiago,” I said. “I need a cold piragua.”
“Me, too,” said Migdalia, and we walked, looking for señor Santiago’s cart, which was parked just a few blocks uptown. We got our ices and made our way back toward my place. When we approached, there were two police cars parked in front of the bodega.
Mami was crying.
Pops was trying to comfort Mami.
Abuela was nowhere in sight.
Wilfredo was in handcuffs.
Migdalia tried to make her way to Wilfredo.
“Hey — kid — step back,” a policeman yelled.
“Sis, do what he says,” said Wilfredo helplessly.
“What happened?” Migdalia yelled.
“Quiet, everyone,” the policeman said.
My mother hugged me. “Mami, ¿qué pasó?” I said.
“Who are you?” the policeman asked.
“I’m their daughter.”
He eyed me suspiciously and then turned back to my father.
“Sir, tell me what happened.”
“Okay — we closed around three o’clock today because it’s the start of the Labor Day weekend.”
“And that young man over there, who is he?”
“That’s our friend Wilfredo Menéndez,” I piped in. “He —”
“Just a second. How old are you?”
“I’m fourteen years old.”
“Where were you between noon and now?”
“Just hanging out with my friend!”
Was he accusing me?
The policeman turned back to my father. “Let’s go into the store.”
We went into the store. It was a mess. Candy and cigarettes were all over the floor. The television was missing.
“What happened?” the detective asked again.
Pops halted nervously, then trudged on.
“I came back to check on the store around seven o’clock, and the door was wide open. When I go inside, I saw Wilfredo, and I saw that the safety bars had been broke off the back window. Look — Wilfredo — we know him. He —”
But my mother didn’t let him finish. “Why was he inside the store?” she asked him.
“Mujer, I am sure he had nothing to do with it!”
“How do you know? He was hanging out with those Young Lord people — who knows what they do?”
I couldn’t believe she was saying that. “Mami, what do you mean? We know Wilfredo didn’t have anything to do with this.” But even as I defended him, I thought about how he had wanted me to make an illegal key and how he had bought a crowbar.
“All right. All right. If he didn’t — he didn’t. We’ll find out at the station house.” The detective was sick and tired of talking to us. He wanted to get out of there.
We followed him back outside in time to see a cop putting Wilfredo into a squad car. Wilfredo was protesting: “I’m telling you, I was walking up the street, and I seen the store was open so I went in to see what was happening.”
“Yeah, yeah, tell us at the station house,” the cop was saying.
Migdalia started to cry. “What am I going to tell my mother?” she said, tearing off down the street.
The detective got into his squad car and drove off.
Walking home was like going to a funeral.
All of us were silent.
The next day, Abuela and Mami were in the kitchen arguing again.
Abuela was saying, “I don’t know how you can think I could have anything to do with that robbery.”
“I know that you will do anything for your causes. Maybe you wanted money for those crazy Young Lords!”
“They clean up the street!” said Abuela, flabbergasted. She stopped for a second, then added, “Ignoring them will not make them go away — just like tearing out the pictures of the Ponce Massacre will not make it like it never happened.”
I walked in. They fell silent.
“Go to your room,” said my mother.
“What room?” I said. “I don’t have a room.”
“Don’t worry, mija. You will now,” said Abuela.
“What?” I turned to my mother. “What is she talking about?”
“I’m moving out,” said Abuela.
I looked to my mother. “Mami …”
She didn’t say anything. Then, “Maybe it’s the best thing.”
Abuela turned on her heel and went into her room.
“Mami, you’re going to let her go?”
Mami ignored me.
I could hear Abuela rummaging. She came back into the kitchen with a small packed bag.
“I will come back for the rest of my things later.” She slammed her way out of the door.
“Mami …”
But Mami had her head in the oven as if she thought she could hide there. But I knew she was getting ready to bake. She turned it on and lit it. As I watched the roaches making their getaways, Mami went to the refrigerator and took out some butter.
“Mami, why are you and Abuela fighting all the time?”
Mami didn’t answer. Instead she kept poking around the cupboard, bringing out loaves of old bread and crumbling it into a bowl.
“Do you really think Abuela had something to do with the break-in?”
“¿Esa? Sabrá Dios. She loves violence. She loves revolution. ¿Y pá qué? For what?”
Mami took some milk out of the refrigerator and started pouring it over the bread.
A sickening wave of anger swept over me. She was on automatic all the time. A bomb could go off next to her, and she’d react by making bread pudding.
“Mami, stop!”
But she didn’t stop. She began mashing up the bread with her hands, letting it squeeze through her fingers like she was a robot. Seeing her thick calloused hands working the bread made me nauseous and angry. I studied her wide back funneling down her legs, all the way to her big flat feet. So ugly.
“Mami!” I shouted.
“Don’t you dare yell at me!”
She slapped me. I almost laughed as bits of bread flew through the air before creating a cushion between her doughy wet hand and my cheek. At least I got a reaction out of her. I couldn’t look at my fat mother. I decided right then that I wasn’t going to be like my mother the slave.
Mami rinsed her hands before breaking some eggs over a bowl, then hesitated, holding the shells for a moment as if she didn’t know what to do with them. Suddenly remembering where the trash was, she dumped them, reached for a spoon, stirred up the goop, slathered the pan with butter, poured the whole mess into the baking pan, and finally put it all in the oven.
She sat down. With an empty look in her eye, she sighed.
“Ya se acabó,” she said. “It’s finished.”
What was finished? The baking? Our relationship? The Young Lords?
I looked at the grease stains on the walls and at my mother’s pathetic attempts to make everything pretty with plastic and roses.
I stormed out the door to find Abuela. But she was nowhere.
It was as if El Barrio had swallowed her up.
Who can tell what is the very beginning o
f a storm?
Not a weather storm but a storm of ideas that grows like a flame.
I wondered, What was the very beginning of the Young Lords’ storm? Was it the garbage on fire? Or was it when they opened a storefront office in the neighborhood? Was their office the first flutter of things to come?
Walking by their workplace after school, I could see them, all long-haired and wearing jeans and eating take-out rice and beans and laughing and pointing and arguing.
Watching them became a habit. Did they see me walking back and forth? Me — pretending I had something to do and somewhere to go, when all I really wanted was to see what made the Young Lords so passionate about whatever they were doing.
I tried to guess what the tall one with the dark glasses was saying, but he loped across the room too fast.
Was there a motor in the heart of the Young Lord with the kinky hair and blinding smile, or was strutting the only way he knew to get from one end of the room to the other?
And why did that other Young Lord look as sad as if he carried the world’s problems on his shoulders? His eyes as dark as la esperanza de un pobre — as sorrowful as the hope of a poor person.
Even with that sad expression, he and the others looked strong and powerful and full of meaning.
Observing them, I realized sweeping the streets and passing out flyers weren’t the beginning of the Young Lord storm. Neither was getting a storefront office. They were just signs that something was coming.
The storm began when the Young Lords started to go to church. The First Spanish Methodist Church. Our church.
They had asked the church elders if they could use space in the church for a free-breakfast program for Barrio kids.
It was like the whole world groaned in protest. You would’ve thought they had asked for the sun and the moon. When the church elders recovered long enough from the audacity of this outrageous request and came back with a resounding no, the Young Lords decided to go to the people.
And so the eight-week campaign of trying to win over the people in the congregation began.
Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (9780545469586) Page 6