Yeah, poor Uncle Ernesto, I thought. Really, I didn’t see why they were so upset. As usual, mi ama would come to my drunkle’s rescue by raiding all of mi papi’s savings to post bail, and then, as usual, in a matter of hours my drunkle would be set free by the courts, come home from jail, and be drinking at the bars right around the corner from our house before he had even taken a shower. All in all, he’d probably spend less than thirty-six hours in lockup.
Sure enough, the next day my drunkle returned to mi casa holding a pink citation requesting his appearance in court at a future date.
“America is so stupid,” he said as he cracked a beer, slurped, and waved the pink citation in the air. “You think Mexico would ever do for them what they do for us? We have no health care, El Norte gives us doctors. We have no documents, El Norte lets us send our kids to their schools. We break the law, El Norte gives us colorful pieces of paper and a warning. Ooh, a warning, I am soooo scared.”
My drunkle tore up the citation and tossed it into the air like confetti. “Salud America,” my drunkle said as he raised his beer in a toast. “To a country of pendejos!”
My younger brothers laughed. I shook my head. Yet another wonderful lesson for the next generation of Latinos.
“Like I’m gonna show up at some stupid court hearing,” he continued. “After all, what’s the worst America will do to me, give me another pink citation? Or a blue one? Hell, I’ll collect the whole fucking rainbow.”
“Ernesto…” said mi ama as a meek warning for my drunkle to watch his language. In response, my drunkle chuckled, raised his beer, and finished the bottle in two giant gulps. I couldn’t watch anymore. Mi tío manifested every crappy stereotype gabacbos held about Latinos, and here he was, sitting in the middle of our living room laughing about it. Truly, it nauseated me. But when I looked over at mi ama and Tía Luna I saw contented little smiles. They were just happy he was free. Our familia was together again. To them, that’s all that mattered.
Suddenly my drunkle went to the hallway closet and grabbed mi papi’s most prized possession on this planet: his signed Roberto Clemente baseball bat. As soon as we saw what he was doing, everyone in the room got tense.
Roberto Clemente, in mi papi’s opinion, was the greatest baseball player who had ever lived. I can’t even remember how many times while we were growing up mi papi would go to the hallway closet, get his Roberto Clemente bat, and talk about how his favorite ballplayer had done so much for Hispanic people. How he had carried himself with style, poise, and grace in spite of all the racism he’d faced in the big leagues. Of course, a lot of people remember Clemente as the first Latin baseball player elected to the Hall of Fame, but that’s not why mi papi owned this bat. Mi papi owned it because Roberto Clemente had died in a plane crash while trying to help other people; trying to deliver relief supplies for earthquake victims in Nicaragua. None of that “Central/beaner” stuff meant anything to mi papi. In his eyes, Roberto Clemente was a true Hispanic hero, a man to be respected and idolized for his values, not just his sports accomplishments. Clemente had made the ultimate sacrifice for his people when he could have just chased girls and enjoyed the good life of wealth and fame. Now that was a man to look up to. A man who led by example.
Papi had bought this bat the month Clemente died, and it was, for as long as I could remember, absolutely off limits for anyone to touch. We all knew it. My drunkle knew it too.
But mi papi wasn’t home. And my boozed-up drunkle, feeling cocky about how he was duping America, suddenly thought he was king of the world and started waving Papi’s Roberto Clemente bat around like he was some kind of brown-skinned Babe Ruth, beer gut and all.
Even one scratch on this bat would have set my father off in a rage. Everyone watched with fear as my drunkle recklessly swung it in the house.
“Ernesto, por favor,” said mi ama, trying to convince him to put down the bat.
“Oh, Alfredo wouldn’t mind. Somos hermanos” my drunkle replied. “Somos familia.”
We are brothers? We are family? Is that what he just said? Jesucristo, what a joke! If mi papi was here, I was positive my drunkle would have been singing a different tune.
But of course mi papi wasn’t here. He was off doing what he had to do to support the needs of his familia. Like Roberto Clemente, mi papi showed our household how to live the proper way through actions, not words. That was how he always led us. Always by example.
After a few more minutes of showing off, my drunkle finally put down the baseball bat. Then later that night, things got creepy.
Instead of heading off to the bars like he always did, my drunkle stayed home and watched stupid TV show after stupid TV show on Spanish language television. By 8:45, mi ama had put Hernando to bed and gone to bed herself. By 9:15, Oscar had fallen asleep as well. Rodrigo had long since headed out for the evening to goodness knows where, and the only other people awake in mi casa were me, my drunkle, and little Miguel.
At 10:10, I saw Miguel yawn. My drunkle glanced at me with glistening eyes, and suddenly I knew exactly what he was thinking. Since I had never told anybody about our little encounter in the kitchen, my drunkle was under the impression he had a green light. It was as if my silence meant I wanted him too.
His eyes followed me as I crossed the room to put away some towels I’d just folded. I needed a plan, and quick.
“Miguel!” I suddenly snapped when I reentered the room. My shout startled him. “Did you finish your homework?”
“Huh?” he replied in a groggy state. “Yes,” he added.
“Then let me see it.”
“What?”
“I said, let me see it,” I demanded. “Your grades have been slacking.”
Miguel rubbed his eyes and marched over to his backpack. A moment later, he showed me his English essay.
“This is terrible,” I said. “You can do way better. How come you don’t try when it comes to school?”
“Shut up, Sonia, you’re not my mother,” he answered.
“No, I’m your sister,” I answered. My drunkle lay on the couch listening to every word. “And I will beat your butt if you don’t redo this paper right now. And do it with some effort. School is important, Miguel. It’s the way out.”
“The way out of what?” he asked.
“Just do your work, Miguel. I’ll help you. To answer this question properly you’re going to need to write at least three paragraphs.”
“Three paragraphs!?” he exclaimed. “But that will take at least forty-five minutes.”
“Then you should have started sooner,” I answered. My brother looked at me in complete disbelief. “It’s called doing things the right way, Miguel. But don’t worry, I’ll sit with you till you get it done…even if it takes all night.”
“All night?”
“Begin,” I ordered.
Miguel looked up at me with uncertainty.
“Now!” I said.
Ten minutes later my drunkle got off the couch, grabbed his coat, and headed for the bars. I had escaped.
Yet, for how long?
Biting my fingernails, I went to the kitchen, opened the cabinet, and unscrewed the childproof safety top of my mother’s medicine bottle.
Then I stole another little orange pill.
chapter treinta y uno
It’s not uncommon with babies to find little “surprises” in their diapers. On Sunday morning, however, I found a little surprise in the babies’ diaper drawer.
“What the hell is this?” I said, storming into Rodrigo’s room. Even though it was almost noon, he was still asleep.
“Huh…what?” he replied, with messed-up hair and pillow marks on his face.
“This,” I said, tossing a big bag filled with thirty-five smaller plastic baggies onto his bed. Each was filled with marijuana.
“Now you’re selling it?”
“Sssh,” Rodrigo said. “Tío will hear.”
“What?” I replied, not giving a poop how loud my voice was. “He smoke
s it with you, what do you care?”
“I know,” Rodrigo answered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “We were selling it together. But the fucking bastard is smoking all the profits,” Rodrigo explained. “I had to hide it before he smoked it all.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I said.
“Ssshh, he’s gonna hear.”
“Listen to me. You are not keeping this mota in the babies’ diaper drawer, me entiendes? I’ll flush it,” I said. “I’ll flush it all.”
“But where else can I put it?” Rodrigo asked. “How about your underwear drawer? Please, Sonia. He’d never look there.”
My eyes grew big as baseballs.
“I swear, I’ll flush every last leaf, Rigo, you hear me? You keep that shit away, understand? Away!”
“You say that now, but if something happens to Papi, and we need the money, you’ll be talking different then,” my brother said as he sat up in bed.
“Nothing is happening to Papi,” I answered.
“I’m just saying…”
“Well, don’t just say! Nothing is happening to Papi,” I repeated. “But I guarantee, something is gonna happen to you if I tell him what you’re doing.”
“You better not, Sonia.”
“You know I will.”
“You better not,” he said again.
“Just keep that stuff away, and don’t let me see it again, Rigo.”
I stormed out of the room. Rodrigo didn’t say anything else. Actually, he did say one more thing.
“Bitch,” I heard as I left the room.
I went to the kitchen to start preparing the babies’ next meal and saw that the refrigerator door was open. Mi ama was up and around the house these days, feeling a bit stronger. She was looking in the fridge, hoping to find some chorizo.
“Sonia, do you have to fight with your brother?” she said in a pleading voice. “Please,” she added. “I’m not feeling well.”
For a moment I just stood there shocked that she was reprimanding me for fighting with Rodrigo. Then I thought, Naw, it’s not worth it. So I kept quiet. I didn’t say anything in response to her. I just started preparing two bottles of baby formula. The twins would be up from their nap soon.
“Not too much powder,” mi ama said as I mixed the formula. “They like it kind of watery.”
How would you know, I thought. How the hell would you know?
A few hours later, mi papi was sitting on the couch watching a Sunday fútbol game, but without Rodrigo or my drunkle or any of the other boys joining him. Everyone was off somewhere doing their own thing. The only other person in the room was mi ama. She was sorting through the week’s mail, getting ready to pay the bills that were now up to their third late notice.
“Sonia…” she called while I was in the kitchen preparing dinner. “Ayúdame.”
What now, I thought. I stepped into the living room.
“¿Qué pasa?” I asked.
“Read this for me,” she said in Spanish. “It’s from your school.”
My school? I wiped my hands on a dish towel and took the letter. A moment later, I tossed it on the table and got ready to go back into la cocina.
“What does it say?” mi ama asked.
I turned and answered. No emotion. No guilt. No feeling whatsoever. I simply relayed to her the information I had just read.
“It says my attendance is too poor and my credits are too shy and I will not be graduating with the rest of the seniors,” I told her. “It’s a form letter. They don’t really care about me. They just send it as a way to cover their butts so a student doesn’t sue for a diploma. Did you want it for some reason?” I asked, picking the letter back up and offering it to her.
Mi ama looked at me and hesitated. She tried to say something to make me feel better.
“You should be proud of what you accomplished, mija. I mean, look at me, I only went to school through sixth grade. You made it much further. That is good.”
I didn’t answer.
“Oh, don’t take it to heart, Sonia. Education isn’t everything in this world. At least, not like familia,” she continued. “It’s important to remember what you’ve been blessed with.”
I glanced over at mi papi, who had stopped watching his fútbol game and was instead staring at me. We had one of those silent conversations with only eye contact that Latinos are famous for. His eyes were sad, and he looked at me as if to say he was sorry, that he could not work any harder than he already was, and there was nothing more that he could do. My eyes looked back at him in a way that let him know I understood, that it was not his fault, that these were the cards I had been dealt in life, and I was playing them the best I could.
But still, yes, my dreams had been crushed.
After we finished our silent eye-contact conversation, I looked down at the floor. No, not even mi papi could save me.
“Dinner will be ready in twenty-five minutes,” I said, and returned to the kitchen.
When I entered la cocina I noticed that the garbage was full, so I pulled the plastic bag out of its container and took the trash outside. The evening was warm and a bit muggy. When I threw open the top of the Dumpster, flies buzzed around my head. I waved them away, tossed the garbage inside, and closed the top. Then I thought about Geraldo.
“What a disgusting place to have a romance anyway,” I said to myself, trying to avoid the horrible smell. “Funny, I never remember all these bugs.”
I was sure with all the time that had passed, Geraldo had long since moved on. He’d probably found a new girl. Maybe ten of them. I always knew that he could do so much better than me.
“It’s good for him,” I told myself. “Better for him this way. After all, if you love somebody, set them free, right? I would have only been a ball and chain to Geraldo, getting in the way of all his big dreams.”
Just then Frijolito walked up and started rubbing against my leg. I bent down and scratched him in his favorite place, right behind his ear with the weak muscle. Though he was a lot older and no longer a kitten, Frijolito still had a big ol’ lump in his belly and walked kind of sideways.
He purred.
“I bet you’re ready for dinner, huh?” I said.
I hesitated. Deep in my heart I was hoping that, just like in a magical love story, I would suddenly hear a velvety voice behind me that would say something dashing, something romantic like, “And I bet you are ready for dinner too, like a Snickers bar and a cup of vegetable soup…in Paris, France!”
I so badly needed to hear a few words that would lighten my heart and sweep me off my feet. So, so badly.
I raised my eyes and squinted into the light of the orange sunset, hoping with all the hope I had left in my soul that the boy with the emerald green eyes and a glistening white smile would be staring warmly at me, magically promising to take me away, just like in fairy tales.
I looked up. All I saw were flies. No, Principe Charming did not exist. Fairy tales were bullshit.
I stood, went to the garage, filled up the bowl I kept hidden for Frijolito behind the old bicycles no one rode anymore, and went back inside mi casa.
Besides, I couldn’t leave for Paris anyway. I mean, how could I? I had beans on the stove.
chapter treinta y dos
On Tuesday morning we got a call that my drunkle had been arrested again. For the same crime, too—attempting to steal a car stereo out of a BMW. This time, though, there would be no pink citations. He was going to have to appear in front of a judge.
Mi ama dragged me to court on Thursday morning so that I could interpret what was going on for her and Tía Luna. And the twins would be coming too. I thought about leaving them with Rodrigo for the day, but I instantly knew that would be a bad idea. I’d probably come home to find them wearing their one-sies outfits with their heads through the armholes while sitting in dirty, stinky diapers. I could just see it: my brother lying on the couch, stoned out of his mind, watching cartoons, and pretending he hadn’t realized the twins needed
their diapers changed, even though the smell of baby poop would have been bad enough to melt the paint off the walls.
No, I was taking the twins.
It was a day of firsts for the babies. It was their first time on a bus, their first time trekking across the city, their first time being hassled by the police. It happened at the courthouse. Going through security at the entrance of the building was a total nightmare. They made us wake two napping babies and remove them from their strollers while people with badges and guns checked our blankets, diaper bags, and even our formula. What did they think, that people hid bombs inside bottles of baby milk? Maybe white babies were being checked too, but I have a feeling that if they were, the guards certainly weren’t being incredibly rude to the parents as they did so. It took us fifteen minutes just to get inside the building, and then once we were in, we were informed that we were in the wrong courthouse.
“This is civil court. What you need is the criminal courthouse across the street,” a uniformed woman told us.
Great, I thought. You couldn’t have mentioned that before you strip-searched the sleeping infants?
With a huge sigh we turned around, exited the building, and waited for the traffic light to change so we could cross the street. Of course I was the one pushing the made-for-two stroller. Though it had been months since giving birth, mi ama still didn’t have her physical strength all the way back, and my aunt, well, Tía Luna was so fat she practically needed a stroller for her own big, bubble-butt self. (And Lord help the person who had to push that thing!)
While we waited at the light, a brand-new white Lexus pulled up, being driven by two white men. Probably lawyers, I thought, by the way they were dressed.
The one in the passenger seat looked at me then said something to his friend. A moment later the driver turned and looked at me, too. Then they both laughed. Though the windows were up, I could tell that I had just become the butt of some sort of “look-at-how-young-these-Mexican-girls-pump-out-babies” joke.
A moment later the light turned green and they drove away.
Oh, how I hated being a stereotype. I felt like chasing after them to explain, Hey, these aren’t my kids.
The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez Page 16