This Is How You Lose Her

by Junot Díaz

  How do you expect me to learn?

  You don’t have to learn, he said. Besides, the average woman can’t learn English.

  It’s a difficult language to master, he said, first in Spanish and then in English.

  Mami didn’t say another word. In the morning, as soon as Papi was out of the apartment, Mami turned on the TV and put us in front of it. The apartment was always cold in the morning and leaving our beds was a serious torment.

  It’s too early, we said.

  It’s like school, she suggested.

  No, it’s not, we said. We were used to going to school at noon.

  You two complain too much. She would stand behind us and when I turned around she would be mouthing the words we were learning, trying to make sense of them.

  —

  EVEN PAPI’S EARLY-MORNING noises were strange to me. I lay in bed, listening to him stumbling around in the bathroom, like he was drunk or something. I didn’t know what he did for Reynolds Aluminum, but he had a lot of uniforms in his closet, all filthy with machine oil.

  I had expected a different father, one about seven feet tall with enough money to buy our entire barrio, but this one was average height, with an average face. He’d come to our house in Santo Domingo in a busted-up taxi and the gifts he had brought us were small things—toy guns and tops—that we were too old for, that we broke right away. Even though he hugged us and took us out to dinner on the Malecón—our first steaks ever—I didn’t know what to make of him. A father is a hard thing to compass.

  Those first weeks in the States, Papi spent a great deal of his home time downstairs with his books or in front of the TV. He said little to us that wasn’t disciplinary, which didn’t surprise us. We’d seen other dads in action, understood that part of the drill.

  My brother he just tried to keep from yelling, from knocking things over. But what he got on me about the most was my shoelaces. Papi had a thing with shoelaces. I didn’t know how to tie them properly, and when I put together a rather formidable knot, Papi would bend down and pull it apart with one tug. At least you have a future as a magician, Rafa said, but this was serious. Rafa showed me how, and I said, Fine, and had no problems in front of him, but when Papi was breathing down my neck, his hand on a belt, I couldn’t perform; I looked at my father like my laces were live wires he wanted me to touch together.

  I met some dumb men in the Guardia, Papi said, but every single one of them could tie his motherfucking shoes. He looked over at Mami. Why can’t he?

  These were not the sort of questions that had answers. She looked down, studied the veins that threaded the backs of her hands. For a second Papi’s watery turtle eyes met mine. Don’t you look at me, he said.

  Even on days I managed a halfway decent retard knot, as Rafa called them, Papi still had my hair to go on about. While Rafa’s hair was straight and glided through a comb like a Caribbean grandparent’s dream, my hair still had enough of the African to condemn me to endless combings and out-of-this-world haircuts. My mother cut our hair every month, but this time when she put me in the chair my father told her not to bother.

  Only one thing will take care of that, he said. You, go get dressed.

  Rafa followed me into my bedroom and watched while I buttoned my shirt. His mouth was tight. I started to feel anxious. What’s your problem? I said.

  Nothing.

  Then stop watching me. When I got to my shoes, he tied them for me. At the door my father looked down and said, You’re getting better.

  I knew where the van was parked but I went the other way just to catch a glimpse of the neighborhood. Papi didn’t notice my defection until I had rounded the corner, and when he growled my name I hurried back, but I had already seen the fields and the children on the snow.

  I sat in the front seat. He popped a tape of Johnny Ventura into the player and took us out smoothly to Route 9. The snow lay in dirty piles on the side of the road. There can’t be anything worse than old snow, he said. It’s nice while it falls but once it gets to the ground it just turns to shit.

  Are there accidents like with rain?

  Not with me driving.

  The cattails on the banks of the Raritan were stiff and the color of sand, and when we crossed the river, Papi said, I work in the next town.

  We were in Perth Amboy for the services of a real talent, a Puerto Rican barber named Rubio who knew just what to do with the pelo malo. He put two or three creams on my head and had me sit with the foam awhile; after his wife rinsed me off he studied my head in the mirror, tugged at my hair, rubbed an oil into it, and finally sighed.

  It’s better to shave it all off, Papi said.

  I have some other things that might work.

  Papi looked at his watch. Shave it.

  All right, Rubio said. I watched the clippers plow through my hair, watched my scalp appear, tender and defenseless. One of the old men in the waiting area snorted and held his paper higher. I was sick to my stomach; I didn’t want him to shave it but what could I have said to my father? I didn’t have the words. When Rubio was finished he massaged talcum powder on my neck. Now you look guapo, he said, less than convinced. He handed me a stick of gum, which my brother would steal as soon as I got home.

  Well? Papi asked.

  You cut too much, I said truthfully.

  It’s better like this, he said, paying the barber.

  As soon as we were outside the cold clamped down on my head like a slab of wet dirt.

  We drove back in silence. An oil tanker was pulling into port on the Raritan and I wondered how easy it would be for me to slip aboard and disappear.

  Do you like negras? my father asked.

  I turned my head to look at the women we had just passed. I turned back and realized that he was waiting for an answer, that he wanted to know, and while I wanted to blurt that I didn’t like girls in any denomination, I said instead, Oh yes, and he smiled.

  They’re beautiful, he said, and lit a cigarette. They’ll take care of you better than anyone.

  Rafa laughed when he saw me. You look like a big thumb.

  Dios mío, Mami said, turning me around. Why did you do that to him?

  It looks good, Papi said.

  And the cold’s going to make him sick.

  Papi put his cold palm on my head. He likes it fine, he said.

  —

  PAPI WORKED A LONG fifty-hour week and on his days off he expected quiet, but my brother and I had too much energy to be quiet; we didn’t think anything of using our sofas for trampolines at nine in the morning, while Papi was asleep. In our old barrio we were accustomed to folks shocking the streets with merengue twenty-four hours a day. Our upstairs neighbors, who themselves fought like trolls over everything, would stomp down on us. Will you two please shut up? and then Papi would come out of his room, his shorts unbuttoned, and say, What did I tell you? How many times have I told you to keep it quiet? He was free with his smacks and we spent whole afternoons on Punishment Row—our bedroom—where we had to lay on our beds and not get off, because if he burst in and caught us at the window, staring out at the beautiful snow, he would pull our ears and smack us, and then we would have to kneel in the corner for a few hours. If we messed that up, joking around or cheating, he would force us to kneel down on the cutting side of a coconut grater, and only when we were bleeding and whimpering would he let us up.

  Now you’ll be quiet, he’d say, satisfied, and we’d lay in bed, our knees burning with iodine, and wait for him to go to work so we could put our hands against the cold glass.

  We watched the neighborhood children building snowmen and igloos, having snowball fights. I told my brother about the field I’d seen, vast in my memory, but he just shrugged. A brother and sister lived across in apartment four, and when they were out we would wave to them. They waved to us and m
otioned for us to come out but we shook our heads: We can’t.

  The brother tugged his sister out to where the other children were, with their shovels and their long, snow-encrusted scarves. She seemed to like Rafa, and waved to him as she walked off. He didn’t wave back.

  American girls are supposed to be beautiful, he said.

  Have you seen any?

  What do you call her? He reached down for a tissue and sneezed out a doublebarrel of snot. All of us had headaches and colds and coughs; even with the heat cranked up, winter was kicking our asses. I had to wear a Christmas hat around the apartment to keep my shaven head warm; I looked like an unhappy tropical elf.

  I wiped my nose. If this is the United States, mail me home.

  Don’t worry. Mami says we’re probably going home.

  How does she know?

  Her and Papi have been talking about it. She thinks it would be better if we went back. Rafa ran a finger glumly over our window; he didn’t want to go; he liked the TV and the toilet and already saw himself with the girl in apartment four.

  I don’t know about that, I said. Papi doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.

  What do you know? You’re just a little mojón.

  I know more than you, I said. Papi had never once mentioned going back to the Island. I waited to get him in a good mood, after he had watched Abbott and Costello, and asked him if he thought we would be going back soon.

  For what?

  A visit.

  You ain’t going anywhere.

  —

  BY THE THIRD WEEK I was worried we weren’t going to make it. Mami, who had been our authority on the Island, was dwindling. She cooked our food and then sat there, waiting to wash the dishes. She had no friends, no neighbors to visit. You should talk to me, she said, but we told her to wait for Papi to get home. He’ll talk to you, I guaranteed. Rafa’s temper got worse. I would tug at his hair, an old game of ours, and he would explode. We fought and fought and fought and after my mother pried us apart, instead of making up like the old days, we sat scowling on opposite sides of our room and planned each other’s demise. I’m going to burn you alive, he promised. You should number your limbs, I told him, so they’ll know how to put you back together for the funeral. We squirted acid at each other with our eyes, like reptiles. Our boredom made everything worse.

  One day I saw the brother and sister from apartment four gearing up to go play, and instead of waving I pulled on my parka. Rafa was sitting on the couch, flipping between a Chinese cooking show and an all-star Little League game. I’m going out, I told him.

  Sure you are, he said, but when I pushed open the front door, he said, Hey!

  The air outside was very cold and I nearly fell down our steps. No one in the neighborhood was the shoveling type. Throwing my scarf over my mouth, I stumbled across the uneven crust of snow. I caught up to the brother and sister at the side of our building.

  Wait up! I yelled. I want to play with you.

  The brother watched me with a half grin, not understanding a word I’d said, his arms scrunched nervously at his sides. His hair was a frightening no-color. His sister had green eyes and her freckled face was cowled in a hood of pink fur. We had on the same brand of mittens, bought cheap from Two Guys. I stopped and we faced each other, our white breath nearly reaching across the distance between us. The world was ice and the ice burned with sunlight. This was my first real encounter with Americans and I felt loose and capable. I motioned with my mittens and smiled. The sister turned to her brother and laughed. He said something to her and then she ran to where the other children were, the peals of her laughter trailing over her shoulder like the spumes of her hot breath.

  I’ve been meaning to come out, I said. But my father won’t let us right now. He thinks we’re too young, but look, I’m older than your sister, and my brother looks older than you.

  The brother pointed at himself. Eric, he said.

  My name’s Yunior, I said.

  His grin never faded. Turning, he walked over to the approaching group of children. I knew that Rafa was watching me from the window and fought the urge to turn around and wave. The gringo children watched me from a distance and then walked away. Wait, I said, but then an Oldsmobile pulled into the next lot, its tires muddy and thick with snow. I couldn’t follow them. The sister looked back once, a lick of her hair peeking out of her hood. After they had gone, I stood in the snow until my feet were cold. I was too afraid of getting my ass beat to go any farther.

  Rafa was sprawled in front of the TV.

  Hijo de la gran puta, I said, sitting down.

  You look frozen.

  I didn’t answer him. We watched TV until a snowball struck the glass patio door and both of us jumped.

  What was that? Mami wanted to know from her room.

  Two more snowballs exploded on the glass. I peeked behind the curtain and saw the brother and the sister hiding behind a snow-buried Dodge.

  Nothing, Señora, Rafa said. It’s just the snow.

  What, is it learning how to dance out there?

  It’s just falling, Rafa said.

  We both stood behind the curtain and watched the brother throw fast and hard, like a pitcher.

  —

  EACH DAY THE TRUCKS would roll into our neighborhood with the garbage. The landfill stood two miles out, but the mechanics of the winter air conducted its sound and odors to us undiluted. When we opened a window we could hear and smell the bulldozers spreading the garbage out in thick, putrid layers across the top of the landfill. We could see the gulls attending the mound, thousands of them, wheeling.

  Do you think kids play out there? I asked Rafa. We were standing on the porch, brave; at any moment Papi could pull into the parking lot and see us.

  Of course they do. Wouldn’t you?

  I licked my lips. They must find a lot of stuff out there.

  Plenty, Rafa said.

  That night I dreamed of home, that we’d never left. I woke up, my throat aching, hot with fever. I washed my face in the sink, then sat next to our window, my brother asleep, and watched the pebbles of ice falling and freezing into a shell over the cars and the snow and the pavement. Learning to sleep in new places was an ability you were supposed to lose as you grew older, but I never had it. The building was only now settling into itself; the tight magic of the just-hammered-in nail was finally relaxing. I heard someone walking around in the living room and when I went out I found my mother standing in front of the patio door.

  You can’t sleep? she asked, her face smooth and perfect in the glare of the halogens.

  I shook my head.

  We’ve always been alike that way, she said. That won’t make your life any easier.

  I put my arms around her waist. That morning alone we’d seen three moving trucks from our patio door. I’m going to pray for Dominicans, she had said, her face against the glass, but what we would end up getting were Puerto Ricans.

  She must have put me to bed because the next day I woke up next to Rafa. He was snoring. Papi was in the next room snoring as well, and something inside of me told me that I wasn’t a quiet sleeper.

  At the end of the month the bulldozers capped the landfill with a head of soft, blond dirt, and the evicted gulls flocked over the development, shitting and fussing, until the first of the new garbage was brought in.

  —

  MY BROTHER WAS BUCKING to be Number One Son; in all other things he was generally unchanged, but when it came to my father he obeyed him with a scrupulousness he had never shown anybody. My brother was usually an animal but in my father’s house he had turned into some kind of muchacho bueno. Papi said he wanted us inside, Rafa stayed inside. It was as if the passage to the U.S. had burned out the sharpest part of him. In no time at all it would spark back to life more terrible than before
but those first months he was muted. I don’t think anybody could have recognized him. I wanted my father to like me too but I wasn’t in an obedient mood; I played in the snow for short stretches, though never out of sight of the apartment. You’re going to get caught, Rafa forecasted. I could tell that my boldness made him miserable; from our windows he watched me packing snow and throwing myself into drifts. I stayed away from the gringos. When I saw the brother and sister from apartment four, I stopped farting around and watched for a sneak attack. Eric waved and his sister waved; I didn’t wave back. Once he came over and showed me the baseball he must have just gotten. Roberto Clemente, he said, but I went on with building my fort. His sister grew flushed and said something loud and then Eric moved off.

  One day the sister was out by herself and I followed her to the field. Huge concrete pipes sprawled here and there on the snow. She ducked into one of these and I followed her, crawling on my knees.

  She sat in the pipe, crosslegged and grinning. She took her hands out of her mittens and rubbed them together. We were out of the wind and I followed her example. She poked a finger at me.

  Yunior, I said.

  Elaine, she said.

  We sat there for a while, my head aching with my desire to communicate, and she kept blowing on her hands. Then she heard her brother calling and she scrambled out of the pipe. I stepped out too. She was standing next to her brother. When he saw me he yelled something and threw a snowball in my direction. I threw one back.

  In less than a year they would be gone. All the white people would be. All that would be left would be us colored folks.

  —

  AT NIGHT, MAMI AND PAPI TALKED. He sat on his side of the table and she leaned close, asking him, Do you ever plan on taking these children out? You can’t keep them sealed up like this.

  They’ll be going to school soon, he said, sucking on his pipe. And as soon as winter lets up I want to show you the ocean. You can see it around here, you know, but it’s better to see it up close.

  How much longer does winter last?

  Not long, he promised. You’ll see. In a few months none of you will remember this and by then I won’t have to work too much. We’ll be able to travel in spring and see everything.