The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (16 page)

T
hings changed after New Year's. We sensed the takeover was going to come to an end no matter what the Young Lords said. But it was all right because we were ready and strong enough to do whatever came next. There was such a gush of love spilling out all over the place, it was powerful enough to turn bad news good.

On the third of January, I rushed into the church from school and found out that Angel had been diagnosed with tuberculosis.

“I got it! I got it!” said Angel.

“It's a bad thing, you dope. You have to go to the hospital.”

“Yeah, I know, but you should see how nice my father is
to me now. Last night he came to my corner of the room and started crying all over me.”

“What?”

“Yeah, with snots and everything!”

I saw what Angel meant when his father came to the church to thank the Young Lords. With his hat in his hand and wearing two pairs of pants and two sweatshirts, he stumbled through some
gracias
to the Young Lords for setting up the health-care service. Angel set himself up as a translator.

“My father says, ‘Thank you for saving my son's life.'”

What a dope. Young Lords understood Spanish. They just couldn't speak it too well. When señor Santiago took Angel out, he bundled him up like he was a baby, even pulling Angel's hat down around his ears as far as it could go.

“Hey, Angel, you look like Mickey Mouse in
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
on Disney.”

“I know, cool, right?”

When his father put his hand on his shoulder, Angel looked so happy I almost wished
I
had gotten tuberculosis.

On January 4, a story came out in the paper that said that the Young Lords had “vowed” to stay in the church. Still, Mami and Abuela must've felt they should get their own personal problem fixed quickly, because our time in the “Enchanted Cottage” was running out.

I was sitting in on Abuela's political education class about the
Grito de Lares
. We were going further back in history now. Much further back than the Ponce Massacre. Good. I hoped I didn't have any relatives involved in
that
. But then again, who knew? Maybe I did. Maybe
then
my ancestors were on the side of the people who wanted Puerto Rico to be independent from Spain. Anything could happen in families. Look how different Mami, Abuela, and I were, and we lived in the same era.

“The
Grito de Lares
happened in 1868 when Puerto Rico still belonged to Spain,” Abuela was saying. “Ramón Emeterio Betances was the father of the Puerto Rican independence movement. The revolt was unsuccessful but …”

I couldn't help daydreaming as I was listening, and I kind of explained what she was saying to myself, in my head.

There's an island — Puerto Rico — that belonged to Spain, and people from all over the world go there and do whatever, and some stay and get married and don't go back to wherever they came from for so long, they actually forget where they came from, and decide to come from where they are — Puerto Rico. They like this idea because now they don't have to say things like: My father was French and my mother was a Spaniard and I was born in Puerto Rico and my son married a Taino Indian, whose
mother was a slave from Africa, blah, blah, blah, blah … They can just say, I'm Puerto Rican. Simple.

I was wondering if that was the same idea as when us kids wanted to call ourselves Nuyoricans so we wouldn't have to go through the whole speech of,
well I was born here but my parents are from Puerto Rico so I'm really Puerto Rican but born in New York, blah, blah, blah, blah
, every time somebody asked us what we were.

When I looked around, I saw Mami standing in the back of the room.

Abuela was finishing saying that tomorrow she would speak about the Ponce Massacre. As everyone gathered themselves, Mami walked up to Abuela. I followed.

“Mamá, I want to give you this.” Mami pushed some folded-up photos into Abuela's hands. I knew it was photos of the police shooting into the crowd of people at the Ponce Massacre.

“Mamá, you could maybe use these when you teach your class….”

And for once in her life, Abuela was quiet.

“
Pues, qué se va a hacer
— what are you going to do?” they both said at exactly the same time. That made them giggle.

“I mean …” and when they said
that
at the same time again, they both laughed out loud. “You go first,
mija
,” said Abuela.

“I just was going to say that it doesn't matter if Papá was one of the shooters in the picture.”

Abuela stood very still and quiet.

“Yes … well, I'm going back to the store,” said Mami.

Abuela blurted out, “God bless you.
Dios te bendiga.
”

See what I mean about “love”? After Mami and Abuela began acting like a loving mother and daughter, I saw more love everywhere. Even Wilfredo fell in love.

I walked in one day and saw him holding this beautiful black girl's hand. She looked familiar but I couldn't place her until she turned around and smiled at me. It was Dolores from the five-and-dime store. The reason I didn't recognize her at first was that she was wearing her hair in an Afro!

“Dolores!”

“Evelyn … I am a Young Lord in training….”

“Does your mother know?”

“Yes … she's proud. A little worried, but proud.”

I looked at her hair. The Young Lords were right. Making us hate the way we looked was a trick people in power played on us.

And I could tell that a lot of the older Young Lords were in love with each other as well, by how their eyes lingered on each other. The Young Lord girls were so beautiful they looked like a bouquet of different flowers — how could the boys not love them? Migdalia and I had our crushes, too.

“I pick that one,” I said once, pointing to the sad Young Lord.

“I pick the one with the smile and kinky hair,” said Migdalia.

“Oh, I like him, too,” I went on. “I also like the one who moves like an antelope in Africa.”

“You like them all, Evelyn!”

“What's wrong with that, it's not like I'm going to get any of them! I'm just planning ahead for when I'm old enough.”

And we laughed.

 

On the night of January 7, Migdalia and Dolores told me the Young Lords and anybody else caught in the church were going to be arrested the next morning.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Well, let me put it this way,” explained Migdalia, “Wilfredo said if I wanted to be arrested I should stay. I don't want to be arrested.”

“I don't either,” added Dolores. “My mother would kill me.”

That night Abuela and Mami helped cook the last of the food, and I helped give away the last of the clothes. Our mood was bittersweet, but really heavier on the sweet. We floated home together for a last cup of coffee and more talk
on everything that had happened over the past eleven days. Mami served Abuela and me and drank her
café
standing by the stove.

Mami said, “Remember when Jane Fonda came? She's so …”

“… skinny and beautiful,” I finished saying for her. Then Abuela and I took off talking like our hair was on fire!

“And those legs are so long,” I said.

“I like her clothes,” said Abuela.

“But she's rich, she could afford nice clothes,” I said.

“Do you think I should change my hair color to be just like hers?” Abuela asked.

“Maybe yes, I loved her color hair.”

Poor Mami tried to get a word in.

“She's got nice boots.”

I couldn't help rolling my eyes at Abuela. What did Mami know about “nice boots”? Mami couldn't keep up with our fashion conversation. But it was okay. We were going to have so much time together I was sure Abuela and I would talk Mami out of wearing such plain black shapeless clothes.

We made plans to go to the church the next day, to at least stand outside and show support to the Young Lords when they came out.

“I will meet you there at six thirty in the morning,” said Abuela, finally leaving at about eleven thirty.

At five thirty the next morning, we woke up to a soft snow falling on
El Barrio
. Mami and I quietly got dressed. We didn't want to disturb Pops. He couldn't understand the way Mami had been acting lately so it was best to leave him out of it. After tiptoeing into the kitchen, Mami started to make coffee. I silently handed her the milk to heat up in the pot. She boiled the water and poured it through the coffee in the
colador
as I got two cups down and set out the sugar. We managed to have our coffee without saying a word.

Outside it was quiet, the snowfall soundproofing the neighborhood. The riot gear on the police with snow sifting on them like flour made the streets look like a place from another world — futuristic, moonlike. They were ready for a big riot that was not going to happen. It was as if they somehow turned the soft snow to hot snow. Migdalia had also told us that everybody was going to be arrested peacefully. Mami and I walked along next to each other.

I hoped Awilda would be in the crowd watching the arrests so she could see me with my mother and Abuela cheering the Young Lords on. Awilda would watch me
raise my fists and shout, “Power to the people,” and die of envy because I was into something and she was into
nada
.

I think that maybe having that last nasty thought was what made the bad thing happen.

Two blocks from the church we spotted Abuela tottering toward us on her high-heeled boots. She waved and smiled. I looked from her face to Mami's, which was just about to break into a smile, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a glittering shiny something coming out of the sky. It picked up the light, and just as I started wondering what it was, it hit me over my left eye.

The beginning of Abuela's smile turned to shock as she tried to see where the bottle had come from. I stumbled toward her.

“Abuela …” I reached out for her, but her arms stayed stuck to her sides as she continued to look toward the rooftops. Mami caught me and practically picked me up the way she used to when I was a much smaller girl. Mami screamed for the police, and even as I stood there, feeling the warm blood dripping over my eye, I could feel my mother's hot anger.

“
¡Policía! ¡Policía!
We have to get her to the hospital!”

But even the police began to point up toward the rooftops. A bunch of them took off running into the buildings,
yelling into their walkie-talkies. Mami dragged me toward one of them and got right up in his face.

“Forget that up there! This emergency! Get us to hospital!
Inmediatamente.
”

Even through my daze, I realized I had never heard her command anyone like that, much less a policeman. Her voice forced him to take action. He spoke into his walkie-talkie, and a police car drove up just as several police buses neared the church. Then the other drama unfolded. People appeared out of nowhere, singing
“Qué bonita bandera, la bandera puertorriqueña,”
and moved toward the church in step with the buses.

I heard these words from Abuela: “You go. You'll be all right. I will stay here and tell you what happened.” But I was distracted by the air, cooling the cut over my eye.

“Okay,” Mami answered her. “I'll take her. I'll see you later.”

Mami shoved me into the police car and got in after me, trying to cradle my head, but I kept pulling away from her so I could move over and make room for Abuela.

“She not coming with us,” Mami said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

One of my eyes was sealed shut with blood, but I could see the first of the Young Lords stepping out of the church, fists raised and heading toward the police buses with my
other eye. Abuela shut the police car door behind us. Looking in, she waved as we pulled away.

That wave broke me. That weak little good-bye had all the power in the world to unleash all the joy, anger, relief, and humiliation of the last eleven days. Like steam escaping from the jammed-up radiator in our apartment, my emotions exploded, and I started to cry.

My mother murmured soothingly as she commanded the policeman to drive faster.

“
Cálmate
. You're gonna be okay,” Mami assured me.

“
Pero
Abuela …”

“
Policía
, please hurry up!”

“Abuela …” I cried.

“You're gonna be okay, it's probably not deep …”

“But, Abuela …” I couldn't stop crying so hard.

“What about your
abuela
?”

“She should've come with us.”

“Don't worry….”

My blood had seeped into Mami's coat, and my face stuck to it as I pulled away. “
¿Qué pasa?
Stay calm,” she said gently.

Mami was not understanding me. I had to make myself clear. “Abuela …”

“Never mind Abuela. She's fine. She did not get hit on the head. You did.”

“But she didn't even try to come.”

“What are you talking about? What is the difference if she comes or not?”

Mami was talking to me like I had lost my mind, but she was also keeping an eye on the policeman, hurrying him along.

“Por favor, ¡avance!”

“Calm down,
señora
,” the policeman said.

Mami forced my chin up and looked me in the eye. “
Mija
, she cannot do this.”

“What do you mean?” I cried, trying to wipe my eye.

“Don't. You'll make your cut worse.”

Mami forced my hand away from my face. “Look at me!”

I did what I was told.

“She cannot do things like this.” Then she was suddenly angry. “Do you not know her at all?”