This Is How You Lose Her (9 page)

I went into her room while Rafa was mucking around in the closet, and slid the box out from one of her drawers, put it snug under my arm.

He came out of the closet. He looked at me, I looked at him. Give it to me, he said.

You ain’t getting shit.

He grabbed me. Any other time of our lives this would have been no contest—he would have broken me in four—but the rules had changed. I couldn’t decide which was greater: the exhilaration of beating him at something physical for the first time in my life or the fear of the same.

We knocked this over and that over, but I kept the box from him and finally he let go. I was ready for a second round, but he was shaking.

That’s fine, he panted. You keep the money. But don’t you worry. I’ll fix you soon enough, Mr. Big Shit.

I’m terrified, I said.

That night I told Mami everything. (Of course, I stressed that it had all gone down
after
I got home from school.)

She turned the stove on under the beans she had left soaking that morning. Please don’t fight your brother. Let him take whatever he wants.

But he’s stealing our money!

He can have it.

Fuck that, I said. I’m going to change the lock.

No, you are not. This is his apartment, too.

Are you fucking kidding me, Ma? I was about to explode, but then it hit me.

Ma?

Yes, hijo.

How long has he been doing it?

Doing what?

Taking the money.

She turned her back to me, so I put the little metal box on the floor and went out for a smoke.

—

AT THE BEGINNING
of October, we got a call from Pura. He’s not feeling well. My mother nodded, and so I went over to check. Talk about an understatement. My brother was straight delusional. Burning up with fever and when I put my hands on him, he looked at me with zero recognition. Pura was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her son, trying to look all worried. Give me the damn keys, I said, but she smiled weakly. We lost them.

She was lying, of course. She knew that if I got the keys to the Monarch she’d never see that car again.

He couldn’t walk. He could barely move his lips. I tried to carry him but I couldn’t do it, not for ten blocks, and first time ever in the history of our nabe there was no one around. By then Rafa had stopped making any kind of sense and I started getting really scared. For real: I started flipping. I thought: He’s going to die here. Then I spotted a shopping cart. I dragged him over to it and put him in. We good, I said to him. We great. Pura watched us from the front stoop. I have to take care of Adrian, she explained.

All Mami’s praying must have paid off, because we got one miracle that day. Guess who was parked in front of the apartment, who came running when she saw what I had in the shopping cart, who took Rafa and me and Mami and all the Horsefaces up to Beth Israel?

That’s right: Tammy Franco. Aka Fly Tetas.

—

HE WAS IN
for a long long time. A lot happened during and after, but there were no more girls. That part of his life was over. Every now and then Tammy visited him at the hospital, but it was like their old routine; she would just sit there and say nothing and he would say nothing and after a while she would leave. What the fuck is that? I asked my brother, but he never explained it, never said a word.

As for Pura—who visited my brother exactly never while he was in the hospital—she dropped by our apartment one more time. Rafa was still in Beth Israel, so I wasn’t under any obligation to let her ass in, but it seemed stupid not to. Pura sat down on the couch and tried to hold my mother’s hands, but Mami wasn’t having any of it. She had Adrian with her, and the little manganzón immediately started running around and knocking into things, and I had to resist the urge to break my foot off in his ass. Without losing her poor-me look, Pura explained that Rafa had borrowed money from her and she needed it back; otherwise, she was going to lose her apartment.

Oh, por favor, I spat.

My mother eyed her carefully. How much was it?

Two thousand dollars.

Two thousand dollars. In 198—. This bitch was tripping.

My mother nodded thoughtfully. What do you think he did with the money?

I don’t
know
, Pura whispered. He never explained
anything
to me.

And then she fucking smiled.

The girl really was a genius. Mami and I both looked like creamed shit, but she sat there as fine as anything and confident to the max—now that the whole thing was over she didn’t even bother hiding it. I would have clapped if I’d had the strength, but I was too depressed.

Mami said nothing for a while, and then she went into her bedroom. I figured she was going to emerge with my father’s Saturday-night special, the one thing of his that she’d kept when he left. To protect us, she claimed, but more likely to shoot my father dead if she ever saw him again. I watched Pura’s kid, happily throwing around the
TV Guide
. I wondered how much he was going to like being an orphan. And then my mother came out, with a hundred-dollar bill in hand.

Ma, I said weakly.

She gave the bill to Pura but didn’t let go of her end. For a minute they stared at each other, and then Mami let the bill go, the force between them so strong the paper popped.

Que Dios te bendiga, Pura said, fixing her top across her breasts before standing.

None of us saw Pura or her son or our car or our TV or our beds or the X amount of dollars Rafa had stolen for her ever again. She blew out of the Terrace sometime before Christmas to points unknown. The Gujarati guy told me when I ran into him at the Pathmark. He was still pissed because Pura had stiffed him almost two months’ rent.

Last time I ever rent to one of you people.

Amen, I said.

—

SO YOU’D HAVE
thought Rafa would be at least a little contrite, when he finally got out. Fat chance. He didn’t say a thing about Pura. Didn’t talk much about anything. I think he knew in a real way that he wasn’t going to get better. He watched a lot of TV and sometimes he took slow walks down to the landfill. He took to wearing a crucifix, but he refused to pray or to give thanks to Jesus, as my mother asked him to. The Horsefaces were back in the apartment almost every day, and my brother would look at them and for kicks say, Fuck Jesu, and that would only get them to pray harder.

I tried to stay out of his way. I had finally hooked up with this girl who wasn’t half as fine as Laura, but who at least liked me. She had introduced me to mushrooms and that was how I was spending the time I was supposed to be in school, shrooming my ass off with her. I was so not thinking about the future.

Every now and then when me and Rafa were alone and the game was on I tried to talk to him, but he never said nothing back. His hair was all gone and he wore a Yankee cap even indoors.

And then about a month after he got out of the hospital I was coming home from the store with a gallon of milk, high and thinking about the new girl, when out of nowhere my face
exploded
. All the circuits in my brain went lights out. No idea how long I was down, but a dream and a half later I found myself on my knees, my face ablaze, holding in my hands not the milk but a huge Yale padlock.

Wasn’t until I made it home and Mami put a compress on the knot under my cheek that I figured it out. Someone had thrown that lock at me. Someone who, when he was still playing baseball for our high school, had had his fastball clocked at ninety-three miles per hour.

That’s just terrible, Rafa clucked. They could have taken your eye out.

Later, when Mami went to bed, he looked at me evenly: Didn’t I tell you I was going to fix you? Didn’t I?

And then he laughed.

F
ROM THE TOP OF
W
ESTMINSTER,
our main strip, you could see the thinnest sliver of ocean cresting the horizon to the east. My father had been shown that sight—the management showed everyone—but as he drove us in from JFK he didn’t stop to point it out. The ocean might have made us feel better, considering what else there was to see. London Terrace itself was a mess; half the buildings still needed their wiring and in the evening light these structures sprawled about like ships of brick that had run aground. Mud followed gravel everywhere and the grass, planted late in fall, poked out of the snow in dead tufts.

Each building has its own laundry room, Papi explained. Mami looked vaguely out of the snout of her parka and nodded. That’s wonderful, she said. I was watching the snow sift over itself, terrified, and my brother was cracking his knuckles. This was our first day in the States. The world was frozen solid.

Our apartment seemed huge to us. Rafa and I had a room to ourselves and the kitchen, with its refrigerator and stove, was about the size of our house on Sumner Welles. We didn’t stop shivering until Papi set the apartment temperature to about eighty. Beads of water gathered on the windows like bees and we had to wipe the glass to see outside. Rafa and I were stylish in our new clothes and we wanted out, but Papi told us to take off our boots and our parkas. He sat us down in front of the television, his arms lean and surprisingly hairy right up to the short-cut sleeves. He had just shown us how to flush the toilets, run the sinks, and start the shower.

This isn’t a slum, Papi began. I want you to treat everything around you with respect. I don’t want you throwing any of your garbage on the floor or on the street. I don’t want you going to the bathroom in the bushes.

Rafa nudged me. In Santo Domingo I’d pissed everywhere, and the first time Papi had seen me in action, whizzing on a street corner, on the night of his triumphant return, he had screamed, What in carajo are you doing?

Decent people live around here and that’s how we’re going to live. You’re Americans now. He had his Chivas Regal bottle on his knee.

After waiting a few seconds to show that yes, I’d digested everything he’d said, I asked, Can we go out now?

Why don’t you help me unpack? Mami suggested. Her hands were very still; usually they were fussing with a piece of paper, a sleeve, or each other.

We’ll just be out for a little while, I said. I got up and pulled on my boots. Had I known my father even a little I might not have turned my back on him. But I didn’t know him; he’d spent the last five years in the States working, and we’d spent the last five years in Santo Domingo waiting. He grabbed my ear and wrenched me back onto the couch. He did not look happy.

You’ll go out when I say you’re ready.

I looked over at Rafa, who sat quietly in front of the TV. Back on the Island, the two of us had taken guaguas clear across the capital by ourselves. I looked up at Papi, his narrow face still unfamiliar. Don’t you eye me, he said.

Mami stood up. You kids might as well give me a hand.

I didn’t move. On the TV the newscasters were making small, flat noises at each other. They were repeating one word over and over. Later when I went to school I would learn that the word they were saying was
Vietnam
.

—

SINCE WE WEREN’T ALLOWED
out of the house—it’s too cold, Papi said once but really there was no reason other than that’s what he wanted—we mostly sat in front of the TV or stared out at the snow those first days. Mami cleaned everything about ten times and made us some damn elaborate lunches. We were all bored speechless.

Pretty early on Mami decided that watching TV was beneficial; you could learn the language from it. She saw our young minds as bright, spiky sunflowers in need of light, and arranged us as close to the TV as possible to maximize our exposure. We watched the news, sitcoms, cartoons,
Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Jonny Quest, The Herculoids, Sesame Street
—eight, nine hours of TV a day, but it was
Sesame Street
that gave us our best lessons. Each word my brother and I learned we passed between ourselves, repeating over and over, and when Mami asked us to show her how to say it, we shook our heads and said, Don’t worry about it.

Just tell me, she said, and when we pronounced the words slowly, forming huge, lazy soap bubbles of sound, she never could duplicate them. Her lips seemed to tug apart even the simplest vowels. That sounds horrible, I said.

What do you know about English? she asked.

At dinner she’d try her English out on Papi, but he just poked at his pernil, which was not my mother’s best dish.

I can’t understand a word you’re saying, he said finally. It’s best if I take care of the English.

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 motioned 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.