The Almost Murder and Other Stories (7 page)

Alexia, twelve, was my pet and protégée. The entire left side of her pretty face had been burned in an explosion, when a prankster switched the chemicals in her school's lab. After many skin grafts and surgeries, with more ahead, Alexia was glad to have an older girlfriend whose face, like hers, was marred.

When my shift was over, I'd go to Alexia's room to braid and brush out her long hair, watch TV or listen to music. Alexia trusted and looked up to me. She seemed quiet at first, but became a chatterbox once she came to know me.

I noticed that Alexia kept the burned side of her face averted habitually, and I never remarked on it. After a week, she suddenly started to look at me full on. Then, she held her face up for others on the unit, too. I was proud of her.

I kept Alexia busy, met her parents and brother and devoted myself to her. I never had a little sister and loved
to spoil Alexia, listen to her and bring her books from home I knew she'd love. We felt we'd known each other forever. This was common in the Burn Unit.

When Alexia asked about life “out there,” I was honest. I told her of the beach walks at night my parents and I took together, rain or shine. Feeling embarrassed, but knowing I couldn't lie, I admitted to Alexia that, except for my parents, cousins and Burn Unit friends, I had become isolated.

My “little sister” counseled me, insisting that I needed to go outside and see the world again, just as she planned on doing after her own discharge.

Alexia said, “I'm not letting these scars ruin my life, but I wish you'd go first. Then you can tell me how it feels out there and warn me about what to expect.”

I couldn't say no to my dear sister-friend and agreed to do just as she asked. I hadn't been strong enough before but I decided that I could and should be braver for her.

I knew that I couldn't help Alexia adjust to life after she left the hospital if I didn't get myself out there first. I needed to jump back in and reenter society outside my home and the Burn Unit. I had to let strangers see and react to me, brave the inevitable stares and learn to share with people who had no connection to scars.

I couldn't help Alexia or anyone else without taking a leap of faith. And so I did.

My cousin's house was my first destination. The Three Ts had come over to visit me so often, often by bus. It was well past my turn to go to see them. I chose a Saturday afternoon for this first post-injury return to Van Nuys, my home away from home. And I went. My cousins opened their house, hearts and lives to me. It felt great to be back.

Two weekends in a row I went to see my cousins, but we stayed inside. I prayed for courage to do much more.

That Monday, I told Alexia what I was about to do, and asked my cousins to go with me on my first “outside trip.” We discussed various options, then decided on lunch at CPK and a movie at the Galleria Mall.

Dad dropped us off, and we went to the main level. It was busy, crowded. Noisy. Right from the start, I sensed some shoppers' shock or discomfort when they saw my face. Others turned away. I'd expected this and stayed strong.

We went to a Barnes & Noble bookstore. There, a small boy, about five years old, asked me, “What's that on your face?” I told him I had scars from a car accident. He said, “Oh,” and went back to his picture book.

More people handled the sight of me better than poorly. I sensed that, although many didn't know exactly how to react, most had good intentions.

We had a great meal without incident, saw a cool movie, and all in all I felt pretty good about being out. I told my dad so in the car. He and my cousins declared they were proud of me. Dad took us to have ice cream sundaes to celebrate my “coming out.”

The next day, I told Alexia all about my trip to the mall, and she congratulated me as if I'd run a marathon. In a sense, I had.

The mall visit whetted my appetite for more. I grew excited about life and socializing. I started going out every day. With each journey, long or short, I grew accustomed to people's reactions, and my own to theirs. I shopped with Mom and even walked to Starbucks on my own. Yes, people stared, and I heard some rude remarks, but being outside, back in the pulse and swing of life, was worth it all.

I began writing a journal about my adventures and read many of my entries to Alexia. At first, I emphasized my positive experiences and skipped the negatives. She
was too smart for this and asked me to tell her everything. I did.

Marta invited me to speak in a Burn Unit lecture about my experiences and how it felt to go from the hospital to the outside world. I spent three weeks writing an outline for a speech I called “Transitions.” That Friday evening, I was more excited than nervous before giving my speech.

Marta introduced me to patients and family members gathered in the meeting room. I was proud to share my story and feelings with this crowd of special people, just as the author I'd admired months ago had done.

Alexia and Jeremy were in the front row, with their parents and my own behind them. I opened up and told them how I felt, and all I'd learned.

The patients and families raved about my “Transitions” talk, so Marta asked me to give a shortened version and lead a support group every first Friday of the month. I was thrilled to accept.

From then on, my parents treated the group, “Transitions,” to pizza after each discussion. We moved the gathering from the big meeting room to the more intimate Burn Café. Of course, I led it as a youth peer and volunteer, not as a professional.

We focused on transitions and making steps toward specific goals. Kids and adults told me how much I was helping them to prepare for life outside. They helped me as much, or more, than I helped them. I was glad to feel useful and trusted.

Little Alexia told me so much about her therapist and how much the sessions helped her, that I decided it was time for me to get some professional help. My parents were thrilled, and Delgado found a woman who specialized in counseling young women. Some had eating disorders; others had phobias or issues similar to mine.

I was nervous before my first meeting with Eva Barzel, but we connected right away and I relaxed, kicking myself for not starting therapy sooner. She helped me put my pieces together and gave me encouragement beyond anything I'd expected. I went twice a week.

Three weeks into our sessions, Alexia was discharged and went home to San Diego. I missed her like crazy, but we talked by phone and e-mailed. We still do.

Within a month, I asked Eva what she thought of my new idea: to apply for admission at UCLA as a psych major. I wanted to help others, just like her. Eva knew this move was perfect for me, and I heeded her guidance. She wrote my recommendation letter, and I was accepted.

Now, I'm in my second year of the program. I love UCLA, but the place where I'm getting my real education is St. Joseph's Burn Unit, my home away from home, a place to help and heal.

No day on the unit is the same. Patients come; patients go. Patients struggle; patients fight. Most of the time, they win. They battle through their inside and outside pain. And then they move on, scarred but strong.

I connect with the souls of even the most disfigured of my friends at St. Joe's. I see the light shining, the weeping hearts, the triumph of recovery.

Scars, skin grafts, patches of purple, flesh raw and peeling, are just part of the shells of the people I know, including myself. While once I hid in anger and self-pity, I now hold my head up high. Today, I see the scars as badges of survival.

The patients at St. Joe's come in every shape, size and color. Race plays no role at all on the unit. In fact, burns literally peel away the layers of color which can pull people apart. Those who suffer, and others who help them, are bound together by grit, determination and love.

Grandpa González was a World War II veteran. Often, he would say, “There's no atheist in a fox-hole.” And, in my experience, there's no racist on a burn unit.

Scars—my own and those of others—play a major role in my life. They teach me to forgive unkindness, endure pain and handle sorrow by helping others. Each night, I bless every one of my scars and know they were granted to me as a special gift. Without them, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

Never in my life, before becoming a part of the Burn Unit, would I have thought that scars—big or small, fat or wide, gnarled or flat—could be wildly, spiritually beautiful. But today, I do.

I'm a child of violence, but I refuse to let it take me down. I was thirteen when my father tried to kill my mom. It happened two years ago, but every second of that night is implanted in my brain.

It was a Thursday and almost time for supper. Mom was at the stove, and I was helping Abuela make the
pastelillos
, meat pies, we made together once a week. Abuela was wearing her everyday red floral housedress and, as always, she smelled like baby powder.

Abuela shaped the dough into plump mounds. Following right behind her around our oval table, I used a green wooden “I Love San Juan” spoon to add meat filling to each of the dough balls.

Mom, in jeans and a Snoopy T-shirt, stirred
arroz y habichuelas
, rice and beans, waiting for her tea kettle to boil. The radio played Spanglish rap with lovey-dovey lyrics.

Mom swayed to the music while stirring the big metal pot. Abuela counted dough balls. I bopped my head to the beat. The tea kettle let out a squeal. Before Mom could turn it off, our heavy wood-and-metal front door banged into the wall with a BLAM as my father kick-stomped his work boots against it.

Pops stormed his way down the hall in a pissed-off march—trouble on the move. A quick glance at his florid, contorted face told me he was smashed. I looked down at the meat, spoon, dough—anything to avoid his bleary red eyes. The stench of booze sickened me. So did my father.

My watch read 5:21 p.m. I carefully composed my face into a false, placid mask, so he wouldn't pick on me.

From the corner of my eye, I saw that my father's gray work shirt was saturated with sweat and plastered to his torso. He was making huffing, puffing sounds, drunker and angrier than I'd ever seen him.

Abuela touched my hand, warning me not to speak. My father was always pissed off about something, but when drunk he was
como un diablo
, like a devil.

The tea kettle squealed, sounding angry like Pops. I didn't dare risk a look at Mom, who was still at the stove.

“¡Puta
!” Pops slurred at her from the doorway.

She flinched, then put her ladle down and shut off the burner to hush the tea kettle. Turning to face him, she wiped her hands on a dishcloth.

I was frozen, feet like lead. Again he sneered,
“Puta,”
whore.

“
Cállate, borracho,”
she snapped, folding her arms across her chest, trying to squelch her fear. But he saw it. He smelled it.

He growled that his coworker, Oscar, had seen her at Café Chino. At the top of his lungs, he demanded, “What were you doing there with Pepe,
puta?”

“Pepe?” Mami spat at him like she tasted something disgusting. Why wouldn't she? Pepe Surnos is a hundred, or at least seventy, an old guy.

Mom hissed, “I asked him to fix the sink you never did,
idiota!”

Papá sneered, “
Seguro,
ask him to fix YOUR plumbing.”

Mom flinched as if he'd slapped her. Then Pops abruptly pushed me aside, grabbed Abuela's meat knife off the table and lunged at Mom with it. She darted sideways so fast, the blade just cut her forearm.

Red spurted everywhere. Too much red.

I moved toward Mom, but Abuela held me back with her right arm and threw a plate at Pops with her left. It hit him on the left side of his head, and down he went.

The knife slid out of his grasp, but he snatched it back. Mindless of blood dripping down his face, he staggered to Mom, trapping her between the fridge and wall. Knife raised, he slurred
“Puta”
again.

Thinking fast, Mom had snatched a cushion from a kitchen chair and held it as a shield. When he slashed at her gut with the blade, all he cut was fabric and foam rubber.

He stared, amazed that Mom was still standing. Seeing what had happened, he twisted around, grabbed my arm, and dragged me over to Mami.

Like a dog, he panted, “Watch me make you a motherless little bitch.”

I balled my right hand up into a fist and punched him hard in the groin.

Clutching himself, he fell to his knees howling. The blade hit our linoleum floor and spun several feet away from Pops. Abuela palmed it. Grunting, Pops rolled himself toward Mom, who had slid down the wall to the floor.

“I'll strangle you,” he hissed, but before he could raise his hand, Abuela hit him smack on the head with an iron skillet. He went down hard, slipping on Mom's blood. Once he'd fallen, he never moved.

I thought he was dead and leaned toward him to check. His shirt moved up and down. The creep was alive, but passed out cold.

I heard somebody moaning and had no idea it was me. Paco and Jazz, two neighbor boys, stormed in. Their mom shouted from the hall, “The cops are coming.” I hoped they'd get there fast.

Abuela tied a striped blue, terry cloth apron around Mom's arm as a tourniquet. I knelt, stroking my mother's hair, whispering, “I love you, Mommy.” She didn't stir.

I cradled Mami, and Abuela slipped her arms around me. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered.

Jazz took mom's pulse and nodded. “She's okay, just in shock.”

His brother grabbed our brown afghan off the sofa and tossed it to me. I wrapped Mami up like a baby.

The bleeding slowed; mom's eyelids flickered; she let out a gasp. Jazz's dad, Valdo, appeared. Sizing things up at a glance, he spat
“¡Cabrón!”
at my father, then crouched down by Mom and me in the corner.

Valdo opened a flask and put it to Mom's mouth, urging, “
Toma.”