When I Was Puerto Rican (13 page)

“Negi, I think this one is for you.”

I grabbed it and ran to the other end of the room, where Norma was already trying on pink shorts with a matching tee shirt. I stuck my tongue out at Delsa, who sent daggers with her eyes, but only until Mami pulled out a sky-blue dress with ruffles and lace on the collar. Perfect for Delsa.

Tata, Mami’s mother, had sent us a box from New York full of clothes that Mami’s cousins no longer wore. Clothes that were almost new, with no stains or tears or mended seams. Hector, the boy in our family, was the only one to get new pants and shirts, because none of Mami’s New York relatives had boys his age. But for us girls there were shiny patent-leather shoes with the heels hardly worn, saddle shoes that had already been broken in, a red sweater with a bow at the neck and only one button missing, pleated skirts with matching blouses, high heels for Mami, a few nightgowns, and a pair of pajamas that I claimed, because I loved the cowboys and Indians chasing each other across my body, down my arms and legs.

“Our cousins must be rich to give up these things!” Norma said as she tried on a girl’s cotton slip with embroidered flowers across the chest.

“Things like these are not that expensive in New York,” Mami said. “Anyone can afford them.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and unfolded a letter that had been taped to the inside of the box. A crisp ten dollar bill fell out. Hector and Alicia dove for it and wrestled one another to be the first to get it. While they fought, Delsa calmly picked it up and handed it to Mami.

“What does the letter say, Mami?” I asked.

“It says she hopes we like the presents.” She looked up at me, her eyes shiny. “Maybe you could write Tata a letter and tell her we love them.”

“Sure!” I liked writing letters. Especially if they were going far away. I had often written things for Mami, like addresses on envelopes she sent to Tata in New York, or notes for my teachers, which I wrote and she signed.

That night I wrote Tata a letter. It took me a long time, because we were just learning cursive in school, and I had to look up the shapes of some letters on the back of the book Miss Jimenez had given us for penmanship practice. I found it difficult to form the capital E of my first name, with its top and bottom curlicues and uneven-size bulges that faced in what seemed like the wrong direction no matter how many times I wrote it. So I signed it Negi, which I considered to be my real name. When I finished the letter, Mami read it out loud.

“ ‘Dear Tata, We liked the presents you sent us. The dress with the polka dots fits me and Delsa looks pretty in the blue dress. Mami is saving the yellow blouse for after the baby. We love you and thank you for the things you sent. Love, Negi.’ ... You made a mistake....”

“What?”

“You didn’t start with a salutation.”

“Yes I did. See? Dear Tata.”

“I know, but you also have to write, ‘I hope when you receive this letter you are feeling well. We are all well here, thank God.’ You can abbreviate ‘A Dios
Gracias’
by writing ‘A.D.G.’ if you want to.”

“Why does it have to start that way?”

“All letters start that way.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know!” she said, exasperated. “That’s how I learned it. And every letter I get starts that way. If you don’t have a salutation at the beginning, it’s not a real letter.... Besides, it’s rude not to wish the reader good health, and God has to be thanked first thing.... You’d better write it again.”

“I don’t want to write it again.”

“You have to.” She set it down on the table. “Finish it and I can take it to the post office tomorrow.” She walked away.

“I’m not doing this stupid letter over,” I mumbled.

“What was that?” She’d whirled in her tracks and was at me before I could blink my eyes, her left hand gripping my arm.

“Nothing! I didn’t say anything.”

Mami stood over me, crushing my arm, right hand at her side, the fingers trembling. I wanted to grab her fingers, to bite into them, to make them hurt, those fingers that sometimes soothed but so many times splayed against my skin in smacks, or, fisted, knuckled my head in
cocotazos
that echoed inside my brain. She slammed me against the chair. The rungs dug into my bony back.

“Finish it.” I could almost touch the heat she gave off, the faint sweaty smell of her anger. Hot, quiet tears dribbled down my cheeks in a steady flow, like the faucet at the public fountain. The drone inside my head was louder, my ears felt warm, red, too big for my head. Mami stood there watching, as I picked up the pencil, carefully tore a sheet from my notebook, and, in labored script, wrote, “Dear Tata, I hope when you receive this letter ...”

My bonee lie sober de o chan,

My bonee lie sober de si,

My bonee lie sober de o chan,

O breen back my bonee 2 mi, 2 mi ...

“What’s that smell?” The breakfasts at the
centro comunal
had fallen into a pattern of
huevos
Americanos alternating with hot oatmeal, which at least tasted like oatmeal, except it was not as smooth, sweet, and cinnamony as the oatmeal Mami made.

“They must be giving us something new today,” said Juanita Marin.

The steaming pots were gone. Instead, there was a giant urn in the middle of the table and a five-pound tin of peanut butter. One of the servers scooped a dollop of peanut butter into the bottom-heavy glasses, and another filled them with warm milk from the urn.

“Here’s a spoon so you can stir it,” she said as she put the glasses on our trays.

I carried my tray to the usual table Juanita and I shared. Even she, who loved the breakfasts, had a suspicious expression on her face. We faced each other, looked down at the glass full of milk with the brown blob on the bottom, looked at each other again, then at the milk.

“Are you going to taste it?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said, unconvinced. “Are you?”

“Sure.” I stirred the milk, and beige pellets floated up from the bottom, like sand encased in a shimmery oil that skimmed the top and bubbled around the whirlpool I made with my spoon. Juanita stirred hers too. I took a sip from the spoon but couldn’t really taste much except the milk. Juanita spooned a dribble into her mouth. She smiled.

“Yum!” But it wasn’t her usual happy “Yum!” It was more of an “I’m going to pretend to like this in case it’s good” kind of “Yum!”

I wrapped my hands around the glass, lifted it to my lips, and drank. A consoling warmth compensated for the milky smell, and the gritty, salty-sweet taste. The peanut butter, which was supposed to dissolve in the milk, broke off into clumps, like soft pebbles.

I gagged, and the glass fell out of my hand, spilled over my uniform, and crashed to the tile floor where it broke into large chunks that gleamed in the pebbly milk. I threw up what little I’d swallowed, and children around me jumped and receded into a tittery circle of faces with milky mustaches. Mrs. García pushed through the crowd and pulled me away from the mess, while one of the servers dragged a dirty mop across it.

“
Now
look what you’ve done!” she said, as if this were something I did every day of the week to annoy her.

“I couldn’t help it!” I cried. “That milk tastes sour!”

“How can it taste sour?” she yelled as she wiped me down with a rag. “It’s powdered milk. We made it fresh this morning. It can’t get sour.”

I remembered a word Mami used for food that made her gag. “It’s ...
repugnante!”

“I suppose you’d find it less repugnant to go hungry every morning!”

“I’ve never gone hungry!” I screamed. “My Mami and Papi can feed us without your disgusting
gringo
imperialist food!”

The children gasped. Even Ignacio Sepúlveda. Mrs. García’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way. From the back, a loud whisper broke the silence: “Close it, or you’ll trap flies!” My face burned, but I couldn’t stifle a giggle. Mrs. Garcia closed her mouth and forgot about me for a moment.

“Who said that?” Everyone looked innocent, eyes cast down, lips fighting laughter. She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the door. “Get out! And tell your mother I need to speak to her.”

Before she could push me, I pulled my arm from her grip and ran, not sure where I should go because the last thing I wanted to do was go home and tell Mami I’d been disrespectful to an adult. I dragged my feet down the dirt road, leaving my body behind, burying it in dust, while I floated in the tree-tops and watched myself from above, an insignificant creature that looked like a praying mantis in a green and yellow uniform. By the time I got home, I had decided to lie to Mami. If I told her the truth, she was sure to hit me, and I couldn’t bear that humiliation on top of the other. When I came into the yard, my sisters and brother surrounded me, their curiosity comforting, as they pulled on my dirty clothes with remarks that I smelled bad.

“What happened to you?” Mami asked, all eyes. And all of a sudden I felt very sick. “I threw up in the lunchroom,” I said, before falling into a faint that lasted so long that by the time I woke up from it, she had taken off my soiled uniform and washed me down with
alcoholado.

For days I lay sick in bed, throwing up, racked by chills and sweats that left the bedcovers soaked and sent Delsa to sleep with Norma and Hector, swearing that I was peeing on her. If Mrs. García ever talked to her, Mami never said anything. After what seemed like weeks, I went back to school, by which time the elections had been won, the breakfasts ceased, and my classmates had found someone else to tease.

WHY WOMEN REMAIN
JAMONA

La verdad, aunque severa, es amiga verdadera.

Truth, although severe, is a true friend.

O
ne Sunday Mami starched and ironed my white pique dress, packed a few changes of clothes in a small bag, and told me I was to spend a few days with Papi’s mother.

“Your
abuela
is old, so you be a good helper,” Mami told me as she braided my hair.

“How long will I be there?”

“About a week. Papi will take you, and he’ll pick you up next Sunday. Don’t look so worried. You’ll have fun!”

Papi dressed in his best clothes, and while the day was still cool, we set out for Santurce. The
público
made many stops on the way, to pick up and drop off passengers, most of them, like us, dressed for a journey. When we reached Bayamón, the closest city to Macún, we had to change
públicos.
We were early, so we walked to the
plaza del mercado.
It was a square cement building with stalls along the walls and in the middle, forming a labyrinth of aisles dead-ending into kiosks with live chickens in wire cages, shelves of canned food, counters stacked high with
ñames
and
yautías,
coffee beans and breadfruit. Colored lights swung from the rafters where pigeons and warblers perched, forcing vendors to put up awnings against bird droppings.

“Are you hungry?” Papi asked, and I nodded, searching for the food stalls I smelled but could not see. We turned at the corner where a tall stack of rabbit hutches butted against a stack of dove cages.

“I smell
alcapurrias,”
I said as Papi led me past a long table on which a tall gray woman arranged plaster heads of Jesus crowned with thorns, blood dripping into his upturned eyes, in an expression similar to the one Norma took on when she was annoyed. The woman set a Jesus down, her fingers caressing the thorns, and watched us, her long, mournful face horselike, her large eyes almond shaped, the corners pointing down as if weighed by many tears. The space around her felt cold, and I changed sides with Papi as we passed her on our way to the far end of the market, which was light and noisy with birds chirping overhead and a few well-placed speakers through which blared my favorite
chachachá,
“Black Eyes, Cinnamon Skin.”

“What can I get you?” the counterman asked as he wiped in front of us with a rag that spread a thin film of grease on the Formica surface.