Dominicana, page 6
American chocolate. It’s good.
For me?
I’m not paying for that, Juan says.
It’s on me, you stingy bastard.
Let’s go, Ana, before this guy makes me spend more money.
Alex smiles with his mouth closed so I can’t see any of his teeth.
Once inside our building Juan repeats, I don’t want you to go into La Bodeguita without me. You don’t know Alex. He’s only trouble.
But he gave me free chocolate. He can’t be that bad.
Be careful, Ana. I have eyes everywhere, you understand me?
Yes. I do. I do.
Mamá made us believe she had eyes on the back of her head too. And yet we easily hid from her for hours on one of our almond trees. Yohnny had laid wooden planks across the branches and built a fortress armed with slingshots, a pile of rocks, and pointy wooden spears for the invasion.
The conquistadors are coming, Yohnny said. And we all looked for La Pinta, La Niña, and La Santa María to emerge far in the distance. We waved the ships over. We made piles of treasures ready to trade: coconuts, mangoes, sugar cane, and palms. The sea was thick with fish, the sky so full of birds we couldn’t even see the sun.
What do they bring? Juanita asked.
Shiny glass beads to wear around our necks and bright red cotton scarves, said Betty.
Come, come, Teresa said, let me be your wife, your puta, your servant.
Oh, wait, I see a Marine ship, Lenny said.
I see it too, Yohnny said. Now the Yankees are here.
Get out the beer. Kill a chicken. A goat. Roast some of those sweet potatoes from our garden, said Juanita.
And what do we get? Lenny said.
They will show us their knives and guns and we will hurt ourselves with them.
Our stomachs hurt from laughing. We played until it got dark enough to see the stars and the spaceships. Lenny kept a log of them, date and time. What if one of those ships comes down and snatches one of us?
Do you believe in time travel, Yohnny? I asked.
You crazy, like traveling back to the past and into the future? asked Teresa.
Like why is today today and tomorrow tomorrow? What if tomorrow is today? Or yesterday tomorrow? Who decided the size of a minute or an hour? Why do some minutes feel so long and others so short? I mean, like the stars, how this book said that what we see is actually the past star, not the present star. Like right now, even if we can see them so bright, in their time, at their speed, they could’ve already been exploded. Gone. Poof.
What if right now you are here and somewhere else too? Yohnny said. Like you are Ana but there is another Ana, on another earth. Or in a future earth. And if we’re like the stars, then maybe there is only a past earth, like a past Ana?
You think so? I asked. Could that really happen, you think?
On most nights I try to wait for Juan but fall asleep on the sofa. I plate mangu and slices of ham and leave it over the gas stove, in case he’s hungry. I hear him peel off his pants and fling them over a chair, undo his watch and toss it on the dinner table. He relaxes his fat body against me as if I’m a decorative cushion, smothers me with his smell of cigarettes and whiskey. Slaps my ass in the same way Papá does to get cows moving.
Dinner’s ready, I say, then pop up to a sitting position. Dinner’s ready, will always be ready, until death do us part.
Get me a drink. I’m thirsty.
Where’s the bottle?
He sighs. You don’t know anything, do you?
After cleaning and organizing for weeks, I have tried my best to know where things are, but he keeps moving the bottle.
It’s surely good to have a woman around here. My brothers are pigs.
This makes me happy. When my brothers arrive I plan on bossing them around. I’m a woman with her own house to tend to, her own family to care for.
If I don’t hide the good stuff, Juan blabs on, those pigs will drink it all.
I fetch the bottle, this time hidden in the toilet tank, and pull a glass from the cabinets. My hand shakes while I pour the whiskey. I want to do everything right, for him to be proud, to be without regrets.
Are you sure you don’t want to eat? I ask.
It’s two in the goddamn morning. Get over here. Let me look at you, he says, and stares long and hard at me. Usually he gives me the I-want-to-stick-it-in-you look, and I close my eyes and just let him stick it in. But today he has a new look, one I haven’t seen before.
You inspire me. You know that?
Me? What do you mean? The happiness must’ve shown all over my face. No one has ever said such a thing to me.
Me and my brothers been talking. We’re gonna buy a Buick. Been eyeing it for a while, the one in the showroom downstairs. The Jews started a taxi business for their people, and I’m thinking if we get in on it early we can start with one car, then build the business, you know?
But don’t you all already have a car?
We can’t put that old car to work. We need a designated taxi car, a nice car, so I can drive people around in style, even you.
I don’t need you to make a fuss over me.
Of course you do. You’re my wife, my princess.
Really?
I thought of myself more as the flat-chested sister who had to do most of the chores.
And you, Princess Ana, are going to be our operator for the taxi business.
What do you mean ‘operator’?
People’ll call and tell you where they need to be picked up and we’ll go get them. The Ruiz Taxi service will be run by Dominicans for Dominicans.
Juan’s gruff voice cracks from exhaustion, from smoking. A spoonful of honey will fix it.
Juan, you’re crazy. Me asking people, What city, please? Name, please? One moment, please.
His eyes light up.
You’ll also learn to drive.
Could I really learn to drive?
And you can buy me a new coat with fur around the collar like the movie stars, I blurt out, and spin around swishing my flannel robe, the fabric rubbing together, sparking.
Yes, mi pajarita, you can have a new coat too.
Forgetting myself, I fling my arms around his neck and kiss him on the cheek.
So you love me? he asks.
My throat has to unlock. What do I know about loving a man?
Yes, I do, I say in a voice that sounds as if in between radio stations.
Nobody’s gonna take care of you the way I take care of you. You know that?
Yes, Juan, I know.
Pretending, pretending. If I pretend enough maybe it’ll feel true.
Both of us gonna have to make big sacrifices, to build us a house back home. Can I count on you?
Yes. Of course.
Juan wraps his arms around my head. If I turn it, he can break my neck like the poor chicken I put out of its misery over a month ago. I hold my body still. He props his head on his arms. I sink deeper into the plastic-covered sofa, his heaviness on top of me. He snores, soft then hard, an engine that needs fixing. No sex tonight. What a relief.
I listen to the cars honk outside, the hospital sirens wailing. A cold draft slides across my feet.
After he falls deep into sleep, I push him off just enough to slip from under him, to clear the plate on the stove. To turn off the lights. To make sure the doors are locked.
I’m a princess who’s gonna drive a brand-new car. Ha!
César and Juan come in and out of the apartment to eat and shower. César often arrives rumpled, his hair shooting in all directions, with bags under his eyes.
I saw an elephant walk down the street, he says.
Don’t tell me.
That beast woke everyone up. Stopped all the traffic. His shit the size of my head.
You’re messing with me?
Elephants fall in love forever. Did you know that? So you can’t look them in the eyes or else.
Are you in love again?
César sits at the dining table with his sewing bag, the measuring tape around his neck. It’s late, but he has to mend his shirt, the one he plans to wear after work tomorrow to meet some woman and go dancing.
Maybe this woman is making you see things, I say.
All women make me crazy, even you.
Don’t stir me in that pot.
He sticks his tongue out at me and then threads a needle. So quick. He places the ripped dress shirt under the lamplight, takes his shot of coffee, and begins to weave in and out, making the tiniest stitches, first vertically, then horizontally in line with the cotton fabric. While he works I stand looking over his shoulder, my eyes squinting to see better the tiny movements. When he is done he makes me admire his work. It would take a magnifying glass to see where it’s ripped.
You want to learn how to sew and not leave a trace?
Just threading a needle takes me forever. Mamá had always been disappointed in my hands.
Look at me. You need to hold the thread between the two fingertips. Go on, try it. Take the needle to the thread. Not the other way around. That’s the secret. Always yield to the needle because it’s inflexible. It’s the secret with people too. If a person seems inflexible, yield, then slip in sideways and get what you want.
You sound like my mother!
He winks. Pulls out a pair of pants from the suit closet. Has me try it on. The waist dances low on my hips. He kneels to the floor and grabs my bare feet. The warmth of his hands surprises me.
Rule number one, always measure with shoes on.
I slip my shoes on. He pulls at the fabric, his hands patting down my leg.
This is how you pin.
His hands skim around my ankle like a critter.
Measure around the hem so it is even. Iron it before sewing. People skip the ironing, but it’s a mistake.
I will teach you everything I know because in New York everyone needs a side hustle to survive. You can’t just wait until someone finds you a job, you gotta have skills and get that cash.
Money, money, money. Is that all you brothers think about, César?
Don’t you?
I shouldn’t have opened the door. I was warned. But whenever the doorbell rings, I assume it’s Juan. Except this time it’s an old man with bushy eyebrows and missing fingers who wears war clothes and smells like an ashtray.
I’m your neighbor, he says. Mr. O’Brien.
Sorry, no inglis.
He shoves mail in my hand. I make out the name Juan Ruiz on top of an envelope.
Sorry, I say again, and take the mail and close the door. My heart bangs against my chest. Unsure whether I was right to take it, I place the mail on the kitchen table.
It’s a long day waiting for Juan. I check the phone to make sure it’s working. I anticipate Mamá’s call. It’s not easy for her to get to the phone in the center of town.
When Juan finally comes home I show him the letters. I tell him about Mr. O’Brien’s visit in a childish tone that makes me upset at myself. I don’t want to be scared of Juan like I am of my parents. But I am. When Mamá gets mad, her rage is loaded with fear and worry for me. When Juan gets mad, it’s as if my dependence on him fuels the transformation in his body from concern, to anger, to fury. The veins in his neck swell, his eyes bulge, and he yells, You want trouble for us?
His voice always rips through me.
No, sir.
Juan slaps me across the face so hard, blood pools between my teeth.
That’s so you remember, when I say not to do something, you have to respect it. You hear me?
I look at my feet. I hold back my tears, slump my shoulders, and retreat just enough to show deference. I have learned a lot from growing up with animals.
After he hits me, Juan brings home a TV and installs it in the living room.
Happy? he says.
Oh my god, yes, I say.
Playing on the screen that day, in black and white:
Who
Loves
Ana?
Husband enters the apartment, slams his coat on the chair, crosses arms and yells for his wife. Bright-faced and excited, wife goes to hug husband. But when wife sees how mad husband is, she tries to escape. Husband signals for her to come back. Husband is quite handsome in his suit and slicked-back hair. And sometimes when husband gets mad husband speaks in Spanish.
I wait for those Spanish moments with bated breath.
Husband takes out a piece of paper from his pocket and waves piece of paper in wife’s face. Wife cringes. Piece of paper is important. Wife’s in trouble. Just like the time wife tried to sneak onto husband’s show, where husband sings and plays bongos. Babaluuuu!
Husband tries to reason with wife but, but, but…husband yells and wife jumps back. Wife smiles and smiles. Husband is so loud the neighbors come to look but decide to let wife face her fate. Wife begs neighbors to stay. Wife hides behind her neighbors. Husband then yells at the neighbors. Wife and neighbors are all trapped now. [Laugh track]
Husband is now in kitchen wearing apron, whistling, happy. Surprise! Husband prepared food for wife. Wife reads newspaper as husband pops bread out of the toaster. Wife really likes food husband has prepared. Husband and wife make a big mess. Husband buys wife a box of candy. Wife faints. [Laugh track]
Have you heard from Ana? This is what Gabriel asks every time he sees Yohnny, Juanita, Betty, or Teresa. They lie on the planks high in the tree and gaze up at the sky in the back of the house, where Mamá won’t come looking. On one side, the dark sky threatens rain; on the other, the sun beams through the wispy clouds, and the egrets fly low above them. Yohnny’s supposed to be cutting back the grass to make a neat path to the house. Teresa places on the ground a pile of whites to be washed that have soaked all day in bleach.
What do you think Ana’s doing right now? Yohnny asks Teresa.
She’s not thinking about us, that’s for sure. Teresa blocks the sun with her hand. Ana’s probably having a fancy meal right now, eating a big hunk of meat she doesn’t have to share with anybody.
Yohnny snorts. I bet Juan eats the meat and lets Ana suck on the bones. Then Yohnny simulates steering a wheel. What if Juan buys Ana a car, so when we get there she can drive us around?
Drive? Gabriel says. Have you seen her on a bike?
Yohnny! Teresa! Lenny! Mamá yells out. She begrudges how Gabriel lingers, another mouth to feed.
Shhh, Lenny says, creeping below them, holding his knife, aiming at a makeshift bull’s-eye nearby.
If you cut me with that, Teresa growls, I’ll tie you up on this tree by your feet.
Why you gotta be like that? Yohnny tells her. Chill the fuck out.
Lenny aims, but the knife falls on his foot. Ay, ay!
Yohnny laughs. Next time, it will be your eye, you snot.
Lenny crouches, nursing his wound.
You go deal with her, Teresa says to Yohnny because she has had enough of Mamá, who has doubled her chores after I left. The unrest in the capital has Mamá and Papá on high alert, so they fight all the time. There have been rumors that guerillas are hiding in the valleys and mountains like they did in Cuba. If they put a gun to Papá’s head he’ll have to choose between conspiring with the rebels or snitching on them.
Don’t you want to go to New York too? Yohnny asks.
What, you think that you gonna go there and become some big-shot baseball player like Manny Mota? You don’t even own a bat.
A guy can dream.
Teresa grabs a pigeon with both hands and blows into its ear: Ana, come home already. She lets it loose, pointing its beak in my direction.
The pigeons appear all at once. I feed them even if Juan tells me not to.
They’re the rats of the sky, Ana. They shit on the fire escape and feed on garbage. They’re not like the pigeons back home that we plump up and cook on special occasions.
He says if we eat them they’ll make us sick. Maybe even kill us. I have five of them that visit me regularly. I name them Yohnny, Juanita, Betty, Teresa, and Lenny. Sometimes they invite friends. If they don’t eat the rice I put out for them, I stash away the plates before Juan arrives. Pigeon Betty likes to look at her reflection in the window. She bops her head and turns from side to side. Pigeons Yohnny and Juanita are inseparable. Sometimes Pigeon Yohnny pushes the others out of the way so Juanita has the plate all to herself. Pigeon Lenny is the smallest. And Pigeon Teresa, well, she takes up a lot of space, puffing her chest and poking her neck out as if she has a rooster complex. Sometimes I send the flock off to check in on my family and they disappear for days. When the pigeons return, letters appear in the mail. So many requests.
Teresa wants five dollars so she can take hair-cutting class.
The situation in Dominican Republic is out of control. Everyone’s restless. None of the young men will be spared.
Can you send for Yohnny? Quick, before he gets himself killed.
Even Gabriel is walking around with a gun longer than his leg.
I caress the name Gabriel in Teresa’s letter. The ink, the closest I am to the air he breathes.
Mamá asks:
Did you get your papers?
Are you in school?
Are you keeping Juan happy?
Can you send us money to fix A, to fix B, to fix C…?
Poor Teresa works in a hole on the worst street of Macorís, where they steal the underwear off you if you walk too slow. She’s skinny like you’ve never seen her because she can’t recognize a cripple when he’s sitting down.
And El Guardia spends too much time in the capital, talking about the Yankees coming to save us and then selling himself to the rebels. He’s coming back in a coffin.
But Lenny, thank god for Lenny, who is going to school every day. But the ceiling’s about to fall on us.
Send money. Send money. Send money.
In between the lines:
We miss you.
We miss you.
We miss you.
Nothing is the same without you here.
We live in a good neighborhood, but bad things happen. Before I heard the gunshots I noticed the army of bow-tie-wearing black men enter the Audubon Ballroom, their families trailing behind them. Usually the cops hover nearby, but today there are none around. Not a single one. Maybe bigger trouble elsewhere?
For me?
I’m not paying for that, Juan says.
It’s on me, you stingy bastard.
Let’s go, Ana, before this guy makes me spend more money.
Alex smiles with his mouth closed so I can’t see any of his teeth.
Once inside our building Juan repeats, I don’t want you to go into La Bodeguita without me. You don’t know Alex. He’s only trouble.
But he gave me free chocolate. He can’t be that bad.
Be careful, Ana. I have eyes everywhere, you understand me?
Yes. I do. I do.
Mamá made us believe she had eyes on the back of her head too. And yet we easily hid from her for hours on one of our almond trees. Yohnny had laid wooden planks across the branches and built a fortress armed with slingshots, a pile of rocks, and pointy wooden spears for the invasion.
The conquistadors are coming, Yohnny said. And we all looked for La Pinta, La Niña, and La Santa María to emerge far in the distance. We waved the ships over. We made piles of treasures ready to trade: coconuts, mangoes, sugar cane, and palms. The sea was thick with fish, the sky so full of birds we couldn’t even see the sun.
What do they bring? Juanita asked.
Shiny glass beads to wear around our necks and bright red cotton scarves, said Betty.
Come, come, Teresa said, let me be your wife, your puta, your servant.
Oh, wait, I see a Marine ship, Lenny said.
I see it too, Yohnny said. Now the Yankees are here.
Get out the beer. Kill a chicken. A goat. Roast some of those sweet potatoes from our garden, said Juanita.
And what do we get? Lenny said.
They will show us their knives and guns and we will hurt ourselves with them.
Our stomachs hurt from laughing. We played until it got dark enough to see the stars and the spaceships. Lenny kept a log of them, date and time. What if one of those ships comes down and snatches one of us?
Do you believe in time travel, Yohnny? I asked.
You crazy, like traveling back to the past and into the future? asked Teresa.
Like why is today today and tomorrow tomorrow? What if tomorrow is today? Or yesterday tomorrow? Who decided the size of a minute or an hour? Why do some minutes feel so long and others so short? I mean, like the stars, how this book said that what we see is actually the past star, not the present star. Like right now, even if we can see them so bright, in their time, at their speed, they could’ve already been exploded. Gone. Poof.
What if right now you are here and somewhere else too? Yohnny said. Like you are Ana but there is another Ana, on another earth. Or in a future earth. And if we’re like the stars, then maybe there is only a past earth, like a past Ana?
You think so? I asked. Could that really happen, you think?
On most nights I try to wait for Juan but fall asleep on the sofa. I plate mangu and slices of ham and leave it over the gas stove, in case he’s hungry. I hear him peel off his pants and fling them over a chair, undo his watch and toss it on the dinner table. He relaxes his fat body against me as if I’m a decorative cushion, smothers me with his smell of cigarettes and whiskey. Slaps my ass in the same way Papá does to get cows moving.
Dinner’s ready, I say, then pop up to a sitting position. Dinner’s ready, will always be ready, until death do us part.
Get me a drink. I’m thirsty.
Where’s the bottle?
He sighs. You don’t know anything, do you?
After cleaning and organizing for weeks, I have tried my best to know where things are, but he keeps moving the bottle.
It’s surely good to have a woman around here. My brothers are pigs.
This makes me happy. When my brothers arrive I plan on bossing them around. I’m a woman with her own house to tend to, her own family to care for.
If I don’t hide the good stuff, Juan blabs on, those pigs will drink it all.
I fetch the bottle, this time hidden in the toilet tank, and pull a glass from the cabinets. My hand shakes while I pour the whiskey. I want to do everything right, for him to be proud, to be without regrets.
Are you sure you don’t want to eat? I ask.
It’s two in the goddamn morning. Get over here. Let me look at you, he says, and stares long and hard at me. Usually he gives me the I-want-to-stick-it-in-you look, and I close my eyes and just let him stick it in. But today he has a new look, one I haven’t seen before.
You inspire me. You know that?
Me? What do you mean? The happiness must’ve shown all over my face. No one has ever said such a thing to me.
Me and my brothers been talking. We’re gonna buy a Buick. Been eyeing it for a while, the one in the showroom downstairs. The Jews started a taxi business for their people, and I’m thinking if we get in on it early we can start with one car, then build the business, you know?
But don’t you all already have a car?
We can’t put that old car to work. We need a designated taxi car, a nice car, so I can drive people around in style, even you.
I don’t need you to make a fuss over me.
Of course you do. You’re my wife, my princess.
Really?
I thought of myself more as the flat-chested sister who had to do most of the chores.
And you, Princess Ana, are going to be our operator for the taxi business.
What do you mean ‘operator’?
People’ll call and tell you where they need to be picked up and we’ll go get them. The Ruiz Taxi service will be run by Dominicans for Dominicans.
Juan’s gruff voice cracks from exhaustion, from smoking. A spoonful of honey will fix it.
Juan, you’re crazy. Me asking people, What city, please? Name, please? One moment, please.
His eyes light up.
You’ll also learn to drive.
Could I really learn to drive?
And you can buy me a new coat with fur around the collar like the movie stars, I blurt out, and spin around swishing my flannel robe, the fabric rubbing together, sparking.
Yes, mi pajarita, you can have a new coat too.
Forgetting myself, I fling my arms around his neck and kiss him on the cheek.
So you love me? he asks.
My throat has to unlock. What do I know about loving a man?
Yes, I do, I say in a voice that sounds as if in between radio stations.
Nobody’s gonna take care of you the way I take care of you. You know that?
Yes, Juan, I know.
Pretending, pretending. If I pretend enough maybe it’ll feel true.
Both of us gonna have to make big sacrifices, to build us a house back home. Can I count on you?
Yes. Of course.
Juan wraps his arms around my head. If I turn it, he can break my neck like the poor chicken I put out of its misery over a month ago. I hold my body still. He props his head on his arms. I sink deeper into the plastic-covered sofa, his heaviness on top of me. He snores, soft then hard, an engine that needs fixing. No sex tonight. What a relief.
I listen to the cars honk outside, the hospital sirens wailing. A cold draft slides across my feet.
After he falls deep into sleep, I push him off just enough to slip from under him, to clear the plate on the stove. To turn off the lights. To make sure the doors are locked.
I’m a princess who’s gonna drive a brand-new car. Ha!
César and Juan come in and out of the apartment to eat and shower. César often arrives rumpled, his hair shooting in all directions, with bags under his eyes.
I saw an elephant walk down the street, he says.
Don’t tell me.
That beast woke everyone up. Stopped all the traffic. His shit the size of my head.
You’re messing with me?
Elephants fall in love forever. Did you know that? So you can’t look them in the eyes or else.
Are you in love again?
César sits at the dining table with his sewing bag, the measuring tape around his neck. It’s late, but he has to mend his shirt, the one he plans to wear after work tomorrow to meet some woman and go dancing.
Maybe this woman is making you see things, I say.
All women make me crazy, even you.
Don’t stir me in that pot.
He sticks his tongue out at me and then threads a needle. So quick. He places the ripped dress shirt under the lamplight, takes his shot of coffee, and begins to weave in and out, making the tiniest stitches, first vertically, then horizontally in line with the cotton fabric. While he works I stand looking over his shoulder, my eyes squinting to see better the tiny movements. When he is done he makes me admire his work. It would take a magnifying glass to see where it’s ripped.
You want to learn how to sew and not leave a trace?
Just threading a needle takes me forever. Mamá had always been disappointed in my hands.
Look at me. You need to hold the thread between the two fingertips. Go on, try it. Take the needle to the thread. Not the other way around. That’s the secret. Always yield to the needle because it’s inflexible. It’s the secret with people too. If a person seems inflexible, yield, then slip in sideways and get what you want.
You sound like my mother!
He winks. Pulls out a pair of pants from the suit closet. Has me try it on. The waist dances low on my hips. He kneels to the floor and grabs my bare feet. The warmth of his hands surprises me.
Rule number one, always measure with shoes on.
I slip my shoes on. He pulls at the fabric, his hands patting down my leg.
This is how you pin.
His hands skim around my ankle like a critter.
Measure around the hem so it is even. Iron it before sewing. People skip the ironing, but it’s a mistake.
I will teach you everything I know because in New York everyone needs a side hustle to survive. You can’t just wait until someone finds you a job, you gotta have skills and get that cash.
Money, money, money. Is that all you brothers think about, César?
Don’t you?
I shouldn’t have opened the door. I was warned. But whenever the doorbell rings, I assume it’s Juan. Except this time it’s an old man with bushy eyebrows and missing fingers who wears war clothes and smells like an ashtray.
I’m your neighbor, he says. Mr. O’Brien.
Sorry, no inglis.
He shoves mail in my hand. I make out the name Juan Ruiz on top of an envelope.
Sorry, I say again, and take the mail and close the door. My heart bangs against my chest. Unsure whether I was right to take it, I place the mail on the kitchen table.
It’s a long day waiting for Juan. I check the phone to make sure it’s working. I anticipate Mamá’s call. It’s not easy for her to get to the phone in the center of town.
When Juan finally comes home I show him the letters. I tell him about Mr. O’Brien’s visit in a childish tone that makes me upset at myself. I don’t want to be scared of Juan like I am of my parents. But I am. When Mamá gets mad, her rage is loaded with fear and worry for me. When Juan gets mad, it’s as if my dependence on him fuels the transformation in his body from concern, to anger, to fury. The veins in his neck swell, his eyes bulge, and he yells, You want trouble for us?
His voice always rips through me.
No, sir.
Juan slaps me across the face so hard, blood pools between my teeth.
That’s so you remember, when I say not to do something, you have to respect it. You hear me?
I look at my feet. I hold back my tears, slump my shoulders, and retreat just enough to show deference. I have learned a lot from growing up with animals.
After he hits me, Juan brings home a TV and installs it in the living room.
Happy? he says.
Oh my god, yes, I say.
Playing on the screen that day, in black and white:
Who
Loves
Ana?
Husband enters the apartment, slams his coat on the chair, crosses arms and yells for his wife. Bright-faced and excited, wife goes to hug husband. But when wife sees how mad husband is, she tries to escape. Husband signals for her to come back. Husband is quite handsome in his suit and slicked-back hair. And sometimes when husband gets mad husband speaks in Spanish.
I wait for those Spanish moments with bated breath.
Husband takes out a piece of paper from his pocket and waves piece of paper in wife’s face. Wife cringes. Piece of paper is important. Wife’s in trouble. Just like the time wife tried to sneak onto husband’s show, where husband sings and plays bongos. Babaluuuu!
Husband tries to reason with wife but, but, but…husband yells and wife jumps back. Wife smiles and smiles. Husband is so loud the neighbors come to look but decide to let wife face her fate. Wife begs neighbors to stay. Wife hides behind her neighbors. Husband then yells at the neighbors. Wife and neighbors are all trapped now. [Laugh track]
Husband is now in kitchen wearing apron, whistling, happy. Surprise! Husband prepared food for wife. Wife reads newspaper as husband pops bread out of the toaster. Wife really likes food husband has prepared. Husband and wife make a big mess. Husband buys wife a box of candy. Wife faints. [Laugh track]
Have you heard from Ana? This is what Gabriel asks every time he sees Yohnny, Juanita, Betty, or Teresa. They lie on the planks high in the tree and gaze up at the sky in the back of the house, where Mamá won’t come looking. On one side, the dark sky threatens rain; on the other, the sun beams through the wispy clouds, and the egrets fly low above them. Yohnny’s supposed to be cutting back the grass to make a neat path to the house. Teresa places on the ground a pile of whites to be washed that have soaked all day in bleach.
What do you think Ana’s doing right now? Yohnny asks Teresa.
She’s not thinking about us, that’s for sure. Teresa blocks the sun with her hand. Ana’s probably having a fancy meal right now, eating a big hunk of meat she doesn’t have to share with anybody.
Yohnny snorts. I bet Juan eats the meat and lets Ana suck on the bones. Then Yohnny simulates steering a wheel. What if Juan buys Ana a car, so when we get there she can drive us around?
Drive? Gabriel says. Have you seen her on a bike?
Yohnny! Teresa! Lenny! Mamá yells out. She begrudges how Gabriel lingers, another mouth to feed.
Shhh, Lenny says, creeping below them, holding his knife, aiming at a makeshift bull’s-eye nearby.
If you cut me with that, Teresa growls, I’ll tie you up on this tree by your feet.
Why you gotta be like that? Yohnny tells her. Chill the fuck out.
Lenny aims, but the knife falls on his foot. Ay, ay!
Yohnny laughs. Next time, it will be your eye, you snot.
Lenny crouches, nursing his wound.
You go deal with her, Teresa says to Yohnny because she has had enough of Mamá, who has doubled her chores after I left. The unrest in the capital has Mamá and Papá on high alert, so they fight all the time. There have been rumors that guerillas are hiding in the valleys and mountains like they did in Cuba. If they put a gun to Papá’s head he’ll have to choose between conspiring with the rebels or snitching on them.
Don’t you want to go to New York too? Yohnny asks.
What, you think that you gonna go there and become some big-shot baseball player like Manny Mota? You don’t even own a bat.
A guy can dream.
Teresa grabs a pigeon with both hands and blows into its ear: Ana, come home already. She lets it loose, pointing its beak in my direction.
The pigeons appear all at once. I feed them even if Juan tells me not to.
They’re the rats of the sky, Ana. They shit on the fire escape and feed on garbage. They’re not like the pigeons back home that we plump up and cook on special occasions.
He says if we eat them they’ll make us sick. Maybe even kill us. I have five of them that visit me regularly. I name them Yohnny, Juanita, Betty, Teresa, and Lenny. Sometimes they invite friends. If they don’t eat the rice I put out for them, I stash away the plates before Juan arrives. Pigeon Betty likes to look at her reflection in the window. She bops her head and turns from side to side. Pigeons Yohnny and Juanita are inseparable. Sometimes Pigeon Yohnny pushes the others out of the way so Juanita has the plate all to herself. Pigeon Lenny is the smallest. And Pigeon Teresa, well, she takes up a lot of space, puffing her chest and poking her neck out as if she has a rooster complex. Sometimes I send the flock off to check in on my family and they disappear for days. When the pigeons return, letters appear in the mail. So many requests.
Teresa wants five dollars so she can take hair-cutting class.
The situation in Dominican Republic is out of control. Everyone’s restless. None of the young men will be spared.
Can you send for Yohnny? Quick, before he gets himself killed.
Even Gabriel is walking around with a gun longer than his leg.
I caress the name Gabriel in Teresa’s letter. The ink, the closest I am to the air he breathes.
Mamá asks:
Did you get your papers?
Are you in school?
Are you keeping Juan happy?
Can you send us money to fix A, to fix B, to fix C…?
Poor Teresa works in a hole on the worst street of Macorís, where they steal the underwear off you if you walk too slow. She’s skinny like you’ve never seen her because she can’t recognize a cripple when he’s sitting down.
And El Guardia spends too much time in the capital, talking about the Yankees coming to save us and then selling himself to the rebels. He’s coming back in a coffin.
But Lenny, thank god for Lenny, who is going to school every day. But the ceiling’s about to fall on us.
Send money. Send money. Send money.
In between the lines:
We miss you.
We miss you.
We miss you.
Nothing is the same without you here.
We live in a good neighborhood, but bad things happen. Before I heard the gunshots I noticed the army of bow-tie-wearing black men enter the Audubon Ballroom, their families trailing behind them. Usually the cops hover nearby, but today there are none around. Not a single one. Maybe bigger trouble elsewhere?
