When I Was Puerto Rican (33 page)

Mami’s voice mixed and became confused with the voices of other mothers telling their children to pick up their things, stay together, to walk quickly toward the door and not to hold up the line. Edna, Raymond, and I each had bundles to carry, as did Mami, who was loaded with two huge bags filled with produce and spices del
país.
“You can’t find these in New York,” she’d explained.

We filed down a long, drafty tunnel, at the end of which many people waited, smiling, their hands waving and reaching, their voices mingling into a roar of
hello’s
and
how are you’s
and
oh, my god
,
it’s been so long’s.

“Over there,” Mami said, shoving us. On the fringes of the crowd a tall woman with short cropped hair, a black lace dress, and black open-toed shoes leaned against a beam that had been painted yellow. I didn’t recognize her, but she looked at me as if she knew who I was and then loped toward us, arms outstretched. It was my mother’s mother, Tata. Raymond let go of Mami’s hand and ran into Tata’s arms. Mami hugged and kissed her. Edna and I hung back, waiting.

“This is Edna,” Mami said, pushing her forward for a hug and kiss.

“And this must be Negi,” Tata said, pulling me into her embrace. I pressed against her and felt the sharp prongs of the rhinestone brooch on her left shoulder against my face. She held me longer than I expected, wrapped me in the scratchy softness of her black lace dress, the warmth of her powdered skin, the sting of her bittersweet breath, pungent of beer and cigarettes.

Behind her loomed a man shorter than she, but as imposing. He was squarely built, with narrow eyes under heavy eyebrows, a broad nose, and full lips fuzzed with a pencil mustache. No one would have ever called him handsome, but there was about him a gentleness, a sweetness that made me wish he were a relative. He was, in a manner of speaking. Mami introduced him as “Don Julio, Tata’s friend.” We shook hands, his broad, fleshy palm seeming to swallow mine.

“Let’s get our things,” Mami said, pulling us into a knot near her. “You kids, don’t let go of each others’ hands. It’s crazy here tonight.”

We joined the stream of people claiming their baggage. Boxes filled with fruit and vegetables had torn, and their contents had spilled and broken into slippery messes on the floor. Overstuffed suitcases tied with ropes or hastily taped together had given way, and people’s underwear, baby diapers, and ratty shoes pushed through the stressed seams where everyone could see them. People pointed, laughed, and looked to see who would claim these sorry belongings, who could have thought the faded, torn clothes and stained shoes were still good enough for their new life in Brooklyn.

“That’s why I left everything behind,” Mami sniffed. “Who wants to carry that kind of junk around?”

We had a couple of new suitcases and three or four boxes carefully packed, taped at the seams, tied with rope, and labelled with our name and an address in New York that was all numbers. We had brought only our “good” things: Mami’s work clothes and shoes, a few changes of playclothes for me, Edna, and Raymond, some of them made by Mami herself, others bought just before we left. She brought her towels, sheets, and pillowcases, not new, but still “decent looking.”

“I’ll see if I can find a taxi,” Don Julio said. “You wait here.”

We huddled in front of the terminal while Don Julio negotiated with drivers. The first one looked at us, counted the number of packages we carried, asked Don Julio where we were going, then shook his head and drove along the curb toward a man in a business suit with a briefcase who stood there calmly, his right hand in the air as if he were saluting, his fingers wiggling every so often. The second driver gave us a hateful look and said some words that I didn’t understand, but I knew what he meant just the same. Before he drove off, Mami mumbled through her teeth
“Charamanbiche.”
Don Julio said it was illegal for a driver to refuse a fare, but that didn’t stop them from doing it.

Finally, a swarthy man with thick black hair and a flat cap on his head stopped, got out of his taxi, and helped us load our stuff. He didn’t speak Spanish, none of us spoke English, and, it appeared, neither did he. But he gave us a toothy, happy smile, lifted Raymond into Mami’s lap, made sure our fingers and toes were inside the taxi before he closed the doors, then got in with a great deal of huffing and puffing, as his belly didn’t fit between the seat and the steering wheel. Tata and Don Julio sat in the front seat with the driver, who kept asking questions no one understood.

“He wants to know where we’re from,” Mami figured out, and we told him.

“Ah, Porto Reeco, yes, ees hot,” he said. “San Juan?”

“Yes, ” Mami said, the first time I’d ever heard her speak English.

The driver launched into a long speech peppered with familiar words like America and President Kennedy. Mami, Tata, and Don Julio nodded every once in a while, uh-huhed, and laughed whenever the taxi driver did. I wasn’t sure whether he had no idea that we didn’t understand him, or whether he didn’t care.

Rain had slicked the streets into shiny, reflective tunnels lined with skyscrapers whose tops disappeared into the mist. Lampposts shed uneven silver circles of light whose edges faded to gray. An empty trash can chained to a parking meter banged and rolled from side to side, and its lid, also chained, flipped and flapped in the wind like a kite on a short string. The taxi stopped at a red light under an overpass. A train roared by above us, its tiny square windows full of shapes.

“Look at her,” Tata laughed from the front seat, “Negi’s eyes are popping out of her head.”

“That’s because the streets are not paved with gold, like she thought,” Mami teased.

The taxi driver grinned. I pressed my face to the window, which was fogged all around except on the spot I’d rubbed so that I could look out.

It was late. Few windows on the tall buildings flanking us were lit. The stores were shuttered, blocked with crisscrossed grates knotted with chains and enormous padlocks. Empty buses glowed from within with eerie gray light, chugging slowly from one stop to the next, their drivers sleepy and bored.

Mami was wrong. I didn’t expect the streets of New York to be paved with gold, but I did expect them to be bright and cheerful, clean, lively. Instead, they were dark and forbidding, empty, hard.

We stopped in front of a brick building. Here, too, battered trash cans were chained to a black lamppost, only these were filled with garbage, some of which had spilled out and lay scattered in puddles of pulpy hash. The door to the building was painted black, and there was a hole where the knob should have been.

Mami had to wake up Edna and Raymond. Tata picked one up, and Mami the other. Don Julio helped the taxi driver get our stuff.

“This way,” Tata said.

We entered a hallway where a bare dim bulb shed faint blue light against green walls. Tata led us past many doors to the other end of the hall, where she pushed against another black door and led us into a cobblestoned courtyard with a tree in front of another, smaller building.

“Watch the puddles,” Tata said, too late. Cold water seeped into my right shoe, soaking my white cotton socks. We went in another door without a knob, into a smaller hallway with steps leading up to a landing.

Tata pushed the first door on our left with her foot. We entered a small room with a window giving onto the courtyard. As we came in, a tall man got up from a cot near the window and weaved toward us. His long hair was gray. Round hazel eyes bulged from their sockets; the whites were streaked with red and yellow. He hugged Mami and helped her settle Raymond on the cot he’d just left. Tata lay Edna next to Raymond and tucked a blanket around them.

“So this is Negi,” the tall man said.

“This is your uncle Chico, Tata’s brother,” Mami said. “You remember him, don’t you?”

I remembered the name, but not this bony scarecrow with the stale smell of sweat and beer.

“She was just a little kid when I last saw her,” he said, his hands on my shoulders. “How old are you now?”

“Thirteen,” I croaked.

“Thirteen!” He whistled.

Don Julio came in. He took a key from a nail by the door and went out again.

“Give me a hand with this stuff, can you, Chico?”

“Oh, of course, of course.” He shuffled off after Don Julio.

“How about something to eat?” Tata said. “Or a beer?” Mami shook her head. Tata took a Budweiser from the small refrigerator and opened it. She drank from the can.

“Are you hungry?” Mami asked me.

“Yes.”

Tata put her beer down and turned on the hot plate next to the refrigerator.

“Chico made some
asopao.
I’ll make some coffee.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” Mami asked.

“Across the hall.” Tata pointed to the door. Next to it there was a curtained-off area. On her way out, Mami peeked inside. The curtain hid a large bed and clothes on wire hangers lining the wall.

“That’s our bedroom,” Tata said. “Your apartment is upstairs. Two big rooms. And you don’t have to share a bathroom like we do.”

“I’ll go take a look.” Mami stepped out then turned around to find me right behind her. “Negi, you wait right here.”

“But I want to see too.”

“Have something to eat and keep still. You’ll have plenty of time later.”

I leaned against the door and watched Tata.

Even though she was quite tall, Tata was not cramped by the small room. Her hands, with long tapered fingers and wide nails, grasped pots and cooking spoons from shelves above the stove and placed them soundlessly on the glowing hot-plate burner. Her back was wide, straight, and she carried her head as if she had something on it that she couldn’t let fall. Her hair was black streaked with silver, cut short and curled away from her face. Her large brown eyes were outlined with long black lashes under arched brows. She smiled mischievously as she put a bowl of
asopao
on the table opposite the cot and dragged one of the two chairs from its place against the wall.

“Here you are,” she said. “Chico makes good
asopao,
but not as good as mine.”

It was delicious, thick with rice and chunks of chicken, cubed potatoes, green olives, and capers. She tore off a chunk of bread from a long loaf on top of the refrigerator, spread it thick with butter, and put the bread on a napkin in front of me.

“Monin told me you like bread. This is fresh from the bakery down the street.”

It was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, just the way I liked it.

Don Julio and Chico came back, followed by Mami, her eyes bright.

“What a great place! Wait till you see it, Negi. It’s twice the size of this one, with windows in the front and back. And there’s a huge bathtub, and a gas stove with four burners!”

“And your school is only five blocks from here,” Don Julio said. “Just beyond
la marketa.”

“What’s a
marketa?”
I asked. Everyone laughed.

“It’s a big building with stalls where you can buy anything,” Mami said.

“Like the plaza in Bayamón,” Tata added.

“Only much bigger,” Chico said.

“Look at her. She’s excited about it already,” Tata said, and they all stared at me with broad smiles, willing me to give in to their enthusiasm. I ran into Mami’s arms, unable to admit that a part of me was looking forward to the morning, to the newness of our life, and afraid to let the other part show, the part that was scared.

There were angels on the ceiling. Four fat naked cherubs danced in a circle, their hands holding ivy garlands, their round buttocks half covered by a cloth swirling around their legs. Next to me, Mami snored softly. At the foot of the bed, Edna and Raymond slept curled away from each other, their backs against my legs. The bedroom had very high ceilings with braided molding all the way around, ending in a circle surrounded by more braid above the huge window across from the bed. The shade was down, but bright sunlight streaked in at the edges. The cherubs looked down on us, smiling mysteriously, and I wondered how many people they had seen come in and out of this room. Slowly I crawled over Mami, out of bed.