It Chooses You (13 page)

Matilda didn’t know we were meeting at such a pivotal moment, and I didn’t tell her. I just listened, as usual, and tried to feel the reality of her life, living with her husband, brother, son, and tiny puppy. She wore a pretty dress and had the confidence but not the face of a pretty woman. Her husband was regal and a bit dashing, occasionally passing through the living room with a polite nod. We sat on her couch, next to a pile of laundry, and discussed the bears.

Matilda: We collect them. I go to the swap meets, yard sales. But my special collection is over there, the Precious Moments. That’s mine.

Miranda: What do you like about those ones?

Matilda: Well, maybe their eyes.

Miranda: They’re kind of sad-looking. They kind of look like they’re crying.

I wondered if I was projecting. But Matilda nodded in agreement.

Matilda: They’re tender.

Miranda: And do you make decent money from selling them?

Matilda: Oh yeah.

Miranda: What kinds of people buy them?

Matilda: Well, most are American, Japanese... because Hispanics, you know — they don’t spend money on collections.

Miranda: Where are you from originally?

Matilda: Cuba. I’m from Cuba.

Miranda: When did you move to the US?

Matilda: In December 1971. I was fourteen.

Miranda: And what’s been the happiest time in your life so far?

Matilda: When I was living in my country.

Miranda: In Cuba?

Matilda: Yeah.

Matilda showed me around her house. The garage had been converted into a bedroom.
Converted
isn’t really the right word — all of the furnishings of a bedroom had been moved in, but it still had the automatic door that rolled up, and a cement floor. This was the master bedroom, where Matilda and her husband slept.

Her brother and son were in the proper bedrooms. I poked my head into one of these rooms. An elaborate collage of women and babies was taped above a twin bed.

Miranda: Oh, that’s a nice collage.

Matilda: That’s my brother’s. He’s a single man, and he’s a mess.

Miranda: So these are just like —

Matilda: He collects different kinds of actresses, actresses and babies. He’s a single one. Maybe he’s dreaming.

The collage was really the least of it. All over the floor were piles of manila envelopes filled with similar pictures and labeled PICTURES OF JAILS AND YOUNG GIRLS AND BABYS AND PICTURES OF LAPD CARS and INSIDE PICTURES OF LAPD SHERIFFS CARS AND NICE GIRLS AND PICTURES OF BABIES AND ALSO PICTURES OF A PRISON.

In my lexicon of signs and symbols, obsessively organized pictures of Prisons, Babies, and Nice Girls are an indication that something of great consequence is afoot. Someone is doing something unnecessary for reasons that are mysterious to everyone. Matilda’s brother, Domingo, wasn’t home, and Matilda didn’t have much to say about him.

I went home and stared at the pictures of envelopes until my curiosity overwhelmed me. So I called back and made a date with Domingo for a few weeks later. He was waiting on the sidewalk when we drove up — large, gentle, and nervous. The collage on his bedroom wall had changed, but it was still in the “Nice Girls and Babies” genre. It seemed impolite to ask about the items in question before I knew anything about him, so I began with what I knew.

Miranda: Do you remember when you came over from Cuba, or were you too young?

Domingo: I don’t remember nothing from over there. The only thing I do remember is living upstairs. That’s all.

Miranda: How old were you?

Domingo: I was six years old. I came as my sister did also, and my aunt as well, as a Cuban refugee. We didn’t come here illegally — at that time we were allowed to come from Cuba over here, free, without having to run away from Cuba or anything like that. Basically we were here and then a couple years later we became residents and then citizens.

Miranda: What’s a normal day like for you?

Domingo: I get up like about eight or nine in the morning. Get dressed, get a bag that I usually use, and I go to the Taco Bell that’s right here on Carmenita and Telegraph. I get a free soda because I know everybody there and I’m a humble person. I have a good heart. I like to help people, so I have friends there that I met. I called the corporate offices and I told them, you know, how great they are. There’s a young girl that works there — she’s very nice. She’s African American, but she speaks Spanish. If you go there she’s going to give you a smile. I’ve told her and her boss, you know, I think she’s great, and I’m going to keep calling the corporate office to get her promoted. There’s no person that she doesn’t smile around, and, you know, good morning, good afternoon, goodbye when they leave. She goes by the tables and says to everybody, “Is everything okay?”

Miranda: And how long are you there?

Domingo: Usually I’m there like an hour or two, basically. You know, they have air conditioning, so it’s nice in there. And then from there I either go to the library or go to the pharmacy. At the library I go to a computer and try to find some information, some pictures. But those pictures from the regular computers are, unfortunately, only black and white. If you want to get them in color, which sometimes I do, I have to pay a little more. But usually when my friend, the librarian, gives them to me, she does it from her computer, so she gives them to me in color. That’s usually my day’s routine. Oh, also sometimes I like to go to the courthouse and sit down for cases — you know, criminal cases and preliminary hearings, which are similar to trials. I observe the case from the beginning stages of the proceedings all the way until they get sentenced.

Miranda: Tell me about one of the happiest times in your life.

Domingo: Happiest time in my life was, I guess, when I became a citizen. I had to do a lot of studying for it, and I usually have problems in memorizing — like, reading comprehension I have problems with. But I was able to read it, read all the test questions and answers for the test to become a citizen. They test you — a person from the Immigration and Naturalization sits with you and they ask you questions and you have to answer them without looking. So you have to have that in your mind — you have to study before. There were a lot of pages, a lot of pages. I had to do a lot of studying, a lot of things that I studied for they didn’t really ask me about, but I did learn a lot.