and when she’d open her eyes and catch me smiling down on her, she’d close them again and I would drop twigs onto her until she laughed.
2.
When times were real flojo, when the last colored bill flew out Mami’s purse, she packed us off to our relatives. She’d use Wilfredo’s father’s phone and make the calls early in the morning. Lying next to Rafa, I’d listen to her soft unhurried requests and pray for the day that our relatives would tell her to vete pa’l carajo but that never happened in Santo Domingo.
Usually Rafa stayed with our tíos in Ocoa and I went to tía Miranda’s in Boca Chica. Sometimes we both went to Ocoa. Neither Boca Chica nor Ocoa were far but I never wanted to go and it normally took hours of cajoling before I agreed to climb on the autobus.
How long? I asked Mami truculently.
Not long, she promised me, examining the scabs on the back of my shaved head. A week. Two at the most.
How many days is that?
Ten, twenty.
You’ll be fine, Rafa told me, spitting into the gutter.
How do you know? You a brujo?
Yeah, he said, smiling, that’s me.
He didn’t mind going anywhere; he was at that age when all he wanted was to be away from the family, meeting people he had not grown up with.
Everybody needs a vacation, Abuelo explained happily. Enjoy yourself. You’ll be down by the water. And just think about all the food you’ll eat.
I never wanted to be away from the family. Intuitively, I knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent. On the ride to Boca Chica I was always too depressed to notice the ocean, the young boys fishing and selling cocos by the side of the road, the surf exploding into the air like a cloud of shredded silver.
Tía Miranda had a nice block house, with a shingled roof and a tiled floor that her cats had trouble negotiating. She had a set of matching furniture and a television and faucets that worked. All her neighbors were administrators and hombres de negocios and you had to walk three blocks to find any sort of colmado. It was that sort of neighborhood. The ocean was never far away and most of the time I was down by the beach playing with the local kids, turning black in the sun.
Tía wasn’t really related to Mami; she was my madrina, which was why she took me and my brother in every now and then. No money, though. She never loaned money to anyone, even to her drunkard of an ex-husband, and Mami must have known because she never asked. Tía was about fifty and rail-thin and couldn’t put anything in her hair to make it forget itself; her perms never lasted more than a week before the enthusiasm of her kink returned. She had two kids of her own, Yennifer and Bienvenido, but she didn’t dote on them the way she doted on me. Her lips were always on me and during meals she watched me like she was waiting for the poison to take effect.
I bet this isn’t something you’ve eaten lately, she’d say.
I’d shake my head and Yennifer, who was eighteen and bleached her hair, would say, Leave him alone, Mamá.
Tía also had a penchant for uttering cryptic one-liners about my father, usually after she’d downed a couple of shots of Brugal.
He took too much.
If only your mother could have noticed his true nature earlier.
He should see how he has left you.
The weeks couldn’t pass quickly enough. At night I went down by the water to be alone but that wasn’t possible. Not with the tourists making apes out of themselves, and with the tígueres waiting to rob them.
Las Tres Marías, I pointed out to myself in the sky. They were the only stars I knew.
But then one day I’d walk into the house from swimming and Mami and Rafa would be in the living room, holding glasses of sweet lemon-milk.
You’re back, I’d say, trying to hide the excitement in my voice.
I hope he behaved himself, Mami would be saying to Tía. Her hair would be cut, her nails painted; she’d have on the same red dress she wore on every one of her outings.
Rafa
2.
When times were real flojo, when the last colored bill flew out Mami’s purse, she packed us off to our relatives. She’d use Wilfredo’s father’s phone and make the calls early in the morning. Lying next to Rafa, I’d listen to her soft unhurried requests and pray for the day that our relatives would tell her to vete pa’l carajo but that never happened in Santo Domingo.
Usually Rafa stayed with our tíos in Ocoa and I went to tía Miranda’s in Boca Chica. Sometimes we both went to Ocoa. Neither Boca Chica nor Ocoa were far but I never wanted to go and it normally took hours of cajoling before I agreed to climb on the autobus.
How long? I asked Mami truculently.
Not long, she promised me, examining the scabs on the back of my shaved head. A week. Two at the most.
How many days is that?
Ten, twenty.
You’ll be fine, Rafa told me, spitting into the gutter.
How do you know? You a brujo?
Yeah, he said, smiling, that’s me.
He didn’t mind going anywhere; he was at that age when all he wanted was to be away from the family, meeting people he had not grown up with.
Everybody needs a vacation, Abuelo explained happily. Enjoy yourself. You’ll be down by the water. And just think about all the food you’ll eat.
I never wanted to be away from the family. Intuitively, I knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent. On the ride to Boca Chica I was always too depressed to notice the ocean, the young boys fishing and selling cocos by the side of the road, the surf exploding into the air like a cloud of shredded silver.
Tía Miranda had a nice block house, with a shingled roof and a tiled floor that her cats had trouble negotiating. She had a set of matching furniture and a television and faucets that worked. All her neighbors were administrators and hombres de negocios and you had to walk three blocks to find any sort of colmado. It was that sort of neighborhood. The ocean was never far away and most of the time I was down by the beach playing with the local kids, turning black in the sun.
Tía wasn’t really related to Mami; she was my madrina, which was why she took me and my brother in every now and then. No money, though. She never loaned money to anyone, even to her drunkard of an ex-husband, and Mami must have known because she never asked. Tía was about fifty and rail-thin and couldn’t put anything in her hair to make it forget itself; her perms never lasted more than a week before the enthusiasm of her kink returned. She had two kids of her own, Yennifer and Bienvenido, but she didn’t dote on them the way she doted on me. Her lips were always on me and during meals she watched me like she was waiting for the poison to take effect.
I bet this isn’t something you’ve eaten lately, she’d say.
I’d shake my head and Yennifer, who was eighteen and bleached her hair, would say, Leave him alone, Mamá.
Tía also had a penchant for uttering cryptic one-liners about my father, usually after she’d downed a couple of shots of Brugal.
He took too much.
If only your mother could have noticed his true nature earlier.
He should see how he has left you.
The weeks couldn’t pass quickly enough. At night I went down by the water to be alone but that wasn’t possible. Not with the tourists making apes out of themselves, and with the tígueres waiting to rob them.
Las Tres Marías, I pointed out to myself in the sky. They were the only stars I knew.
But then one day I’d walk into the house from swimming and Mami and Rafa would be in the living room, holding glasses of sweet lemon-milk.
You’re back, I’d say, trying to hide the excitement in my voice.
I hope he behaved himself, Mami would be saying to Tía. Her hair would be cut, her nails painted; she’d have on the same red dress she wore on every one of her outings.
Rafa
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