should I know?
He sat down on his side of the bed and produced a pack of cigarettes. I watched him go through the elaborate ritual of lighting up—the flip of the thin cigarrillo into his lips and then the spark, a single practiced snap of the thumb.
Where’d you get that lighter?
Mi novia gave it to me.
Tell her to give me one.
Here. He tossed it to me. You can have it if you shut up.
Yeah?
See. He reached to take it. You already lost it.
I shut my mouth and he settled back down on the bed.
Hey, Sinbad, Wilfredo said, his head appearing in our window. What’s going on?
My father wrote us a letter!
Rafa rapped me on the side of my head. This is a family affair, Yunior. Don’t blab it all over the place.
Wilfredo smiled. I ain’t going to tell anybody.
Of course you’re not, Rafa said. Because if you do I’ll chop your fucking head off.
I tried to wait it out. Our room was nothing more than a section of the house that Abuelo had partitioned off with planks of wood. In one corner Mami kept an altar with candles and a cigar in a stone mortar and a glass of water and two toy soldiers we could not touch ever and above the bed hung our mosquito netting, poised to drop on us like a net. I lay back and listened to the rain brushing back and forth across our zinc roof.
Mami served dinner, watched as we ate it, and then ordered us back into our room. I’d never seen her so blank-faced, so stiff, and when I tried to hug her she pushed me away. Back to bed, she said. Back to listening to the rain. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up Rafa was looking at me pensively and it was dark outside and nobody else in the house was awake.
I read the letter, he told me quietly. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his ribs laddering his chest in shadows. Papi says he’s coming.
Really?
Don’t believe it.
Why?
It ain’t the first time he’s made that promise, Yunior.
Oh, I said.
Outside Señora Tejada started singing to herself, badly.
Rafa?
Yeah?
I didn’t know you could read.
I was nine and couldn’t even write my own name.
Yeah, he said quietly. Something I picked up. Now go to bed.
4.
Rafa was right. It wasn’t the first time. Two years after he left, Papi wrote her saying he was coming for us and like an innocent Mami believed him. After being alone for two years she was ready to believe anything. She showed everybody his letter and even spoke to him on the phone. He wasn’t an easy man to reach but on this occasion she got through and he reassured her that yes, he was coming. His word was his bond. He even spoke to us, something that Rafa vaguely remembers, a lot of crap about how much he loved us and that we should take care of Mami.
She prepared a party, even lined up to have a goat there for the slaughtering. She bought me and Rafa new clothes and when he didn’t show she sent everybody home, sold the goat back to its owner and then almost lost her mind. I remember the heaviness of that month, thicker than almost anything. When Abuelo tried to reach our father at the phone numbers he’d left none of the men who’d lived with him knew anything about where he had gone.
It didn’t help matters that me and Rafa kept asking her when we were leaving for the States, when Papi was coming. I am told that I wanted to see his picture almost every day. It’s hard for me to imagine myself this way, crazy about Papi. When she refused to show me the photos I threw myself about like I was on fire. And I screamed. Even as a boy my voice carried farther than a man’s, turned heads on the street.
First Mami tried slapping me quiet but that did little. Then she locked me in my room where my brother told me to cool it but I shook my head and screamed louder. I was inconsolable. I learned to tear my clothes because this was the one thing I had whose destruction hurt my mother. She took all my shirts from my room, left me only with shorts which were hard to damage with bare fingers. I
He sat down on his side of the bed and produced a pack of cigarettes. I watched him go through the elaborate ritual of lighting up—the flip of the thin cigarrillo into his lips and then the spark, a single practiced snap of the thumb.
Where’d you get that lighter?
Mi novia gave it to me.
Tell her to give me one.
Here. He tossed it to me. You can have it if you shut up.
Yeah?
See. He reached to take it. You already lost it.
I shut my mouth and he settled back down on the bed.
Hey, Sinbad, Wilfredo said, his head appearing in our window. What’s going on?
My father wrote us a letter!
Rafa rapped me on the side of my head. This is a family affair, Yunior. Don’t blab it all over the place.
Wilfredo smiled. I ain’t going to tell anybody.
Of course you’re not, Rafa said. Because if you do I’ll chop your fucking head off.
I tried to wait it out. Our room was nothing more than a section of the house that Abuelo had partitioned off with planks of wood. In one corner Mami kept an altar with candles and a cigar in a stone mortar and a glass of water and two toy soldiers we could not touch ever and above the bed hung our mosquito netting, poised to drop on us like a net. I lay back and listened to the rain brushing back and forth across our zinc roof.
Mami served dinner, watched as we ate it, and then ordered us back into our room. I’d never seen her so blank-faced, so stiff, and when I tried to hug her she pushed me away. Back to bed, she said. Back to listening to the rain. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up Rafa was looking at me pensively and it was dark outside and nobody else in the house was awake.
I read the letter, he told me quietly. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his ribs laddering his chest in shadows. Papi says he’s coming.
Really?
Don’t believe it.
Why?
It ain’t the first time he’s made that promise, Yunior.
Oh, I said.
Outside Señora Tejada started singing to herself, badly.
Rafa?
Yeah?
I didn’t know you could read.
I was nine and couldn’t even write my own name.
Yeah, he said quietly. Something I picked up. Now go to bed.
4.
Rafa was right. It wasn’t the first time. Two years after he left, Papi wrote her saying he was coming for us and like an innocent Mami believed him. After being alone for two years she was ready to believe anything. She showed everybody his letter and even spoke to him on the phone. He wasn’t an easy man to reach but on this occasion she got through and he reassured her that yes, he was coming. His word was his bond. He even spoke to us, something that Rafa vaguely remembers, a lot of crap about how much he loved us and that we should take care of Mami.
She prepared a party, even lined up to have a goat there for the slaughtering. She bought me and Rafa new clothes and when he didn’t show she sent everybody home, sold the goat back to its owner and then almost lost her mind. I remember the heaviness of that month, thicker than almost anything. When Abuelo tried to reach our father at the phone numbers he’d left none of the men who’d lived with him knew anything about where he had gone.
It didn’t help matters that me and Rafa kept asking her when we were leaving for the States, when Papi was coming. I am told that I wanted to see his picture almost every day. It’s hard for me to imagine myself this way, crazy about Papi. When she refused to show me the photos I threw myself about like I was on fire. And I screamed. Even as a boy my voice carried farther than a man’s, turned heads on the street.
First Mami tried slapping me quiet but that did little. Then she locked me in my room where my brother told me to cool it but I shook my head and screamed louder. I was inconsolable. I learned to tear my clothes because this was the one thing I had whose destruction hurt my mother. She took all my shirts from my room, left me only with shorts which were hard to damage with bare fingers. I
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