new Rosita—so much more beautiful than the one I had always been….
Backstage may have been tacky, even sordid, but the stage was elevated by a one-foot riser and an immeasurable distance ofemotional height. From the instant my foot touched that stage and I began to move to the music and spin around with Paco, I knew I had landed: The spotlight warmed me, and I felt the admiration from the audience (or imagined that I did). I basked under the lights and in an unfamiliar sensation: pure joy. There was no stage fright—I was dancing, doing what I loved.
I shivered with delight at the musical flourish and the nightclub owner’s introduction: “ Damas y Caballeros, ahora dirigida del gran Paco Cansino, aquí: Rosita Alverio!”
It is just as well I couldn’t see past the lights—the “audience” was probably a roomful of inebriated men and my beaming mother. And they all applauded. I stood for my first bow, aglow, radiant in the spotlight I wished to remain in forever. Who needed school? This was what I wanted to do—forever and ever!
PAPO
M eanwhile, my mother searched for love—clad in home-sewn dresses tight against her curves, displaying her ample cleavage—looking for a new husband who could “protect” us. She found the first of the next four “husband protectors” quite soon.
I remember the addition of a larger bed, and the earlier and earlier extinguishing of lights. And my mami’s new, strange ceremonies with love potions and candles. I was sent on love potion runs to the botanica, where a cronelike creature lurked in the shadows, her gnarled vegetable roots hanging overhead, twisted, tuberous, and hairy.
This woman had powers and supplies to implement them. I was very frightened of her, and even in the dark of her shop, what I saw scared me—her glass eye and mustache—and I recoiled at thestrange, sour stink she emanated. I had to breathe through my mouth; the atmosphere in her shop was so foul. The witch woman muttered and frowned as she sorted through her collection of dead snakes and glass jars filled with suspicious-looking organs and objects, and filled a bag for my mother. I don’t know what I would have done if my mother had sent me on a snake run. As it was, the product I had to carry home was strange enough—one bag contained five horseflies, which I dutifully carried back to my mother.
Mami muttered an incantation and crushed the huge black flies into some coffee grounds. The next thing I knew, she had a gentleman caller who, unsuspecting, sipped the potion/coffee. We both watched, in suspense, to see whether this chubby mustached man would succumb—to love or worse. But all he did was leave and never come back. Soon there were other men, other cups of coffee, and soon my mami, Rosa Marcano, would marry again.
How old was I when my mother remarried? I think perhaps six years old. She found her “protector” quite soon. I don’t remember when I first saw Enrique, but I do remember my mother’s big German woman friend who worked with her in the factories, and who was always offering to “fix her up,” and I have a sense she was somehow responsible for Enrique coming into our lives. There was always talk of men when Marga would appear, brimming with cleavage and sensuous energy. Marga was in love with her own breasts. It was not difficult to imagine carnal acts when she sat down in my mother’s kitchen chair and raised her sweater to reveal her modest but perfectly round breasts, which featured small pink nipples. “Aren’t they marvelous?”
Yes, they were. I had never seen pink nipples before, and Iwas transfixed. All the nipples I had previously seen were Puerto Rican nipples, which were brown. I studied my own nascent breasts and not yet extroverted nipples and felt sure they would be…brown. Which made Marga’s tiny pink rosebuds even more alluring.
Marga Linekin was a magnet for men, and I sensed that potential mates for my mother were drawn into her orbit, then
Backstage may have been tacky, even sordid, but the stage was elevated by a one-foot riser and an immeasurable distance ofemotional height. From the instant my foot touched that stage and I began to move to the music and spin around with Paco, I knew I had landed: The spotlight warmed me, and I felt the admiration from the audience (or imagined that I did). I basked under the lights and in an unfamiliar sensation: pure joy. There was no stage fright—I was dancing, doing what I loved.
I shivered with delight at the musical flourish and the nightclub owner’s introduction: “ Damas y Caballeros, ahora dirigida del gran Paco Cansino, aquí: Rosita Alverio!”
It is just as well I couldn’t see past the lights—the “audience” was probably a roomful of inebriated men and my beaming mother. And they all applauded. I stood for my first bow, aglow, radiant in the spotlight I wished to remain in forever. Who needed school? This was what I wanted to do—forever and ever!
PAPO
M eanwhile, my mother searched for love—clad in home-sewn dresses tight against her curves, displaying her ample cleavage—looking for a new husband who could “protect” us. She found the first of the next four “husband protectors” quite soon.
I remember the addition of a larger bed, and the earlier and earlier extinguishing of lights. And my mami’s new, strange ceremonies with love potions and candles. I was sent on love potion runs to the botanica, where a cronelike creature lurked in the shadows, her gnarled vegetable roots hanging overhead, twisted, tuberous, and hairy.
This woman had powers and supplies to implement them. I was very frightened of her, and even in the dark of her shop, what I saw scared me—her glass eye and mustache—and I recoiled at thestrange, sour stink she emanated. I had to breathe through my mouth; the atmosphere in her shop was so foul. The witch woman muttered and frowned as she sorted through her collection of dead snakes and glass jars filled with suspicious-looking organs and objects, and filled a bag for my mother. I don’t know what I would have done if my mother had sent me on a snake run. As it was, the product I had to carry home was strange enough—one bag contained five horseflies, which I dutifully carried back to my mother.
Mami muttered an incantation and crushed the huge black flies into some coffee grounds. The next thing I knew, she had a gentleman caller who, unsuspecting, sipped the potion/coffee. We both watched, in suspense, to see whether this chubby mustached man would succumb—to love or worse. But all he did was leave and never come back. Soon there were other men, other cups of coffee, and soon my mami, Rosa Marcano, would marry again.
How old was I when my mother remarried? I think perhaps six years old. She found her “protector” quite soon. I don’t remember when I first saw Enrique, but I do remember my mother’s big German woman friend who worked with her in the factories, and who was always offering to “fix her up,” and I have a sense she was somehow responsible for Enrique coming into our lives. There was always talk of men when Marga would appear, brimming with cleavage and sensuous energy. Marga was in love with her own breasts. It was not difficult to imagine carnal acts when she sat down in my mother’s kitchen chair and raised her sweater to reveal her modest but perfectly round breasts, which featured small pink nipples. “Aren’t they marvelous?”
Yes, they were. I had never seen pink nipples before, and Iwas transfixed. All the nipples I had previously seen were Puerto Rican nipples, which were brown. I studied my own nascent breasts and not yet extroverted nipples and felt sure they would be…brown. Which made Marga’s tiny pink rosebuds even more alluring.
Marga Linekin was a magnet for men, and I sensed that potential mates for my mother were drawn into her orbit, then
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