Caramelo (44 page)

A loose step squeaking like a mouse, or a mouse squeaking like a
loose step. Holes shut over with nails and a piece of tin. A dark curve before you get up to the third flight. Delivery men scared to come up here. No one ever knocks on our door for Halloween. No need to put up spooky decorations. Our home already looks haunted just the way it is. Dust and darkness and dust, no matter how many Saturdays we clean it.

On our landing on the wall beside our door, somebody’s kid drew in pencil a big chicken with a stupid-looking eye like a human’s, a wall we painted over, but you can still see the lead outline of that chicken if you look close. Inside the apartment everything spackled, patched, and sanded clean. Walls painted colors as bright as the inside of a body. New linoleum to match, too, mopped every day by Ma or me.

Every apartment we’ve ever lived in with its cold room, a room in the back where all our wrinkled clothes sit in sacks waiting for the iron. In that cold room that nobody likes to go in, a ghost probably keeping watch over the cold sacks. Every time I go in there —Oh, blessed ghost of the wrinkled clothes, please leave me the hell alone.

Rats in the walls chirping like birds. Little rumble and scramble on the other side. Noises like gravel, like pebbles dropping. Loose plaster. I don’t dare leave the bed at night. Even to pee. I’d rather wet the bed than face the dark.

Brothers snoring beside me. Mother and Father in their room far away, whispering. Elbows and warm knees. Keep off my side of the bed, or I’ll clobber you. Sleep on my belly, turn the pillow over to the cool side, dust the dust off my feet. Sleep coming after me.

Old house, our house, ugly old shoe. We polish and wipe and paint and clean, fix what we can afford to fix, but it’s no use. It still looks as dirty as ever.

T
he good news about our new house on El Dorado Street isn’t good to everybody. Father and the Grandmother return to Chicago in a great mood, blind to the fact that everyone around them is pissed. Uncle Baby and Aunty Ninfa are hurt, and I don’t blame them. After all, that’s the thanks they get for taking care of the Grandmother all these months. Uncle Fat-Face and Aunty Licha are beyond hurt feelings. —And what are we? Painted? Don’t we need help as much as Tarzán? That money came from the sale of the house on Destiny Street, which should’ve been split up between all of the family. Our father always said so. —What
nonsense, says the Grandmother. —Inocencio has more need than the rest of you, he has “seven sons.” And if you’re going to quarrel about inheritances you should at least wait till I’m dead.

It’s like a gas leak, the bad feelings. A slow hiss you know will end in something terrible.

But at our house, Father and Mother ignore the family feuds. At night, they whisper their plans.

—And there’s the little apartment in the back, for my mother, of course.

—Your mother? I thought she was going to get her own house. You didn’t tell me she was going to live with us.

—Poco a poco
, not all at once. She needs to look for a house, and I’ll need to borrow some money from her to put into the new shop. I’m starting from scratch. I have to buy sewing machines, a compressor, build tables. You don’t expect me to take anything but my tools with my brothers acting like they do. After all, my mother gave us the money for the down payment of our house.
Gave
it to us. A
gift
, not a loan, Zoila. Just think, when she moves out, you’ll be a landlady. A
landlady
, Zoila! Isn’t that what you always wanted?

—Well … She’s not staying forever, right?

—Mi vida
, when have I lied to you?

I
t takes a long time to get rid of our things and pack up only the essentials. Some things we ship, and some things get left behind with the boys in Chicago, and some things just get lost or broken or both. Some of our furniture we sell, and lots is given away. And the rest we put in storage. —Don’t worry, Father promises Mother. —I’ll make you new furniture when we get there. But half the stuff we own is old anyway, and Mother’s glad to get rid of it. The only thing she wants is her rosebushes, and these Toto dutifully digs up for her and packs into plastic buckets.

When finally we hitch up a trailer with the Grandmother’s walnut-wood armoire swaddled in green moving quilts, we look like, as Father would put it, “Hungarians.” Father keeps prodding us to let go of things. And when we don’t, he gives our things away for us when we’re not looking. —It’s all right, I’ll buy you a new one in Texas.

Our German shepherd, Wilson, almost gets left behind in Chicago with Rafa, Ito, and Tikis. Father tries to convince us he’ll buy us another
one, because Wilson is already old and half lame, but there is no other Wilson in the universe. I found Wilson in the alley years ago and put him in our yard. He was already full-grown then, dirty and covered with cigarette burns on his muzzle; a dog with sad, watery eyes outlined in black like Alice Cooper’s. But now Wilson is ancient, though he hobbles about, dragging himself around, still trying to protect us. Toto, Memo, Lolo, and me decide to get organized. —If Wilson doesn’t come with us to Texas, we’re not going. Mother won’t hear of it, until I break into tears. —Look at her,
pobrecita
, Father says. —Let the girl bring her dog, he’s no trouble. Finally, Wilson is allowed to come with us, and we load him into the van with his special doggy bed made from an old couch cushion.

The trip south to San Antonio is slow, not like when we headed to Mexico City, maybe because we’re dragging the past with us. Father doesn’t let us dawdle or allow us nights at motels because of the trailer and the risk of having everything ripped off. So the boys and Father drive in shifts, with only breaks for coffee and food, the Grandmother snoring heavily, waking up at every bump and asking, —
¿Ya llegamos?

We get to San Antonio in the early afternoon, tired and cranky, ready to get to the house on El Dorado Street, but Father insists on driving us to his workspace first. —It’s right here, right on the way, you’ll see. Father meanders west past the corner of Commerce and Rosillo Streets, where Carol Burnett lived when she was little. We drive past streets named Picoso, Hot and Spicy Street; Calavera, Skeleton Street; and Chuparrosa, Hummingbird Street. It’s odd to see the names in Spanish. Almost like being on the other side, but not exactly.

Father takes us up and down and around as if he’s lost, through back streets with row houses with goats and roosters tied to a porch rail and yards full of dogs sleeping under the shade of a tree, scratching themselves, or trotting across the street. Blackie, Snowball, Smokey, Lulu, Pinky. Dogs that go nuts and chase our van like if they’d never seen wheels before.

Finally Father pulls up along a chalky strip of storefronts that look like they’ve been painted with nurse’s shoe polish, a crumbly row of white made whiter in the sun. It’s a dusty shop on a dusty road, Nogalitos Street, old Highway 90, which once led us south to Laredo before the new interstate was built. We park in front on a diagonal like everyone else, the curb a rubble of concrete and indestructible sunflowers that spring back to life the moment after we drive over them.
JEWELRY MINGO
’
S, WE HAVE LAYAWAY. FINA
’
S WEDDING CAKES FOR ALL OCCASIONS. AZTEC UNISEX BEAUTY CHATEAU
—
CLASSY CUTS FOR ONLY ONE FORTY-NINE. AUTO TINT WHY SQUINT WINDSHIELD REPAIR
. A notary public office advertising
INCOME TAX, BOOKKEEPING, GRAPEFRUIT ONE DOLLAR A DOZEN
, and
SE DAN LIMPIAS
/
CASA
/
NEGOCIO
. But there on the corner, at the choicest location,
MARS TACOS TO WENT
.

—Hey, we’ve been here before, Father, remember? We ate at the corner at Mars’ place.

Wedged between the bakery and beauty salon, Father’s shop.
REYES UPHOLSTERY
in red and yellow block letters with a crown on the “
R
.” A stink of pink permanent wave solution and sugary bread. —After a while, you don’t even notice it, Father says.

A short ride south on Nogalitos and then a jig jog, and we’re on El Dorado Street. On a block of squat dull houses, a modern two-story brick stands out like a jewel among the junk. Clean, blond bricks and an immaculate driveway surrounded by a high iron fence painted black and gold, scary as a Doberman.

—Is that it?

—No, Father says. —It’s further down. Then he adds,
—Drogas
. Meaning—you can bet the people who live there are probably dealing drugs.

—Is this it? I ask pointing to a purple Victorian with a green swing on the porch.

—Oh, no, the Grandmother says. —It’s much bigger than that.

—Is that one it?

—Ha, ha, ha. Father and the Grandmother look at each other smugly and wink.

Finally Father says, —Here we are, and drives into a driveway littered with pecans that crunch under our tires.

—This
is
it?

I look at the house. It reminds me of a riddle from the first grade. Question: What time is it when an elephant sits on your roof? Answer: Time to get a new roof.

Rascuache
. That’s the only word for it. Homemade half-ass. Our house is one of those haphazard, ramshackle, self-invented types, as if each room was added on as the family who built it got bigger, when they could afford it, layer upon layer of self-improvement, somebody trying their very best, even if that best isn’t very much. Some of it in wood,
some in funky siding, and some parts of it in brick. A house like the excavations of Mexico City. A downstairs porch and an upstairs porch with mismatched rusted metal railings, bent metal aluminum awnings, iron window guards, last year’s Christmas decorations—a wire Santa and reindeer—potted plants with shard tile or shards of mirror on the pots,
nicho
to la Virgen de San Juan, tire planters, a dull Sears chain-link fence, crooked TV antenna, a rotted wicker porch swing, a garden full of overgrown banana trees and burnt, red and yellow cannas, vines growing up over everything, taking over, choking everything, in fact. Pecan tree seedlings sprouting from the cracks in the buckled sidewalk and in the abandoned weedy pots. Pecans crunching underfoot. Little green lizards that puff their chests pink and then vanish. Iron daisies made out of plumbing pipes and the blades of a broken fan. A wooden wishing well where giant cockroaches the color of varnished wood scatter when you touch it.

Our house looks like something out of Acapulco, like Catita’s house, in fact. Washed-up, rotten, rusted, falling apart. Shipwrecked. That’s what we are. A huge galleon made up of this and that stranded on land.

All summer we’d been hearing about our wonderful house from Father and the Grandmother, forgetting what exaggeraters they are. With something like the optimism of realtors, Father and the Grandmother see what the house can become, but I see what’s there in front of me.

All around us are houses as bad off or worse than ours. Houses like bad words meant to shock or scare you. Like
chanclas
, shoes without backs, squashed and scuffed and sad-looking.

I start to cry.

—Don’t cry, Lalita, please! Father says. He cups my face in his hands and makes me blow my nose with the tail of his T-shirt. —It’s that you’re homesick, right? But just think, pretty soon you won’t think of any other home but this.

This makes me cry even harder. I cry
con mucho sentimiento
—with feeling, as they say, like a professional. I cry carrying boxes inside the house, and I cry carrying trash out.

—Cripes, Mother says, —You were a
llorona
when you were a baby, and you’re still a
llorona
now. Quit it! What this place needs is some Pine-Sol.

^*
My life. That’s what Father calls Mother when he’s not mad. —My life, where did you hide my clean
calzones?
   Mijo,
my son. What Mother calls him when she isn’t angry. —They’re in the walnut-wood armoire
, mijo.
   Mijo,
even though she’s not his mother. Sometimes Father calls her
mija,
my daughter
. —Mija,
he shouts. Both Mother and I running and answering, —What?
   
To make things even more confusing everyone says
ma-má,
or
¡mamacita!
when some delightful she walks by
. ¡Ma-maaaaaaa!
like a Tarzan yell
. ¡Mamacita!
like a hiccup
.
   
If the delight is a he
, —¡Ay, qué papacito!
Or
, —¡papasote!
for the ones truly delicious to the eye
.
   
A terrible incestuous confusion
.
   
Worse, the insults aimed at the mother
, —Tu mamá.
While something charming and wonderful is
—¡Qué padre!
   
What does this say about the Mexican?
   
I asked you first
.

61.

Very Nice and Kind, Just Like You

            —
A
nd then what happened?

—And then her husband ran off with that floozy across the street and was never heard from again. And she said, “Alone at last, thank God!”
Tan tán
.

Floozy
is one of Mother’s words, from her time not mine, but I use it anyway to make her laugh, and it works. Mother’s in a good mood. We’re helping Father put some order to his shop. Mother’s mopping, and I’m sweeping. Every once in a while, out of nowhere, Mother will ask, —And then what happened? Even though I haven’t been telling a story. It’s kind of a game between us. I have to come up with something out of the blue, the more outrageous the better. It helps pass the time.