Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro (69 page)

Jessica kissed Mercedes. “Mami, aren’t you hot?” Jessica asked.

“No,” Mercedes said. The apartment was extremely warm, yet Mercedes wore Coco’s oversize down coat. Jessica walked upstairs with her
bag of dry cleaning. Mercedes followed, leaned against the doorway of Brittany’s room, and watched her legendary aunt get ready to go out.

Brittany had done what she could to spruce up her space: she’d hung Barbie curtains from some shoelaces, which she’d knotted together; she’d arranged her three Magic Markers neatly on the bureau; she’d lined up the bottles of lotion and stacked her toys in one corner. Jessica ripped open the plastic of her dry-cleaning bag. She peered at her outfit closely and plucked at invisible lint. The knee-length black jacket had see-through polyester sleeves. Jessica held the hanger at arm’s length, scrutinized it as though she were still at the store. Then she foraged through her bag. She pulled out a clutch of candy and offered Mercedes some. Mercedes declined. She didn’t much like candy. Her favorite treat was fruit—oranges and melon. The level of noise in the house went up.

“My father’s taking me to wrestling,” Mercedes said.

“Oh yeah?” said Jessica distractedly. Mercedes called Frankie her father in front of people she wanted to impress. She and Frankie were going to the World Wrestling Federation Gala at the Pepsi Arena in Albany. Mercedes couldn’t wait; she told Jessica that the event was going to be broadcast on TV. Frankie had waited overnight in line just to get the tickets, which he’d given to Coco to celebrate their fourth anniversary, but Coco wasn’t keen on wrestling.

Mercedes watched Jessica lift off her T-shirt and unpeel her jeans.

“Close the door, Mami,” Jessica said.

Mercedes’s eyes fixed on Jessica’s tattoos. “Everything on your body says ‘George, George, George.’ ”

“Cuz that’s my man,” said Jessica.

“Your
ex
-man,” Mercedes corrected.

“My
man,
” Jessica said emphatically, meaning the current George, although their relationship was effectively over. George disapproved of Jessica’s ongoing flirtations with other men; Jessica resented waiting for George to sneak away from his wife. The situation had became so bad that Jessica had resorted to blocking the door when George tried to leave her apartment; a few times, she’d hidden his keys. George wasn’t returning Jessica’s pages and, lately, not even Serena’s.

Jessica tugged on a pair of black leggings, pulled on the jacket, and adjusted the zipper low on her chest.

“What you call that?

Funky Brewster style?” Mercedes asked.

“Freaky style,” Jessica said. Meanwhile, Serena squealed with delight and ran past, Big Kevin chasing after her, trying to retrieve his CD.

“You better calm down!” Jessica shouted to anyone. Baby Kevin cried
from somewhere. The baby daughter of the new girl from Brooklyn roamed around untended, sobbing rhythmically; Brittany eventually led the child into the kitchen and fed her. Jessica hollered for someone to get the boys. Outside, Matthew and Michael were pouncing on a discarded mattress that was teetering like a seesaw on a pile of trash. The kids ignored her. “How can I leave if they don’t behave now? When I’m here? Why they gonna behave when I’m gone?” she complained. “If you keep it up, I’m not going out!” Jessica threatened to no one in particular. “How am I supposed to trust you alone if this is the way you’re acting HERE?”

“Don’t worry, Títi, I’ll calm them down,” Mercedes said reassuringly.

Jessica’s cleavage earned an appreciative glance from the off-duty cop at the entrance to Casablanca, a small club in Albany. The bouncer took her $10 and requested her hand for a stamp. “Who is George?” he asked, smiling. Jessica grinned and drifted after Coco, who headed to the dance floor in a small back room with a low ceiling.

Two muscular men in their thirties or forties in dress slacks leaned against the opposite wall. A woman in a leopard Lycra top with black-feather trim sat at a tall cocktail table, the heels of her stilettos hooked around the bar of the stool. Three obese white girls in thick sweaters huddled beneath an air vent clogged with dust. Coco wanted to dance—she had prayed for Spanish, but it was hip-hop night. Still, music was music to Coco. She was out on the dance floor before she’d even finished her drink.

The DJ, thrilled to have a customer, crooned to the beat,
“New York’s finest! New York’s finest!”
Coco beckoned to Jessica. Jessica demurred, nursing her White Russian. She was captivated by her reflection in the mirror that ran along one wall. “See that bouncer? He’s looking at me,” she said, but Coco had danced off, out of earshot. Jessica watched herself possibly being watched in the mirror.

Attention worked differently with Coco—it opened the door for the undiluted Coco to break out. On the dance floor, a boy orbited her like a happy vampire. She returned his challenge and shimmied right up to him. He backed off. Coco reached for Jessica’s hands. Jessica swayed a little bit but said she needed a Spanish song.

More people arrived. Younger boys danced in groups. They kept on their name-brand coats despite the rising heat. Albany styles—Pelle Pelle leather, puff coats—had already risen, peaked, and died in the Bronx. Someone busted a beer bottle over someone else’s head. “Everyone
here to have fun, everyone here to party! Manhood,” the DJ intoned, “could be proven on the street!” The crowd got sticky. Coco danced until it became so crowded that she couldn’t move. Finally, Jessica and Coco decided to leave.

Coco stood on her toes to ask the bartender for a cup of water and hurried ahead to de-ice the lock on her car. Jessica lingered around the exit, and the bouncer stared at her breasts again. Jessica slowly followed his gaze, as though she were looking at someone else’s body. Their eyes locked on the way back up. Jessica laughed richly.

“Who’s George?” the bouncer tried once more.

“My son that passed,” Jessica said, raising her eyebrows mournfully, her lips in a sexy pout.

On the ride back to Milagros’s, Jessica looked out at Troy’s empty streets. It was nearly 4
A.M.
She regretted dressing up; Albany’s style was casual compared to clubs in the city. Jessica gazed at the empty factories, a furniture warehouse, The Alpha Lanes, where Serena and Cristobal would go bowling the following night. Past the Sno-King, boarded up until summer, and the strip mall where Price Chopper had been replaced by Family Dollar.

“I miss my kids,” she said.

J
essica still wanted to be a mother. When she filed for full custody of Serena, Milagros didn’t contest the application. She believed that Serena would be safe with Jessica, and she was exhausted by the months of battling—with Serena in person, and with Jessica by telephone. Milagros still had Brittany, Stephanie, Matthew, and Michael to raise, and now—on alternate weekends—Baby Kevin. She also said she was losing patience with kids.

Shortly before Serena’s custody hearing, Jessica went to celebrate a friend’s birthday at Jimmy’s Bronx Café. There she met a weight lifter named Máximo. Máximo’s body was outrageous: his chest was cut, fatless; his back was V-shaped; the muscles on his butt were visible through his slacks. Máximo asked Jessica to dance. He glanced at her cleavage and suggested she pull her jacket closed. Jessica appreciated the gesture of concern. His demeanor was reserved, polite. “He sounds Italian,” Jessica said.

They became a couple. Máximo worked as a recreation specialist at a state park, and to supplement his income, he sometimes performed as a stripper. He lifted weights six times a week. Inspired by Máximo’s healthy example, Jessica no longer fried her steak; she baked it. Instead of cake for snacks, she nibbled fruit. Máximo dreamed of a career in law enforcement. There were always going to be criminals, he said, and there would always be a need for people to catch them. He had five children, about whom, Jessica said, it upset him too much to speak.

Jessica hoped Máximo was “the one.” He called her back when she paged him, and she paged him frequently. He kept her informed as to his whereabouts. He wrote Jessica love notes on his computer, left her tender messages on her answering machine, offered little gifts—a Beanie Baby, vanilla flower gel. She expressed interest in losing the weight she’d gained in prison, and he promised to help her, although he told her that he liked her body just the way it was. Within days of their meeting, she eagerly brought Lourdes to meet him. Lourdes promptly warned him to treat Jessica properly because “my daughter’s been abused enough.” Lourdes then crowned him her son-in-law and ordered Jessica not to play head games with him. On the ride home, Jessica told her that Máximo attended John
Jay College of Criminal Justice, although, in fact, he hadn’t actually started classes yet. Lourdes worked up a yelp. “Not everybody gets to go to that college,” she shouted, as though a victory had been won.

In March of 2000, Jessica quit her job; she said that her boss was disrespectful to her. Moreover, the hours had not been ideal. Jessica wanted a job that was strictly nine-to-five, so that it wouldn’t intrude upon her responsibilities. “When five o’clock comes,” she said, “and I have to go home and cook and take care of my daughter, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Lourdes and Emilio, who had recently been evicted again, moved in with Jessica and agreed to help with the rent. Emilio’s height and the apartment’s low ceilings gave the place the feel of a bunker; the couple did their best to dodge Jessica’s foul moods.

But Jessica’s was better than the friend’s place where they’d been camping out since their eviction—a one-bedroom with two young children and six other adults. The friend didn’t always come home, and Lourdes got saddled with her grandchildren. On weekends, her housemates snorted coke and broke night, amused by the macho antics of the three-year-old who eagerly passed the blunts around among the guests. Lourdes couldn’t go to bed because the party was in the living room, and the living room was where she slept. She was getting too old for such nonsense, and swore she was going to have another heart attack.

At Jessica’s, Lourdes and Emilio slept on a futon in the narrow hallway, which also served as Jessica’s kitchen. Jessica was compulsive about keeping a clean apartment: she wanted the floor swept and mopped each night; the bathroom sink and shower wiped after each use; no dirty dishes or crumbs—ever—in the kitchenette. Jessica also threatened to evict her mother if she caught Lourdes smoking cigarettes. Like an adolescent, Lourdes snuck them at a nearby park, where she killed time while Emilio aimlessly circled the block. Lourdes bought detergent at the dollar store, wheeled the dirty clothes to the Laundromat, did the grocery shopping, and prepared dinner every night.

Máximo soon joined the household. Lourdes resented Jessica’s blind generosity toward him—at least compared to Jessica’s stinginess toward Lourdes herself. Máximo held a state job; the man flashed a credit card; Lourdes labored; Emilio shared his veteran’s benefits. So why did Jessica glare at Lourdes when the mail brought in the bills? So the man bought her daughter a pair of sneakers. What about the house that needed the food he happily ate, not to mention rent? Lourdes mocked her daughter’s ability to sustain such open faith in love.

Yet Lourdes still prided herself on the very same thing. When she had become pregnant at seventeen, by her first love, Jessica’s father, her mother had ridiculed her for her stupidity and kicked her out. “My mother used to tell me, ‘Take the mens for what they got,’ ” Lourdes recalled. “If I woulda used my figure and my beauty, I wouldn’t be in the Bronx, honey. I would be in a mansion, living.” Her logic was convoluted, but it got at a deeper truth: both mother and daughter had often used their looks to get by, but that only made the times when they hadn’t more meaningful to them.

Jessica’s ambitions weren’t gigantic, although they might have seemed so when set against her circumstances: she dreamed about getting a house big enough for her five children, and Máximo’s five, and not having to work. She was no longer employed, but she was working hard at the relationship—feeding Máximo, listening to him, giving him money, tweezing his facial hair.