Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair) (11 page)

Next, we headed over to Katz’s pharmacy on Broadway—more hellos and a pat on my head and a gumball from Mr. and Mrs. Katz, a sweet, talkative couple who adored Tia, although Ismael monopolized the conversation. Mr. Katz made me laugh as he kept repeating to his wife, “What does that have to do with the price of eggs?” each time she would contradict him or my uncle-father.

Next stop was the corner store, owned by Don Quintin (pronounced
keen-deen
) and his brother, Don Àngel. These two brothers were inseparable. Don Quintin died several years later after going to a cheap dentist; his brother Don Àngel died three months afterwards, everyone says from loneliness. As we exited the bodega, a beautiful curvy woman with a bad blond dye job came around the
corner. My uncle-father’s head spun around like Linda Blair’s head in
The Exorcist
. He dramatically gasped, with his hand on his heart.

“
Perdone me, senorita. Lo siento, pero
. May I please have the pleasure, no, the honor, to have you dine with me tonight, or tomorrow, or the next night? I would wait until eternity to be in the presence of a beauty such as yours.”

He took her hand and kissed it, just like Pepe Le Pew in the Looney Tunes cartoon. I kid you not! She declined with an annoying giggle. Before she could escape, he quickly stepped in front of her and said, “I know you must be thinking,
How could I go out with such an ugly man?
Well, I may be ugly, but I make beautiful babies!”

Hold up! Is this man trying to use me to pick up a bimbo? Oh, hell no.

As the bouncy blonde laughed and sashayed away, my aunt slapped my uncle-father upside his head so hard that he stumbled forward. “You are so stupid!” Tia screamed. “I swear to God and
de
entire fucking universe!”

Inside Woolworth’s, against the side wall, was a long counter with a deli/soda fountain/ice cream parlor behind it. I jumped on the bolted-down swivel stool with a leather cover on top.

“What you like? A cone?
¿Frijol de vainilla?
[Vanilla bean?]” asked my uncle-father.

What the heck did he say? I think he said, “vanilla.” I shrugged my shoulders; I was too embarrassed that I didn’t understand it all. The nuns were winning in canceling out my memory of the Spanish language. I looked over at Tia. She came to the rescue. “She likes chocolate. You want a chocolate,
mija
?” I shrugged my shoulders again, then quietly answered, “May I have a hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream and chocolate sprinkles instead?” Tia laughed. I giggled back. My uncle-father smiled with us in a sad kind of way, feeling ostracized from Tia’s bond with me.

Tia ordered a coffee, no sugar. My uncle-father ordered a Tab. They both were beginning to take their diabetes seriously. He sat
there watching me eat every bit of my sundae. Talk about feeling uncomfortable. Then he asked me if I would like to go to Puerto Rico with him someday. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know anything about Puerto Rico. I looked back at Tia again. This time her eyeballs were shooting evil darts at him. He didn’t say shit after that. We sat in silence for a while. The tension was thick. Of course I had to relieve it with a joke.

“Tia. Knock, knock!”

They both just looked at me, completely baffled, like I was crazy.

“Whaa? Why you say you knocking?”

I started laughing.

“It’s a joke, Tia. You have to say, ‘Who is it?’ ”

“Oh! Okay. Who’s there?”

“No,” I cracked up. “Not ‘Who’s there?’ You have to say, ‘Who is it?’!”

“Oh! Okay. Sorry. Who is it?”

“Banana.”

“A banana? A banana’s knocking?”

“Tia! You’re suppose to say, ‘Banana who?’!”

“Oh! Okay. Banana who?”

“Knock, knock!”

“
Ay
, this is stupid!”

I was on the floor with laughter. It took me at least ten minutes to finish the damn joke! Then my uncle-father called over the guy behind the counter.

“Excuse me, sir. May I please have a coffee?”

“How would you like that, sir?” asked the waiter.

“Wet, please! Get it?” he continued. “ ‘Wet’! Get it?”

Complete silence—tumbleweeds blew through the department store. Tia then rolled her eyes. The waiter shook his head and walked away. I went back to digging at my sundae.

When we got back, my uncle-father was standing at the front door, not sure if he should come in or leave. I felt sad for him. I
should have made him feel more at ease, but I just couldn’t. “Thank you very much for the ice cream sundae, Tio.”

“
De nada
, baby. And I’m glad you like the dress,” he said, and then left.

I looked down at my butter-colored frock, then at Tia. I ran down the hallway and ripped it off.

Later that night Tia, Lorraine, and I were watching
The Iris Chacon
(pronounced
Eee-dee-ss Cha-cone
)
Show
, a Latin variety show broadcast from Puerto Rico. Her nickname was La Bomba de Puerto Rico (The Puerto Rican Bombshell). Iris was voluptuous, pretty, and had the biggest ass you ever saw in your life. She could barely dance and barely sing (and if she did sing, she would lip-synch—badly). And yet, she was charismatic and entertaining as hell.

“Where’s Puerto Rico?” I asked.

“Puerto Rico? In the Caribbean! That’s where I was born.
Yo soy Boricua
.”

“Bo-wing-wa?”

“Bo-rrrring, Rrring-kwa, kwa.”

“Bowwwwingkwa?”

“Close enough. Puerto Rico used to be called Borinquen before Spain took it. I used to take you with me when you were just a little baby. You were so funny, crying, sticking your hands down your diaper to take
de
sand out! You hated sand. Ga, ga, ga, ga, gaaaa!”

“Can we go to Puerto Rico?” I gleefully screamed.

“Oh … I don’t know. I would have to get permission from
de
Home and your mother, Lydia. I have to start to make dinner.”

Her whole mood changed.

I pulled a chair up to the sink and helped wash the rice as Tia began to season the chicken with Adobo (a Spanish seasoning salt that we use for everything!).

My father came by the next day, and the next, and almost every other day afterwards for the rest of the summer. I started to look forward to our “dates.” In fact, I started to go it alone, without the
shield of Tia. I even started to laugh at his corny jokes and smile on cue whenever he would use me as a ploy when he found a plump pheasant to flirt with. Later at night, I would feel conflicted about not keeping up my wall of defense, yet excited to see him again.

•   •   •

Much later, I was told that Tia had me sent over to my mother’s house that summer. I didn’t remember any of it for thirty years. I had totally blocked it out.

My mother, along with her best friend, Lòpez, a sweet, short, jovial, skinny man, took my half-siblings and me to the five-and-dime store to buy the girls a Raggedy Ann doll and the boys a Raggedy Andy doll. I, of course, didn’t want a Raggedy Ann doll. I wanted a one-cent plastic whistle. My mother got so upset. She kept insisting that I wanted the damn doll. I politely said that if I couldn’t get the whistle, I’d rather not get anything at all.

She tried to shove the doll in my hand, tightly yelling, “Take it! Everyone else wants it! What the hell’s wrong with you?” I still politely refused. She got so pissed that she slapped me across the face really hard and pounded me on top of my head, in front of the customers and sales clerks—beyond embarrassing. Lòpez finally intervened: “Let her have the whistle.” Lydia huffed, bought me the whistle, shoved it in my hand, shoved me in my back, and told me to wait outside.

Outside I proceeded to toot my own variation of the same tune, “Tea for Two,” which I whistled to myself in the bathroom when I first arrived at Saint Joseph’s. I added a spontaneous two-step—I was in my own world. A small crowd started to form.

My mother, Lòpez, and everyone else came out, and my mother stopped in her tracks, watching in disbelief. “Look, Lydia. She has talent, just like you,” Lòpez said. Lydia got even more pissed and
slapped the whistle out of my hand, then huffed down the block, with everyone in tow, telling me to “hurry the fuck up.” I grabbed the whistle off the ground and started whistling again. She stopped and turned around. I froze. I was scared that she was going to hit me again. Lòpez started laughing, “She can’t help it. She’s got it. Like you!” My mother stepped into the bodega on the corner, bought two beers, one for her, one for Lòpez, and guzzled hers.

I was sent back to Tia’s the next day.

•   •   •

At the end of my summer visit, Tia brought home Tina. “This is your cousin, Tina, from Puerto Rico,” Tia said. I said hello casually. Being Puerto Rican, meeting new cousins was the norm—ha! Tina was around the same age as I was, cute as a button, short, really chubby, and a brat.

One Saturday afternoon Tia was busy with her usual weekend side job of selling irregular fashion dresses door to door in Williamsburg. Cookie was left in charge of Tina, Lorraine, and me. She was making us a late breakfast of fried eggs with crispy edges and French fries—very Puerto Rican. She set Tina’s plate down first. Tina didn’t waste any time and started shoving the fries down her throat. Cookie then set my plate down.

“Rosie got more fries than me!”

“She did not! Shut up and stop being so greedy, fucking fat pig!”

Then Cookie, adding insult to injury, handed Lorraine her plate, with double the portion of fries. Tina was outraged! As soon as Cookie turned back toward the stove, Tina reached over and grabbed a bunch of fries off of Lorraine’s plate and shoved them into her fat little face.

“Stop, Tina!” screamed Lorraine.

Cookie quickly turned back around and banged Tina on the
head with a saucepan, twice
—bam!. bam!
. I couldn’t believe it. I was scared and upset. It was the first time I had seen an act of violence in my aunt’s house.

“I’m gonna tell my father on you!”

“If you dare tell Tio Ismael, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you!”

Tina ran off crying into Tia’s bedroom.

Wait. “Tio”? Meaning my uncle-father? Does that mean Tina is not my cousin but my sister? What the hell?! Confused? Think how I felt! I didn’t ask Tina if she was my sister or not. Why? I don’t know. Just didn’t.

Of course Tina told on Cookie to Tia that she hit her. Tia was so upset, screaming at Cookie, crying for at least two hours, pounding at her heart intermittently at the injustice and the agony of it all—drama on the high seas!

GOING BACK to the Home after that summer was really hard. I felt so detached from everyone and everything. Daydreams of Brooklyn and Tia, my father, my “cousin” Tina, my cousins,
“Hola”
Doña Susana, and Mr. and Mrs. Katz danced through my head.

Thank goodness the new school year had begun. I had just turned five years old.

Kindergarten was awesome. It was part of the Home’s Catholic school, which was directly across the street from the girls’ dormitory. We had the best curriculum with a teacher who offered full support and attention. And best of all, kindergarten didn’t have a nun for a teacher like the other grades did—yay!

It was still a challenge. Like the preschool, it was open to the public, and although the kids from the Home outnumbered the “outside” kids, in my kindergarten class there were only three or maybe four of us from the Home. And the “outside” kids’ prejudice had intensified a bit now that they were a year older.

One day the class members were called upon to write their name, date of birth, home address, and telephone number and say all that out loud to the rest of the class. All of the “outside” kids quickly started writing. The rest of us from the Home froze as we looked at each other. We were all good with our full name and date of birth, but that was it! We could forget about the phone number. Since we weren’t allowed to use the phone in the Home, obviously we didn’t know the number. And our address? Were we
going to put down the Home as our “home” address and further the humiliation?

I rubbed my head. It started to tingle with heat and a slight headache.

The teacher began to go around the room asking each kid to tell the class what he or she had written. I looked down at my paper. All I had written was my name. My face flushed with red-hot heat. My throat rumbled with a feeling of dry heave.

“Rosemary. It’s your turn. Would you please stand and share your information with us?” asked the teacher.

I slowly stood up. Here went nothing.

“My name is
Wosie Pewez
.… My birthday is September fourth.”

I paused, scanning the room as I peered over my paper. I took a deep breath.

“I live … in … Brooklyn, on
Wollybout
Street. And—”

“She’s a liar,” yelled out this little Goody Two-shoes of a boy. “She lives over there in the Home!”

My face went red with embarrassment. I looked up. All eyes were on me. The kids from the Home were looking at me too, wondering what my next move would be.

“She’s lying! She’s a liar!” The little fucker pressed on.

“Okay. Calm down. And that’s not very nice to call her a liar, now is it?”

“But she lied! She lives over there! She’s from the Home!” This freaking kid kept going.

“Okay, that’s enough! Now, Rosemary, you know that you live at the Home. Do you know the name of the street we’re on?”

I stood there, stone-faced.

“Rosemary?” she continued.

“I’m not a liar. I live over there and at Tia’s house in Brooklyn. And that’s the truth,” I sheepishly replied.

“Rosemary? Now stop that!”

“No! I won’t stop! It’s the truth! I’m not a liar! And I can’t stand him, and I hate you!”

Everyone gasped.

“Rosemary, go over to the corner. Now, please!”

The teacher’s aide grabbed my arm as she guided me to the corner. I whipped it away from her. Her face pulled back in shock. I sat there staring at that stupid corner feeling like crap. Why did I lose it like that? I hate myself. Now she’s going to hate me. I hope they don’t tell Sister Mary-Domenica; she’ll probably beat me good for sure. I rubbed my head. Man, it was burning hot.