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lasentimentael · 6 years ago

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Her Home

From the crack of dawn till the late evening hours, Dolores was always working. She would wake up, kiss Santiago goodbye as he left to wash dishes at the Chinese restaurant a few blocks down, and make breakfast for Raul and Luna so that each tummy would be full and ready for learning. She would pack lunches for her family, walk the kids to the school down the street, come back, and walk Lady the Poodle immediately after. From 8:00 to 2:45 she would sweep, mop, pay bills over the phone, do laundry, then pick up the kids, cook dinner, listen to Santiago express his day’s frustrations, and wipe her counters again for a fresh start the next morning.

Dolores did not get a break. Raul and Luna, seven and five, took up lots of time, each demanding attention and food and help on homework all while Dolores would peel potatoes and dice tomatoes and cook the chicken thoroughly so her children would not get sick. She would season precisely and evenly, listening to her children talk about what they learned at school, struggling to follow along when their homework instructions used English words she didn’t know. Then, they would be done with that and running around the house, playing and playing while Dolores continued her work.

Some days Santiago would come home a little late, sometimes past 6 and sometimes past 9. Dolores would feel a little guilty for being upset at his tardiness, remembering he said he would pick up extra hours at the restaurant whenever he could. Tired and dry hands would greet hers, the dish water and food stains adorning his plain white shirt, and he would walk slowly past the kitchen into the living room and plop on the couch as Raul and Luna would sprinkle in, yelling, “Papi! Papi!” As her children would talk loudly over each other, eager to spend time with their father who dozed off in front of the television set, Dolores would busy herself in the kitchen, finishing supper or cleaning her counters and reflecting fondly on their one bedroom apartment that she worked so hard to take care of.

The apartment did not stretch out infinitely nor did it have new windows or tiles, but the tiny kitchen with shabby wooden cabinets had charm and the dark brown carpet made it easy to hide spilled drinks and mud tracks. The blinds were broken and some were missing, the tile was cracked and the paint was peeling in many spots of the ceiling because of water damage. She, her husband, and her children made the most of the bedroom space and squeezed a small bunk bed and queen-sized bed, shoving one bathroom and one closet with what little belongings they had. Occasionally a roach would find its way inside their home and Dolores would squish it. In the hot summer months the ants would get busy and she’d frantically reprimand the children not to leave food out. And every so often, a mouse would try to hop through the various cracks and holes of apartment #A on the ground floor of 297 Alpine St. before she’d set out traps to kill the squeak. Yes, it was not much, and it was not perfect, but it was theirs.

“Niños, por favor,” Dolores said one morning. It was mid-November and Los Angeles had finally begun to feel cold. Dolores had pulled out thick animal-print blankets that would keep them all warm at night, and now was attempting to get a hoodie through poor Luna’s head while her brother made faces and poked his unsuspecting sister, giggling as she shrieked in surprise. It was 7:16 on a Monday morning, and Chinatown was already awake. The honks were loud on Alpine St., and she thought to herself, if I close my eyes I can see an angry, impatient business man on the corner of Hill almost running over a middle aged mother and her two munchkins. But they were at the door of the apartment, and she was trying to get the kids out of the house so they would not be late. Only Raul and Luna were too busy being superheroes now.

“Mami! Ma! Look at me, I’m Superman!” Raul had half taken off his red sweater so now the sleeves were tied and the rest draped along his skinny body like a cape. He posed with his bony brown fist in the air just long enough for Dolores to see, and then he was off chasing Luna who had only just gotten her hoodie on. Dolores let the kids be kids, grabbing keys and her own sweater. She closed the door, never once sparing a glance at the disheveled, thirty-four year old woman the mirror at the end of the hall would show.

When she had dropped the kids off and walked Lady the Poodle, she came back to find a mouse trying to hop through the gap underneath the front metal screen door. This mouse zoomed out of sight the moment it saw her. Dolores quickly went inside, and began her routine. Based on eleven years she’d lived there, she knew better than to be unprepared. More than anything, she was disgusted and a little angry that they continued to be there in spite of all her cleaning, she thought they were gone. She set a trap out by the front door where she had first seen it, two at the foot of the couch, and one more underneath the stove. She put Lady the Poodle in the bedroom and locked the door behind her, and she could hear Lady whine and paw at the door. She ignored it. The little one would be caught in an hour or so.

At noon, Dolores decided to sew a missing button onto her husband’s only coat, a task that had been on her mind since February, when the button first popped off. As she worked on the couch, she remembered her life before her children, when Santiago worked less and would call her during his lunch break, of a life when he didn’t come home late even though the restaurant closed at 8 and his shift usually ended at 6, but no, she thought, I mustn’t overthink that, he said he was working extra hours. Never mind Rubí with the coquette eyes who waitressed at the restaurant. She looked around the living room, and she thought of all the times her children had playtime in makeshift blanket forts in that same room and sneaking away for a quickie with her husband once upon a time. She remembered when they were younger— he would take her out on the weekends, they’d go dancing to the salsa clubs and end up in the bed with clothes strewn across the floor and a million I love you’s in her ear.

It was 1:10 when Dolores heard Lady bark from the bedroom and the front door unlock. She froze, afraid to turn around, ears straining for any other sounds. Almost immediately, the heavy boots she heard made her sigh in relief, and she turned around, confused, but happy. Santiago could be heard cursing “hijo de su puta ma-“ before the door closed, and his tall, bulky frame came striding through the hallway and into the living room.

“Dolores, que pasó?” he said, tenor voice weary.

“Viejo! Why are you back so early? Did something happen?”

“It was too slow today. New management is impatient, and they only needed one dishwasher. The younger Santiago stayed. Fine by me. My hands need the break. Why are there so many traps out? Where is Lady?” Santiago’s Spanish was crisp as he pointed to the two traps he could see underneath the couch and his brows furrowed.

“It’s okay, I only saw one. Lady is in the bedroom.”

“Just one.” “Yes, one.”

“Last year we saw one, and it turned out to be two.”

“Yes, Viejo, but I only saw one.”

“Hijo de su puta madre, why are they here?”. Santiago went from the living room to the kitchen, through the hallway until he ended where he first stood, a convenient feature of the apartment’s tight layout that did little to separate each area from the next.

“Just relax, Viejo, did you eat your lunch already? Should I heat it up?” Dolores stood up at once, leaving the coat on the couch and gesturing her husband to sit down.

“I left the container in the car, it’s empty.” Santiago went off to get the container, outside. Dolores rubbed her eyes and briefly thought how it would be nice to not pick up the kids today, if Santiago went instead, for once.

When Dolores opened her eyes, she saw it. The thing was standing at the foot of the couch, right next to the glue trap as if it was not there at all. She held her breath. Its ears flattened against its head, nose wiggling and beady eyes looking all around. There it was! Small pink hands held each other as it took in its surroundings, before another crawled out from underneath the couch. Dolores watched in horror. Two!

Santiago then came in, door slammed shut, and a ruckus in the kitchen confirmed the used Tupperware was in the sink.

“Shh!” Dolores waved her arms frantically, trying to quiet her husband.

Santiago, finally noticing Dolores, became stealthy at once and tiptoed closer to the living room, leaning on the counter to try and see the mice, which had now scurried back under the couch.

From Dolores’ position, she could see the tails still poking out. She mimed this at her husband, who went to the kitchen to grab gloves and a plastic bag. Dolores was only panicking a little as the furry bodies scooted out once again and a third accompanied them this time. Three!

“Hijo de su-“ And the mice went back underneath.

Dolores shook her head, and desperately, silently pleaded with her husband to shut his mouth. This time, Santiago and his big heavy-duty boots went back through the kitchen, down the hallway, and into the living room until he was right next to Dolores, who he now gestured to move towards the other side of the couch, right where the little heads had first poked out. He handed the traps that belonged to the stove and front door, as well as a broom for protection. He had his own broom in his hand and the look of a lion—curly, slightly peppered hair, frizzy and puffed out like a mane. Dolores mostly followed her husband’s cue, only settling behind the small coffee table that conveniently provided a bit of distance from the couch. For protection.

They stood there, each guarding their post for a whole ten minutes before Santiago grew tired and wanted to take a break. Dolores shook her head, disappointed she had married a grandpa, although Santiago’s handsome face at the age of forty was anything but. So they coordinated again, this time adding old pieces of cardboard they found lying around and trying not sound off a barking Lady in the room next door. They set up the cardboard to block the back of the couch and the sides, so there was only one exit, right where Dolores was. They waited.

“I’m tired.”

“I’m not doing this by myself.”

“Let’s just leave them, they’re kind of cute anyways.” “You’ve got to be kidding me. Three!”

“C’mon, Raul and Luna like them.”

“Estás loco.”

“We can name them.”

Dolores didn’t even bother to reply. She glanced at the clock, 1:43. This needed to be over and done with. She had things to do. She was a busy woman.

A long, brown body inched out, wiggly nose and all, followed by the three little gray ones that had come out before. The brown mouse, which looked like something had nicked its’ ear, bumped noses with the other three, before the tiniest of the grays went real fast from the foot of the couch closest to Dolores to the coffee table. Dolores couldn’t help but scream and the others went back under the couch. Four!

“Now you shush,” Santiago retaliated, laughter bouncing off the walls of the living room and provoking a bark from Lady in the background.

Dolores drew herself up, and grabbed her broom a little more tightly. “Shut up.”

Santiago continued laughing and Dolores focused on couch, and the brown mouse that was still underneath the coffee table. It wasn’t long before a brave little gray one joined that one. Their noses bumped and the tinier one squeaked. Dolores cringed. They were communicating.

Santiago and Dolores had cornered them, yes, but these mice were smart. The two that were still underneath the couch would poke out their heads, waddle around the traps before seeing Dolores and her broom and running back for cover. It continued like this for fifteen minutes until Dolores realized that she and Santiago had been so focused on the couch, that they had not noticed three more bodies underneath the coffee table. Seven!

Two of three looked identical to the brown one, only neither had their ears nicked. The third of these mice was just as long as the brown ones, but gray like the others and twice as fat. It was the biggest of them all.

“Seven!” Dolores whispered loudly, wild eyes looking at Santiago.

Santiago said nothing, and walked away, through the hallway and into the kitchen, digging underneath the sink, and pulling out a stack of glue traps from the cabinets. He was serious.

In total, they set 24 traps, each one placed right next to the other so that they covered the perimeter of the coffee table, and the space by the foot of the couch, dog food scattered here and there for lure. There was no way to escape.

The first one fell pretty quickly, a tiny one she hadn’t seen before (or at least, she thought she hadn’t. She wasn’t sure anymore) stepped right onto the glue, squeaking desperately and becoming more stuck the more it struggled. Dolores and Santiago also watched as the second one tried to reach the kibble by walking over the body of the first only to lose its balance and get its face stuck right against the clear glue. More squeaking. It was 2:20.

“Wow. We should have tried that sooner.” Santiago looked at his successes.

Dolores, however, stared, and the gray one that had its face glued, stared back with one eye, the squeaking so loud that it made Lady the Poodle begin to bark and whine from inside the bedroom. It was cute. Small round ears and a tiny snout, whiskers that tickled and pink hands that were only looking for food. It was cruel, really.

She moved to try and get rid of it, but couldn’t, her legs unresponsive. It was a mouse. She had picked them up before. She had picked up the ones last year no problem, Santiago hadn’t even been there when those mice fell for the trap. Dolores had moved quickly that time, swallowing her disgust and leaving no evidence, only a story to relay to Santiago when he came home late that night last year. Sure, Dolores had been angry for weeks, berating her husband for not helping around the house and with the kids and working too much and leaving Dolores alone at home, why did he get home so late again? Never mind that, the mice were dirty and proof she needed to clean more, that was it, she needed to clean and make do because they couldn’t afford to move.

Dolores stared at this mouse, watched it wriggle violently and get more and more stuck just like its brother, and she began to weep. It was innocent and it lived in this apartment as much as she did, had wanted no more than to live comfortably the way she tried to raise her children. It rolled around the same carpet her children ran over, searched through the same cabinets that she stocked and cooked from, and maybe, just maybe, would one day move away from its family across a border to start a new life with another little mouse. This little body did nothing but here she was, ready to kill it, and its’ family, and yet she could do nothing else. This was her home.

“Oralé, Vieja, why are you crying?” Santiago could not cross over, for the endless glue traps remained in the way, but the concern in his voice was clear. It made her cry more. When was the last time he saw her cry?

“Vieja, it’s okay. Look, I’ll pick it up okay? Then you won’t see it anymore. Would that make it better?” Dolores did not answer, but her eyes stayed locked on its beady eyes. She stared, breathing heavily and swallowing snot that had built up in her nose and travelled down her throat, as Santiago carefully moved just enough traps to get to the mice and folded the traps so that there was no chance of escape. She could still see its’ eyes as he tossed it in the trash bag.

“Okay okay, how about we do this. Those five underneath the table haven’t moved, but they’ll have to move eventually, there’s nowhere to go. The couch is surrounded and the cardboard will hold up. It’s 2:25. Let’s pick up the kids together.” Santiago reasoned, taking off his gloves slowly and reaching towards Dolores for an embrace. Her grip on the broom was now loose, and she stood there crying still, looking in many ways, as small as Luna who had cried when her ice cream had fallen from her tiny hands the week before.

They left. They washed their hands and dropped the brooms and walked all the way to the school with Santiago’s arms around Dolores, in silence. His closeness meant she could smell him as they walked, a faint combination of sweat and body wash. On the way back, Raul and Luna bounced ahead, sweaters tied around their waists, parents trailing behind them holding hands. When they got home, Santiago asked the children to head straight to the room, not wanting them to see the many traps that adorned the living room. Only Santiago and Dolores would see what was waiting for them at 3:07.

It was more than five. It was more than ten. Dolores stopped counting at sixteen tiny gray bodies, amongst them three long brown ones, with one nicked ear as well. They piled on top of one another, small mounds of mice that had climbed over one another in a hopeless attempt to live. She saw tiny hands chewed off and tails with bite marks, and many, many, many, beady black eyes staring at her. Santiago did what his wife could not, putting on gloves and tossing every single one of them inside a new white trash bag.

He picked up all but one of the remaining glue traps, placing it at the foot of the couch, because even without knowing exactly how many they got, neither had seen the nasty gray that was twice as fat as the others.

It wasn’t until after Santiago had taken out the trash, washed his hands—only after they had furiously and thoroughly cleaned the crime scene—that they let out the kids and Lady the Poodle. Santiago bought McDonalds as a treat for his children and wife. He listened to his kids whine that they were full but ask their mother if they could have her leftover fries, as Dolores nodded slowly, wordlessly. He helped the kids with their homework this time, struggling even more than Dolores usually did, and wiped down the counters like Dolores did even though no one had used the kitchen that day. His wife remained in bed with a momentary break for a shower, and at the end of the night, he crawled in to join her, closing his eyes and breathing in her coconut shampoo.

“We set out twenty-four traps.”

“It’s done. It’s over.” Santiago said, beginning to doze off already.

“The big one is still out there,” Dolores was wide-awake, her face still a little blotchy from the afternoon of crying.

“Go to sleep.”

Dolores shifted in the bed, turning to face her husband. His mouth was slightly ajar as if he was going to say something but never did.

There was a pause. “The big one is still out there,” Dolores stared at her husband. Santiago was far-gone now. “Are you cheating on me?”

Dolores waited a bit, knowing her husband would not respond, and then turned again so that she faced the ceiling. Eventually, Santiago’s arm found its way around her midriff, and she laid there, drifting in and out, the warmth around her tummy not enough to make her forget all the cleaning she would need to do in the morning. She did not rest.

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lasentimentael · 6 years ago

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Rocket Man

We were on the freeway and neon signs passed by, one after the other, zooming zooming. Rocket Man crooned through the speakers and his right hand was on his phone, and every few seconds he’d glance up before he looked back down to see the tiny message screen, zooming zooming. I saw his dark brown skin and graying hair and I saw myself in between it all. I already knew I’d wake up one day with diabetes and back problems and my hair would eventually begin to thin out from the crown of my head. I already knew we had the same laugh and we could wiggle our right eyebrows up and down but not our left for shit. I knew these sorts of things would always be.

The speedometer went from 70 to 75 slowly, like how slow time got that day I saw that lady get out of his car. Her red dress got mixed up with the seatbelt right after she kissed him goodbye. A week later he was out of the house. Slow like every time I ran too fast as a kid and tripped over my own feet. I saw the ground get closer and closer to me till I landed hard and cried. Slow like my first kiss, second kiss, every kiss with a boy I’d had until I figured out that boys were not for me and kissing slow would not make it better. We had been riding for a long time when he finally asked. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” I busied myself with the straps of my backpack, rubbing them against each other.

“How’s your mom?” I froze for a second and then continued with the straps.

“Doesn’t matter.” “Illiana, don’t talk to me like that.” “It’s not like you care anyways. Besides, it’s Lily.” I corrected him and shook my head,

abandoning the straps. He would never get it right.

“ Of course I care,” he replied. A new message chimed in. I scooted closer and saw the

name Rosa. He quickly picked up the phone from the dashboard and began typing, his left hand still on the wheel.

“Whatever”.

It was like I didn’t respond. Silence settled over and the speedometer moved slowly past 75. Even though I was looking straight, I could see his reflection in the car window and that tiny screen. I could see him pick up the phone again, send a message, and keep the phone in his hand to wait for the next ping, over and over. Ping! Rosa, mujer de rojo, fucking puta. I thought of how she walked away from his car that day, tugging that dress and doing the dance, how she stood in front of the 99-cent store window and fluffed her hair before she went God knows where. Rosa probably hadn’t seen me but he sure as hell did. Rojo like a tomato, he didn’t say anything, didn’t try to explain, just stayed still as though if he did I wouldn’t see him with his tail between his legs. Fucking perro. Rosa was probably sending him her tits while he told me he would be late to pick me up and rendezvous to meet her behind the store dumpster. Ping! Ping! Ping!

“How was class today?” “Good.” I said, watching him put the phone down on his lap and put both hands on the wheel again.

“Do you have a lot of homework?” “No, just studying. Exam is next week.” He’d get an extra hour to fuck Rosa, I guess.

“So your mom is okay?” He posed again. “Are you still with that puta?” I answered back. “Illiana, stop acting like this. I’m your father, you need to respect me,” he responded as

his hands gripped the wheel tighter and the speedometer moved to 76.

“So you are.” I scoffed and put my feet up on the dashboard, knowing what he’d say

next.

“Illiana. Put your feet down.” And so it moved to 77. “I deleted the messages. Just like you asked,”

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and fidgeted with the zipper of my jacket instead, feet still on the dashboard while the lights danced on us.

He didn’t expect me to say that. Not like I did it for his ass anyways. But it would have broken my mom to see him tell that puta he was going to save up money, leave us, and marry her. Te quiero, he told her. You are my everything, baby. Piece of shit. Better off that Rosa was a one-time hit-it-and-quit-it, at least to my mami. Blue and white bubbles that destroyed my life, I half wish he hadn’t left his phone on the table that day.

The silence stretched so long I thought the conversation had ended and was content with just speeding by. Rocket Man was long forgotten and another tune had taken over his place, and I began to daydream of a different life.

“I still love you guys. This doesn’t change that I love you,” he reached out and felt around for my hand but I still had them between my lap, playing with the zipper. He put his hand back on the wheel. “I didn’t want for things to be like this. ”

I had heard this all before. He had cried to me before and I believed him only to find him dropping her off at the 99 cents later that day. Nothing he said anymore made a difference.

“Put your feet down,” he tried again. The needle slid to 78. Ping! Ping! Ping!

“God, how desperate can she be?” I reached for his phone to silence it but he was there first, typing away and hardly looking up now, and we moved to 79, zooming zooming.

“Tell her to fuck off, keep your eyes on the fucking road, I don’t want to die with you.” And we were flying at eighty. For the next couple of miles all I heard was how I was ungrateful, how he didn’t even want to give me rides to my evening class at the community college because he had better things to do then take attitude from a kid who just turned eighteen, how I should just work because I was a good-for-nothing mocosa who got rejected from every university I applied to, how I was depressed because I didn’t try enough and a whole extra minute about how he was my father, and I couldn’t forget that, with wild gestures and all, one hand on the wheel and that white screen waving around in the air. Ping! Ping! Ping!

“I don’t care.”

I heard it before I saw it happen. I heard the boom of car hitting car and I didn’t register my body lurching forward, only felt my seatbelt fight against the impact and dig into my neck and chest, and pain in my back because my body was forced to bend while my feet were still on the dashboard. The car brakes screeched and screeched until we almost kissed the red Lexus in front of us, that had rear-ended the car in front of them, and even though I saw it I don’t understand how it happened. I only looked over at the man who looked like my father, looking frazzled with his curly hair standing up, disheveled from being lurched forward and of course— the phone on the floor of the car, buzzing still with the unforgettable ping! ping! ping!

I stayed how I was, bent out of shape and in shock, watching the man I never knew pick up the phone as he asked me if I was okay, who would later take me to the doctors for chronic back pain and tell me that he was sorry. He would tell me that things would get better and he would be better and I accepted this as another sort that would always be too.

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lasentimentael · 6 years ago

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The Lamp

My Papí was my hero. He was an ordinary man—a job, a wife, and two kids—but to me, he was incredible. My Papí would wake up at five in the morning to go work at a scrap metal company in South Gate, take the lucrative 710 to the 60 to the 605 ride back home, have dinner with us, and sleep during play time with me. And I loved him for it.

That was the rhythm. Weekdays we spent with me nudging him awake and using hair accessories and chubby hands to style his locks. Curly black hair held together by pink and purple butterfly clips and tied with bright blue elastics all while my Papí snoozed. He’d wake up the next morning and go to work like that too.

On weekends, it went like this. He’d work Saturday and come home around noon to a modest yellow home with a rose bed in the front yard and a Rottweiler pup in the back. The house would be chaotic, yelling from my mother to my brother, from her to me, from him to me, and me to them. Brooms and mops and a vacuum would hum along to Selena Quintanilla, and Don Chente. When Papí came, it meant we took a break and ate, sometimes beans and rice, and in richer times a treat from the Pollo Campero near my Papí’s work. When the cleaning was done, we would hop into our worn down Jaguar, and go to the movies. Action movies mostly, they were Papí’s favorite.

Sundays were sweeter, they meant breakfast at Denny’s and dinner at home, a few slaps of carne asada on the grill, fresh guacamole, and the rice and beans my Mamí made. My Papí would grill while I played with our Rottweiler, Bryan and Mamí setting the table. A yummy dinner, clean up, and the night would end with Papí reading a book to me before bed.

One day, on a Sunday, we went slightly out of routine. For whatever reason, we didn’t grill outside, we just ate McDonalds and called it a day, my parents laid in bed watching a movie, and I wandered the house as I usually did. I came to settle in my brother’s room. He had a fair-sized room with things a twelve-year old boy would have. His desk was shoved in the far right corner, an assortment of Gundam Mobile Suit figurines and Hot Wheels cars set on display. An old mattress that Papí was going to get rid of was propped against the closet on the left. A Sonic the Hedgehog poster hung over his bed, which resided closest to the doorway. Beside that, a single lamp with no lampshade. Just a bare bulb that lit up the room.

Bryan was at his desk, his back to the door. I came up behind him and saw he was playing on the new Windows 98 we had gotten a few months before. He managed to install Mega Man on it, and man, was he good at it.

“Whatcha doing?” I asked, pushing my mane of frizzled goodness out my face. I did that thing where I adjusted my shirt awkwardly with my clumsy six-year old hands, and totally invaded his personal space, real close to his ear.

“Get away, stop breathing so close to my ear,” I remember him say, eyes not moving away from the computer screen. Mega Man was blasting Proto Man.

“ But I wanna see. Can I help?” I moved closer, accidentally knocking down a pencil he had on his desk.

“Jessi, get away. Go sit by the mattress.”

“Why? I wanna watch you play. Let me help.”

“Help me by sitting over there. Go or I’ll tell Mamí.”

That was all I needed to hear. I went and sat by the old mattress, bored but for whatever reason, not willing to move on to elsewhere in the house. I studied the mattress, worn and beat up, and yellowed, so that the blue material had turned green in some spots. In its place, at Bryan’s bed, was the new mattress. It was a colorful Dinosaur patterned one that he had chosen himself. I watched Bryan click away for what seemed like forever, until Papí happened to be passing by, and poked his head in. He looked towards Bryan.

“Where’s your sister? He looked on the bed, expecting to find me there.

“Hi Papí,” I waved from my spot by the old mattress. I briefly wondered if I could get him to tell my brother to play with me instead of his computer.

I saw his eyes slowly follow the sound of my voice until he found me. He went from nonchalant, to having his eyebrows furrow together, and his voice got like, three times louder.

“What are you doing there?” he asked, while my brother still clicked away.

“Helping Bryan,” I said dully, even though I knew I wasn’t really helping.

“Qué?”

“Helping Bryan,” I said a little more loudly.

“What do you mean helping? What are you doing sitting next to that mattress?” He shook his head as he spoke, pointing to the mattress and trying to make sense of what I said.

“Bryan said I can play by sitting here. It’s not really fun.” I pointed at Bryan, who was oblivious to our entire conversation. He was still clicking away, only now he was losing to Proto Man.

“Bryan, did you tell her to sit next to the mattress?” Papí asked.

“Uh…yeah...but it’s because she wouldn’t stop bugging me.”

“Who wo-why would you think that’s okay?”

My brother shrugged, still not looking away from the screen. My Papí fumed, and sat on my brother’s bed. I could see the steam coming out of his ears but I couldn’t understand why he was so upset.

“Ven pa’ca.” My Papí’s Salvadoran accent was strong, and I hesitated to go over. I was in trouble.

“Ven pa’ca.” He waved me over, only barely contained. “Why did you go sit there?”

“Uh…because Bryan told me to.”

“Are you going to do whatever he tells you to do?”

“Um” I said. I wasn’t sure if this was a trick question. I had seen a lot of that on Scooby-Doo and The Flintstones.

“Are you going to do whatever he tells you to do?”

“Yeah?” My voice went up at the end; you could hear I didn’t understand where he was going with this. “You said to listen to him.”

“If somebody tells you to jump off a cliff, are you going to do it?” Papí’s hair, normally curly and neat stood up on all ends, a big ‘fro of mess. His face was stoic and serious.

I said nothing, trying to figure out what the right answer was. What he wanted me to answer. I thought he had come in to tell me he was going to read to me. Or ask if I wanted cereal. Or make Bryan play with me.

“Sit here.” He patted his lap. His tone stayed firm, but the lap said I was safe.

“Look here,” Papí said, pointing at the lamp beside us. The bulb was exposed and very bright. Heat radiated off of it.

“Touch it,” he said.

“What?” I asked, wondering if I had heard him right.

“Touch it. Go on, touch it.”

I looked at him incredulously.

“But Papí… It’s hot.”

“So? Touch it.”

“But I’ll burn myself.”

“Touch it.”

I studied his face. Completely serious.

“Andále, touch it. Do it.” He grabbed my hand and moved it closer to the bulb.

I knew very well that my hand would burn. I knew it, but my Papí had told me to do it. I didn’t know why, but he had asked me to do it. I contemplated for a moment, but Papí had always said to do what he said. Do it, he said.

So I touched it.

Almost immediately, I pulled my hand away. I pulled it away and cried before I even saw how red my hand was, before I knew the skin would peel from how hot the bulb was. I cried and held onto Papí, but I hated him also. My Papí held me as I cried, soothed my hair, and held my hand in his.

All the while, he said, “You see? That’s why you don’t always do what you’re told to do.”

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lasentimentael · 6 years ago

Text

Lavandería Vignettes

La Puente, California, 1998—My parents had just bought their first home, a springtime, pastel yellow house in the col-de-sac of the east side, or “Bassett” side of the city, nearing the northern edge towards West Covina. The Bassett side of La Puente, with its Bassett Grande gangs, graffiti’d walls, under-funded school district, did not discourage my parents when they searched for a better home for our family. Already, our small house and its neighborhood felt worlds better than where they started their family. A Latino family of four, that is, mi Mamí, Papí, nine year old brother, Bryan, and toddler me, were crammed in a garage converted home that we shared with an aunt and uncle in the city of Commerce; this was an arrangement made for survival. It meant the four of us slept in one room, my brother in his own mattress while I was still small enough to squeeze in between my parents. Commerce meant my father worked two jobs to keep the roof above our heads, we lived across a car body shop, and we never, ever played outside.

After several weeks of Re/Max real estate agency trips, house brochures, and a very distinct conversation with my Tia Cruz, my father was able to purchase our first home, with my aunt as a cosigner. To my toddler mind, I thought this meant we were rich, and therefore thought we could afford our own laundry machine. I thought we were done with laundry trips. As young as I was, I had learned to detest them, the five a.m. wakeup calls, the rough way in which my mother shoved my hoodies over my head, the bite of the crisp morning air, and the unmistakable panic I’d have each time when I realized it was up to me to stake a claim on a few laundry machines. The Laundromat in Commerce was two miles away, and forced us to wait until Sundays when we could pile into my father’s beat up Jaguar with our black trash bags of clothes. The night before would have Bryan and I spend an hour in mounds of clothing, separating into colors—“ ¿ De que color es este?” my brother would ask. Back then, our Salvadoran accents were thicker, you could tell we were my father’s children from the way we spoke alone. I would respond, not truly knowing, but guessing anyways, until I got it right. This was how I learned my colors before I ever attended kindergarten.

I was very mistaken. Moving into our yellow home meant we didn’t have furniture for an entire year, just plastic chairs and the hard wooden floor, we had even less to spare for a washer and dryer with which to wash our clothes at home. We set up rows of rope across our new back yard, tied to makeshift wood posts installed by my father a weekend prior to us moving in. I didn’t understand why we were doing this in the blazing hot sun. It was August. I couldn’t even really help, but there I was, handing rope and nails with my small chubby hands to my mother and brother. The laundry trips continued, only now, the Laundromat was in our backyard. On the other side of our col-de-sac was a liquor store, a drive-thru dairy mart, and mi querida lavandería.

In the summer months, we took advantage of the heat and bagged our wet clothes, saving ourselves quarters and hanging our clothes to dry in the yard. The most said phrase in the house during this time of year, apart from “Aye! Los frijoles!” was “Aye! La ropa!” which indicated the wind, or sheer weight of the wet clothes, had caused the clothes to drop from the ropes from which they hung. Three and four year old me spent summers running outside every twenty minutes or so to pick up the clothes and hang them up again with wooden clothing pins, annoyed that the darn clothes wouldn’t stay up by themselves. My brother and I secretly agreed, if we had our own washer and dryer, we wouldn’t have our cartoons or Lego playtime interrupted.

In the colder months, mi Mamí and Papí dressed me in my warmest clothes, putting a beanie over my head, and a scarf to cover my face. I would race to the laundry machines and put my mom’s purse down, the Downey and Tide, whatever I could carry in my hands to help me claim a space of our own. My parents and brother would bring in the trash bags and we would all load in the clothes. I helped put detergent in the machines and would shed all my warm clothes over the next two hours in the heat of the dryers that were already running. We would spend money washing and drying, spend time loading and folding. Sometimes I’d get hungry, or bored, and ask Mami for a few quarters. The conversations usually went like this:

“¿ Mamí, me das unas monedas?” I’d hold up my hand at my mother, a Mexican woman who towered over me with all 5 feet and 1 inch of herself.

I almost always knew the answer, but the possibility of it being different, was always worth asking.

“No, Jessi,” She would say, sometimes not looking at me at all, the ‘J’ in my name always, to this day, sounding like a ‘y’. Yessi.

“No más una, Mamí,” I’d try again, and move my little hand to hold up a single finger. At least this Laundromat had an arcade machine that I could play PacMan on, if I could convince Bryan to lift me up enough so I could see the screen.

“Hoy no, mija. No tengo suficiente.” Sometimes at this, she would move to check the machines, whether it was because they were nearly done, or because it gave her something to do in a place where all we did was wait.

“Please?” I was a stubborn child, and although I knew better than to insist, there were times I pushed a little harder. After all, to a toddler, it was only a quarter.

“Ya te dije que no. Parale, ya.”

Sometimes I’d get angry, other times I cried, and every so often I felt bad for ever asking when I saw exactly how many quarters my mother held in her worn out Winnie the Pooh coin pouch. When I cried, I would try asking mi Papí, thinking my mother was mean and unfair, and my father would sit me on his lap and explain that we didn’t have enough for a laundry machine yet. Our house was expensive, and money was still very tight. Some weekends, when I cried because all I wanted was a bottle of milk from the liquor store next door, my father would go into the Jaguar and magically come out with a dollar. On rare occasions my mother would eventually give me the money herself, and I would walk next door with my brother for a sticker, or a gumball. Most times though, my brother would pat me on my back and we’d eventually forget about wanting to play the Metal Slug games, and I’d see my parents talking in front of the dryers, in hushed tones in the aftermath of my tears. Bryan and I would rest on the only bench in the whole Laundromat, our heads leaning on one another dozing off, while the sound of the washers and dryers counted time slowly for us all.

La Puente, California, 2005—By now, the yellow house was gone and sold off, a result of disagreements between Tia Cruz, Mamí, and my other aunts and uncles. Our family of four relocated to a new house, this time to the southeastern edge of La Puente, on the corner of Nelson and Sunkist Avenue. My father shouldered a new house, mud-colored exterior with a wired fence, a leaking roof, and a Countrywide loan that would eventually cause us to lose our home after the economy crash of 2008. The Nelson house felt like a step backwards. My father struggled to make every house payment, my mother cried every other day over the estrangement of our family, Bryan was a sixteen year old with aspirations for a college dream no one in our family had ever achieved, and I was navigating through the end of elementary school, depressed and trying to make sense of the world around me. Like many Latinx families, we just didn’t talk about what was happening.

In all of this chaos, at least, we had held on to the washing and dryer machine my father finally saved up for while we lived in our first house. We carried these machines, along with the rest of our baggage, to our new home, where we quickly realized we lived at the crossroad of violence. Our Nelson house marked the unofficial division line between Bassett Grande and Puente 13, the two gangs of La Puente notorious for their clashes and violent outbursts. It was not uncommon to hear gunshots on school nights, to see cholos hanging around the neighborhood and deal drugs to kids as my mother walked me to catechism classes near the local high school. Along Nelson Avenue, the two gangs would often beef it out in front of our house, and my mother would lock the doors and close the blinds, and scold me for even voicing a desire to take a peak outside. Nelson Avenue was the kind of street borrachos passed out on and prostitutes looked for work on, an odd crucifix against the Sunkist Avenue that tried to move towards friendly neighborhoods and suburbia.

This was our home though, and we made the best of it, but when my mother told my father, in the July summer heat, that the machine was not broken, it felt like the world’s reminder that for us, a washer and dryer were very much luxuries we were not meant to have.

We returned to the Laundromat, that same weekend, and the weekend after, and more weekends after, for the next three or four months, while my father saved enough money to buy a new washer. It would cost too much to repair the old one, and was cheaper to spend our weekends at our new lavandería, this time only a block down from us, in between a carnicería, a panadería, and a little ways down from a Playboy lounge along the same strip. By this time in our life, we knew the routine. My black mane, curly and frizzy as ever, still reserved our machines early on now Saturday mornings, a small change possible because of the lack of work at my father’s job. Bryan still lugged trash bags along with my mother and father, now in a Nissan Altima. Myself, at ten, had more discipline, and I resisted the sweet smells of fresh pan dulce and leche, instead helping my mother fold the clothes while my brother and father tried to figure out what other expenses to cut out on to make ends meet.

Some weekends were more bitter than others. A few times that month were marked by particularly violent events. On a Wednesday night as I came back from catechism, a run-in between the two gangs had a Bassett member pull a knife and stab the opposing gang member in front of my father and I. It was like we weren’t there. We hurried inside, my mother urged my father to call la polícia. My father angrily said he would not put our family in danger. A Saturday evening, that same week, had another gang-related victim jumped and bludgeoned with a mace and a bat, right against our car. My father had just washed the car by hand, and the next day he had no choice but to wash the car again. I watched him scrub the blood and saw his jaw tighten the way it did when he rarely spoke of his teenage years in El Salvador, when he told us my great grandfather beat him, or when he told us of the bodies of community members and friends he’d pass in the midst of the violence between guerrilla soldiers (that would eventually form the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberaciòn Nacional or FMLN) and the Salvadoran military. Another time, the S.W.A.T team swept the neighborhood and a helicopter landed in the empty lot in front of my house, because of a hostage situation. A different quiet Saturday morning of breakfast, interrupted by a heated argument demanding my brother left the house, a physical altercation between Papí y Bryan ensued. Every weekend we went to the Laundromat, we followed the same routine of my early childhood, but the morning of I cried when we got home. My mother held me and stroked my hair, saying “Ya, mi niña”, my father was stoic, and my brother was never forced to move out. Latinos never talk about things.

La Puente, California, 2019—A 25 year marriage, ending in divorce. Several homes later, Mamí, Bryan, and I live alone in a different part of La Puente, “unincorporated Valinda”, on the West side. We rent a house, it has been several years without Papí. Bryan and I work jobs, I go to school, my mother is disabled thanks to a stroke she had this past summer. Tia Cruz and Mamí made up, she moved back in, now with a daughter of her own, but la vida es la vida, and it turns out she moved out again and we’re not speaking to her. Mamí was hospitalized in the first few days of January again because of more health issues, Tia Cruz took her laundry machine with her when she moved out. When my mother saw my brother and I, running errands around the whole day, cooking meals for her special diet, buying groceries, paying bills, and keeping up with cleaning, she panicked. She said, “Mija! Y la ropa?” and I almost laughed at how concerned she looked. I was tired, I was aching for sleep. But, we did what we have always done. My brother and I, los dos juntos, packed our laundry at 7pm on a Sunday evening, dug around for quarters, and drove to the closest Laundromat, with the same Winnie the Pooh pouch. I staked my claim on four washers and together Bryan and I loaded the clothes in, and waited on the only bench in the place. Mi hermano y yo, talked about las lavanderías de nuestras vidas, de Commerce a La Puente. We got teary-eyed over mi Papí, over mi Mamí, laughed over the tenacity of our immigrant parents, a Mexican and Salvadoran who managed to get two kids through college and own their house, even amongst all that they lost and sacrificed. For ourselves, we held on to each other, and talked over the screech of laundry cart tires being scooted to washers and the loud tumbling of clothes in the dryers. We let the time pass us by, until it was time for us to move on.

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