One day after school, Tico wasn’t home. Next day, same thing. No word, no note, no explanation. After a few weeks our panic subsided—he wasn’t a child after all, he could take care of himself. “He’s young, he probably wanted to go have fun,” mom said. “Anyway, he was too vibrant to be stuck working as a nanny.”
Months later, the New York coroner called. Tico had joined a pilgrimage of infected men who found, in New York, a place to die shame-free. When the test results said positive, Tico peaced out. Later we heard, through the grapevine, he died alone on a mattress on the floor. What’s worse than a funeral, I discovered, is none at all. Mom was never given the chance to accept him (since he hadn’t come out or shared his diagnosis) nor to mourn him. Our family’s and community’s silence surrounding his queerness was all the info he needed. It literally equaled death.
* * *
—
Mom held an umbrella above me as I stood at a podium before City Hall. It was a rain-drenched October morning, World AIDS Day, and I’d won The Philadelphia Inquirer’s student essay contest. Earlier that week, my speech had been published as a short-form essay. There was my name, on the Inquirer’s op-ed page. A published author at fifteen. Mom was making coffee on the stovetop when I handed her the newspaper. She read in silence. Then looked up from the paper in tears. “You used your middle name,” she said.
The day of the speech the emcee asked about pronunciation. “Quiara Alegría Hudes,” she said correctly, and I took my place at the podium. My remarks would precede the mayor’s, which Pop declared a big deal, so he thumbed out some fifties for an outfit and haircut. In the end, my new look was sheathed beneath a single-use poncho. Fat raindrops fell in sheets. My pages grew damp and the ink began to blur so that mom had to adjust the umbrella above the paper. I looked out at the crowd. It was hardly the hundreds they’d prepared me for. Fifty or so people stood around the plaza, shielding their hair with newspapers and briefcases. Folks don’t come to World AIDS Day out of curiosity. They come because HIV was their reaper, too. With a respectful hush, they waited for me to begin. “Good morning,” I said, and the words entered a vacuum, then bounced back at me with eons of delay. Dear god, I thought, just let them hear me. Slowly and loudly, I began. I named Tico. I named Big Vic. I described a brief memory of each, eulogizing them in fondness. It had been harder to write about Guillo. Rumors of his temper made me avoid him in early childhood, and I’d never spent quality time with the man. Still, if I didn’t have an anecdote about Guillo, I could name him.
Because of the umbrellas no one could clap, so when the speech was done I just waited in silence, then accompanied mom to a wet bench upstage. As the mayor took the podium, mom leaned my way. Her hot whisper stood out in the October chill. “I love your middle name,” she said. “It’s about time you bring it back. Because how can you name all those family members, Quiara, if you won’t even name yourself?” Then she slipped her hand beneath my poncho. Her thumb stroked my closed fist over and over, as though my knuckles were rosary beads.
Unwritten Recipes
When I asked Abuela for cooking lessons, it was an excuse for one-on-one time, a way to hear her stories. As an oral historian, she came alive at the stovetop’s blue flowering flame. Isn’t that how cavemen did it? Told it all around the campfire? Anyway, cooking itself was my lesser concern. These lessons happened informally for my cousins, but I felt the need to make an appointment. To formally ask, thereby signaling my curiosity. Side dishes like serenata and sorullos could come in subsequent years but white rice was the ABCs, the 101. If you sprinkled pique on her grains, Abuela’s arroz blanco was a satisfying meal. Her rice glistened, with a toothy bite. We settled on a Saturday but no particular time, so that when I arrived, she was just coming out of the shower. She had no qualms about nudity, but she sprang for her teeth as I came upstairs. Her uppers and lowers laughed in a water glass by the bed. After slipping them in, she grabbed the tortoiseshell comb: a hefty, wide-toothed thing with mother-of-pearl inlay at the handle. Unlike most of her stuff, this comb was no dollar-store purchase. Abuela sat naked on the edge of her bed, combing her hair in long, patient strokes. Though she didn’t have much of it, each strand was thick and straight, and it cascaded down her shoulders, past her breasts, and over her belly like a brook’s gentle waterfall, ending in a silver pool on her lap. In the end all those long strands were swirled into a bun no larger than a Dixie cup. It was rare to glimpse her hair down, because she cooked every day and had to protect it from the flames.
Then we headed toward the Bustelo can in the kitchen, and once coffee was ready, she began.
Step one: After measuring the desired number of handfuls, rinse the rice in a colander, picking out any stones.
I craved the accuracy of measuring cups but Abuela didn’t own any. They lacked the intention that makes a meal burrow deep. A good dinner starts with a handful of dry rice. Como asi, she said. Feel how I cup my palm. When I touched Abuela’s hand, I touched ten thousand yesterdays. Her skin felt like parchment: thin, smooth, and crackly. My hand was smaller, I said, hers was bigger. What is the exact amount of rice to put in? I asked. She just laughed. Poor Qui Qui.
How you cure the pot is important. Mom’s old adage came to me. Stone masons could behold a city block with pride, thinking, I cobbled those streets, I laid those bricks. A good home cook could serve her neighbors and think, I made this pot. It’s cured by my hours in the kitchen. Mom bragged relentlessly about her cookware’s patina. She could afford new pots, but woman was loyal to the old. Abuela couldn’t afford squat, and if she was proud of her oil-stained pots, she never let on. That’s how it went from first generation to second. Workaday tools for Abuela became bragging points for her daughters.
Abuela was suspicious of my Spanish. No sooner had she launched into a story than she paused mid-tale and asked, “Repeat what I just said.” She wasn’t gonna waste a good climax on half-ass comprehension. So, I paid close attention and earned what I had come for. I memorized her sentences as she spoke them, ready to repeat whenever asked. Always mentally translating, filtering her history through English’s roughness.
* * *
—
Obdulia Perez. An old-world name, bien highbrow. Born to a Spaniard who hated Spain and a Taína who shared the sentiment. Her parents both detested colonialism, albeit from flip sides of the coin. They lived in Lares, right next to Jayuya and Utuado, a regional hotbed of the underground independence movement. Obdulia’s musician father and midwife mother often traveled for work. Perhaps participating in the island-wide resistance network. What is certain is that during a demonstration, the midwife’s breast was injured. Either blown off entirely or partially grazed. Obdulia never saw the wound firsthand. Had it been El Grito de Lares, that historic day Puerto Ricans armed themselves against Spain? The timing was possible, but the revolution also spanned another fifty years. After El Grito, the whole region was on fire. Details of gory persecution abounded. Obdulia’s family fled to Arecibo. Her parents grew afraid to even say “We come from Lares.” A fear they instilled in their daughters, until the instinct to hide became ingrained.
In Arecibo, Obdulia and Ramona—notoriously beautiful sisters—were nicknamed Las Españolas for their clear blue eyes and Canary Island roots. As a descriptor it was fine, but as a “compliment” it held colonial undertones, racist code: light-skinned Puerto Ricans jockeying for status, mentioning distant European origins. But Abuela was no parlor Boricua and the nickname La Española chose her, not the other way around. She married the most Taíno motherfucker in Arecibo. Juan Bautista Perez, aka Indio. Straightest profuse hair on his head, not a strand on his body, gorgeous square teeth: diente de pala. From his rich mahogany skin, mom and Titi Ginny got their trigueña hue, while the older sisters, Toña and Margie, were fair.
At thirty-two years old, Juan Perez was twice Obdulia’s age. A respected laborer, the man was proud to a fault and was
rumored to have a lover in every neighboring town. He was the kind of worker on his land by sunrise, harvesting the earth till sundown. The kind of laborer who, in the off season, headed to his second job at the power company. For years he hung electric wires on the streets so Arecibo could march into modernity. When he lost two fingers on the job and got disability, he asked for payment in land; his small farm expanded. Still, on weekends he set up shop on the roadside and sold carbón—handmade natural charcoal—dressed head to toe in white linen. In the early sixties, Obdulia left Juan Perez—the father of her five children—and Puerto Rico, the only island she’d known. She loaded four girls—two daughters, two adopted grandkids—on a plane for Los Bronx. There are many versions of why she left. In the simplest, which she told me as we plucked pebbles from hard rice, she discovered Juan Perez humping her cousin on the sofa.
* * *
—
“No!” my mom protests twenty-three years later while cooking rice in her fancy new kitchen. I’m only relaying the story her mom told me. “That’s not what happened, Quiara.”
“But that’s what she said!” By this time Obdulia had long left the earth, and mom’s cheap old caldero sat on an eight-burner chef’s stove.
“Well, I don’t know why she told you that,” mom said. Her refusal to engage was uncharacteristically prudish but typically cagey. I mean, sofa sex? It at least merited discussion! Arecibo was a sweltering valley town. No one had electricity for fans, let alone AC. I imagined sweat-drenched bodies glistening like rice. I imagined Juan Perez thrusting, his lover seated on the sofa, knees skewed wide. Did they have plastic-covered cushions in PR, or were those a Philly thing? Had their sweat soaked the fabric? They surely must have fallen to the floor when Abuela discovered them, fumbled for zippers and belt buckles. But mom U-turned to her theory before another word was spoken on the topic.
Mom’s benign version began when Toña, her older sister, developed a rare cancer. “Now, Toña was a kick-ass businesswoman. She had a gypsy cab and drove it any hour of the night. She was very successful for a woman in those times. So, she could pay for the best of the best. But even the top doctors in Arecibo couldn’t identify the cancer. The real experts were in Nueva York. Bueno, she headed to Los Bronx. Mami was devastated. She had never been apart from her girls. And she couldn’t take care of Toña during the treatment because she had to stay in Puerto Rico with us younger kids. Anyway, Toña was selected for an innovative clinical trial. Her health improved overnight. But months after the treatments ended, she remained. Mami begged her to return, pero her treatment had been outpatient so she spent all that free time finding new hustles, me oyes? She went crazy for the city. She wanted to stay and make more money than was possible in Puerto Rico. Entonces, Abuela was not gonna let her daughters be split up. So she brought us all to Nueva York. Verdad, Cuca?”
My older cousin was standing above the caldero “tasting” mom’s rice out the pot. Cuca was one of the adopted granddaughters on that original plane ride. She couldn’t cook—not a grain of white rice or a piddling kidney bean—but Cuca was great company in the kitchen and did the dishes. “I mean, yes, that did happen with Toña,” Cuca said, “but that’s not why Abuela left.”
Cuca’s was my favorite version of how the Perez girls ended up in Philly. But I denied knowing the story because she’d tell it better if it was my first hearing. As Cuca spoke, mom grabbed the serving spoon and took a turn “tasting.”
“Bueno, you know Titi Ginny was an athlete, right? And not some chippy-choppy sorta thing, she was the best of the best. Javelin and discus, those were her specialties. Verdad?” Mom nodded with a mouthful of rice. “By senior year, Ginny had beat every girls’ and boys’ record in Arecibo. Well, she heard there was a competition to go get Olympic training. The slots were limited, so it was a long shot, but Luis took her to San Juan for the competition.”
“Wait, Luis, mom’s older brother?” I had never met him. He had died while mom was pregnant with me, and she was so near my due date, the midwives forbade air travel. Mom never attended her older brother’s funeral.
“Right,” Cuca continued. “So, Luis took Ginny to the competition in San Juan. It was very hush-hush. Because Papi was strict, he would’ve never let Ginny go. Ginny cut school and they went knowing they had to be back before dark, before their papi returned from the farm. Well, Ginny won each round. She kept getting passed to the next level. And it’s getting later and Ginny and Luis were like, oh shit, what are we gonna do? They hadn’t really thought through the timing. Way after dark, she was one of the last girls standing.” And here, Cuca squeezed my arm for emphasis. “She was selected from hundreds to fly to the States for free summer training, and a potential spot on the Junior Olympic track team! And that’s not all,” Cuca said. Mom poured a glass of Cuca’s favorite sweet moscato. Cuca sipped, then continued. “It gets better. La Universidad de San Juan Rio Piedras had sent coaches to watch the whole thing, like, for, como se dice, recruitment. They offered Ginny a full scholarship starting in the fall!”
I had never heard that part before. It was a moment of potential transformation for the family. Their first college degree. Obdulia had left school after second grade. Juan Perez’s farm skills were based on Taíno tradition, not schoolhouse education. But, Cuca told me, Juan Perez said no. A girl’s place was on the farm: cooking, cleaning, providing childcare. Ginny would labor like the rest of them. Stubbornness had already cost him two elder daughters, both of whom eloped with men he deemed unworthy. Juan was not about to relinquish Ginny to adulthood, too. The day of Ginny’s flight to training camp came and went, as did the deadline to accept the college scholarship.
If Ginny was devastated, Abuela grew determined. A combination of family tragedies, natural disasters, and agrarian realities had forced Abuela out of school, but no man would deny Ginny what Abuela had only dreamt of. Obdulia had secretly bought Ginny a suitcase, a congratulatory gift for the journeys ahead. The suitcase had gone unpacked and unused. Now Abuela bought more suitcases and filled them with summer clothes and determination. Juan Perez, the proud Taíno, sneered his denial. “You’ll never leave!” Even as Abuela exited onto the porch, girls in tow, weighed down by heavy luggage, he yelled after them, “You’ll be back!”
In a way, he was right. Tía Toña, daddy’s girl number one, returned that Christmas with a rose gold pocket watch for her papi. Twenty-four-karat proof of her Nuevayol flourishing. Titi Margie, not to be shown up, visited on Three Kings, with a matching rose gold chain. Their father-gifting became a civil war. The two sisters would visit the stubborn Taíno, bringing suitcases of flip-flops, leather sandals, summer linens, electronics. But as long as Juan Perez lived and breathed, Obdulia, La Española, would never again return.
Step two: Coat the bottom of the pot with oil and turn on your flame. “How high should the heat be, Abuela?” “High enough to cook it,” she says, smiling.
Step three: Empty the rice into the pot. Now stir, coating each granito with oil.
Landing in the Bronx, Abuela saw concrete stretching toward the horizon. A far cry from the curvy water hole where her daughters had learned to swim, and where the strong current had strengthened Ginny’s athletic core. They moved into a noisy apartment on Jerome Avenue. At seven stories, it was the tallest building Abuela had ever seen. For a front yard they had four steps, and instead of roosters, pigeons head-bobbed at their ankles. Their small windows looked out onto brick, so that the only way to see sky was to stick your head out and crane your face upward. Within weeks Virginia, the youngest at eleven, was coming home late from school. She developed a habit of hiding in the hallways long after the final bell. And until the janitor kicked her out, she would stay there, hoping that the gang had grown tired of waiting. But many nights they were ready, rocks in hand. In the mid-sixties, gang wars between Puerto Rican girls and Black non-Latinas came with turf rules that Virginia couldn’t decipher. In Arecibo,
Black girls spoke Spanish and were Boricua same as mom. But in Nuevayol, she learned, there were Black people beyond Puerto Ricans, and the gangs signaled that separation. Luckily, Virginia had some of her sister’s speed and most days got home intact if winded. But her head was bloodied more than once. Until the rock crew was greeted on the stoop by Obdulia, machete in hand, her body fixed in the stance of a farm woman who knew the blade well. They didn’t bug mom after that.
Shopping had a whiff of heartbreak, too. Walking half a mile in the stinky heat to buy a hard avocado for a dollar. Just months earlier, soft avocados rained down if you shook a branch. Half-spoiled chicken was now an indulgence—gray meat with an off-smelling odor. Just months earlier, little Virginia chased hens through the yard, snatching at them, the hens eluding and pecking her. Trapping and defeathering those birds was her least favorite chore, but she did miss the sopita’s fresh flavor.
A visit to Obdulia’s sister would surely be medicine. Years earlier, Ramona—the other Española—had set up on Callowhill, a Puerto Rican enclave in Philadelphia. There the buildings were only three stories tall. Low enough you could see sky out the window. The Callowhill oaks and chestnuts were no twiggy affair like the stunted Bronx trees. Sturdy wide trunks burst toward the clouds. There was a century-old poplar, Ramona boasted, outside her living room window. There were gangs, to be sure, but they were concerned with men’s turf wars, not stoning little girls. To speak Spanish in the bodega, to hear música jíbara out a fresh-waxed Chevrolet, to see Boricuas waving out windows and sidewalk domino games—Obdulia savored her brief time in Philly. She missed that sense of belonging, chores and conversations done out of doors. Used to the island’s open air, she had not yet adjusted to life behind Los Bronx’s burglar bars. Philly felt a tiny bit like Arecibo. When Obdulia and her daughters returned to the Bronx a few days later, they walked into an empty apartment. Furniture, gone. The chest of drawers had been stolen along with the panties inside it. Obdulia and her four girls turned on their heels, piled into the car, and moved to Philly that same day.
My Broken Language Page 13
