by Rita Indiana
The blow-dryer is Papi’s, as well as the brushes, and a friend of his comes to wash and comb and dry our hair and paint our nails all different colors—mine are painted pink, which later flakes off. Papi has nail-polish remover in a little drawer full of nail files and pumice stones and hydrating creams and cocoa oil and Johnson’s oil. His friend sits me on her lap and takes care of my pink cuticles with a little cotton ball and then another cotton ball that falls on the floor and looks as if it’s bloody.
Papi loses track of how many jackets he has, gifts from friends who own discos, who had the jackets made for him, watches and caps with his initials embroidered in gold so they can be given away at inaugurations and New Year’s Eve parties that Papi attends with a new girlfriend, a new car, and a new pair of boots. They’re newer than anything you or your papi would have, if you actually even know what it means to have such things. Jackets with or without logos, blue, jackets like the kind baseball players wear, phosphorescent jackets, huge, quilted—jackets in which I disappear the moment I put them on, but I put them on anyway and I don’t care, I put them all on as soon as Papi leaves and I am left alone with everything in Papi’s closet. I go in all his walk-in closets and try on all his jackets and they all look great on me. They’re a little big, but that’s very trendy right now, I think, and so I put on one of Papi’s jackets and a pair of Papi’s boots and I walk down the hall between the first and the last closet trying on different combinations, making the boots go clack clack clack cuz I love that sound and it makes me feel like a cowboy, as if I lived in another world.
When Papi sees me in his jackets he says he starts sweating just looking at me wearing them, but I don’t understand. He says he gets so hot just looking at me wearing them. So I keep them on and Papi sweats, sweats, sweats, sweats, sweats, sweats a lot. He gets red and looks as if he’s about to explode. He tells me these are winter jackets. But I don’t understand. He says those jackets are for winter. But I leave them on and now I’m also wearing a pair of Papi’s Ray-Bans, gold ones, cuz Papi has more glasses than anybody, about one hundred and twenty pairs. Papi is sitting and watching Rocky III and they are knocking Rocky’s head off while I’m putting on another jacket and Papi is turning to water. He is totally melting on the couch, the remote control floats in the little puddle that was his hand, but there’s also a kind of steam cuz sweat evaporates very quickly, and so the remote falls on the floor and I start to take off Papi’s jackets, one by one very quickly, cuz I don’t wanna be without my dad, but by the time I remove the last one, Papi is just a sweat stain on the couch and the credits are rolling over Rocky’s face as he screams, his mouth twisted: Adrian!!!!!
But it’s not Rocky who’s screaming—I got confused—it’s really Papi, who drinks so much and gets so bummed. Papi has many bottles filled with all kinds of things and he drinks with his friends, who bring more bottles while they play dominoes with a gold set they gave Papi as a present; it was probably a gift from another disco owner. The clatter of the golden dominoes gets confused with the collision of glasses and bottles and ice. The servant, one of them, sees the price on the bottle and asks Papi if it’s true the bottle costs more than she earns. But now Papi vomits next to the bed, a green vomit, green green, and then yellow and then yellow yellow and then pink and then a very dark red. I don’t like this. Honestly. Papi vomits more than me, and I get nauseous from the minute the smell hits me and I run to put bayrum on my head and on my neck and to put ice under my arms. I’m getting sick, getting really sick.
Papi is dying, I am dying, but luckily Papi has an ambulance, two ambulances, each with a chauffeur and they come to take us to the dog track and so Papi and I are just sitting there, in our wheelchairs, watching the dogs chase a wooden rabbit while a nurse–flight attendant holds our IVs and checks them and adjusts the lever so they’ll increase the flow. My Papi and I have been betting on the red dog not winning all afternoon, but the red dog keeps winning, and it’s a lot of fun. Later, since Papi has friends everywhere, they give us a backstage tour and this is where we see the kennels and bathrooms, where there are little puddles of blood cuz sometimes the dogs die after the races and you can see garbage bags where the dead dogs’ legs stick out. Later the dog track veterinarian lets me give a shot to a buttless greyhound—what joins the leg to the hip is just a piece of skin and he pisses right there, so that’s where I nail the needle, which goes smoothly into the greyhound and then a black man shoves him back in his little cage.
Now we’re getting better. Color returns to our skin. The fever goes down. Papi even shaves, which always makes him feel better cuz when he shaves he looks twenty years younger. Practically a boy. He’s so small, so young, I can even carry him on my back. We’re watching Rocky III again cuz it looks like, along with Dirty Dancing, it’s the only thing playing this summer. Later Papi falls asleep on the couch and I make like I’m asleep too, sometimes opening just one eye to look at the scene of the two of us very close together with our eyes closed. The light of the television makes Papi look even more beautiful and I turn up the volume all the way on the TV so we won’t hear Papi’s girlfriends screaming, so those wretches won’t wake him up since they’ve recently taken to gathering in the parking lot calling and calling him as they walk in a circle with placards and photos of Papi. They call me and then form a human tower, nailing their heels in each other’s shoulders in order to reach the top floor of the tower, where I am with Papi.
Here they come now: skinny and tall ones, really fat ones, women who are all butt, big-assed, dark ones and red-haired ones, snub-nosed and hawk-nosed, titonic, synthetic, some with their tits sticking right up, others with aerodynamic hair—idiots caught between the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon, a frozen and lacquered tsunami suffering from premenstrual syndrome. Here they come, with fake fingernails on their lashes, with eyes on their nails, with their guts like this (and when I say, Like this, I use my right index finger to point to the bicep on my left arm, in other words, the guts should measure about a foot and a half), on stilts and surgical needles, on laser beams instead of needles. They have their own ships, motorcycles, and scooters which Papi bought for them, and they all come together on stationary bicycles to eat me alive, to choke me with a spoon and leave me with a semicircle tattooed on the roof of my mouth, a semicircle that means they forced me to eat, that they worry about my health and my well-being, that they’re all good stepmothers and Papi has chosen well, so I should love them and put up with them and understand them and suck at the milk that seeps from their tits, their little tits, their big tits, and call them Mami, Mamita, Mamasota. They come at me like crazy women, shrieking, laboring with false pregnancies, giving birth to stuffed animals, to latex babies that pee when you squeeze their little bellies.
Here they come again, wiping the lipstick off their teeth with napkins from the pizza place, with dirty rags, the same rags with which they punctured my eardrum while cleaning my ears, and now they’re coming with more wipes to clean what’s left cuz they never get tired of wiping me, of shoving rags and enemas up everywhere when Papi’s not around, when Papi runs out of here in a car he keeps parked on the balcony. He takes off every time they show up, screaming, cursing, pulling their brittle hair out until it just falls out of their heads like ceramic breaking on the granite floor as if it were dust.
Now the girlfriends are coming in semitrucks decorated with red plastic flags, the red and yellow flags of a political party, then the yellow and purple flags of another party, banners and confetti and red streamers in sound trucks with three-hundred-thousand-watt speakers, campaigning for themselves, beating themselves on the stomach and chest so intensely that sometimes an intestine peeks out, or an eye. They’re furious, demonic, beautiful, horrible nobodies. They hate me, hate, hate, hate me, cuz they have to love me, love me, love me.
They’re catching up to us, I tell Papi, and he pulls a pistol out from under the seat and passes it over. Shoot, he says, as he ducks his head behind the wheel cuz they
’re firing on us, throwing rocks at us, grenades, ceramic wigs that shatter very close to our chassis, our car, which is spinning donuts at two hundred miles an hour on the Malecón. I stick an arm out and fire and fire and fire, and you can hear Papi’s girlfriends screaming as they fall from the parade floats, fatally wounded, grabbing their chests. I keep firing with the guns Papi keeps handing me without even glancing at me as he ducks his head, steering with his knees; he uses his other hand to push my head down so they won’t kill us, so the bazookas those bitches are shooting at us will go right past our heads.
The parade floats are decorated with papier-mâché and crepe paper (Taino idols, Columbus skulls, many María Montezes) that light on fire and the hags spit to put them out but the hags’ saliva has a highly combustible pH that makes whole floats go up in flames. The fire reaches their pantyhose while I continue emptying Papi’s guns and hitting whores left and right into the crowds out enjoying the parade on both sides of Avenida George Washington. They clap their hands every time a hollowed-out whore falls from a float. I wave at the crowds and they wave bye-bye with their hands while they grab the dead women so they can steal their necklaces and bracelets.
Papi starts to lift his head but instead of an M16 he hands me a lollipop, a blue lollipop that turns my tongue an almost-black blue. I see myself in the rearview mirror and think—and this is just as we’re taking off (cuz there’s finally enough room on the freeway so we can lift off)—that I want Papi to buy me a chow chow, but before I can even say, Chow, Papi’s girlfriends have been transformed: the papier-mâché Taino idol from the float, which is practically ashes now, has seen them and smelled their blood, and Papi’s girlfriends’ blood has cried out, and a salty wind has lifted the Taino god’s ashes and covered the ravaged corpses. The terrified mob runs and tears at their own clothes cuz the dead women are transforming, convulsing, hitting themselves in the belly so hard that two wings break out from their flesh, two ribbed bat wings, two Batgirl wings, two devil wings, and they soar like proto-pterodactyls, dragoniles, daughters of their own cursed mothers. Papi and I reach an altitude of seven hundred thousand feet, eight hundred thousand feet, when one of the bitches sinks her fangs into our tires. Shoot, goddammit, shoot, says Papi, who has forgotten to give me a gun, and I pull the lollipop from my mouth and I lean almost all the way out of the car window (all this is going on at seven hundred thousand or eight hundred thousand feet, but Papi grabs me by the belt so I won’t fall) and I shove my lollipop into the demon woman’s eye as she screams loudly and falls, dragging all the others, one by one, to the bottom of the sea, raising a crown of froth, very white and very beautiful, at least from way up here.
Papi and I keep going up and up and up and we can’t even see the sea anymore. The temperature just keeps going down and down and down, and Papi starts to shiver and I shiver, so we bring our hands together, cupping our hands and blowing. Papi turns on the car heater, which fills the car with an imitation heat that, even at its best, allows the cold to sneak in. Everything’s white outside and I ask Papi if this is snow, if we’re finally gonna need winter clothes. He says no, these are just clouds.
For a long time, this is all we see, just white and more white, until a yellow light seeps through and drenches everything and there’s music too, a current merengue hit that goes like this: White kite that plays and ignores / that you’re already mine. Later we can see the mango-colored neon sign in which a beer bottle eternally pours a stream of froth that spells out Car Wash. Two dark women wearing mango-colored anoraks come skating through the clouds and help us open the doors of Papi’s car because, like I said before, they open by lifting up, but now they’re stuck cuz the white frost has gotten into the slits and frozen over. The two black women, who’ve known Papi all their lives, help us get into a couple of mango-colored anoraks with white fur hoods. The anoraks (This car wash is first class, says Papi) have our names printed in silver. They’re very pretty, and I’m delighted as we go into the car wash looking for a place among the rest of the clientele, who are dressed for the cold. Everyone’s at the bar, leaning on little Formica tables. All the men have their hair cut the same way: a bun on top that they pull at with their index fingers and thumbs to make it seem more voluminous, a greasy little mane in back and designs on both sides—sculpted with both scissors and razor—featuring Sergio Valente’s bull, stars of Bethlehem, or Tony Mota’s face.
Through the picture window, you can see the clients’ cars as the rest of Papi’s ex-girlfriends—shackled at the neck by latex-covered chains that light up—squeeze huge sponges. Hoses spew foam that falls on their bodies the whole time, but these girls must be very cold cuz they’re naked.
THREE
Then Papi goes shopping.
And I go with him.
Cuz he’s my dad and I’m his daughter.
And Papi buys so many things, I forget how many. Papi has so much money, he has to carry a woman’s purse; a man’s bag is just not big enough. That’s why he’s always with a woman, so she can carry his purse. He has many purses, some that match his boots, most are leather and come in all sizes, very pretty and very refined. He also has many belts, some made of buffalo, rhinoceros, or Komodo dragon. That’s why when we go shopping he brings along not just one but two or three women to carry his purses and his checkbooks and billfolds, so many billfolds that sometimes Papi prefers to just buy the whole store and stay there overnight among the air conditioners, freezers, blenders, TVs, and other domestic appliances.
When I was little, my dad used to carry me like a purse, or so he says: he used to carry me around just like a purse. And whenever he mentions this, I’m thrilled and imagine myself in a little seven-peso dress my mother bought me at La Sirena, a little dress I wear constantly, and Papi lifts me up and I’m riding on his side like a backpack, like a package, a happy little purse, and Papi looks at me and tells me I wear that dress too much, and do I have other dresses or what. And do I have a dad or what, and do I have a mom or what. What’s my favorite house, he asks, and that’s when I think of Mami’s house, with the two little rocking chairs, the poinsettia on the black-and-white TV set, and then later, after Papi’s already put me down, we go to one of Papi’s houses, of which there are, like, fifty. There are about seven cars parked at this one and there are always people delivering a new piece of furniture, a new stove, a new bottle with a crystal ship inside. Each house has a pool that Papi has personally filled with inflatable whales, dragons, inflatable Strawberry Shortcakes, rowboats, motorboats (the pool is very big), miniature submarines Papi and I can crawl into and sometimes even one of his girlfriends too, who shouldn’t even dream of looking out of the portholes, from which you can see all these monstrous sea creatures who live at the bottom of the pool and whom I bravely contemplate so Papi will notice me, so Papi will see I’m not afraid of anything.
Papi has prepped a room for me in each of his houses, and each one has its own dresser, its own nightstand, and its own accompanying little lamp, all made of white wicker. Each has its own bed and its own reversible quilt with Rainbow Brite on one side and Gremlins on the other. Papi has so many Rainbow Brites and Gremlins that I can’t stand them anymore. A whole closet full of Rainbow Brites and Gremlins. Papi’s also bought me boots and Crayolas and alphabet stickers and pretested watercolors, Flexi-Foam sheets, Barbie wigs, sweat shirts, Halloween decorations, wide-angle compact binoculars, rechargeable spotlights, a junior utility table, jerseys, gloves, leather gloves for winter for when I go visit him, for when Papi comes back and takes me with him.
Now he’s got boneless skinless chicken breasts, whole boneless beef, mi nenes, Nintendos, try-on socks, tae kwon do classes, cashew nuts, semaphores, hotel-style turkey breast, boneless-beef shoulder roast, center-cut bone-in smoked ham steak, domesticated tarantulas in terrariums, Ledbetter boneless-beef bacon-wrapped tenderloin filets, Japanese lanterns made from Tibetan parchment paper, all-purpose white potatoes, women, all-purpose yellow onions, women, Campbell’s tomato soup,
chicken noodle, women, green bean–onion alphabet soup.
I have a throbbing pain in my knees cuz I’m growing too fast, which is why Papi sends me so many bikes, so that I’ll take care of my knees. He sends me a bike a month, each bigger than the last, one for each leg, but what I need is one with training wheels cuz I’m afraid of falling, but we don’t tell Papi so he just keeps sending them: red ones, yellow and green ones, just so rust will eat ’em up. This time he sends a cobalt-blue bike that has, like, seven speeds. But rust eats it up, they sell it off to another little girl, they give it away to a cousin, rust eats it up it, they give it away to the poor kids, they sell it, even if it has ET or Barbie mudguards.
Mami and I write a letter. Mami dictates and I write and Mami says my handwriting gets prettier all the time. In the letter we ask Papi for a color TV, we ask him not to send any more bicycles, that we want, that what I want, that what I need, is a color TV cuz the salt is eating up all those bikes.
But Papi writes back and says he’s not gonna set up Mami’s boyfriends to watch TV in color and so Mami and I write another letter in which I explain to Papi that I’m the one who wants the color TV, that Mami has nothing to do with it, that Mami doesn’t have any boyfriends, that Mami just lives for me, and please, make it a Zenith, cuz they’re the best, and Mami says my handwriting is really getting better.
