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

by Perez, Rosie

  “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!

  CHAPTER 10

  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 ther
e, 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.

  After five minutes or so, the teacher walked over to me and sweetly whispered in my ear, asking me to join the class again. I shook my head no with my eyes cast down at the floor—I was too ashamed. My head started to throb with pain.

  “Rosemary, please.”

  “My name’s not Rosemary. It’s Rosie,” I quietly stated. “My head hurts. It feels really hot.”

  “Oh no,” she said as she felt my head. “I better get you to the nurse.”

  Then everything went blank.

  • • •

  When I woke, I found myself in a clear plastic oxygen tent that was tucked under a white, iron-framed hospital twin bed. I remember being scared and wondering why I was inside that synthetic contraption. I was in the infirmary. I sat there for a moment, taking in the room. It was packed with sick kids only from the Home, ranging from toddlers to teenagers. Some were reading on their beds, others were playing checkers or cards on a small, wooden round table set toward the entrance of the room. And some were watching television! Yay! TV!

  I saw a nun enter, dressed in an all-white habit. I decided to ask her what was going on. I slipped out of the tent by tugging at it for a long time.

  “Ooh! You’re not supposed to leave your bed. You’re gonna get in trouble,” yelled out another older Spanish girl from Group Three. “You have to go back to bed or you’ll get in trouble with Sister Irene.”

  Too late. Sister Irene, the head nun nurse in charge, had entered the room. Sister Irene was a white, fair-skinned, plain-looking nun with blond, swooping bangs that peeked out from under her habit. “Who told you to get out of bed?” I stopped in my tracks. I quickly climbed back into bed, watching her approach in a stern manner as another nun nurse followed behind.

  “You are not to get out of bed unless given permission to do so. You have pneumonia and you are very sick. Understand?”

  I nodded yes.

  “Roll over.”

  I did so. Then rolled back.

  “What does ‘pneumonia’ mean?” I asked.

  “It means you’re very sick.”

  “I know that!” I coyly and precociously stated. “I mean, what does ‘pneumonia’ mean?”

  “Just roll over,” Sister Irene said with an amused smirk.

  I did so. She pulled down my panties and stuck a thermometer into a jar of Vaseline and then stuck the thing up my butt. That shit was so shocking and hurt so much that my butt cheeks involuntarily clenched so tightly together and the thermometer popped right out—Sister Irene frantically scrambled for it. She finally got a hold of it. There was a momentary stare-off. I started to chuckle—she didn’t.

  “Roll over.”

  “Okay. But, excuse me, please, Sister, I don’t think you’re supposed to do it like that because I’m five now, and I saw on I Love Lucy that you’re supposed to put it in your mouth, not in your—”

  She shushed me, then rolled me over and dug that freaking thermometer up my bum, with the other nun nurse squeezing my ass cheeks together. She read it, her forehead contorted with concern. She turned to the other nun nurse.

  “Her temperature went up. Closely monitor her and move her bed over to the other side away from the other kids.”

  As Sister Irene headed back to her office the other nun nurse pushed my bed to the other side of the room with the help of a skinny, tall black man.

  My head started to spin with the fever, and then everything went black again.

  I didn’t know how long I was out. I felt dazed and dehydrated. This big, ugly, older black kid, who was maybe fifteen or sixteen, was standing in the doorway staring straight at me with his zipperless fly on his hospital pajamas wide open, exposing his private parts, fondling himself unabashed. The older Spanish girl from Group Three quickly scurried over to me and whispered in my ear.

  “Don’t look at him. He’s a pervert, and he’ll try to molest you like he did to Sorida from Group Two.”

  I nodded yes, even though I didn’t know what being molested meant. What was worse was that I couldn’t stop looking. This was the first time I had seen a male’s genitals. I tugged at the older girl’s hospital gown and pointed.

  “What are those three things hanging there?”

  “Don’t do that! God! That’s his dick and his two balls.”

  “Oh … what’s a dick?”

  “It’s a guy’s private part. So, don’t be looking or it will make him hard.”

  Huh?

  “Okay … why does he have balls inside his skin?”

  She laughed. I laughed back. It was more of an anxiety-ridden laugh. I wasn’t clear on everything but clearly understood the danger in her warning.

  Later that night I was afraid to go to sleep. I kept one eye open, wondering if that perverted kid with the two balls and a dick was going to come and try to hurt me. I wished Tia would come to visit. I wished my mother would come too. But no one came. I was in the infirmary, stewing, for over a week.

  A few weeks later, after I got out, Tia finally came to visit. I was so cold to her. She tried to explain that the Home informed her that it was best to wait until I had gotten better. She apologized. I politely accepted, but I was five—the hurt kept me silent and distant.

  She began to sing her favorite Beatles song, “Penny Lane,” in her high-pitched, tone-deaf voice: “Penny lane is in de ears and in de minds. Da-da-da-da daa!” I looked up at her and started giggling. She smiled back and patted my hand. I slowly pulled it back but smiled back so I didn’t hurt her feelings too much.

  CHAPTER 11

  BACK AND forth, forth and back, my two lives continued. I was six years old now and had moved up to Group One after I returned from a summer visit to Tia’s. I did not see my father that whole summer, nor my mother. There was no explanation as to why, and I didn’t ask for one. That’s how things were.

  Group One was where the girls from first to third grade lived. It was on the second floor of the girls’ dormitory building, right above the Baby Girls’ dorm. Inside, a medium-sized hallway was lined with metal school-like lockers to the left. Just past the bathroom was the first dormitory bedroom lined with about ten twin beds, five on one side, five on the other. To the far right corner of the second bedroom was the clothes closet; the far left corner was where Sister Renata’s bedroom was. Following the bedrooms was the “living room,” equipped with a sofa, a rocking chair, a stereo component, and a TV—yay!

  Sister Renata, brutal, strict—evil reincarnated, seriously—was Group One’s dorm “mother,” and she ran it like a Nazi. She was tall, white, pasty, and broad-shouldered, wore ugly black-rimmed glasses, had a slight grayish mustache with sprouting whiskers on her chin, and was strong as hell. I was so afraid of her. There were rumors of her merciless cruelty throughout the Home. While still in Baby Girls, I had witnessed firsthand Sister Renata’s infamous demented viciousness.

  This girl, in Group One, wouldn’t eat her vegetables. “Eat! Now!” commanded Sister Renata as she stood behind the girl. The room went silent. By the fourth or fifth bite the girl vomited all of it onto her plate. Sister Renata pushed the girl’s face close to the vomit and said, “Now you’re gonna eat all of that mess, and I better not see a morsel left on t
hat plate!” The girl slowly picked up a heaping spoonful of her vomit, lips quivering, tears running down her eyes, and swallowed! Sister Renata looked around the room like General Patton after reprimanding the troops and then walked away. After the coast was clear, the cafeteria’s janitor—this kind black man with a slight hunch to his spine—came over with a wheeled garbage can and covertly dumped the girl’s plate and placed it back in front of her in one quick move. God bless that man, wherever he is.

  • • •

  Just as it was in the Baby Girls’ dormitory, the day was scheduled—when to get up, shower, eat, play, study, etc.—but the number of chores had increased. Sister Renata made sure that everything was done to the letter and didn’t hesitate to use her long wooden paddle, which she wore under her habit, to enforce her demands. She would resort to a ruler if she didn’t want to exhaust herself. Miss Millie, a skinny thing with an ugly big-ass mole on her face, helped Sister Renata run Group One, but Sister Renata really didn’t need her.

  Some of the girls in Group One I already sort of knew from the playground. Of course Crazy Cindy was there! Yay! When she first saw me carrying my clothes to the clothes closet, she screamed with glee, gave me a quick hug, then scurried off to play with the other girls. Puerto Rican—Jew Evita Feinstein was in Group Two across the hall from Group One—she was older than us, so I didn’t see her as much. There was Lil Tillie, skinny with frizzy hair always in two twisted pigtails, and Fat Dina, a short, chubby, stocky girl with black hair that had the texture of a Brillo pad. Fat Dina looked like a Puerto Rican Tasmanian she-devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoons—no lie. Most of us girls were afraid of her, or at least intimidated by her. Crazy Cindy wasn’t of course. If she was scared of Fat Dina, you couldn’t tell because she antagonized Fat Dina every chance she got. That made absolutely no sense, since Fat Dina could flatten Cindy in a hot second.

  My first night in Group One was very memorable.

  The Metro-North train whistled down the tracks in the distance along the Hudson River. Sister Renata led us into the bathroom. We all lined up, naked—still hated that—for showers. Most of the girls had begun developing and covered their breasts in modesty. It was four or five to a shower. The shower was covered with this brown, moldy filth. I was grossed out and found a clean spot, quickly washed myself, and dashed out. Sister Renata, standing guard, made me go back and stand in the middle of the guck and shower again, saying I hadn’t washed properly. It was so nasty that I wanted to vomit, but didn’t dare in fear that she would make me eat it.