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

  “Mirale el pelo negro—que malo [Look at this black hair—so bad],” she snidely remarked with a chuckle to her family and friends, who were all standing around the table. “Que feo. [How ugly.] She got this nappy hair from her father, not me.”

  Oh no, she didn’t!

  Everyone laughed—except me. I couldn’t believe that my own mother had just made a horrible racist statement about how ugly and nappy my hair was. Oh yes, honey. I knew it was an insult. Any person of color, young or old, would’ve known it was an insult. I was crushed and pissed. My hair texture had never bothered me before, since Tia and my cousins had hair with a texture similar to mine, even though they did burn their hair with lye relaxers at times. They never, ever made a comment like that. Hearing it from my mother just killed me. My whole freaking mood changed—but it didn’t affect her one bit.

  Her touch was surprisingly gentle. She pulled all my hair back into a high ponytail, leaving some out in the front to form a curled under-bang, covering my big-ass mofo. A bang! Hello? Why didn’t someone think of that sooner? I looked so cute, I must admit. My hair looked just like Sandra Dee’s in Gidget—okay, maybe only a little bit. I felt so special that my mood began to turn around again.

  Just at that moment, there was a knock on the door. In came my cousin Lourdes—aka Cookie. “She’s all ready, Cookie,” my mother answered with a disgustingly happy tone. Ready? Ready for what?

  “Come on, Rosie,” my mother continued as she tenderly picked me off the table and set me down. “Go get your suitcase.”

  “I can’t stay?” I asked my mother, holding down the big lump in my throat.

  “No, you’re too little. We’re gonna have a party for the grown-ups, but you can come back in a few days.”

  Man, this woman had me on an emotional roller coaster! I sulked the whole way back to Tia’s, wondering why the others, my half-brothers and -sisters, got to stay. They were all underage as well, right?

  • • •

  Tia had moved to 147 Linden Boulevard in East New York. (That’s east Brooklyn for all you hipsters.) The apartment was much bigger, but it was smack dab in the middle of a bad neighborhood. It was the first time I saw a heroin addict nod out on the street. Funny thing was, after my sleepover at Miss Connie’s, it was the first time I had realized that Tia was in fact poor, but I didn’t care.

  Poor Tia. My attitude was the worst. I wouldn’t talk much and just moped about. Thank goodness Titi, Cookie, and Millie were so lively. They got me out of my funk. Once they put on the record player and the dancing started, my smile returned. Especially when we all gathered around the television set to watch our newest addiction … wait for it … Soul Train! Oh my goodness, did I live for that show or what? The girls would point to their favorite outfits worn by the Soul Train dancers—“Ooh, lookit her platforms.… I’m wanna get me those pants!” We’d all get up and try to copy the Soul Train dancers prancing down the Soul Train line too! Loved it!

  Speaking of addiction, Millie, Titi, and Cookie were a bit older now and were into partying any chance they got. Although Tia allowed them to smoke weed in the house but not cigarettes (she hated the smoke), out of respect they wouldn’t do it in front of her and would take me with them to the park, sometimes in the late afternoon, sometimes at night, as they held court, smoking weed and cigarettes, drinking Wild Irish Rose or cans of beer from brown paper bags, cracking jokes. I loved it! And I loved sitting up on the swings or the concrete picnic tables laughing my ass off as they talked about boys, sex, and rock and roll—well, dance and soul music too, but you know what I’m saying.

  One day, when Tia and I were alone in the apartment, cooking pollo guisado, I finally asked her the big question.

  “How come I can’t come live with you? I hate the Home. I hate it so much.”

  “Ay, I know. I wish you could, but … forget it.”

  “No, please, Tia! I want to know why!”

  “Because I can’t. I would love to have you be with me, always, but your mother won’t let me take you.”

  “Why? She doesn’t want me. She hates me. She wouldn’t even care.”

  “Ay, don’t say that, Rosie. That’s not true.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned back to stirring the pot. I felt bad for being like that with Tia, but I couldn’t help it.

  I was sent back to my mother’s house for the last two days of that visit. I was a gloomy piece of work, to say the least. I was finally having fun at Tia’s and honestly didn’t want to go back to Lydia’s. My mother told us to get dressed, we were going over to a friend of her and her husband’s for drinks. Lydia had on this tight-fitting dress that showed off her amazing hourglass figure. She hated my outfit and kept sucking her teeth every time she looked at me: “She’s so fat. My God, look at her belly, and that hair, my God!” All of her comments were directed to her husband, as if she were trying to reassure him that she really didn’t like me as much as her other kids, since I wasn’t his. I took it all in and said nothing.

  We got to the house. It was overdecorated to the nines—very seventies, hip and tacky. There was this glass coffee table, shaped like an hourglass, that captured my attention. I thought it was so cool-looking. I smoothed my hand across it, admiring its slickness. “Don’t touch!” my mother yelled, so loudly that my hand jumped up and my elbow crashed onto the glass coffee table, shattering it. Everyone froze. I immediately started to cry, purely out of fear of my mother’s reaction, and boy was it a doozy.

  “Oh my fucking God! Look at what you fucking did! This fucking girl! My God! This fucking, fucking stupid girl! Get up! Up! Get up!”

  She grabbed me by my arm so hard that I thought she was going to rip it right off. I yelped in pain. Durin pushed Lydia back and told her to let go of me. Say what? This man who barely said one word to me was coming to my defense? Holla! Lydia pushed me back down to the floor. I was beyond embarrassed.

  The subway ride back to Lydia’s house was torture. Besides the fact that my shoulder was killing me, she went on and on about how I ruined the entire night. Back in the house, after her husband dipped out to see his mistress, Lydia beat the shit out of me with a belt, then told me to go to bed, she was disgusted with me.

  When I went upstairs, my oldest half-brother was lying under the covers on my mother and stepfather’s bed watching television. “Hey, Rosie. Wanna watch TV with me?” I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Wanna see something?” I turned my head around, and there he was, stroking his erect penis. He burst out laughing. “Wanna touch it?” I immediately felt threatened, thinking about the kid in the infirmary with the dick and two balls, and all the rumors of sexual assaults I later heard from the older girls at the Home, by priests, by their family members on home visits, and even by the maintenance workers. I rolled my eyes with as much bravado as possible and flatly responded no. I turned back to the television, not knowing what I should do. I couldn’t move—my head was spinning. I finally got up, saying something like I was going back downstairs or something. I went to the bathroom instead and stayed there until one of my half-sisters came pounding on the door, waking me up: “I need to pee!”

  Lying in the full-size bed with Terry, Amy, and Betsy, I was sad and scared. I felt like I had no one to turn to, no one to tell what had happened, no one to stick up for me. I kept thinking, Why did my brother do that? Was it because I was his half-sister and not his full blood? Did he just not care that much about my feelings and could take advantage? Was that why none of the rest of them offered any type of sympathy when Lydia was treating me like shit? Maybe they were avoiding a beating as well. Lydia used to beat the crap out of some of them too, but come on, people, they could’ve at least asked or given me a look to see if I was okay.

  That visit, with my mother’s abuse and my perverted half-brother’s demented stunt, affected me greatly. I didn’t make the connection at the time, but it did change me. I began to train myself to care less about whether my half-siblings liked me, let alone claimed me, even though
I still liked them. Weird. There were times when I would interact with Terry or Amy, if they initiated it. When I saw the rest of them at the playground or the cafeteria, I acted as if I didn’t see them and kept it moving. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. Whenever Lydia came for a visit—or, I should say, if she came—I was the last one to show up. If I got a home visit to her house, I would jump when I saw one of my cousins at the door to pick me up and take me to Tia’s. Even though I was too small to fully grasp it, my heart understood where I belonged, where I needed to be.

  Back at the Home, I was becoming more and more of an enigma to everyone, even to myself.

  On the weekends that I didn’t get to go to Tia’s, I found relief in the visits to Miss Connie’s house or on the Home’s field trips to Bear Mountain that Mr. Neil and Ed Yano, the head counselors, would take us to. I would get lost on the nature trails, singing to myself the latest radio hit tunes, picking flowers, etc., and both took a liking to me. They explained the Vietnam War and the politics behind it. This was the first time one’s personal politics were really discussed. They explained their liberal motivations for working with disadvantaged kids. Mr. Neil told me kids like me made his career choice worth it.

  Mr. Neil and Ed both agreed that I stood out, as well as a few other kids, but that I was very different from most. They said that was a good thing. Say what? They even went further, stating that I could change the world because I was so smart and an innately good person. Whoa! Their words made me feel special, and I needed that badly. I stuck to them like glue after that, soaking up all their worldly knowledge and sharing what I knew to show them that I was in fact capable.

  The other kids began to perceive me as uppity or having an attitude problem, since I wouldn’t interact with them as much. I wasn’t uppity, no. I was just sad and didn’t want to be sad all the time. I wanted to enjoy myself and needed to feel safe and validated and stimulated mentally and emotionally. However, I must admit, I certainly had an attitude problem along with a raging temper if provoked—and I hated it.

  The conflict inside really bothered me. I liked being that kid Mr. Neil and Ed Yano saw. But I couldn’t control my temper a lot of the time. If you disrespected me—forget about it. If a girl started in on me for whatever reason, I would snap—and I mean snap. I would curse her out in a second, punch back if she even dared to touch me. I became a sneak and a liar too, and I hated being like that. So conflicted.

  And being friends with Crazy Cindy was a conflict as well. She brought me so much joy and fun, but she did lead me down a path that I knew better than to go down. Like how we used to sneak down to the kitchen and steal food whenever we were starving from all of our punishments. Every time I would stuff my face with pie, I would wash it down with a huge amount of guilt. But that was nothing compared to other things we got ourselves into.

  One day, while playing Red Light, Green Light, One-Two-Three, with the big girls on the bottom grove, Cindy ran over with one of the bad girls. “She got cigarettes. Wanna come and smoke with us?”

  Smoke? Hell no! Well, maybe I’d just come along and see.

  As we tiptoed back into the dorm, Lil Tillie, with the two permanent braided pigtails, was sitting up on her bed. “What’s going on? You going to the kitchen?” “It’s none of your business, Silly Tillie. And you better not tell on us either, or I’ll get you back!” snapped Cindy.

  Poor Lil Tillie. She was the nicest thing on the planet.

  The bad girl decided that we were going to commit the crime in the clothes closet away from everyone. She lit up and passed the cigarette. I shook my head no; I didn’t want to do it. “She’s such a baby. I told you not to bring her!”

  “Shut up, stupid,” I barked back.

  I picked up the book of matches and lit one. Watching the flame transported me as it burned all the way down the matchstick, burning my fingers. Cindy took a pull on the cigarette and held it out to me. I gave in. Ugh! It was disgusting. I was gagging, and then we all heard a noise. We froze.

  “Someone’s coming!” The bad girl and Cindy ran out. I was frozen, standing there like an idiot with the damn cigarette in my hand. Crazy Cindy ran back in. “Come on!” I panicked and flung the cigarette over my shoulder and ran out. Unbeknownst to me, it landed in one of the bins filled with clothes and lit the bins on fire.

  After the firemen left, Sister Renata lined us up and walked up and down, scanning all of us with her beady eyes and her paddle.

  “We have ways to find out who did this. You can either step forward now or pay the consequences later.”

  No one budged. Sister Renata motioned to Miss Millie. Miss Millie waved over the first girl in the line. “Hold out your hands!” Miss Millie smelled her fingers (nuns’ forensic techniques!). “You’re good. Stand over there. Next!”

  One by one, Miss Millie sniffed out each girl’s hands. She got to the bad seed’s hands. Sniff. “You are in big trouble.” She motioned her to stand on the opposite side from the girls who had been checked and cleared. Sister Renata bent her over and whacked the hell out of her tiny butt until she saw red. “And that’s just a sample of what’s to come!” I shook. I couldn’t bear the thought of another violent beating.

  Crazy Cindy leaned backwards from the line, trying to get my attention.

  “Psst! Psst! Stick your fingers down your butt.”

  Cindy actually stuck her fingers down her pants like she was digging for China.

  She went up next. Miss Millie took a whiff, and her head jerked back from the stench. Cindy cracked up in her face. Miss Millie motioned her to the “not guilty” side.

  Next up was Lil Tillie. Miss Millie smelled her fingers—guilty! Guilty? What the hell? “But I didn’t do it,” cried Lil Tillie. “Quiet!” snapped Sister Renata. She then bent Lil Tillie over and began whacking. I shoved my fingers so fast up my ass it wasn’t funny.

  It was my turn. Miss Millie smelled my fingers, looked suspiciously up at me, then over to Crazy Cindy, who gave her this perfect beguiled blank stare. Miss Millie looked back at me; I was shaking and couldn’t meet her eyes. “Not guilty!” Did the fingers in my butt work, or did she let me off the hook? She was always kind to me and hated how Sister Renata beat me.

  As we were leaving, we could hear the screams and cries from Lil Tillie and the bad girl. I was disgusted with myself. What was going on? Who was I becoming? I thought about Mr. Neil and Ed Yano, who perceived me as good, and I worried that I would disappoint them. I didn’t want that to happen. I felt desperate to hold on to that part of me. I went over to Crazy Cindy and told her how bad I felt that Lil Tillie took the fall for us. Crazy Cindy just shrugged it off. “So? At least we didn’t get caught.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I WAS eight years old and was summoned to the office of the head nun, Sister Minetta-Mary. Dag it! What the hell did I do this time? This was serious business, being sent up to see the big boss. Sister Renata accompanied me, not looking or speaking to me either. I was silent during the long walk to the head nun’s office.

  Sister Minetta-Mary’s office was simple and carpeted, with leather-studded chairs and a mahogany desk. Sister Renata told me to sit on one of the chairs; she sat in the one beside me. Sister Minetta-Mary came out. Man, she was older than dirty-dirt. She had an authority to her that showed she had put her time in too.

  “Hello, Rosemary. You know we care about you girls here. We teach you manners, give you a fine education, a roof over your head, and your recent and continuing impertinent behavior is what we get in return? You’re usually a very good girl.”

  She paused dramatically, folding her hands together.

  “You’re in our outside-school program, correct?”

  “Yes, sister.”

  “Those privileges are not given to everyone. You do know that?”

  “Yes, sister.”

  “Rosemary, I think you’re a good child who’s lost her way. Perhaps you need a change of environment. There is a new program called a Group Home—there will be on
e for girls and one for boys. Eight girls and eight boys will be picked that we feel are either well behaved or academically advanced enough to live in a real house in upstate New York. It will be a great opportunity. You are being considered. However, one more stunt and you will be taken off that list and all other privileges will be taken away.”

  Yay! I couldn’t believe my luck! Man, I’m going to be really good now!

  “But this is not why we have brought you in. Sister Renata, please ask Mrs. Vasquez to come in.”

  Mrs. Vasquez? All I was thinking was, Not another damn kid. Mrs. Vasquez and her swishing fat thighs entered and sat down. The big sister continued.

  “Rosemary, you have a father who is different from your brothers’ and sisters’ father. Did you know that?”

  Of course I knew that. My half-brothers and -sisters and my mother made sure to remind me constantly. Of course I knew I had a different father after he made that drunken confession to me four years before. Yes, I knew! The whole world was constantly reminding me!

  “Your father would like to meet you and has expressed that he would like to take a bigger role and interest in your life. We can take things slow and see how you feel after you have met him today. Does that sound okay to you?”

  Uh, no! I don’t want to meet my father—who I have already met! And what nerve of him, especially since I had not seen him in almost a year after I started to fall in love with him because of our weird and wonderful dates he used to take me on! No! This is not okay with me! The head honcho didn’t wait for me to answer.

  Mrs. Vasquez walked me out onto the balcony. Ismael was sitting on a bench that faced the railroad tracks. He got up, took his hat off.

  “Hello, Rosie. I’m your father, Ismael.”

  What? Why was he acting like I had never met him before? I started to get really angry but tried really hard not to let it take over me. Mrs. Vasquez left, leaving us alone.

  “Hello, Rosie. I’m your father. I had met you before in—”