Even my own mother doesn’t know me.
There’s a letter inside, handwritten on a small sheet of lined paper. I go outside to the porch to read it, careful to stay under the roof so I don’t get wet. It says she’s thinking about me every day, and that she sees me in her dreams. I wonder what she can dream of from a locked cell. She asks about my brother and sister and tells me to give them each a kiss from her. She asks about school and the weather and what we’re watching on TV. She asks about Lucho. What she forgets to ask is what we’re eating, how we’re sleeping, and if our clothes still fit. She also forgets to ask about anyone else, which is good because I don’t know how to say that Chino is gone, that Sammy only talks to the Nintendo machine, and that Kim doesn’t leave her room for more than ten minutes every night.
If she wanted to know more than that, I’d have to tell her that Sammy’s gordito now because all he does is sit in front of the TV eating Pringles by the can, claiming it’s a vegetable. None of his clothes fit, which Kim hasn’t noticed, so he wears an old pair of sweatpants that Chino left behind, rolled up at the bottom so he doesn’t trip. He says he eats a balanced diet—his meat is Slim Jim’s, his fruit, cherry-flavored Twizzlers. When he has money from his grandmother he eats a bag a day, otherwise he steals them from the Dumpster behind the movie theater on Academy. His teeth are always a shade of light pink. I tell him they’re going to all fall out if he doesn’t brush them more, but he tells me to mind my own business. “If you knew as much as you think you do,” he says to me one night when we’re home by ourselves, “you wouldn’t be living on somebody else’s couch eating fortune cookies for dinner.” I guess he has a point.
If she wanted anything close to the truth, I’d have to tell her that all Kim does is work, sleep, and drink boxes of wine that look like pink lemonade. That’s what she said it was when she poured it over ice and drank it with a straw. I believed her until I found a half-empty glass she left in the bathroom and it tasted sour like vinegar. When Cristo tried it he said it’s either wine or vodka or maybe both. When she’s lying down she’s okay, but when she stumbles into the kitchen to freshen her drink she talks funny and her hands shake. Sometimes she forgets our names. Her eyes are always red, so she tries to hide them behind sunglasses. She stopped using the oven on Halloween, when she started a fire by putting two whole frozen pizzas inside, boxes included. That small oversight left half the kitchen looking like a crash site. Now she leaves all food preparation to us.
The last thing my mother writes is a promise: I promise to tell you the truth when I get home. Just imagining my mother’s version of the truth makes my neck itch. I heard a teacher once say, “Careful what you wish for—you just might get it.” Now I understand what she meant. I don’t really want to know the truth, especially if it means I have to turn around and tell the truth back to her. Thanks, but no thanks.
I tuck the letter into one of the books I’m reading. I don’t use many bookmarks since I finish them so fast, but at least I can look at her handwriting and maybe feel like she’s close by.
It’s still raining when I go outside to throw the package away. I hate rain, especially when it’s freezing out, and I hate being wet. Winters here are the worst. They’re cold and gray and we never have enough snow to make it fun. And the schools around here never get cancelled, even when it dumps like a foot of snow overnight. Which it never does, no matter how much they promise it’s coming.
The garbage cans live at the top of the driveway, below a rusted-out basketball hoop that’s missing the net. When he takes out the garbage, Cristo likes to shoot the small bags into the hoop and watch them fall into the open cans below. He’s good at making things fun, so they don’t feel like work. Since I’m alone, I throw out the package the easy way. I wonder if I should toss the book as well, since Trini’s not here for me to read it to. I’ve got the book in one hand and the metal lid to the garbage in the other when I notice Kim’s car in the driveway. The lights are off but the car’s still running. The windows are foggy but I can see her inside, leaning over the passenger seat. She looks like she’s picking her nose with her pinkie finger. Then she sniffs and pinches her nose together. She leans back in her seat and rolls her head in my direction. Her eyes are closed.
I stand perfectly still, careful not to make a sound, and wait for two full minutes before I put the lid back on the garbage can and sneak inside. When the boys get home, I don’t tell them what I saw. She comes in through the kitchen almost an hour later and gives the room a tight smile. Sammy waves to her and Cristo nods, but I don’t look at her. She keeps walking, like she doesn’t see any of us. Nobody in this house talks anymore.
After Sammy goes to sleep I tell Cristo what I saw. We wait till Kim’s asleep and then sneak into her room. I watch the door while he grabs her purse. We search through it in the bathroom, huddled around a Tweety Bird night-light. In a small pocket meant to hold lipstick, Cristo finds a prescription bottle filled with round green pills that say “OC” on one side and “80” on the other. The label says it’s OxyContin, which means nothing to me, but the name on the bottle does: Scottie Collazo.
“What the hell is Kim doing with Scottie’s pills?” Cristo asks, but I know he doesn’t expect me to answer.
I grab the bottle, looking for clues. “What’s it for anyway?”
“I bet they’re pain meds. Remember how Scottie hurt his back last year?”
“Yeah, but look at the date. These pills are new.” I turn the bottle around and point out the date. It was filled last week. “Maybe she got hurt,” I say.
Cristo looks at me funny.
“Nobody snorts medicine,” he finally says.
I remember walking into the bathroom last year and finding a man with a straw in his nose, sniffing a light-brown powder off a picture frame. He was sitting on the edge of the bathtub. When he looked up at me, he smiled and said, “I know you.” Then he tilted the picture frame in my direction, flashing a photograph of Cristo and me standing in front of the airport the day he arrived in New York. We were holding hands in the picture, but I remember not wanting to touch a stranger. My mother grabbed my arm, saying, “This is your brother, now hold his hand,” so I did. The man held the picture frame up to his face and licked the residue from the glass. Then he made a sound that twisted my stomach, a growl-laugh I could still hear when I closed the door and ran back to my room.
When I look at Cristo now, his face half shadowed in the dim light, I realize he’s sometimes still a stranger to me.
“It’s bad, huh, what she’s doing.”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “All drugs are bad.”
I want to ask if he thinks our mother is bad, but I can’t make myself say it. I know stories are always showing how good people do bad things, but it’s hard to believe when it’s your own mother.
“At school they say snorting them is really bad. That’s how people lose their jobs and houses and stuff.” I wrap my hair around my finger, tight enough to cut off circulation.
Cristo puts the bottle back and zips up her purse. My finger starts to throb.
“If that bad stuff happens to Kim, then where will we go?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s not going to happen.”
I want to ask him how he knows but he already seems pissed.
“Did Mami do that?” I finally say. My finger looks bruised like a dark plum.
“I never saw her,” he says, his hand on the doorknob. He looks at me for a long time before opening the door.
We both know it’s not the same thing as saying no.
I find a pizza box under the couch when I’m looking for a lost Hello Kitty mitten a few days later. It says Allessandro’s Pizzeria along the side, a place I’ve never heard of. There’s no address or phone number on it, just the name and picture of a man tossing a pizza crust as big as a table. I feel the top, to see if it’s warm. It’s not. The corner of the box has a footprint on it, one from a very large boot. I know th
ere’s no pizza inside, since food doesn’t last long in this house, but I open it away, hoping for a miracle. What I see doesn’t make sense to me.
Tiny boxes the size of matchbooks are stacked on their sides and tied together with rubber bands. There is no writing anywhere on them. I pick up a bundle, surprised that it’s heavier than it looks, like a block of cheese. I shake it and hear what sounds like broken pieces of candy inside. Something hard like peanut brittle. I fight the urge to open one, to taste the sharp candied slivers. Something makes me bring it to my nose and sniff. All I can smell is the gummy newness of the rubber bands and a sharp scent like rubbing alcohol.
“Luz, what the fuck? Put that away.” Cristo runs into the room and kicks the pizza box closed. I scoot backward on the carpeted floor, dropping the bundle.
“Gimme that,” he says, snatching it off the carpet. “I could get my ass kicked if something was missing.” He inspects the bundle.
I move closer to him, looking over his shoulder. “What is it anyway?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” he says. From how he’s acting, I can tell he doesn’t know what it is either. “It ain’t your business, that’s what it is.” He opens the pizza box and neatly places the bundle back inside. He checks the rest of the bundles before closing the box.
“Is it yours?”
“Course not.”
He smells his fingers. I want to ask if he recognizes the smell but I don’t.
“Then how’d it get here?”
“I brought it here, but it ain’t mine. I’m just making a delivery.”
“You think it’s smart to deliver something if you don’t know what it is?”
“I think it’s a lot smarter than asking too many questions.” He stands up, holding the pizza box out in front of his body like he doesn’t want it to touch him.
“Where you going?”
“I just told you. I gotta make a delivery.”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“So?” He puts the pizza box on the couch and sits down to pull on his sneakers.
“Can’t you do it in the morning?”
“We got school in the morning.”
“That’s what I’m saying, you should go to sleep.”
He looks at me. “Okay, Mom.”
“I’m serious.”
He zips another sweatshirt over the one he’s already wearing and grabs his hat off the carpet. “It’s a job, Luz. The guy needs it tonight. Why do you suddenly care so much?”
“I care when Snowman has you delivering pizza boxes in the middle of the night. You could get mugged by some drunk college kids.”
“Ha ha.” He pinches me on the cheek. “Good one, chuleta. But I never said this was for him.”
He smiles, like he’s proud of himself for keeping a secret from me.
“How many jobs you got?” I ask.
“A few.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He exhales. “I don’t work regular for this guy, just whenever he gets a late-night delivery. His old lady won’t let him out after second shift.”
“This guy got a name?”
He shrugs. “He’s somebody Snowman knows.”
“So, what, like Frosty?”
He flashes that smile again. “You got a lotta jokes tonight.” He pulls his hat low over his face, almost covering his eyes. “His name’s Charley.”
“Where you going for this Charley?”
He pulls up his hood, adding an extra layer of protection. “Not sure.”
“Don’t lie. You know something.”
He stands up. “The Laundromat, okay? Jesus.”
“Which one?”
“On Manton.”
“Who you meeting?”
He bites the edge of his lip and won’t look at me. He rubs his eyes. “Christ, Luz.”
I try to act casual, but I feel my belly start to bubble from nerves. I would never say it out loud, but I’m suddenly scared for my brother. “Consider it insurance. I won’t have to say anything unless you go missing.”
“Stop being so dramatic.”
“Not a word, I promise.” I hold out my little finger. “Pinkie swear.” We haven’t done one in years, but I figure I might win points for nostalgia.
He grabs my pinkie with his and we shake on it. “Some guy named Jimmy,” he finally says, reaching for the pizza box.
“Jimmy,” I say it slowly like I don’t want to mispronounce it. “Jimmy with the tattoo?”
“How am I supposed to know? I’ve only seen him a few times.”
“You can’t miss it. It says CUT HERE, with a line right across his neck.” I make the gesture with my finger.
“I’ve heard about that guy,” he says. “That’s a pretty sick tattoo.”
“Well, he’d have to be sick to make a deal with Scottie.”
“Scottie?” Cristo stops short. “What does Scottie have to do with anything?”
“I saw them talking once, back in the summer. Jimmy stopped by the house looking for Mami. Said she owed him some money.”
“They seem like friends?”
“No. Scottie told him to stop coming around us kids.”
Cristo holds the pizza box between us. “Guess that’s what Snowman meant when he said never turn your back on someone you know.”
“Snowman doesn’t like Scottie, does he?”
“He don’t trust him.”
“Doesn’t trust him,” I say, even though I know he hates to be corrected.
“Right, he doesn’t trust him,” Cristo repeats after me. “Snowman said he could tell right away Scottie has no loyalty. He told me once that an orphan’s got enough loyalty to kill or none at all.”
If we became orphans, I wonder which one I’d be.
Cristo looks down at the box. I can see all the questions knocking around in his head.
“Maybe you should open one up again, just to see.” I reach for the box. “Or I will, and then I can tell you what’s inside.”
He grabs my hand to stop me. “You probably won’t even know what it is.”
“Bet you I will.”
“Bet what? You don’t have anything to give me.”
Since that’s true, I don’t bother saying anything else. The look on my face must make him feel bad because after that he sits down on the couch and waves me over.
“Okay, come here. And turn out the lights.”
“How will we see without lights?” I whisper.
He points to the TV. I follow his orders and soon we’re kneeling on the carpet surrounded by small piles of multicolored pills, the dim light from the screen making our faces glow like neon. The pills look like M&Ms or Skittles and I keep wanting to pop a few into my mouth without letting Cristo see. One box has the same green pills that were in the bottle we found in Kim’s purse, but most of them I’ve never seen before.
“It’s like a fucking pharmacy,” Cristo whispers.
“What does one guy need with all these pills?” I ask. “How sick could he be?”
Cristo doesn’t answer. Instead, he carefully drops the pills back into their containers one by one. “Maybe he’s not the one who’s sick.” His lips are moving as he counts silently to himself. “Maybe the sick people come to him.”
“Like a doctor?”
Cristo shrugs. I help him re-stack the containers.
“You think Kim went to a guy like that?”
“Maybe. Or she went to Scottie so she didn’t have to.”
What neither one of us says out loud is, maybe Scottie is the doctor. Cristo looks at me.
“You can’t ever tell anyone that you saw this. You understand?”
I nod.
“Not Sammy, not Teacher, not the kids at school. Nobody.”
“I won’t, Cristo.”
“This is just between you and me.”
The nerves in my belly are back. “Are we going to get in trouble?”
“Of course not. We didn’t do anything wrong.” He finishes organ
izing the bundles and closes the lid to the pizza box. “Especially you. You don’t know anything.”
“I know what I just saw.”
He grabs my shoulders and stares at me like he sees right through my body and all the way out to the street.
“You didn’t see anything,” he says, like he’s trying to convince me it’s true. “You’re just my little sister, okay?” He tugs on my braid and pinches my cheek like he always does. “You’re a kid, Luz. You don’t know what you saw.”
I know he’s just trying to protect me and do what our mother isn’t here to do, but it still bothers me. Why does taking care of someone mean you have to make them feel like a baby?
He throws his arm around me, hugging me sideways. This is his way of trying to make me feel better. Of saying he’s sorry. “You got it, Lucita?”
I nod to agree with him, but really I’m lying. I don’t get any of this. In her letter, Mami said she would tell us the truth when she got home and now I think I’m ready to hear it. I want to know if Kim is sick and if Scottie is breaking the law and if she ever takes pills like they do and calls it medicine. My head is spinning with questions and I’m afraid I won’t get answers to any of them, especially the most important: Are we going to lose all the grownups in our family one at a time, till in the end it’s just Cristo and me with nobody left to take care of us? Since I am his little sister and I am still a kid, I know he’ll take care of me no matter what, but then I wonder who will be there to take care of him?
SHE SEES the girl in a white dress. Her hair plaited with ribbons. She is not a girl, she is a woman now. A wife. The church bells rings. There is music, dancing, laughter all around. She dances with her father. He is crying, the first time since her mother died. She dances with her husband. He is smiling as he bows before her. He takes a flower from her hair and places it between his teeth. She is sick with joy, wondering what she’s done to deserve such happiness. She kisses her husband while they dance together, dizzy and breathless. She tastes the wine on his tongue, swallows his hunger. He whispers in her ear. She feels him inside her, even before she opens herself to him. She gives him everything he asks for, all of her. Except the truth.
This Side of Providence Page 20
