Mami saw Abuela a second after I did. “Qué … what …” she sputtered.
“Mija.”
“What are you doing sweeping the street like a cualquiera?”
“I’m helping these young people.”
“You’re helping a gang?”
“No, they all go to college,” Abuela said.
“¿Y qué? College kids acting like delinquents? What is sweeping the street going to teach them?”
“More than you would think.”
“Gangs!” Mami was seething.
“Mami, they’re not gangs,” I said, standing between her and Abuela. Then I got worried. Maybe they were gangs. How did I know? I had seen Wilfredo with some gangs.
I tried to smooth it over. “Look, Mami, they’re not gangs.” I turned to Abuela. “Right?”
“Not gangs. Good kids. I like to help.”
“Of course, I forgot,” my mother spat. “You always have to help everybody in the world. Why don’t you clean your own house first? Sweep our apartment? Or the bodega? No, you want to sweep the streets. But you are not helping anybody!”
Abuela got up in Mami’s face. “I am helping you.”
“What are you talking about? You say you’re going to help in the store, but you turn it into a place of politics — algo político. You say you’re going to help in the house, but you take over like you’re the only person living there. You say you’re going to help me and … and …” Mami couldn’t finish.
While Mami and Abuela argued, people worked around them, pushing mattresses and old rusty stoves onto the avenue. A guy with a bullhorn and some kids waving purple hats were trying to warn the drivers. To make things even harder, the Pentecostals had set up their speakers and microphones and were yelling so loudly we could hardly hear one another’s words.
“Evelyn! ¡Vámonos!” my mother yelled.
“Listen to me, mija,” said Abuela.
My mother was determined to drag me away, but I couldn’t leave.
Mami yelled again. “¡Vámonos!”
Then here came Awilda, Migdalia, and Dora.
“What is up, everybody?” said Awilda.
“We’re sweeping up the streets,” I said, like I was part of the cleaning crew. “Help us,” I blurted.
“Help you sweep? You must be crazy,” said Awilda, sucking at her teeth. “What am I? A maid? Besides, I don’t see no sweeping. I see funky sofas and rusty bedsprings stopping traffic.”
She was right. The guy with the bullhorn kept trying to direct traffic around the trash so that there wouldn’t be an accident.
“Come on,” Awilda said to Dora and Migdalia, “let’s get out of here.”
I grabbed a broom from Wilfredo and handed it to Migdalia. “How about you, Migdalia? Will you help?”
“Yeah, Miggy, help! Evelyn is helping. Why not you?” asked Wilfredo.
Wilfredo was using his pet name for Migdalia — Miggy. I knew this would help make it harder for her to turn her brother down.
She grabbed a broom.
Awilda floundered around, looking helpless.
Dora didn’t know what to do either.
But Abuela rallied everyone together. “This way!” she yelled. And with her leading the way, we began to push the garbage toward Third Avenue.
Mami didn’t know which way to turn but finally followed helplessly. Traffic was getting jammed up. Some people were honking their horns in disgust. Others were giving the thumbs-up like they were happy about what was going on. More and more people were coming out into the street.
Then I smelled something funny. It wasn’t the garbage. It was a chemical smell.
“What’s happening?” said Abuela.
People were pouring lighter fluid onto the garbage.
“Let’s burn it!” somebody shouted.
The bullhorn guy kept trying to direct traffic so no one would get hurt. People started throwing matches toward the smelly piles. Everybody was setting fire to the garbage! Flames flew toward the sky.
“¡Basta ya!” everyone screamed. “Enough!”
Wilfredo had his arm up in the air. He was yelling, too. “¡Basta!”
Abandoned cars had been overturned and set to flames, too.
Every window, fire escape, and rooftop was crammed with people. At least this time they had something important to watch. Some of the people on the street looked afraid.
Angel came up the block, the light of the flames dancing in his eyes.
Migdalia stood by Wilfredo.
Don Juan concentrated on the flames. His eyes were wet, as if he were crying.
I stood between Abuela and Mami.
All of us were hypnotized by the power in the air. The flames flickered higher and higher.
Things got worse. The fire department showed up, sirens blaring. When the firefighters came out of their trucks, they were blasted by bottles hurled from the rooftops. The guy with the bullhorn kept yelling at the bottle throwers to stop, saying that the fire department was not the enemy.
A police siren howled. The cops had come, but I didn’t know who they were there to help. Us, or the firefighters?
Usually when the cops come, people flee. Not this time. They didn’t scare anybody. Not one person ran off. We all hung tough.
Even señor Santiago maneuvered his piragua cart through the debris, almost daring the policeman to ignore the burning garbage to give him another ticket.
Later that night, we saw our neighborhood on TV.
The newscaster spoke about how “East Harlem youth,” had burned up the garbage to call attention to the fact that the waste in our neighborhood was not picked up with the same regularity that garbage was picked up in other neighborhoods.
Mami looked like she might cry.
Abuela was ready to cheer.
Thank goodness my stepfather was at the bodega. I’m sure he was watching the news, cursing about hippies. The newscaster went on, “… these youngsters call themselves the Young Lords.”
I got to work the next day and saw the headline in the New York Times.
EAST HARLEM YOUTHS EXPLAIN GARBAGE DUMPING DEMONSTRATION
Dolores was jumping up and down with excitement. We were in the back of the five-and-dime, punching in. “Were you there, Evelyn? What was it like? My mother was right. She said revolution would eventually come to El Barrio.”
Mr. Simpson looked agitated. “Get to your counters. Store opens in two minutes.”
“We’re just talking about the Young Lords,” said Dolores.
“Well, I’m just glad the Sanitation Department was able to clean up the mess they made or I never would’ve been able to get my car down here,” he said, going back into his office. He had his newspaper turned to that headline tucked under his arm. I could barely believe it. People had noticed East Harlem. We were in the newspaper.
After work, I walked down to 96th and Madison to get more copies of the New York Times. Something in me wanted to collect the paper. I wanted lots of them.
The article kept referring to the Young Lords.
When I got home, Abuela was sitting on the living room floor reaching for her toes.
“Abuela,” I asked, “are you a Young Lord?”
She straightened up long enough to laugh. “How could I be a young anything?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I just want to do mi parte.”
I showed her the newspaper article.
“Look.”
She stood up with a grunt, then sat down on the sofa.
“Léemelo.”
Abuela had seen the article that morning but wanted me to read it to her. So I did.
“‘In claiming credit for spearheading the protest, a group of Young Lords said yesterday that they had acted to show the people of El Barrio, East Harlem’s Puerto Rican slum, that such activity was necessary to get city action to meet community needs.’”
Abuela clapped as I read.
“¡Bien dicho, bien dicho!” she whooped.
I continued:
“‘The Lords, he said, worked closely with the Panthers and were aiming to unite Spanish-speaking Americans to end the oppression against them.’”
Abulea almost cried when she heard this part.
“Que viva Puerto Rico libre,” she whispered. “Keep reading. Keep reading.”
I did.
“‘… for the last five weeks the Lords had been helping clean the streets to show the people that the system does not serve them.’”
I finished reading. She sat with a satisfied smile on her face, then suddenly grabbed my arm.
“Ven.”
We went into my room.
“And now I have something to show you.” She pulled out her photo album, and we sat and balanced it on our laps. Abuela showed me the picture of a policeman squatting over a dead body.
“That was a Nationalist on the ground. I can tell because he is wearing white pants and a dark shirt,” said Abuela somberly.
“Is that man holding a rifle a policeman?”
“Kind of. A guardia civil.”
She turned the page and I saw the other picture of a policeman shooting through what looked like a tall garden fence.
Then Abuela turned to the big picture of the Guardia Civil marching and shooting into the crowd of people who were running scared!
“I was there,” whispered Abuela.
“There during the shooting? But what is that place, Abuela? Who are those people and why are they being shot at?”
She took a deep breath. “That place is Ponce, Puerto Rico.”
Abuela spoke so slowly and quietly. Her words were like soft drops of sad rain.
“And in 1937, those policías sinvergüenzas mataron a …” She pounded a fist on her knee.
“Calm down, Abuela.”
“How can I calm down? Those police shot at innocent people just because they were marching to support the Nationalist party.”
“What is that?”
“Nationalists are people who want Puerto Rico to be independent from the United States,” she said, letting out a sigh.
“Mija,” she continued patiently. “In Ponce in 1937, some leaders of the Nationalist party were arrested. They died while they were in prison. Their supporters got permission to protest the arrests by having a parade demonstration. One hour before the protest march started, their permission was taken back.”
“Why?”
Abuela shook her head, but she was smiling, too, like something was silly. “The mayor of Ponce said it was because he had forgotten that it was Palm Sunday, a religious holiday.”
I listened carefully.
“The Nationalists marched anyway, and the police opened fire.”
I wondered how it was not okay to march, but okay to shoot people on a religious holiday.
We sat silently for a moment, torn between the old photos and the New York Times I had bought today.
“What does all of this have to do with garbage set on fire here in El Barrio?”
“Don’t you see, mija? It’s people standing up for themselves. It’s Puerto Ricans standing up for what’s right. It’s little guys standing up to big guys.”
“Abuela, where did you get these pictures?”
“Some were from newspapers, but the one of the Guardia Civil shooting into the crowd of people was a birthday present from a boyfriend I had in the Nationalist Party. That picture is from a report made by the American Civil Liberties Union.”
I was almost afraid to ask the question that was in my mind, but I had to know. “Were you a Nationalist?”
“Not at the time of the massacre. That came later.”
Abuela rubbed my hand thoughtfully. She let out a heavy breath. “There were only a few things a girl like me could be in 1937 — a spinster or a wife were two of my choices. So I chose to become a very young wife. Your grandfather Emilio was much older than me. I was seventeen when we married. He was thirty.”
“Was he a Nationalist?”
Abuela pursed her lips in disgust. “No, al contrario. On the contrary.” Abuela got very quiet. She wouldn’t look at me. Finally, she said, “Come, let’s have tea and galletitas.”
She got up with the album, and I followed her into the kitchen for tea and crackers. Abuela set the album down before me. She boiled water and got an old mayonnaise jar out of the refrigerator with some “tea” she had mixed up herself. It was a combination of cloves, cinnamon, and ginger. It was so strong, just smelling it made my eyes water.
Abuela offered me some. “Bebe, mija — drink.”
“No, thanks,” I said.
She sipped her strong-strong tea.
“Abuela, was Abuelo Emilio a Nationalist?” I pressed.
“No,” she said bitterly. Then, abruptly, but in a whisper, she said, “He was one of the shooters.”
I reached for the tea Abuela had set in front of me. I took a sip.
“Your grandfather is that one there.” She pointed to one of the policemen in the big picture. “He was shooting into the people.”
Right then, Mami came home.
“What’s going on?”
I was quick to answer. “Nothing.”
“Ay … mija … we were just talking,” Abuela said.
She gathered up the album and took it into her room, signaling that I shouldn’t say anything.
At that moment, I knew I was now keeping a big secret.
When I got home the next day, Abuela’s presence had spilled out of my bedroom and was creeping into the rest of the apartment. In the living room, two pairs of platform shoes were tossed on the carpet, and Abuela’s makeup kit was on top of the television.
I tripped over Abuela’s platforms.
“Cuidado. Careful,” she said.
She was on the sofa with her hair up in curlers, reading a book. A sweaty glass of water sat on the table in front of her. The precious album was next to the water, and though it was hot in the room, Abuela had lit candles on the side table by my grandfather’s picture.
“Dios te bendiga.”
Abuela blessed me, and after a moment of uncertainty, I kissed her cheek and sat down next to her.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“García Lorca.”
Abuela could see I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“He was a Spanish writer,” she explained. “Spanish from Spain. He wrote plays that rebelled against high-class Spanish society.”
“Abuela …”
She rested the open book beside her on the sofa.
“Tell me more about Grandfather,” I said, glancing at Abuelo Emilio’s picture.
Abuela’s eyes filled with a memory of long ago. “I met him on one of the rare times I was by myself. Now I wonder if he had been waiting for me, like an animal waiting for his prey.”
“Why were you alone?”
“It was in the morning, and my mother suddenly thought she didn’t have sugar for my father’s coffee and he could not have coffee without sugar. So he wouldn’t yell at her, she sent me to run to the plaza and buy some. He — your grandfather — saw me and threw me a flower.”
“Threw you a flower? What kind? A rose?”
“No. He didn’t really throw a flower at me. That’s just an expression. It means he said something nice to me. He said a compliment to me.”
“Like when a guy whistles at you?”
“Sí, mija. He said, ‘Tantas curvas y yo sin frenos’ — so many curves and me without brakes.”
Abuela smiled at the memory. “The next couple of times when I was with my mother at the plaza, he and I looked at each other but made believe we didn’t. It was nice to have a secret away from mi madre. I kept hoping and praying for another chance to go to the market alone, but it didn’t come. So I decided to make it come. My father, he also loved aguacate, avocado, with his dinner. And my mother had saved half of one just for him. One day, just before we sat down to eat, I ate it myself.
“‘¿Y el agu
acate?’ Where’s the avocado?” my mother had screamed when she couldn’t find it.
“‘I don’t know what happened to it,’ I said.” Abuela giggled as she continued the story.
“My mother said, ‘Go get me one, rápido, before your father finds out.’ So I ran to the plaza, and when I saw your grandfather start to walk toward me, I took my time feeling the avocados for ripeness. He got really close, but I made believe I didn’t notice him, even when I could almost feel his breath on my neck. My face got hot.”
I remembered how I felt when Wilfredo said my name, like he was eating something sweet.
“And I was embarrassed,” Abuela said. “Maybe I took that feeling of being embarrassed for love. When I got sick to my stomach that night, I was sure it was love.”
We both giggled now.
“The next thing I knew, he was at my door, asking my father if he could see me. I don’t think my father would’ve been comfortable telling a policeman no. And my mother thought it was great that he came from an old Spanish family that had a coffee plantation. So he began to come around every Sunday.”
“Did he wear a uniform?”
“Yes, with the pants that were loose around the waist and thighs and tight from the knees to the ankles. And he wore his revolver, too. “
“His gun?”
Abuela let loose a chuckle. “Sí, Emilio was very handsome and in control. I felt very safe with him.”
“How could you not, Abuela? He wore a gun.”
“In truth, all the guardias civiles carried guns.”
Abuela rose from the sofa and went to my room. She came back with a flowered drawstring bag. Pulling the pins out of her rollers, she popped them into the bag before unfurling her hair and putting the rollers in the bag with the pins. Her tube curls bounced as each roller left her head.
She kept up with her story. “After a few months of dating, we got married and moved to this grand house with his parents. That was the first time I ever lived in the countryside. The house was on a coffee plantation. It was a rich person’s house.”
“Wasn’t it nice living in the house of a rich person?”
“It was nice if you don’t mind staring at the same hill and the same cows day after day. In my parents’ house, I had to help my mother clean, and cook, and, like I told you, go to the store. But my husband’s family had a housekeeper, so there wasn’t much for me to do. You know — I always hated housework, but when whole days went by and I had nothing to occupy my time, I wished for laundry and cleaning.”
Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (9780545469586) Page 5
