Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (9780545469586)

by Manzano, Sonia

  The Garbage Offensive had warmed the people’s hearts toward them, and though some of the older worshipers were scared, they couldn’t help but align themselves with the Lords, even if only in their hearts.

  The Young Lords would wait until the end of the service. Then, one of them would get up and state his case, saying that the church was only open one day a week, that the space could be used for social programs, that the church should serve the people, and what better way of serving the people than having a free-breakfast program for the children of El Barrio?

  Parishioners walked out or countered with “No, this is our church, we have to worship the way we want, you cannot tell us what to do, you are not members of this church.” And the Young Lord would quietly walk away from the altar until the next time.

  Being told no did not stop them any more than being told no stopped me when I first asked permission to work at the five-and-dime.

  Weeks had passed. Summer was over, and now autumn was filling our neighborhood with its chill. Thankfully the garbage didn’t stink as badly, but there was still a fight for equality going on.

  After several Sundays of peacefully persisting, the Young Lords were starting to win the confidence of the congregation. Soon there were more and more church people willing to go along with them. Good people who cheered them on and wanted them to persuade the pastor to see things their way.

  The Young Lords said that we deserved better medical care by getting tested for tuberculosis and for lead in our blood, that we could have education classes that would make us proud to be Puerto Rican, that society was keeping us poor and that we didn’t deserve it.

  These ideas started to get through. People started to listen.

  My mother was not convinced. When the Young Lords spoke to church members, Mami interpreted their attempts as:

  We are taking over.

  We are Communists because we dress like Fidel Castro.

  We are wild.

  We will change the world as you know it.

  The Young Lords scared Mami and our pastor. The sight of them in their green army jackets and purple berets and buttons that said PUERTO RICO IS IN MY HEART, TENGO A PUERTO RICO EN MI CORAZÓN, made Mami and the pastor quiver.

  “The very clothes you wear tell me you are not part of this congregation,” the pastor proclaimed.

  The more I agreed with the Young Lords, the more my mother disagreed. The split between us grew stronger and we began sitting on different sides of the church each Sunday.

  It began slowly. First I sat a few seats away from Mami. Then a row away. And soon I was sitting with Angel and Migdalia and Wilfredo and the other people who liked what they were hearing and didn’t head for the door the minute a Young Lord made his way to the podium.

  Mami sat tight with her group of the old and frightened.

  Then one Sunday, Abuela showed up.

  She appeared as suddenly and unexpectedly as she had in my kitchen weeks before. We were leaving the church and practically bumped into her as Young Lords handed out flyers.

  “Abuela!” I went to hug her and reached for a flyer at the same time.

  Mami slapped the leaflet out of my hand.

  Mami barked at Abuela, “Why are you helping these people?”

  “They are trying to help the community,” Abuela said.

  “They are not helping,” Mami hissed. “They are demanding things from the church.”

  Abuela looked different. Now her hair was a beautiful shade of brown, and the makeup that formed her eyebrows was softened, too.

  “Evelyn, let’s go.” Mami grabbed my wrist. I twisted my way out of her grasp, knowing she would be too worried about what people thought to fight me in public. Turning on her wide feet, she walked away.

  Abuela had moved in with don Juan. His apartment was on 112th Street and Second Avenue. I went to visit them.

  Their apartment was a mess. They used newspapers as curtains, and a telephone book to hold up one end of a broken-down sofa that had somehow escaped the Garbage Offensive. The kitchen had a chipped Formica table and four mismatched chairs. The refrigerator door was also used as a bulletin board, with calendars, pictures, take-out menus, and Young Lord flyers taped to it. Paper plates and plastic forks and knives covered the counter.

  But there were real plants on the windowsills and real fruit in the bowls. And music playing.

  So much time had passed since Abuela first arrived. The weeks had flown since she first flitted into our lives with her orange hair and long-line bras. It was now the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Abuela was dressed in a long kimono and slippers with heels.

  “Where’s don Juan?” I asked.

  “You know he’s shy when you are here, because he knows about all the tension between me and your mother. He’s a good hombre, Evelyn. Always was. The boy I should’ve married when I was a girl,” she said.

  She offered me some juice. “¿Jugo, mija?”

  I nodded and sat down at the table. Abuela got us orange juice and served it with bread and butter.

  “You knew don Juan when you were a girl?”

  “Long ago in Puerto Rico — when we were kids.”

  Out the window, the cold sun climbed high in the sky.

  Abuela sipped her juice. She had a story to tell. I could see she was thinking about how to begin. She chewed slowly on a slice of bread.

  “I first met don Juan at the plaza in Ponce just before I met your grandfather. Every market day he, his eight brothers and sisters, and parents came down from the mountains in a carreta.”

  “What’s a carreta?”

  “A wooden wagon that all the campesinos loaded up with any vegetables they had grown, to sell in the town plaza, like Juan and his family.”

  I sipped my juice, too, and enjoyed the soft bread and butter.

  Abuela continued, “I remember how tight he wore his belt. I figured out years later that he wore his belt that tight to keep from feeling hunger. Back then, I thought he wore his belt tight to show off his little waist.”

  Abuela chewed on her bread even more slowly. A bit of butter lodged itself in the corner of her mouth, and she delicately pushed it back in with her pinky finger.

  “I met both men, the good one and the bad one, at almost the same time.”

  “You mean you met don Juan when you were buying an avocado for your father, and Abuelo Emilio came into your life?”

  “I had seen Juan at the plaza before, but I have to say that I never really noticed him. He was just one of the poor, and there were plenty of them.”

  “Well, when did you notice him?”

  “When he played his guitar. Sometimes he attracted people to his stand by playing music. He could play Rafael Hernández songs as beautiful as you hear them on the radio. We would talk for a minute or two about the words in the songs if my mother got involved talking with his mother about the health of the rest of the children. I was attracted, but I didn’t know it. How could I? He was so poor, and my family thought we were better than his.”

  I shook my head. Abuela said, “Of course, it is not right. That is why there are revolutions. Because many things are not right.”

  We sat for a moment. I watched the November sky grow orange.

  Abuela continued. “But then one day I didn’t see him again.”

  “What happened?”

  “He left Puerto Rico and came here to El Barrio to get a job and send money back so all his brothers and sisters could come to El Barrio after him. That’s how people did it in those days. First, the strongest or smartest come. Then that person helps those left behind to escape la pobreza, the poverty, as well.

  “The next time I saw him was when I was walking in front of your parents’ bodega, Evelyn.”

  “After so many years?” I gasped.

  “Sí, mija, you never know what will happen in life. We don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

  Abuela was right. Love and surprises could come from anywhere, anytime. Nobody k
new what would happen the next day. But I did know one thing about tomorrow in El Barrio.

  Tomorrow was Sunday. And Sunday meant church with the Young Lords.

  The police started watching the church. They were easy to spot in their blue uniforms. But I don’t remember exactly when I realized undercover agents were watching our little iglesia as well. It was like when a mosquito starts buzzing around and you shake your head, not really sure what’s bothering you until it bites.

  A man we had never seen before was hanging around one corner. Another stranger was smoking and staring off into space on another corner. I could see a third on the roof, who ducked back when he caught me looking.

  Migdalia, Angel, and I were walking toward the church.

  “Migdalia, who are those guys?” I whispered.

  “Wilfredo says they are undercover cops.”

  “Watching us? Why?”

  Angel tried to be funny. “‘Cause we are the baddest Puerto Ricans ever.”

  “Quiet, Angel,” scolded Migdalia. “They are afraid of us.”

  Afraid! Of us obedient Puerto Ricans?

  “What about that guy?” I whispered, pointing to a man in a sweatshirt, sitting in his car. “Is he one of them?”

  “I think so,” said Migdalia.

  “But he looks Puerto Rican.”

  “So?”

  I took one peek at the guy in the car — he was Puerto Rican! But when I entered the church, my eyes widened even more by what greeted me inside: Girl Young Lords! Yes. For the first time, there were girl Young Lords. I came up short when I compared myself to them with my uptight blouse and pants. They were wearing jeans, just like the boys, and they acted like they didn’t care how they looked, which only made them look more beautiful. All had natural hair, long or short or wavy or kinky, and I felt stupid with my little roll of bangs. I fussed around with them to make them look more natural.

  But even as I ran my fingers through my hair, I could sense that they were on extra alert, checking all around during the service. The lights in their eyes were beacons scanning the congregation — looking, I guess, for friends or enemies. Their looks to one another were intense and full of signals I ached to be able to read but couldn’t. The room was a pressure cooker. Even as I was thinking about all these things — the girl Young Lords, their hair, my hair, that we were being watched — the pressure cooker burst when the Young Lord with the blinding smile and the kinky hair stood up and yelled, “There is something wrong here! This is not a community!”

  That was it! The organ player tried to drown him out by playing as loudly as he could. Eighty parishioners stood up and sang louder than they had ever sung before. But they couldn’t drown him out any more than you could shut out the morning light, or any more than you could stop a breeze of new ideas from coming into a room with your splayed-out hand. Or any more than you could cover the sky with your hand.

  Then, suddenly, like a herd of bulls, twenty-five policemen charged in! This time they weren’t in shock like they were when watching the burning garbage that summer. This time they were prepared. One of them rushed the Young Lord with the blinding smile and kinky hair, saying, “Step aside. You have all got to leave!”

  Everybody stopped moving. The policeman repeated himself. “You have all got to leave!”

  My mother got up and scooted across the aisle, moving faster than I had ever seen her move before, and grabbed my arm as I tried looking at what was going on between the Young Lord and the policeman.

  “You have all got to leave!” the cop repeated. “Now!”

  My mother pulled at me. “Let’s go,” she growled.

  The Young Lord made no effort to move and neither did I.

  “Then you are all under arrest!” screamed the cop. He grabbed the boy. The boy pulled back. The cop brought his nightstick up! Crack! He had tried to smash it down on the boy’s head, but the boy held his arm up, catching the blow with his elbow. I heard a sickening snap. Then it was like a blast of air fanning a fire. The police rushed at the other Young Lords, striking them and even pushing some of the girl Young Lords who fought back. An old lady picked up a candelabra to hit a Young Lord with. Abuela picked up a chair to stop the cop who had hurt the boy. I rushed to her side when my mother blocked me — just as the chair tumbled out of Abuela’s hands and landed square on Mami’s back. She shook it off like a bull, glared at Abuela, and tried to steer me to the door.

  “Mami, are you okay?”

  “Sí, sí,” she groaned. “¡Vámonos!”

  But I could tell she was in pain and having trouble walking. I looked for Abuela to help me with Mami, but she was trying to stand between the Young Lords and the cops!

  The police started arresting the Young Lords and the rest of us got swept out the door like debris on a wave of humanity.

  The look of pain on my mother’s face was as intense as the look of joy on Abuela’s. We milled around outside the church.

  “They are arresting them, but this is just the beginning,” said Abuela.

  “Evelyn could’ve gotten hurt,” croaked Mami accusingly.

  “I’m fine….” I said.

  “¿Qué? Evelyn?” Abuela looked at me as if she were surprised to see me standing there. “Oh, sí. Yes. But look — she is fine and she helped to make a stand.”

  “Are you okay, Mami?” I asked again.

  My mother’s bun had come undone. Strands of her hair were flying all around her face making her look crazed.

  “Sí,” she said, placing her dry, rough hand on my head. “You?”

  “Yeah.”

  I stood there, Mami on my left and Abuela on my right, each of them owning me by placing a hand on my shoulder. And there we stood like three rocks in a stream, hearing the swarm of people as they left the church, gazing into one another’s face for answers.

  “Police brutality …” Angel was delighted and pranced around.

  “They didn’t have to be so rough.” Migdalia was tearful and upset that once again her brother had been arrested.

  “Those Young Lords are crazy,” said an old lady.

  “They are doing the right thing,” said another carefully.

  “Que viva Puerto Rico libre …”

  “This is a house of the Lord….”

  My head was spinning. Who was right? I had to get away. Unbuttoning my coat, I twisted my way out of it and ran down the street.

  “Evelyn …” yelled my mother, with one shoulder of my empty jacket in her hand.

  “¿Pa’ dónde vas?” screamed Abuela, holding the other shoulder.

  They looked funny, standing there clutching a ghost of me flapping in the breeze. But I did not want to hear either of them, so I ran until the wind rushing by my ears drowned them out.

  I got to the corner where I could turn right, and go to my house, or left, and end up at Abuela’s. I went left.

  Then, sitting on the top step of her floor, I waited for Abuela to get home.

  Abuela and don Juan came up the stairs twenty minutes later. By then I was freezing.

  “Entra, come in,” she said.

  I followed her in and stood around, not knowing what to do or where to look. Abuela threw a blanket on me, then busied herself making café and serving it to us. Don Juan hadn’t said much to me since Abuela moved in with him, but now he said, “You and Migdalia should stay out of the way if there is going to be trouble.”

  “There are girl Young Lords, too, you know,” I corrected him.

  Don Juan had no answer for that. Swallowing the last of his café, he put his coat on and walked out the door.

  “Men,” Abuela sneered good-naturedly as he walked out. “I have to get ready if I’m going to the march.”

  “What march?”

  “There is going to be a march in support of the Young Lords.” Her eyes were dancing.

  “How do you know?”

  “Ay, mija. I’m supposed to know these things. Why don’t you just lie down until it’s time to go.”

/>   “Y Mami …”

  “Your mother is okay.”

  I let it go at that. As I waited for her to get ready I thought about that golden wild boy who was brave enough to stand in the church and say “There is something wrong here! This is not a community.” His eyes were bright, his skin coppery, he had full lips and what my mother called “pelo malo,” bad hair, because it was kinky. How could hair be good or bad? Like it could behave well or badly on its own. Like it could say something nice and polite or say something mean and nasty. And how could you call hair bad that looked like a crown, and made you look taller, and like nobody could knock you down?

  I wondered if Migdalia thought of that other Young Lord boy. He was the opposite of the golden wild boy. He was serious looking, with stern eyebrows and soft shiny hair curling out from under his beret. The one with the kind, soft, eyes.

  Suddenly, I imagined the four of us double-dating. I would wear jeans and boots and a blue peacoat. I wouldn’t even get ready by putting hair curlers in my bangs. I’d let it be all loose and natural. Or I could wear it in two long braids like I saw one of those Young Lord girls wearing. Maybe if I cut it short, it would go into a little Puerto Rican ’Fro that would match my new boyfriend’s crown.

  “Evelyn, come zip me up!”

  I walked into the bedroom. Abuela had changed into long, tight burgundy bell-bottom pants and a long-sleeved gray turtleneck tunic. I helped her with the zipper up the back.

  “Sit,” she commanded.

  I sat on the bed as she bent over at the waist, shook her hair out, and ran a brush through it from the nape of her neck out.

  Looking at me upside down and sideways, she said, “This is how I get a lot of volume in it quickly.” Standing upright, she let it tumble to her shoulders. She peered into the mirror. Pushing the skin up on both sides of her face, she grunted disapprovingly, then began to carefully outline her eyes with a black Maybelline eyebrow pencil. Finally letting her eyelids pop back into place, she wiped off the excess from underneath. After brushing on some pink blush and smearing on lipstick, Abuela checked herself out all over again. Noticing some lipstick on her teeth, she wiped that off with a tissue, then pressed her lips to the tissue to help it set. She tossed on a knee-length vest and a coat, then handed me one of her jackets. “Let’s go march!” she said, smiling.