“Dolores!”
“Evelyn … I am a Young Lord in training….”
“Does your mother know?”
“Yes … she’s proud. A little worried, but proud.”
I looked at her hair. The Young Lords were right. Making us hate the way we looked was a trick people in power played on us.
And I could tell that a lot of the older Young Lords were in love with each other as well, by how their eyes lingered on each other. The Young Lord girls were so beautiful they looked like a bouquet of different flowers — how could the boys not love them? Migdalia and I had our crushes, too.
“I pick that one,” I said once, pointing to the sad Young Lord.
“I pick the one with the smile and kinky hair,” said Migdalia.
“Oh, I like him, too,” I went on. “I also like the one who moves like an antelope in Africa.”
“You like them all, Evelyn!”
“What’s wrong with that, it’s not like I’m going to get any of them! I’m just planning ahead for when I’m old enough.”
And we laughed.
On the night of January 7, Migdalia and Dolores told me the Young Lords and anybody else caught in the church were going to be arrested the next morning.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Well, let me put it this way,” explained Migdalia, “Wilfredo said if I wanted to be arrested I should stay. I don’t want to be arrested.”
“I don’t either,” added Dolores. “My mother would kill me.”
That night Abuela and Mami helped cook the last of the food, and I helped give away the last of the clothes. Our mood was bittersweet, but really heavier on the sweet. We floated home together for a last cup of coffee and more talk on everything that had happened over the past eleven days. Mami served Abuela and me and drank her café standing by the stove.
Mami said, “Remember when Jane Fonda came? She’s so …”
“… skinny and beautiful,” I finished saying for her. Then Abuela and I took off talking like our hair was on fire!
“And those legs are so long,” I said.
“I like her clothes,” said Abuela.
“But she’s rich, she could afford nice clothes,” I said.
“Do you think I should change my hair color to be just like hers?” Abuela asked.
“Maybe yes, I loved her color hair.”
Poor Mami tried to get a word in.
“She’s got nice boots.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at Abuela. What did Mami know about “nice boots”? Mami couldn’t keep up with our fashion conversation. But it was okay. We were going to have so much time together I was sure Abuela and I would talk Mami out of wearing such plain black shapeless clothes.
We made plans to go to the church the next day, to at least stand outside and show support to the Young Lords when they came out.
“I will meet you there at six thirty in the morning,” said Abuela, finally leaving at about eleven thirty.
At five thirty the next morning, we woke up to a soft snow falling on El Barrio. Mami and I quietly got dressed. We didn’t want to disturb Pops. He couldn’t understand the way Mami had been acting lately so it was best to leave him out of it. After tiptoeing into the kitchen, Mami started to make coffee. I silently handed her the milk to heat up in the pot. She boiled the water and poured it through the coffee in the colador as I got two cups down and set out the sugar. We managed to have our coffee without saying a word.
Outside it was quiet, the snowfall soundproofing the neighborhood. The riot gear on the police with snow sifting on them like flour made the streets look like a place from another world — futuristic, moonlike. They were ready for a big riot that was not going to happen. It was as if they somehow turned the soft snow to hot snow. Migdalia had also told us that everybody was going to be arrested peacefully. Mami and I walked along next to each other.
I hoped Awilda would be in the crowd watching the arrests so she could see me with my mother and Abuela cheering the Young Lords on. Awilda would watch me raise my fists and shout, “Power to the people,” and die of envy because I was into something and she was into nada.
I think that maybe having that last nasty thought was what made the bad thing happen.
Two blocks from the church we spotted Abuela tottering toward us on her high-heeled boots. She waved and smiled. I looked from her face to Mami’s, which was just about to break into a smile, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a glittering shiny something coming out of the sky. It picked up the light, and just as I started wondering what it was, it hit me over my left eye.
The beginning of Abuela’s smile turned to shock as she tried to see where the bottle had come from. I stumbled toward her.
“Abuela …” I reached out for her, but her arms stayed stuck to her sides as she continued to look toward the rooftops. Mami caught me and practically picked me up the way she used to when I was a much smaller girl. Mami screamed for the police, and even as I stood there, feeling the warm blood dripping over my eye, I could feel my mother’s hot anger.
“¡Policía! ¡Policía! We have to get her to the hospital!”
But even the police began to point up toward the rooftops. A bunch of them took off running into the buildings, yelling into their walkie-talkies. Mami dragged me toward one of them and got right up in his face.
“Forget that up there! This emergency! Get us to hospital! Inmediatamente.”
Even through my daze, I realized I had never heard her command anyone like that, much less a policeman. Her voice forced him to take action. He spoke into his walkie-talkie, and a police car drove up just as several police buses neared the church. Then the other drama unfolded. People appeared out of nowhere, singing “Qué bonita bandera, la bandera puertorriqueña,” and moved toward the church in step with the buses.
I heard these words from Abuela: “You go. You’ll be all right. I will stay here and tell you what happened.” But I was distracted by the air, cooling the cut over my eye.
“Okay,” Mami answered her. “I’ll take her. I’ll see you later.”
Mami shoved me into the police car and got in after me, trying to cradle my head, but I kept pulling away from her so I could move over and make room for Abuela.
“She not coming with us,” Mami said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
One of my eyes was sealed shut with blood, but I could see the first of the Young Lords stepping out of the church, fists raised and heading toward the police buses with my other eye. Abuela shut the police car door behind us. Looking in, she waved as we pulled away.
That wave broke me. That weak little good-bye had all the power in the world to unleash all the joy, anger, relief, and humiliation of the last eleven days. Like steam escaping from the jammed-up radiator in our apartment, my emotions exploded, and I started to cry.
My mother murmured soothingly as she commanded the policeman to drive faster.
“Cálmate. You’re gonna be okay,” Mami assured me.
“Pero Abuela …”
“Policía, please hurry up!”
“Abuela …” I cried.
“You’re gonna be okay, it’s probably not deep …”
“But, Abuela …” I couldn’t stop crying so hard.
“What about your abuela?”
“She should’ve come with us.”
“Don’t worry….”
My blood had seeped into Mami’s coat, and my face stuck to it as I pulled away. “¿Qué pasa? Stay calm,” she said gently.
Mami was not understanding me. I had to make myself clear. “Abuela …”
“Never mind Abuela. She’s fine. She did not get hit on the head. You did.”
“But she didn’t even try to come.”
“What are you talking about? What is the difference if she comes or not?”
Mami was talking to me like I had lost my mind, but she was also keeping an eye on the policeman, hurrying him along.
“Por
favor, ¡avance!”
“Calm down, señora,” the policeman said.
Mami forced my chin up and looked me in the eye. “Mija, she cannot do this.”
“What do you mean?” I cried, trying to wipe my eye.
“Don’t. You’ll make your cut worse.”
Mami forced my hand away from my face. “Look at me!”
I did what I was told.
“She cannot do things like this.” Then she was suddenly angry. “Do you not know her at all?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then why do you want people to be different from the way they are?”
“But she just waved good-bye.”
“Waved good-bye? Are you kidding? I saw her wave good-bye to me a million times when I was a girl. Every time she saw me, she waved good-bye!” Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of tapete and dabbed my cut. “You better get used to seeing her wave good-bye. It is what she does the best.”
My crying was harder than ever now.
“Look, not everyone can do everything you want, or be the way you like. She is what she is, and now she must be with the Young Lords, and I must be with you. That’s it. Eso es todo.”
Mami took a deep breath. “Don’t be like me. Don’t expect her to do things she cannot do. Don’t be like me when I was your age.”
By the time we got to the emergency entrance of the Flower Hospital, I knew I was being exactly like her.
I wanted my Mami.
The doctor told me that some hair on my eyebrow probably wouldn’t grow back. The cut was one and a half inches long, about an inch of it over my eyebrow. The scar would remind me of the Young Lords for the rest of my life. I knew we would never know who threw that bottle. Probably some sorry Barrio maniac using his favorite way of communication.
When we got to the hospital we had to wait in the emergency room. Mami called my stepfather at the bodega, and he must’ve flown over to the hospital he got there so fast.
“¿Qué pasó, mija?” he cried as soon as he saw me, crushing me in his arms, his eyes glistening.
“Papi, where’s your coat? It’s cold out there.”
“¿Qué? Huh?”
“She’s okay,” said my mother, trying to calm him down. “Una botella …”
Papi cursed the heavens silently by shaking his fist toward the sky.
“I’m okay, Papi, really, I don’t hurt so much as before.” But I did hurt as much as before. I hurt more than before. I hurt that Abuela hadn’t come to the hospital with us. But I put that hurt away so I could deal with what was happening to my face now.
After we calmed Papi down long enough for him to go back to the bodega and my head was sewn up tight, I was to be surprised one more time by the events of the day. My cheap Mami sprang for a cab to take us home.
The arrests were all over by that time. Just snow and litter flying around, making the streets of El Barrio seem empty, like the hollowness I felt inside.
Mami made me a hot chocolate as soon as we got in the door. I was so tired I practically fell asleep drinking it. She insisted I go to my room and take a nap, and for once, I listened to her. I wanted to talk about Abuela, but Mami stroked my brow, saying, “Go to sleep; we’ll talk later.”
When I woke up, it was dark outside, though it was only four thirty in the afternoon.
“Mami?”
She rushed into my room.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good.” I yawned.
Mami noticed that a little bit of blood had seeped out of my cut and stained the pillowcase.
“I’ll change the pillowcase.” Then, “You know — it’s time to change the sheets anyway. You sleep better on nice fresh sábanas. I’ll get them.”
Mami didn’t really have to change the sheets; she just wanted to do something for me, so I let her. She liked doing stuff for me the way Abuela liked doing stuff for the world. I began to help her take off the old sheets, but she tried to stop me.
“Mami, let me. I want to help.”
“No, I can do this; don’t worry.”
“But I want to.”
I could almost see her weighing the possibility of giving up her slave status, and then I thought about how what my stepfather had said was true. Except for throwing out the garbage, I barely helped Mami around the house. If I didn’t want a slave mother, I had to stop treating her like one. Finally she said, “Okay.”
We each grabbed two corners of the clean sheet and flung it into the air, letting it land softly on the bed. Mami smiled at me as we tucked in the corners.
“Did Abuela teach you how to make a bed?”
“¡Muchacha, no!” She laughed. “The few times she stayed a few days visiting me when I was little, I could see she was a terrible housekeeper.”
“You’re right. Her house is always a mess.”
“That’s okay, she’s good at other things.”
“Like what?”
“A good teacher and a gran patriota.”
“A patriot? You mean like George Washington?”
“Sí, in a way. She cares so much about all the people.”
“How about caring about just one granddaughter?”
And as if Abuela had heard us talking about her and wanted in on the conversation, she appeared at my bedroom door, startling us both.
“You two left the door open.”
She was flushed, excited, waving around the latest edition of the New York Times. “I see you are all right! Thank goodness! Just a little cut on the head.”
“Ten stitches,” I said.
“Oh yes, but look in the paper. Look! It was so emotional when the buses came and took the Young Lords away. We all yelled, ‘Que viva Puerto Rico libre,’ and some of us sang ‘Qué bonita bandera.’” At that, her eyes welled up with tears.
“¿Quieres café?” Mami offered, putting her arm around her mother.
“No, no, I’m okay. Listen to this….”
“Come to the kitchen to tell us,” said Mami.
We followed Mami with Abuela reading all along:
“‘The eleven-day occupation of an East Harlem church ended early today as 105 members and supporters of the Young Lords organization submitted peaceably to arrest by eight unarmed sheriff’s deputies.’”
Abuela looked so excited. “You should’ve seen those Young Lords. Proud. Defiant,” she said.
“I wish I could’ve been there with you, but I was too busy getting stitches on my head,” I said.
Mami shot me a look. My sarcasm was lost on Abuela, but at least she finally focused on me.
“Yes, pobrecita.”
“I’m going to have a scar on my eyebrow where the hair won’t grow back.”
“That’s not a problem. All you need is a little eyebrow pencil.”
She went on. “We can be twins.” Then she waved the newspaper around a little bit. “Listen. I love this part!”
“‘As their names and addresses were called off, the Young Lords rose, many of them correcting the reader by giving the Spanish pronunciation of their names.’”
Abuela was waving the newspaper. “Maybe you should go back to your full Spanish name, mija?” she suggested.
I hated to admit it to Abuela, but I was thinking that, too. “I think I will go back to being called Rosa.”
“Listen to what one of the Young Lords said,” she went on:
“‘The pressure on the church will not stop. This is going to happen all over the city until religious hierarchies respond to the needs of the people.’”
“Beautiful words, no?”
“Sí,” I said.
Mami poured out two cups of coffee.
“Just like the Young Lord said in the newspaper, this is not over. And he is right. We are going to occupy Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx next. We have been talking about it for weeks. I cannot wait. You will help with your amiguitas, right?”
She filled the room with so much enthusiasm, there was no space left for me to be angr
y.
“Of course, Abuela,” I said. “As soon as these stitches come out. Not that they are as important as taking over a hospital.”
My mother stifled a giggle. By now, my feeling of sarcasm had turned into more like teasing. My cut was nothing compared to taking over a hospital in the South Bronx. Besides, Abuela’s enthusiasm was contagious and as catchy as a song that stayed in your head no matter what.
I stirred my coffee and looked from one to the other. Yes, I looked like Abuela, but there was something in me of Mami, too. Not an obvious thing like hair or skin color — but more like a look or an expression.
“Okay, I’ll go now.” Abuela waved good-bye and like a flash of mercury was out the door.
“That good-bye wave again,” I said.
Mami and I just looked at each other for a second, then we couldn’t help it. We burst out laughing.
“Yes, but she will be back. Don’t worry about that,” said Mami.
Just then Papi came home. “Hey, what’s going on? How do you feel, Evelyn?”
“Call me Rosa.”
“What? I cannot keep up with you!” he said, rolling his eyes. “Okay, Rosa it is — since I am now Papi,” he added shyly. Then more seriously, “How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
“I just saw your abuela flying down the steps.”
“She’ll come back,” Mami answered for me.
“I hope so,” I said.
He looked at Mami. “Do I have my mujer back?”
“You never lost me,” said Mami flirtatiously.
Papi sighed. “I’m going to lay down. I need to take it easier. I hope now we can get back to normal, or whatever we were before.”
“Look,” said Mami, pointing to Abuela’s café. “She did not even have her coffee.”
“You can have it, Mami.”
“I will.”
She picked up the cup and started to drink it standing up.
“Drink, mija,” she said to me.
“Only if you sit and have your café with me, Mami.”
Mami laughed, and we sat down at the table like two people at a restaurant.
Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (9780545469586) Page 12
