“Damn!” It was all I could say. Natalie had a way of mixing up and confusing any conversation.
“Oh, I seen your mother back around our way. She’s like a whole ’nother person! I heard she was supposed to get some kind of surgery to fix her face.”
“Yeah she’ll be alright.” I hated to think of my mother walking around all crazy like.
“Sorry about your father.” I knew I needed to hang up. Natalie was just being a nosy-ass digging for more shit to talk about.
“Oh, Natalie, I gotta go. The cops over there about to throw a ticket on my Benz.” I slammed down the phone.
A winter white outfit was gonna make me feel alright. The color white for me was like a new beginning. I was standing outside of Bloomingdale’s at 10 A.M. Monday morning when the doors opened up. My meeting with Midnight would happen in a couple of hours. I hoped that time might have cooled Midnight down, making him more reasonable and receptive toward my business deal. My moms was definitely right. There had to be some love in Midnight’s heart for me. He fought Slick Kid for me! What other reason would he have had to beat Slick’s ass? He went to jail for me, defending my name.
My Nicole Miller dress was not that expensive. It was the shoes and the bag that sent the bill soaring. I took a chance at a new hair-shop, at least it was new to me. Those girls from the Dominican Republic hooked my hair up lovely! It was a silky long wrap, China-style, blunt cut.
At 1 P.M., the South Street Seaport was alive. Glasses were clinking, spoons, knives, and forks in action as the lunch crowd flowed in and out. The restaurant was in the open air. You could feel and smell the breeze coming off the East River. I fit right in with the well-paid executive lunch crowd, sporting my diamond necklace, bracelet, and earrings. When Midnight walked in the room, everything around him seemed to slow down. He had the presence and body of an NBA player. He was perfectly in control. The hostess led him to his seat and handed menus to both of us. The busboy filled our glasses.
“I told you to meet me on the pier outside of the restaurant. You have a hard time following directions.”
“I was hungry so I stepped in.” His bad mood was ruining my outlook.
“We got a problem,” he said.
“We?” I said sarcastically.
“Listen, I don’t have time to play games with you. The money is gone.”
“What do you mean the money is gone? That’s bullshit. No, that’s more than bullshit. That’s fucked up. You took the money for yourself. I was gonna share it with you. Santiaga said you was honest. He is gone for two minutes and look how you do!” Midnight had his hands folded in front of him. His jawbone started flickering and his big thick lips curled under.
“If I was a different type of man I’d break your ass up right here in front of everybody. Now, hear this Shorty. Your father was like a father to me. He gave me a break. For five years I never sifted one penny from him. I could of easily, because I was close to him. But Santiaga paid me well for my services. I got my own loot.” He grabbed the bottom of my face tightly, adding, “So don’t ever use your pretty lips to destroy my reputation. It took me a long time to build it, and believe me I earned it.”
“Well, what happened then? What happened to my father’s money?” I asked desperately.
“May I take your order please?” the waitress asked.
“Give us a few more minutes,” Midnight said. The waitress exhaled and left like we were gonna jerk her for her tip or something. “You don’t need to know what happened. Less is better.”
“Well what will I tell Santiaga?”
“I’ll go and talk to Santiaga,” he said.
“Well what am I supposed to do?” I asked, my voice was trembling. I was using all of the strength inside of me not to break down or maybe go crazy and start throwing steak knives around the room.
“Let me try to work something out. Give me until Friday. I’ll try to do something for you.”
The waitress returned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is the lunchtime rush. We need you to order now or—”
Midnight stood up, placed a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “We’ll be leaving.”
When I called Momma she asked for the seven hundred dollars I had taken from her pocketbook. When I told her I was broke, she started cursing and yelling about needing money to go and see Santiaga. Not wanting to give her anything from the last five hundred dollars in my pocket, I tried to humor her but she wasn’t going for it. I know how locked in on an idea she could get, so I promised I would go through my belongings at “Sterling’s mother’s house” and try to pull together some cash. “We could go and see Santiaga on Thursday because those were his instructions anyway.”
“Those were his instructions to you! I am not a child. I’ll go and see my husband anytime I want to and I say I am going today. You go get that cash together now. And meet me at Goldstein’s office at three.”
I hopped on the train and jetted back to Sterling’s house. I had to take off my dress and switch my bag before I met Momma or else she’d be pissed that I spent her money on clothes. I took the tags and clothing receipts out of my white pocketbook and laid them to the side just in case I needed to return everything to get some extra cash. The idea was painful to me because I couldn’t see anybody wearing that dress as good as me.
When I arrived at Goldstein’s my mother was wearing a dress I had seen Aunt Laurie wear more than a few times. She had a long blonde wig that also belonged to Laurie but didn’t match my mom’s face at all. She put it on to cover the left side of her face. It did cover her scar, but the fashion trade-off was just not worth it. I gave her a kiss and she immediately turned and asked, “Did you get the money?”
“Yes, Momma. I have enough for both of us to go see Santiaga, eat some dinner, and for you to get back to Brooklyn.”
“Good,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t you have to see Goldstein?”
“I already saw that crazy man. He’s talking about I can go and see Porsche tomorrow but it will be a supervised visit. We can’t leave the facility with her. These people tryna treat me like I did something wrong, like I’m some type of child molester or pervert or something.”
They processed us at the jail, checked identification, made us take our shoes off and laughed at the hole in Momma’s stocking right at the big toe. They patted us down, frisked us, and escorted us to a bus that took us to the prison waiting room. We signed in a big book, learned my father’s prison number, were told never to forget it, and we sat. The room was filled with all kinds of women, all ages, and some children, mostly all dressed in what would be their bests with about fifty different perfumes, deodorants, and colognes hogging up the air. The carefully stationed guards stood in each corner doing nothing except making sure we did nothing. There was one big-mouth guard coming in from the corridor that led to where the prisoners are. He would come into the room yelling the last name of the prisoner, escort the visitor to the back, and signal when your time is up.
When he finally came in and called out “Santiaga,” my mother got up. So did this young Puerto Rican woman holding a baby boy.
My mother went to the guard and asked, “Are you calling for Ricky Santiaga?”
The officer replied, “Yes, ma’am.” But both women kept approaching. I was seated in the chair waiting for Momma to see him, then I would be next. I checked out the mix-up.
The Puerto Rican girl I guess was about twenty-two years old. She had long, jet black hair down to her ass. She was sporting a Donna Karan pantsuit, something to mention because that was the expensive line. Most people could only afford the DKNY line. She had a big diamond ring on the unmarried finger. Her son had on baby Jordans, a Guess jumper with a matching hat. He had a gold identification bracelet on his little wrist.
The officer held up his hand and said, “Sorry ladies, there is only one visitor at a time. Now who’s gonna be first?”
I thought to myself, That’s how my son’s gonna look, dipped an
d paid.
My mother said, “I don’t know which one of us you’re talking to. I’m here to see my husband, Ricky Santiaga.”
The Puerto Rican girl was proud but reserved. She said, “It’s OK, officer, I’ll wait.”
My mother blew up, jumped in the girl’s face, and said, “What do you mean you’ll wait? I’m here to see Ricky Santiaga. Who are you here to see?”
“No, it’s OK,” the lady said, waving her hand so my mother would go away.
“What do you mean, it’s OK?” My mother’s face was angry and her twisted mouth was going nonstop. “Who are you going to see? Are you tryna say you’re here to see my husband?” The lady stood there blank-faced and did not answer. “I said, who are you here to see?” my mother yelled.
The guard jumped in between the two. “Ma’am, it really doesn’t matter. The lady said she’ll wait. So you come along with me and leave her alone.” The guard grabbed my mother’s arm firmly and led her down the corridor for her visit with Santiaga.
My investigation started the minute I could no longer see my mother. I went to the sign-up book, telling the officer I wanted to make sure I put down the right number for my father. I checked the number me and my mother wrote, and ran my finger down the row of numbers until I saw Santiaga’s number written again. I slid my finger across to the left side of the page to see the name of the visitor. It read Dulce Tristemente. I approached Ms. Dulce slowly, sat in the chair by her, and said “So, are you here to see Ricky Santiaga?”
She looked into my face nervously and said, “No!” But then I saw the baby bracelet. In big block letters it was engraved RICKY SANTIAGA JR.
“You lying bitch! You are here to see my father? You fucking whore. Don’t you come here looking down on my mother like you better than somebody!”
“Look I didn’t say anything to you so back the fuck off me.”
Sweet little Dulce’s five-foot-two petite frame turned into a roaring fire, the kind most of the Puerto Rican girls I know have. If she wanted to fight I was down for that. What I wasn’t gonna do was let her post up and act all cute and snotty like she had one up and over on me. “We can take this right outside,” I said, threatening her.
“No, we can do this right here,” she said, handing her son to an elderly woman seated next to her. “What you gonna do, c’mon.”
The guard from the right corner threw himself in between me and her. He smiled and said, “Ladies, this is a jail. What are you gonna do, kill each other over some bum behind bars?” Then Dulce and I both started screaming on him. His response was, “I’m gonna put both of you out if you don’t shut up. Now you go sit on that side,” he said, pointing. “You on the other side.” Me and her exchanged stares. I wanted her to know I would catch her again and next time I would have my razor.
When I looked at that baby seated on her lap with the jet black curly hair, those big brown eyes, those clothes, and especially that bracelet, I knew it was my father’s son. I wondered how much money Dulce got away with? I bet nobody raided her house. She probably got all kind of jewels and cash stashed away. Apparently she still had her clothes, too. There was no telling how much of our family wealth she was using up. I became enraged at the idea that he was taking better care of this little bastard than he was of me, his firstborn. Here I was scheming on survival when she was living a life of luxury. Why? Only because she gave Santiaga the son he always wanted.
When Momma came out from seeing Santiaga, she glanced at the baby boy and threw her head up in the air. Dulce stood up with the baby and I guess the old lady was the grandmother or something. They went and stood by one of the guards. Momma asked if I was going in to see my father ’cause I was just sitting there motionless, steaming.
“No, not hardly. Not today,” I told her.
Momma straightened Aunt Laurie’s dress. She pulled out a small mirror and checked her wig. She patted it insecurely. She shot one last look at Dulce. Then she ran her eyeballs up and down Dulce’s clothes, grabbed my hand and said, “C’mon Winter.”
On the bus ride home Momma explained that the whole thing was just a crazy mix-up. Santiaga told her that the entire jail was filled with Blacks and Latinos and a lot of inmates had the same last name. “It happens all the time,” she told me. “Don’t worry about a thing.” I just listened, feeling sorry for my mother. For the first time in my life, I was mad as hell at Santiaga.
The next morning, I waited in Penn Station for my momma. We were set to see Porsche at the group home in Queens. So much had happened the day before that I hadn’t had much time to think about my sister at all. I decided I could pick up some five-dollar stuffed animal for her. In Long Island she had a collection of stuffed animals that Santiaga brought for her from every and any place he ever went. At last count she had eighty-six stuffed animals. Santiaga even had special shelves designed for the animals to sit on. There were three levels that extended across four walls in all directions. Each stuffed animal was seated in an assigned seat Porsche gave them. She had a name for each one of them and knew them all by heart. Whenever the twins would sneak into her room to play with them Porsche would know because they could never put them back in the right order.
I picked up a Winnie the Pooh because Porsche always liked him. I checked for the price. The Winnie was more than ten dollars. I heard my mother’s voice over my shoulder, “Yes. That’s perfect for your sister.”
“Yeah, I think she’ll like it,” I said without turning around. When I looked up, I dropped the bear. Momma was completely bald, her entire head was shaven clean. She had on a leather miniskirt from Aunt Laurie’s tasteless wardrobe. Her top was a white Lerner’s type of cheap collection blouse, imitation silk. On her feet were the unforgivable Payless buy-one-get-one-free ten-dollar shoes.
“Ma—what— Oh, oh my God. What did you do?”
“Don’t make a big deal out of nothing,” she said, playfully slapping my arm. “I just decided that this is who I am. You like it?” She stood in the middle of the store with her hands thrown up in the air like she was some type of fashion model. “Actually Winter, these short cuts are in style right now. Get up on it! Come on before we miss the train. Grab the other Winnie over there. That one’s all dirty.” She picked it up and placed it back on the closest shelf.
On the train ride to Queens Momma told me how I should move back to Brooklyn. Aunt B, her other sister, said I could stay with her, share a room with Bianca, my cousin. For the first time in my life the idea of going to Brooklyn struck me as the last thing that I wanted to do.
Porsche came out with an attitude. She had her arms folded across her chest like a grown woman. She rolled her eyes. “What is wrong with your head, Momma? Did they do that to you in jail? Did the police shave your head like that?”
“Baby. This is a high fashion decision straight off the pages of Vogue. Y’all are just late with the styles! Don’t worry, y’all will catch up.”
“So why am I locked up in here and Winter is out there with you, Momma?” Momma popped her eyeballs out at the supervisor who was there to monitor our visit, as if to say mind your own business. “What y’all looking at?” Intimidated by the bald-headed, twisted-mouth momma, the supervisor turned her head away slightly.
“First of all,” Momma whispered, leaning over to Porsche. “This is not Winter. This is Rosie.” Porsche’s eyes widened.
“What?” she asked. Momma placed her four fingers over Porsche’s mouth and winked while she whispered, “Sssh. Do you want them to take your sister away, too? Just play along. Call her Rosie.”
The supervisor cleared her throat. “Excuse me Ms. Santiaga, please don’t do that.” My mother stood up, put her hand on her hip.
“All of you think you can boss me around. This is my baby and I am talking to her right now. How they treating you, baby?”
“The food sucks. There’s no cable, no Sega Genesis. They won’t give me the clothes I asked for out of the closet in my room at home. They won’t give me my stuffed animals
. Their beds are too small. My counselor’s breath stinks. And, I’m bored to death. When can I come home with you?”
My mother clutched Porsche’s shoulders. “Don’t worry baby, Momma’s coming to get you.”
“What about Lexy and Mercedes? Will the twins come home with us, too?”
“Oh yeah,” Momma said, but I know she was feeding Porsche a dream. “Everybody will be there and we’re gonna have a big party, Mommy, and Daddy, and Winter, Lexy, Mercedes, and Porsche, one big happy family. We’ll even have Big Bird, and Ernie and Bert.”
Porsche flagged her hand at Momma, “I don’t even watch them anymore.” By the end of our visit the supervisor had to drag Porsche out of the room, kicking, biting, screaming, and crying. She wanted to leave with us. Momma jumped the supervisor and fought too. I jumped in ’cause that’s the way it goes. We were thrown out when extra security arrived. The supervisor was all torn up.
On the train I tried to talk to Momma. I wanted to understand what was going on with her. She just seemed different to me. For the first time in my life I was even a little embarrassed by her. I caught myself on the train trying to look like I was alone, with no connection to the bald-headed weirdo in the next seat. I would stare straight ahead, then turn my legs slightly in the opposite direction so people wouldn’t think we were sitting together. Momma kept talking to me anyway, making it clear that we were together.