A hungry mob stands next to a greasy steel counter and waves plastic numbers in the air to butchers who dispense orders beneath a neon Virgen de Guadalupe and a dusty bull’s head with glass eyes. Curly strips of flypaper hang from the ceiling like streamers at a children’s party, the steady death drone of flies making the room jump.
—How can you bring me here? This place looks like a dump, Mother says.
—It is a dump, says Father. —That’s how you can tell the tacos are good.
—I mean how do you expect me to eat here? Mother asks, eyeing the sawdust on the floor behind the butcher counter. —This place looks like it has bugs and mice.
—Well, so does our house, but we eat there too, don’t we?
At this, Mother can think of no clever response. It’s true. They live in the only neighborhoods they can afford, where the rent is cheap and the fauna resilient. Mother tries not to look at the seams where the floor meets the wall. She orders a chile relleno taco and a taco de cabeza. Father asks for three brain tacos and two tongue, and a rice-water drink.
At the moment their food arrives, almost as if on cue, a man appears with the ubiquitous mop and pail† and starts to mop with Pine-Sol. The mop is a sweet stinky, as if it hasn’t dried properly, the Pine-Sol so strong it makes you blink. That smell, the sad smell of Saturday mornings, of hallways shared with other tenants, of nursing homes, of pets or people who have had accidents, of the poor who have nothing to clothe themselves with but pride. We may be poor, but you can bet we’re clean, the smell says. We may be poor. It is no disgrace to be pobre, but … it’s very inconvenient.
† Even Bernal Díaz del Castillo, one of Hernán Cortés’ foot soldiers, cites in his wonderfully detailed chronicles the Mexican obsession with cleaning. This is true even today. You have only to arrive in the Mexico City airport, step off the plane into the waiting area, and your first encounter with Mexican culture will be to dodge someone furiously mopping. Especially if it’s the middle of the day. ¡CUIDADO! WATCH OUT!—warns a plastic yellow sign with a stick figure of a person falling on his back.
60.
When an Elephant Sits on Your Roof
—Long distance from Texas, I say, handing the phone to Mother, —It’s Papa.
—¿Mijo? Mother says tenderly. She always calls Father mijo when she’s feeling kind. Father’s been gone for over two weeks, long enough for Mother to miss him.
—¡Mi vida!* ¡Ya tenemos casa! Father says, shouting so loud even I can hear him. —We’re homeowners!
Mother barrages him with questions, and finally finishes by telling Father to hang up and call back after eleven, when the rates are cheaper. Mother is as wild as if she’d won the lottery.
—Well, for once your grandmother has given us something other than headaches. She’s bought us a house in San Antonio. On a street named El Dorado. And your father’s found himself a shop nearby. Cheap too! A house, Lala! Think of it. Finally, after all these years.
—How many bedrooms? I ask.
—Bedrooms? Did he even tell me, or did I forget to ask? But he did say there’s an apartment in the back we can rent. That guy Mars had your father and your grandmother hunting up and down all over San Antonio till they found a house for the right price. We couldn’t even buy a garage for that amount of money here in Chicago. Not in a million years. You can bet we won’t have to lock up the gate every night to keep lowlifes from stealing my roses. Think, Lala, a garden without rats! We can sit outside after dark, and we won’t be scared, won’t that be something?
Mother starts laughing and phones her sister Frances. —Pancha, guess what, you won’t believe it, good news. We bought a house. Uhhuh. In Texas. That’s right, San Antonio. No, there’s no Ku Klux Klan there. What are you talking about? It’s Mexican. Why do you think it’s called San Antonio and not Saint Anthony? Go on. You’re crazy. Go on, you’ve never even been there! Well, will you let me finish? If you won’t let me talk, I swear I’m going to hang up.
Father and the Grandmother took off to San Antonio just to look around, because Mars lured them down. But nobody believed Father would actually buy something on this trip. We thought maybe someday, like when he got old, and we sure didn’t think the Grandmother would be so generous.
It’s like our family’s been struck by lightning. It happens so fast we’re dazed by the smell of charred wood, the spiral of gray smoke. Mother announces we’re to pack and move this summer, to get there before school starts and all. That’s the plan. —Only bring the essentials, Father orders. —Everything else we’ll get in Texas.
—Texas? You’re kidding, Toto groans. —What’s in Texas?
—A house. Ours! You don’t think we’re going to keep throwing money at a landlord all our lives, do you? Mother says. —Your father’s going to be home any day now. We’ve got to start packing.
Memo and Lolo start their whining. —Packing! Again? We just finished helping Abuela move last summer. Do we have to?
—Yes, we have to. Your father’s orders, Mother says.
Or the Grandmother’s, I think to myself. Same thing.
The older boys—Rafa, Ito, and Tikis—start a mutiny and argue they’ve got to stay in Chicago because they can’t afford to lose their college loans and grants. There’s no reason for them to move; in the past year they’ve been living away at dorms anyway. They can find a cheap apartment and live together during the summer.
—They’re so close to finishing! It won’t be long, Mother reminds Father once he’s home.
Father says as long as they’re in school, it doesn’t matter if the older boys stay in Chicago. —So they won’t have to work like me. And then he adds for the benefit of us younger kids, —Study and use your head, not your hands. He holds out his palms to scare the hell out of us. Hands as hard as shoe leather, layered and yellow like a Bible abandoned in a field.
I’m the only one who doesn’t complain about this breakup of our family. I’d be changing schools anyway even if we stayed, since I start high school this fall. What I’ve never told anyone is this—I’ve wanted nothing more my whole life than to get out of here. To get out of the cold, and the stink, and the terror. You can’t explain it to somebody who’s never lived in a city. All they see is a pretty picture postcard. Buckingham Fountain at dusk. But take a good look. Those furry shapes scampering around the base aren’t kittens.
Father promised me the next address I’d have a room of my own, because even he admits I’m “una señorita” now, and he’s making good on that promise, I guess. There’s never anywhere we’ve lived that’s had enough bedrooms for all of us. Apartments aren’t built to sleep nine people. I sleep on a twin bed in the middle room, which would be all right if you didn’t have to cross through it to get to the other rooms. All this traffic, and never any privacy, and noise all the time, and having to dress and undress in the bathroom, the only room with a lock on the door except for the exit doors.
When I was a kid I slept in the living room on the orange Naugahyde La-Z-Boy, but I got too big to sleep there comfortably. Sometimes Father slept me and Memo and Lolo together. We’ve slept head to foot on bunk beds, on couches, on twin beds, on double beds, on cots, and on rollaways shoved in every room except the kitchen. We’ve slept just about everywhere except on the floor, which Father forbids. —Sleeping on the floor, like going barefoot, is low class, he says. Then he adds, —Do you want people to think we’re poor?
I can remember every flat we’ve ever rented, especially the ones I want to forget. Their hallways and their hallway smell, dank and dusty or reeking of Pine-Sol. A heavy door blunted with kicks, carved initials, and the scars from changes of locks like appendectomies. Fingerprints on the glass. No yard, or if there is a yard, no grass. A darkness to the hallway, like a cave or an open mouth. Paint old and splintering off. A skinny lightbulb naked and giving off a sickly glow. A dirty cotton string hanging from the bulb. Dust in between the posts of the banister. High ceilings. Walls oiled with hands. Voices behind the a
partment doors. People downstairs who talk too loud, or people upstairs who walk too much. Neighbors who are a pain. Manolo and Cirilo, and their bad-mouth mama. Floorboards thumping to Mexican country music early in the morning, even on the weekends when you’re trying to sleep, for crying out loud.
A loose step squeaking like a mouse, or a mouse squeaking like a loose step. Holes shut over with nails and a piece of tin. A dark curve before you get up to the third flight. Delivery men scared to come up here. No one ever knocks on our door for Halloween. No need to put up spooky decorations. Our home already looks haunted just the way it is. Dust and darkness and dust, no matter how many Saturdays we clean it.
On our landing on the wall beside our door, somebody’s kid drew in pencil a big chicken with a stupid-looking eye like a human’s, a wall we painted over, but you can still see the lead outline of that chicken if you look close. Inside the apartment everything spackled, patched, and sanded clean. Walls painted colors as bright as the inside of a body. New linoleum to match, too, mopped every day by Ma or me.
Every apartment we’ve ever lived in with its cold room, a room in the back where all our wrinkled clothes sit in sacks waiting for the iron. In that cold room that nobody likes to go in, a ghost probably keeping watch over the cold sacks. Every time I go in there —Oh, blessed ghost of the wrinkled clothes, please leave me the hell alone.
Rats in the walls chirping like birds. Little rumble and scramble on the other side. Noises like gravel, like pebbles dropping. Loose plaster. I don’t dare leave the bed at night. Even to pee. I’d rather wet the bed than face the dark.
Brothers snoring beside me. Mother and Father in their room far away, whispering. Elbows and warm knees. Keep off my side of the bed, or I’ll clobber you. Sleep on my belly, turn the pillow over to the cool side, dust the dust off my feet. Sleep coming after me.
Old house, our house, ugly old shoe. We polish and wipe and paint and clean, fix what we can afford to fix, but it’s no use. It still looks as dirty as ever.
The good news about our new house on El Dorado Street isn’t good to everybody. Father and the Grandmother return to Chicago in a great mood, blind to the fact that everyone around them is pissed. Uncle Baby and Aunty Ninfa are hurt, and I don’t blame them. After all, that’s the thanks they get for taking care of the Grandmother all these months. Uncle Fat-Face and Aunty Licha are beyond hurt feelings. —And what are we? Painted? Don’t we need help as much as Tarzán? That money came from the sale of the house on Destiny Street, which should’ve been split up between all of the family. Our father always said so. —What nonsense, says the Grandmother. —Inocencio has more need than the rest of you, he has “seven sons.” And if you’re going to quarrel about inheritances you should at least wait till I’m dead.
It’s like a gas leak, the bad feelings. A slow hiss you know will end in something terrible.
But at our house, Father and Mother ignore the family feuds. At night, they whisper their plans.
—And there’s the little apartment in the back, for my mother, of course.
—Your mother? I thought she was going to get her own house. You didn’t tell me she was going to live with us.
—Poco a poco, not all at once. She needs to look for a house, and I’ll need to borrow some money from her to put into the new shop. I’m starting from scratch. I have to buy sewing machines, a compressor, build tables. You don’t expect me to take anything but my tools with my brothers acting like they do. After all, my mother gave us the money for the down payment of our house. Gave it to us. A gift, not a loan, Zoila. Just think, when she moves out, you’ll be a landlady. A landlady, Zoila! Isn’t that what you always wanted?
—Well … She’s not staying forever, right?
—Mi vida, when have I lied to you?
It takes a long time to get rid of our things and pack up only the essentials. Some things we ship, and some things get left behind with the boys in Chicago, and some things just get lost or broken or both. Some of our furniture we sell, and lots is given away. And the rest we put in storage. —Don’t worry, Father promises Mother. —I’ll make you new furniture when we get there. But half the stuff we own is old anyway, and Mother’s glad to get rid of it. The only thing she wants is her rosebushes, and these Toto dutifully digs up for her and packs into plastic buckets.
When finally we hitch up a trailer with the Grandmother’s walnut-wood armoire swaddled in green moving quilts, we look like, as Father would put it, “Hungarians.” Father keeps prodding us to let go of things. And when we don’t, he gives our things away for us when we’re not looking. —It’s all right, I’ll buy you a new one in Texas.
Our German shepherd, Wilson, almost gets left behind in Chicago with Rafa, Ito, and Tikis. Father tries to convince us he’ll buy us another one, because Wilson is already old and half lame, but there is no other Wilson in the universe. I found Wilson in the alley years ago and put him in our yard. He was already full-grown then, dirty and covered with cigarette burns on his muzzle; a dog with sad, watery eyes outlined in black like Alice Cooper’s. But now Wilson is ancient, though he hobbles about, dragging himself around, still trying to protect us. Toto, Memo, Lolo, and me decide to get organized. —If Wilson doesn’t come with us to Texas, we’re not going. Mother won’t hear of it, until I break into tears. —Look at her, pobrecita, Father says. —Let the girl bring her dog, he’s no trouble. Finally, Wilson is allowed to come with us, and we load him into the van with his special doggy bed made from an old couch cushion.
The trip south to San Antonio is slow, not like when we headed to Mexico City, maybe because we’re dragging the past with us. Father doesn’t let us dawdle or allow us nights at motels because of the trailer and the risk of having everything ripped off. So the boys and Father drive in shifts, with only breaks for coffee and food, the Grandmother snoring heavily, waking up at every bump and asking, —¿Ya llegamos?
We get to San Antonio in the early afternoon, tired and cranky, ready to get to the house on El Dorado Street, but Father insists on driving us to his workspace first. —It’s right here, right on the way, you’ll see. Father meanders west past the corner of Commerce and Rosillo Streets, where Carol Burnett lived when she was little. We drive past streets named Picoso, Hot and Spicy Street; Calavera, Skeleton Street; and Chuparrosa, Hummingbird Street. It’s odd to see the names in Spanish. Almost like being on the other side, but not exactly.
Father takes us up and down and around as if he’s lost, through back streets with row houses with goats and roosters tied to a porch rail and yards full of dogs sleeping under the shade of a tree, scratching themselves, or trotting across the street. Blackie, Snowball, Smokey, Lulu, Pinky. Dogs that go nuts and chase our van like if they’d never seen wheels before.
Finally Father pulls up along a chalky strip of storefronts that look like they’ve been painted with nurse’s shoe polish, a crumbly row of white made whiter in the sun. It’s a dusty shop on a dusty road, Nogalitos Street, old Highway 90, which once led us south to Laredo before the new interstate was built. We park in front on a diagonal like everyone else, the curb a rubble of concrete and indestructible sunflowers that spring back to life the moment after we drive over them. JEWELRY MINGO’S, WE HAVE LAYAWAY. FINA’S WEDDING CAKES FOR ALL OCCASIONS. AZTEC UNISEX BEAUTY CHATEAU—CLASSY CUTS FOR ONLY ONE FORTY-NINE. AUTO TINT WHY SQUINT WINDSHIELD REPAIR. A notary public office advertising INCOME TAX, BOOKKEEPING, GRAPEFRUIT ONE DOLLAR A DOZEN, and SE DAN LIMPIAS/CASA/NEGOCIO. But there on the corner, at the choicest location, MARS TACOS TO WENT.
—Hey, we’ve been here before, Father, remember? We ate at the corner at Mars’ place.
Wedged between the bakery and beauty salon, Father’s shop. REYES UPHOLSTERY in red and yellow block letters with a crown on the “R.” A stink of pink permanent wave solution and sugary bread. —After a while, you don’t even notice it, Father says.
A short ride south on Nogalitos and then a jig jog, and we’re on El Dorado Street. On a block of squat
dull houses, a modern two-story brick stands out like a jewel among the junk. Clean, blond bricks and an immaculate driveway surrounded by a high iron fence painted black and gold, scary as a Doberman.
—Is that it?
—No, Father says. —It’s further down. Then he adds, —Drogas. Meaning—you can bet the people who live there are probably dealing drugs.
—Is this it? I ask pointing to a purple Victorian with a green swing on the porch.
—Oh, no, the Grandmother says. —It’s much bigger than that.
—Is that one it?
—Ha, ha, ha. Father and the Grandmother look at each other smugly and wink.
Finally Father says, —Here we are, and drives into a driveway littered with pecans that crunch under our tires.
—This is it?
I look at the house. It reminds me of a riddle from the first grade. Question: What time is it when an elephant sits on your roof? Answer: Time to get a new roof.
Rascuache. That’s the only word for it. Homemade half-ass. Our house is one of those haphazard, ramshackle, self-invented types, as if each room was added on as the family who built it got bigger, when they could afford it, layer upon layer of self-improvement, somebody trying their very best, even if that best isn’t very much. Some of it in wood, some in funky siding, and some parts of it in brick. A house like the excavations of Mexico City. A downstairs porch and an upstairs porch with mismatched rusted metal railings, bent metal aluminum awnings, iron window guards, last year’s Christmas decorations—a wire Santa and reindeer—potted plants with shard tile or shards of mirror on the pots, nicho to la Virgen de San Juan, tire planters, a dull Sears chain-link fence, crooked TV antenna, a rotted wicker porch swing, a garden full of overgrown banana trees and burnt, red and yellow cannas, vines growing up over everything, taking over, choking everything, in fact. Pecan tree seedlings sprouting from the cracks in the buckled sidewalk and in the abandoned weedy pots. Pecans crunching underfoot. Little green lizards that puff their chests pink and then vanish. Iron daisies made out of plumbing pipes and the blades of a broken fan. A wooden wishing well where giant cockroaches the color of varnished wood scatter when you touch it.