Memories Anthology
Dec 17, 2022 23:18:32 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Dec 17, 2022 23:18:32 GMT -5
Memories Anthology
Nelson Diaz pseudonym Radrook
420 Cumberland Court
Harrisburg Pa 17102
Phone 717-412- 4985
Estimated word count = 40,000 words
Synopsis
The manuscript I am emailing is composed of memories of early childhood and early adulthood.
My writing experience has been mostly on the Internet although some of my poetry has been published in anthologies and I have had an oped published in the local newspaper and another at the Chess Life and Review Magazine. Reception to my stories has generally been very favorable. I have been writing under the name of Radrook.
Background.
Both my parents were raised in Puerto Rico and moved to the USA after their marriage at the end of WWII. He was raised in the country, and she in the City of Coamo. Although both had received high-school educations, my mother emerged with a better grasp of English and usually, at the outset of their arrival in the USA served as and interpreter on his behalf. Both were of short stature, my dad being 5'3 ad my mother 4'11. However that's where the similarities end. My father is totally of European features which include fine straight almost silk-like hair, and a pug nose while my mom resembled a Taina Indian with high cheekbones and typical eye folds. The similarity in heights also ends in the personality area. My father was more of a quiet type. In fact, he was averse to either talking too much or else hearing others talk in what he invariably considered excessively.
My mother, on the other hand, was garrulous and expressed everything she felt in exaggerated effusive manners, and was carried away in a frenzy over the slightest frustration. Neither did my father express his frustration verbally that much, while my mother would let loose with furious invectives against all mankind and the powers that be. This of course led my father to develop strategies in order to skillfully evade confrontations at all costs. However, no matter how much he claimed to try to be nice, it always seemed as if he managed a way to light the fearful fuse, and all hell invariably broke loose.
There were few Puerto Ricans at that time in New York City, but there was plenty of manual labor work in the textile industries and other industries that still depended on manual labor. So finding work was no problem after the end of WWII. After living for a while in small rented rooms of private apartments, we moved into public-housing projects in the Bronx, and that's where it all really begins. What begins? Well, the natural comedic occurrences that characterized their interpersonal relationship from its outset until its end in the late sixties. You see both were natural comedians in the style of abbot and Costello and Laurel and Hardy but without trying to be.
I of course didn't appreciate it at the time as my cadaverously skinny cousin George did who came over each summer just to get a front-row seat and laugh his head off at all their antics. Me? I was impervious to it all. Perhaps because of being constantly exposed to it, or perhaps because I knew that their marriage wasn't too stable despite the comic relief.
In any case, It was only after reaching late adulthood that the humor of it all suddenly dawned on me and I have been laughing ever since. It is with the purpose of conserving those hilarious unrehearsed antics that I write this book. If indeed they bring a smile to the reader's lips then that is sufficient compensation. They certainly have brought many a smile to mine not to mention a hearty guffaw.
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Table of Contents:
Memories
1. Father and Baker Brush
2. Danny the Dog and Dinner
3. Danny the Dog and Cold Feet
4. Dwelling Purposes?
5. Man of Bottled Spirits
6. Aunt Modesta and the NY Eels
7. The Fifty Cent Cop
8. Roller Coaster Ride
9. Dancing Mania
10. The tent the snake and the bear.
11. The mysterious Brown bag
12. Hold on and Trust me!
13. The Malevolent Mirror
14: Nicia and her Threatening Gospel
15. Dad vs the Italian hulk
16. Singing Ventriloquist?
17. Would you believe what just happened?
18. The Saintly Santa Clause Lie
19. Champion Chin-up-Bar Swinger
20. Miami Memory circa 1976
21. Colon the Catholic
22. Religious and Romantic Delusions
23. Car Accident. Court Case and Karma!
24. Infatuation and Unrequited Love
25. Simple Double Hernia Repair?
26. Male Courtship Ritual gone Awry
27. The Mummy
Memory 1: Father and Baker Brush
I have always found it strange that my mother married my father when she knew full well that he was a habitual flirter and that she was extremely sensitive to it. It had cause numerous altercations prior to their wedding. So it was no secret that this was going to be a problem after the marriage as well. Yet she behaved as if it were a totally unexpected thing each time he did it.
Besides flirting with women at every opportunity, my father was also fanatical newspaper reader. I mean, not just skimming sections, he would go over every little word as if it had been a recently-discovered treasure. After arriving from work, he would disappear behind the wide pages only to emerge several hours later with bloodshot eyes and bags under his eyes. Then instead of discarding it, he would stash the newspaper under the sofa cushion in order to review the parts that he might have missed later. But more often than not later never came and some cushions began to get pretty elevated.
“Why don’t you throw those newspapers away?” my mother would ask.
“Haven’t finished them yet!”
“Tell me Hipolito. Do you read the entire paper? I mean, most people are selective readers. You know? What are you doing? Reading the obituary and classifieds as well?”
“How are those newspapers bothering you? Eh? Are they bothering you?” he’d say.
“The sofa doesn’t look right-that’s how! They take away the whole appearance from the sala.[living room]”
On it went but to no avail! Sometimes she would throw all of them away and he would look as if she had ripped his heart out. Why he couldn’t simply store them in the closet is beyond me.
Well, as destiny would have it, this newspaper-reading and flirting thing finally converged in a very dramatic way. You see, it just so happened that both my parents wound up working at this brush-manufacturing company where many women were employed. Of course my father felt as if he had been blessed and placed in a flirting paradise. My mother had pleaded with him to stop but to no avail. Finally she tearfully went to the Boss, explained how this was causing her distress and would eventually affect her work-efficiency and the boss promised to take care of it.
“Is that so?” he said.
“Go look for yourself. Just watch him!”
That wasn’t hard to do since my dad's leering and his comments as the ladies went by were very obvious.
“Don’t worry Alba. I’ll fix it so that he can’t bother you that way anymore!”
So my father wound up in a corner, handling a brush-handle-stamping machine, facing a wall and far from all possible female distraction. It was a simple job. His only responsibility was to place the brush-handle beneath the stamper, have it stamped, remove it and after a brief pause place another one to be stamped with the Baker-Brush logo. A very uncomplicated task right? Well, not exactly. You see, being unable to flirt, he started bringing the morning newspaper to work and placed it on the chair beside him to read as he worked.
At first it was a bit clumsy. But after a while the hand and eye coordination involved became automatic:
Brush beneath stamper,
Bam! Baker Brush!
Remove it.
Briefly read a few words in the newspaper.
Place another brush.
Bam! Baker Brush!
Remove it.
Read a few more words.
Maybe turn a page.
Another brush.
Bam! Baker Brush!
Noticing the delicate balance between efficiency and bloody disaster involved, my mom eventually asked. "Don’t you think that you should concentrate all your attention on what you are doing? You might injure yourself you know? Doesn't it occur to you that you might injure yourself?”
“It’s your fault for having me placed in this damned corner facing this damned wall all day--right?. So stay out of it! OK?”
“I am just saying it for your own good. I mean, you might get hurt doing that.”
“So what do you want me to do? Eh? I have nowhere to look! Just a blank wall in front of me far from everyone else. I am buried alive in this corner. Don’t you see that I am buried alive here? Huh?”
“Buried alive why? Because you can’t flirt with the muchachas any more? Eh? You know, gosando de lo lindo![enjoying yourself] while making as if you are working? Look at your work? Isn’t that what you are supposed to be doing? Looking at your work? You’re not supposed to be flirting with other women or reading the newspaper anyway! That’s not what they are paying you for. Is that what they are paying you for?”
He’d turned away morosely back to the machine while mumbling under his breath. Of course his new antic didn’t go unnoticed. The boss noticed the danger and brought it to his attention. But my father promised everything was under control and that he was keeping up with the quota anyway.
Well, all was going without a hitch with his new system. But then baseball season came around and my dad was fanatical fan of the Dodgers. So the New York Times Newspaper's sports section began to draw his fervent attention. Engrossed in the news about how the Dodgers had lost again to the Yankees and what they intended to do about it, he soon began to hesitate a little just before placing another brush to be stamped.
That’s when it happened. He was reading and instead of placing the brush under the stamper, he placed his bare hand and Bam! Baker Brush! His fingers were pierced. I remember his howling in pain at night and how he swore that he was going to sue the company. Of course the attempt came to nothing since it had been totally his fault.
Then upon returning to work he stepped on a nail that pierced his foot while carrying some heavy boxes and again tried to sue the company. That time he collected some money as compensation. But by then the owners were looking at him in a strange way. You know, as if he was just there trying to get hurt in order to sue. Finally he was lighting a cigarette and set his chest hair on fire.
“Get the hell our of here!” the boss bellowed. We don’t want you here anymore!”
“OK! OK! Take it easy, take it easy!” he said while frantically slapping out the fire on his chest and heading out the door.
Weird how things converge that way!
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Memory 2: Danny the dog and Dinner
Danny Boy appeared as a puppy at our Newark New Jersey basement apartment door one dark evening in the middle of winter. He was cradled in the armpit of this fellow who reeked of wine and was asking for fifty cents for the dog. Fifty cents bought you a bottle of Thunderbird or Tiger Rose wine at that time. He was a cute puppy with big Puppy eyes and adorable brown, soft fur which just cried out to be petted and loved. So after I promised to take care of him, he was bought and made a full-fledged member of our family which consisted of me and my parents.
At first my mom was squeamish with Danny, Boy. {That’s the name we gave him based on a film we had seen. about a dog of the same name. ) He would playfully approach her as she was lying in bed reaching out with his paws and she would fearfully hide under the blanket asking me to get him away. Something to do with being afraid of being too physically close to small animals.
But curiously, what had begun as a bad relationship soon turned into a strong friendship. You see, like every chef my mother liked to be complimented on her cooking. Now, please note that her cooking involved lots of garlic, onions, olive oil. In short the kitchen would overflow with aromas. Now you tell me-what dog worth his salt could resist something like that.
So, come cooking time, Danny would be right there next to her looking up, tongue hanging out, ears perked, tail wagging in desperate anticipation for any tid-bit she might deign to offer. Naturally such admiration had to be compensated and Danny was rewarded at first with a few scraps.
The problem was that having made a comparison between my mother's cooking and the bland dog food he had been eating, he decided that he wasn't going to eat dog food any longer. So when served his bowl, he would sniff it once, turn his head the other way, and go sit next to my mother as she cooked.
The more he admired the more my mother loved him and the larger the pieces of steak he was given became until he was finally being served a full plate of steak, rice and beans with gravy. Naturally this had an impact on family finances.
"What is happening to all the food I'm buying?" my father finally asked warily after opening the refrigerator and noticing just how empty it seemed after just several days of re-stocking it.
"What do you mean what happened to the food?" my mother responded cautiously.
"Where is it? Where are all the steaks and the rice and the beens we just bought a few days ago?”
“Where do you think they are?” She stared at him as if it should have been obvious.
“I don’t know. You tell me!”
“They were eaten."
"Eaten?" My father stared at her quizzically with his mouth partially opened as if confronted with a great enigma.
"Yeah eaten. Isn't that what food is for? To be eaten?"
"'Sure but not at that pace!"
“Well, what do you expect, Danny eats too, you know?"
"What?"
"I said Danny eats too!"
"You mean to tell me you've been giving those steaks to the dog?"
"He eats a full plate at dinner just like the rest of us!"
"Now just a second here! Isn't that a dog?"
"Sure, he’s a dog, but he eats."
“Isn't he supposed to be eating dog food?"
"He doesn't like dog food. He likes my cooking!" she said proudly as she began preparing dinner.
"You mean to tell me I have another kid on my hands? Another mouth to feed?
I didn't know I was adopting another kid when I bought that dog. Feed him dog food! He was eating dog food before. So what the hell happened?"
"That was before he made a comparison," she said proudly.
"A comparison between what?"
''A comparison between that nasty- tasting dog food you bought him and my cooking. You should see how he jumps at my hands when he thinks I'm about to serve dinner."
"Of course he does that. All dogs do that. He's a dog! Don't you know he's a dog?"
"Would you eat that dog food?"
“Meee? Eat what? Dog food? Why should I eat dog food? I'm not a dog!"
"I mean, have you tasted it?"
"Why should I taste dog food? Am I a dog to be tasting dog food? No, have you?"
"Yes! I tasted it to find out why Danny Boy sniffs it and then moves away. I mean when we sniff and move away from things its because something is wrong-right?''
'True and?"
'And it tastes like hell that's what! Here just let me get you a small sample!"
''No I don't want..."
"Just a sample."
"Damned!'" My father blurted out as he spat out the dog-food after just a slight taste. Why do they make it that way?"
"Because they are not the ones who have to eat it."
“So how come the dogs in the TV-adds slurp it all up? I don't see them sniffing and turning away. Do you?"
“Maybe it's not the same food. Maybe what they are eating is something else on TV.
In order to sell and make money people do anything. You know that! Maybe they have this junk they sold you stocked up and its either throwing it away or selling it to gullible people like you."
''Like me?"
''Yeah like you. You are the one who believed the commercial and bought it not me. I don't believe everything I see on TV. Now, after tasting it, do you still want me to feed that poor dog that food? I will if you want me too--you know? But remember, that you will be the one torturing him."
"How is that?"
"By forcing him to see us eat our delicious food while he’s stuck with that disgusting mess!"
"Why don't you just try cooking his dog food. Fix it up with onion and garlic and olive oil!"
"OK! I will try. But I doubt that I can fix it."
True to her prophecy Danny rejected the modified dog food after barely sniffing it and headed straight for the kitchen as usual come dinner time. Whereupon he was served just like everyone else at dinner. Seeing him ravenously devouring the food my father shook his head and said:
“This is another one that I brought upon myself.”
“Arf! Arf! Arf!” Danny responded.
“See? he understands you!” my mother said in an amused voice while dangling a small piece of steak for Danny to deliriously behold.
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Memory 3:Danny and Cold Feet
The basement we lived at for a year after moving from the New York Housing projects was cold and Danny's canine body temperature provided us with a portable heater as we watched TV. We had no idea that a dog’s body temperature was set at 106 degrees and it was by pure chance that we found this out.
One day as we sat shivering, along he came from under the bed where he sometimes rested and draped his steaming body over our ice-cold feet and that was it. We were hooked. Soon it became a family tradition of sorts. Going to the living room we'd sit close together so the his small furry body could spread its heat evenly.
The problem was that Danny would gradually doze into a semi sleep and didn't want to be awakened. In short, we couldn’t move. If we did he would growl. That would stop us. You see, we didn't want to drive him away. That might leave our feet at the cold's mercy. Nevertheless it was a very uncomfortable proposition. “I warm your feet but don’t you move!”
Every movement had to be executed in slow motion so as to leave Danny Boy undisturbed. Any sudden or sharp movement was instantly met with a deep growl. After several hours of this struggle my father finally began to protest.
"So this means that we can't move right?" His voice was like the calm before the storm.
“Not if you want warm feet, "my mother responded in her usual casual way.
“But what if I want to scratch my leg or just move to get circulation?"
Grrrrr! Danny sensed that it was about him whom my father was talking and that it wasn't good.
'Did you hear that?" my mother asked. “Do you know what that means?"
“What does it mean?"
“You really don't know what he is telling you when he growls like that?"
“What is he telling me?”
“He's telling you that if you keep waking him up and moving around like that he is going to bite you!"
"Esto esta cabron! I work like an animal all day and want to watch tv but can't move because the dog I feed good food to with the sweat of my brow will bite me?"
"Not if you want warm feet!"
"I didn't ask him to warm my feet! Did I ask him to warm my feet? Huh?"
“Grrrrrr!”
“He does it out of the goodness of his heart!"
"Oh yeah? Then why is he threatening to bite me? Did you hear the malagradecido growl again just now?"
"All he asks in return for warming your feet is that you don't move so he can sleep!”
“So now we can’t talk ether right?”
“I understand exactly how he feels. When you wake me you make me feel the same way. Mira! Whoever wakes me up I feel like killing him"
“And suppose I have to go to the bathroom to dewater. Eh? I can't get up to dewater ceither--carajo!
Then what?"
“Grrrrrr!” Danny goes as he here's my father' tone getting worse.
"You can's say he didn't warn you. Right? He warned you that he is going to bite you if you move. So if you get bitten you asked for it."
“I asked for it?"
“Yeah you asked for it because you know that he doesn't like to be disturbed when he's sleeping!"
“I have been holding it back for an hour now. How much longer am I supposed to hold on?”
“Well, those are the terms. You can either accept them or reject them. But if you do remember, he did say
he’ll bite you.
“Mira carajo no joda conyo!” my father got up suddenly pushing the dog aside with his foot.
“Am I supposed to have my bladder burst so he can sleep?”
“You didn’t have to treat him so roughly!”
“Ha! Ha! Really If I do it slow he would have bitten me like you said.”
“See“ my mother said sadly, “now he’s under the bed and isn’t coming back.”
“Let him stay under the bed. That kind of favor I don’t need!”
“Ingrate!”
“To you his sleep is more important than my bladder right?’
“No but he is just a dog.”
“And what am I huh.? Chicken shit?”
“No, but you have more capacity so I expect more from you than from him!”
“This I brought upon myself!”
“Grrrrrr ruff!” Danny responded from under the bed.
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Memory 4 :Danny The Dog and the Bone
Dogs are wonderful companions, as most people will readily agree. Come home from work tired, and who celebrates the most? the dog. That characteristic was what particularly endeared my father to Danny Boy. He’d arrive home from work, and it was as if he’d been gone for centuries. Or better yet, as if it had been the second coming of Christ for Danny. He’d leap, whimper, wag tail, yowl, and even urinate in an uninhibited display of profound joy.
Well, soon he had my father saying:
“The only one who really appreciates me in this apartment is the dog. Look at how happy he is to see me!”
So what happened that certain night, which I’m about to describe, wasn’t surprising.
"Boy is Danny going to be happy when I give him this bone," my father said as we wound our way back home through deserted Newark streets late that night. We had been visiting some friends and my father had noticed this huge ham bone left over in the soup casserole. He had remembered Danny and how Danny received him effusively whenever he arrived home from work. So he wrapped the bone in some newspaper as a gift.
"Isn't that bone a bit too big for that little dog?" my mother put in in her usual advisory way.
"He can eat it little by little!"
"Are you sure that he has the strength in those small jaws to crack that bone?"
"Well not in one try but little by little as I just said, see?"
"What I see is that bone is almost bigger than the dog!"
"He is the only one who celebrates when I come home and he deserves a gift. He’s always so happy to seem me that he even urinates ."
"I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve a bone. I'm just saying the maybe the bone is too big and watch out for the red light-OK or else the dog gets no bone after we wind up in the emergency room."
“That's not going to happen because I am a chauffer."
"The best chauffeurs have accidents."
"Well not me!"
"Now start accusing me that I warn you about the bone being too big for the dog because I envy the dog."
"I never said that!"
"No but considering how your mind works you could be thinking it!"
The subject went back and forth until we got to the basement apartment. As soon as we went in, Danny began leaping,
wagging, urinating, and whimpering to my father's delight whereupon my dad produced the gift from the bag.
"Here we are Danny. Look what I got for you!"
Danny leaped up, snatched the bone from my father's hand, ran to the bedroom as if being chased and dove under their bed.
“He didn’t stay around to even thank you. "" mt mom said "He just saw the bone! Once he saw the bone you no longer mattered. What were you expecting? He’s a dog-you know?” my mother said as my father looked deeply disappointed.
It was approx. 1 in the morning and my father needed to get up at eight to go to work . Soon the lights were put out and my parents were both in bed. All was deathly silent when suddenly:
Grrrrrrrruuuuuuunch!
"Did you hear that?" my father said.
“Grunch! Grunch Grunch Grrrrrunch!
"Where is that coming from?"
"You don't know do you?" my mother responded.
"No I don't!"
“Think and see if you can guess where it's coming from!"
"Grrrruunch!”
"From under the bed!"
"You know what it is don't you?’
"It's Danny with the bone"
"Exactamente! What did I tell you about that bone?"
"Well I thought he was going to leave it for tomorrow."
"Tomorrow! Muchacho. Handing that dog that bone gave him insomnia. He's going to be up all night trying to crack it."
"I have to go to work in a few hours."
“Then why did you give him that bone?"
"As I said, I thought he was going to leave it for tomorrow!”
"Don't you think? You have to put yourself in the dog's place. If you were a dog and somebody gave you a bone like that, would you wait until tomorrow to crack it?"
"Well maybe when he cracks it and eats the marrow...."
"Ha! Ha! Hah! Yeah! Sure! Cracks it and eats the marrow. You wish! You think that with those little jaws that little dog is going to be able to crack that monster of a bone? He could be gnawing at it for a thousand years and he still wouldn't crack it. You are going to be up all night with him gnawing under the bed.”
“Maybe he'll get tired," my father suggested calmly.
"Tired? He is obsessed, mesmerized now with that bone and won't sleep until he cracks it."
"Well I have to go to work."
“Grrrrrr!” Danny knows it's about him and growls to let them know that he knows it’s about him.
Then after a silence that gives my parents hopes of a good night's sleep, the gnawing starts again.
“Grunch! Grunch! Grunch!”
"Don't worry! I'll take care of this." My father flung the the thick woolen bed sheets sheets aside and got up in his boxer shorts."
“Damn this floor is cold!"
“That's what you get for not listening to my advice. Otherwise you'd be nice and toasty right now under the sheets. Why not tell Nelson me]to get the bone away from him? It doesn‘t occur to you?"
“Nelson Mijo, can you please take that bone away from the dog?"
That’s the only time I remember him calling me“mijo” [my son] so he really must have been desperate.
The light was turned on and I looked under the bed where Danny was crunching on the huge bone. To my fearful amazement, what I saw under the bed was not my dog. It was primeval wolf. For some reason that bone had triggered all his dormant instincts and he was guarding it with his very life. One growl and one snap at my reaching hand was all it took to convince me.
“What happened?” my mother asked in a concerned voice as she saw me standing beside their bed blanched.
"He looked like he was going to bite me."
“Then it's better that you let your father do it. Hipolito! You take care of it!"
“Don't worry!" I'll make him let go. Just watch!" my father said with one of those sudden bursts of energy that was typical of him, quickly went to the kitchen, and returned with some old newspapers shaped into a tube.
"What do you intend to do with that Hipolito?" my mother asked alarmed.
"Let's see if he holds on to that bone after he sees this!" He lit a match and the whole thing went up in an exaggerated blaze and he had to run to the kitchen and douse it under the faucet.
"Now don't go setting yourself or the house on fire! Then you really aren't going to get a good night's sleep.”
"Grunch Grunch! Grunche!"
"Hear him? As you struggle he enjoys his bone!”
“This is no time for jokes OK?"
“Who said I was joking!”
“This is no time to argue either!”
He appeared with another rolled up newspaper albeit much smaller.
“OK, so he is bravo huh? Let's see just how bravo he is when he sees the fire!"
He was right, Danny immediately released the bone.
Soon the lights were out once more. But now every time my father spoke Danny growled.
“Are you going to go to sleep?" my mother asked after a dramatic extended silence during which my father had carefully wrapped himself in wool bed-sheets leaving only his pug nose sticking out for breathing purposes.
“Why shouldn’t I go to sleep?" after a moment of dramatic silence.
"Well don't you hear him mumbling?"
"Dogs don't mumble!"
“You know, in his own dog language. He wishes he could talk and tell you exactly how he feels but he can't."
“So what?"
“So what? Ha! Ha! Ha! It's obvious that you don't know too much about animals. I don't know why, since you grew up in Las Flores with the cows and the bulls. For a country boy, you know very little about animals. How strange!”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? Muchacho! You never heard about a cat who sliced her master's throat while her master slept? The old woman used to mistreat that cat . The cat didn't seem to be planning anything. I mean, who suspects that a cat is planning? But come night, the cat slit that woman’s throat from ear to ear. with one claw. I heard many other stories of the same kind. Animals can be very vengeful, you know?"
“Danny would never do that to me!"
“Are you sure? He's very pissed off about what you just did to him you know. Taking his bone away that way!"
“Doesn't he know that I'm the one who gave it to him?"
“You are dealing with a dog, you know? He doesn't have your capacity to reason like us!"
“So now if I go to sleep the dog is going to attack me because I took away a bone that I gave him? Esto Esta cabron! [this is some pretty shit!] How the hell am I supposed to sleep peacefully now?"
“I think that for your own safety you should tie him up just to make sure. There is some string in the kitchen drawer you can use"
“Do you know what time it is?" my father said coming to a sitting position on the bed while still wrapped in bed linen to avoid the cold basement apartment air.
“It’s three o’clock in the morning and in a few hours I have to go work like an animal. in that factory"
"You have to work like an animal and an animal is stopping you from going to sleep so you can be
rested enough to work like an animal. That's what they call irony!"
“What necessity do I have for all this?" he finally swung himself off the bed, discarded the sheets and stood in his boxer shorts ready to go secure the dog who was still expressing his displeasure now and then with a low growl.
“Do you hear that? What did I tell you? That dog is bitter! He is disposed to anything after what you just did!"
“The question is what necessity do I really have for all this?"
“Absolutely none!" my mother immediately responded.
"You ever hear the saying that if you insist on making yourself a Messiah, you will sooner or later get crucified? Do you know what that means? Eh? You don't you? Let me tell you what it means. It means not to make yourself excessively holy.
“All I did was give him a bone! Is that a sin?"
“Let it serve as a lesson to you, that next time make sure that you give him a bone he can crack!"
"Next time? Ha! ha! ha! ha! There isn't going to be a next time. What do you think I am? Un bobo? Next time he gets mierda! That's what he's going to get next time. Mierda! You hear!"
“Grrrrrr!" Danny responded from beneath the bed.
“The more he hears you talk the angrier he gets and the worse for you when you go to sleep."
That did it! My father got the string and the chase was on. Danny bolted as soon as he saw his intentions. Into the living room, down the hall to the kitchen Back around through the bedroom and into the living room again all the time my father uttering imprecations. Skidding to a halt with paws sliding on the linoleum, swiftly cutting corners and turning around. Into the living room, around the table. The sound of the struggle filled the whole apartment.
“Keep giving small dogs bones that are bigger than they are. Good that it happens to you for being a sangano." My mother shouted as the chase went on.
“You criticize but you won't' get up to help do you? Oh no. Not that. But with criticism you are very disposed right?"
“Why should I? I wasn't the one that gave him the bone. You gave him the bone? Now you carry the
consequences."
All this time Danny is standing at a safe distance staring at my father as if saying
“Well? Are you going to continue trying to catch me or not?"
“Look! There he is ready for you. He isn't a bobo. He knows exactly what you are up to and what that rope you have in your hand if for. So if you are expecting him to cooperate you are dreaming of longanizas,"[sausages]
“Mira Danny! Come here boy!"
“Grrr!"
“Ingrato hijo de mala madre!" [Ingrate son of a bad mother] and the chase was on again.
"Usa manya usa manya!" [Use cunning! Use cunning!] “In the fashion you are chasing him , this chase is going to go on all night.” my mother advised.
After a few well chosen imprecations mumbled under his breath , my father suddenly feinted to go one way and went the other. Danny bought the trap and was caught and secured. The rest of the night then passed without any further incidence save for a discontented soft growl now and then.
========================================
Memory 4: For Dwelling Purposes
We had been living at the NY housing projects for about three years when a redetermination document needed to be signed and it wound up in my mother's hands. Now, of the twain my mother was the one who understood English better. In fact, my father would have her read him the New York Times every day. So he held her understanding of English in high esteem. As they say, “in the land of the blind a one eyed man is king” Well, her English was certainly better than his was but it was still rather rudimentary so some nuances escaped her.
Therefore, when she came to a part in the recertification document that said that they were renting for dwelling purposes my mother understood it in as very different way than the writer had intended it. In fact, the writer probably had absolutely no suspicion that what she wrote could ever come across that was. Anyway, having come home from work and read the document she began fuming even before my father got home.
"What the hell does the harlot mean by saying that we are using this apartment for dwelling purposes?
What does she see think I am, woman of the night? Wait until Hipolito gets home so he can confirm this. Then I'll take this to the office to that harlot and see what explanations she has for this garbage."
Enters my father with New York City on his shoulders and looking as if he hasn't eaten in a week. Bags under the eyes, mouth partly open, a veritable personification of misery.
"Where is my food?"
"Your food is made. All it needs is to warm it up. But before you eat there is something I want to show you."
"Can't this wait until I eat?"
No! Because you it is serious. I just want you to confirm that I am interpreting it the right way!"
“But don't you know English?"
"Yes, but I want your confirmation!”
“My confirmation?”
“Didn't you study English just like me in school? Eh Hipolito?"
"Well, yeah I studied."
“Then you should understand. It's just one sentence that's all. Here read it."
She gave him the document where she had circled the phrase "For dwelling purposes" and my father just stared at the page with a blank expression on his face."
“Bueno? Did you read it? Are you reading it in the right place? I circled it for you right here bruto!"
"Adonde?"
“Here! Right here, It bites you and you still don’t see it!”
He stares at it again with a blank expression n his face.
“So what do you think Hipolito?”
“Bueno, I don't see anything..."
“You don't see it? It's right there in front of you. Mas claro no canta un gayo! [More clearly a rooster doesn't crow.]
“Here, let me read it out loud for you. Maybe then it will sink in! For purposes of dwelling! See it now?"
"Once more he stares as if in a stupor, probably a hunger-induced one and his mind probably semi paralyzed by the food‘s aroma wafting in from the kitchen."
My mother looks at him up and down from head to foot as if evaluating him. Then she utters in a low lamenting, pensive tone:
"That's why we are taken advantage of here in the USA. It’s because of people like you who come to this country and don't know basic English. That's why they stomp and insult us, because they think we don't understand!"
“Yes! Yes! Como fue?” [How was it again?”] He tilts the document as if looking at it from different angles will yield its cryptic meaning so obvious to his wife.
“You need eyeglasses? Here! Give that document!” She snatched it from the tips of his work-worn fingers where it had been precariously perched and proceeded to read it very slowly in order to leave no room for a
misinterpretation..
"For purposes of dwelling chico! For purposes of dwelling.” she repeated as he looked on struggling to blink away his hunger.
“Esta claro! [It is clear!] Even the most blinded can easily see that she is calling me a whore!"
"Calling you a whore?” he says frowning in order to effectively convey deep concern and understanding of the issue.
“Hay virgen! Why?"
"I don't know and I don't care! “
“She probably thinks that because we are low-income and come from the island, that we have no morals!"
"No morals?"
"Dime una cosa!” [Tell me something] she says looking at him up and down in order to get his full measure.
“You seem to be taking this very lightly right? Ah! Because you think that the insult is just against me, right? But she is insulting you too!"
"Insulting me?"
"You don't see that by calling me a prostitute, she is calling you a chulo?"
"Me a chulo?"
"Yes, you, a chulo because she is saying you are practically selling your wife for plantain peels! That's exactly what she is saying. That since you can't handle the rent with what you earn, you are using this apartment for that purpose."
By this time all my father seems to want to do is get rid of the subject and dig into his food. He certainly doesn’t look enraged. Instead he appears as if he is cunningly seeking a way to agree in order to appease her so that she would let him eat.
"Ah bueno, who does she think she is, calling me a chulo!"
"Aha, now you are getting interested, huh? You thought it was nothing if it was just me."
"No I don't think she has the right to say that about you either!"
Seeing that she has gained the agreement she sought from the outset, she finally heads to the kitchen to serve him dinner, and continues the conversation from there while my father waits expectantly at the dinner table while making sure to agree with whatever comment my mother makes.
"But don't worry! Right now, it's too late and the office is closed. But tomorrow, early in the morning, I will get her. Let's see then what explanation that cuero comes up with when I confront here with this trash.
"Si! Si! Muy bien. That sounds reasonable?"
Come morning and my mother is a loaded shotgun waiting to go off. In a huff she dresses and goes straight to the office, and without any questions, topples everything on the woman's desk to the floor, slaps the offending document on the desk and shouts:
"What the hell do you mean by this? Eh? To be calling me a prostitute?"
"I want you out of my office immediately or I'll call the police." the office manager responds and starts dialing whereupon my mother immediately evacuates the premises.
Three days later an eviction notice arrives. My father enters the apartment more worried than hungry with he notice in one hand.
“Your food is ready!” my mother singsongs from the dining room while setting up the plates and not looking in his direction.
"What does this note from the office mean?”
“A note from the office?” My mother responds knowing full-well what the note is about but hoping to stave off the inevitable for just a few minutes longer.
“Si, a note from the office. I opened it and read it and it looks like an eviction notice!" he says handing it to her.
“My mother briefly reads it and confirms his conclusion.
“Si! That’s what it is. An eviction notice. You want gravy with the potatoes Hipolito?”
"An eviction notice for what?”
“I don’t know. What does it say?”
“It doesn’t say anything. It just says we are supposed to move by October the tenth. Why? I pay the rent on time? We don't make noise here? The apartment is clean? Do you have any idea why we are being evicted?”
"Remember a few days ago?”
“Yeah about that note you were angry about. What happened?
“Well she didn't like me asking about the “purposes of dwelling thing."
"What exactly is it that you did in that office?"
"Well, you know how angry I was that day right?”
“Yeah I remember. And?”
“And when you are angry you don’t think straight sometimes.”
“So what happened in the office?”
“Well I was so angry that I toppled everything on her desk."
"You did what?"
“You told me to go and tell her that she was insulting us!"
“No! No! No! No! Senorita! That’s not the way it happened,” my father said in a mock laughter tone while wagging his head negatively and pacing the floor in front of her back and forth.
“It was YOU who said she was insulting us and I agreed that you go to the office. But when I agreed I didn't know you were going to go totally berserk!”
“Well what did you expect?”
“What did I expect? I expected you to ask her calmly what she meant by “purposes of dwelling! That's all I expected. I didn't expect this. If In had expected this I would have told you not to go.”
"OK! OK! It happened and ya! It's done!"
"It happened and it's done eh? Just like that huh? Where are you going to live now? On the street because they don't pay me enough to rent a regular apartment. Are you going to provide the apartment?"
"In some manner we will come out of it!"
“Esto esta cabron!”
A few days later, they decided to go see the man with the bottled spirits as recommended by an acquaintance who assured them that the man had powers far beyond the natural.
Memory 5: Man With the Bottled Spirits
As my parent's eviction approached they became desperate and went to see this vaunted spiritist who confidently guaranteed that the eviction would be magically canceled if they followed his advice and paid the service fee that kept him in business. The first thing that caught my parent's attention eyes as they walked into his tiny cramped living room was the many shelves with labeled bottles.
"What are those?" my father asked the short skinny nervously high-strung Puerto Rican.
"Ah, those? Those are the spirits that I have trapped and will release to do my bidding"
"Si?"
"Si"
Upon noticing one very large bottle and moving closer to inspect it my father asked him,
"How about this one?"
"Are you willing to pay a hundred dollars?"
"We don't have that kind of money"
"Then you can't benefit from that spirit's service! It is a pity since it is very efficient on solving. But I
have another one in this bottle right here that I can turn lose for you for twenty-five dollars and is
almost just as good.”
"Can it get the job done"
"Yes of course. A very simple matter. That other expensive one is for really big things. But what you have is a simplicity that these other spirits can easily handle!"
Well, after the required brief consultation with my mother for domestic tranquility’s sake my father paid the man the twenty five bucks. Once outside the dilapidated building and on their way home they began commenting.
"Did you see all those spirits that guy has in those bottles?"
"The spirits he says and wants you t believe he has in those bottles!" my mother replied.
“If that’s the way you felt why did you agree for me to give him twenty-five dollars just now?”
"No no! I’m just saying for the sake of saying.“
“But what you are saying esta cabron!”
“Well we shouldn’t just condemn the man before giving the poor infeliz a chance.”
“Why do you call him an infeliz?”
“Well, don’t you see that he hasn’t lain down to die because he lacks an adequate bed?”
"Well he is poor. That’s true!”
“If he’s as powerful as he says, then why is he so poor?” have you asked yourself that? Eh?"
“That’s a good point. Maybe we should ask for our money back“
“Go back and do what you said?”
“Ask for our money back!”
“Muchacho. Are you crazy?”
“Why?”
“You give that infeliz twenty five dollars and yon think that he will peacefully give it back?
Mira. You enter that apartment now after he is celebrating having taken those twenty five dollars from you and ask for your twenty five dollars back and he is liable to hit you over the head with one of those bottles. Yu know that big thick glassed bottle he says he has that expensive spirit in? Maybe he has that there specifically for persons like you who ask for their money back.
“In other words what you are telling me is that I am screwed again right?”
“No, not at all. You have to have faith-chico- you have to have faith. Let’s give it two weeks at least and see what happens.”
“After what you did in that office all we can have is faith. Otherwise we are screwed!”
“Don’t start again Hipolito!”
“Holy Mary!” my father said still trying to figure out how they had gotten into that mess. Two
weeks, later despite their appeals for a reconsideration, the eviction notice stood in full force.
“Two weeks of having faith and nada! Nothing.” my father fumed.
“Maybe that spiritist is a charlatan!” my mother said tongue in cheek.
“Charlatan huh!”
“Yeah, you know, those wise little guys who make an extra buck now and then preying on gullible sanganos like us.”
“Well he was very strongly recommended!”
“But by whom? eh? How do we know who that person who recommended him is ? Do you know who he is ?”
“A fellow worker!” my father reluctantly responded feeling himself being skillfully maneuvered into a corner of blame as usual.
“Which means absolutely nothing!” my mother began her usual pontification as a wise woman and victim of my father’s bad decisions. Never mind that she had brought everything down on his head.
“Maybe after he took our money,” she continued,” he gave his partner in crime, maybe his brother or cousin, who knows? a good percentage. You know, a commission!”
“In other words, what you are telling me is that I paid that son of a great harlot twenty- five dollars that I earned working like an animal every day killing myself in that place with the sweat of my brow for nothing right?"
"I told you that time would tell! Didn’t I?”
"I wonder what the SOB will say if I confront him eh?"
"Sure confront him. After all, you paid that money. Business is a matter of giving and receiving. We gave but we didn’t receive and he owes us. If he is an honest man he knows he owes us and should give us our money back! Call him on the phone!"
After being told of their dissatisfaction the spiritist seemed honestly perplexed.
"Strange" the guy said. "that spirit works OK with everyone else. So there must be something powerful in your apartment blocking its way. “
“Blocking the way?”
“Yes! Something that needs to be removed before it can get to work unhindered. I’ll tell you what.
Why don’t I personally go inspect your apartment to see what's going on."
Awestruck by the otherworldly tone, my father agreed to have him inspect the apartment for bad influences.
“Did you ask him for a refund?”
“I told him what happened.”
“And you expected him to offer the refund himself?”
“He said he’d come over and remove bad influences.”
“Really?”
“Yes!”
“And you believe him?”
“I think we should give him a chance. I mean, no one gets that reputation without getting results
right?”
An hour later there was a knock on the door and the high strung chap comes in. As soon as he steps in his eyes widen and he says
"I knew it! I knew that there was something blocking that spirit. The other spirit that costs a hundred dollars would have easily crashed through all this but that twenty-five-dollar one was unable."
"What is it? What is it?" my father frantically asked as the man walked solemnly looking at thin air as if he had been observing something exceedingly fascinating.
"Strings!" he mysteriously intoned.
"Strings?" my father questioned in awe.
" Yes! What you people have here are strings"
"This apartment is full of strings which prevented the unbottled spirit from doing his job properly."
"You see?" my father says to my mother. “Didn't I tell you there was something wrong with this apartment as soon as we moved in? Too many things going bad since we moved here."
"Yes but don't worry! Everything will now turn out for the best. This is a problem that I can take care of myself with this!" the nervous little man said as he produced a pair of scissors from his trouser pocket. Then he began making as if he is cutting strings in mid air. First the living room, then kitchen, then bedroom and bathroom. All were effectively de stringed according to him. My parents observed the antics with awed expressions on their faces. The man would pause, kneel to supposedly reach strings close to the floor. He’d wedge himself into closets and snip away at corners under the beds.
Then as suddenly as he had started he stopped
"There, that dose it!" he wiped the profuse sweat off his tan tropical face with a white handkerchief.
"So now the problem is gone, right?"
"Yes, but the strings tend to grow back. "
"They grow back?” my father asked with a frown indicating deep concern.
"But don't worry. You can use these special scissors that cost only three dollars. This book that I have here will also prove helpful in keeping the strings at bay”. He suddenly produced this white covered book with the photo of this full-black-bearded Svengali-like man staring intensely from the cover.
The whole transaction which cost another twenty-five dollars plus the book and scissors brought the total up to thirty five dollars. The man was thanked for his help. My parents rested assured that sooner or later things would get fixed. Then at the exact time specified in the notice, they were unceremoniously evicted.
Memory : 6 Aunt Modesta and the NY Eels
There are certain images that one sees as a child that are so vivid, that they remain with you for the rest of your life. One that has remained with me is the sight of writhing black eels in two pails.
You see, as a three-year old, I would see jaw-gaping, red-eyed, black-bodied eels slithering frantically in the pails awash in their own blood as they were being carried by Angel Lewis, my aunt’s husband. He always went straight to the kitchen with them after a whole day fishing at New York’s Hudson River because he considered them a delicacy fit for a king. So his mind was totally on getting the skillet greased and hot, gathering the condiments, preparing the veggies and rice. He would then proceed to swiftly decapitate the whole lot, refrigerate some and slap others on the skillet.
Now, all this would have been 100% OK except for one very crucial thing, my Aunt Modesta, his wife. You see, unfortunately for eel-eating Angel Lewis, my aunt Modesta didn’t look upon the writhing, slimy, smelly critters in those pails as delicacies. Instead, she saw them as nightmarish monstrosities from the pits of hell suddenly appearing at her kitchen. So whenever her beloved husband Angel Lewis waltzed in with pails full of black Hudson River eels, he wasn’t exactly received with a ticker-tape parade. Instead, what he encountered was a steady stream of demands that he stop what she considered a nasty habit.
“How could you ever think of eating those disgusting things?” she had repeatedly asked with a disgusted look on her tan, plump face as he stood before the kitchen counter calmly preparing his meal. But instead of the empathy she had expected and thought that she deserved, all she ever got in return from Angel Lewis was:
“They are delicious and you don’t know what you are missing,”
Whereupon he would continue to decapitate and split each one in half and slap them on the skillet cringing with disgust as she stood beside him.
“I don’t want those things in my kitchen,” she would then humbly plead. “ How many times do I have to tell you that?”
All additional complaints were met by the usual silence or by his emphatically slapping several more eels onto the skillet.
“Just look at the red blood and those hideous heads!” she'd say pointing to the two pails at his feet. But nothing she said seemed to penetrate his total obsession. She even tried withholding sex. But as long as he could eat his eels it didn’t seem to matter. She tried silence. No effect. She tried not cooking regularly. No effect. She tried sweet words but he remained adamant. Each Saturday, as if driven by some primeval instinct, he‘d get up at exactly six in the morning while the sun was still down, put on his white T shirt, fetch his two pails and his fishing equipment from the closet and off he went-straight for the Hudson River and the eels.
This whole scenario brought my aunt to the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“This is the last time I’m going to tell him!” she declared to my mother, her sister.
“What do you intend to do?” my mom asked as they sat conversing on the sofa.
“You’ll see!” Modesta responded morosely, her eyes shifting from side to side.
“Have you tried--”
“Please, don’t ask me what I have tried or haven’t tried. I have tried everything. Begging, cajoling, depriving him of sex. EVERYTHING! That fact is that this negrito wants to eat those eels and there is nothing I can ever do that will stop him! As simple as that. It’s an ingrained obsession. He used to do it back on the island as a kid and now he wants to do it here in New York as well. ”
“So what do you intend to do now?” my mother asked with a worried look on her face.
“We’ll see what I will do. Just let him walk in with those dirty eels just one more time. Let’s see, what time is it? Aha! He left to go fishing at six am this morning. It’s almost six PM, the sun has gone down and he still hasn’t finished? You know what that means?”
‘What does it mean?”
“That means that the catch must be good and the SOB is planning to waltz in here with those two buckets overflowing with eels any time now.”
Suddenly, as if on cue, there was a sound of the lobby door slamming shut and footsteps slowly coming up the stairs.
“Aha! That must be him! Just let him come in with those eels again!”
Just as predicted, Angel Lewis entered with his two metal pails brimming with gaping eel heads their bodies writhing to escape and splashing in their own bright crimson blood as usual. Ignoring my aunt’s murderous glare, he proceeded to the kitchen, laid the pails on the floor, and began silently preparing for the usual slaughter and the cooking. Onions and garlic began to be chopped, rice to be boiled, frying pans were larded, pepper and salt located, the usual prep for his royal meal. All as my aunt stood silently behind him watching as if in a daze.
“Didn’t I tell you that I don’t want those slimy, dirty things in my kitchen Angel Lewis?” she suddenly uttered in what seemed to Angel Lewis as the calmest voice she had ever used when discussing the issue. So he really saw no reason to shift from his usual silent treatment to one of reasoning. As usual he responded by dipping into the pail, removing several black slimy eels, be-heading them, slitting their guts, and slapping their bodies unto the greased skillet.
Then he stood back as the bodies sizzled, gazing in delirious anticipation at the display when suddenly my aunt whipped out the long-handled ladling wooden spoon she had been hiding behind her back, leapt up into the air with it as she called him an SOB and broke it over his back. I clearly remember that the blow was so powerful that it sounded like a firecracker had gone off. Half of the spoon went flying against the wall after hitting his back and added to the blasting effect.
“I told you not to bring those filthy things into my kitchen!” she yelled at the top of her small lungs.
Whereupon Angel Lewis silently and calmly turned off the stove, carefully picked up his two precious, eel-filled pails, walked down the dark narrow building stairs, and disappeared into the late evening. She had expected him to return in a few hours but he didn't. In fact, hours turned to days and days into weeks.
She asked his friends if they had seen him, but nobody had-not even at the riverside to fish. Eventually she found out that he had joined the army. There he would stay for most of their lifelong marriage only appearing now and then on leave-not saying much but without the eels. Problem permanently solved.
But it wasn’t the same Angel Lewis, The new version that retired didn’t go eel-fishing. The new version argued back, had sired a daughter in Germany while she had remained faithful. Not such a good solution to the eel-eating problem after all it seems in hindsight.
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Memory 7: Father and the Fifty Cents cop
After a long day's work, my father was always ravenously hungry and in a desperate a hurry to get home. Unfortunately the route he was needed to take forced him into a daily bottleneck of traffic jam. Oh he struggled to remain calm despite the urgency, while imagining the mountain of rice and beans with chuletas that my mom was preparing for him back home. Sometimes he’d weave around cars but would quickly wind up bottleneck again. To make matters worse, there was this very tempting side road or shortcut he could take. Bu crossing over to it involved a traffic violation. He’s sit there miserably weighing the pros and cons. Until finally, egged on by his hunger pangs, and decided to risk it.
But just as he thought he was home free , a police officer who just seemed to happen to be in that vicinity at that time appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Well, something about this cop, perhaps a subtle gesture of the eyes, or maybe an outright verbal hint emboldened my father to offer him money in exchange for not giving him a ticket. The cop accepted several dollars and my father proceeded home to his cherished dinner.
As it turned out, that the cop had not been at the junction by chance but had been there waiting for traffic sign violators . Unfortunately my father got into the habit of going for the shortcut on a daily basis and having to dish out that same amount of money he had initially offered the officer. That's when the daily after-work complaining began.
He'd come home grumbling about this SOB cop who was taking his money every day at the same corner.
"Would you believe," he'd morosely say, "that this hijo de la gran puta, [son of the great harlot] stations himself every day at the same corner just to stop me from using that shortcut?"
As usual my mother tried to get the bottom of the whole thing by asking my father key questions.
"But you cooperated right?" she said nonchalantly while washing the dishes.
"Bueno, I did give him money the first time. But I didn't expect him continue...."
"You know what you are? You are what is called on the island a mango bajito!" my mother responded in a barely hearable voice.
"I am a what? A mango bajito!?" my father asked incredulously as if it was beyond his wildest dreams that someone could tag a reasonable person such as himself as an easily pickable low-branched mango!
"Si! You are a mango bajito and he knows it. So since he already tagged you as a mango bajito, you know what you are now going to have to do?"
"No, what am I going to have to do?" he asked standing behind her with mouth half open in a show of utter incredulity.
"You are going to have to pay him every single time you use that shortcut.. Otherwise he won't let you take that shortcut!" That's what you are going to have to do.”
"Why? What does it cost him to let me take that short cut?"
"Tell me something!" my mother said, momentarily stopping her dishwashing and turning to face him. Does anybody else take that shortcut?"
"No, I can't say that I have seen anybody else!"
"Ah! So the decent drivers obey the law and don't take that shortcut do they?" .
“Maybe they aren’t as hungry as I am.”
“Now that you paid him you have a big problem, since he has seen your skinny side!"
"My skinny side?"
"Yeah, tu lau flaco! He knows that you just can't resist taking that shortcut and he will be there waiting for you at the same hour each day to collect the bribe you offer him!"
"I can't believe that he is that miserable and low down!"
"Remember what I said, you are going to have him waiting for you at that same corner each day because he considers you a guachafita now! [easy target.]
Well, exactly as she predicted the same thing kept happening for about three weeks. My father would make a dash for the shortcut and out would shoot the cop in his cruiser with the siren blaring. My father would pay him several; bucks and go home for dinner. He'd enter the apartment each day with the same:
“Me puedes creer.... ["would you believe"]
To which my mother would invariably respond with:
"No me digas! [Don't tell me!] You took the same shortcut, the cop caught you and you had to pay him
three Dollars! Right!"
To which my father would reply,
"Hijo de la gran puta!" literally "Son of the great harlot!"
Well, as it turned out, one day he didn't have several bucks to offer as a bribe. Hunger kicked in as usual, and he made a dash for the shortcut. As usual out shot the cop from his hiding place with siren screaming. Pulled him over to the relatively secluded underpass where the previous transactions had taken place. Walked over to my father's car window expecting to be bought off.
"Fifty cents?" my father said and the cop responded by writing him out a ticked.
"Would you believe that SOB gave me a ticket!" he said as soon as he came through the door that day!"
"How much did you offer to pay him?" my mother asked in a tone that indicated she knew what the answer was going to be.
"Fifty cents!" My father said sheepishly after several seconds of hesitation.
"Ha! ha! ha! You had la cara [the face] to offer that cop fifty cents? Did you really expect that cop to let you get by for fifty cents after you accustomed him to three dollars per violation? Just be glad he didn't brandish his billy club on you out of frustration. If I were him, I would have hit you with my Billy club for insulting me that way. So muchcho mira. Get on your knees and thank God that he didn't hit you and then arrest you after that."
“Why doesn't he go to work like me?"
"His job is to make sure that you don't use that shortcut. That's his work! And now that you showed him
that it pays, you are going to have him there for sure."
"Manganzon! Que tiene que vel! Que le cuesta? What does it cost that carne de puerco to let me get through once for fifty cents?"
"Simple," my mother responded, "because if he lets you get by for fifty cents once then you are going to try to pay him fifty cents from now on. What does it cost him you ask me? It costs him the three dollars you have been paying him before. What do you think that he's a bobo? You are the bobo for giving him three
dollars a per violation. Did you know you didn't have three dollars to give that cop today?"
"Yeah I knew it!"
"And you still tried to take that short cut knowing that he was waiting for you?"
"Bueno si. But I thought he wasn't that carne de puerco!"
"As I said, every day a bobo hits the street and today it was you!"
"Where's my comida!"
Memory 8: Mother and the Roller Coaster
New York City’s Coney Island was a place which we as a family often visited several times each summer. It was a sort of magical place away from the city where one could forget worries and cares. It had a beach, a boardwalk, and many confectionary stands selling all kinds of goodies such as cotton candy, pretzels, hot dogs and hamburgers.
Also, next to that beach were rides. One of the rides that we had never gone on was the roller coaster. Instead, boldly going where others confidently went, we just stood there watching in awe as it shot by above us at a rail-rattling, ear-shattering, breakneck speed, taking a hairpin, passenger-screaming curves.
Well, for some inexplicable reason it suddenly occurred to my mom that we should join in the fun and ride it.
“Do you think I’m crazy?” my father said:
"What guarantee do you have that thing isn't going to fly off the rails on one of those tight turns? Do you know haw far you are going to fly if that thing goes off the rails at that speed? You might wind up over there on the beach sand or maybe three or four hundreds feet into the city over there. in the middle of traffic."
“Every one else is riding it, so why not us?.” she responded after giving him the up and down measuring look.
“So just because other people are stupid enough to jump head-first off a high cliff, does that mean that I should also? Huh?”
“Look at all the fun they are having while we are just standing here like bobos and looking.”
“Fun? Ha! Ha! Ha! All I hear is them screaming every time that thing makes a sharp turn!”
“They are screaming because they are excited.”
“What guarantee do I have that that thing isn’t going to fly off the tracks in one of those turns huh?” he repeated.
“Chico, the world belongs to the risk-takers. What are we here for anyway? eh? To look at others? Life is made to be lived! The dead to the hoyo and the living to the pimpoyo!”
“Well, that might be your philosophy, but I’m not getting on!”
“Nelson, do you want to get on the roller coaster?” she suddenly asked me. I was five years old at the time, and really had no sense of fear. To me it just looked like a regular ride. Besides, what could possibly happen to me with my almighty all-wise mother sitting by my side? Surly, she knew what she was doing, and so I said yes.
“You are going to take that angelito [little angel] on that ride?” It was the only time that he ever referred to me that way, so he must have really been worried.
“Yes I am! We aren’t here just to watch others timidly. We came here to have fun.”
“You call getting killed having fun?”
“Chico! Do you see anyone here getting killed? Look at how happy they look after they finish the ride! They are smiling and chatting.”
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t tell you. I told you!”
“OK you told us and ya! We are going to ride the rollercoaster and that is it!”
“Yo los encomiendo a Dios!” Which meant that only God could save us now.
Well, hoist on her own petard, my mom confidently bought the tickets and we chose to sit in the last seat on the coaster. As the coaster began to move slowly and gain altitude she said:
“Look Nelson, look at how pretty the ocean and the beach looks from here!”
Fortunately, the man in front of us glanced back and noticed that we were holding on to nothing and that the hand bar was still in its forward position. This meant that in a few seconds we were going to be hurled to our death below.
“Hey lady,” he said nervously, “You better pull that bar and hold on!”
“Oh Ok. Here Nelson he said that we should hol--”
That’s when the coaster suddenly went into a 90 degree plunge straight down and then suddenly took a sharp turn that demanded all the strength in my little hands to keep me in my seat. No sooner had we gone right, than we were savagely yanked left and then right again. It was as if the coaster were trying to unseat us and hurl us into the pavement below. All this time my mother was groaning and grunting:
“It is all my fault! You are totally innocent! I am the only one to blame for all this because I am an adult and should know better!”
All this she uttered in grunting groaning agonized tones as if she had been undergoing major surgery without the benefit of anesthesia. I barely heard her above the deafening rattle of the metal wheels on metal tracks, and constant screaming of the other riders. It only served to terrify me even more because now I knew that she was as scared as I was and that she needed as much help as I did. In short, we were both in the same nightmare that didn’t seem to have any end.
Well, after what seemed like a hellish eternity of agony, the so-called ride finally came to a merciful stop. We got out feeling as if we had just stared the Grim Reaper in his hideous face and evaded one of his deadly sickle-swipes. Which we probably had since only that man’s warning saved us from flying off in a parabolic trajectory towards the ground at the start.
Needless to say, after hearing my mother describe the ordeal and express her deep regrets for not having taken his advice, my father responded with:
“I told you so. Didn’t I tell you so? Whoever gets on that ride places his life on a thin thread. I was watching from below as both of you went by and made the sign of the cross!”
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Memory 9: Mother and her Dancing
All of us have our propensities and our weakness. For some, it might be food which could endanger their health via obesity. For others it can be alcohol which slowly damages their liver leading to a premature death. For still others it might be the irresistible urge to take life- endangering risks via mountain climbing. But to my mother it was her inexorable need to dance.
It always baffled me since although I am a musician, I am totally averse to dancing. One reason is that I am shy and don’t like to draw attention to myself. The other is that I tend to see it as a rather illogical activity. After all, why are the people moving their bodies just because a certain sound is going on?
I sometimes pondered how non-dancing aliens might see us if they beheld us moving that way in response to sound. I imagined them puzzled and unable to come up with a satisfying explanation. So the fervid, seemingly unstoppable urge to go dancing every weekend or to suddenly break out dancing to a Rumba or a Mambo, just seemed weird to me.
“You don’t know what you are missing!” my mother would say.
“Dancing is one of the greatest pleasures a human being can experience! I hear a little bit of music and my legs start go in all directions all by themselves. I can barely control them.”
Still I remained unconvinced and figured that for some people it might be but never for me. The most I ever attempted to dance were Boleros, a very slow dance with extremely minimal foot-movement and lots of hugging. Even then I had trouble.
Now, dancing isn’t usually associated with danger. People dance all the time and unless the entire floor collapses in a heap taking all dancers with it, as it did in Israel during a wedding one time, or unless a fight breaks out, or unless one decides to dance on ice or an extremely slippery floor, there is no problem.
The problem is that we humans tend to create problems when none should be present. For example, my mother used to wear these extremely long high-heeled shoes which she spent weeks learning to walk on. You know, the ones that are extremely tilted and are propped up by this tiny heel? Well, she became so skilled in dancing with those that it became second-nature. She’d Merengue, mambo , cha cha, and usually out dance younger women at the party. It was something she was very proud of and would be constantly boast about.
Well, it just so happened that my father had invited this fellow worker to dinner and the apartment had not been mopped yet. So what does my mother do? She puts on high heels in order to look elegant and simultaneously begins waxing the floor. But that wasn’t suffice. She needed to put on a long-play record by the then-famous Cuban Mambo king Perez Prado who’s signature expression during performances was to pause the music and yell “Dilo!” which translated means “Say it!”. It really didn’t sound like Dilo! In the fervid heat of the performance, it sounded more like a shouted grunting of “Ugh!”.
Well, she put on the record and began mopping while dancing on high heels. My father quietly observed for a while and then began shaking his head.
“You are applying wax to that floor while wearing high heels and dancing at the same time?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I am doing. So?”
“So? Hay virgen! You are going to slip and fall, that’s the so! In what human mind does it occur to place wax on the floor and then begin dancing on it in high heels?”
“Well, if I can’t dance while I am mopping, then you will have to mop because I need something to take my mind off the mopping.”
“So you can’t wait? Why don’t you dance after the floor is dried?”
“This is the way I am going to do it, and ya!”
“Okayy! You can’t say I didn’t tell you--right?”
“Ah come on! Life has to be lived! Los muertos para el hoyo y los vivos para el pimpoyo” [The dead to the grave and the living to activity!”]
“There he is! He just arrived!" My father said looking out the eleventh-floor window down at the housing projects parking lot. He had described his son, me, as being only eight years old in order to appear more youthful. Unfortunately I was eleven and looked eleven. So he didn’t want his friend to see me.
“Go to your room and stay there and don’t come out no matter what until he is gone?” he told me. Of course I felt pretty bad about that since the visit might last maybe two hours. But off I went to my room while the mopping was being finished. The floors were still wet when the guest arrived at our door.
“Hey, we were expecting you! Come in come in!” I heard my father say. That was followed by my mother’s welcoming comments. The Mambo music was still blaring. Then I heard footsteps in the apartment hallway approaching my bedroom. Perez Prado yelled “Dilo!” and suddenly: BALLLAAAAM! A tremendous explosion as if from a double-barreled shotgun in the hallways right in front of my bedroom door. True, they had told me not to show my face no matter what, but this was just too much and I opened the door to see what the hell was going on.
Well, there, flat on her back, all dressed up in her high heels with the mop lying next to her and with the back of one hand on her forehead and the other on her hip as if in an effort to look elegant, was my mother with a grimace of agony on her face. A moment later my father and the guest had rushed to her side.
“Que Paso?" What happened my father said. The guest took one suspicious look at me and asked:
“Is this your son?”
“Oh yes this is my son.” my father responded sheepishly.
“He doesn’t look eight years old!”
“Oh that’s because he is big for his age!”
“Oh really?”
“Would you have the decency to help me get up!” my mother groaned with a forced smile resembling a grimace.
“I told you that you were going to fall if you danced on a waxed floor with those shoes. Didn’t I tell you-eh? But you never listen until your cabeza hits the laja. [head hits the stone].
“Can we talk about this later? Right now I just want a helping hand to get up!”
The tone was getting angry so finally my father decided that to help her to her feet was the course of wisdom.
“Are you OK?”
“You ask me if I’m OK after all that time? I need to go to the hospital.”
“Well sorry about all this” but I have to take her to the hospital,” he very apologetically told the guest. Maybe we can get together some other time.”
The man left and that’s when all hades broke loose!
“How dare you apologize to him for having to take me to the hospital! What’s more important my health or his visit?”
“No I didn‘t mean--”
“No you never mean anything do you Hipolito? Just like you didn’t mean leaving me flat on my back on the floor while you explain how old Nelson is, right?
“I told you not to dance on that floor! How many times did I tell you that?”
I wasn’t dancing when I fell!”
“I saw you taking some mambo steps on the way to the room!”
“A lo hecho pecho! What’s done is done!” she responded.
With that they went to the hospital and she was diagnosed with a bruised coccyx. Never again did she dare to dance on a waxed wet floor. However, on a dry floor she was still the rage of the party.
Memory 10: The Tent, the snake and the bear
As an American city-dweller surrounded constantly by machines and all other amenities of civilization, snakes, bears, wolves, deer and cougars all seemed like the fictional stuff we saw on TV. After all, the closest we city-dwellers we got to animals were squirrels, dogs, cats and maybe some pet turtles or birds and some pond fish in a public park.
We didn’t realize that these cities are really surrounded by vast stretches of wilderness, sometimes deserts and sometimes forests where the law of predator vs prey is still in effect in all its gory splendor. In these, the wolf vies with the bear for prey, the eagle still silently swoops down with talons spread to claw and beak its victim to death. There, the deer must desperately run for its life in order to avoid the ravenous jaws of a wolf.
Ignoring that reality can prove very costly by making those city dwellers who venture into the wilderness have a false sense of security. In such naive uninformed individuals, the predatory wildlife has absolutely no interest whatsoever in them. Deer are just grown up Bambies and bears are just cartoons that warn people against forest fires. Foxes and wolves are just interested in chasing road runners.
That was more or less the mentality that we had towards the wildlife when we went camping in the Catskill mountains. No sense of danger whatsoever. We also felt protected by the government. We were in the USA, this was a camping site. If it had been dangerous, then the government would never permit the land to be made available for camping. Therefore our safety was assured. So we entered the area unarmed except for machete. Others who are aware of the reality, of course only venture into such areas being well armed because they realize that it could mean the difference between life and death.
That was brought to my attention when as a kid my parents took me camping in the New York’s Catskill Mountains. The first thing we did when we arrived there was pay the camping site fee and then search for a good camping site.
This time around we had equipped ourselves with a huge tent with zippered windows and sealed floor and were looking forward to proudly deploying it as soon as possible. Still it didn’t compare with the luxurious campers we occasionally saw. So we preferred isolation to avoid unfavorable comparisons. We finally found this isolated site on a steep embankment next to a dirt road and went to inspect it.
“Perfect site! Let’s set her up!”
As soon as my father said that, this approx. three-foot snake dove into a hole on the ground right next to my foot. It made this shaking sound as its tail following the rest of its slithering body into the fissure. Strangely, no one else was rattled by it. [pun intended] But it sure as hell rattled me. I had been reading a book on snakes in the USA and knew that some, such as the water moccasin , copperhead, and rattle snake were poisonous, That sure as hell had sounded like a rattler to me.
So I took off running down the embankment trying to put a good distance between myself and that reptile. Direction didn’t matter-just distance. But as I hit the narrow dirt road and turned left, this brown bear was sauntering towards me. I noticed how its skin was hanging off its sides as if it hadn’t eaten for a long time. I didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that it was hungry and that I might be considered food.
So in order to prevent myself from becoming its next meal, I made an about face and began making my way up the embankment again toward the campsite and the snake. I really ha no idea how my parents were going to deal with the bear that I imagined was running after me and deep inside felt worried about what was about to happen.. But to my surprise, when In burst into the campsite and looked back in wasn’t there. Had it been then a real disaster could have happened since my father had no rifle and the only weapon available was a machete which had not been as yet unpacked.
I found them all calmly saying that they were going to set up the tent right next to the hole that the snake had gone into. Even though I complained and begged the not to, they did it anyway. Couldn’t sleep imagining that the snake would somehow find a way into the tent and get me. But eventually I forgot about it.
Years later, when I read about bears that had brutally killed or severely deformed people in the USA, I realized just how close to a real disaster I had come. Came to see it as some kind of miracle. After all, I did run and that was supposed to have triggered it’s predatory chasing instinct. Yet, had that bear been a female with cubs, no chasing instinct needed to be provoked. The instinct to protect its clubs would have been more than enough for it to attack. That very well could have been the very dramatic unplanned end to our camping trip.
Memory 11: Father and the mysterious bag
The hen-pecked husband is traditionally perceived as a comical figure. Why? Well, for the same reason that a women threatening to punch a man in the face or actually doing so looks comical,. The stronger man is seen as putting up with it because he fears fighting back lest he hurt the female. Or else because he doesn’t want the relationship to end
But such henpecked husbands very often have their indirect ways of getting even. My father, despite his seemingly infinite patience, under incessant hen-pecking, was no exception. This was brought to my attention in a very unforgettable way one dark evening when he suddenly appeared unusually early back from work carrying this mysterious brown shopping bag. Actually, it wasn't just the shopping bag that drew my attention, it was the very purposeful way that he headed past me to the kitchen with it, as if on some very important mission.
"What's in the bag?” I asked
"What's in the bag doesn't concern you" he responded cryptically in a stern voice.
"Yeah but what 's in it?”
"I said that this doesn't concern you what is or is not in the bag. OK?"
“Can I see it?"
"No you can't see it, you just stay right there and I will tell you after your mother comes home. In the meantime “usted” you [The formal way of calling someone you in Spanish and used by parents as a word of authority] cannot see it or go to the refrigerator to look at it! Is that understood?"
That rare use of “usted” and his deep seriousness kept me from asking any further questions lest I get in trouble. So I just sat wondering what was the big deal with what was in that bag. I heard him energetically fiddling around with the refrigerator freezer. Moving things aside and seeming to struggle to fit something inside.
"Another thing? He said in a less somber tone. It's a surprise for your mother. So when she comes home in a few minutes from work, I don't want you mentioning it. Let her find it for herself! Otherwise you will ruin the surprise. Esta bien? [Ok?]”
“OK” I replied. glad to see that my dad was showing affection in that unusual way.
I figured it was a very special gift. Finally my father was getting romantic with my mom. I thought and hoped that his new attitude would reduce the constant bickering that was their norm. I began looking forward to my mom arriving and finding the special gift that my dad had bought her.
A few minutes later, as expected, my mother arrived from work.
“Adios! What are you doing home so early from work today Hipolito?” she said. Aren’t you supposed to get off at five?”
“Oh, they let me off early today. Things were slow.”
He then told her that there were some beers in the freezer.
“Oh si? Well, with the thirst that I have? Mira! I am going to drink about two!”
"Weird way of giving a gift” I thought. "Not too romantic. Why all the secrecy?"
She disappeared into the kitchen, I heard her open the refrigerator door and then the freezer door. That’s when she gave off this blood-curdling scream followed by weeping and staggering backwards. As I sat there stunned, asking what had happened, I saw her occasionally stopping to lean against the wall as if ready to faint. Made me momentarily feel like bolting out the apartment door in order to avoid whatever it was that might emerge from the freezer and come after me.
“Hay Dios mio! Oh my God!” she kept repeating while weeping.
“What’s wrong?” he finally asked as he sat on the living-room sofa sipping a beer and watching TV.
“How could you do such a thing? How could you?” she half said half sobbed.
“Do what thing?”
“You know very well what you just did. How cruel can you be? How very cruel! I almost had a heart attack? Dios mio!”
“Hay virgin! [His favorite exclamation] Why would you have a heart attack? That’s where it belongs, doesn’t it? In the freezer. Where else am I supposed to put it? So I placed it in the freezer.”
“Yes, but you didn’t have to set it up in that way, did you Hipolito? Did you? Of course you didn’t. You did it to get to me. That’s why you did it didn’t you?”
“I placed it in the freezer because it belongs in the freezer!” he responded calmly.
“But you could have told me! You could have warned me!”
“What is it mom?” I asked with my accelerated heart in the pit of my stomach.
“What is it? What is it? Go see for yourself what he just did! Did you know that he had placed that disgusting thing in there and didn’t tell me? Eh? Did you? ”
“I thought it was a gift.”
“A gift? Go see for yourself if that looks like a gift!”
After that hair-raising reaction, I wasn’t quite sure that I wanted to look into the freezer any longer. That coupled with the mysterious way in which he had entered the apartment and secretively gone about the whole affair made my fear worse?”
“Go ahead son take a look. No es nada![it isn’t anything] It’s just that she gets spooked over the slightest thing!”
“Slightest thing? Go see for yourself and tell me if that isn’t something to make your hair stand on edge,” she told me.
Having just recently returned from another gruesome experience at my aunt’s house on the island, where my aunt seemed to suddenly turn from Christian into a full-fledged voodoo priestess, I wasn’t particularly feeling brave at that moment. But gradually curiosity won out and I forced myself to go take a look.
Cautiously opening the fridge door, took several deep breathes, opened the freezer door and suddenly came face to face with two large eyes staring at me. They were attached to a smooth, black bulbous body from which tentacles all splayed in all directions underneath. After uttering a high-pitched yelp, and backing up from the shock, I gradually realized that I had just simply encountered the carcass of an octopus propped up in the fridge to look intimidating and realized that it was just one way that my father had found to strike back at all the hen-pecking he had to endure.
“You too ehh? Didn’t you say you wanted to see what I had placed in the freezer? Well there it is!”
Of course this didn’t stop the incessant hen pecking. But it was a very notable hiatus and made me wonder just exactly how many other imaginative ways my father was using to strike back while seemingly being the victim.
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Memory 12: Hold on and Trust me!
When one lives in a housing projects, one can never be sure when the elevator will be out of order or malfunctioning in some totally unpredictable way. If you got in there was no guarantee that the door would open to let you out as it once did to me. You would need to wait for someone to open it from the outside and let you out. Neither was there any guarantee that the stairwells would be lighted. So it was not that much of a surprise when the elevator refused to open on the 11th floor, and they were forced to get off on the twelfth floor instead.
Actually it would not have been that great of an issue had they not been heavily loaded with groceries. Now, there were two ways to get back down to the eleventh floor. One was to take the stairwell where the door opened right next to our apartment 11D. The other was to take the opposite stairwell that left us the full length of a hallway away. No big deal, but since they were loaded with groceries and had walked all the way to the first stairwell entrance going back to the stairway near the elevator didn’t appeal to my father who was carrying the brunt of the packages. So when he noticed that the stairwell nearer to our apartment was pitch dark, he began insisting on continuing anyway. Noticing the darkness, my mom hesitated for fear of falling:
“I think we should go back and take the other stairwell which is lighted! Here we might stumble in the dark and fall,” my mother said.
“Just hold on tightly to my arm. I will make sure that you don’t fall,” my father responded confidently.
So they entered the pitch-black stairwell inching their way toward the steps when my mother noticed something:
“This floor is wet slimy and slippery!”
“Don’t worry," my father said solemnly. “Just hold on tightly to my arm and I will get you down safely!"
“We are going to slip!” she said as one of her high heeled shoes lost traction, and she was forced to brace herself by grabbing his arm with her free hand.
“Listen, how many times have you seen me lose my balance? Eh? Have you ever seem me lose my balance on slippery ice?” my father immediately shot back.
“Bueno, no, you re right. I have never seen you lose your balance on ice. But-"
“But nothing! Absolutely no difference! Why don’t you trust me? I assure you that if you hold onto my arm tightly, you are perfectly safe, chica!”
“Are you sure we aren’t going to fall, Hipolito?”
"Just hold on tightly and don’t let go no matter what. That is all I ask."
After a moment of silence she had second thoughts.
"But why don’t we just go back and take the other stairs down where we can where we are going ?" she suggested once more as her other foot also lost traction momentarily ad she was once more forced to brace herself on my father’s left arm.
“What? After I’m already here, just a few feet away from our doorway, with all these groceries? No way I’m going to lug all these groceries all the way down that hallway when I am just a few feet from my apartment door!”
"But isn’t it better than falling and maybe breaking a tooth or an arm?”
“You are not listening to me. Right? I never fall. Just trust my balance and hold on tight! OK?”
“OK I am going to trust your exceptional balance now because you promised that we are not going to fall and I trust your word!”
“Nothing to worry about, Just hold on. And remember now, no matter what you feel me doing, do not let go. What did I just say?”
“You said don't let go no matter what I feel you doing."
"Exactly! Now hold on to my arm tightly"
With that they cautiously approached the edge of the steps. The door behind them slammed shut and everything became pitch dark. She had her free arm wrapped tightly around his arm which was cradling the grocery bag, while his other was extended in order to grip the stairway hand-railings.
Well, the first two steps were secure except that my mom kept slipping and yelling out and holding on tighter. Well, whether it was her imbalance that did it, or his own, I don’t know. But according to her, he went first and took her with him straight down into the slime-covered floor.
His words as he lost his balance were “La Ostra!" Her words as she finally realized that they were definitely on their way toward the slime-covered floor were: “Tu madre!"
I was watching TV in the living room when I heard what sounded like an explosion in the stairwell next to our door. I heard a vehement argument that sounded like my parents. Then the frantic pounding on the door with my mom cursing and my father cursing as well in order to assure her that he was also suffering from the incident.
They both entered and stood by the apartment door in the living room and had the following conversation as my mother was still effusively hurling invectives at my dad who finally spoke up.
"When you felt that I was was falling, why didn’t you release my arm?" he finally asked.
“Because you told me clearly that no matter what, I was to hold on and I trusted you."
“I didn't mean that if you felt me falling you should go down with me! You didn't know that I didn't mean that? Ha! Ha! Ha! Hay virgen!" he said shaking his head incredulously.
"You told me repeatedly and very clearly that it was impossible for you to fall! Didn’t you Hipolito? Told me to have faith. Remember?"
“True. That is what I said! But did you feel that I was falling?"
“Yes, I felt that you were falling, but you said...
“Case closed!" my father said.
“Case closed, huh?" she asked as she gave him her customary up-and-down, sizing-him-up look. “Just like that? You were the one who insisted on going down those dark stairways-right?. Not me! I told you and since you are a cabeza de hierro,[literally: an iron head, a name his parents and siblings used to call him for some reason that he never revealed.] you didn’t listen right? Now you are the one whose going to fetch those groceries in that filthy hallway, cause I am not!"
Of course he wanted to eat dinner and took care of the task with no complaints.
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Memory 13:The Malevolent Mirror
Most of us have bought things at one time or another that we later regretted-especially if we couldn’t return the item. The first time I came across that situation as a child was in reference to a rather unusual, large living-room mirror.
You see, out of the goodness of his heart, my dad had placed my mom on his bank- account with the advice to take it easy. Unfortunately, he soon found out that taking it easy wasn't very high on my mom's agenda. Instead, she enjoyed using my father’s bank account to buy things to decorate the apartment. He would often arrive home from work, find items that she had bought.
She'd try to distract him by preparing his favorite food and immediately offering dinner when he got home. But that never worked since he'd immediately notice the new addition.
"What is that?" he'd say ignoring his hunger and the aroma of food.
"Oh, just a little something I bought to liven up the place.""
"How are you going to liven up the place when the bank account hits zero-eh?"
But after that initial complaint he would usually relent and accept the item calmly. Especially when she began to pout and say she was going to take it back. Also, the strong aroma of his favorite food of pork-chops accompanied with mashed fried plantain [mofongo] or else a huge mountain of rice and beans helped to persuade him. Well, that ritual had been Ok until he came home one day and found The Mirror.
It was a large rectangular, golden metal-framed mirror with gilded flowers festooning each corner. It only had one small problem-distortion. We discovered this as we stood in front of it gazing at our reflections. My father was the first one to notice. He had been looking increasingly somber as he gazed, at himself, as if he were being prodded with an ox goad. So I had been wondering what was wrong.
“It’s a nice mirror and everything but that’s not me!” he finally blurted out.
“What do you mean it’s not you?” my mom asked.
“First, I admit that I have bags under my eyes see, but not double bags and not as swollen as the mirror is making them look.” he said gesturing to the bags under his eyes with his index fingers.
“Also I am not as old and decrepit as that mirror is making me look either. It makes me look fifty when I’m only thirty nine.
“Maybe it’s your imagination!”
“Imagination? Are you saying that I look like that old geezer in the mirror? Is that what you are saying?”
“Well, time does take its toll! You can’t expect to look the way you looked fifteen years ago-you know Hipolito?”
“No no no! I am sorry. But I will never admit that I look as acabau [finished] as that mirror is making me look! By the way, you don’t look so good in that mirror either in case you haven’t noticed.”“
“What do you mean?” my mother responded with a worried look on her face.
“Are you that fat and hunchbacked?”
“What do you mean fat and hunchbacked?”
“Well, in the mirror you look like you weigh two-hundred pounds. Turn sideways and see for yourself. Ho Ho! Look at that pot belly. Makes you look like your six months pregnant? That hunchback doesn’t look too good either”
“Caramba! You are right! I do look like I am six-months pregnant and hunchbacked. Not only that, but look at Nelson. [me] That doesn't look like my son. My son doesn’t have a papera [double chin] and dark circles under his eyes. Look at the way it distorts his face as if he’s grimacing.”
“I don’t look that way!” I said as I noticed my face changing dimensions depending on the angle.”
“How much did you pay for this crazy circus mirror?” My father frowned and squinted one eye.
"Forty five dollars.”
“Forty five dollars in order to embitter your existence? Tell me something, didn’t you notice that this infernal thing distorts when you bought it.”
“I liked the frame. Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah, it’s beautiful alright, just don’t dare look in the mirror, because if you do, it will embitter your life. Why don’t you take it back?”
“The store has sign saying it doesn't give refunds!”
“Sure, because they know that if they give refunds you would take the mirror back as soon as it disfigured your face.”“
“Well, the solution is very simple. Just don’t look into it. Is anyone forcing you to look into it?”
“It’s hard not to look into it when it takes up one-fourth of the living room wall-don’t you think?”
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
“In other words, what you are telling me is that I just paid forty-five dollars of the money I work like an animal to earn, for a mirror that I can’t look myself in because it distorts me?”
“We either do that or we throw it away! Which is it going to be!”
Well, the mirror remained on the living room wall for about a week. But for some reason, we just couldn’t avoid glancing at it and feeling depressed for the remainder of the day. So in self-defense, it was relocated to the apartment hallway in order to reduce that possibility. To be honest, it was even depressing me and I was just a kid. But each time I accidentally looked into it, I felt that Mother Nature had just savagely kicked me in the teeth.
So I was glad when they took the mirror and put it in the hallway leading to the bedrooms. But even there we sometimes accidentally caught glimpses of the hideous reflections. My father, being the most affected by the assault, defended himself by covering his peripheral vision with his hand as he passed it. Right hand or left, depending on whether he was entering or leaving the hallway. Soon my mom and I were zealously copying his example. Sometimes we forgot that the mirror was there and saw ourselves distorted.
“Dam! I just saw my reflection by mistake. Forgot to cover the right sight of my face as I passed.”
“What's the matter son, you look depressed!" I was once asked as I sat on the living room sofa sulking.
"I just saw myself in the mirror!"
"Don't be a bobo mijo! [son]” Just do as your father does. It doesn't catch him by surprise does it?"
Didn’t catch me that easily again after that.
This desperate thrust and parry between us and it continued until one day my mom and dad began a serious argument in the apartment hallway. Right in the middle of the argument, I heard a brief scuffle and then a sudden crash. Then silence followed by:
“We broke the mirror!” I heard my mother say emotionlessly.
“Well, that's one benefit of having that argument!”
“You are right!” my mother said as both began calmly picking up the pieces of glass from the floor.
“Goodbye and good riddance to that! That mirror was roasting my life!” my father added glaring at the remains as if it had been a mortal enemy.
After this incident my father removed my mother from having access to his bank- account in order to prevent any further unpleasant surprises.
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Memory 14 Nicia and her Gospel
There are certain people that one meets that are quickly forgotten. Others seem to be remembered for a lifetime. I will always remember Nicia, this short, pale Latina woman in her late thirties who belonged to a charismatic, fundamentalist, Christian denomination. One of her strange ideas was that the Garden of Eden was still intact and that one could still observe the angels guarding the way to the tree of life.
Well, every Saturday, on schedule, rain or shine, she would appear at our apartment as if it were just a regular neighborly visit. After making small talk, she’d divert the conversation to religion. Finally she would ask why we were not attending church again yet. You see, my parents had once been regular churchgoers of her denomination, but had stopped attending. In fact, it had been approx ten years since the last time they had been at church. So Nicia felt it her Christian duty to bring the lost sheep back into the fold just as Jesus had told his followers to do. That in itself, of course, was admirable. However, what wasn’t admirable was the way that she went about it.
“So when are you going to attend church?” she’d say gazing intently into my father’s face as he’d immediately gaze away tiredly. You see, my father was extremely averse to word and idea repetitions. If you said it once, to him that was enough and any repetition was perceived as pestiferous. If the same phrase was used too often in a commercial on TV, he’d jump up from his seat and change the channel.
So Nicia’s constant repetitions were definitely grating on his nerves.
“One of these day I will attend.” he’d utter looking as if he was being slowly being led away to be guillotined or being subjected to the infamous Chinese dripping water torture.
“Don’t you know that your immortal soul is in danger?”
“Yes, I know!” he’d respond tiredly.
“Then what aren’t you attending church?”
“Well, you know, the job has me getting home tired. I work eight hours a day Sometimes overtime to make ends meet. You know?”
“There are others who are tired from working the whole day and they still attend church.”
“True, but maybe they don’t feel as tired as I do?”
“Really? Look! My husband comes home exhausted and the very first thing he does is grab his Bible, get the kids ready and go to church! He even encourages me to attend if he notices that I am tired.”
“Well that’s him and this is me.”
“Maybe you do it because you don’t really appreciate what is involved?”
“Oh I know what is involved. I heard all the sermons before-you know?”
“But you apparently never appreciated them, If you had you would not be so calm about your situation”
“What situation is that?” he gazed at her tiredly as if fearing that his question would trigger a prolonged response with no end in sight.
“The situation that your behavior is taking you straight toward the bowels of hell where you will roast forever along with your family.”
“Roast?”
“Yes roast! You see that oil on the skillet over there?” she’d point to whee my mother had set the skillet where she intended to fry some pork chops.
“Ever burn your finger in the frying pan? Eh? Hurts doesn’t. Well, that’s just a finger. Now imagine your entire body immersed in boiling oil while you are screaming in agony but unable to get out, asking for mercy but getting none-not just for a few moments-but for eternity”
“Yes, I have heard that preached at Church before. You know, at the Rose of Sharon Church that we attended for for two years back in New York about ten years ago.”
“Ah so you know eh? Then you really have no excuse. If you were ignorant then you would have an excuse. But because you are not ignorant, and you know what you are doing, you will suffer the consequences of eternal damnation.”
By this time the large purple vein on Nicia’s pale neck would be throbbing something fierce and her face would be beet red while my father seemed calmer than before her sermon had started. In fact, he looked sleepy. Actually, it had absolutely nothing to do with Nicia nor her particular way of preaching. For some strange reason, any mention of religion would seem to trigger sleepiness in my dad. He'd be watching TV programs, such as The Twilight Zone or Combat and would remain 100% alert.
Suddenly the film the King of Kings or Jesus of Nazareth, or the The Ten Commandments would come on, and begin falling asleep. So if he was staying awake with Nicia, it must have been an enormous effort on his part. In any case, she seemed completely oblivious to his growing drowsiness and would continue even more fervently:
“And you know what? Before he sends you to hell to burn forever, he will send monstrous animals to sting you, and your tongue, that refused to acknowledge him, that tongue that refused to offer him praise, it will rot in your mouth and your. those eyes that refused to see his holy truth, those eyes will waste away in their sockets! So are you going to go to church now?”
She’s say after finishing her sermon and about to leave.
“I will have to give it some thought!” was the calm response she got from my father.
As a kid I always listened to all this and just couldn’t accept that a just God would fry people alive in the way Nicia described. I suspected that the reason my father was rejecting her warnings was that deep down inside he didn’t believe it either. Strangely, he never explained why he wasn’t moved by to Nicia’s gory warnings. Just sat down, asked when dinner would be served. and began reading his newspapers after she had left
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Memory 15:: Dad and the Italian Hulk
Some people are very fond of borrowing but very averse to paying back. Of course there is a danger in that policy. What danger? Simple, the person doing the lending will inevitably get frustrated and if violently inclined-might attempt to harm the borrower by taking the law into his own hands instead of settling matters in a court of law as civilized behavior demands. That was illustrated in the film Rocky where Rocky is told to break this fellow’s thumb because he wasn’t paying back a loan. So it isn’t a policy to be recommended if one desires to remain in good health.
Unfortunately, my father had the propensity to borrow and then strive to avoid paying back. Why? Beats me! After all, he was only five-feet-three one-hundred and thirty-pounds. Only explanation I ever got was that he didn’t like to pay back. But that doesn’t explain the risk-taking. So I am still completely baffled unless I assume a death-wish of some kind. Well, if indeed it was a death wish, he almost got it one time in New York after borrowing some money from a local butcher-shop owner.
Now, this wasn’t just any ordinary Butcher-Shop Owner. This guy resembled the Incredible Hulk minus the green skin and speech impediment. I would say approx. 250 pounds or more at six-foot-three. Hair all over his wide back back, bulging forearms and barreled chest. Certainly someone one would think twice about borrowing money from if one is in the habit of trying not to pay back-right?
Well, yep! In need of a loan up goes my father to this Italian behemoth who was even rumored to have Mafia connections, and humbly requests a loan. Promised to pay it back at a certain time. Despite his appearance, the butcher guy seemed to have a good heart and lent him the money under the conditions stipulated. It was agreed, he was thanked and each went his way.
Unfortunately, in the weeks that followed, my father began complaining about having to repay on time and about the butcher constantly reminding him whenever he saw him pass by his store. Whether or not he was actually having trouble coming up with the payment, I don’t know. But I did hear my mother advising him as usual that he might be getting into a serious mess.
“Why don’t you pay back that money Hipolito? The butcher told me to remind you today as I passed by his store. Said you were supposed to pay him two weeks ago.”
“The butcher is being unreasonable since he is rich and it doesn’t cost him to wait a little.” was all he said.
The tension kept growing until it came to a head one day when we were on our way to Central Park. Now, there were two ways to get there from where we lived-a short way and a much longer way. The short way required that we pass by the butcher shop. The long way would have avoided it.
“I don’t think that it’s advisable that we go by that butcher shop Hipolito” my mother uttered in a nervous voice while we were yet at a safe distance.
“Remember, that last time you spoke to him he looked like he was beginning to lose his patience with you. So why don’t we just take the long way?” She gently tugged on his arm.
“Why do I have to be taking the long way? I told him I would pay him and he will get paid. Why is he so impatient? A man with his own business--”
“That makes absolutely no difference. You promised to pay him by a certain date and that’s it. Be a man of your word. If you thought that you couldn’t repay, then you shouldn’t, have borrowed the money in the first place. Very simple! Also tell me something Hipolito. Are you blind or are you crazy?”
“What do you mean by that?” my father responded as we approached the butcher’s shop.
“I mean, you have to be either blind or crazy not to see clearly that this guy looks like a gorilla. Tell, me, what exactly are you counting on if he loses his temper?”
“I am a man!”
“It has nothing to do with being or not being a man, iron-head. Because I avoid fighting a bigger woman doesn’t mean I am not a woman. It simply means that I have enough common sense to realize that if we fight one-on-one, she will sweep the floor with me. That’s all it means. Let’s take the long way to the park to avoid any unpleasantness OK?”
“Now that I have come this far to turn around to take the longer rout? No way!”
“Better to do that than to run into trouble.”
“Well, I am not going to do it. I told him I’d pay him and he shouldn’t be constantly pestering me this way.”
“Then stop giving him fechas[dates] when you intend to pay him. That’s what really angers a person. When someone promises a certain date and then doesn’t keep the promise. It comes across as abuse.”
I was with them that day and clearly recall that we passed by the butcher shop without anything happening as my mom whispered a prayer. Then, when we got to the end of the sidewalk and about to cross the street, I heard the butcher bellow my father’s name from the entrance of his store.. There he was, blood splattered apron. He didn’t look angry though.
“Öh my God there he is!” my mother said.
Then I saw my father turn around and wave him away as if calling him a pest.. As young as I was, approx. five, I sensed that my father had done something horribly wrong. My parents turned and kept walking but my apprehension made me look back. That’s when I saw the butcher hurriedly approaching us with this murderous look on his face and huge hairy, clenched fists: “Ahi viene el hombre!” “The man is coming!” I said to them.
“Stay here and whatever happens don’t move from this spot.” my mother said as she stood my by some parked cars away from what she thought was to be a dangerous situation.
Next thing I saw was the butcher had grabbed my father by his shirt-collar. In the scuffle my father seemed to hit him in the chest and the butcher hauled back to smash his fist into his face. My mother shouted “No!” placed her hand in the way and took the blow on her hand.
Somehow my father broke loose and I heard something hit the pavement. Then I saw the butcher look at the floor and back up with a horrified look on his face. There on the floor was my father’s cigarette lighter that resembled a gun. Thinking that he was about to get shot, the butcher took off and hid in a bakery shop next to where they had been scuffling. There, close to the entrance, he began hiding behind the owner as my father swaggered outside calling him a coward and brandishing the lighter and challenging him to come out. The butcher kept begging,.
“No! No! Don’t shoot! Don’t Shoot!”
“I am going to call the police!” the bakery shop owner said. That caused my parents to flee. Soon, after walking several blocks, we heard sirens and my parents hid in this building lobby. There a police officer found them.
“It’s just a lighter! That’s all it is!”
“True, but you could hold up a place with it.”
The lighter was confiscated and they felt lucky that they weren’t arrested. Apparently, they failed to realize that the one deserving arrest was the butcher on assault and battery charges. Especially since my mother had been injured and in great pain. Had to go to the hospital to get her thumb fixed. My father didn’t know that she had been injured and expressed great regret. Whereupon he was showered with insults. They were later informed hat the butcher had Mafia connections and that they had made a big mistake in getting in an altercation with him. I recall concerned conversations about having to flee the neighborhood. I think that the butcher was paid via a mailed check in order to avoid further complications.
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Memory 16:"Singing, Ambition and Ventriloquism
Some years ago, my son looked amazed since I had never played the guitar in front of him before. It reminded me of a similar event when I discovered something about my own father that was equally surprising--that he not only sang, but that he considered himself a great singer.
It was during a family reunion in our New York City second-floor Housing Projects apartment and many diverse conversations had been going on until finally the subject turned to the then current popular singers, such as Felipe Rodriguez, and Johnny Alvino whom we were constantly listening to on the radio. Opinions about who was the best singer emerged. That’s when my father suddenly developed this faraway look. Noticing it my aunt, who was familiar with how he thought, asked:
"Hipolito, you sing very well too, right?" He didn't reply, but a certain glow of his squinting eyes and slight nodding of his head indicated that he agreed. Seeing that he was waiting for a little more encouragement, she brought my mother, her sister, into her plan in order to reel him in.
"Right Alba? Hipolito sings too doesn't he?"
"Bueno? Si! He sings. Right Hipolito you were once praised by an island radio host as having great prospects. Right?”
He responded by staring off as if contemplating a wondrous vision only he could fully appreciate.
“Look I am talking to you? You sang once right? Have you suddenly become deaf and mute?”
"Oh si! That's true! This radio host told me I had great prospects!"
“Come on! Sing something Hipolito!” my aunt added with mischievous eyes.
"What are you going to sing?"
Not that she didn’t know since his repertoire was limited to snatches from two songs: the intro to Granada, and the last few verses to Amapola or Little Poppie.
He would always finish both songs with a short pause just before the last, dramatically-extended, high, concluding note.
“....que yo te vehhhngoooo a daaaaar!” for Granada
and
“....tan solaaaaaaa!” for Amapola or Little Poppie.
And there was the serious problem. For some mysterious reason, those last notes seemed to magically transfer themselves away from his mouth and into his chest. Something similar to the way a ventriloquist projects sound into a dummy without moving his lips.
Of course, at age four, I considered it a stupendous trick and admired him for having pulled it off. However,
I noticed that my mother was shaking her head at the' conclusion of both songs as my father sat proudly with gaze fixed on some faraway horizon in which he envisioned himself singing to millions and receiving thunderous accolades.
Well, once the visitors had left, I found out why my mother had been shaking her head.
"Hipolito, don’t be offended about what I am about to say, OK?” she cautiously began as he sat meditatively on the living room sofa as if anticipating what she was about to say and preparing a response. “You sing very well. I grant you that! I am not saying that you don't. You certainly do stay in perfect pitch."
"The radio announcer at the radio station in Bayamon said I had great prospectives!" he responded proudly leaning back on the sofa and readjusting the thinning hair on his head with the palm of his hand while still looking away.
"Yes, you do have great prospectives.” She carefully sat next to him as if expecting he would bolt if she carelessly plopped down beside him. “But you need to educate your voice."
"What do you mean by that?" he responded still staring off into the distance as if she didn’t exist.
"Well, it’s not to offend you or anything, but you have a tendency to, how should I say, to swallow your own voice when hitting high notes. You know, like a ventriloquist."
"I swallow my own voice?"
"Yes, you swallow your voice. You totally encapsulate it in your chest. How do you do that? I mean, I can't even imitate you no matter how much I try!" She tried several times to imitate him by forcing her voice to resonate only in her chest but failed. That demonstration was met by a seemingly endless profound silence.
"Bueno? Say something. I'm giving you advice for your own good-you know? Why do you think Julia [her sister] was laughing? Eh? It's not just me who notices it. You know?”
“Nobody else said anything!”
“Chico, they don't tell you because they don't have the confianza that I have to tell you. They don't want to offend you! Why do you think Julia laughs after you sing anyway?"
"Envidia!" ["She laughs because she envies me!" ]he responded in a shouldn't-it-be-obvious tone of voice.
My mother stared at him like a kid stares at a rubics cube after struggling with it to no avail and wanting to hurl it against the nearest wall.
"And I envy you too-right? Is that why you think I point this out? Because I envy you?" His silence indicated a yes.
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Muchacho! You are like a dog dreaming of longanizas. [sausages] I don't want to sing like that, putting my voice into my chest as soon as I hit a high note! You really think I envy you?"
"You envy me too. That radio announcer who heard me sing in Puerto Rico said I had great prospectives"
"OK! If it makes you happy then you are a great singer. OK? I leave you for incorrigible. Sing any way you want. You want to encapsulate your voice like a ventriloquist? Go ahead, encapsulate your voice like a ventriloquist. It isn't me they are laughing at! You know?"
"When are you going to make dinner?
Never heard him sing again after that for the duration of their twenty year marriage. But then again there was no one around requesting a demonstration.
Memory 17: Would You Believe?
As a Christian I am not supposed to believe in bad luck or good luck. But it is extremely hard to ignore the fact that certain people seem plagued by a series of unending negative experiences that defy statistical probability.
My father was one who seemed to be always having such experiences. Because of that his favorite expression came to be: “Would you believe that....” or as he said it? "Tu me puedes creer....” Then he would proceed to meticulously describe the latest events that had bludgeoned him. One of those events was when he went to look for work and the owner of the place kicked him in one of his shins.
Having arrived home he says:
“Me puedes creeer...” ”Would you believe....”
By that time my mother knew something wrong had happened to him and had become a little jaded to it. At first she had expressed great concern and suffered along with him. But once she noticed that the frequency of such events was connected to things that he himself provoked, she began attributing them to his lack of wisdom. So when he arrived home that day and told her that the owner of the place he applied for work at had kicked him in the shin, she asked him;
“So you just walked in, applied for work and he kicked you in the shin? Excuse me but that’s very hard to believe. Why not start from the beginning and tell me exactly what happened? Here take a seat.”
“Why are you taking it so calmly? Huh? Look what they did!” he said pointing to the raw indentation on the shin of his right leg”
“Well Hipolito, I am very sorry that it happened. But I am just wondering what you did. I mean no one kicks another person in the shin for nothing. Right?”
“Why did the SOB kick me in the shin? I’ll tell you why he kicked me in the shin. The SOB kicked me in the shin because he didn’t want to provide me with a refund for the money I spent going to his location for employment.”
“Un moment! Just a moment. What do you mean provide you with a refund?”
“The employment agency promised that they had a job available. And when I got there the guy behind the desk denied it.”
“OK, and then he kicked you in the shin?”“
“This is no joking matter! You know?”
“Not joking, just trying to get to the bottom of this mystery. That’s all. So tell me Hipolito, when exactly did he kick you in the shin and why?”
“Well, I asked them to give me the money I had spent to travel there.”
“Wait a minute. Hold it right there. You said they?”
“Yeah they.”
“So there was more than one?”
“Yeah there were two”“
‘So both of them kicked you in the shin”
“No only one of the SOB’s kicked me in the shin. The other one sneaked up behind me and got me in an arm lock.”
“All this out of the clear blue sky? No, something is missing here. What did you do so that the fellow kicked you in the shin and the other one got you in an arm-lock?”
“Bueno, when the one sitting at the desk told me that he wasn’t going to give me the travel money....”
“How much money exactly are we taking about here? Seven, eight ten dollars?”
“Fifty cents!”
“I see, so they kicked you in the shin because you asked for fifty cents?”
“When the hijo de mala madre told me that he wasn’t going to give the money, I made as if I was going to pull a knife!”
“Bingo! There we go. Umm, did you have a knife to pull, Hipolito?”
“No I didn’t”
“Then why were you making as if you were about to pull a knife if you had no knife to pull?”
“You think this is a joke right?”
"No! I just don't understand the logic behind your reasoning. Did you expect him to give you the money because you were about to pull a knife that you didn’t have?"
That question was met by total silence.
"You know, it's good that this happened to you so that you gain common sense. You are lucky they didn't 'kill you.”
”You call this love? That I come home hurting and you say good that it happened to
me? Huh? You call this love?”
“Sorry but I am just getting tired of your antics. I mean, you are a grown man and should have the capacity by now to know that if you threaten to pull a knife on somebody the person might defend himself. What did you expect them to do-wait for you to actually pull a knife? Hmmm?”
"I was going to go back in after they kicked me and threw me out but this fellow who was standing outside told me that they have connections with the Mafia,”
“You were planning to go in to fight two bigger men? Sorry but to me you seem as if you are intent on committing suicide. Chico. Gain some capacity before you manage to kiil yourself.”
“I m taking this to court!”
“After making as if you were going to pull knife for fifty cents? Buena suerte. Good luck!”
Well, my father hired this lawyer and had hopes of winning the case based on assault and battery. I remember him arriving home after the trial with the same expression:
“Would you believe..."
“What is it now Hipolito? I have never seen anybody with such bad luck. I mean, it’s one thing after the other. What happened now? Huh?”
“You know that lawyer I hired? He was in cahoots with the guys who kicked me in the shin. After the trial I saw him laughing and chit-chatting with them as if they were good friends in the courthouse hallway. They probably paid him off. Even the judge was paid off. He shouted and asked if I was there because I wanted my fifty cents back.”
“Please! I don’t want to hear any more! OK? I don't want to hear no more!” my mother said as my father stood looking at her in disappointed silence.
Memory 18: The Santa Clause Lie
There he goes! A morbidly obese old man in a red suit who lives somewhere in the North Pole along with his wife and elves, who manufactures toys and distributes them for free once a year to children all over the world in less than approx. 24 hours. All this via using a sleigh pulled through the air by some flying reindeer led by one whose nose glows. Charming image isn’t it?
An image which many children throughout the Christian world are taught to believe as irrefutable truth for a certain time during their short lives. Moat people actually see very little harm in propagating this idea. But upon closer examination, is this idea really compatible with Christ whose birthday is claimed to be celebrated in conjunction with it?
Well, the truth is that there certainly is something seriously wrong. You see, belief in this idea demands lying to our kids. but Jesus Christ condemned lying and told us that the originator of deceit or lying was Satan and that if we imitate Satan by lying then we are Satan’s children.
John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
“Would I lie to you?” That deep unwavering trust had been inculcated in me from infancy by having me recite that my mother was "verdadera" the most truthful woman in the universe. So I had been meticulously prepared to such an extent, that even at the age of twelve, I stubbornly held on tenaciously to that idea despite all utterances to the contrary. They the were the liars and my mother was the truthful one. Thinking otherwise was tantamount to an unthinkable disrespect which I just couldn’t fathom.
In contrast, my father opposed the idea of buying me gifts and getting absolutely no credit, and so he started to drop hints. But he was always finally pressured into going along with the charade for the sake of domestic tranquility. I would always leave food for Santa on the kitchen table, and my father would eat it. He would also be pressured into hiding the gifts and placing them quietly under the Christmas tree as I slept.
If I didn’t like the toy, he would try to drop a hint by complaining that now he’d have to return it to the store. In time those brief hints began to create doubts but my trust persisted despite his efforts. I would wonder why Santa would bring me a guitar since I clearly didn’t plan to go through the trouble of learning it. Didn’t he know it all? Didn’t he have the ability to read my heart as I had repeatedly been told? But then the same question was deployed “Would I lie to you?”
This went on until age twelve. A bigger kid tried to take my bike once in and isolated area. Where did you get that bike he said menacingly. “Santa gave it to me!” I replied. “There is no Santa!” he said as I took off. Then, one momentous day as another Christmas was approaching as I was walking alongside my mother in the downtown area, she finally dropped the bombshell.
“There is something I have to tell you,” she proclaimed calmly but in an ominous sort of way.
“There is no Santa Clause!” At that moment the impact of such a deceit was so strong, that I had to stop and brace myself to a lamppost because I felt that I was about to faint.
“I wanted you to enjoy the fantasy of being a child as long as possible. I never had that privilege! That is why I did it” she explained as I struggled not to black out.
I honestly don’t recall having said anything in response. But the sense of betrayal, of being taken advantage of because of my unwavering trust was very deep. If indeed I couldn’t trust my parents then who else could I trust,. If my own parents were capable of such meticulous scheming then what of others?
The universe had suddenly become a place where miracles of that kind didn’t happen. I no longer scanned the skies during Christmas Eve striving to catch a glimpse of the white-bearded fellow dressed in red and his reindeer streaming across the sky in defiance of gravity. I no longer felt that he was watching my behavior to see if I was bad or good. I no longer imagined him delivering toys in some sort of magical way to children all over the world.
Now, suddenly, the logistics seemed ridiculously overwhelming and the entire idea thing totally absurd. I began asking myself why I had ever been so gullible and why I had insisted on so trustful instead of questioning the absurd proposition. In fact, I began deeply regretting having trusted at all. Why had they deceived me? The reason provided did not convince me.
Where was the paternal empathy? I had suffered constant ridicule and shame at school. I had carried the burden of seeming like a dunce. But all this seemed totally beyond the capacity of my mother to understand and I suddenly realized that she was seriously flawed as was her concept of love. I had not only lost my faith in the mythical Santa, but much more significantly-I had lost trust in my parents who had perpetrated the lie.
Which brings us back to what was said at the outset: How can Christmas be in honor of Jesus who condemned lying and told us that those who imitate Satan by lying become Satan’s spiritual children? In short, who is really being honored by perpetration of a lie? If it isn’t Jesus, who it definitely is not-then the only one who is is Satan.
Relevant scriptures:
Ephesians 4:15
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,
These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates.
Ephesians 4:25
Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another.
Proverbs 12:17
He who speaks truth tells what is right, But a false witness, deceit.
Memory 19: Chin-up Bar Swinger
How did I become a chin-up bar swinging addict? Simple, when I found that swinging from it was extremely relaxing. Now this discovery didn't come right away mind you. It developed after I began getting close to adulthood and the need for getting away from adult-like problems became necessary. Prior to that just regular chin-ups had been suffice.
Here 's the way it went. When feeling stressed out, I'd jump and grab the bar in a palm-forward grip and hang there for a few moments in order to limber up. I'd follow that up with a set of ten-rep chin-ups in order to get the blood flowing. Then using my legs to gain momentum by extending them forward and backwards repeatedly I would begin to swing. I would gradually increase the speed and angle of the swing until nothing more was needed to keep me going except a slight pendulum swaying movement of the lower body. Sort of how you do at the playground swings but without the benefit of seat and sturdy chains.
Now these weren't just little swings. No siree Bob! Little swings just wouldn't cut the mustard. These swings would bring my whole one-hundred and thirty-five pound sweat-drenched body perpendicular with the floor one way and then perpendicular with the floor the other way.
Actually, my confidence in the stability of that chinning bar was so great that the only thing that prevented me from actually going full circle as they do in gymnastics was the apartment's low ceiling. Otherwise, as far as I was concerned-there was no limit. Just me, the Rock-of-Gibraltar bar and glorious sensation of freedom. Once submerged in that rhythm nothing else existed. Parents, friends neighborhood or city. All became a diaphanous unreality to which I didn't want to return.
I'd shut my eyes and enter this transcendental meditative state of pristine inner serenity unlike anything I'd known before. There were no frustrations no irrational hopes of transforming myself into a hulking figure overnight via bodybuilding. No scheming cunning fellow telling me that I should frenetically superset my arms into hypertrophy or that I should purchase concentrated protein formulas which never did me any damned good. In short, for the duration of the swinging, I would be finally free of all problems and concerns.
So hoist on my own petard, that boring, brooding, misty ominous day, I jumped up, grabbed the bar confidently as gymnasts do when about to begin their routine. After the initial warm-up of chin-ups, I was soon swinging along at a good clip, about two swings per every three seconds. Of course my parents had asked about the safety of my antics since they had caught me at it before. But I had assured them that the thing was absolutely stable.
"Are you sure that thing isn't going to come off that wall?" my father had asked several times before while standing beneath the chinning bar and giving it his patented frowning, opened-mouthed, suspicious look. He had an uncanny ability to assess danger and his mysterious low half-whispered tone of voice, which was fit for a One Step Beyond intro part, dramatized that ability even more.
He never insisted in having his way though. He just made his pronouncement and watched. That was his modus operandi as he once demonstrated when my mother had insisted that we all ride the Coney Island Roller coaster. As we stood there the coaster went by above us at a rail-rattling ear-shattering breakneck speed, took a hairpin passenger-screaming curve and my father had watched it with that same opened-mouth look that he was looking at my chinning bar.
"What guarantee do you have that thing isn't going to fly off the rails on one of those tight turns?" he had asked and then vehemently refused to accompany us in what he considered madness.
Well, on that occasion he was right. My mother and I almost got killed. All he said was "I told you so." Another time he warned her about mopping while wearing high heels on a waxed floor. She didn't listen and a few minutes later she was sprawled out flat on her back. So when he looked at my chinning bar that way, I momentarily felt ill at ease but quickly recovered. I assured him that he had nothing to worry about. I even confidently offered to do a few chin ups to demonstrate.
"Well, OK!" he said.” But it’s hard to believe that thing is sturdy! Is it screwed to the wall?"
"No but-"
"What's holding it up?" he asked staring at it as if it were some unnatural unearthly phenomenon.
"See when you put weight on it like this!" I jumped and hung from it with a palms forward grip "the sides expand and grip the walls. The more you weigh the stronger it's anchored!" I had replied with same smug confidence.
He nodded in what I understood as awe or acceptance of my explanation, said nothing more and walked way. So I assumed I had convinced him as much as I felt convinced. Unfortunately, conviction can't substitute for clear reasoning and I was forgetting one very important factor in the equation. True, the downward weight certainly did increase the bar's grip on the walls.
But by swinging I was bringing in another force for which the bar's design wasn't intended. It was a horizontal one which added nothing to the bar's grip. Worse still, it did so when the bar was weakest, at the moment when my momentum nullified the downward pull and shifted all my weight horizontally against the bar's grip. So what I was doing was tantamount to an airplane designer taking wingspan lift, wind velocity drag into consideration but leaving out gravity. It was a recipe for disaster. But hey? My father didn't see the flaw. Otherwise he would have pointed it out.
So whenever he saw me swinging he seemed to be assuming that all was perfectly OK. After all, his son, the fanatical bodybuilder, surely knew what the hell he was doing. What, with all those hundreds of bodybuilding magazines cluttering the closets, years of posing confidently before mirrors while using such words as abs, biceps, triceps, deltoids, pectorals, and fanatically lugging weights for the last six years?
Surely all the sweating, groaning and reading and struggling had provided their only son with the necessary wisdom not to seriously injure himself. Right? So if they heard me swinging that day they probably gave it no further thought other than "Well, guess he's swinging again." and went back to their TV watching and arguing routine. In fact, I could clearly hear them in the living room chatting and watching TV as if completely oblivious to my extreme simian-like kamikaze antics.
Anyway, all appeared to be going well. Each swing was a triumph of my willpower over nature as gravity was temporarily rendered null. My future was a shimmering emerald oasis in the desert offering secure shelter. The gilded horizon beyond it with its lofty gem-studded silver turrets and spires were mine. On it went. One positive image after another in a never-ending soothing panorama of limitless possibilities. I was in full control of my destiny. I would attain all things that I longed for and nothing could ever stand in my way. The girl of my dreams, that ever-illusive tantalizing scornful wilo wisp would stop rejecting me.
I could see her lovingly gazing up at me dressed in her white wedding gown after having said "I do!" Giving me the sweet kiss she had withheld all those years and offering a heart that had been unreceptive to the desperate beating of my own.
I'd soon be a majestic Adonis with the fifty-inch chest and the eighteen-inch arms that had been denied me all these years. I'd win the Mister Universe title. I envisioned myself standing before a boisterous crowed of admiring spectators news-reporter camera lights flashing as I was handed the Mr. Universe trophy.
There was still time. Nothing could stand in my way. In my delirious exaltation, it never occurred to me that if the bar lost its grip on the hallway walls, I would go flying feet-first either backwards toward my parent's room, crashing into the bureau mirror and landing on my face, or I would go feet-first straight down the narrow hallway toward the living room at approx. 40 MPH, maybe permanently taking out one of my parents in the process if they happened to be in my way, and landing on my back.
I mean, getting whacked by a flying one-hundred and thirty-five pound young muscular body going at that speed isn't exactly conducive to good health and being that both my parents were not big people man slaughtering one of them via flying into them was a very real possibility.
But never mind all that. Never mind also that the bar was designed to take downward stress and not the lateral one I was putting on it. Or that my swinging was tantamount to standing there and whacking the chinning bar with a sledgehammer sideways each time that I went perpendicular. To me the swinging was the thing.
So since all was perfectly OK with my universe, as far as my opinion went, I continued my swinging routine. Eyes shut, and sweat-drenched hands tightly and confidently coiled around the stainless-steel bar, I could feel my body arch forward, reach perpendicular face toward the ceiling, and gloriously swing back in a semi-circular motion- face toward the floor, bulging chest and shoulder muscles in full synchronization, muscular legs extended straight back, ripped abs glistening under the hallway light. I was a mighty human planet in Zen-orbit and the bar was my sun. I was mighty Tarzan and the small two-bed roomed housing-project apartment was my private personal jungle.
As I continued in my delirious swinging, my parents' rising and falling idle chatter and occasional spats gradually faded into nothing in the euphoria of the moment. I was one with the universe and there was no boring day, no silent un-knocked door indicating loss of social popularity and possible long-lasting isolation, no rejection from the love of my dreams, no menacing future or disturbing past, no materialistic ambition or desperate need to upset the placid waveless, glass-surfaced lake that had become my mind. It seemed as if I had attained what some might have classified as Nirvana despite my total ignorance of Buddhism. Such was the nature of my activity.
That's when it suddenly happened. I had successfully finished the face-down perpendicular-to-floor part of my swing and returned triumphantly to vertical. But when I reached the face up horizontal, the bar decided to release its grip on the walls. Instead of stopping at the height of my forward thrust as I confidently expected, I felt myself suddenly free of all restrictions. In short, I was flying through the air while I still held on to the bar with both hands in a life or death grip.
Such was my airborne velocity that I flew almost the full length of the apartment hallway from next to my parents’ bedroom all the way to the living room entrance, a good twenty feet or more before gravity kicked in. The flight itself, of course, wasn't unpleasant except for the brief realization that I had screwed up and was in for some serious pain and embarrassment. Then as expected I became aerodynamically unstable and landed on the base of my neck with the full brunt of 135 pounds. As if a spectator I heard myself scream in agony as my right elbow smashed onto the linoleum-covered concrete floor. Well, as I lay there in considerable pain and shame, since I should have known better but I hadn't, I could hear the patter of my parents' feet rushing over from the living room.
"What happened? What happened?" they kept asking.
Shouldn't it have been obvious? Of course what they really meant was:
"How could you be so dumb?"
However, no parent would say that to his or her child when his or her eighteen-year-old man-like child is grimacing in pain on the floor. So the "What happened?" was the best next thing to calling me stupid outright.
Actually, whatever they happened to say at that moment didn't mean squat to me since I was too occupied with the horrible pain in my elbow neck and back to really give a hoot. Anyway, in order to conserve some of my teenage dignity I tried to get on my feet but to my utter consternation I couldn't move my legs. But even more frustrating, I was having trouble moving my head and even responding to questions. All I heard myself do as if from a distance was gurgling a moan.
Permanent paralyzes didn't even cross my mind at that time as it does now when I remember that accident. Maybe because I had a sense of invulnerability so characteristic of youth that causes so many to do daredevil things like that. You know the it-can-happen-to-others-but-never-to-me attitude.
Fortunately, I hadn't broken my neck or any bones. Maybe all the fanatical weightlifting I had done under the goading propaganda of that Weider fellow had somehow protected me from a more serious injury. Who knows? Finally, after about five minutes I started to come around.
"I can't move mah legs ma! I can't move mah legs!" I heard myself mutter.
"Help me pick him up!" she said to my father who had been standing there repeating:
"I told him that thing wasn't safe but he wouldn't listen."
'Yeah right!'
Well, after briefly struggling with my dead weight, they finally wrestled me to my unsteady feet and led me to my bedroom arms around their shoulders, legs half dragging, head limp to one side. moaning and still staggering from the impact, and deposited me on my bed after making sure I was reasonably OK. Then they went back to their TV and interminable bickering.
Outside in the darkening evening the asphalt-paved project playground remained empty and a cold while an ill-humored winter wind gusted and rattled the widows. From my room's wall in the semi darkness an emerald alabaster luminescent Christ impaled emanated its comforting light. While somewhere in the nebulous distance, or maybe in some deep recess of my mind, I thought I heard the theme song for the Twilight Zone.
20. Miami Memory circa 1976
The first thing that caught my attention in Miami, besides the lush vegetation during my visit in 1973 was the people who looked Anglo American but who were actually Cuban. I spoke to them in English and they kept responding in Spanish. Took time for me to realize that those who had first emigrated from Cuba to the USA after communism took over Cuba were of the upper classes and predominantly white of Spaniard and other European ancestry.
The next thing that caught my attention was the constant fervid conversations about Castro, his injustices and Cuba’s political status in relation to the USA and the rest of the world. One moment everything was silent at the hotel lobby and the next what seemed like a heated argument had broken out. Each Cuban male seemed completely oblivious to what the other one was saying. As if the sound of their own voice was all that mattered and others were just an unnecessary inconvenience that could be dispensed with. After the shouting match was over, the participants would calmly disperse. This could happen twice a day with different participants seemingly emerging from nowhere.
The elderly Cuban ladies seated at the hotel lobby would converse quietly about how Castro had murdered some close relative via political execution squads and would sometimes burst out crying. Castro was called names and cursed for being a monstrous villain who was the main cause of their exile.
I also noticed how successful they had been in establishing a commercial foothold in Florida. Downtown Miami was burgeoning with Cuban-owned restaurants, banks, hotels, office buildings etcetera. Politically they were ever present and prominently engaging in the city’s policies. Signs in Spanish were everywhere and many thrived despite never learning English.
This was in stark contrast to other Latino Groups such as the Mexicans in the west who seemed to be ever struggling but getting nowhere or the Puerto Ricans in New York who were also not faring well. Of course these other groups hadn’t benefited in having the upper class immigration advantage. But at the time I didn’t know that and imagined some type of cultural or hereditary superiority.
I also realized that their presence had engendered a deep resentment among both Anglo and African Americans. The Anglos were averse to Spanish, considered it a cultural intrusion and had dealt with their resentment by moving to the suburbs. African Americans resented the competition for low paying jobs and the sudden success which placed them lower on the economic ladder than the recent arrivals. However the African Americans , unable to do the same remained fuming in their own neighborhoods. That made it dangerous for any Latino deemed a Cuban to travel in to those areas. my ignorance of the situation almost cost me my life when I stupidly ventured the and was attacked in a public bus even though I am not Cuban.
After three years residing there, I finally move back up north approx. about the time that a new wave of Cubans had begun t arrive-the lower class Marielitas who would prove quite different from their predecessors. So I only read about the commotion caused by the cultural differences between those two groups which became mutually antagonistic after an attempt at cooperation.
It’s been decades since I have been there. Now and then I do consider going back for the sake of the sunshine. However, that has become impossible since I have a very strong fear of snakes and, unfortunately, Florida seems to have become the snake capital of the USA. Not just little Garden Snakes, but huge boa constrictors that can take down and eat large alligators, suddenly appearing calmly sun-bathing in backyards, on a kitchen floor, and even emerging from a toilet bowl. The problem has become so severe that special units are needed to get them off roads when they block traffic. Thanks but no thanks. I would rather die a natural death.
Memory 21: The Catholic Colon 20: circa 1966
Weird how there are people who consider themselves Christians and who behave like veritable demons isn’t it? One would figure that the Bible is clear in explaining the difference between the two typical behaviors. One is full of hate, selfishness, and disregard for Biblical principles while the other is characterized by love, patience, peace and the desire to help others. Yet throughout history all we see is people vehemently claiming to be followers of Christ while murdering, maiming and torturing and indulging all the base carnal desires.
As a recently-baptized Christian young man of age nineteen, I personally tried to avoid following such bad examples of preaching one thing while doing another. In fact, I had become fanatically dedicated to avoiding hypocrisy by furiously attempting to remain totally separated from the sinful world as Jesus had said his followers would be. To me that meant not listening to the radio, read the newspaper, watch TV, going to the movies, associating with non Christians as friends, commit fornication, or doing any of the other things which Christians were specifically told not to do.
It also involved a strict supervision of whatever I spoke and thought. Any thought not in harmony with the Biblical I would immediately counter with a scriptural admonition. Any desire that was out of line with biblical principles I would suppress. Any would be followed by a fervent silent prayer to God for forgiveness and for the strength to overcome it. I had become a veritable self-made monk albeit without the shaved head, monastery, vow of silence and monkish attire.
That was me when I arrived at the FA Sherma MFG Company located on New York City's Broom Street and applied for a job as an assembler of electronic parts. I anticipated no trouble there. After all, what possible trouble could I have with the other three persons working there? Unfortunately I was horrendously mistaken. No sooner had I arrived at the place when the Catholic foreman by the surname of Colon, noticed our religious differences, became infuriated, and the persecution started,.
“This is between you and me!” he said in Spanish the very first day.
I knew that reasoning with such an illogically enraged person would get me nowhere, So I decided to just hunker down, go to God in prayer and ask for his assistance. I also felt obligated to pray for this person’s welfare. Asked God that Colon see the light of truth, be forgiven for his ignorance and attain eternal life. I also hummed church-songs to drown out his insults. That only infuriated him further.
I had hoped that his attitude would mellow or that he would eventually lose interest and leave me in peace. Instead, on and on it continued. During that time fleeting thoughts of flooring him occurred. But I immediately recognized them as sinful and rejected them as such. It was very tempting since he was a flabby, chubby fellow with no athletic ability whatsoever and I had previously been training to be a boxer.
But that would have thrust me over to the Devil’s side and that I could not permit. After all, my relationship with my heavenly father and my eternal life would have been placed in serious jeopardy. Disfellowshipping from church was also a possibility. So the stakes were very high while he apparently felt that he had nothing to lose.
However, the less I reacted to this pig’s attacks, the more infuriated he became until one day while he was shouting at me, I caught my finger in the kick-press machine. He stood by with a look of deep satisfaction on his face. When I requested he tell the owner so I could get medical attention he responded with a gruff:
“Don’t rush me OK!”
That injury, which nearly cost me my finger, forced me to take two weeks off since the work required great manual dexterity and I could not use that hand to assemble armatures.
When I finally returned to work early one morning, the Colon approached me as I was about to enter the building. He effusively welcomed me back. Shook my hand and seemed to be talking with a very pronounced, high-pitched nasal tone. I also noticed that there were cotton wads plugged into his nose. I didn’t ask since it really wasn’t any of my business. A while later another worker asked me:
“Do you know what happened to Colon when you were gone?"
“What happened?"
“Remember that new, huge, muscular employee that looked like a black Neanderthal and was hired just before you left?”
“Yeah I remember him.” By then I had put two and two together and knew what was coming.
“Well, Colon began hollering at him and the guy hauled back and punched him in the nose. Had to go to the hospital. That’s why he talks that way and has his nose stuffed with cotton. He was off from work due to the injury just like you.”
I was amazed that Colon had dared holler at that primeval-looking brute that way. But then again, if God wants you to do something-there is no power on Earth that can prevent it from happening.
Did he learn his lesson? Not really since three weeks later he started with me again. Asked me to give him money for cigarettes. I told him that it would violate my Christian conscience to help him destroy his own health that way. Suddenly he began trashing my religion.
“I was beginning to think that your religion is the true one. You hear? You know what I think of it now? Huh? Now I think it’s trash. You hear me? Trash!” he said.
I imagined that I was in for another long haul and didn’t feel I had the spiritual strength I previously had. So I left my job to seek another. However, I wondered how such a person who claimed to be a Christian could behave that way. I mean, why not simply say he was a Devil worshiper instead? That would have made far more sense.
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Memory 22: Religious and Romantic Delusions
Mirages can be very beautiful and very convincing. There are landmass mirages in the northern hemisphere which seem absolutely real with mountain ranges but which can never be reached because they gradually recede as we attempt to approach them. The oasis in the desert is a very famous example. All due to certain atmospheric conditions which reflect light in curious ways. Even distant cities have been observed to appear in the sky via the refraction of light.
Similar mirages or deceptions happen when people purposefully put on a façade in order to attain a goal. Hitler is an example. He seemed like a savior to the German people when he was actually an egomaniac who would lead them to their ruin.
On an interpersonal level, this phenomenon can be just as devastating. How many times do we hear people complaining that the person whom they married was not the one that they had initially fallen in love with? A saintly façade is assumed, the other person buys it, and the rest is eventually a disaster when the mask comes off, and the real person is revealed. Of course, the deceived person feels justifiably taken advantage of and abused. Why? Simple, because the right to make an informed decision has been denied.
This can happen on an organizational basis as well, If an organization recruits members, but fails to inform them of certain demands or rules that will affect the member, then it is definitely depriving him of his right to an informed decision. That happened to me in reference to a religious denomination that I joined at age nineteen. Bible studies had taught me all I needed to know about how a Christian should behave in order to remain in good standing directly with God. However they did not inform me about a very crucial thing, that they would place people on probation and Disfellowshipped members if these members sinned in a manner that they considered unrepentant.
Now, had I known that, I would have seriously reconsidered joining. However, it was only three weeks after baptism that a so-called brother in the faith approached me and glibly said
“So you are baptized now eh? Well you better be careful because you can get Disfellowshipped.”
‘Disfellowshipped?” I asked in total confusion. “What do you mean by that?
“Well, it means that if you sin in an unrepentant way or disagree with the organizations doctrinal views, then you will be thrown out and we will no longer speak to you. You can come to the meetings but you will be avoided and can’t participate!”
Now, this guy had been the very one who had given me Bible studies for approx. a year and had never mentioned that salient fact once. So hearing him revealing it only after I jumped in, came across as malicious. In hindsight, I should have simply told them that baptism was null because I had been deprived of making an informed decision. But because I had gotten baptized to do God’s will and not theirs, I persisted in this organization which gradually became so intimidating in its constant supervisory ways that it made my life a living hell.
But back to the interpersonal nature of such deceptions or mirages. One such mirage had been my female cousin whom I considered a saint but turned out to be a devil. It also happened to a girl named Norma who fell in love with me thinking that I was a fearless, hoodlum. Here is how it happened.
First time I saw this Venus personified named Norma, was at a party thrown by this gang called the Black Diamonds at another Newark New Jersey Housing Projects several miles away. I had just arrived and was sitting in the living room with everyone else, music playing, people dancing, when in she walked with her gang-leader boyfriend. Just one quick glance convinced me that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. A veritable doll. In fact, she was the only one with the potential of breaking the spell that my female cousin had over me. At that moment, I felt that would forever remain beyond my reach. But as fate would have it, she didn't.
You see, that night, an altercation took place outside involving one of the gang members. The people involved had taken refuge behind the counter at a local grocery store, and we all left the party behind to take care of the matter. I being intoxicated, stupidly demonstrated fearlessness of getting arrested or getting physically injured. She was standing right next to me, with her gang-leader boyfriend trying to find a peaceful solution when it happened, and she was very impressed as I later found out.
Not that I actually was a hoodlum, mind you. In fact, I was studying Dental Tech at the time at the Metropolitan School of Mechanical Dentistry for five hours a day five days a week. My parents were dishing out a good sum of money for that in hopes of preparing me for a successful life. However, partially unknown to them, my seventeen-year-old mind wasn’t into it as much as it was in getting a reputation as a tough guy away from the area where I grew up. I had learned that such reputations could be acquired with minimum risk by small acts of bravado.
So I was striving for it far from home in order to impress this beauty. Well, Bingo! I succeeded. She broke up with her boyfriend for some reason unrelated to me, and wound up looking for me in my neighborhood. Seeing that she admired hoodlums so much, I formed my own gang in order to impress even her further. Soon, she began boasting that all the gang leaders chose her. The problem was that I was not the mindless, violence prone, bloodthirsty, hoodlum she imagined me to be. It was a mask and she had fallen in love with a mirage.
All went well for a few months and I was on top of the world. Took her home to my parents, was praised for my good taste. Became the envy of others as I paraded her around the hood.
But then it happened. Her best friend, who had always accompanied us, became involved with this enemy of mine whom I forgave for the sake of good relations. He in turn revealed that I wasn’t whom she thought I was-the terror of the neighborhood.
Once she found that out-gone was the illusion, gone was the docile, girly-girly behavior. What I suddenly had beside me was an offended demon who wanted revenge. Insults began to be hurled and she tried to expose me to getting beaten up by her former boyfriend’s gang. Escaped by the skin of my teeth. That was the end of it. The former flimsy image was gone never to be regained and with it a physically beautiful girl.
That is something which I learned early on-never to put on a façade because when that façade is discovered, all hell might break loose. Yet I also found that the temptation of bluffing our way through remains a very strong alternative and not easy to resist despite the negative consequences.
Memory 23: Car Accident Court Case Karma!
Driving a car brings great responsibilities to both ourselves and others who assume that we know what we are doing and that we have been granted a license because at the very least we are not insane. Unfortunately, such expectations don’t always jive with reality since there seem to be some drivers who either don’t really know what they are doing, or else have some kind of emotional condition which prevents them from driving a car properly. This is about one of those whom I encountered. Here is how it happened:
I was driving peacefully along at the recommended 35 MPH with a long line of cars to my left that were waiting for the green light to permit them to make a left turn into the intersection. A solid line on the pavement to their right indicated that no right turn was permitted from that location. So I had rightfully assumed that none of those cars were suddenly going to pull out to cut me off. Well, I was wrong. Suddenly I see this car at approx. 100 feet away pulling out to block my way.
Now, I was faced with a dilemma. if I braked, then I would slam into it and injure the people inside. I couldn’t swerve left because of the line of cars. I couldn’t swerve right because of a ditch next to a cemetery. So I decided to accelerate in order get past it. As I went past I assumed that I had been seen and all danger was over. Not so. Suddenly, I feel that car slam against the back door. Then I expected that car to stop. Not so! Instead, it kept pushing me toward the ditch and the cemetery its wheels maliciously spinning as if driven by the driver's rage.
I get out of my car and notice two women standing by the car that had crashed into me. I slowly and calmly walk over to the skinny lady who was the driver and ask:
“Was that necessary?”
“I don’t have to talk to you.” she shoots back, “I decided not to talk to you even while you were walking over so I am not going to talk to you”
The elderly stout one whom I assumed was the ’s mother then decided to jump in:
“I’m just asking a simple question.”
“Well, you started it by coming over here with an attitudes!” she says.
All the time the skinny daughter is waving hellos to friends in other cars that are passing by and they are saying:
“Do you need any help?”
In other words, in their eyes I was to blame for the whole thing simply because it was their friend who was involved. So I decided to wait for the police to arrive in order to prevent myself from getting physically attacked.
The police officer shows up, goes over and has a very friendly private chat with the ladies, writes a report omitting all the details indicating that they had been at fault while glaring over at me as if I were to blame. So there was no use in striving to reason with him since he was obviously biased. In fact, arguing with him might just give him the excuse he was probably hoping for to billy-club or mace me.
But that wasn’t the end of it, it turns out that lady involved was also vehemently opposed to my insurance company or hers providing any type of coverage for my car’s repair and was interfering with the process by lack of cooperation in responding to requests for details. So I was forced to take the whole thing to court. Since she was so adamant in her need to prevent me from getting insurance help, she spent a full 1000 dollars to hire a lawyer just to make sure. Prior to the trial I called her to remind her of the scheduled at court appointment and to ask her why not simply cooperate to avoid all the hassle. She barked back:
“I don’t want my insurance nor yours to help you with the cost of repair and that’s all I have to say! As I said I don’t have to talk to you.” and hung up.
When I got to the courthouse, there she was sitting with her lawyer. Both had this smug look on their faces. You know, the look that one has when one considers another person an illiterate ignoramus incapable of speaking or understanding the language spoken in the country he lives in? That look.
As I took a seat I could see them both sitting with the same attitude glancing over whispering and chuckling. Maybe even believing that their antics were intimidating me. You know, like Burt Lancaster was subjected to intimidation in the film “Valdez is Coming” Wrong strategy!
Unknown to them, I had been taking classes in cogent reasoning and had meticulously examined all the details of the traffic laws relevant to the accident. I had also taken photographs of the accident-scene showing clearly what had been demanded of those on the left of the line she crossed. I had also brought along a traffic law book that clearly explained what those rules were.
As I went over the information in the book and began taking down copious notes, this other fellow whom I assumed was with them, came over, sat beside me, glanced at what I was doing and reported back to them. They just chuckled. I guess they must have assumed I really didn’t understand what I was reading or else if I did, then surely I lacked the ability to express it to the judge.
Finally, after approx. half an hour, we were called to the front , took the oath and sat down. I noticed that the judge kept glancing at the lawyer and his client as they chuckled and glanced at me. Finally I told to present my evidence:
I quoted the book of traffic laws. Showed her the photos where the incident took place. The lady was asked whether the photos were correct. She stupidly admitted they were and that what I described was exactly what had happened. That’s when her lawyer approached the bench with this sudden worried look on his reddish face. Began shaking his head in frustration. Went back to his seat and the chuckling was gone along with the smug look.
But that wasn’t the only thing she did to cut her own throat that seemed weird:
“I ran into him cuz he was tryin to get by me.” was her the only idiotic explanation she provided when questioned as to why she suddenly plowed into me.
“Did you look over your right shoulder to see if any oncoming traffic?” the judge asked.
“No, I had my mom do that, and she said she dint see nuffin.”
“Do you realize it is your responsibility as the driver to look for yourself, and make sure instead of having your mom do it?” the judge continue.
“Yeah but she said she dint see nuffin so I turned!”
The judge shook her head as if unable to fathom how someone could actually be so dumb.
“So you are in court today, it says here, because you don’t want him to get coverage?”
“Dat’s right! I don’!”
“WHYYYY?” the judge said leaning forward in her seat an glaring down at her. Why do you feel that he doesn’t deserve to get any type of coverage?”
“I just don’t”
“Case for the dependent!”
I looked over at the lawyer and his brain-dead client and he seemed to be berating her for getting him into a hopelessly lost case.
“You never told me that you were on the left side of that solid line!” he said to her.
Then he came over to me, shook my hand and said. “Good job!” while the skinny wench and her fat mom stood by looking confused. Later on I went up to her and said:
“You see, you could have saved yourself the lawyer fees by simply cooperating.”
She looked totally abashed. Needless to say, that was one of the most satisfying demonstrations of karma I have ever experienced. YES!
Memory 24: The Dangers of Infatuation: Unrequited love
It’s really wonderful when you feel like you’ve finally found the person with whom you must spend the rest of your life isn’t it? The world suddenly takes on a magic hue and you feel as if you just can't live without that person. No one else seems to fill that position regardless of how beautiful that person might be. The feeling is especially beautiful if the other person reciprocates. Then it indeed can be a veritable paradise on earth. However, if the person doesn’t, then that can really only lead to one thing: FRUSTRATION.
In my case, that’s exactly what happened. It all started when my parents went to visit my Uncle Peyo’s family in New York. I was approx. fourteen then. We had relocated to Newark NJ which is just across the Hudson River from New York and were approx. just an hour’s drive away. In fact, I could see the Empire State Building in the distance through our eleventh-floor projects apartment window. Well, upon returning from that visit, my mother began describing this mysterious creature, my cousin Idalee, as if she were some kind of goddess.
“She walks as if she’s floating on a cloud. Her thick brown hair undulates to her waist!” she said as I listened mesmerized but a bit skeptical since I had never seen such a girl.
“Oh come on mom! You must be exaggerating!” I responded.
“Don’t believe me? OK! Come with us next time we visit and see for yourself!”
So, come next Saturday, off I went with them to visit and see this phenomenon for myself.Big mistake! It was true. She did seem to float as if on a cloud and her hair indeed was as described. Even worse, she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Everything I had ever desired. Perfection personified! I was instantly hooked and went home deliriously infatuated.
Even worse, she seemed to genuinely like me. At least, that’s what I understood by her flirting smiles and attentions she was giving me. For example, making a big fuss with her sister concerning my photographs. After all, why else would she do that unless she liked me? It was clear to me that she did and since she did, that meant that I had finally found the girl of my dreams. Heh! Heh!
Unfortunately for me, despite all her flirting and egging me on, she felt absolutely nothing. If she did, that was soon nullified by her mother. You see, unbeknown to me, her mom who had personal vendetta against my mother and so was fanatically seeking revenge by taking it out on me. Of course I was oblivious to all that. All I saw in front of me was my destiny, my dream girl whom I had to make my own.
On it went for years. Her flirting always provided that certain doubt that she really did like me. Her refusal to be kissed on the lips and only allowed an embrace meant nothing, That there had to be a reason for it, but that reason could never be that she didn’t love me. So in my delusion, I created this fantasy relationship in which sooner or later I would prevail because our mutual love would overcome all obstacles. Such was the strength of my devotion that at one point I almost blacked out. I could just barely breathe while thinking about her.
When she became ill with asthma, and I would insist that we go visit her in freezing weather at the hospital that was a considerable distance away in what seemed to be the woods. Once there the reception was indifference. But of course I attributed it to her illness. We exchanged letters, and she never said anything to reinforce my infatuation. But that didn’t deter me! No siree Bob. In my head she loved me but just wasn’t an expressive person.
Not that I wasn’t dating other girls. Sure I was. Italian girls, Irish girls, German girls, Latinas, some of which were excellent marriage prospects as I was approaching adulthood. Some were decent girls who were not flirts. Girls who would never even consider callously flirting for the sake of feeding their egos at the cost of another person’s sincere feelings. But none of them could seem to dislodge Idalee from that special elevated pedestal on which I had stupidly placed her to be adored.
In comparison, they they all seemed common. None had that charm which had overwhelmed my senses. That beauty that seemed always there to be taken but always beyond reach. In short, I was hopelessly infatuated with a person who really didn’t give a damn about me and couldn’t have cared less whether I died or not. In fact, she finally verified exactly how she felt by cooperating with her brothers in a scheme to have me thrown out of an apartment window onto the pavement far below. But even then my infatuation was such that I somehow managed to exonerate her.
To make a long story short, I wasted precious years of my life chasing what was a veritable will-o'-the-wisp. Rejecting other girls who were genuinely in love with me and who could have made me happy had I but felt the same for them. But it wasn’t to be. Even worse, I almost got killed or perhaps paralyzed in the process. Advice? Never love someone who doesn’t reciprocate in the same way. If the person doesn’t respond in the same way, it is because he or she doesn't feel the same way you do. So you will be wasting precious time in insisting.
True, it isn’t an easy thing to set aside such strong feelings. In fact, it might be one of the hardest things that you’ll ever be required to do. But it is the smart thing to do. That way you will avoid being a play thing for an egoist who uses you as a means to elevate her or his own ego.
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Memory 25: Hernia Repair
Hernia repair! Sounds simple doesn’t it? True, operation of an inguinal hernia is considered a rather simple procedure in comparison to heart or brain surgery. Something akin to having the tonsils removed. But such an opinion can be very deceiving for the patient planning on having one done. True, it might indeed be a simple procedure but the horrendous agony involved more than makes up for that.
I found that out via very bitter experience. You see, I had gone to a doctor and suggested that I wanted the both hernias done simultaneously in order to get it over with. He had clearly told me:
“Sure, it gets things done quickly. But it’s double the agony. So I don’t recommended it and won’t do it,”
Well, I plowed ahead anyway imagining that he was exaggerating until I finally found a doctor who described the pain involved as being just a little sore.
“Yes, the area will be sore after the procedure!” he had smilingly said.
Now that description was more to my liking. After all, if soreness was all that was involved and I could get rid of the two problems at once, then why not? So I scheduled myself to have it done, was in the hospital bed but chickened out at the last moment and without warning or informing the staff there, I just dressed and walked out. Later, realizing that I had been hasty, I made the mistake of rescheduling with the same now frustrated doctor whom I had left without any warning
You see, at that time I was under the naïve impression that medical doctors, along with all other high-brows, were above feeling angry at a mere patient and seeking revenge. So I trustingly placed myself in his care again and rescheduled.
I had chosen another hospital because it had a religious name and I saw many nuns shuffling around with placid smiles on their faces. So I figured that nothing horrible could happen to me there. They also seemed far more attentive than the staff of the previous one had been. The night prior to the operation in comes the doctor. I tell him that the hospital seems far more caring than the previous one and he says:
“They SEEM to be.”
That caused me to wonder why he would say that. Also, this time around the doctor had told the staff to keep an eye on me in case I tried to leave the night prior to the procedure. Later that evening, any time the staff would see me in the hallway they would ask:
“Where are you going?” an intercept me and guide me back to my room.
That also didn’t seem right since it made me feel like some kind of a prisoner. Shortly after I was shaved , given an enema, and was all set to have the double procedure done in the morning.
Then, come morning, they placed me on a gurney and rolled me to the small operating room. Once there they placed me on this operating table, and strapped my arms as if in a crucification position. At that point my nose started to itch and I tried to reach over but couldn’t scratch.The assistant nurse told me that was too late for scratching. Then the doctor walked in dressed in a green gown, saw me and made a weird face as if he had seen something strange. Immediately the intravenous was used and I went under.
Next moment I woke up on the bed back at the hospital room. I marveled how time could fly by so unnoticed. Then I realize that prior to being born we all had been un existing for billions of years and yet have no notion of mind-boggling amount of time that had elapsed. Then I noticed bandages over the pubic areas where hernias had been and the lack of pain. Of course that was very reassuring and I recalled that the doc had told me it was just some soreness. However, as the anesthesia gradually wore off, the horrible throbbing began and the pain killers were seemingly ineffective and I began to fear taking a look at what he had done.
My fears were confirmed when they took off the bandages. This SOB had made these two long incisions almost cutting across my whole pubic area. But worst of all, he had sutured me up with what appeared to be thick, black plastic guitar strings instead of thread. Not the narrower first ot second strings, but what appeared to be a bass-string gauge. the underwear pressed on these wicket looking sutures that looked like thick fishing string as well and I was forced to lower part of it away to prevent irritation.
Then two young nurses came in asking about urination. I told then I was OK and that efforts at the bedpan produced nothing. But they insisted that I had to try and forced me to drag myself in agony from that high bed, walk to the room’s rest room and try as they stood by watching. My efforts felt as if the red-hot edges of two knives had been placed on my skin. As I grimaced in pain, the nurses began to mock me making faces. Then noticing that no urine was being expelled, they began demanding that I strain harder against the sutures. I feared that the sutures would go flying but they assured me they would not. That increased the agony double fold and it only subsided when I was finally allowed to shuffle back over to the bed and lie on my back.
I wondered if the the doctor, who seemed to have disappeared for all that time, could give me something to remove the agony. Finally, I on my third day, I caught sight of him in the hallway conversing with another physician. I slowly shuffled over to ask him. He saw me and very purposefully turned his back on me. I stood next to him and he ignored me. When I described my discomfort he began to yell and pointing at my pubic area saying:.
“I cut you here and I cut you there. But I did not cut you there!”
All I could do was shuffle back to my bed in agony since I definitely wasn’t in any condition to be arguing. Especially since he looked on the verge of throwing a punch.
Later, that night, after noticing my extreme difficulties, the nurses informed me that my doctor was the only one there whose patients went through extreme agony because he refused to let them take a hot shower. All other doctors allowed their patients to take a hot shower immediately after surgery and were out of the hospital in approx. two days. But this SOB’s patient agonized for a week or longer. In fact, they suggested it to him in my presence hand he grunted back:
“No! No hot shower!”
It was then I realized the very serious mistake I had made. Not only had I infuriated a doctor who was had been about to legally cut me, but I had infuriated a doctor who enjoyed inflicting unnecessary pain. Then when I was discharged he purposefully failed to tell me of the importance of having loose bowel movement in order to prevent undoing the surgery via straining.
Once I had recuperated, I visited his office and confronted him defiantly on his savage behavior expecting him to shout as he had done before but he just sat there meekly avoiding eye-contact and without responding, A few months later his son was killed in a traffic accident.
Memory 26: Male Courtship Ritual gone Awry
I was recently watching a documentary about all the elaborate antics that the frantic male animals go through in order to attract the attention of the usually indifferent female. How the rhino has to run approx. forty-five miles chasing the female in order to prove he is fit. How some birds must build nests decorated with blue items as the female inspects each one before accepting the winner as her mate.
How male mountain goats must ram their heads together risking injury and death just to get the privilege of mating while the females indifferently graze nearby. It suddenly dawned on me that we human males aren't that different and that the female fits right in with the aloof attitude that other female, non-human animals display.
After all, it is quite obvious that healthy heterosexual males have this intense, almost instinctive need to impress the female of the human species by whatever means possible. It makes us act foolish sometimes. We might attempt to make silly jokes just to get her to smile or better yet, to laugh. Might want to prove that we are the best among the other males that are present by some athletic feat that the other fellow can’t repeat. Or impress by winning some debate or other contest. It doesn’t really make too much of a difference, that the attractive female is impressed is all that matters..
Unfortunately for the heterosexual male of the human species, such frantic antics can lead to physical danger. A bully might be challenged and there go the teeth. A climb might be attempted and broken bones, or worse yet, life. The possibilities for a disaster are limitless as are the human females who inspire us into them.
Which brings me to my camping trip to North Lake NY. You see, as a burgeoning adolescent hetero male, I was no different. I dreamed deliriously of someday having one of those feminine beauties all to myself. Drooled at their delicate, voluptuous thighs and followed their curves as they passed by. I envied those who held their hands or even more-those who actually were far more intimate. Imagined that wondrous day when I too would share that unbelievable privilege. So what occurred at the North Lake camping Site that summer at age twelve was perhaps inevitable.
You see, we had gone fishing and noticed a beach nearby. As we rowed the boat nearer to get a better look, we also noticed that there were young females in bikinis soaking up the sun and delicately frolicking in the water. So back at the campsite my cousin George and I hurriedly donned our swimming trunks and like birds following a homing beacon, headed in that direction.
Only one girl was there when we arrived, a girl in a bikini and she immediately caught our eye. She wore sunglasses and her smooth white, skin gleamed with suntan lotion. We both stared as if we had encountered a goddess.
Unfortunately, she seemed completely oblivious to our presence. As if we totally didn’t exist or else if we did, we were of very little consequence in her personal universe. Actually, such indifference should have mattered more to my cousin George since he was three years older than me and she was within his age-range.
But for some reason, it irked me, a thirteen-year old the most. I mean, I just had to impress her in some way. The question was how. Obviously my musculature, or at least the musculature I imagined I had at that age, didn't impress her. With George it was understandable, I assumed. He was a veritable skeleton. But for me? The future Lou Ferrigno? For me I expected at least a glance. But how was the question. The solution soon revealed itself as if in answer to a prayer.
We were about to walk humbly past her when I noticed an embankment leading to some ink-black water nearby. The perfect opportunity to impress this beauty.
“Say George, why don’t we take a swim there?” I pointed to the ominous-looking surface.
“Nahh!” he said, “I rather swim over there with everyone else.”
“I’m going to do it. I’m going to swim across it and come back. You wait here!” I said loud enough for her to hear me just to make sure she would be looking.
“You sure Nelson? That water looks pretty deep!”
“No problem!” I said even louder. Then I deftly I removed my sandals, flipped them confidently aside and began strutting toward this curious two-foot-high chain-linked fenced which I believed was there for decorative purposes. After all, why would it be so ridiculously low if it wasn’t? Hopped over it confidently, then rooster-strutted toward the embankment’s edge.
For a few moments I had serious doubts. The water was looking increasingly hostile, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to swim directly above all that mysterious darkness. I began to wonder why the water was so black there while the rest of the lake appeared a placid blue. \
The question seemed to assume more importance the nearer I got. I felt like turning back, but if I did, then what would the girl think? So despite my growing concern, I forced myself on. Then it happened. As I took one step on the embankment my footing gave way and I momentarily became airborne. Then after landing flat on my back with a bone-rattling thud, I began sliding rapidly toward the black water below.
To me it seemed as if the water had been conscious of my approach, was ravenously hungry, wanted to swallow me, couldn’t wait, and had tripped me. Brief images of the film “Creature From the Black” Lagoon flitted though my adolescent brain and I panicked. To my horror my legs were suddenly submerged in that inky blackness and I couldn’t see my feet.
Why couldn’t I see my feet if they were just a few feet away? Where were my feet? What kind of freakish water was this anyhow? I began frantically thrashing my legs to get some traction and get myself up to higher ground. But try as I might, there seemed to be some sort of slime that made traction almost impossible.
So I flipped myself over on my belly so that I could use my arms to better advantage. I had great confidence in my weight-lifting arms. But the embankment stones were covered with some kind of slimy organic material. Organic? Slimy? Images I’d seen in the film The Blob, where this organic thing that resembled some kind of giant slimy amoeba who engulfed its victims whole and slowly digested them, came to my mind.
Once that particularly poignant image hit me, all bets and all attempts at elegant dignity under duress were off. The girl was watching? To hell with the girl! She’d think me incompetent? Well, that was better than falling into the waiting maw of whatever was lurking just a few feet away in that water. I really felt like shouting for help, but the need to maintain some shred of dignity in the female’s presence prevented it. Instead I began furiously thrashing about like a fish out of water, hoping that God would be merciful enough to grant me a grip on one of those rocks.
I’d go up a few feet via sheer desperate willpower, but then I’d slide back down into the water again as if pulled by some supernatural magnet. In all honesty, had I thought that using my front teeth would have helped at that moment, then I would have employed them by latching on to some twig or other vegetation in order to gain more leverage. But the rocks were bare and using my teeth would have only served to grind them down. The furious struggle continued for what to me seemed an agonizing eternity when finally, one of my hands caught hold of an un-slimed rock to my far right and I was able to pull myself up.
At that point, of course, cousin George appeared above me on some boulder and offered his hand with a slight grin on his Jerry Lewis look-alike face. Impression I got was that he’d been enjoying the whole thing. That suspicion was confirmed when after a dramatic silence, he burst out laughing.
Then to add insult to injury, he began imitating my struggle while the female in the bikini, who had been watching the whole disaster, struggled not to laugh as well. He rolled on the sand pounding it with his fists as he did so while guffawing. Then, as I turn to look back, I noticed a sign which read: Slippery Rocks! No Swimming Allowed!” and wondered how the hell I could have been so blind as not to have seen it. But, yep. I had caught the female’s attention alright. But not quite in the way I had planned.
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Wonder what ever happened to the Mummy?
By
Radrook
The summer of 1963 was going as usual. As young teens, we were once again hanging out at Newark New Jersey's Branchbrook Park entrance area which was interspersed with benches, see-saws, swings and sandlots. Most of us lived in the now demolished Columbus Homes projects. But the Park that resembled an oasis of nature within the surrounding asphalt buildings and machinery, drew kids from other areas of the city to converge there.
Well, that summer, there was the usual bantering and boastings. The petting on park benches with girl-friends. The joking, the drinking of beer and wine. In short, an irresponsible squandering of precious time because time then seemed interminable and social success was deemed reserved for those luckier others of privileged pedigree..
But then, suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the kid that we eventually tagged as the Mummy appeared in our Newark New Jersey neighborhood out of seemingly nowhere. The Mummy, as we referred to him among ourselves, was this short, slim, extremely ugly Afro-Puerto Rican kid with a cratered face like the moon's, who always moved in a weak, almost-about-to topple-over fashion.
All we ever managed to find out about him was based on what he told us. That he had been rejected by his mother and two sisters, and had nowhere to stay and no means of sustenance. So we allowed him to stay at our clubhouse located in the basement of a inner-city row-house building owned by one of our club-member's mom. Unfortunately, it was without her permission, and that would eventually prove problematic.
We also attempted to help as best we could by inviting him to have dinner at our homes with our parents' permission. I described his dire situation to my mom, and she agreed and received him hospitably. He was served a good dinner of pork chops, mashed potatoes and vegetables. He ate it with a slow dignity that surprised me. You see, I imagined him on the verge of starvation and so I expected him to dive into the meal ravenously. But instead, there he sat with almost regal dignity, calmly and slowly consuming the meal. Then, with the same dignity, he thanked her effusively, and then headed back to his basement hideout.
For a while, I honestly thought my mom had not noticed his unusual appearance since she had seemed totally unaffected by it and had remained enigmatically silent after he left. I honestly wondered why. However, after approx. half-an hour, she suddenly asked me how I had managed to find such an unusually hideous kid, as if I had been searching for one in order to shock her. What was I supposed to say? She also asked why he was not availing himself of public agencies that are available to assist citizens in distress. I really had no answer to that question. I thanked her and promised to relay the information to him. He said he had tried but had been rejected for lack of identification documents such as social security card and birth-certificate.
Strange that he didn't persist. Perhaps it was just the lack of willpower to try. Sometimes, such extremely humiliating and bitter life-events tend to have that demoralizing effect on the victim and they prefer to up his their hands and simply give up. I guess only he and God knew.
No, of course the kid didn’t like to be either considered, or to be called the Mummy. After all, who in his right mind would? In fact, he would vociferously threaten to stab and kill anyone who did. Curiously, he would pursue the person who had dared to ignore his warning exactly like the mummy in those Karloff films did, at calm, and slow walking pace while evading any projectiles, such as bottles and rocks hurled his way.
I never did see him overtake his intended victim. However, they didn't stick around or come back to the park either. So it was something that was always whispered behind his back and with great caution lest he appear out of seemingly nowhere from the twilight park shadows with murderous intentions.
Apart from the moments when he was threatening to attack anyone making fun of him, he usually remained very broodingly silent. Just as those mummies were in those old-time films starring Boris Karloff. But when he did decide to converse, it was always about how very intensely he hated his mother and sisters who had callously abandoned him. Claimed he would not defend them if he were to see them being physically attacked, and that he would join the attackers instead. We told him he must be joking, but he swore that he genuinely felt that way.
He Never told us exactly what they had done for him to feel that way Of course, every story does have its two sides, but we, preferred to take his family's guilt and his innocence for granted and didn't pursue the matter. Her in turn would go back into his brooding silent mode.
Well, for a while all went smoothly. The place that he was sleeping in was little more than a closet. But it was sufficient and he didn't complain. Seemed quite contented actually. Unfortunately, his hideout at our basement-club meeting-place, was soon discovered, and he was forced to vacate. Which for him meant that he was once more homeless.
I really don't know where he went from there. The last time I heard of him, after I had asked, he was described as sniffing model cement deposited in a bag, after drinking alcohol, and then walking into the Newark New Jersey's Branchbrook Park Lake as if he wanted to drown himself.
It's a real pity that a human being should reach such a state of desperation after being on Earth for such a very short time. After all, he was just a kid. Wonder what ever became of him, and what his real name was. We never even asked him, and he never told