Our Song

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Escucheme Baby, ’cause this is how it goes:

This is me.

A big-mouthed, little-bodied Latina with no tits, but that doesn’t stop me from buying the big-girl bras at Macy’s. You know, the ones with the lace and frills that itch, but look sexy during a strip tease-like in the movies or over at Ricky’s Bar on Topless Tuesdays. I’m the girl in the first pew at Saint Joseph’s with my eyes shut tight and my legs crossed, praying hard for a man to come and make me into something. And when Mami asks what I prayed to the Holy Mother for, I say brains and eat the gloss off my lips before she notices. My cousin, Vicki, teaches me how to form my small hands into fists to fight off the bigger girls and how to kiss with tongue in the same sitting. I practice on my dolls. I’m ready to be a woman before I’m done being a girl.

This is you.

A small-shouldered punk with an even bigger mouth who shadows your older brother Darnell whenever you get the chance. You pout when he leaves you home during his drug runs. Your grandma holds you close and prays into your black, melon-shaped head that you won’t turn out like Darnell. She only turns her back on him after he’s given her some money to buy the groceries used to fatten you up. ‘Cause you’re skin and bones and Mama G. knows the streets are too hard for a small pup like you with an ego too big to stay out of trouble. And you do get into trouble. You have a temper, boy, like no other. Your muscles are forced to grow as you get into fight after fight. You grow bitter ’cause you know if you don’t learn to win, one day they’ll kill you.

And then Darnell is stabbed by one of his greedy connects, looking for payment. They get him in just the spot where his spine is fucked up so he can’t walk no more. Can’t walk, can’t sell, can’t give Mama G. his drug money. Back to welfare and back to listening to Mama G. cry through the thin walls. And then Darnell has a bullet in his head one morning. He bleeds out by his own hand as the sun peaks over the South Bronx, illuminating all the graffiti on the brick walls and making people think maybe it’s not so ugly after all. You bury your future along with Darnell. You get mean right in time to meet me.

This is us coming together.

I’m in the schoolyard dreaming about babies and a husband and you like the way my shoulders are hunched in lonely desperation. Maybe you see something we have in common. You sit beside me and call me Ma. I don’t think to be cute and make you learn my name. Instead I practice my sexy eyes on you and curse myself for not sneaking some eyeliner that morning.

I don’t play hard to get. You have me on my back before our first month together. I’m the first girl your act has worked on. You make a note to forget the black chicas that give you attitude and make you work for their attention. Besides, you like my mass of curly brown hair. You beg me not to grease it flat to my head into a ponytail. I beg you to keep your fingers entangled in the mess. I call you Boo. You call me whatever you want.

This is us being young and stupid.

I keep you a secret ’cause Mami wouldn’t approve of your nappy head and the boys you hang with. You brag to everybody ’bout me ’cause you think you’ve proved something to yourself-to everyone that’s put you down. I call this love ’cause when you look in my direction you see me. You call this love ’cause I haven’t betrayed you yet. I whisper te amo every time I get close to your ear. You say it only when we make love ’cause the words scare you. No matter what language, it means the same promises you fear you can’t keep.

This is us a little older and still stupid.

We make it through high school. Together-that’s what’s important-we’re still together. You messed with that bitch Melena but I laid her out flat and gave it to you good. I made you apologize and it felt nice-me fooling myself, thinking I had some power. We both know, Papi, that I’m stuck to you like nobody’s business. I’ll give you chance after chance. You know I’m down for the ride so you say marriage ’cause making a girl an honest woman is what a man does. And you like the idea of taking care of me, even though you can barely afford dinner at that fancy place down the street. You know, the one with real candles on the tables and shit like lobster on the menu.

I say yes ’cause I’m dying to be something other than some girl on the corner with a lolli hanging out her mouth and a cheap manicure. Wifey-mama-the Mrs.-they all sound beautiful coming out your mouth and pouring into my thick head. You got a job at the little bodega on the corner of your block and I’m learning hair so we’re set, right? Not so much according to Mami and Mama G. Mami shakes her head and says no hija of hers will ruin her life on some black boy. I know what she wants to call you but she’s a good Catholic woman and won’t swear on Sunday mornings. But wait until later that night and she will call you every name in the book for stealing her daughter’s heart. ‘Cause Jesus plugs his ears by nightfall, eh Mami? Mama G. says my hips aren’t big enough for healthy babies and what’s wrong with a good, solid, black girl? They don’t cling to their mothers and those Hispanics cheat on their men. Everybody knows they’re too hot-blooded to stay faithful.

But we don’t listen ’cause we’re too committed to playing house. So you buy me a ring with a stone so small Mami pokes fun when I show her. I ask Marie to make me a dress like out of those magazines. I tear out the pages I like and shove them at her with as much trust as $250 down can promise. I get my girls together and you get your boys together and we do it. We actually do it, Baby! And I cry ’cause you remember your vows without looking at the paper, and you try not to cry as you recite them and never look away from my eyes. We have a barbeque in Lil’ Mickey’s back lot and you remember how Gigi got so drunk her face fell in her slice of cake? We smile so much in one day, all that hope making our faces hurt.

This is reality hitting us.

You hate your boss, Big Jay, and I burn hair. All I can do is braid and twist and that’s not enough for any salon to give me clients. They put me on phones, which is pointless since every dresser has a cell, and they let me sweep up hair and wash towels. I make a third of the money and I’m straight-up bored. You won’t take shit from nobody so you quit and keep quitting. Either that or you get fired. In the winter our crappy apartment won’t keep the heat in, and in the summer it’s got us suffocating. We never pay our rent on time, and I’m constantly asking Mami for money she doesn’t have. I can’t even afford to get my nails done, and your kicks never look fresh anymore. We live off arroz and frijoles and Hot Pockets. You want to help out Mama G. more, but you can’t even afford to keep our lights on.

One night you slam your fist into the wall, leaving a hole that we also can’t afford to fix, say you’re fed up, and leave. You’re gone all night and don’t come back until late the next afternoon. You hand me a wad of cash and order me to buy real food. You won’t look at me as you flop on the bed and bury your face in the pillows. When I nudge you, you pretend that you’re already asleep. I don’t say what I’m thinking ’cause for the first time, I’m truly scared for us. I buy groceries and pay rent and pay back Mami with interest and get my nails and hair done. I keep buying and paying with the money you bring in from your nightly runs. I’m always looking over my shoulder, waiting for it all to be taken away ’cause I know how you’re making this money, even though we never talk ’bout it. Everybody in the ‘hood knows this game and it never ends good.

This is us when we love.

You’re always in the mood when I braid your head. I sit on the bed in my panties with you between my legs. I have to keep telling you to sit still as you turn your head to kiss my thighs. You sigh as I slide the hair grease over your scalp, scratching lightly with my nails. Your hands wander up and down my legs by the time I start the first row. I don’t get far before you’re on top of me and…Ay dios mio! The way you make me moan! You always hit all the right spots and then some. You’ve never had a problem in this department. After, we examine your back to see the marks I’ve left from digging my nails into your skin.

You joke sometimes that I stay with you just ’cause of your skills in the bedroom, and I know you half believe this. But it’s not true. I like you best when you offer to dry the dishes just so you can stand next to me as I wash them. I like you best when you pull me over to sit on your lap while we’re chillin’ on the front stoop. I like you best in the shower when you wash my hair and you’re all gentle ’bout it. I like you best when we’re sharing some joke and bust out laughing every time we glance at each other. That’s when we’re really loving.

This is us that first time.

I always know when you’re gonna start ’cause you come in with that hard look in your eyes and address me as the ungrateful ‘Rican bitch. And I can’t keep quiet, ’cause I got in my head that I deserve better than your ugly moods. So I give it right back to you, my acrylic fingernail waving in front of your face ’cause I know how much you hate it. This is how we start and it always gets worse. Sometimes we get so hot that we end up in bed or the shower or on the kitchen counter. Or, sometimes we get so hot I run to Mami’s and you gotta get through her just so you can apologize to me.

But this time, you accuse me for the ten-thousandth time of whoring myself around with your boys, and for once, I suggest that maybe I am. I say I gave my goodies to Jerome last night. I say it just to mix things up ’cause this argument is getting tired. You already got me backed against the wall, and I’m wondering if you’re ever gonna start kissing on me when you grab a chunk of my hair and slam my head against the wall. The thud is so loud inside my head I worry I might go deaf. The world stops as I crumple to the floor and try to clear my head. You got me seeing stars, Papi! When I don’t get off the floor, your anger is gone and you’re sorry. I know you’re sorry ’cause you say it over and over as you cradle my crouched body. I won’t take my hands from my face ’cause I don’t want to look at you. I don’t look at you for a whole week, while you cook dinner and rub my feet and act like my whipping boy. After, when you’re done feeling guilty and everything’s back to normal, I still try not to stare at you too hard, ’cause I’m ashamed that I saw something in you once that was never there.

This is us when we’re good.

You let me sing at the top of my lungs and don’t cover your ears even though we both know I sound like a dying animal. When they play salsa or reggaeton on the radio I dance around our tiny kitchen as I cook or clean and you try too, not minding if I laugh at your stiff hip action. If guys look my way in the street you put your arm around me and tell them what’s up. You invite your boys over, I invite my girls over, and we play dominoes. Sometimes we play craps and you let me blow on the dice for good luck.

This is us when we’re not so good.

In the night you push me away if I reach for you when I have bad dreams. You won’t go visit Mami when she invites us over for Sunday dinners of carne asada and pigeon peas with rice. Mama G. will talk about my weight or my tight clothes or my potty mouth and you won’t say a damn thing in my defense. You won’t let me leave the apartment without changing if you think I’m dressed too sexy.

This is us when we fight.

Me with my words. I spit them out like daggers piercing all your weak spots. I tell you I hate you. I tell you I would spit on your grave. I tell you you’re no good. I pinch my fingers together to show how small I think your pija is and say you’re lousy in bed. I get in your face and make you flinch with my curses. But you know what I’m saying. Everyone on the block knows how to curse in Spanish. I try to make you feel like nothing, hoping all along that if I can break you down, you can build yourself up into the man we both wish you were.

But that never happens ’cause after that first time you fight me with the flats of your palms and your clenched fists like a crica. I never learn to keep my mouth shut. If I would only learn then you wouldn’t have to school me with bruises and a busted lip. You don’t want to be reminded of what you are-of what you’re not. So you shut me up the only way you know how. And I let you. I let you ’cause you’re all soft spots really. You just act like steel when you’re pounding my face in.

We scream and we scream louder. Our voices grow hoarse and our skin tight across our faces as the veins pop out from our foreheads. Sometimes we throw things just to hear the crash. Just to feel it vibrate off our hearts. If the neighbors can’t hear how hard we fight then they could never know how hard we love.

This is me fighting to stay.

My girls Tina and Mercedes and Angie beg me to leave your triflin’ ass when they see the marks cover-up can’t hide. I laugh and lie, telling them I give it right back to you just as good every time. Debe ver la cara! I laugh too loud and too long. And I call this sacrifice ’cause nobody could possibly understand this love. Sometimes I don’t even understand it, but if I can give our mistakes a name then it’s okay.

This is me going oh shit oh shit oh shit.

I take $25 out of clubbing money to get the test that swears it’s accurate in the commercials. And the damn thing is accurate six times over. We aren’t going anywhere this weekend with $150 spent and me crying myself dumb over the toilet. Besides, what’s clubbing if I can’t get drunk enough to dismiss you giving every trick smoky eyes from across the room?

This is you saying all the wrong things when I give you the news.

No woman wants to hear we can get rid of it or your moms will raise it if you can’t or it could be worse. And I know. I just know this baby will be the end of us. A little boy can’t raise a baby and I will give you hell for it. I will give you hell for not stepping up just like my daddy couldn’t step up ’cause there are some hurts even us strong Latinas can’t get over.

This is me pregnant and you being a dipshit.

You don’t hit me, not once in nine months. As a matter of fact, you won’t touch me at all. When I start to really show, you start kissing me on my forehead, just like you do Mama G. I’m huge and swollen and sweaty and ugly and you don’t want none of this. I know you’re fucking that crack ho of yours, Aisha. You come home smelling like strung-out crica and have to shower right away if you plan on sleeping next to me. She’ll probably only touch you and your stank-ass pija when she’s fucked up good on the shit you sell her.

I want to hate you, but you’re just too cute when you’re surprising me with new stuff for the baby or talking ’bout moving to a bigger place. You even make Jeanie throw me a shower ’cause her place has an a.c. unit, even though she has a beef with me from way back. Besides, once I get my figure back, I will kick Aisha’s skinny ass, and you’ll be begging to get me alone again.

This is our son.

I want him out of me out of me out of me-I’m going to die. I’m sure I’m dying despite Mami screaming at me to breathe and you all bug-eyed staring down into my junk. And then he’s here. They give him to me all new and soft and I don’t even mind the gook all over him ’cause he’s mine and he’s here. You’re crying in the corner with the digital, but nobody’s paying any attention ’cause right now it’s all about this baby boy we created. Mama G. can’t believe how light his complexion is and Mami keeps saying he’s perfecto.

I want this moment to keep being good so I call you over to hold our son, but we have to force you. You’re scared shitless that you’ll break him. You got it in your head that the streets have crippled you in a way that your arms can’t bend to hold a life so small and important. As I hand over our son, I try to reassure you with my trust that your hands were made for more than splitting heads and packaging rocks. When he opens his eyes to squint at his daddy, you cry harder and suggest Darnell, but mijo will not be named for a should-have-been. I’m thinking Noah, ’cause I always liked that Bible story best-how he could just gather up everything on that ark and hold it safe and close. He just floated along for a while, with the whole world within reach.

This is me dreaming.

I’m back in church-somewhere I never thought I’d be-praying to the Holy Mother to make me a good mom. I’m waiting for some light to hit me and then I’ll know what to do with this tiny thing that fell into our lives. I’m constantly over at Mami’s, dumping Noah into her arms with a scared shrug. She shakes her head at me then makes him stop crying, or brings down his fever, or gets him to eat, burp, sleep or whatever. It will come to me, she says. Latinas were made to be mothers.  She hands Noah back with her knowing look that always makes me feel guilty. And where is the good-for-nothing esposo? Shouldn’t he be losing his head too? But I know fatherhood will come to you. Even though you don’t like to hold him or feed him or change him or play with him, I know it will come to you. It must. I’m praying to the Holy Mother ’bout it and hopefully she won’t let me down.

This is me waking up.

I’m not the world’s greatest mom and you’re just the asshole who knocked me up. Noah falls out of his high chair and his forehead catches the edge of the table on the way down. I’m rushing and don’t put him in right. It’s my fault. I’m tired from staying up all night with him ’cause of his diarrhea and I still have to get dressed and do my hair and get him over to Mama G.’s before work. I have all of these thoughts racing through my mind but they leave so quick as I watch him land on the tiled floor. There is just this ringing quiet when I realize I’m ’bout to lose everything ’cause I couldn’t be bothered to double-check the stupid chair. What worries me the most is he won’t cry. He just looks so confused in my arms and then he throws up. I can already see the welt forming on his perfect little head and I get scared. I mean real scared. I’m thinking brain damage and falling into a coma and-Aaayyyy! If he would just cry!

I rush Noah to the hospital and I cry. I can’t stop crying and when I call, you tell me to man up before you will even let me say how I put our world in danger. You tell me I never used to, and now that Noah is here, I cry myself stupid every single day over breathing that looks too shallow or a button he swallows or a little diaper rash. And I scream at you to get your lousy stank-ass over to Emergency.

I call the whole block before you finally decide to roll up, looking bored and confident like a fool. Noah is fine by now-they drained a little fluid to be on the safe side and his head is looking better. You see him peaceful and safe and so you shrug. You shrug us off and I open my eyes. You can never picture Noah like I picture him-in pain, scared, lost, sad, defeated, broken-because you don’t think about all the dangers and hurts that are always just waiting for him. You see a healthy, happy, sometimes fussy baby. I see my daddy walking out on Mami. I see Darnell six feet under. I see Mama G. without health insurance for her arthritis and crooked back. I see myself counting out drug money to pay rent and buy formula. I see you teaching our son to disobey his mom and disrespect his girl and disregard his future. Baby, I cry every day ’cause I have never loved anything so much that I’m scared straight dumb to fuck it up. At least I can say that. But what about you, eh Papi? Where are your tears?

This is me watching you bury yourself.

I am home alone with Noah when one of your regulars shows up at the door, looking thirsty. I mean, this boy needs a fix so bad he’s got the shakes and he’s showing the whites of his eyes like a crazy. And I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’ve opened the door to this loco and he’s in the same room with my baby boy and Sesame Street on the set. How did these worlds come together? When did I check out long enough for you to go and give a junkie our address?

And he’s not the only one. More show up, at all times of the day, when you’re here and when you’re not. They all have free passes into Noah’s life and you can’t understand this. You can’t understand why I slam the door in their faces and won’t deal for you when you’re out. You can’t understand why I lose it when I wake up from a nap to find you sampling your shit with some junkie bouncing Noah on his knee. You don’t understand why I lock Noah in the bedroom when some crack-whore sees him and starts talking ’bout her own kids, who we know she would sell for a hit.

I keep saying you’re ruining everything. This is not what I want and this is not what I will stand for, I warn you. But you don’t care. Then you start sampling more than you need to. I won’t let you watch Noah high, but I come home from work one day, and there you are, just gone with one of your boys, and Noah’s in the bedroom crying. When I go to him, he’s wet and he’s hot with a fever and I’m screaming I-dunno-what at you and hitting you with my Gucci knockoff. Instead of getting up and screaming right back, maybe even giving me a warning slap, you laugh. Your boy doesn’t get the joke, but you just laugh yourself dumb. I’m gone with my overnight and Noah in his stroller before you’re done laughing-before you realize nothing’s funny anymore.

This is us broken.

I’m already set up at Mami’s when the cops find you at our place. I hear you were doing business out of our home full time. I dunno who ratted you out, but does it matter? I hear they gave you five to ten years. Just think, in five years Noah will be talking in full sentences and running around. He will be able to count and read and he will know his address by heart. I will be fighting to keep him close and stop him from growing and he will be trying to get information ’bout you out of me. I wonder what Mama G. told you and Darnell ’bout your parents and if it made a difference.

This is me choosing not to be that girl anymore.

The Holy Mother finally blessed me with some sense. Or maybe I finally see how trapped you got us-like a track that keeps skipping on the same tired, sad, love song. You call from the state pen begging me to come visit. Suddenly you’re sorry. Suddenly when all your regulars and boys and skanky putas have gone you’re sorry. You say you need me. You say you love me. You say I’m all you got. And I think ’bout how good it feels with my legs wrapped around your hips or how nobody can make me laugh like you or how your eyes shone the first time I called you mi amor. All this thinking ’bout the good times got me hurting for you. But you never mention our son during these phone calls. I ask ’bout bringing Noah by and you go all quiet every damn time. I stop taking your calls when I realize not needing to be with Noah is the same as not needing to be with me.

Sometimes I break down and want to visit you, but I look at Noah and I imagine his soft brown eyes growing dark and hard like yours and I know. I know I will not bring him to see you. And when the time comes I will tell him that he never had a daddy. From the beginning it was always me looking out for him and doing what was best. It will always be that way, won’t it, Papi? You were never meant to be a father. The future I dreamed for us and the things I expected from life were always too big for you.

This is me.

Me and our son. Me and my son. Mi pequeña familia ahora. You can’t get in on this, Baby. I will do something good for us and raise our son not to be like you. I’m saving up, and hopefully one day I’ll move out to Colorado, Arizona, sunny Cali or some shit like that. Someplace where the air is clean and there’s space. Space where people don’t bump into each other and get mean ’cause they can’t breathe or think or be any better than the people they bump into. I’ll miss our ‘hood and Mami and you most of all, but I’m doing it for him. This is how I will make it go. He will grow up to love and respect even the little ‘Rican girls in the schoolyard who are waiting for men to make them into something. He will be a man that can save one of them.

Estas escuchando, Baby? This is how I will make it go.