Life and Times of a Little Gringa
Mama Nona was buried last week.
“Let’s move in with my mom,” said Refugio. “We can save up for a new trailer instead of buying one of the used ones in the Park.”
I was twenty. I’d lived in the country for the first seventeen years of my life; the only Hispanics I’d ever met were the migrants who whistled at us from the back of a flatbed truck while they rumbled down our dirt road. It was less than a year since I’d begun what my cousin refers to as my powder blue marriage, an event which I woke up from the next day realizing I had completely and utterly screwed up my life.
“Sure,” I said. “Will she take us?”
It so happened that his nephew Rigoberto and his fifteen year old bride, Esperanza, had just vacated the second-floor bedroom in search of more freedom in a southside duplex. Rigo was thirty-two and had just come from Mexico after marrying Esperanza in the traditional way: he kidnapped her in the night and then, because they had obviously had carnal knowledge of each other during their night together, were considered married in the eyes of God and her parents.
Since Fugi was the youngest of twelve children, his mother was two years younger than my grandma, and he had brothers and sisters older than my parents.
You may remember that our bangin innercity apartment had a living room so large that we fit three couches and two recliners in there; we had to distribute most of this furniture to friends and relatives the day we moved upstairs at Mama Nona’s.
She lived in a house at the edge of a ravine where gangsters used to hang and where, legend had it, the ghost of a murdered girl whinged around looking for souls to steal. On the other side of the house was an elementary school surrounded by acres of cracked asphalt and a small playset made of iron pipes. I’m guessing Mama Nona’s house had been built in the early 1900s and only new siding kept the house looking decent.
We moved our mattress, TV, and remaining couch off Fugi’s hatchback Mustang and into the front room. Mama Nona’s bedroom was curtained off from the living room. She kept birds in a cage next to the front door, but what with the Chicago drafts and the lack of sunlight next to the dark ravine, we were constantly buying her new canaries. They reminded her of the tropical birds that fluttered in the trees around her farmhouse in Guanajuato.
The second floor bedroom was a low-ceilinged room that, to access, required you to take a sharp staircase turn around an old brick chimney that probably once delivered coal smoke up into the sky. Around the staircase was a small balcony with half-windows, but this balcony was always so full of furniture and the debris of other households that even in the summer when I was desperate for a cross-breeze, I had to climb over mildewey couches, a portable clothes hanger full of Quinceanera dresses, and antique end tables to open those little dormer windows.
The entire house was panelled with a dark wood-like wall surface. Mama Nona was partial to the color blood-red, as evidenced by the heavy living room furniture, curtains, and carpeting. While I never asked, I believe that the carpeting and furniture were purchased after years of saving quarters and dollars from her husband’s Social Security benefits and the food budget. I believe this because the furniture was completely covered with yellowing plastic slipcovers, and the floors were criss-crossed with plastic runners that Mama Nona washed EVERY DAY with Pine-Sol. I would wake every morning to this smell.
“You’re dating a Mexican,” Mama Nona told me through translators, the first time I met her. “You need to learn Spanish.”
I wanted to say, “You’re living in my country. You need to learn English.”
But knowing which side of my tortilla was buttered, instead I took Spanish classes. Only half of Fugi’s family knew English, and whenever they got together, Spanish was the only language they used. I used to zone out a lot because I never developed the knack of putting Spanish words together into sentences. Sometimes, my only entertainment was watching Fugi getting drunk and translating my words to his family in English, and telling me what they said in Spanish.
“What?” I’d say to him.
“Que? Que?” They’d be saying.
After a couple of beers, I’d mix up my few Spanish words with my three years of high school French. “I’m sorry, babe, but I have no idea what you’re saying.” Fugi would say.
Mama Nona was never alone. If one of the daughters wasn’t there, a grand- or great-granddaughter would be there to watch telenovelas or help her cook or do the dishes. On weekends and holidays the men would come with coolers of beer and sit out on the lawn listening to old-skool Rap, Banda, or Norteno latin music, and speak their rapid-fire Spanish. The traditional Mexican radio stations all sounded like polka to me, with trumpets, accordions, and 3/4 time. After a few beers, everyone felt like dancing, except me. I didn’t know any of the dances.
At first, I worked at a factory with Ray’s sister Carmen; she worked in the skilled-labor area assembling cassette tapes, while I worked in the entry-level packaging area. Have you ever looked at those packages with a plastic bubble-like front attached to a cardboard back? Probably not. You rip them apart and take out your product. For minimum wage, I used to work on the machines that assembled those. From 8 to 12 I popped in the bubble, arranged the product, and then put on the cardboard lid before sealing the whole thing with a press of the heat machine. Across from me was a stranger whose face I saw every time we pressed down our sealers, but with whom I was forbidden to talk until our lunch period at noon. Then it was the same work again until 5:30 at night.
Near Christmas-time, Mama Nona and her daughters went to Mexico for a month; we spent Christmas with my Grandpa Williams. I don’t remember if R.B. lived in Dearborn or Troy, but my recollection was that he was the richest man I’d ever met. It was like being related to the Monopoly Man. His condo was along a golf course and there were pools and tennis courts right in the place where he lived. He smoked an elegant pipe and had cocktails before dinner. He offered us cocktails, too.
I overindulged. On the long trip home from Detroit to Chicago, I thought I was going to throw up at any moment. At first I thought I’d picked up the flu. By the time I got back to Mama Nona’s house, I felt sure there was something seriously wrong with me. Lacking medical insurance, we went to the Emergency Room. The horrific procedures they inflicted on my digestive system conviced all of us that everything was OK.
But the nausea and exhaustion didn’t quit.
Published by angelawd on August 9th, 2008 tagged My Ex-Life
August 10th, 2008 at 1:03 am
I love this post. It’s my anniversary today - it seems particularly poignant today.
You are such a wonderful writer!
August 12th, 2008 at 4:03 am
She sounds a lot like my Auntie. Now I’m holding my breath waiting for the rest of the story…
August 13th, 2008 at 3:36 am
You’re incredibly talented, Angela, you must keep writing. xoxo