When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [33]
“What can I get you?” the counterman asked as he wiped in front of us with a rag that spread a thin film of grease on the Formica surface.
“Let me have a couple of those alcapurrias and two Coca-Colas,” Papi said. “You do want a Coca-Cola, don’t you?” he asked, and I nodded my head as I whirled on the stool, which rattled as it spun me faster and faster. Colors blended into one another in streaks of red, yellow, brown, and orange. Music came in and out of my ears, a syncopated half song that was familiar and foreign at the same time.
“You’d better stop that, or you’ll hurt yourself.”
I tried to brake the stool by sticking my leg out and hooking my foot on the one next to it. That threw me off balance and I fell, spinning to the ground. Papi was next to me in a flash.
“Are you okay?” he asked, but I felt heavy and light at the same time. My legs were wobbly, and when I looked around, there were two of everything. Two Papis and two of the gray woman next to him like shadows.
“She’s all right,” he said to her and drew me back to the stool. I was floating in a fog of colors and smells and warbling birds and voices singing, “I like you, and you, and you, and no one else but you, and you, and you.”
“Jesus doesn’t love children who don’t behave,” the gray woman said. Her voice crackled like a worn record. “And he will punish them.”
“Just ignore her,” the counterman said. “She’s crazy.” He set a hot alcapurria and a frosty Coca-Cola in front of me. “Leave my customers alone,” he shouted at her and waved the greasy rag the way Don Berto used to wave his sharp machete.
“That’s what happens to women when they stay jamonas,” he said with a snort, and Papi laughed with him. The gray woman retreated to her bleeding heads.
“Papi, what’s a jamona?” I asked as we left the market, our bellies full.
“It’s a woman who has never married.”
“I thought that was a señorita.”
“It’s the same thing. But when someone says a woman is jamona it means she’s too old to get married. It’s an insult.”
“How come?”
“Because it means no one wants her. Maybe she’s too ugly to get married.... Or she has waited too long.... She ends up alone for the rest of her life. Like that woman in the mercado.”
“She was ugly, that’s for sure.”
“That’s probably why she stayed jamona.”
“I hope that never happens to me.”
“No, that won’t happen to you.... There’s our público. Let’s run for it.”
We dodged across the street holding hands, avoiding cars, people, and stray dogs sunning themselves on the sidewalk.
“What do they call a man who never marries?” I asked as we settled ourselves in the front of the público.
“Lucky,” the driver said, and the rest of the passengers laughed, which made me mad, because it felt as if he were insulting me in the worst possible way.
“¡Ay Santo Dios, bendicemela!” Abuela hugged me and crossed herself. “She’s so big!”
Her hands were large-knuckled, wrinkled; her palms the color and texture of an avocado pit. She rubbed my hair back and held my chin in her strong fingers.
“She looks just like you, Pablito,” she told Papi, which made both of us feel good. “Look at the line of her hair. The same shape as yours.... A large forehead,” she said as she led us into her house, “is a sign of intelligence.”
“She’s the best student in her class,” Papi said, which wasn’t entirely true. Juanita Marin was much smarter. “And you should hear her recite poetry!”
“Just like you, Pablito. You were always memorizing poems.