When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [83]
It was raining in Brooklyn. Mist hung over the airport so that all I saw as we landed were fuzzy white and blue lights on the runway and at the terminal. We thudded to earth as if the pilot had miscalculated just how close we were to the ground. A startled silence was followed by frightened cries and aleluyas and the rustle of everyone rushing to get up from their seats and out of the plane as soon as possible.
Mami’s voice mixed and became confused with the voices of other mothers telling their children to pick up their things, stay together, to walk quickly toward the door and not to hold up the line. Edna, Raymond, and I each had bundles to carry, as did Mami, who was loaded with two huge bags filled with produce and spices del país. “You can’t find these in New York,” she’d explained.
We filed down a long, drafty tunnel, at the end of which many people waited, smiling, their hands waving and reaching, their voices mingling into a roar of hello’s and how are you’s and oh, my god, it’s been so long’s.
“Over there,” Mami said, shoving us. On the fringes of the crowd a tall woman with short cropped hair, a black lace dress, and black open-toed shoes leaned against a beam that had been painted yellow. I didn’t recognize her, but she looked at me as if she knew who I was and then loped toward us, arms outstretched. It was my mother’s mother, Tata. Raymond let go of Mami’s hand and ran into Tata’s arms. Mami hugged and kissed her. Edna and I hung back, waiting.
“This is Edna,” Mami said, pushing her forward for a hug and kiss.
“And this must be Negi,” Tata said, pulling me into her embrace. I pressed against her and felt the sharp prongs of the rhinestone brooch on her left shoulder against my face. She held me longer than I expected, wrapped me in the scratchy softness of her black lace dress, the warmth of her powdered skin, the sting of her bittersweet breath, pungent of beer and cigarettes.
Behind her loomed a man shorter than she, but as imposing. He was squarely built, with narrow eyes under heavy eyebrows, a broad nose, and full lips fuzzed with a pencil mustache. No one would have ever called him handsome, but there was about him a gentleness, a sweetness that made me wish he were a relative. He was, in a manner of speaking. Mami introduced him as “Don Julio, Tata’s friend.” We shook hands, his broad, fleshy palm seeming to swallow mine.
“Let’s get our things,” Mami said, pulling us into a knot near her. “You kids, don’t let go of each others’ hands. It’s crazy here tonight.”
We joined the stream of people claiming their baggage. Boxes filled with fruit and vegetables had torn, and their contents had spilled and broken into slippery messes on the floor. Overstuffed suitcases tied with ropes or hastily taped together had given way, and people’s underwear, baby diapers, and ratty shoes pushed through the stressed seams where everyone could see them. People pointed, laughed, and looked to see who would claim these sorry belongings, who could have thought the faded, torn clothes and stained shoes were still good enough for their new life in Brooklyn.
“That’s why I left everything behind,” Mami sniffed. “Who wants to carry that kind of junk around?”
We had a couple of new suitcases and three or four boxes carefully packed, taped at the seams, tied with rope, and labelled with our name and an address in New York that was all numbers. We had brought only our “good” things: Mami’s work clothes and shoes, a few changes of playclothes for me, Edna, and Raymond, some of them made by Mami herself, others bought just before we left. She brought her towels, sheets, and pillowcases, not new, but still “decent looking.”
“I’ll see if I can find a taxi,” Don Julio said. “You wait here.”
We huddled in front of the terminal while Don Julio negotiated with drivers. The first one looked at us, counted the number of packages we carried, asked Don Julio where we were