When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [94]
There was a knock on the door and when Mami opened it, Francisco stood in the hall, a shy smile on his lips.
“Who’s there?” Tata called from the kitchen in a challenging tone.
Mami didn’t answer, but stepped aside to let Francisco in. As soon as she saw him, Tata flew out of the kitchen like a witch toward the full moon and screamed insults at Francisco.
“Tata, please,” Mami begged, “behave yourself. He’s a guest. Don’t embarrass me.”
But Tata pushed against Don Julio, who held her back, as if she wanted to jump on Francisco and beat the daylights out of him. In tears, Mami let Francisco out, then she gathered us for bed while Don Julio dragged Tata back to the kitchen. We turned the lights out in our part of the apartment, but we could still hear Tata and Don Julio arguing about whether a thirty-year-old woman with seven children should encourage a man in his twenties.
“And what about your daughters?” Tata yelled. “What kind of an example are you giving them?” Mami just pulled the covers over her head.
A week later we moved down the street to a two-room apartment in front of a bottling company. Francisco came to visit every day. He could be counted on to play gin rummy and dominoes, to bring us candy and soda, and to make Mami smile like she hadn’t done in a long time. One day he came for dinner, and the next morning he was still there. After that, he lived with us.
That summer, Marilyn Monroe killed herself.
Across the street from our apartment trucks idled in the loading zone of the soft-drink warehouse at all hours while men loaded crates of cola, grape, and orange soda in to the backs of the trucks. I often leaned on the window sill and watched the huge garage doors groaning up and down, the forklifts whizzing in and out with pallets stacked with crates of delicious fizzy drinks.
I listened to the radio anecdotes about Marilyn and watched the activity across the street and down the block, where someone had opened a hydrant and children squealed in and out of the rushing water. No matter how hot it got, Mami wouldn’t allow us to cool off in the hydrant with the neighborhood kids, whom she considered a bad influence.
A truck pulled up, the driver went into the building across the street, came out, sat in his truck, and waited for it to be loaded. He waved at me, and when I looked, he dove his hand into his crotch and pulled out what looked like a pale salami. I couldn’t take my eyes off it as his hand pumped rhythmically to the loud rock and roll on his radio. He was at it a long time, and I lost interest, closed the venetian blind, and joined my sisters and brothers in front of the television set. But after a while I was curious, so I went back and lifted one of the blinds. He still sat there, but his hand now toyed around his crotch as if he’d lost something. He saw me and began rubbing again, a grimace on his face.
I’d changed enough diapers to know what happened if a boy was touched a certain way, but this man, touching himself and only coming to life if I watched, added a new dimension to my scanty knowledge of sex.
The fact that his penis had grown when I was looking meant something. I hadn’t done any of the things women did to get men interested. I’d been minding my own business at home, hadn’t dressed up, had not acted provocatively, had not flirted, had not, I was sure, smiled when he waved for me to look. It was alarming, and at once I realized why Mami always told me to be más disimulada when I stared at people, which meant that I should pretend I wasn’t interested.
Men only want one thing, I’d been told. A female’s gaze was enough to send them groping for their huevos. That was why Marilyn Monroe always looked at the camera and smiled. Men only want one thing, and until then, I thought it was up to me to give it up. But that’s not the way it was. A little girl