Oye What I'm Gonna Tell You. Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés
be worth and none of them were candidates for meeting the family anyway. Mami liked it when I brought home the pale-eyed polack or otherwise-nondescript unethnic americanos. Funny how blacks aren’t considered americanos to them; as if to be American, you gotta be white. And of course, we’re not americanos either. Now that’s what I call atraso.
I’ve waited five months. Two months before I even let Vital touch me though I wanted him to, really bad. It’s not even that he’s so fine; he’s kinda skinny but has the most amazing smile. Maybe his teeth look so white because he is so freaking dark but even in the bright sunlight, his smile dazzles, and his face . . . oh, his face changes and it changes me, draws me in. Mami’d say that his face is llamativo; well, she might say it if she gave him half a chance.
Vital’s old school, no tats or earrings; shit, his hair is even shaved down close to his beautifully formed head. No facial hair and no baggy clothes. And oh my god, he’s Catholic! If he weren’t so dark, I’m sure my family would love him. Love him like I wanna love him. It’s gotta be love. Why else would I risk it all by bringing him home? He’s so respectful of me, calls when he says he’s gonna call, shows when he says he’ll be there. Dude is a dreamboat. I called him that and he was like, what?
“Dreamboat. Don’t you know what that means?” We had already had sex a couple of times and I was feeling high from skin and sweat and slick sweetness.
“What is this?” he blinked his sleepy, almond-shaped eyes and slid his hand over my cheek.
“It’s like . . . ah . . . aw, hell, I don’t know how to explain it. Someone who’s like . . . perfect. The perfect guy.”
He just grinned. He didn’t tease me either but leaned over to plant a big ole wet one. Then he put my face in his hands and said something even I understood. “Je t’aime, mamacita.” I had to laugh at that because of the time when I was walking toward him on campus, one of the hoodrats who thinks he’s all that tried to get my attention, calling out, “Ay, mamacita, dame un pedacito.” Which made me turn my head to laugh in his face which led to him saying “Bitch, why you do me like that?” Which led to Vital, who’s not built but impressive because he’s tall, getting up in the dude’s face ‘til he backed off. I guess if his boys were around it mighta turned out ugly. But right now I have this great guy, black like an azabache, telling me, he loves me, in freaking French, no less.
What I’m supposed to do? So I repeat but add my own twist. “Te quiero, papi chulo.”
And we both bust out laughing.
So we go on doing our thing for a few more months, all good and soon enough it’s Thanksgiving. Thanksfuckingiving. Shoulda thought that one through. After all, Neli doesn’t bring her lady friend to the house. As far as they know, she’s a virgin and will always be one.
I’d asked mami if I could bring a friend, un amigo, from school who doesn’t have his family here and was alone for the holiday and as soon as I said that she gets all sentimental, “Ay, pobrecito. Sí, sí, invite him.”
Vital was a little worried but I was all happy because mami had said yes. Of course, I said friend, not boyfriend.
“Your mother, she’s ok with me going?” He raised his eyebrows and the skin on his usually serene forehead folded into three rolls.
“Yea, yea, she’s cool. I said I was bringing a male friend.”
“So, you didn’t clarify that we were dating?”
“No, not yet. I think it’s best to take it slow. Once they meet how wonderful you are, they’ll accept you.”
“Accept me for what?”
“Like accept you to be my boyfriend?” I was starting to get a little nervous and Vital was still frowning and had narrowed his eyes.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“Naw, don’t worry, it’ll be all right. You’re just a friend who goes to school with me and who’s all alone for the holiday.” And even as I said that it sounded like a stupid made up story like so many lies I had perpetrated on my parents: that I was sleeping over my best friend Ivette’s the nights I was with Vital (or any of the other tipos I was getting with before him). Or going back to high school when I was ditching school and going to the city or just eating shit all day at the mall. Or that the smoke on my clothes was from all the workers in the warehouse where it was still legal (mami nailed me on that one when I left a crumpled pack in my hoodie pocket). Or any of the times when I didn’t have to lie but felt like it because I just didn’t want to tell them where I was going or what I was going to do, even when it was harmless. It all came to a head on Thanksgiving.
Mami’s sister Julia and her family, all eight of them, always came because even though their house is bigger, we had the biggest table and enough chairs and plenty of parking on the side. Tiá and tió, tió’s mother, their three young brats and their oldest Yalisa, who’s Neli’s age, with her baby (the baby daddy was MIA as soon as she got pregnant so he fit perfectly into the desgraciado role). No one could mention his name even though Yalisa named the baby after him so he will always and forever be Junior.
No one from Papi’s side ever came. His family stayed in en el campo in Cuba; he was the only one who left the little town near the little city of Remedios in Las Villas province. It’s not called that anymore; papi said that after the revolution Fidel divided up the island into a bunch of provinces that didn’t make sense. Before Santa Clara was the province next to Las Villas but now his town is in Villa Clara. Once papi started talking about Castro and the stinking revolution, it was hard to shut him up. He accused his five brothers and sister of being communists for staying. Papi was the only one who had gone all the way to the capital and then gotten himself on a boat during el Mariel. And even though papi’s a guajiro who loves his plants and nature and shit, he wasn’t allowed to stay in Miami because there were too many of them. He and forty other unsponsored guys were bussed to Jersey where he and mami met in a factory. Thank God he didn’t stay in Florida or we’d be hicks like my cousins in Hialeah. Talk about atraso.
One time we drove down there to see tío Saúl, mami’s brother, and his family, staying with them for almost the whole summer. They wanted to check it out, to see about moving. I couldn’t believe how a city in Florida which I thought was a jungle could look like a city in Jersey but without sidewalks or places to hang out except for a boring mall without any decent stores (Neli didn’t really care about clothes but even as a twelve-year-old I could tell everything was already out of style). I didn’t mind sharing a room with Neli and cousins Yeny and Alisa because we were older and cooler and told ‘em all kinds of nonsense like where babies came from and why penises were sometimes flat and other times sticking up or that they spit out stuff that looked like Ivory dishwashing detergent. Nights were fun, nice and cold—there was a window AC we could control and froze every night to make up for the blazing days.
Hialeah was all we ever saw that summer and it was ugly, hot, humid, full of mosquitos and enormous, I mean freakishly huge, fucking-flying roaches. Me and Neli begged our parents to please please please never ever ever even consider moving there. I’m sure Papi was sad he wouldn’t get to cultivate his mamey or mango or aguacate or whatever but luckily for us it didn’t happen. Me and Neli were ecstatic about the “news” they sat us down to hear.
“Niñas,” Papi did the talking for both of them. Our parents faced us as we sat in the backseat of our car, away from the relatives including abuela—it was the only place of privacy.
“Your mami and I have been really trying hard to make it work here,” he said then bit his thick lower lip. Neli was banging her knees together real fast so I pinched her to stop.
“I wanted us to move here, to la Florida but there aren’t any good jobs and without jobs, we can’t take the chance.” He looked at mami to see if she wanted to add something.
“And besides that, your papi and I wanted to buy a house,” she smiled out of one side of her mouth. “Abuela has a little money to help us but she doesn’t want to stay here.”
I