Outnumbered. Mandi Eizenbaum
Didn’t she learn anything from de Bergerac about the importance of clear communication?
This time, it didn’t matter what my excuse had been for pulling that chair from under Señora Vaulkner or how many phone calls Abuelo made begging for the principal’s consideration. I was suspended for three days. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” they’d said, and all the apologies in the world didn’t help either. Truth was, I wasn’t very sorry. Señora Vaulkner was una idiota, an idiot, as far as I was concerned.
The calls from school became more and more frequent, though, and the incident with Señora Vaulkner was just one more perfect opportunity for Saul to deepen his wrath and misgiving for me. Being home was more of a problem for me than going to school. Saul Posternik had become a permanent thorn in my side, a harsh and abusive intruder in our home. He had no place in our little family, and I would forever feel the sting of Saul’s cold, interfering, and abusive presence there. Even my smallest fiascoes were Saul’s pleasures, and he relished in making me feel as worthless as he could. “One of these days,” he would warn me over and over again.
Yes, Saul. One of these days.
To everyone else, Saul appeared to be an upstanding man in La Colonia Hebrea, a childless widower himself. What a godsend this man is for Mimi and Max. Imagine Saul coming along just in time.
Others never saw what I saw or what really happened behind our closed doors. I knew Saul and my mother’s marriage was one of convenience and not love, so I kept an acquired silence about my true feelings for Mamá’s sake and did everything—anything—to not be at home when Saul was there, which is what eventually really kept me out on the streets more than I needed to be. And so the years passed in silence and escape.
Saul and I continued to do battle whenever I was home, leaving poor Mamá in the middle of our hateful bouts and me looking for more trouble on the Havana city streets. I didn’t know which of us put up a more stubborn fight—Mamá, the old man, or me. I clearly remember the last night I spent in that house. It was way past midnight when Saul had come home, stumbling and stinking of cheap rum.
“Where have you been until now?” I asked quietly. “It’s the middle of the night.” Mamá had fallen asleep on the sofa waiting for Saul to come home—as she routinely did in those days.
“None of your business,” Saul slurred. He swaggered toward me like a bear tip-toeing clumsily on its hind legs.
“Mamá was worried about you, Saul. Why do you do this to her?”
“What I do is none of your goddamned business, you little pedazo de mierda, you little piece of shit!” Saul roared. Standing there stinky and sloppy, pummeling me with insults, a string of saliva driveled down his chin. “You’re not even worth un centavo! Not a single cent!”
He was brutal with his tongue, but I was growing callous to Saul’s insults. Everything I did was a chance for Saul to belittle me. But that night, the old man came at me with his fists poised, scowling and drooling, rum reeking from his every pore. He was clearly looking for a fight. Before I knew it, Saul lunged at me and hurled his right fist at the side of my head, knocking me clear off my feet. My vision blurred and, in the darkness, I saw nothing but blinding stars. A lucky punch.
I fell backward, crashing into the glass coffee table in the middle of the living room. My eyes puddled with tears, and the room spun and flickered like one of those old silent movies. A huge, throbbing purple knot rose immediately on my temple where Saul’s fist had connected with my head. I was drowning and couldn’t catch my breath.
Mamá jumped off the sofa, suddenly jolted awake by the crash of my body against the table. Before she could even rub the slumber from her eyes, I bolted for my room, ashamed and humiliated, and slammed the door. The next morning, I packed my backpack and my drum and walked to my grandparents’ house. I could only assume that Mamá worried about me in those hot moments between me and Saul, but her complacent silence spoke volumes to me. She never insisted that I return home, nor did she mention the fight with Saul ever again.
My mind raged with the mere thought of Saul Posternik. One particularly starry night after I had left my mother’s house and found a bit of respite in my new home at my grandparents’ apartment above the factory, I heard the unrelenting wind rattling through the window drapes and that feathery whisper that I had been hearing more and more often over the years.
“Paciencia, mi hijo.” Patience. “Él no sabe mejor…ser fuerte en mente y espíritu.” He doesn’t know any better…be strong in mind and spririt.
Ultimately, I did let go of the load of remorse I felt for leaving Mamá at home with Saul, even knowing how volatile he could be. After all, it was my mother’s choice to stay with him. I moved in permanently with my grandparents in their apartment above their shoe factory. I spent my days daydreaming on the salty beaches and breezy parks of Havana and my nights hanging out in the pool halls and saloons with my buddies. In fact, much to my grandparents’ added worries, I stopped going to school altogether. Yes, it was growing more and more dangerous to be out on the streets—the political situation growing tenser every day in Cuba—but Havana was my wonderland, and I was living my life my own way.
I had more girlfriends than I could keep up with, I had my music and my friends, and I was learning more on the hot and steamy streets of Havana than I ever did in the classroom. What more could I ask for? And so it was that I was forced to grow up between homes and priorities—taking care of myself. No one was going to pity me, I mused. I am not a piece of shit! I would show them all who’s the boss.
4
Josef “El Bobo” Manzo, Jacobo “Chaki” Levitz, Roberto “Beto” Yardeni, and I made up the inseparable little foursome that everyone referred to as “Los Cuatro Compadres.” The four of us, tight as brothers, would spend our carefree days and nights out on the pulsing streets and hot beaches of Havana—always whooping it up looking for girls, money, and adventure (not always in that order). In those electrifying days of our youth, anything was possible. We strutted around like our shit didn’t stink, seeking only to fuel our childish fiery egos.
“Hot-shit, big shots,” Abuelo would call us. My grandfather didn’t care much for my friends, and I never figured out why he had a particular dislike for Bobo. But my compadres and I always had each other’s back, no matter what.
Bobo’s parents, Berta and Manolo, had left him in Cuba while they resettled themselves in Puerto Rico. I always found it unnerving how every time I asked my mother about Bobo’s parents, she would quickly change the conversation. After all, Berta was Mamá’s best friend, the two girls were practically inseparable until Berta finally left our island with Manolo. How could they just pick up and leave all their friends and family behind? And their own children too! There had to be more to this mystery, I assured myself.
People at the synagogue would spit “poo-poo” when Berta’s name was mentioned, never adding any hints or information about why she and her young husband had left Cuba for Puerto Rico. All Mamá ever said about them was that Berta had made some bad choices and was consequently shunned by our tight little community. Manolo had done the right thing, standing by Berta and moving with her to Puerto Rico to start a new life together. But that was all the information I was going to get on the subject.
What could Bobo’s parents have done that was so terrible? How could they just pick up and leave their home and their son behind? I learned to stop asking questions and to avoid getting caught up in the part of our community rumor mill that kept judgmental accusations running like sewage through our streets.
There was no limit to the sounds and rhythms that made life in Havana, and music had been our main diversion. Chaki was the singer of our group. He had a sweet voice that could melt anybody’s heart. (Women who heard Chaki’s sweet melodies would fall like wilted flower petals at his feet!) But it was me who would