Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair)

This book is based on my recollection of what went down and what was told to me by friends and family. Some names, characters, and situations have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. I hope you enjoy …

“The artist is born in the suffering child.”

I SAW Israel Horovitz, the playwright, say this in the documentary
I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale
, a celebration of the short career of the actor who played Fredo in
The Godfather
. I was moved by this comment, but angered too, because more often than not that cliché is all too true, and one thing I will not be defined by is a cliché.

I didn’t really want to write about this story of mine. Yet I felt like I was supposed to write it, like it was a responsibility that I couldn’t avoid. It’s so hard to go there, you know? And I was always concerned that if and when I did tell my story, I would have to constantly defend my recollection of
my
truth. Unfortunately, I have family relations and folks who “knew me when” who, solely out of motives of fame, greed, or both, have jumped out of the woodwork to contest my truth and would do it again, which would only waste time and miss the point. And more important, I was concerned that people would pity me, and I don’t want anyone’s pity. That is not the point either. The point is to get it out, to validate my feelings, to communicate how good it feels to no longer live in fear of what others may think, and to share my journey and move on. I have survived. And in writing my experiences I know that however sad it was, it is more or less the same story shared by a lot of people who are messed up as a result of a difficult childhood.

The abuse and neglect from my mother and the time I was forced to spend in Saint Joseph’s Catholic Home for Children, aka “the Home,” have affected a big part of my life. And I’ve hated that
fact. I’m a forward-moving and positive-thinking person, and it was hard to have that albatross hanging around my neck. I’ve hated my past so much that I’ve spent countless hours downplaying or even hiding bits of the truth of my childhood in an attempt to make it seem less severe, less hurtful, less shameful, than it felt.

I hated the fact that my mother was crazy. I wanted her to be normal. Even when she acted normal—something that many mentally ill people can do, despite what you see in the movies—I was always walking on eggshells, waiting for the insanity to hit. And when it hit, it hit hard and fast—leaving deep emotional and physical scars.

People who are “normal” as a result of good parenting—even just decent parenting—are very lucky. Yeah, I know, everyone’s hell is relative, and blah, blah, blah, but those people are very fortunate. Am I bitter? No, not at all. Every child should have a loving and stable upbringing. There would be less violence and hate, for sure. But most of us didn’t, and regardless of what the experts say, trying to get past your past sucks. Most of us would rather just ignore it or numb it with any or all types of drugs, legal or illegal. Those of us who are a bit stronger—and I say that without judgment—try to avoid those options and deal with our past legitimately: through psychoanalysis, psychiatry, medications, spirituality, whatever. Truth be told, even when you work every day to do so, it’s hard to not
lose it
, or
give up
, or worse,
fall into a depression
.

That’s the worst—depression. I’m a relatively happy person who also happened to be clinically depressed for years (sorry, that just cracks me up). I know that it’s probably hard for most people, especially those who know and love me, to fathom that, because I’m a person who’s usually in a good mood, cracking jokes or telling funny stories. And the good moods are absolutely, 100 percent authentic. It’s just that there was this underlying feeling of blah, or sadness, or even fright, which at times I was aware of and at other times I was not. I refused to let this hold me down. I wanted to
move on. I wanted to fully enjoy the wonderful life I’ve worked so hard to obtain.

I finally resorted to seeking professional help, the one thing I had resisted for years. When my shrink diagnosed me with dysthymia—a sneaky, chronic type of depression—I was actually relieved. God bless America two times for that, as my Tia Ana would say. It’s most common with people who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Yeah, I had that one too. Still do. But now at least I had a starting place and could take some kind of ownership of the healing process.

After a couple of years of therapy, and I don’t know exactly when or how it happened, I noticed that my depression wasn’t there and the PTSD subsided considerably. I felt joyful, secure, and empowered. My inner strength and sense of self had never been stronger. I guess I allowed time to play its role, and I did my part by working hard on myself to grow past the pain. Gosh, I sound so full of shit there. Let me be more honest: I grew past most of the pain and continue to do the work. Every day gets better. xo

—Rosie Perez
June 2013

THEY MET in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Although Ismael was married to his wife, Halo, at the time, he was on his way to his sister’s, my Tia Ana’s house, to meet her girlfriend for a date. Yes, folks, a date. And my aunt cosigned. He was the quintessential Latin male when it came to women and romance, minus the machismo. It wasn’t clear if the date knew that Ismael was married or not. He never really kept it a secret, but then again, he wasn’t the first to volunteer that information either—you know what I’m saying? It probably didn’t matter—the man had mad game. Ismael wasn’t gorgeous, but he was what people would call brutal-sexy, meaning not conventionally good-looking, but extremely attractive and charismatic. He could be very suave too, in an intentionally goofy way. He had this undeniable, unassuming, yet aggressive charm that would knock the most beautiful women off their feet.

Ismael had been a merchant marine during World War II, and in the Korean War after that, though he never wanted to talk about it. He hated war, but loved America, and he loved to wear his army jacket whenever he was not on a date. He always dressed sharp for his dates—he had mad style. After the wars were over, he spent half of his time out at sea, the other half in Puerto Rico with his wife, and whatever free time he had left in New York visiting Tia, but mainly living the life of a playboy.

Tia’s full name was Ana Dominga Otero Serrano-Roque, God rest her soul. Her friends called her Minguita, which came from
her middle name, Dominga. Her style was simple and pragmatic, but not in an old maid type of way. And she
always
wore dresses. I saw her in a pair of pants for the first time when I was in my twenties, and I was shocked. She’d gotten fat after having four kids—three girls and one boy—all of whom she had to give to the oldest of her two brothers, Monserrate, to raise because she had a nervous breakdown and was sent to “the Loony Bin” (that’s where they sent women back then when they got hysterical) when she caught her husband in bed with her girlfriend—scandalous! When she got out of the “hospital,” her brother, Tio Monserrate, only gave her the girls back. He kept the boy—we’ll get into that later. This left a pain in her heart that never healed.

Tia lived on the corner of Wallabout and Lee Avenue in a shotgun-railroad apartment in a broken-down tenement building. It was at the edge of the Hasidic Jewish neighborhood of South Williamsburg, an area that looked as if time had stopped in the 1940s. The Hasidic Jews walked around dressed in the style of that period, all year round. To this day, the neighborhood is still 90 percent Hasidic and retains the same vibe. Tia lived there with her three daughters, Titi (whose real name was Carmen), Millie, and Cookie (whose real name was Lourdes, pronounced
Lou-day
); little Lorraine would come later. Across the hall were her friends, also all Puerto Rican. When I was little, I used to think the whole building was Puerto Rican, but in fact it was just those two apartments.

The place was sparsely decorated, but it featured a few of the stereotypical tacky Puerto Rican items: a plastic-covered sofa; fake eighteenth-century porcelain figurines that sat on a wooden television/bookshelf, and lastly, the staple of all Nuyorican interiors, an oil rug painting of The Last Supper hanging over the plastic-encased sofa. The French doors that led into her bedroom, just off the living room, were my favorite feature of Tia’s house. The rest of the place was furnished with eclectic stuff that people left out on the curbside for the garbage trucks in expensive neighborhoods.

•   •   •

The air was brisk that December afternoon. As usual, Ismael was dressed sharp for his date and had the look of a well-manicured man: suit and tie, of course, with a gray overcoat and scarf, and a fly hat to finish it off. He loved hats. He liked his women to dress up as well. If a chick wasn’t that pretty—though he usually only hooked up with the fine-looking ones—but she knew how to dress and carry herself, he was there, on the hunt.

Tia’s girlfriend, the one she was setting her brother up with, was fairly attractive and well groomed, despite her lack of money. (It can happen, folks—there are poor people who can pull it together. We don’t all look busted like they show us in the movies.) She waited anxiously for her date to arrive, pacing back and forth for an hour, constantly looking out the window to see if he was coming down the block.

Before he arrived, this girl’s sister, Lydia, stopped by, along with a couple of other young ladies, to sneak a peek at this man her older sister had bragged about for a week. Lydia, in her early twenties at the time, had been married since the age of fourteen and had five children. She was also stunningly beautiful, eclipsing all of her sisters by a mile. She was a sexy siren, cunning, self-centered, condescending, mean at times, and extremely intelligent. She was a cross between the movie stars Ava Gardner and Miriam Colon, with a petite, apple-shaped face and a wry smirk.