Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair) (21 page)

Tia’s first ride in a limo! She got her hair done for it.

Puerto Rican Day Parade, Johnny Leguizamo and me. I was the Madrina (Godmother).

Tia and me in her first apartment I was able to pay for!

My mother, Lydia—after her AIDS diagnosis. Her looks were gone but not her spirit.

Oscar night! Me, Dad, and Carmen.

TIA HAD moved again, this time to Suydam Street in Bushwick. Half of the area along the East River was a cluster of factories that Tia would slave at. The other half was residential, mostly poor. Bushwick was more segregated too, racial incidents were rare, and you knew which blocks to play on and which ones to stay away from. Weird thing, there was a lot of intermingling going on, especially with Puerto Ricans—hence Juan Epstein from
Welcome Back, Kotter
. (Okay, that was corny, but true.) But for Puerto Ricans, blacks were a no-no. You were scorned, and people gossiped that your unborn baby would come out with nappy “bad” hair and dark skin—not kidding, folks.

On a home visit, walking to the corner store for my mother, my oldest half-brother—the one who showed me his thing—pulled up in front in a car packed with his friends. One of them, this black kid, smiled at me. I smiled back and waved hello. My brother jumped out, smacked the shit out of me, and pulled me in close and whispered, “Don’t you ever look at a fucking
moreno
[black guy] like that, humiliating me in front of my friends!”

“But he’s your friend!”

“I don’t give a fuck what he is!”

I loved Bushwick. Really. I especially liked it in the wintertime because there was nothing to do and no place to go—and I mean nothing, like
carajo land
for real. All you could do was go to a bowling alley down the block or a skating rink all the way over in Ridgewood, but who the hell wants to go bowling every day in
inches of snow? On visits, Tia and I would hole up in our third-floor, shotgun three-and-a-half-room apartment for days, cooking, playing records, watching television—all the bad
novelas, The Honeymooners
marathons, old movies, especially Jerry Lewis. (God, she hated him, except when I’d imitate his iconic dance down the stairs in
Cinderfella
.) Ooh, and she hated when I played Queen, which I’d love to do just to get a rise out of her. “Why
dat
guy [Freddie Mercury] has to be so weird all
de
time?”

I loved the summers too. In the summertime, Cookie was in charge of me while Tia went to work. She had moved in with her baby’s daddy on Melrose Avenue and Flushing in a dilapidated tenement that she kept clean as hell. We spent hours listening to Frankie Valli’s “Swearin’ to God,” People’s Choice’s “Do It Any Way You Wanna,” and so on, doing the Hustle in her kitchen for the longest time while my wet set dried. She would use the money Tia gave her for my lunch to take us to the matinees in Ridgewood or at the Commodore movie theater back in Williamsburg while she and her friends joined the majority of the audience in lighting up “loose joints”—I didn’t realize till years later that I’d be high as a mofo from the contact. I saw almost every gangster and inappropriate R-rated movie offered during the ’70s:
The Godfather
(parts 1 and 2),
Dog Day Afternoon
,
Hustle
. Before we saw
Rosemary’s Baby
, Cookie told me that it was a film about me.

Some of the best times I had on Suydam Street were just hanging on the block, mostly on the stoop all day into the night, cracking jokes and hanging with the kids on our street—Luis, Vinnie, Anthony, and Jeanette, who became my new best friend. My cousin Lorraine was best friends with Jeanette’s sister, Joanne. Lorraine and Joanne were the party girls. We were the “cool nerds” and loved holding court with our witty, stupid, corny repartee. Jumping rope, playing stickball, or listening to the latest gossip from my cousins and neighbors was mad fun too. I loved when my father would hang with us too. Whenever he would visit after his ship
would pull in at the West Side Highway piers, he would love to hold court, as usual, and flirt with all the old fat ladies on our street.

But there were three things I hated about Bushwick. Number one: my mother moved there as well, about twelve blocks from us. Although I spent most of my visits with Tia, sometimes she would tell me that I should go see my mother. Number two: the danger of the neighborhood constantly kept you on guard if you stepped off your block. And number three: the hard drugs that Bushwick was infamous for and the effect they had on my cousins. Yeah, they would smoke weed and drink a bottle of cheap liquor, but Bushwick introduced them to heroin and cocaine. In fact, they used to call Knickerbocker Avenue “Heroin Alley”! I remember kicking used hypodermic needles to the side so that we could play jacks in Knickerbocker Park (now called Maria Hernandez Park).

It was sad, because during the day Knickerbocker Park was where the older Italian gentlemen came to play shuffleboard in their fedoras; elderly ladies sat in rows on the park benches or on their folding chairs, feeding the pigeons, knitting, and gossiping; teenage girls with their hair and makeup done up coquettishly strolled by hoping for a whistle from the boys playing baseball or basketball with their shirts off; and mothers sat by their strollers, watching their kids play tag. It was quite lovely and peaceful, but come nightfall, forget about it!

My oldest cousin, Titi, loved to take me along whenever she hung out. Her girlfriend was having a house party at her new high-rise apartment in Queens. I had never seen an apartment like that before. I only saw tenements and projects. Everything was new—new stove, new refrigerator, new bathrooms. And it was the first time I saw someone make
habichuelas rojas guisadas
(stewed red beans criolla style) from a can—shocking! Even Titi was shocked. Her friend kept apologizing for it, saying she was a career woman, too
busy to soak beans overnight and then slowly stew them all damn day. And the beans came out slammin’! Go, Goya!

Then the night came, along with six or so guests. I was the only child in the room. Salsa and soft white lighting was replaced with a red lightbulb and the grooving R&B sounds of Bobby Womack. That was when the joints and alcohol came out. Titi made me go into the bedroom, saying that I could watch anything I wanted. She’d be back soon, and then we could go home. I didn’t want to stay there, but I was excited that I could watch
Police Woman
starring Angie Dickinson—I loved her!

It was getting pretty late, and I was worried. I quietly peeked through the bedroom door and saw a woman tying a thin, brownish rubber hose around Titi’s bicep. Then a man leaned over and put a needle in her arm. From all of the R-rated movies I had seen with Cookie, like
Panic in Needle Park
starring Al Pacino and Raul Julia (love), I knew exactly what was going on. My heart sank to see my cousin-sister getting high on heroin! I had to focus. I had to get us out of there and safely back to Tia’s.

I quickly went into Titi’s purse, looking for money so that we could get back on a bus or the subway. She had about six dollars on her, enough for two tokens or a gypsy cab. I tucked the cash in my pants and timidly walked down the hallway.

Titi had started to nod out, her eyes slowly closing and opening. “I want to go home,” I said. She was too gone to respond. I tugged on her arm. “Come on, we have to go!” Her friend tried to lead me back to her bedroom, slurring, “Go … TV, ’kay. We’ll … be … go … ’kay, baby?” I shrugged her hand off of my shoulder and started to cry—loudly. Everyone panicked! They all started stumbling about, shaking her awake. She finally came to, kind of. She tried to hold her hand out for me, but it fell off the table, making her head slam facedown on the table.
Boom!
She was so high she didn’t feel shit.

Her girlfriend helped my cousin up into the bathroom. I watched her pee red into the toilet. I thought she was dying! “No … no …,” she slurred. “…  My period. You didn’t (
heroin pause
) yet, right? (
another opioid pause
) No … you’re … nine, ten?”

“I’m nine.”

Her eyes started to close again. I looked down between her legs at the red-colored water floating in the toilet. She looked at me for a moment, smiled, then slumped over and was out. I sat on the bathroom floor next to her for over an hour, shaking her every now and then to make sure she was still alive. And not a single person checked on us.

Titi continued to nod in and out on the bus, with drool running out the side of her mouth and a big knot on her forehead, mumbling over and over again between her brief moments of clarity, making me promise to not tell Mommie. God, she was so annoying. Seriously. Then, one after another, passengers came over, asking me, “You all right? You need me to call somebody? Is that your mommie? You need the police?” I was so embarrassed; I knew they were judging both of us—
ghetto Puerto Ricans
, they probably thought to themselves. They didn’t know me, didn’t know I was a fairly nice, Catholic-raised nerd; nor did they know my hip, well-read, and loving cousin. They just saw a pathetic heroin junkie and a pissed-off little girl next to her.

Tia flung the front door open, pulled me toward her, and smothered my face into her big wobbly titties, screaming at Titi, “It’s fucking two in the morning,
punueta
!” Titi paid her no mind, stumbled to the living room couch, missed it, fell facedown on the floor, and passed out. I slept with Tia that night. I could feel her hurt as her breasts heaved up and down with each breath. I swore to myself that night that I would never be an addict, ever. And I never told on Titi either, ever.

•   •   •

I didn’t like living in the Group Home with all its drama, but I liked being upstate and part of the community. I loved the school we went to. The teachers were so nice, and there were so many activities. I loved participating in the school chorus, lived for the school’s bake sales and plays, and loved recess and the sports activities the best. I liked riding my bike up the hill to play touch football with the neighborhood kids. Loved sleigh riding down the long hills in the winter and having a big Christmas. Loved sleepovers with the very few real friends I made.