Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland (9 page)

Mom dropped out of high school on the day she turned eighteen and started working as a breakfast waitress at a pool hall called La Cue, which was owned by Cesi Castro, the great-uncle of my friend Arlene. It was at the corner of Seymour Avenue and West 25th Street, which was the heart of the Puerto Rican community back in those days. When they were dating, Mom and Dad met at the Seymour Café, right there on the same corner, which is maybe a mile from where we live.

Dad is hurrying down Lorain Avenue this morning because he has to be at work by seven thirty, the same time the doors open at Wilbur Wright Middle School. So again today I’m one of the first seventh-graders here, and I wait in the cold with a few other kids until they let us inside.

I’ve been in special-ed classes since a teacher in the first grade said I was a slow learner. That’s why I go to Wilbur Wright, which is kind of far from my house. It’s a huge school with all kinds of classes. I used to go to a different school, but they had one of those little buses to pick me up, and I would get teased about it. Everybody knew those “short buses” were for kids going to special classes. I hated when neighborhood kids made fun of me. They called me “slow,” which really hurt. There’s no way I’m going to take a school bus again, so my dad drives me in the morning, and I take the city bus or walk home. That makes my mom nervous, and she tells me to always try to walk with other kids who are going my way.

A few days ago I got great news. My teacher told me I was doing really well. Last quarter I had an A in science, a B in math, and C’s in English and reading. Social studies was still a D, but it was a pretty good quarter. If I kept this up, my teacher said, I could move into regular classes, maybe even this year. She said that if I worked hard, there was no reason I couldn’t go to college someday. College! My mom would be so proud. She and my dad didn’t finish high school, and she’s always telling me how important school is. So if I could get my high school diploma and then go to college, she would be crazy happy. Maybe I could go to Florida State University. My grandpa Benny—my mom’s dad—lives in Florida, and I might be able to live with him. I would love to make my parents so proud and be the first person in our family to go to college. That would surprise everyone!

School today is the same old stuff: science, reading, math, social studies. Nothing special at lunch, just pizza and chocolate milk. I’m extra hungry, so I buy potato chips with some of the $1.50 in bus money my mom gave me. That means I won’t have enough left for the bus later, so I guess I’m walking home. It’s about two miles, but I don’t mind.

At 2:30 the bell rings, and I climb the stairs to my locker on the third floor, talking with my friends Beverly, Marilyn, Anela, and Juan. It wasn’t a bad day, but I’m a tiny bit bummed because I lost my lip gloss. My gym teacher made me hand it over last week because students aren’t supposed to carry anything into the gym, and today when I remembered to pick it up, he said he couldn’t find it. He says I should have come back sooner. Oh, well.

I’m laughing with my friends as I head out of school for the weekend. At the front door, I run into my friend Arlene Castro, who’s in the same grade as me. I really like Arlene.

“Hey, let’s go skating!” I say to her. “It’s Friday!”

I like ice skating and I try to imagine myself as an Olympic skater on TV. Once when I was watching them, I pretended to do a triple axel in my kitchen and fell and split my chin open. My poor mom freaked out, and I still have the scar.

But I love roller skating even more. I spend every weekend at Cleveland’s big roller rinks, gliding along the polished floors, skating to the music. I’d go every day if I could.

Arlene and I skate a lot, and I’m excited that maybe we can go tonight. But as we start walking together the four blocks down West 110th Street to Lorain Avenue, the main street with lots of restaurants and shops, I remember: I’m grounded. Three weeks ago my parents caught me smoking cigarettes in my room. I haven’t been allowed out with friends since.

“But wait,” I tell Arlene. “I think I can still have people over. Can you come to my house?”

“I think so. Let me call my mom.”

We walk to the pay phone on Lorain at West 105th Street. A couple of kids at school have cell phones, but not too many. And we sure don’t.

I give her two quarters from my bus money, and Arlene dials. I can tell by her face what the answer is.

“She says I gotta go home.”

“Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll see you. Call me later.”

We give each other a quick hug, and I start walking home. I’d better hurry. It’s still drizzly, and it’s about a forty-minute walk. If I’m late, my mom will worry.

 • • • 

I have walked only a block when a guy in a Jeep Grand Cherokee pulls up and rolls down the passenger window. I can’t quite hear him, but he’s talking to me.

I know him. He’s Arlene’s dad. He drives a school bus. My parents and I were hanging out with him a few months ago at the Christmas choir concert, where Arlene and I were both singing.

“Hey, have you seen Arlene?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, pointing behind him. “She just went that way.”

“Can you help me find her?”

I tell him she just left a second ago, so she can’t be far.

“Okay,” he says, “but can you help me?”

He really wants me to help. I don’t know why. But okay.

I get in the Jeep and tell him to turn the car around. But he starts driving straight, in the wrong direction.

“Aren’t you supposed to turn here?” I ask him.

“I need to go to my house for a minute to get some money,” he says.

This is a little weird, but I tell myself to chill. My parents know him. He’s Arlene’s dad. If he needs to get money at home, what’s the big deal?

He’s talking a lot as he drives, mostly about Arlene and his other kids. We turn onto Seymour Avenue, the same street my aunt lives on just a couple of blocks down. She has great parties in the summer. Lots of people from Puerto Rico live in this neighborhood, and we have some friends who live around here.

He pulls into the driveway and stops behind the house.

“I’m going to get my money—I’ll be right back,” he says.

His front yard is neat, but as I wait in the car I see that the backyard is messy and filled with cars and motorcycles. The trash cans are overflowing with plastic garbage bags.

He’s back in a minute and says, “I have a speaker I want to put in the car. Can you help me move it?”

“Okay,” I reply. Why not? I walk over to the back door and step inside.

 • • • 

The door leads to a small room, then his kitchen. It’s nasty, with cobwebs on the ceiling and grease stains on the walls.

“Sit there for a minute,” he says, pointing at the kitchen table. “Take your coat off and get comfortable.”

It’s one of those fold-up tables, the kind you put up at a backyard party. One leg is busted, so he has propped it up against the wall. I sit on a folding chair with a pink cushion.

He’s in the bathroom now, which is right off the kitchen. The door’s open, and I can see him looking at himself in the mirror, trimming his eyebrows and fussing with himself like ladies do. Weird!

“You have to take me home now,” I say loudly. “My mom is waiting for me.”

He walks right up to me, so close. He tries to touch my breasts, and I freak out.

“What are you doing? Don’t! I want to get out of here!” This is crazy!

“Okay,” he tells me, like everything is normal, “but you can’t go out the same way you came in.”

He’s leading me toward a door and says that we have to go downstairs to get back outside. I can’t believe what’s happening. As soon as we walk down a few steps I realize it’s a mistake. The next thing I know I’m on my back on the cold concrete floor, and he’s on top of me.

“Get off me! Get away from me!” I scream.

He puts a pillow over my head and yells, “Shut up!”

I keep screaming into the pillow. It’s dirty and smelly.

There’s a pipe on the floor beside us and he picks it up.

“Shut up or I’ll hurt you with this!”

He’s sitting on me. I’m kicking as hard as I can.

“Are you done?” he yells.

I keep kicking. I’m pretty strong, but I can’t get free. He’s so heavy and I’m so little. I give him one good kick, which makes him mad.

“Are you done?” he asks again, and when I still keep kicking, he says, “I’m going to chain you.”

Chain me? What?

I have to think of something—do something—to get out of here.

Maybe if I pretend not to resist, I can trick him. So I stop kicking, hold out my arms flat on the floor, and say, “Go ahead; chain me.”

He slides off me to get the chain, and I jump up and run. I don’t even make it to the first step before he grabs me. As I try to get away I pull some boxes of junk down, and they crash all over the place.

“You should not have done that!” he shouts.

He pulls me back over to the pole and puts a chain around my neck, tight. Then he puts another one around my stomach. They hurt. The chains look brand-new.

He pushes me down. I’m sitting in front of the pole, chained to it. He pulls my hands behind my back, behind the pole, and ties them together.

“It’s plastic rope,” he says. “Don’t move, or it will cut you.”

He picks up a filthy gray rag from the floor, winds a piece of rope around it, and pushes it into my mouth, smashing my teeth against my lower lip until it’s bleeding. Then he puts duct tape over my mouth. I’m trying to scream but I can’t. It’s hard to breathe. All I can do is cry.

“How am I supposed to take you home if your eyes are bloodshot?” he asks.

I’m so scared. I need to stop crying.

He pulls his pants down and starts rubbing himself. He is only inches away from me, and I try to turn my head and look away, but it’s hard because of how tightly he has my neck chained. I’m so scared he’s going to rape me. I’m praying over and over in my head:
Please, God, please don’t let him do this to me.

Then, when he’s done, he pulls up his pants and without saying a word walks upstairs.

 • • • 

My head is pounding, and I can’t concentrate on anything. I’m trying to think of ways to escape, but my mind is blank. I want my mom. I wish my dad would come save me. I just want to be home. I think he’s going to kill me, and I can’t stop crying.

It’s terrifying down here, so much stuff and tons of empty bottles of laundry detergent and empty giant-size pop bottles. What is he keeping them for? He’s got boxes filled with magazines—I can see a bunch of pornos. What is this place? Has he brought other girls down here?

In a few minutes he comes back down with a radio. My whole body freezes up when I see him. I look down at the ground.

He doesn’t say anything but just plugs in the radio, starts blasting it, and leaves. My mouth aches from the rag and rope. My lips are still bleeding, and I can’t move my tongue. The chains around my neck and stomach are so tight that it’s hard to breathe. I didn’t know I could cry this much.

It’s completely dark and freezing. I wish I hadn’t listened to him and taken my coat off. I’m so scared. I’m praying to God. I need Him now. Don’t let this man kill me.

 • • • 

It must be morning, because a little sunlight comes in when he opens the door to the basement. He brings a little black-and-white TV and turns it up loud and then turns the radio up even louder.

He rips the duct tape off my face and yanks the rag out of my mouth, making me scream because it hurts so bad when the tape pulls at my face and hair.

“If you scream any more, this will go right back in your mouth,” he warns me. “I’m going to put it here to remind you.” He drops the rag on top of a pile of clothes, right where I can see it.

After all the screaming I did yesterday, I know nobody can hear me. What’s wrong with the neighbors around here? I don’t know what he wants with me, but he knows I can tell my parents who he is, so there’s no way he’ll let me go.

I’m shaking, but I stay quiet. The last thing I want to do is make him mad.

He takes the chain off my neck, and I can breathe better.

“Don’t scream. Nobody will hear you.”

He grabs my breasts and squeezes them. I worry that he is going to do more disgusting things, but then he just stops, turns off the overhead lightbulb, and leaves. I’m alone again, and it’s dark except for the TV. It’s on WB 55, all sitcoms, and I can’t reach it to change channels. It’s hard to follow anything on TV because of the blaring radio. It’s like having two people screaming in my face about completely different things. My skull aches.

I have to go to the bathroom. The concrete floor is so cold.

Why is Arlene’s dad doing this to me?

I wonder if he was planning this. I’ve seen him so many times in my neighborhood in the past year. He’d be sitting in his school bus, parked on Dearborn Avenue, right around the corner from my house, and would wave at me. Other times he would drive by me slowly, smiling and waving. I always waved back. I figured my neighborhood must have been on his bus route. Now I bet he was stalking me.

 • • • 

I’ve been here hours, and suddenly I hear his heavy black work boots on the wooden stairs.

Is this it? I start shaking.

“I brought you some food,” he says, handing me a plate of rice and beans. “My mom made this—it’s good.”

I’m so hungry, but I won’t touch it.

“I’m only eating
my
mom’s cooking. I want to go home!”

My mom’s food is famous. Before the holidays she spends days cooking and baking. She makes chicken and pork and Puerto Rican specialties, like
arroz con gandules
—rice and pigeon peas. I try to imagine the salty taste and rich smell of my mom’s hot food, right off the stove.

I wish I could do a drive-by! That’s what we call it when somebody has to work on a holiday and can’t come for dinner at our house. They call ahead, pull up outside, honk the horn, and Mom runs out with a plate of whatever she made that day. It’s making me sadder to think about home, and I can’t stop crying.

“Okay, I don’t care if you starve,” he says and takes the food back upstairs.