The Accidental Native (25 page)

For such a world traveler, he prepared pretty pedestrian food. He started us off with lentils, made from an old family recipe. Not a big fan, but they were tasty along with the homemade bread—he was surely a man of many talents. The main course consisted of steak, potatoes and string beans. The steaks were done to perfection, and the rest of the meal was actually good. I asked where he learned to cook, and he answered that his wife was a horrible cook, so it was either learn or starve.

“The woman has no sense for the subtleties of flavors and taste.”

I remarked how he didn't have any pictures of family around the house.

He sat back on the chair, elbow over the top rail. “Don't have kids, unless you count the dogs, and the wife has custody,” he said, smiling. “The missus and I are separated these days.” Not divorced, he made it clear, because both of them couldn't help being old school Irish Catholics.

“There's just so much love in any human being, Rennie,” he said. “Then like a well, it dries up.”

After he cleared the table, he poured himself another glass of wine and told me I shouldn't have any more since I had to drive down that highway again, in thicker fog. I wasn't going to argue. But then, he said, “Well, maybe have a wee bit more to toast,” and he poured me two fingers worth.

“Toast to what?” I said.

He told me that he had something for me. And, suddenly, I remembered that there was something important he had wanted to tell me. He came back dangling some keys.

“To your house,” he said, a bright smile on his face, lifting his glass. With his left hand, he offered me the keys.

“No way,” I said.

I stood up and grabbed the keys, mystified.

“Don't leave me hanging, Falto.”

I raised my glass and clinked.

“Thanks,” I said, not clear what was going on. “But, how?”

He downed the wine and threw himself back on a large armchair. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”

“But, it's just so out of the blue. Did Ledesma have anything to do with this?”

Foley snickered. “Martirio is a good lawyer, but he had the legal system to contend with.” Then, he widened his blue eyes, which now appeared glossy and reptilian.

“Please sit down, Rennie,” he said, and I realized that I was still standing, so I set the keys on the coffee table and sat down quietly.

“The Riveras were trash and they were playing the system. You know it, everyone knows it.” He said this as softly as if he were conducting mass, his hands moving gently here and there, almost making the sign of the cross. But I could see in his eyes the malice that accompanies any justification of means. And it worried me, even scared me. Foley was adept at reading people, and he quickly saw this.

“Oh, no harm was done to them,” he said, but in a way hinting it could have been arranged. “Mr. Rivera had quite a rap sheet, suffice it to say. He had no problem moving his butt out once we explained the options.”

“Who's we?”

Here, his eyes fluttered, closed, and he exhaled loudly, sat back on the armchair and slanted his head toward me.

“What difference is it to you?”

“It involves me, somehow, doesn't it?”

“But, of course.”

There was a pause, for whatever he was saying to sink into what he clearly perceived as my thick head. Then, he leaned toward me, his sinewy frame moving closer to me. He sat at the edge of the chair, legs spread, arms dangling off his thighs, hands folded as if in prayer. Lifting his face, he tugged at his ear, then stared at me.

“You've been talking to the Congreso,” he said, as a matter of fact, as if he were commenting on the weather. “You've been organizing.”

“What does it matter to you?”

He smiled, laughed, shaking his head. “Okay, Rennie. Here it is. You keep this up, you're going to be in a heap of trouble.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

He shook his head emphatically. “Advice from a senior faculty member.”

“What happens if I don't stop?”

“Let's just say the rector is not too happy with you getting politically involved.”

His self-assured, smug tone was beginning to irritate me.

“I see.”

“Do you, Falto? I don't think you understand half of what's going on. It's a mess, and your mother is partly to blame.”

“My mother?”

“Her law firm is initiating a class-action suit against the university and the U.S. Defense Department.”

Stunned, I sat silently, as he let that sink in.

“I think you have some thinking to do,” he said.

Still shocked, all I could do was nod absent-mindedly.

“The clean-up is getting done, Rennie. No one needs flak at this moment. It will only make matters worse. Talk to your mother, reason with her.”

I sneered, then laughed. “You don't know my mother.
I
barely know my mother.”

“Well, it would be a shame for you to end your career, and so much damage done all around, based on her misguided zeal.”

“Misguided? You think all of these cancer cases are nothing?”

“There's no link whatsoever, Rennie.”

“My mother seems to think there's a case.”

“Don't be stupid. Tenure-track positions are hard to come by, especially for someone with only an MFA and scanty publications.”

He picked up the keys and handed them over to me. I stared at the keys in his palm, then at his stern face and those eyes that had become cold and distant.

“Be smart,” he said.

I took the keys and said I was leaving. He escorted me to the door. As I struggled, hurrying to put my shoes on, I looked up and saw a framed copy of
Caedmon's Hymn
hanging on the slender foyer wall. Tying my shoelaces, I looked across the hallway into his opened bedroom. On an end table, I noticed a large, framed picture of him and Rita Gómez, heads together and both smiling.

Foley returned with some leftovers. “Here, I know what it's like to be a young bachelor.”

He thanked me for coming, bid me goodbye. “By the way, buy yourself some socks, man,” he added, and then told me to drive carefully.

I shuddered to think that people like this guy exist. One minute he's threatening you and the next he's showing concern for your nutrition and safety while standing in front of a religious poem hanging on his wall and cheating on his wife, whom he would never divorce. He had it all philosophically figured out, his world-view all wrapped up like a Christmas package.

The fog had intensified, like cotton gauze running across my windshield. I had to drive slowly and was happy to note that most of the minimal traffic was heading in the opposite direction. Whenever a car was behind me, I would slow down to a crawl and let it pass. The locals were more adept at fog driving than me.

I kept thinking about Foley's words, the fact that Julia was litigating against the university and the U.S. government. I didn't know what to do, and decided that tomorrow I would give it some thought, that was, if I made it through that foggy night. But as I drove closer to Baná, my exhilaration grew as I absorbed that my parents' house was finally mine. I hated to think that in a way I was in collusion with Foley and whomever he represented. As much as I despised them, the Riveras, or anyone for that matter,
should not have to be bullied that way. It frightened me to think he could do that, that some authority had empowered him to do it, and that that authority could do something to me or Julia.

But at the moment I hit the intersection heading to Baná, I gripped the keys in my hand and could not wait to enter the house and see it. The streets were deserted, and it was late. In a matter of minutes, I parked in front of the little house. I opened the small gate and, shivering, perhaps feeling something like the presence of my parents, I opened the second gate with one of the keys. My eyes became teary, and I felt silly getting so emotional, but I did.

I unlocked the front door and flung it open, flicked on the lights and saw, spray painted in black across the living room wall, in Spanish, “SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS MOTHERFUCKER.”

We were moving to our new home in Jersey, and I was slumped in the back seat, pouting and sighing loudly throughout the trip from the Bronx to Roselle. I was riding with my mother in the Corolla, following my father in the U-Haul truck that contained whatever furnishings they saw fit to bring along. Both had managed to get teaching jobs in the Garden State, in different colleges, so they were ecstatic to find a good deal on a house that was a reasonable driving distance from both of their institutions.

At age ten, I had to leave my friends behind. Despite all the promises adults made about keeping in touch, even then I knew it wasn't going to happen. No, my friends were gone, and I was angry at my parents. And I also liked my school a lot. Adults don't seem to understand, or they forget if it ever happened to them, that it is not easy to start in a new school. What a colossal pain in the butt to have to be introduced to classmates, learn the nooks and crannies of a new school, build immunity to new cafeteria food and deal with that whole new-kid-on-the-block crap. Kids are at the mercy of their parents' whims and dreams. But I was not going to take it lying down. They would know my displeasure. They would suffer like me.

Mami tried to cheer me up with talk about how exciting it was to have a house all to ourselves. No more hearing Mr. Rothman's honking noises as he tried to clear his nose upstairs, or the Screaming Santos downstairs and their French horn playing daughter. But I had found Mr. Rothman's snout cleaning funny, the Santos' arguments entertaining, and after a while I kind of looked
forward to Michelle Santos' limited repertoire. I had no problems with our Bronx apartment on the Grand Concourse. It was spacious, and I could retreat to my own room, the benefit among many of being an only child. I had good times there, memories worthy of remembering, and with a few signatures, “poof,” it was all gone. Mami tuned in to a radio station that played rock to entertain my budding interest in that genre, but I just looked away into the smoggy sky.

When we arrived, I slithered further down in the seat, immobile, arms crossed. Papi would not have it. After a few minutes, he came out to the car.

“Gee, have some cheese with that whine,” he said. “Okay, move your butt out of the car and make yourself useful.”

I dragged my body in slo-mo across the green lawn, just to emphasize the grief I was carrying. My entire childhood, at age ten, had been obliterated. I looked at the house and had to admit it was okay, so was the cul-de-sac that my parents kept talking about like it was the greatest thing on earth since sliced bread. I could already see myself riding my bike around the curve without my parents freaking out. Dragging my feet like the Mummy, I entered the house.

Boxes everywhere. Mami had already started unpacking the ones my father had brought into the kitchen. He started on the bigger items, helped by his friend from the old block, Marco. Together they struggled with the sofa.

“Rennie, please, move out of your father's way,” Mami yelled.

I shuffled, head down, to the other side of the living room and plopped myself on the carpeted floor.

“Ay, por Dios,” Mami said. “Rennie, enough.” She came into the living room and ordered me to carry a few small boxes up to my room. “That's all your stuff; you should take care of it.”

The thought of unpacking my action figures, books and video games did not get me out of my funk. I carried the boxes upstairs with a frown. I dumped them in what had been decided would be my room, and I started to explore the house. It had more room than our apartment. There were two full bathrooms, a kitchen my mother “loved,” a backyard with a big tree to climb that I “should
love,” and a family room, in which Papi was already installing the television, in between taking sips from his Corona, while Marco brought in the remaining boxes and lighter items from the truck.

“Must take care of the essentials, right, Rennie?”

“Yeah, whatever,” I answered.

I went up to the attic, which had been paneled and was an extra room. I thought it would make a great hideout. It had a couple of windows which looked like ship portals. I ran downstairs to ask Mami if I could have that as my room, and she shot the idea down. “That's going to be our office, your father's and mine.”

Back went the frown, the Mummy shuffle.

“¡Ay, qué nene más dramático!” My mother laughed. “We gotta sign you up for acting classes.”

I went outside, threw my little behind on the grass and started throwing gravel across the backyard I was supposed to love. After a few minutes, my mother came out from the kitchen and told me to stop moping because it was getting on her nerves.

“There are boxes in the family room, go unpack those, okay?”

I mumbled okay and dragged myself to the living room, my mother snapping a dish towel against my sorry ass.

“Stop,” I whined.

She came after me playfully and tickled me, forcing me to laugh against my will. She nuzzled my neck, and I kept laughing, and then smothered my face and head with kisses. She wrapped her arms around me hard.

“Everything's gonna be fine, baby, you'll see.” She knelt and stared at me. “This is a great moment for us all, Rennie.”

She seemed so happy, I didn't want to argue with her.

“Okay. Go work, and dust the ceramics with this.” She handed me a rag.

The boxes were already opened, so I started taking out their contents, mostly photo albums and knickknacks my mother had collected. I placed them carefully on the shelves of the wall unit, which already had the television set up. Papi was struggling with the stereo wiring.

I dropped one of the albums and dozens of pictures spilled onto the carpet. I had never glanced at these photos before. Curiosity,
boredom and my funky mood led me to inspect them. Photos of Mami and Papi alone, when they were younger, grinning and playful at the beach, or at parties, dancing or posing with me, in one of the many stupid outfits my mother made me wear. Several of our dog, Sasha, who died a year earlier. Then, the others—so many unknown faces. Who were these people and why did my parents keep them around?