Unbreakable: My Story, My Way (6 page)

“I ain’t scared of you, you little bitch,” I said. “I’ll fuck you up!” Obviously, I couldn’t do so. He was stronger than me. That was not the last time he slapped me in the face. It happened more times than I would like to admit. But I’d enjoy getting back at him when I’d catch him off guard. I would wait until he was asleep and beat his ass. This was the way our relationship went for years to come. The women in my family used to tell me, “You aren’t supposed to do that. You are supposed to let them hit you.” My nana was this old-school, religious little lady, and our grandfather used to hit her while she just looked down at the ground and took it. I told her, “Fuck that, Nana. If he hits me, I’m going to hit him back.”

Eventually I got my way after much arguing and not giving in to his macho, idiotic ways, and I took my pregnant ass to Reid High School, the continuation high school down the street. Reid specialized in educating the more troublesome students and the pregnant teenagers. In addition to my regular academic classes, the teachers there would prepare me for childbirth.

I’m glad I persisted, because at that school I learned about what was going on in my pregnant body. Ms. McFerrin, my home-economics and child-development teacher, would always remind me that I had to be a happy pregnant girl. She said, and actually showed me in the different textbooks, that a human being’s personality is formed in the womb. She assured me that what I put the fetus through during pregnancy would mold my child’s character for life. I believed her and later had full proof that it was true.

Three months after I left my parents’ house, they were begging me to move back. Despite life with Trino being a living hell, I wouldn’t do it. They had kicked me out and I was too proud and stubborn to turn around and forget what had happened. No,
I was going to stick it out, I was going to make things work. I was going to be a gangster wife, just like my mommy.

Our first daughter, Janney (later to be nicknamed Chiquis), was born on June 26, 1985, six days before my sixteenth birthday. Despite Trino’s accusations, she looked just like him. I brought her home to my parents’ house on July 1 during Rosie’s fourth birthday party. They were about to cut the cake when I walked in holding this beautiful green-eyed baby. Rosie was pissed. She had always been my baby and was not too happy that she was being replaced. I promised her that I would never leave her. I assured her that she was still my baby too.

Everyone fell in love with Chiquis, especially her Tía Rosie.

Trino and I moved into the back house on my parents’ lot so my mother could help me with Chiquis while I worked my shift at Kentucky Fried Chicken or went to school. Unfortunately this also meant that my family witnessed a lot of the ugly altercations between Trino and me even though I tried to keep them secret.

I gained eighty pounds during the pregnancy, and Trino told me I was now too fat to be his woman. He was constantly calling me names and humiliating me about my looks. I felt so ugly, fat, and worthless, but I never wanted to let anyone else know this. In my family they always called me “unbreakable,” and I never wanted to shatter this image of myself. On the outside I kept my head up and maintained my tough-girl image. However, inside I was dying. Because I wanted nothing more than to shut Trino up, I began fad dieting and had lost all the excess weight about a year and a half after Chiquis was born. But then he became jealous and obsessive. I just couldn’t win.

By the last few days of January 1987, Trino and I were living in a trailer home we had purchased in Carson. I was working as a cashier at Video One on Willow Street. This was during the time of the VHS craze, and the place was always full of customers, many of them men. One day I received a bouquet of flowers at work. I stupidly thought it
was a message from Trino trying to make up after yet another fight. When he came to pick me up that night, I jumped in the car and gave him a kiss, thanking him. In the blink of an eye he slapped me across the face and the flowers flew out the window. That night, I didn’t even try to fight back. Instead, I cried myself to sleep and felt myself falling deeper into a depression. I never did find out who sent me those flowers.

The following day I skipped school, but went to work as usual. We needed the $3.75 an hour and I didn’t want to be irresponsible. Trino harassed me that evening by calling the video store nonstop. As the phone calls increased, my boss, Kim, a Korean businessman who was demanding and unkind, started to get upset. I was working with my friend Veronica, and each time the phone rang, we grew more anxious. I didn’t want to take any more shit from Kim or from Trino’s dumb ass. Remembering the slap across the face from the night before and the new accusation that I was sleeping around, I decided to go forward with what had been on my mind. I had been having suicidal thoughts.

I said to myself, “This is it. I can’t take it anymore. I need to get away from this man. I love him, but he hurts me too much.” I desperately wanted to end the relationship, but I also wanted to be like my mother. I wanted to stay with him and make it work for my daughter’s sake, for my own stupid pride, and the old-fashioned belief that I should belong to the same man for the rest of my life. Just like my mommy.

I debated the issue for a long time; I thought about my daughter, my parents, my brothers and sister, and then I thought about myself. I don’t remember ever having been so selfish before. During my break, I went to the Alpha Beta Supermarket, which was a couple of doors down from Video One. I bought as many over-the-counter drugs as I could afford and returned to the video store. I walked in, kissed
Veronica on the cheek, and headed straight to the bathroom. There, in the Video One restroom, I downed every single pill in those seven containers, a mixture of everything they had in stock that day. Before I lost consciousness I felt the tears roll down my cheeks. I whispered to the tile floor, “I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, Daddy.”

When I opened my eyes, I was in a bright, white room. It smelled sterile and clean, and I could hear people running back and forth in the hallway. Then I turned to see my parents, and I will never forget the sadness and grief on both of their faces. My mommy cried while my daddy tried, as usual, to show his strength. A heavy teardrop fell down his face as he forced a smile. “You’re okay,
mija.
” I didn’t know if he was trying to comfort me or if he was trying to convince himself. “Everything is going to be okay,” he whispered. “We’re going to take care of you. We’re going to get you right.”

“Don’t ever do this to me again,
mija
,” my mother sobbed. I began to cry too when I realized what I had done.

They didn’t ask me why. They didn’t interrogate me. They didn’t want to make me feel worse than I already did. I didn’t say anything either. I promised my mother, silently, that I would never do it again.

The next day I was discharged from Pacific Hospital in Long Beach with the order to be admitted into the Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center in Downey. My father’s medical insurance wouldn’t pay for my expenses at the hospital or at the rehab center. Although my parents never told me, I think they knew that I was losing my childhood warrior spirit. Indeed, I was. I spent two weeks at Los Amigos while my daughter stayed with my parents. As the youngest patient there and the only one to have attempted suicide, I received quite a bit of attention from the other patients, most of whom were suffering from drug and alcohol abuse. The staff had heard about my success in school and that I was a teen mother. They made it a point to rebuild my self-esteem
and to make sure I knew how much I had going for me. Trino never showed his face while I was there.

At Los Amigos I first heard the serenity prayer: “Dear God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

On the day I was discharged, I silently repeated that prayer to myself on the way back to my parents’ house. My brother Pete was driving, my mother sat in the passenger seat, and I sat in the back. Pete kept looking at me through his rearview mirror as “Lean on Me” played on the radio. I felt ready to face the world. I was ready for a fresh start, and I had a new outlook on life. I was finally determined to leave Trino for good.

After Los Amigos, my daughter and I stayed with my parents. I took it day by day. I made it through February without getting back with Trino. Then March. I made it through the entire spring. I was focused on going to school and being a good mother to Chiquis, who was now almost two years old. That June I graduated from high school, and I was the valedictorian of my class. I was offered eight different college scholarships. Trino came to the ceremony and afterward pleaded with me, once again, to come back home to our trailer in Carson.

“Not tonight,” I told him. “I’m going to grad night.”

“You’re not taking me?” he asked.

“I guess not, since I have a date,” I responded proudly. “Three’s a crowd, baby. We’ll talk another day.”

I jumped on the school bus with my date, Al, and the rest of the seniors. It was my first time at Disneyland. For one night I felt like a normal teenager.

Why Are You Crying, Baby?

If the teardrops ever start

I’ll be there before the next teardrop falls . . .

—from “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”

_{I wanted to take}
advantage of the scholarships I had been offered, and so that summer of 1987 I began taking classes at Long Beach City College. Though I was focused on my studies and goals, guess what? Yup. I did it again. I took him back. I went back to the “I want to be like my mom” spirit. Back to the violence and the fistfights. Back to the loud arguments, another year of the never-ending screaming and boxing matches. I became concerned about Chiquis living in this unstable environment and how it was affecting her. I decided to leave the trailer in Carson that I had helped pay for. To me the lost money was worth my freedom. So, at the end of 1988, I packed up and took my daughter back to my parents’ house in Long Beach. As a mother I learned to put aside my pride and do what was best for my child, even though this meant admitting failure in my marriage. I was only nineteen years old.

For about two months my life was stable and quiet without Trino
in it. But then my world came crashing down again. It was February 11, 1989. I was leaving my job at the Wherehouse Music Store at the Long Beach Mall. I could sense something bad was going to happen. I had stayed overtime to do stock count and had left a bit late that night. At about 10:15 p.m. I was walking through the empty parking lot toward my 1986 Toyota Supra. I heard a pair of quick footsteps coming toward me from behind. It was Trino. “I want us to talk,” he said. I argued with him before I finally agreed to discuss things with him. We sat in his Nissan Maxima talking for a while before he began kissing me.
¡Ahí va la pendeja!
I wanted him to stop when things got heated, but he wouldn’t. “You asked for it! You can’t mess with me like that!” he yelled at me. Fearing that I would make things worse, and because I hadn’t gotten any in a while, I gave in. I can’t blame it all on him. I was stupid enough to put myself in that predicament. I asked him to use protection or pull out. Since I wasn’t sexually active, I wasn’t using contraception, but I had learned about the ovulation method and I was positive I could get pregnant that day. So Trino ignored my pleas and with an evil look on his face said, “Fuck that!”

That night I went home knowing that we had conceived another child.

So I was once again living at my parents’ home and pregnant. I contemplated having an abortion, but one day, as I sat in my bedroom attempting to do my homework, my mother walked in my room and found me crying. I told her the truth. Considering what I was thinking, I am glad I did.

“You can’t have an abortion,” she said. “I won’t let you do it. It wouldn’t be fair to a life that God has planned for. Believe me, one day you will appreciate my advice.”

That day I decided to keep the baby, but not wanting to face my father with the news, I also decided to move back in with Trino. I packed up my belongings and headed to the trailer park in Carson
with my four-year-old daughter. When I knocked on the door of the trailer, Trino answered and immediately asked me what I was doing there. I told him I was pregnant and couldn’t take advantage of my parents any longer. I knew they were disappointed in me and I wanted to show them that we could work things out.

“You can stay,” Trino said, “but don’t hold me responsible for whatever might happen.”

He didn’t want us there. He seemed to be having too much fun being a bachelor and had no interest in married life anymore. However, he did have an interest in belittling me, calling me names, and trying to stop me from achieving my goals. He told me I would never complete my associate’s degree that year because I was pregnant and depressed. I put up with more from him during that time than ever before in our relationship. I was committed to making it work, but I was also committed to proving him wrong. I wasn’t about to let him win.

We fought constantly. It would start with a screaming match and would quickly escalate. I made sure to run to Chiquis’s bedroom before the fights became physical because I feared for my unborn child. Oftentimes Rosie, who was eight years old by then, would spend the night with us. She had grown close to Chiquis. They would both have terrified looks on their faces when I would run into the room and slam the door behind me when Trino was about to hit me.

The fights continued until one day in July of 1989. Trino and I were arguing when he began to beat me. I tried to run away, but I was five months pregnant and couldn’t move quickly. He kicked me in the stomach, trying to hurt the baby. I didn’t want to scare Chiquis, so I tried not to yell, but when he kicked me again, much harder this time, I couldn’t hold it in. I screamed in pain and Chiquis ran out of her room to see if I was okay.