Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (19 page)

Men’s voices float through the streets from somewhere nearby — laughter, a few curses. But my eyes are straight ahead. The old Piddy might have been afraid, the way Ma taught her. But I don’t care now.
Jump me if you want. Disappear me. Make me a milk-carton kid. Who cares?

As I start to cross the street, I spot a cop car on the corner. I don’t get far before I hear its door open.

“Hey.”

I turn just as a flood of red and blue lights fills the streets. The cherry top is spinning silently like a disco ball.

“Piddy Sanchez?”

The voices on the street go silent as one of the cops approaches me through the glare. It’s only when he’s right in front of me that I see it’s Raúl.

“I thought that was you.” He flashes me a friendly smile, but I don’t answer. The cold has turned my thoughts into a thick goop. This is his beat, I remember now.

He signals to his partner in the car, then takes a step closer and lowers his voice. “You okay, Piddy?”

I’m light-headed, frozen. My teeth are chattering.

“Fine,” I say.

His head bobs as though we’re having a pleasant conversation. His partner is waiting in the car, listening to the crackle of their radio; she tells the dispatch their location.

“Thing is,” he says, “it’s late, and you have a couple people worried about you.”

So, Ma has set the hounds on me.

“Nobody has to worry,” I say. “See? I’m fine.” My lips are quivering, though.

“Hang on.” He goes back to the patrol car and pulls a blue blanket from the trunk. He holds it out to me when he gets back.

“It’s cold,” he says. “And you’re far from your place. How about if we give you a ride home?”

I don’t take the blanket. Instead, I shake my head and turn to go. “Thanks, but I’m not going home.”

His face looks serious as he steps into my path. I’m suddenly aware of his size, his badge, the gun in his holster. I can see his breath in the air between us.

“Your mother and Lila are worried. They’ve called me twice.” He says it just the way I’ve heard fathers sound on TV. His voice almost breaks my heart. “Now, let’s go.”

When I get home, I march straight past Ma and Lila without a word and lock my bedroom door. Lila’s voice is low.
Gracias, mi vida
. Ma adds her own stupidities.
She was where? She could have frozen. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Teenagers, blah-blah
. I don’t even care. I strip off my wet clothes and get under the covers, despite my growling stomach and numb, itchy toes. I’ll have to wait for Lila to go home and for Ma to start snoring. Then I’ll prowl like the beast that I am and find some food.

Ma tries to turn the doorknob.

“Piedad, open the door,” she whispers on the other side.

But all I do is roll over, hate her all over again, steel myself to another night of restless dreams. I’ll never talk to that hypocrite again.

“Hungry?”

Ma is sitting at the piano in her pajamas, an untouched cup of tea on the lid above her.

I ignore her completely. It’s four a.m., and I’ve crawled out of bed, starving. I only realize she’s there when I’m already holding a whole loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.

“Sit down, Piedad.” She motions to a spot on the bench beside her.

I don’t move.

“We’re not going to talk about school,” she says. “We’re going to talk about your father.”

My father
. She has never used that phrase before.

“I’m pretty sure I know the story now, Ma. No thanks to you.”

“You know, it’s not so easy to explain things like this to your kid. You don’t know that yet. But it’s hard to talk about certain kinds of mistakes.”

“Why? Because you’d have to turn in your morality-police badge?” I’m pushing it now, but Ma just takes a deep breath.

“You think I would take a woman’s husband on purpose? When you think of me, that’s the woman you think I am?”

I don’t answer. The truth is that Ma has never done a crooked thing in her whole life. She barely drinks. She works all the time. She doesn’t date. Her only crime is being a sour nun.

“You going to say anything?” she asks.

“There’s no talking to you,” I say. “There’s only listening.”

“Then, listen.”

I close my eyes. All I want is food and my bed, but when Ma has you in a net, it’s hopeless. I step into the living room and sit down next to her on the bench.

“Don’t,” I say when she stands up to turn on the light. “It hurts my eyes.”

Ma lights a jar candle we keep on the piano instead. It’s our Dollar Store
Virgen de la Caridad
.

“You’re right that Agustín was married to someone else when I knew him,” Ma says. “Her name was Laura.”

I watch the light flicker inside the frosted glass. The virgin’s arms are spread wide to calm the frightened fishermen beneath her, but her light makes the chipped piano keys glow garishly.

“But what you
don’t
know is that your father never told me a word about his wife when we met. He just swept me off my feet with his church music and the way he talked to me about my own playing. That’s how I got this piano, in fact. He had a friend who played on Sundays at the bar inside the New York Hilton. Agustín bought it for me when they were getting ready to update the place. I was crazy with joy.” She runs her fingers along the keys but doesn’t press down.

“You never play anymore,” I say.

“No.” Ma shrugs. “This old thing blinded me to everything, and I guess I can’t forgive myself for being so gullible. I thought I had met someone worthwhile, someone who really wanted to make me happy. But his gift fooled me; he fooled both Laura and me, really.”

I stare straight ahead, but from the corner of my eye, I can see Ma’s silhouette in the dark as it comes into sharper focus. She’s sitting up tall, her hands folded. I’ve struggled to imagine her having a boyfriend, much less having sex. But now something else occurs to me. Ma was made a fool of. Suddenly that’s harder to imagine than anything else.

“So, how did you find out?” I finally ask.

Ma purses her lips and goes quiet for a long time. Finally she takes a deep breath.

“We were engaged and living together in our new apartment in Lila’s building. Agustín had gone home to visit his mother — or so he said. Looking back, I should have known it was a lie. No grown man is so attached to his
mami
— not even a Latin mama’s boy. Gifts and money and —” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I was working part-time at Salón Corazón and getting things ready for you. I had your crib and everything.

“But one afternoon, while I was at the shop, a tall
mulata
came in. She said, ‘I am looking for Agustín Sanchez’s whore.’ Imagine it! She was one of Laura’s cousins, who lived in Elmhurst. There were rumors, and a few nosy bodies in the neighborhood told her that Agustín was making a fool of her
primita
with another woman. Naturally, she’d asked questions, and soon enough she found out my name and where I worked.”

The whole tableau floats before my eyes. Ma, fat-bellied, with her broom, the sting of people’s stares on her back. A young Gloria fighting to keep her smile.
This is a decent shop
,
señora
, she might have said.
We’re all good women here. You’ve made a mistake. Come. Come have a cookie
.

“Then what happened?” I ask.

“I said, ‘I’m carrying Agustín Sanchez’s child, so careful who you call a whore,
señora
. I’m his fiancée. Now, what business do you have with him?’ Then she told me everything the way it really was.” Ma sighs. “A whole family over there that had nothing to do with me. He never even bothered to come back to explain. No matter how many letters I wrote to him demanding answers, I think he just believed he could keep two secret families forever. After that, I was furious. I burned every last piece of him I could find.” She pauses for a second. “Well, almost.”

She stands up and moves the candle and tea to one of the boxes crowding us. Then, from inside the top of the piano, she pulls something out that’s been taped inside. I hold it close to the flame when she hands it to me and find a photograph of a handsome guy with slick hair and green eyes like mine.

“You look a lot like him,” she says.

It’s the only picture I’ve ever seen of my father, the one thing I’ve searched for. But now a strange emptiness fills me as I ask Ma the one thing I’ve always been afraid to know.

“Did he ever really want me, Ma? Does he even know I have his last name?”

When I look at her, I see tears in Ma’s eyes, and I can guess the answer. My stomach squeezes into a fist.

Ma leans forward and her voice is a whisper.

“He didn’t know what he wanted, Piddy. But
I
wanted you — more than anything. You are the only good thing that man ever gave me.”

I stare at the picture in my lap and nod stupidly. Ma wanting me should be enough, but somehow it’s not.

“A girl deserves a decent man for a father, but that’s not what you got, Piedad, and I’m sorry,” Ma says. “The important question now is: Who are
you
going to be?”

She gets up and goes to bed, her tea still untouched.

Lila is the one who calls us with the news early Saturday. It’s just before nine o’clock, and with only a few hours of sleep, Ma looks pale and dazed as she listens. I know it’s bad news before she even tells me.

“That animal,” she mutters, crossing herself. “It’s his fault. Are the police there now?”

“What’s wrong?” I ask from the couch, where I fell asleep with my father’s picture. Ma shakes her head and turns her back, but I follow. “What’s the matter?” I say louder.

She cups the receiver and shoots me a look. “
Sio, niña
. I can’t hear Lila.”

But Lila shouldn’t even be up right now, definitely not making calls. I stand right next to Ma. “What’s wrong with Lila?”

“
Por Dios
, Piddy. She’s fine. There’s trouble in the building — that’s all.”

“What trouble?”

She pauses, considering her words.

“What?” I say again.

Ma lets out a long sigh. “It’s the Halpers.”

“They got evicted?” I ask.

The whole world goes still as I wait for her next words.

“She’s hurt.”

There’s no sign of Joey when I get to the building, out of breath and panting, but there’s
CAUTION
tape everywhere and a squad car parked up on the curb. The ambulance has its lights going, but no sound. A few neighbors are hanging out their windows as they chug their morning coffee. Finally I spot Lila at the corner. She’s smoking again, and her hair is tucked under a bandana, like when she’s sick. She should be at work by now, but she’s still in her stretchy pants and sweatshirt from last night. When she sees me, she tosses away her cigarette butt and looks at me carefully. A whole world of questions about last night is in her eyes, but in the end, she just gives me a close hug, letting me breathe in the smell of cigarettes and her perfume.

“What happened to Mrs. Halper?” I ask. The whole way over, I’ve been thinking of Joey’s mom, thin and quiet, her high voice through the pipes.
Stop it, Frank. Please, Frank. I’m sorry
. I’m thinking of the days long ago when she’d sit on the stoop darning Joey’s dingy socks, waiting for Mr. Halper to sober up.
Did he kill her?
I want to ask, but I can’t get out the words.

The lobby doors open, and everybody gets quiet as the gurney rolls through. Mrs. Halper is cocooned in sheets, like a caterpillar waiting for her wings. Her face is swollen with bruises, but her skin is so pale that she looks blue.

“What else? He got drunk and beat her until she stopped screaming,” Lila whispers, shuddering. “The kid found her lying in the kitchen this morning. His old man was passed out cold.”

My stomach seizes up at the thought of Joey.

Just then he appears at the lobby door with a cop at his side. I move behind the telephone pole so he can’t see me gawking at him the way he’d hate. His eyes are blank, even further away than they were in my room. If he sees any of us on the street, he doesn’t let on. He looks right through the neighbors watching his catastrophe and climbs into the back of the ambulance with the gurney. His face is hard, his eyes straight ahead.