Chapter One

Posted by Sandy on May 9th, 2008 filed in Chapter One, Sweetwater American Chapters

Sandy

Washington D.C.

I grew up in a building called El Barco. We called it El Barco because it was shaped like a ship and took up a whole block of sidewalk. Not everyone in the Adams Morgan section of Northwest Washington, D.C. called it El Barco. It was only called that by los Latinos. And Latinos were the primary occupants because Mr. Beenie, the apartment building manager, who was black and not Latino, rarely increased the rent.

Latinos were happy to be in America, many had relatives back home in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico to whom they’d send money. So they didn’t complain about burnt staircase doors, bloodstained carpets, illegal dogs, heavy apartment doors, or smokers.

Señora Juarez lived on the third floor, and sold milk, eggs, oil, and cheese to El Barco’s tenants. She’d walk to the grocery store, buy items by the bulk and then sell them for a higher price to the tenants. It was a lucrative business—since people didn’t even have to leave El Barco. Her advertising signs read, “Se vende leche apartamento 312″ and she’d post them on the wall space over the mailboxes in the lobby. Sometimes she’d list the other items she sold but most of the time she just listed milk. On Saturday mornings visitors were at her door asking for eggs but she didn’t sell to them because it was her Sabbath, which prohibited her from making business transactions.

“Señora Juarez, just two eggs, please,” they pleaded.

I was one of the pleaders because Mami and Dihda were so tired during the week they were rarely ever able to go to the grocery store. I always wanted eggs for breakfast on Saturdays. And Dihda begged for pancakes.

“Go down to Señora Juarez’s place and ask her to sell you eggs. Be cute and act really little so she feels sorry for you. Scrunch down like you do when we ride the bus so I don’t have to pay for you,” Mami said to me.

Whenever I visited Señora Juarez, there’d be at least three people coming up the stairs who had just been refused the sale of eggs.

“She’s so crazy, not selling on Saturdays. Oh well, she does enjoy fighting with us.”

The eggs they carried were brown because she disliked white eggs. She thought white eggs had no texture.

I’d stand in front of her door for a few seconds before knocking so I could practice being little and cute. I’d make sure my hair was tied back in a ponytail. Then I’d scrunch down a couple of inches. I’d knock on the door and it instantly opened.

“What do you want? I don’t sell on Saturdays, yet every Saturday here you are. Don’t you know God prohibits me from selling on Saturdays? It’s written in the Bible. Why don’t you and the others understand that?”

She’d reach into her robe’s pocket and pull out a hairpin. She’d then put it in her hair along with five or six other pins, which were placed on top of each other in an attempt to keep her hair neat. Two or three loose red strands hid the few freckles that decorated her white face. She couldn’t hide the fact that her mama was Irish.

“Señora Juarez, just two eggs, please.”

“No, but I will give them to you for free. Just like I do every Saturday to you and the others. Today they’re free and tomorrow you will come back and pay me.”

She’d walk to her kitchen. I’d peek into her apartment. She lived in the smallest apartment in El Barco with just one living space. A hollyhock- painted wall divided the bathroom and kitchen and it was covered with maps of the world. Asia and Australia were the most visible and the only ones she framed. The rest were held in place with clear tape. The paint had faded on some parts of the wall from the constant removal of maps, I suppose.

Each time I visited, there were different maps hanging—Tahitian, African, Central American, and even maps of the Galapagos Islands, all the places she someday hoped to visit. I never saw a map of Ireland. Asia and Australia always remained in the same place underneath a photograph of a man sitting in a gondola, four ancient buildings served as the picture’s backdrop—three made of redbrick and one made of wood.

She’d return to the door with five eggs in her hands and the gondola-man waved goodbye to me. I’d stretch out the bottom of my shirt, converting it into a basket. One by one Señora Juarez let the eggs fall.

“I’m giving these to you but you do understand you must come back tomorrow and pay me for them, otherwise when you come back next Saturday, not only will I not let you have any, I’ll also close the door all the way so you can’t stare at my maps and the gondola photograph.”

“Okay,” I said.

Every Saturday morning most of El Barco’s tenants ate eggs for breakfast. And every Sunday morning Señora Juarez visited the supermarket with her pink sequined bag full of money.

Our apartment was on the fourth floor, right next to a narrow staircase. The elevators were far down the gray painted hallway. The carpet, which Mr. Beenie never changed, was still bloodstained from a murder that took place two years before we moved in.

El Barco also suffered several fires. Amy and Samuel, two married teenagers who lived on the second floor, started one of the fires. They were both smokers and often had people over from their high school.

Their friends were also smokers and Mr. Beenie warned them not to leave cigarette butts in the halls or lobby.

“If I find anymore ashes or cigarette butts that look like they might have come from your apartment, I’ll throw you and your little girl wife out,” he’d say to Samuel.

All the cigarette butts came from Amy and Samuel’s apartment, no one else in El Barco smoked.

Samuel, who was shorter than Amy by at least two inches—Amy was about five foot seven—worked in the Tienda Latina a couple of blocks down the street from El Barco. He barely spoke Spanish and the owner of the store, Señor Moreno, made fun of his accent when he tried speaking to the Latino customers.

“Samuel, how come your parents never taught you to speak Spanish? Your accent is embarrassing. Didn’t you tell me your parents are from Mexico?”

“I don’t speak to my parents and you shouldn’t worry about it Señor Moreno.”

This was a common conversation between Samuel and Señor Moreno. I heard it often whenever I visited for plantains and beans. And Samuel didn’t speak to his parents because he dropped out of school and married too young.

“Well, don’t speak Spanish to the customers. They don’t understand what you’re trying to say. They just laugh at you. And that’s what worries me.”

Señor Moreno was right about people laughing at Samuel but it wasn’t just because he couldn’t speak Spanish, it was because he and his wife were so young and could not afford to live in El Barco. We all knew they had no furniture. Samuel stole cans of beans—pinto, black, and sometimes red—from the Tienda Latina.

Señor Moreno was aware of Samuel’s bean stealing but he never said anything to either Samuel or Amy. He did, however, make sure to tell El Barco’s tenants about their unfortunate circumstances, so every now and then, a basket, sheltering milk, eggs, bread, plantains, rice, and flour for tortillas appeared in front of the teenagers’ apartment door. Not all the tenants participated in this charity but those that did took turns filling the basket every other week. Mami contributed cans of black beans, bread, and peanut butter because she thought those were the kinds of foods they needed if they were ever going to grow up. She also thought Samuel was much too short.

Like Samuel and Amy’s poverty, other secrets were not guarded well in El Barco. We all knew Amy was sleeping with Mr. Fernandez, the young Buddhist from the first floor. She and Mr. Fernandez were too sweet with each other when they picked up their mail—and they always picked it up at the same time. I made sure to visit the lobby to pick up our mail at the same time.

“All Samuel and I ever get are bills. I guess I’ll have to drop out of school soon too. Otherwise Mr. Beenie is going to throw us out on the street. And not for leaving cigarette butts in the halls.” Amy flipped through her mail, smelling each envelope as if they held flowers inside.

“Why do you smell the envelopes Amy?” Mr. Fernandez said.

“Because I’m waiting for my rose petal. I should be getting one real soon and when I do, I’ll let you smell it. I think you’ll like it Mr. Fernandez, it’ll smell better than me, I think. Flowers are supposed to smell good and they are only given to people who deserve them. Did you know that Mr. Fernandez? My father told me that.” Amy got closer to Mr. Fernandez, placed her nose on his neck and inhaled. He didn’t back away.

“I’ll buy you a rose petal, Amy. I’ll buy you a yellow petal to match your hair. Don’t change your hair color until I buy it for you okay.”

Amy touched her curly hair and giggled.

“Don’t worry Mr. Fernandez, I won’t. But you may have to buy me two petals, a yellow one and a black one. I think black roses exist.”

I heard sounds coming from the staircase—feet stomping and people yelling. The staircase doors opened and out came about twenty people screaming and shoving one another. Mami and Dihda were among them.

“Hurry up.” Mami grabbed one of my fingers and led me towards the exit door.

Mr. Fernandez and Amy followed us outside.

“What’s wrong?” Mr. Fernandez held on to Amy’s hand.

“A fire on the second floor.” Mami turned to Amy.

“From your apartment. You and your stupid husband. Mr. Beenie is going to raise the rent and he’s going to throw you both out.”

But Mr. Beenie didn’t raise the rent. Nor did he throw Amy and Samuel out. They moved to a smaller apartment and Amy did quit school. Señor Moreno gave her a job at the Tienda Latina. I think she enjoyed helping the customers pick out ripe plantains. I’m not sure if Amy ever got her rose petal in the mail. I lost interest in her and Mr. Fernandez’s love story.

I always chose the steps when leaving El Barco or visiting other tenants such as Señora Juarez. Not only were the elevators too far from our apartment but also strange people sometimes decided to ride the elevator at the same time I did.

Once an old man and his black dog got on at the third floor. Blacky was the only dog in El Barco because dogs were not allowed. And as long as Mr. Beenie didn’t raise the rent, he didn’t have to change the bloody carpets or fix the burnt staircase door on the second floor, and the old man could have a dog and Señora Juarez could sell milk and eggs. But Samuel and Amy couldn’t smoke anymore. That was the one rule he did enforce.

Blacky was wet and the old man had a towel in his hand. I backed into a corner of the elevator—the dog’s wet fur smelled like coconut shampoo, which I didn’t mind but his breath ejected the scent of damp manure. His tongue hung from his mouth and he burped in my direction. The old man pulled his scarf over his nose. Then he turned to me.

“Do you want to help me dry my dog?” The scarf, with its large openings and faded blue tint, fell down to his chin. The old man sucked in his cheeks and locked his lips. He moved a few steps toward me and offered me the towel. I took it.

“Did you just give him a bath?” I said.

The elevator stopped, its bell announced we were on the first floor. The doors opened and my toes forced my feet to move towards the opening.

“Wait.” The old man unlocked his lips and let his cheeks breath. “Aren’t you going to help me dry my dog?”

He pushed Blacky towards me, his bad breath intensified the closer he got to me. Blacky pulled his extended tongue back into his mouth. His eyes centered on the towel, which I still held. I bent down and rubbed the fabric back and forth on the dog’s back. Blacky stood still.

“Here, he’s dry.” I handed the wet towel to the old man. And as I attempted once again to walk towards the exit door he yelled,

“I’ll come and find you the next time my dog is wet.”

“Sure, why not. Oh, and I think you should call him Blacky if he doesn’t already have a name.”

I never took the elevators again. But Mami never stopped trying to make me overcome my fear of them.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of everything. You better learn how to be brave and start taking the elevators. I’m going to watch you, I promise. Just get on and push the first floor button.”

My purple-star sneakers carried me fast down the hall.

“Don’t run,” she’d said.

My sneakers moved faster. They didn’t stop until we made it to the staircase on the other side of the hall, past the elevators. And every time Mami made me walk down the hall to the elevators, I wore my purple-star sneakers.

Señora Juarez’s daughter, Sonia, was married to a drunk and lived three stories above her on the sixth floor. But I don’t think she visited Señora Juarez often because she spent a lot of time talking and drinking tea with Mami and her best friend Margarita in our apartment. Sonia visited every day around six in the evening, and often stayed for dinner, although Dihda didn’t understand why we invited a stray puppy to our table.

“Why doesn’t she eat with her husband? Don’t they have food? Surely Señora Juarez doesn’t charge her own daughter for milk and eggs,” Dihda said to Mami after Sonia went home.

“She has plenty of food. She just doesn’t want to be alone with him.

Haven’t you ever noticed the bruises? Don’t be like that.”

Sonia’s husband, Tango, who was much darker than she was because he didn’t have Irish blood in him, bought his liquor from Señor Moreno’s Tienda Latina. And whenever he got drunk, he caressed Sonia with firm hands. The first time Sonia knocked on our door she was dressed in a thin robe, her private parts exposed. Mami almost let our heavy door shut in her face when she first saw her. Mr. Beenie promised to replace the door many times with a lighter one, but since he never raised the rent, Mami didn’t complain and neither did Dihda.

I wanted to see who knocked on our door—Margarita was Mami’s only friend and she was already with us. I danced to the door and hoped the visitor was a Mormon. They often came to El Barco to share their religion. Mormons were so handsome, dressed in suits with black ties and perfectly cut short hair. We were Catholics so they were never invited in but for just a few seconds, I imagined a Mormon boy was my husband and we lived in that magical temple, which nonmembers are prohibited from ever entering.

Mami and Dihda took me to their visitor’s temple every Christmas. I’m not sure if it was called the Visitor’s Temple but in any case, it was the only place in which they allowed non-Mormons. Tall men and women dressed in white silky robes stood in front of ceiling-to-floor windows and sang religious Christmas songs. The bloated trees surrounding the two-story building were decorated with lights—some white and others with a mixture of colors. Mami never understood why I cried at the sight of those lighted trees.

When I got to the door, I saw a woman instead.

“You buy eggs from my mama. But I don’t think we’ve ever met. My name is Sonia. My husband’s name is Tango. We live on the sixth floor. I know your little girl, she never takes the elevators. I don’t blame her. The old man who scared her once has also scared me. His dog is always wet. He’s always looking for someone to dry it. Do you think I could come in for a cup of tea?”

“Come in.” Mami grabbed the sleeve of my shirt and pulled me out of the way. I’d been standing between them and the door was threatening to close.

“Please come in before the door shuts. I hate this door, it’s so heavy,” Mami said.

Sonia moved a couple of inches towards the threshold and then stopped. She looked down the hall and said,

“No, I don’t want to intrude. Perhaps, I could come back another day.”

She already intruded.

“No, I think you should come in now. Is there something wrong? Why are you walking around in the hallway? And you must know your robe is much too thin. There have been rapes here before and murders.”

“Is Señora Juarez really your mom?” I said.

“Yes, she is. She tells me you love her maps. Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yes, please.” I danced around Mami while at the same time holding onto a piece of her dress, forcing her to move with me.

“Stop that, such a dumb child. Sonia please come in. I’m afraid I can’t hold the door open much longer. And my daughter will want to hear this secret.”

“It’s only fair I tell her the secret now.”

Margarita was in the kitchen making tea, green tea because it was supposed to soothe the senses after a long day’s work. It was also Dihda’s favorite tea. And Margarita thought Dihda was very handsome. Her husband died a few years before.

Sonia sat down at the kitchen table and Margarita brought her a cup of the green tea. The three women talked until almost two in the morning. I was sent to bed at ten but I could hear them talking and laughing and Dihda only came out once to tell them to shut up. And after they shut up, I fell asleep and dreamt about the gondola-man picture because Sonia told me Señora Juarez told her she was planning on replacing it with a different photograph or map and when she did, she was going to give it to me as a present. It wasn’t a secret anymore.

Mami and Margarita insisted that Sonia leave her husband but she had nowhere to go. She didn’t want to go back to her mama’s because Señora Juarez begged her not to marry Tango.

Sonia’s bruises never healed and Señora Juarez continued to sell milk and eggs. I finally got the gondola-man photograph because Señora Juarez replaced it with a map of Ireland.