Spider

When we lived in Puerto Rico we had a little house with the jungle in the backyard, and it was all ours. There was a flock of birds that lived there; chickens, ducks and guinea hens, that would all chase after you in the morning, clucking and screeching until they were fed.

The garage was just a metal roof on legs, and there was no car most of the time, so we hung our hammocks under it and when it rained we would lie in them and listen to the rain pat-patting on the roof and drink cerveza and laugh and swat away the mosquitoes.

No we have three rooms four stories up a dirty brick building in the flats. I won’t even let the kids go out on the fourth-floor balcony; it looks like monkeys built it. We throw our trash over the rail and sometimes it lands in the dumpster down below. Once I went out there to smoke and I got knocked out by a bag of trash that missed. There were cans and jars in there when it hit me and they took me to the ER. I pretended that I had no English and told the kids to say my name was Linda Rivera.

Sometimes I wonder why we came over here. But this is where we live now and our people are all here, except for the ones who are in jail or in New York.

*

The big room is all Mama’s, and Abuela sleeps on the couch. There are no windows in the living room and she can’t sleep with any lights on at all. If people are going to be coming and going, she sleeps with a pillowcase folded up over her eyes. Joya and Juan Carlos sleep in the other bedroom. Sometimes it seems like Juan Carlos thinks he’ll die if he doesn’t do something bad every five minutes. Mama took her lighter from him the other day. He was trying to set a cup of cooking oil on fire.

Abuela is blind, or almost blind, but the light bothers her even though she can’t see anything with it. She prays and she knits. Mama tries to stop her from cooking because she’s afraid she’ll cut herself. More and more she is losing her English. And when she speaks it usually won’t make sense in either language. She came in the kitchen yesterday laughing and saying, “Joya used to in the forest!” But she collects and her check buys everyone all the food every month.

One morning Mama is out on the front steps with the kids playing in the street. She can see the Gator across the street with one of its windows smashed, and all the kids are throwing little rocks through the window, until finally the gringo bum who sleeps in there sits up and yells at them and they all laugh. Once the Gator would cruise real slow up our street, back when it belonged to Gregor the G. He was the biggest Russian gangster in this town. If you look inside, to where the steering wheel still says Lincoln Navigator, you can see it has a real marble dashboard. People took the tv and the radio of course, and the wheels and the tires.

Mama has a car too. Somebody left it parked behind the dumpster with the keys in it and nobody ever knew who. So mama bought a car seat for it and she straps Joya in and they go to the mall, while Juan Carlos climbs around the car like a monkey and she just watches her brother.

While the kids play in the street, Mama’s phone rings and she doesn’t know the number, but something makes her answer it anyway. Some old hope or something. She talks to  the man on the phone and she thinks the kids don’t hear her, but Joya does.  “You’re trippin’ if you think you’re comin’ out here,” she says. And then she hangs up the phone.

But the next day there is a knock at the door and she lets him in anyway.

“Who’s that man, mama?” Joya asks. She is too young to have manners. Juan Carlos just walks around the stranger and gets a soda from the fridge.

“That’s Cousin Edgar. He’s going to stay with us for a little while.”

“OK. Hi Cousin Edgar!” Joya goes back to her room and is coloring. Abuela comes out from the shower with a towel wrapped around herself. “I hear Xavier. Is that Xavier? Ay, dios mio!”

“No, Abuela, this is Cousin Edgar.”

He just stands there with a dufflebag full of his clothes, smiling, while Abuela circles around him, patting his face. “Xavier, Xavier, you come home,” she says over and over. She is weeping. “Abuela,” Mama starts. Then she stops. She won’t win anyway so why bother. Edgar gives Abuela a hug even though she only has a towel on. “Yes, ma’am,” he says.

At dinner Juan Carlos won’t sit. When he finally does he asks Edgar, “You were in jail?” Nobody says anything but Edgar just smiles. Juan Carlos goes on. “Because Jose says when a dude comes to your house with a bag of clothes, he were in jail and jus’ got out.”

“Jose is right about that,” says Edgar. “I was in jail. Don’t say ‘he were in jail’. It sounds ignorant. I did some bad things when I was younger. But now I get to start again. Your mama was very kind and said I could stay here.”

Juan Carlos is not satisfied. “You didn’t kill nobody?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” Edgar corrects.

*

Cousin Edgar sleeps on the gold plaid couch in front of the big TV, which is on every minute of the day. He wakes up and Joya is sitting on his legs watching a show where women in short shirts stare at each other and then start to fight, until men in polo shirts come running and pull them apart. “That was my man, you ho!” one of them screams and starts to cry. Joya is holding the big spider she has, the big stuffed spider that is brown and yellow and has a pair of huge staring eyes. Abuela made it for her and she took to it when she was only a baby, before Mama could take the thing away. Mama hates spiders. But now the spider is Joya’s best animal and she goes everywhere with it.

Cousin Edgar clucks his tongue.

“You shouldn’t be watchin’ that, little mama.” He takes the controls and finds a show about alligators at a watering hole.

Joya hears Cousin Edgar talking to Mama. She is always angry at him.

“I want them to have some better food. This kitchen is full of sugar and stuff for the microwave. Cook them some dirty rice or something.” He is telling her what to do but his voice is kind. Mama tells him to mind his business but it makes Joya smile listening to him. “That boy is wild, Mama,” he says. “He is hyper all the time and it could be what he eats.” Mama walks away and leaves him.

Cousin Edgar goes out and and he comes and goes when he will. When he comes back he has money and brings better food. Avocados and sweet potatoes, rice and beans, pork chops and Spanish foods from the bodega. He cooks up the dirty rice and they eat together at the table. Juan Carlos is running around again. “You sit your butt down” says Mama and waves her hand at him. He is laughing like a crazy person. Cousin Edgar leaps up like a striking snake and puts Juan Carlos in the chair. “You respect your mama, little papi. You don’t sit down, I will get a belt and tie you up to that chair.” Juan Carlos sheds a tear and gives Cousin Edgar the stink face. But after that he is happy and they all eat together. Abuela sings a Spanish song and laughs softly to herself. “Xavier, Xavier, such a good boy. Work hard at the farm!” she says.

*

Mama takes the kids out in the car and they go to the mall. Mama is not angry at Cousin Edgar anymore since he gave her a bunch of money. “New J’s drop this Saturday. You go get you and the kids some sneakers, and make sure they match up.”

They are all coming back wearing the same sneakers, black and red and shiny. They are the best thing Joya has ever owned. She keeps running her fingers over them and feeling the texture and the firmness of the new leather. But on the way Juan Carlos starts to kick Joya just to show her that his legs are longer, and she screams at him and calls him the worst name she can think of. It’s raining outside and the car is making a funny noise. Everywhere there are red taillights and steam, horns beeping. Mama is cursing quietly. She hears Joya swear. “Who taught you that? Where did you learn that word? Damn it, you tell me right now!” But meanwhile Juan Carlos turns red from the insult. He reaches over and tears Spider out of her hands, rolls down the window and throws him out. Joya screams and reaches out her little arms.

“Serves you right for callin’ him that. Roll up that window, Juan Carlos. And both of you shut up or I’ll whip you.”

Joya cries the whole way home. “What’s wrong, little mama?” Cousin Edgar asks.

“Juan Carlos threw my spider away.”

Cousin Edgar’s eyes flash and his head whips around to look at the boy. For that moment he is so frightening that Joya takes a step back from him. But he takes her hand.

“Give me the keys, Mama. You kids go get in the car.” And he takes them from her hand before she can say anything. Her hands are on her hips. “Where you think you’re going?”

“We’re going to get that spider.”

Cousin Edgar leaves the car with its lights blinking under the highway bridge, even though people are honking and yelling at him. He steps out into traffic and the cars have to stop for him while he picks up the soaking, filthy and ripped spider in a towel. Joya holds him in her car seat all the way home. Juan Carlos seems stunned.

“We’re gonna have to operate, you kids. Hand me the scissors.”

The kids watch.

“Hold that stitch, Joya. Juan Carlos, knitting needle.”

Now Abuela comes to watch. She seems to understand what’s going on.

“Now we’ll have to blow in his mouth.”

“What?” laughs Juan Carlos.

“To get him breathing again. You do it!”

“But it’s all dirty!”

Cousin Edgar looks at him sternly. “And whose fault is that, Papi? Start blowin’”.

Juan Carlos blows into the spider’s mouth while Joya pushes on its stuffed yarn body.

“Is the patient breathing?”

“Not yet!” says Joya.

“How about now?”

“YES!”

“Congratulations, we saved the patient. Now he needs to go in the washing machine. Let’s go down to the laundry.”

*

In the morning the new sneakers are missing from the foot of her brother’s bed.

“Now you’ll know what it’s like to have something taken away. What it’s like to wait for something,” says Cousin Edgar.

“When can I have them back?”

“Next week should be good. Now you never do something mean like that again.”

Juan Carlos goes to where Joya is coloring. Spider is fluffy and clean in her arms. “I’m sorry, Joya.”

“It’s okay!” she says brightly.

*

One day Cousin Edgar comes up the stairs and looks very serious.

“Sit down kids, I have to tell you some stuff.” The kids do.

“I’m sorry about this, but I have to go away.”

“Where are you going, Cousin Edgar? We’ll miss you!” Joya says.

“I have to go to jail again. You know those bad things I was doing before? I had a hard time stopping when I got back to the street.”

“The police are outside!” Mama shouts. She is in panic.

“I know. Detective Mirabelli said I could come upstairs to say goodbye first. He’s waiting for me. I’m going down in a minute.”

The kids wait, wide-eyed. Cousin Edgar pulls up his shirt.

“I’m not your cousin,” he says. “I’m your papa.”

On his chest there are two tattoos: the names of Joya and Juan Carlos, in fancy script interwoven with hearts.

“Now you know what you need to know. You come visit me when I’m in lockup, okay?”

The kids promise they will.

“Don’t you look at your mama! I wanted it to be this way. I was hoping I could tell you at a better time, but that’s life. Now be good for your mama until I can be with you.”

He hugs and kisses the kids. This time Juan Carlos is crying but Joya is smiling.

“You’re my papa!” she says, and seems delirious.

“Take good care of Spider,” he says. “And your mama and your brother too.”

The detective taps on the door and motions to Cousin Edgar. It’s time to go.