This Side of Providence (21 page)

“Jimmy,” I say it slowly like I don't want to mispronounce it. “Jimmy with the tattoo?”

“How am I supposed to know? I've only seen him a few times.”

“You can't miss it. It says
CUT HERE
, with a line right across his neck.” I make the gesture with my finger.

“I've heard about that guy,” he says. “That's a pretty sick tattoo.”

“Well, he'd have to be sick to make a deal with Scottie.”

“Scottie?” Cristo stops short. “What does Scottie have to
do with anything?”

“I saw them talking once, back in the summer. Jimmy stopped by the house looking for Mami. Said she owed him some money.”

“They seem like friends?”

“No. Scottie told him to stop coming around us kids.”

Cristo holds the pizza box between us. “Guess that's what Snowman meant when he said never turn your back on someone you know.”

“Snowman doesn't like Scottie, does he?”

“He don't trust him.”

“
Doesn't
trust him,” I say, even though I know he hates to be corrected.

“Right, he doesn't trust him,” Cristo repeats after me. “Snowman said he could tell right away Scottie has no loyalty. He told me once that an orphan's got enough loyalty to kill or none at all.”

If we became orphans, I wonder which one I'd be.

Cristo looks down at the box. I can see all the questions knocking around in his head.

“Maybe you should open one up again, just to see.” I reach for the box. “Or I will, and then I can tell you what's inside.”

He grabs my hand to stop me. “You probably won't even know what it is.”

“Bet you I will.”

“Bet what? You don't have anything to give me.”

Since that's true, I don't bother saying anything else. The look on my face must make him feel bad because after that he sits down on the couch and waves me over.

“Okay, come here. And turn out the lights.”

“How will we see without lights?” I whisper.

He points to the TV. I follow his orders and soon we're kneeling on the carpet surrounded by small piles of multicolored pills, the dim light from the screen making our faces glow like neon. The pills look like M&Ms or Skittles and I keep wanting to pop a few into my mouth without letting Cristo see. One box has the same green pills that were in the bottle we found in Kim's purse, but most of them I've never seen before.

“It's like a fucking pharmacy,” Cristo whispers.

“What does one guy need with all these pills?” I ask. “How sick could he be?”

Cristo doesn't answer. Instead, he carefully drops the pills back into their containers one by one. “Maybe he's not the one who's sick.” His lips are moving as he counts silently to himself. “Maybe the sick people come to him.”

“Like a doctor?”

Cristo shrugs. I help him re-stack the containers.

“You think Kim went to a guy like that?”

“Maybe. Or she went to Scottie so she didn't have to.”

What neither one of us says out loud is, maybe Scottie is the doctor. Cristo looks at me.

“You can't ever tell anyone that you saw this. You understand?”

I nod.

“Not Sammy, not Teacher, not the kids at school. Nobody.”

“I won't, Cristo.”

“This is just between you and me.”

The nerves in my belly are back. “Are we going to get in trouble?”

“Of course not. We didn't do anything wrong.” He finishes organizing the bundles and closes the lid to the pizza box. “Especially you. You don't know anything.”

“I know what I just saw.”

He grabs my shoulders and stares at me like he sees right through my body and all the way out to the street.

“You didn't see anything,” he says, like he's trying to convince me it's true. “You're just my little sister, okay?” He tugs on my braid and pinches my cheek like he always does. “You're a kid, Luz. You don't know what you saw.”

I know he's just trying to protect me and do what our mother isn't here to do, but it still bothers me. Why does taking care of someone mean you have to make them feel like a baby?

He throws his arm around me, hugging me sideways. This is his way of trying to make me feel better. Of saying he's sorry. “You got it, Lucita?”

I nod to agree with him, but really I'm lying. I don't get
any of this. In her letter, Mami said she would tell us the truth when she got home and now I think I'm ready to hear it. I want to know if Kim is sick and if Scottie is breaking the law and if she ever takes pills like they do and calls it medicine. My head is spinning with questions and I'm afraid I won't get answers to any of them, especially the most important: Are we going to lose all the grownups in our family one at a time, till in the end it's just Cristo and me with nobody left to take care of us? Since I
am
his little sister and I
am
still a kid, I know he'll take care of me no matter what, but then I wonder who will be there to take care of him?

 

       
S
HE SEES
the girl in a white dress. Her hair plaited with ribbons. She is not a girl, she is a woman now. A wife. The church bells rings. There is music, dancing, laughter all around. She dances with her father. He is crying, the first time since her mother died. She dances with her husband. He is smiling as he bows before her. He takes a flower from her hair and places it between his teeth. She is sick with joy, wondering what she's done to deserve such happiness. She kisses her husband while they dance together, dizzy and breathless. She tastes the wine on his tongue, swallows his hunger. He whispers in her ear. She feels him inside her, even before she opens herself to him. She gives him everything he asks for, all of her. Except the truth.

Javier

H
e hasn't held a bat, or a glove, or even stood on a baseball diamond in more than ten years, but there is something about him that makes him seem like a ball player. His eyes dart around a lot, never staying focused too long, and he has a habit of standing on his toes, as if at any moment he could get the signal to steal second. He drinks too much, but he is still quite lean, though the only exercise he gets is walking to the mailbox at his mother's house—a half-mile down a winding dirt road that she can no longer navigate with her cane and artificial hip—and his shoulders, at one time so strong he could do consecutive dips for more than three minutes, are still coiled with muscles; the tanned skin that covers each deltoid is taut, as if concealing a hard ball.

When he thinks of himself, he sees his body in a baseball uniform: the tight polyester pants that were always too long, their tapered ends tucked into his socks; the loose jersey with stiff block letters across the front and thin, round buttons as smooth as lemon drops; the fitted cap, always a dark color like navy or black, with its brim bent into a perfect C. When he's bored, lonely, or sad, he imagines himself in his windup, slowly dropping back to the mound, or trotting off the field after striking out the cleanup hitter, barely aware of the applause, or even doing something as mundane as putting on his jacket to keep his arm warm between innings, and he instantly feels better, as if the memories are enough. But they aren't. He knows those moments were the best of his life—at
eighteen he had reached the apex—and he will never feel that comfortable, that confident, that controlled, again.

When he gets the letter from Arcelia he doesn't know what to do. He can't bring himself to open it, but he doesn't want to let it out of his sight. He carries it in his pocket for three days, rubbing it with his fingertips during breaks from work, his calloused hands barely able to feel the difference between the paper and his blue jeans. When he finally reads it, he is sitting in the empty bleachers of a stadium where for three summers in a row he played baseball for the local farm team. He realizes, with some sadness, that he has never actually sat here before, that he has never watched a game that he didn't play in. But this is where Arcelia always sat, when she came with her cousins to the games on weekend afternoons and spent each inning stomping on the aluminum benches as she cheered for him, calling his name and number until her voice broke.

He has to read the letter several times, particularly the parts written in English, which he never learned to read very well. He can tell that she was crying as she wrote it, partly because she admits to being unhappy in the letter, but mostly because he can feel several puckered spots on the paper where her tears must have dried. He is glad to know that he can still make her cry. She talks in circles in the letter, telling and retelling the story of why she left, how she's survived, and how she ended up having to serve six months in a prison in Rhode Island. Of course she is in a women's facility, but every time he reads the word
prison
, he imagines her locked up with hundreds of men, and a rage builds in his chest that makes his pulse quicken and his mouth water. He wonders several times if he's going to be sick.

Most of the letter is about their children. She tells him that at eleven Cristo is still small and wiry, like his father, but that he's confident, funny, and quick. She says that he is brave because he isn't afraid to swim in the ocean in March, or walk alone down a dark street, and that he takes care of things around the house like a man. She talks about how smart Luz is, how she's already in the Regular classes and reads books by famous American authors, how she can sit for hours in the same spot
on the sofa, sometimes reading an entire novel in one day. She tells him how beautiful she is, how she still has his brown skin and dark eyes, and how her hair is thick and black like molasses. She tells him about Trini, her baby, who she had with an American man, describing how sharp her dimples are and how she laughs all the time, even though she hasn't seen much in this world worth smiling about. She says that she wishes Trini were his child, too, and that she used to watch her sleep for hours as a baby, wishing she had never left Puerto Rico.

The biggest surprise of the letter comes at the end, when she tells him that she has forgiven him. For the fights and the name-calling; for all the nights he didn't come home; for the two times he hit her, once while she was pregnant and yelled at him about gambling away his paycheck, and once when he accused her of cheating on him with the butcher's son; for not standing up to her father when she wanted to borrow money to buy a house; for giving up on baseball after his knee injury; and for not following her to the States, even though she never invited him and, in fact, threatened to disappear forever if he followed her. And, of course, she wants to be forgiven, too.

Most of it he thinks he can do. He can forgive her for not being a virgin on their wedding night; for drinking too much and not keeping the house clean; for convincing him to move out of his mother's house before they had saved enough money; for letting him give up on his dream of pitching in the Major Leagues; for being young and foolish and turning to drugs and easy money in order to survive in the States. But forgive her for taking his children away? For having another one with another man? For not talking to him for more than five years?

He's not so sure he will ever be able to forgive her for that.

The last time he saw his son was at the airport in San Juan. Cristo was five years old and was just learning how to read. He wanted to read every sign along the way: the street signs on the newly paved highway, the flight information at the check-in gate, the magazine covers at every newsstand. He held his ticket
in both hands and tried to read every word printed on it, even the minuscule terms of agreement at the bottom of the paper. Javier had borrowed a friend's car to drive to the airport, and as they walked to the gate he kept looking at his watch; the friend had to be at work in an hour.

The flight was delayed due to thunderstorms in Miami, and for several minutes he thought about leaving Cristo with an older lady flying home to New York. Eventually, he decided he should wait. He knew it would be a long time before he saw his son again.

His mother had packed food for the boy, enough for several meals even though the flight was only four hours, but when Cristo asked for a basket of
tostones
, Javier couldn't say no. He bought the largest size and asked the lady for the crispiest pieces, and he and Cristo sat together on a wooden bench in front of the window and ate the entire basket while watching other planes take off and land. Javier licked the salt off his fingers one by one, and pretended not to notice later when Cristo did the same thing.

When they finally announced his flight over the loudspeaker, Javier handed Cristo the backpack he had been carrying. Inside was the food, Cristo's teddy bear Chachi, several children's books, and a set of dominoes in a walnut case that Arcelia had asked his mother to pack, a wedding present from her grandmother and the only valuable thing the two of them owned. Cristo put the backpack on, tightening both shoulder straps, and tried not to bend under the weight. When they got near the front of the line, Javier slipped off his jean jacket. He tucked a twenty-dollar bill into the pocket before handing it to his son.

“I know it's too big, but it will be cold up there,” he said. “Like you've never felt.”

“
Si,
Papi.” Cristo held the jacket against his chest, as if already bracing for the cold.

After the attendant collected his ticket, Javier knelt down in front of his son. He gave him a long, hard hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. Cristo smiled up at his father, who turned away at the last minute so his son wouldn't see his eyes well up
with tears. He reached out, lightly cupping his hand over Cristo's head, and felt his soft, curly hair for the last time.

“
Adios, mijo
,” Javier called after him, as Cristo walked down the jetway. He lifted his arm to wave but Cristo never turned back around. The last time he saw his son, he was walking away from him.

Javier waited at the gate so he could watch the plane depart, even though he knew he would be late to return his friend's car and would have to buy him a pitcher of beer at the bar later that night. He stood alone in the window, apart from the others, so that if Cristo had a window seat, and was looking out of the plane trying to find him, he would be easier to see.

He left the airport a few minutes later and has never had a reason to go back.

The sun has set now, and the lights in the stadium are already turned on, huge fluorescent spotlights that can be seen from the next town. The whole park was recently remodeled, after a hurricane leveled much of the town. The stands have filled up slowly, with families coming out to watch a high school championship game, but Javier hasn't moved; when the players take the field he is still sitting in the bleachers, the letter from Arcelia tucked into his back pocket.

He watches the home team warm up; the first baseman throws ground balls to the infield while Javier wonders how he should respond to his wife. Should he take his time before writing back, at least a month or two, or should he hop on a plane and fly to Providence right away, to see her at the prison during visiting hours? Should he pick up the phone and call her? Can she even get calls? And if he did get through, if he heard her voice on the phone, what then? What could he possibly say?

The pitcher is tall and skinny, and has a funny way of tucking his hand into his glove during the windup that seems to be throwing off the batters. He strikes out the first two and then ducks as the third one hits a line drive straight into the second
baseman's glove. Javier watches the pitcher jog off the field and disappear into the dugout, a huge smile on his carefree face. He wants to leave, to go to his mother's house for dinner or catch an American football game with his friends at the bar, but he can't bring himself to walk out in the middle of the game. He remembers what it was like to play in front of a crowd, to feel important, and he doesn't want to rob these boys of their evening of glory. It's only a few more hours, he tells himself, certainly not a lot in the span of his life. He can spare that for these kids, his hometown team, even if he doesn't know any of them personally.

A man sitting next to him buys ice cream cones for his three children, who sit in the row below. He passes the cones down to them one by one. Javier wonders if his children eat a lot of ice cream, and what their favorite flavors are, and if it is too late for him to learn such insignificant things. The little girl sitting in front of him drops her cone, crying out as it hits the grass below. Her brother tries to comfort her, but she doesn't stop crying until her father has given her the remainder of his own cone. Javier smiles at the father when he catches him staring. The father shrugs and throws his head back with a laugh, smiling up at the night sky.

Javier turns away and has to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep from crying.