The Radio in my Mama's Office

Some circumstances do not allow even the most responsible and intelligent children to succeed.

There is gum on my shoe. It sticks to the sidewalk as I take two steps per one slab of cracking concrete. It’s been there since 136th Street, and, with each step, I feel it sticking and stretching, the dirt and the gum coagulating into a big, tacky manifestation of how my day has been so far.

Emiliano is a pendejo. I see his greasy black hair and chipped front tooth in my mind’s eye as I march on, and my heart beats faster in rage. He made me look like a gallina in front of the whole grade after school today. I really did want to fight him, but Mama would have been so disappointed. After Papa’s last fight, I promised her that I would never fight anyone, even if it was just a scuffle with a s****y neighborhood boy.

The man with no teeth stands on the corner of 125th and Lexington, just like he does every day. Despite the bustle of people hurrying around him as he stands still, his glazed eyes remain fixed on some invisible point in front of him. People in The Barrio say he’s demente and doesn’t see anything, but I have a feeling that he really just sees something the rest of us can’t.

I kick an empty can in anger, and it rolls into the grimy street. The man with no teeth laughs. Just twelve more blocks until I get home.

The white man looks up as I walk past his small sandwich shop, and I feel his eyes burning into my back as I continue on my walk. My papa used to call it “the gringo gaze”. My mama calls it “you need a haircut.”

A police siren screams and splashes dirty water onto the sidewalk as it roars past. A couple of neighborhood boys throw tomatoes at the car, but they miss and sprint past me into an alley, their dirty shoes pounding the pavement as they cackle. One of them used to go to my school, but he dropped out when his mama died. I’ve heard he’s selling with his uncle, and the shiny, new watch on his left wrist seems to confirm his newfound revenue. Lucky.

The four stairs up to the apartment are my favorite part of the walk. My legs pump, left, right, left, right, and my vision becomes swallowed by the blue door with the peeling paint. The squealing of the door and the sound of the gentle music are more than familiar. A soft jazz melody dances in the air, soaring and pirouetting to mask the typical 3:15 silence.

The floorboards groan in pain as I step into the narrow entryway. I am the first one home, which is unusual. My older brother is usually here before me. The stupid cabrón is probably with his girlfriend that Mama doesn’t know about. Why is it always up to me to be the responsible one?

I take off my shoes and look at the gum. Dark, dirty, and hardened by pressure, it mirrors the community of Spanish Harlem. I better get it off before Mama kills me.

The yellow walls of the kitchen put on a cheerful air while the raggedy curtains sway, holding hands with the breeze that is coming through the open window. The music is soft, but I feel it gripping my sore shoulders as I walk across the tiny apartment, my socks kissing the wooden floors hello. I am drawn to my mother’s bedroom/office, where the Latin jazz becomes louder as soon as I push open the door.

As if in a trance, I close my eyes, and in my mind stands a woman dressed in red. Her dark hair is interwoven with marigolds, and it sits piled on top of her head, her curls framing her delicate features as her gold earrings twinkle in the dim light. She twirls, singing under her breath as her magnificent dress fills the small room with the colors of a morning sunrise, shifting from red to orange to pink to gold. Her eyes are closed as she moves, her arms forming graceful circles around her hair that never wavers from its perch. Her presence is one of comfort, and I find myself desperately wishing that she existed outside of the music, outside of my imagination. The music is deafening now, and I reach for her hand.

She takes my real hand in her imaginary one, and we dance. I feel the melody lifting from me my worries, my tears, my poverty. We dance. I feel the colors of her dress swirling in the room, painting a dazzling portrait of a summertime utopia. We dance. I smell mangos and oranges and pineapples. We dance.

Until the sound of shattering glass breaks the trance.

I whip around, and my gaze settles on the broken glass littering the floor. A stone the size of my fist stands in the middle of it, and my heart rate quickens. Another stone comes flying through the now-exposed window and lands on the floor. What the hell?

I peer outside the window and my racing heart stops. There stands the man himself and two of his cronies, grinning like a lion before it devours its prey.

“Hola, gallina,” snarls Emiliano from below. His chipped tooth is on full display as his grin widens. He hurls another stone at the window but misses, and I hear it clatter against the wall outside. I can’t help but jump anyway.

“Sissy boy. I knew you wouldn’t fight back today. Too busy dancing with yourself,” he goads, tossing another stone up and down in his right hand. His two buddies mimic ballet dancing, pursing their lips and fluttering their eyelashes. My face burns hotter than the New York City sun in July. Why are they such a******s?

Emiliano laughs, “Say something, b***h. I can’t wait to get my hands around your neck tomorrow afternoon.”

Something in me snaps. I run out of my mother’s room and into the cramped room I share with my brother. I hear Emiliano and the other boys hollering behind me, “Of course he runs! He can’t fight!”

I frantically feel under my brother’s bare mattress, and my fingers graze cold metal. I pull out the pistol and run back into my mother’s room. I try to keep my arms from shaking as I point the muzzle out the window.

The boys don’t even flinch. Instead they laugh. “Gallina is gonna shoot me!” cries one of Emiliano’s buddies, and he doubles over in laughter. My brown eyes lock with Emiliano’s cold, black ones. A shiver runs down my spine.

“I will shoot if you don’t leave! This is my property!” I yell, trying to sound tough, but my quaking voice betrays me. What has gotten into me? Why am I brandishing a gun? Why am I so afraid?

“Do it,” says Emiliano slowly. He runs his fingers through his greasy, too-long hair. “We know you won’t.”

And, of course, he’s right. I would never even think of shooting them. But, boy, do I want to.

“You can’t fight. You’re a girl. You’re going to end up like your father if you don’t learn to stick up for yourself,” he says, a smug smile planting itself on his ugly face.

I feel like I have been punched in the stomach. There had always been rumors that Emiliano’s father was among the men who killed mine. One look at his pompous expression was enough to confirm that this rumor was indeed fact. My vision flashes white in pain and rage.

Suddenly, I hear two gunshots. Then I hear nothing except the pounding feet of two boys. I look at the wisp of smoke curling from the muzzle of the pistol. Did I just--?

The radio lies broken and silent on the ground, a bullet pierced square through its center. I look out the window, dreading what I may find. Emiliano lays broken and silent on the ground, a bullet pierced square through his center. Holy s**t.

I crumple to my knees, my heart climbing its way out of my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I can’t hear. Emiliano’s voice is gone. The music is gone.

I imagine my mother arriving home from work to an apartment circled with crime tape, the back alley painted with the blood of a neighborhood bully, her most responsible son taken prisoner by the cruel world that is our reality. Lo siento, Mama. I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I love you.

It seems like an eternity of silence until the sirens fill the air. I don’t see the officers enter the room. I don’t hear their rough voices like sandpaper in my ears. I don’t feel their white hands placing my brown wrists into cold, metal handcuffs. I only taste the blood in my mouth as I chew my cheek.

I am so sorry, Mama. I am so sorry.

The seat in the back of the police car is hard. Everything is a blur of colors, of sounds, of sensations. I think I hear my brother shout my name as the door slams shut.

We are riding down the dirty street when the tears start to fall. Silent, and unyielding, my tears stream down my cheeks like little soldiers of suffering. I cannot stop them.

I don’t flinch when a tomato smashes into the window.