Underneath It All (2 page)

             
It took a minute for me to get over certain things and when I kicked and hollered when my mother tried to put me in a highchair she went out the next day and bought me a kiddie table to sit at instead.

             
The nightmares were another thing, I was afraid of the dark for a long time and even though I knew in my mind that I was safe, when the lights went out I was back in that house and I thought he was going to come out of the closet or from underneath my bed.

             
I would crawl in the bed with Jason and hold him between my legs as if I were protecting us from whatever was on the other side of the door. Eventually I grew out of it, or at least comfortable enough to sleep in my own bed and I began to feel safe. I was finally where I was supposed to be, I was with my family, and I was one of them.

Chapter Three

              Alex

and I met in the fourth grade and we’ve been friends ever since. As superficial and shallow as this may sound I wanted to be her friend from the moment I saw her. She was and still is so pretty but back when we were kids she reminded me of a little baby doll. Alex is Puerto Rican as well and has long, straight h
air that hung down to her butt. She was always bottom heavy and very mature in the way that she dressed. She would wear these printed Keds that matched whatever outfit she was wearing for the day and she walked on her tiptoes, which I thought was the cutest thing. The truth is she was everything that I wanted to be, and since it was impossible to literally step in her skin; I stuck to her like glue.

             
I always wondered how she got away with wearing the things that she did. In the summer she would wear pretty multi colored leggings and belly shirts, or short shorts and a tank top. My mother would’ve kill me if I tried to put on something like that. Not only that but I would’ve had to make it past Lisa and Linda first.

             
The one thing I admired and envied about Alex the most was her relationship with her father. Every time he entered the house from being at work or just away for the day she would rush into his arms and he would pick her up and twirl her around while hugging her tightly and placing kisses on her cheeks. He was like her superhero. His eyes always held so much adoration for her, a look that seemed to tell her how special she was and how much she meant to him. I would sometimes imagine my father doing those things for me and looking at me that way but that never happened.

             
The earliest memory I have of my father Orlando is him bringing me a bag of candy, staring into my eyes as if he was looking in a mirror and patting me on my head before he left. He treated me like I was a stray dog who begged for a treat.

             
I used to ask my mother for stories about him but they weren’t always good so eventually I stopped asking. I wanted to ask him where he had been when I was born. I wanted to know what was more important than being at the hospital with my mother. I wanted to know why he always seemed to have nice, shiny things yet he would never come and get me and take me places. 

             
The only thing I knew was that I looked like him. I have the same long fingers and toes, and I’m tall like him. At one point I would like to believe that my parents were in love and sometimes I thought I could hear some of the attraction that she once held for him when she would describe him to me but those moments were short lived.

             
The first rule about drug dealing was to never get high off your own supply but with that life style comes certain risks and temptations and he allowed himself to be tempted by the very product he sold which led to him developing a drug habit. My mother’s jewelry, clothes and furniture would come up missing and on top of the abuse I think that pushed her to her breaking point. I never seen him hit her but I would hear them argue and I knew that something was wrong. He would walk out and slam the door behind him and she would end up crying.

             
After being in and out of jail so many times he was finally deported back to the Dominican Republic.

             
From what I gathered based on what people would tell me, Orlando was very tall, he was self centered, very conceited, he liked jewelry and money and he loved to dress well. I would definitely say that I have some of his traits. Without knowing my dad I know a lot about him and I sense that in some ways we’re probably very similar. I feel like the personalities of him and my mom were like water and vinegar and with that mix they got me. I’ve been told that my temper is like his, that we both have a short fuse and ironically enough; whether it’s karma or just some cruel twist of fate, the same way he would abuse my mom turned out to be the way that I would eventually be treated by someone I loved and trusted.

             
Unlike my father, I’ve always looked up to my mother. I loved the way she wore her hair, her makeup and the way that she dressed. Her makeup consisted of a little eyeliner and this red lipstick that had a silver/gold like shimmer to it. Her skin was the color of caramel that to this day is still flawless. She used to wear Jordache jeans, Sergio Valente and black or white Reebok classics. Her beautiful hair was always long and curly with bangs and sometimes she would pin it up in a Mohawk. I used to stare at her as if I was looking at an angel, my mother is still the most beautiful woman in this world to me and even when I’m all dressed and dolled up I feel like she’s beyond anything that I could ever be.

             
On Christmas mornings she would watch us open our gifts and then she would immediately have to leave and go to work. I would act up and throw tantrums after she left until eventually she heard how her absence affected me and it led to her decision to start bringing her work home with her. This was a little out of the ordinary because she was a house nurse for people with cerebral palsy. I saw her sacrifice to be home with us as another way of her extending her love and her heart to people other than her own family because most of the time her clients didn’t have anyone to look after them or they had been abandoned by those who claimed to love them when their disease became too much to bare. Pretty soon Rocking Ronny and Shirley became staples in our home.

             
Every weekend she would open the windows and the door to our apartment and we would dance around the house cleaning while she cooked and sang from the kitchen. She would cook everything from arroz con gondule, arroz con pollo, chuleta, tostone con mojito, to pasteles de platano. The smells from all of the delicious Spanish food would draw in our neighbors and soon our home was filled with people dancing and singing and just having a good time. That’s the kind of person my mother was and still is. My mother taught me how to be a people person and what it was like to have people love you.

             
One thing that I really respected about her is that she never put a man before us, she would always let the man in her life know that we came first and that if they didn’t like it, there’s the door. My mother was the sole provider my mother began to work more and since her work schedule was opposite of ours, we rarely saw her. When we would wake up to go to school, she would already be gone. Still I admired her.

             
I saw her as both my mother and my father and I respected her grind. I know the hours she kept took a toll on her health and her body but she did what she had to do and never complained to make sure we didn’t want for anything. If we were poor, I never knew it. I wanted to be just like her.

*****

              I believe that the earliest memory of what a man should be and the kind of man a girl ultimately ends up being with is painted in the image of her father. Since my father wasn’t around, I had several different male figures in my life to look up to.

             
I was around seven at the time my mother left my father and remarried Brian. I don’t remember being formally introduced to Brian, I just recall instantly feeling safe when he was around. Brian is Italian and Danish and extremely handsome. He used to wear his dark hair in this rat-tail kind of haircut and everyone thought he was a stud.

             
He was a big deal because he filled the role of my father. I think I instantly loved Brian because of how happy he made my mother. From the day they met things seemed to become better for her and for us as well. As I got older Brian became daddy to me and my sisters. I knew he wasn’t my biological father but that didn’t change the way we felt about him or the way that he treated us.

             
In the beginning I don’t think Brian wanted to get that close to us. He wasn’t the affectionate type so while he wouldn’t give us hugs or kisses, he provided for us and made sure we had everything we needed and I think that was his way of letting us know that he cared and loved us just as much as we loved him.

             
Not only did Brian’s presence make us happy but it also relieved my sister Lisa of the burden that she had with taking care of us and trying to fill the void of my mother not having a man around. This was a turning point for Lisa because she was finally able to take care of herself and work on her own issues. Brian gave her the out she needed and once she saw that my mother no longer depended on her as much, she moved out. I’m not really sure if Lisa was jealous of the relationship my mother and Brian had or maybe she felt like they weren’t as close as they used to be but the dynamic in the house had definitely changed.

             
Although Lisa was gone she still came by to check on me and pick me up from school. I would often pretend that she and her boyfriend Darryl were my parents. Darryl would spoil me with anything that I wanted whether it was a new doll, an outfit, or a fresh new pair of kicks.

             
Unlike Brian, Darryl was very affectionate, and from what I could tell he treated my sister very well or at least I thought. I think my mother knew that Darryl was abusive because she would sometimes see bruises on her but we never witnessed it.

             
Soon Lisa’s visits became less and less and I soon replaced her with my sister Linda. When Lisa left I think that Linda felt as though she was losing her best friend and inheriting her responsibilities.

             
Linda would get Jason and I ready for school, pick us up, do homework with us and then make sure she cooked and the house was clean when my mother got home. I think in a way she resented my mom because she wanted to be able to be a kid and have her own life.                            

             
At around the time I was nine or ten, Linda met Pedro. For me, Pedro was that example of what it looked like when a man really loved a woman. He would go above and beyond to make Linda happy and it was so cute because he would sometimes come up to my school during recess or show up at my mother’s job to tell us what he had just bought Linda.

             
I knew Linda loved Jason with all her heart but having a child that young changes you. When she met Pedro she was finally able to breathe. While Jason’s father did provide for him here and there he wasn’t very supportive and Pedro was able to give her the things that her and Jason were lacking. Pedro would often take us to the Bronx Zoo, on hayrides, the movies, and we would go and see him at his job at Planet Earth, which was on Fordham Road in the Bronx. He used to give Jason and I money to run down to the corner store and we would get this Power Ranger looking candy.

             
I think my mother instilled in all her girls the same hustling spirit that she had without even knowing it. Linda would work really hard to be able to provide us with summer clothes and then she would take us to Children’s Place to go shopping. I blame her for making me brand conscious. I always loved the way that she dressed. She had every pair of high-top Reeboks in every color and she would wear them with tight jeans and a button down shirt. Linda was and still is very beautiful so she wore little to no makeup.

             
Linda also acted as the disciplinarian as well as my sister so I guess it was only right that since I began to cling to her and Pedro that he became a dominate male figure in my life. Just like I had done with Lisa and Darryl, I began to pretend as if Linda and Pedro were my parents.

             
Pedro was the first person to tell me not to let a man touch my private areas. I instantly wanted to tell him about what had happened to me at the Wicked Witches house. I wanted to tell him how her son had come into my room and rubbed on my vagina, I wanted to tell him that eventually he began to put his fingers inside of me and that I didn’t know that it was wrong. Talking about it would mean I would have to think about it and I didn’t want to do that.

             
As I said before, I never knew how to talk about my molestation, I didn’t even know that’s what it was called until I got older. I wanted to open up and tell Pedro what happened to me but I didn’t know how. In that one conversation he had been more of a father to me than Brian was. Don’t get me wrong, Brian was a good stepfather but Pedro was more hand’s on and strict when it came to raising me and making sure I was on the right path. From that day on I looked at Pedro as my best friend. I was always comfortable talking to him and I felt that as long as he was a part of the family, we would be okay.