My mother is cooking my father. He is trapped immobilized with his knees pressed up against his chin in the kitchen tub as she moves back and forth from a nearby stove pouring hot water over his soapy head. A dark little girl comes into the room and they send her away.
Some days or nights later I hear a symphony of yelling and screaming and body shoves and slaps. When I crawl into the kitchen the doors opens and the little girl enters between two big white policeman. My father tries to get un-drunk by standing tightly; my mother tries smiling.
No problema officer says my father.
Todo Bien adds my mother Turing aways so the crop won't see the mark on her face. She wipes down the metal panel top of the tub she had cooked my father in like their fight was nothing special. Once the policeman are gone my mother and father tell at the little girl whoever she is. From then on out it seems she is sometimes there and sometimes not.
She is not there on the right my grandmother livid about something. Punches a wall and my finger gets caught in a door in the confusion. Duele duele I cry telling ma that it hurt and she makes it all better with her magic breath-- but I still look for the little girl. How should I know where she is? I'm still in diapers.
We move to the Bronx and before I can turn around the little girl is a in our new place against the far wall between windows that face the street. She is wearing dark dungarees a black T-shirt and a skullcap pulled to her eyebrows. The hair sticking out from under is thick. I want to get a better look but feel shy-besides the light is coming into my eyes.
It's not pelo Malo I hear a neighbor woman whispering to Ma in the kitchen
No says ma. Not bad hair at all. Just that .ney anut who I left her with in Puerto Rico washed it with detergent. What. Can you do? They lived in El fanguito.
Oh... terrible...what a terrible place to have to live. God knows how many babies drowned in the rivers of shit that flowed under the house the neighbors answers.
They have a moment of silence for all the dead bebies then the neighbor goes on So Washing her hair in detergent was what made it kinky it not that she...
She stop talking again I wait for more but only hear heavy silence.
They come into the living room. The neighbor is tall and thin and looks like she smells something bad. My mother holds a hairbrush like a weapon.
Aurea ven aca.
Ah some information. The little girl named is Aurea come I'll fix your hair ma says. But aurea turns away angrily.
She is aways angry.
I am walking through a dark wet room.
This way says pops.
I can't see says ma and than adds alarmed Sonia don't go near the wall.
