by Hector Duarte, Jr.
Mi hija, Dios la bendiga, siempre me embarca. Always putting me in positions I don’t want to be in. Like right now. Listening to her newly-exed husband calling me every name he can pull from his chusmeria handbook. A litany of insults that start sounding pig-Latin after a few seconds.
I have trained my brains for it. Otherwise, me volviera loca. A la edad mĂa, no puedo dejar que la cabeza se me caliente mucho.
My husband and young son listen in from other phones.
Mi hijo, twelve, makes faces as if it were all something out of Jerry Springer. Normally, I wouldn’t approve his listening in to so much family drama, but better to teach him como comportarse and not treat me or his future mother-in-law like that, ever.
His father is always going on about the importance of being a real man. On the other end of our line right now, is not a real man.
My husband, meanwhile, does his best keeping his composure. Five minutes into this now forty-one minute conversation, he’s doing his patented pacing, whisper-cursing su yerno. He’d warned me y su hija very early on que el tipo was no good. Try driving this point home to someone as stubborn as mi hija querida. There’s no getting through such a thick skull, believe me. She’s had me and papi pacing the room since she was eight.
“Si vas a empezar, please leave the room,” I said, annoyed with the pacing. Like he’s the one getting an earful.
But then yerno calls me una yegua.
“Oye, ahora si te voy a mandar a callar y tener un poco de respeto. No se te olvide a quien le estás hablando,” my husband yells.
Mi hijo smacks his hand like he’s been burned.
That’s how a real man acts right there.
Yerno shuts up. As if he foolishly thought no one else was listening. The sound of his former suegro’s voice is an instant mute button. He takes a deep breath and releases his coda. “¿Sabes que mas? Yo empeñe el Rolex. Necesitábamos dinero so I took it to a pawn shop.” Then he hangs up. The exclamation mark on a shitty declaration.
“Me cago en su madre,” my husband says.
No, I thought. Tu hija se caga en la suya.
That God damn Rolex. Part of her fifteen’s gift. Mi hija querida’s best friend at the time was named Rosa. Rosa was older than her by three months; already instant competition. Rosa gets a Caribbean cruise for her quince, guess who else wants one? Bien. Rosa got a Rolex as part of her quinceañera gift. Guess who’s on the hook for a luxury watch?
At first, I played hard ball, with husband on board. That’s easy. Pero once she broke out the soft tears and voice to explain it was all she ever wanted and she’d never ask us for another gift in her life (como si fuera tan fácil), I was outmatched. That night, in the darkness of our room, he whispered to ask if we could afford it.
“Claro que no, pero it’s not going to stop this train, is it?”
By the next afternoon, between the cruise y el reloj de lujo, we were thousands in debt. Want to do something you’ve never done for anyone before? Want to be pulled like a marionette despite yourself? Have a kid. You’ll contort yourself in ways you never thought possible and, somehow, come out the other end. Adolorida, pero viva.
It was all worth it when her birthday hit and she opened an oversized gift box to find the cruise tickets and watch. Casi se caga de entusiasmo y el grito rebotĂł por las paredes de la casa.
Among the many virtues of our family, we’re super organized with money, so the cruise and watch were paid off within the year. The joy on her face lasted longer, but not much; as goes with kids.
Nuestra hija querida did not inherit our organization with money or love. So, here we are these many years later, bailing her out. Me and her dad have been together now almost thirty years. Lamentablemente, she did not inherit our respective radars for quality mates.
She’s an amazing mimic. Absorbing the personality of each and every macho she hooks up with. With her last boyfriend, un gringo de ojos claros y cubierto en tatuajes hasta los párpados, she took up fishing. A girl who hated the beach and never touched rod or reel in her life, was suddenly talking about casting, lures, rods, and reels.
Ahora con este nuevo yerno, she started smoking. ¿Te lo puedes creer? We’re having a family barbeque when I walk outside to grab a couple bag of chips I’d left behind.
She’s always thought she’s smarter than the woman who gave her life. Tan mala mentirosa es que she tried hiding the lit cigarette behind her hasta que la muy tonta se quemó la mano because what else is holding a lit cigarette going to do?
When she dropped it on the grass, its stink me repugno. I sang her and yerno a litany that got her crying and him acercandose, telling me to calm down. Lo dijo like he forgot whose front lawn they were smoking on. Hija querida lloro hasta que se subieron en el carro and sped off, chillando gomas como si fuera MĂłnaco.
Guess who got bitched out that night?
“What’s more important, your daughter or a cigarette?” Husband said.
That was seven years ago and I still can’t tell you quien tenia la razón. I can confirm, it’s what got her out of our house. She denies it to this day but I know better.
La conozco muy bien. Todos sus atributos y defectos. I’d rather have her in my life than not. And I’ve accepted it.
It’s what has me here today. In a Little Havana casa de empeño, staring at the owner with the words KNOW tattooed across his right knuckles and GOOD tattooed across his left.
“Mima, I’d love to sell the Rolex back to you but I am, by policy, supposed to give the customer thirty days before I can sell it. That’s policy.”
“Says who?”
“Me. Whose been here since. . . You know I was the first pawn shop to open here in Little Havana?”
“Lo dudo mucho.”
“Como quieras, lady. You think I’ve been open this long breaking my word? Con todo el respeto debido, who are you?”
“La madre who that watch belongs to.”
He shakes his head. “The person who sold me this is a man.”
“Yeah. Married to my daughter. And he’s not much of one, let me tell you.”
“He’s one of my best clients.”
“Exactly. He came in here and traded that Rolex como si fuera his to trade. Como si el fue el que worked all kinds of overtime to pay for it.” No se que me entra, pero I slam my fist against the glass countertop. And it feels like the whole room shakes. “All I’m asking is you let me buy it back fair and square.”
Owner circles from behind the glass counter, snaps the door lock on his way past, and crowds me. “¿Quien carajo piensas que eres? Coming into my place of business y corriendo esa lengua larga.”
Esta tan cerca, I smell stale Cuban coffee on his breath.
“Of course you’re the suegra he’s always talking about.” He lifts his hand and wraps it around my neck. He does not squeeze. “He’s one of my best customers.”
“Exactamente. Ese tipo es la perdición de mi existencia. So, sell me back the watch, or start squeezing.”
There’s a knock at the door. Then an urgent pulling of the door. When it doesn’t give, they knock again.
Owner stares at me through it all. “Ya voy, coño,” he yells at the door as his hand slowly pulls from my neck.
Como si nada, he lets the guy in, who comes in screaming, “You get some hubcaps in here last night?”
Owner points to four hanging behind the counter.
“My piece of shit brother-in-law stole them from me.”
“Lalo?” Owner asks, circling back behind the counter.
“Ese mismo. I’m going to need those suckers back.”
“You know the score.”
“That Lalo is costing me more than my own kids.”
“What if he took a Rolex from you?” I ask.
“¿Como? That crackhead wouldn’t know a Rolex from the hole in his ass.”
“Pretend he could.”
“I’d kill him.”
“Exactly,” I say, staring down dueño.
Hubcap guy notices something’s up. “I’ll come back later.”
“No need. Just buying that Rolex over there,” I say.
“Coñooo, High roller.”
“I know what I like.”
Owner stares. It’s like a wild west showdown, tipo pelicula Clint Eastwood. “Yeah, she definitely knows what she likes. Seven hundred.”
Two hundred more than advertised.
“Throw in Pipo’s hubcaps.”
Owner scoffs. “Fine, Do-nal Trump. It’s a deal.”
The guy with the hubcaps and brother-in-law from hell whoops on his way out with a pair of hubcaps under each arm.
“Hang on,” I yell as the heavy door hits his back with a jolt he deftly hides. Hoisting the watch in the air, “Here, it’s yours,” I yell.
“What?” he asks.
“The watch. Take it. Not for you. Give it to your wife. Sounds like she deserves it.”
“Lady, I can’t take that.”
“You don’t, it gets destroyed.”
“No entiendo.”
“Let’s just say I’m here bailing out a family member and your situation got me empathetic.”
“Sure thing, señora. Shit. MuchĂsimas gracias.”
“A ti,” I say and follow him out as he sings Guantanamera to the humid Little Havana afternoon.
“¿Lo conseguiste?” is the first thing husband asks when I got home.
Shaking my head, I emphasize a Rolex in a Miami pawnshop isn’t destined to last. “We’re not always going to be able to bail her out.”
Husband nods. “They both called to apologize.”
I shake my head.
“Both of them,” he says.
“Not today.”
“Pero, mima.”
Odio cuando me llama Mima.
I put my hand in the air.
Some other day, al seguro.
Pero hoy no.