I Left Her for Brooklyn 3
III
Padre de Nadie
The tunnel walls blink by the splits of seconds. Lights flicker through the window until the brightness of a dark cloudy day floods the subway. The morning is quiet enough to still feel like night in the AM. The ride is spacious enough to take a whole row of seats and sleep. But this is the city that never closes an eye lid.
Despite coming from the airport, there isn’t any luggage. Each rider is as worn out as their attire. It’s the graveyard shift coming home. My grey hoody, beat up denims, and jet lag blend me in with the few. In comparison my skin complexion makes me the gringo onboard. And these red sneakers on my feet got papi looking like Dorothy on her way home. But without a toto. (1)
The train arrives at eighty eight. The doors open up and drop the room temperature quite a few degrees Fahrenheit. Bubbled coats, baby carriages, and timberland boots board the line. Them old snatch and grab reflexes got me clutching my cellular-less phone with a grip as if I was trying to squeeze juice out of it.
I am not a tourist. I tap through the songs of bachateros. (2) And then just like most us, I sit and listen to music with the stillness of a colonial statue. It’s as if our motionless bodies keep our emotions from stirring up.
A teenage mother and her sleeping infant join my corner of the car. She gently shifts to the rhythm in her headphones. With one hand, she holds her smartphone like a glass of wine. And the other rocks the baby’s stroller. Her attention casually drifts between the two. Swiping left to right and rocking back and forth. She is the only nonchalant passenger.
As the bachata guitar in my ear strings along, the teen mother turns to the scratched up window behind her. The view is Brooklyn. It stretches out like a brick city Savanah.
A little hand stretches out of the carriage. Right or wrong, the baby’s baby blue sweater has me assume it’s a boy. As far as I know, ain’t no neutral colors in Black America.
I turn the music off and listen to the sound of life on a track. Behind the glass is the noise of metal pinging, engine parts humming, and the force of wind slicing. Inside there is a serious human silence that is broken by the sound of the infant. He laughs and only I can hear him.
His voice becomes a musical bed for me to lay all of her dreams on top of my doubts. I could have been a father. Would I want to be a father? Perhaps I better ask a better question. Why would I want the thankless job of being a father?
A Brooklyn ex once said to me something like, “When there is so much love, an overwhelming amount that couldn’t be shared with just two people, a child must be born.” Ay Dios, there wasn’t even enough love for us to say adios. (3) Yet I could have been a father. The idea of us plus uno was still entertained. (4) Maybe more as a solution to the drama. Ain’t nada like a Brooklyn girl. (5)
The teen mother grabs her smartphone with both hands and rapidly thumbs away. After a few minutes, she sucks her teeth and puts the device aside. She takes her look of contempt to the window. Can an infant recognize a mother’s frustration?
I could have been a father. But why would I want to be a father? It’s a nice idea. It might even be rewarding. But as long as that child breathes life, I am tied to her for life. It will take more commitment than a tattoo decision playboy. But still, I could have been a father.
Every so often I am reminded. It’s like my mind rediscovers her in my sleep and in a dream I find la memoria de una Boricua. (6) She was a Bronx sweetheart with a playful sense of humor. A geek on the inside and God blessed from toes to chest on the out. She loved to quiz a papi over the phone. Her whirlwind of curls would vignette her pretty face. And in tough times her calm eyes were like the center of a Caribbean storm. Mami could make it out the Great Depression with a genuine smile.
We found each other on the other side of the world. The only Latinos speaking that Spanglish in Shibuya. We left each other with a goodbye ’chu’ in Tokyo and I met her hello kitty with a ’muah’ in New York. (7) Amor was a Chinatown bus from Boston. (8) And mami had papi making them Bronx trips every paycheck until she came back with him.
The relationship lasted long enough for the question of marriage. Long enough for us to talk about children. Yeah papi. I could have been a father. A real papi. (9)
The teen mother dials a number up. “Hello,” she says with an attitude wishing it was dude. Her body and hands attend the snot nosed infant while her voice and mind speak into the wire. “Hello...yeah...nah, I ain’t tryin’ to see him...nothin’, he is just acting up...really?..yeah yeah I will be there soon...hey tell auntie don’t forget about me...ok, bye.”
Don’t forget la familia. (10) You could have been a father homeboy. You were used to las preguntas. (11) It was usually the ladies of the family that soft balled the questions. But primano was pitching hard that night. (12) He was like, “So when y’all goin’ have some DominiRicans runnin’ around?” (13)
His smile was big enough to eliminate frowns. Maybe he asked cause he didn’t want to go at it alone. Or maybe he asked so I wouldn’t be left alone.
Some might answer the question with non of your fucking business, but the fam was too close to play each other at a distance. There was no space for you to use an excuse about cash, career, and college. There was no way to say I am still in la casa de mi madre and expect him to drop the subject. (14) It would only expand it. So you told him the closest thing to the truth, “Nah, I ain’t ready for that.”
He had a look of surprise like he expected something more out of you. “Ain’t ready? Nigga, you ain’t ever goin’ be ready. Ain’t none of us ready.” (15)
Realizing his excitement he paused and inhaled the kind of moment when the air becomes narcotic. His veteran eyes traded experiences you wished you could call your own. He knew his words couldn’t convey the cross of raising his child. However, you both had novias.
“We ain’t ever ready. But they are. A woman’s always ready.”
His message was as fresh as a new Japanese word. It was his last lesson before his last tour. The next one was at the funeral. It’s like fatherhood is scarier than war.
The infant starts to cry. Not even the sound of the train can drown out his screams. We all stare in their direction. Like a professional, the teen mother ignores us and lifts her child onto her chest. The infant tugs at the headphone wire dangling down her neck. The earphone falls from her ear and she carefully removes herself of all electronics. He made her put her phone down. She gently rubs his back and kisses him on the head. His shouts quickly turn to murmurs until he is once again silent. What would gently stop a man from crying out loud?
You could have been a father. You didn’t even have to play your cards right. You just needed to play your fucking hand. She had all her bets on us. Instead you had a fucked up definition of success and took your chip to another table. Not even a stack. That’s right nigga. She left New York for you and you left her for Japan. So what? You didn’t have your shit together? Neither did she. It didn’t matter. You loved each other.
So it was bye-bye Boricua and konichiwa Wall Street Tokyo. (16) It was the first time in your life you weren’t broke. So a broken heart didn’t matter. No more avena for breakfast, lunch and dinner, no more cold showers in the middle of Boston winters, and no more living in la casa de tu madre. No más. (17)
You traded your dollars for yen, family for a career, and a useless diploma for a fucking visa. Yeah fucking. Pronto you got yourself una Japonesa belleza and you almost made a mother out of her. (18) She got off the pill and you stayed off the condom. She pulled you in and you did not pull out. She took the day after, and the day after she had a look of regret wishing you’d step up to the plate and be the man to give life into her. Praying to the director almighty that you get your act together. You don’t have to be ready. But fucking act like it. Vulnerability is for a new born and not for a man to get a woman pregnant. Not for a man to get two women pregnant.
The teen mother reaches over and places the infant back in the stroller. His tiny hands reach out to her and she begins to caress them with her fingers. She gives him unconditional love without a smile on her face.
The child grasps a finger. She sits quietly and listens to the voice of her infant. We are as chill as a Coney Island breeze. The train makes a stop at liberty. The teen mother and her cub roll out to the platform.
The train is boarded with many more passengers, yet I find myself once again a lone wolf in the corner. For a couple of stops the train atmosphere feels like a jail cell. It feels like being in a jail cell before a court hearing. A new cellmate decides to join my corner of the zoo.
Padre de Nadie - Father of None
1. Besides Dorothy’s pup, toto is a special place in the Dominican Spanish. Some call it derogatory. Other’s find it to be another word for expressing oneself.
2. Bachateros are musicians of Bachata.
3. Ay Dios is the short hand version of ay Dios mios AKA Oh my God. Adios means goodbye.
4. Uno is a card game but it also means one.
5. Nada is nothing.
6. La memoria de una Boricua is the memory of a Boricua. A Boricua is a native of Puerto Rico.
7. Chu is the Japanese equivalent of muah.
8. Amor is love.
9. Besides papi being the slang for a young fly Latino. The word papi really means father. Mami is mother. But mami in the streets is a young fly Latina.
10. La familia is the family.
11. Las preguntas is the questions.
12. Primano is slang for brother cousin or bro-cuz
13. DominiRican is jokingly a mix between a Dominican and a Puerto Rican.
14. La casa de mi madre is mom’s house.
15. Latino communities in New York and Boston were either part of Black communities or right beside them. Naturally we learned English from our neighbors and it became part of the Latino in America culture. If you need to confirm this just visit El Barrio, a Latino community in the Bronx, or listen to an album by Big Pun or Immortal Technique.
16. Konichiwa is good afternoon in Japanese. Pop culture has followed it up with bitches.
17. Avena is oatmeal. Mi madre still makes this every time I visit as if it were my favorite meal. No más is no more.
18. Pronto is quickly. Una Japonesa belleza is a beautiful Japanese female.
