The Prince of los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood by Richard Blanco Page A
Authors: Richard Blanco
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set of house and car keys in case Papá lost his, again.
“Vamos,” she said, plucking me from the car and leading me down the embankment by the hand with the roll tucked beneath her arm. We scurried through a stretch of itchy grass that brushed at my knees, until we reached the edge of the tree line beyond which everything was wilderness. “ Allá, behind the trees. No one will see you,” she directed, pointing to a cluster of sable palms amid a clump of bushes. “Hold the tree, y agáchate all the way down, like a toilet but lower. Like this,” she instructed, squatting down herself to demonstrate. “But what if there’s something out there, Mamá? What if—” “Shh, don’t worry, mi’jo, ” she assured me. “Now apúrate, we don’t want to miss El Ratoncito Miguel.”
It was the last thing I expected: taking a dump while thinking of Mickey Mouse as cars whizzed by on the turnpike and I nervously turned over my fears. What if something bit my backside? Even worse: What if I missed and soiled my new sneakers? How mortifying. But I emerged unsoiled, zipped back up, and handed the roll of toilet paper to Mamá, avoiding her eyes and steeling myself for the wisecracks from my brother. “Did an alligator bite your weenie off?” he yelled out the window as we approached. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more embarrassed, Mamá pulled her Kodak Instamatic out of her tote. “ Ponte over there, by the tree. No, un poquito to the right,” she said—and snap: my first shit in the woods documented on film.
No matter how ridiculous, Mamá insisted on recording every part of our lives with photos. It annoyed the hell out of us, constantly interrupting the flow of whatever we were doing, and youcould tell from our grumpy faces and slouched bodies in the photos. Still, we’d try to please her most of the time, knowing it was important to her. She’d send the photos along with letters to her family in Cuba, which was the only way she could stay in touch with them and keep them up-to-date on our lives in America. I could only imagine the embarrassing narrative in the letter that would accompany the photo of me and the tree—an incident that would become infamous in our family. It became a Blanco family road trip game— spot the tree where Riqui did number two —that passed the time on every trip to Disney World that followed.
“ Ay, mira , I forgot I packed this por si las moscas, ” Mamá said, pulling a bottle of Pepto-Bismol out of her tote and shaking it. Indeed, she always thought of everything. “No-no-no,” Papá protested, “no drinking in the car.” But Mamá insisted it was an emergency and he let me take a swig—thank goodness. “Did I ever tell you”—she started with the same old story she’d told a hundred times—“when I was a niña in Cuba, we were so poor we had no toilet. I had go to el baño every day under the guava trees behind la casa . I wiped myself with newspaper, if there was even newspaper. Sometimes I had to use the leaves right off the guava tree. You boys don’t know how good you have it.” Somehow I was a little less grossed out by her story that time. I heard and understood, for the first time, that certain tone of pride in her voice as if there were something virtuous about defecating outdoors. Perhaps I had just gone through some bizarre Cuban rite of passage with my mother. Or perhaps it was because I was relieved, and relieved, that it was all over and we were back on the road to Disney World.
With each passing mile north of Miami there was less and less that reminded me of where we lived. The emerald lawns of the suburbs gave way to endless stretches of saw grass shining gold in the newly risen sun. The sound of car horns turned into a quiet wind easing in through the windows. And there was nothing in view to remind me we were Cuban either: no billboards in Spanish for El Dorado Furniture or Rivero’s Funeral Home’s discount packages—coffin, wake, and
“Vamos,” she said, plucking me from the car and leading me down the embankment by the hand with the roll tucked beneath her arm. We scurried through a stretch of itchy grass that brushed at my knees, until we reached the edge of the tree line beyond which everything was wilderness. “ Allá, behind the trees. No one will see you,” she directed, pointing to a cluster of sable palms amid a clump of bushes. “Hold the tree, y agáchate all the way down, like a toilet but lower. Like this,” she instructed, squatting down herself to demonstrate. “But what if there’s something out there, Mamá? What if—” “Shh, don’t worry, mi’jo, ” she assured me. “Now apúrate, we don’t want to miss El Ratoncito Miguel.”
It was the last thing I expected: taking a dump while thinking of Mickey Mouse as cars whizzed by on the turnpike and I nervously turned over my fears. What if something bit my backside? Even worse: What if I missed and soiled my new sneakers? How mortifying. But I emerged unsoiled, zipped back up, and handed the roll of toilet paper to Mamá, avoiding her eyes and steeling myself for the wisecracks from my brother. “Did an alligator bite your weenie off?” he yelled out the window as we approached. Just when I thought I couldn’t be more embarrassed, Mamá pulled her Kodak Instamatic out of her tote. “ Ponte over there, by the tree. No, un poquito to the right,” she said—and snap: my first shit in the woods documented on film.
No matter how ridiculous, Mamá insisted on recording every part of our lives with photos. It annoyed the hell out of us, constantly interrupting the flow of whatever we were doing, and youcould tell from our grumpy faces and slouched bodies in the photos. Still, we’d try to please her most of the time, knowing it was important to her. She’d send the photos along with letters to her family in Cuba, which was the only way she could stay in touch with them and keep them up-to-date on our lives in America. I could only imagine the embarrassing narrative in the letter that would accompany the photo of me and the tree—an incident that would become infamous in our family. It became a Blanco family road trip game— spot the tree where Riqui did number two —that passed the time on every trip to Disney World that followed.
“ Ay, mira , I forgot I packed this por si las moscas, ” Mamá said, pulling a bottle of Pepto-Bismol out of her tote and shaking it. Indeed, she always thought of everything. “No-no-no,” Papá protested, “no drinking in the car.” But Mamá insisted it was an emergency and he let me take a swig—thank goodness. “Did I ever tell you”—she started with the same old story she’d told a hundred times—“when I was a niña in Cuba, we were so poor we had no toilet. I had go to el baño every day under the guava trees behind la casa . I wiped myself with newspaper, if there was even newspaper. Sometimes I had to use the leaves right off the guava tree. You boys don’t know how good you have it.” Somehow I was a little less grossed out by her story that time. I heard and understood, for the first time, that certain tone of pride in her voice as if there were something virtuous about defecating outdoors. Perhaps I had just gone through some bizarre Cuban rite of passage with my mother. Or perhaps it was because I was relieved, and relieved, that it was all over and we were back on the road to Disney World.
With each passing mile north of Miami there was less and less that reminded me of where we lived. The emerald lawns of the suburbs gave way to endless stretches of saw grass shining gold in the newly risen sun. The sound of car horns turned into a quiet wind easing in through the windows. And there was nothing in view to remind me we were Cuban either: no billboards in Spanish for El Dorado Furniture or Rivero’s Funeral Home’s discount packages—coffin, wake, and
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