my memory, snapshots of sorts.
My dad, brother, and friends rushing towards me.
My dad saying âI told you not to grab it.â
Someone else saying âI told you to drop it.â
My body refusing to sit down next to my mom at her park bench.
My body yielding to her voice.
My mom, sitting next to me, trying to open my fist.
My fist, refusing to open. My mouth letting out a strange sound, some kind of cry I didnât recognize as my own. It was more like a very loud whimper.
My fist letting go, opening, yielding to my momâs voice.
The sight of my hand. It was black and red, all over. Like some odd mixture of coal and raw meat. I remember feeling relieved that I couldnât see any bones. I remember being surprised by the fact that there was no firecracker left in that monstrous hand.
A long car ride to the hospital. Too long. I whimpered all the way there.
A shot in the arm at the emergency room.
A doctor opening my hand, with my mom and dad next to me. That same doctor swabbing my hand and fingers with giant Q-tips dipped in some fluid, for what seemed like an eternity.
My mom and dad telling me not to look.
My mom cradling my head in her hands, holding me tightly against her bosom.
More pain.
A nurse wrapping my hand in what seemed like miles of gauze.
Another shot, this one in my butt.
Calm, peace, relief, sleep. Fade to black.
Did this stop us from fooling around with explosives? Of course not. I gained a special respect for duds, but kept to my old ways, unfazed. Explosions are so hard to give up. Harder even when they seem as natural as sunlight and as common as heartbeats, and you live in a world out of jointâa world that seems to need a few bangs to set it right. If I had stayed in Cuba, the experience might have come in very handy later, for I would surely have tried to blow up much bigger things, just like my relative who ended up shot by a firing squad.
Wait. One more memory has just emerged from its hiding place. One final snapshot.
Iâm in my first-grade classroom. Itâs nearly the end of the school year. Iâm looking forward to summer vacation. Brother Pedro is at the blackboard, doing math. An essential prelude to physics. Those sorry-ass Disney characters are still there, all over the walls. Such hypocrites, always happy, except for Donald Duck, who actually showed his darker emotions, the only one who could explode. He was, and still is, the most decent of them all, and the only one I appreciated on the wall. Anyway, after glancing at Donald on the wall, Iâm looking out the window at one of Brother Alejandroâs malfeasants out on the playground, kneeling on the gravel under the blazing sun, reeling slightly. The sunlight is flooding into the classroom.
Iâm peeling long strips of skin off the palm of my hand and marveling at the transformation. My hand is back. My old hand, not that other one the firecracker left behind, all charred and bloody. The skin Iâve pulled off my hand is so clean, so beautiful, so transparent. It feels a lot like the wrapper on firecracker packages, except that itâs not red. I roll the white skin, knead it with my fingers, ball it up. Brother Pedro calls my name. âCarlos, pay attention!â
I drop my skin on the ground. I shed my skin.
Just like a lizard.
9
Nueve
P arties, parties, birthday parties.
Fiesta! One of the very few Spanish words every American knows. Along with its narcoleptic cousin, siesta . Parties and naps, the only two things spics are good at.
Mel Blanc, voice of Speedy Gonzalez and a thousand other Hollywood cartoons, may you burn in hell forever. As one of your God-damned Hispanic Warner Brothers cartoon characters might have said: â SÃ, señor, firrst I go to zee fiesta and zen I tayk-a siesta, beeforrre I go to anozzer fiesta again. Ole! Andale, ándale! Arriba, arriba! â
I take it back, Mel. Sorry, I got carried away. Hell might be too harsh a punishment
My dad, brother, and friends rushing towards me.
My dad saying âI told you not to grab it.â
Someone else saying âI told you to drop it.â
My body refusing to sit down next to my mom at her park bench.
My body yielding to her voice.
My mom, sitting next to me, trying to open my fist.
My fist, refusing to open. My mouth letting out a strange sound, some kind of cry I didnât recognize as my own. It was more like a very loud whimper.
My fist letting go, opening, yielding to my momâs voice.
The sight of my hand. It was black and red, all over. Like some odd mixture of coal and raw meat. I remember feeling relieved that I couldnât see any bones. I remember being surprised by the fact that there was no firecracker left in that monstrous hand.
A long car ride to the hospital. Too long. I whimpered all the way there.
A shot in the arm at the emergency room.
A doctor opening my hand, with my mom and dad next to me. That same doctor swabbing my hand and fingers with giant Q-tips dipped in some fluid, for what seemed like an eternity.
My mom and dad telling me not to look.
My mom cradling my head in her hands, holding me tightly against her bosom.
More pain.
A nurse wrapping my hand in what seemed like miles of gauze.
Another shot, this one in my butt.
Calm, peace, relief, sleep. Fade to black.
Did this stop us from fooling around with explosives? Of course not. I gained a special respect for duds, but kept to my old ways, unfazed. Explosions are so hard to give up. Harder even when they seem as natural as sunlight and as common as heartbeats, and you live in a world out of jointâa world that seems to need a few bangs to set it right. If I had stayed in Cuba, the experience might have come in very handy later, for I would surely have tried to blow up much bigger things, just like my relative who ended up shot by a firing squad.
Wait. One more memory has just emerged from its hiding place. One final snapshot.
Iâm in my first-grade classroom. Itâs nearly the end of the school year. Iâm looking forward to summer vacation. Brother Pedro is at the blackboard, doing math. An essential prelude to physics. Those sorry-ass Disney characters are still there, all over the walls. Such hypocrites, always happy, except for Donald Duck, who actually showed his darker emotions, the only one who could explode. He was, and still is, the most decent of them all, and the only one I appreciated on the wall. Anyway, after glancing at Donald on the wall, Iâm looking out the window at one of Brother Alejandroâs malfeasants out on the playground, kneeling on the gravel under the blazing sun, reeling slightly. The sunlight is flooding into the classroom.
Iâm peeling long strips of skin off the palm of my hand and marveling at the transformation. My hand is back. My old hand, not that other one the firecracker left behind, all charred and bloody. The skin Iâve pulled off my hand is so clean, so beautiful, so transparent. It feels a lot like the wrapper on firecracker packages, except that itâs not red. I roll the white skin, knead it with my fingers, ball it up. Brother Pedro calls my name. âCarlos, pay attention!â
I drop my skin on the ground. I shed my skin.
Just like a lizard.
9
Nueve
P arties, parties, birthday parties.
Fiesta! One of the very few Spanish words every American knows. Along with its narcoleptic cousin, siesta . Parties and naps, the only two things spics are good at.
Mel Blanc, voice of Speedy Gonzalez and a thousand other Hollywood cartoons, may you burn in hell forever. As one of your God-damned Hispanic Warner Brothers cartoon characters might have said: â SÃ, señor, firrst I go to zee fiesta and zen I tayk-a siesta, beeforrre I go to anozzer fiesta again. Ole! Andale, ándale! Arriba, arriba! â
I take it back, Mel. Sorry, I got carried away. Hell might be too harsh a punishment