Where I Live Now by Lucia Berlin

Author:Lucia Berlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Sparrow Books
Published: 2017-01-10T05:00:00+00:00

Mijito

I want to go home. When mijito Jesus falls asleep I think about home, my mamacita and my brothers and sisters. I try to remember all the trees and all the people in the village. I try to remember me because I was different then, before tantas cosas que han pasado. I had no idea. I didn’t know television or drogas or fear. I have been afraid since the minute I left the trip and the van and the men and running and even when Manolo met me I got more afraid because he wasn’t the same. I knew he loved me and when he held me it was like by the river, but he was changed, with fear in his gentle eyes. All of the United States was scary coming to Oakland. Cars in front of us, behind us, cars going the other way cars cars cars for sale and stores and stores and more cars. Even in our little room in Oakland where I’d wait for him the room was full of noise not just the television but cars and buses and sirens and helicopters, men fighting and shooting and people yelling. The mayates frighten me and they stand in groups all down the street so I was afraid to go outside. Manolo was so strange I was afraid he didn’t want to marry me but he said, “Don’t be crazy, I love you mi vida.” I was happy but then he said, “Anyway you need to be legal so you can get welfare and food stamps.” We got married right away and that same day he took me to the welfare. I was sad. I wanted to maybe go to a park or have some wine a little luna de miel party.

We lived in the Flamingo Motel on MacArthur. I was lonely. He was gone most of the time. He got mad at me for being so scared but he forgot how different it was here. We didn’t have inside bathrooms or lights at home. Even the television frightened me; it seemed so real. I wished we had a little house or room that I could make pretty and where I could cook for him. He would come with Kentucky Fry or Taco Bell or hamburgers. We ate breakfast every day in a little café and that was nice like in Mexico.

One day there was a banging on the door. I didn’t want to open it. The man said he was Ramón, Manolo’s uncle. He said Manolo was in jail. He was going to take me to talk to him. He made me pack up all my things and get in the car. I kept asking him, “Why? What happened? What did he do?”

“No me jodes! Callate!” he told me. “Mira, I don’t know. He’ll tell you. All I know is you’ll be staying with us until he goes to court.”

We went into a big building and then in an elevator to the top floor. I had never been in an elevator.

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