A quarter to eight

May 7, 2009 at 5:05 pm (College work, Touchy Feelings, Writings)
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If you look at a clock you seldom ever pay much attention to the minute lines in between one and two. Nobody never really bothers to count the lines to make sure they know the exact time. It’s all an estimate. Whether or not your life has been good or bad is an estimate. If you take the time to look back you’ll soon realize that even if it hasn’t been la vie en rose[1] , it was at least entertaining.  Humor me while I recount some of the most seemingly frivolous parts of my life.

When I was four my father brought home our first computer. I was more than ready to learn its uses and functions. Unfortunately my father thought that I was too small to learn and decided to teach my nine year old brother instead. My questions went unanswered and I was blandly ignored various times. What was a girl to do? The answer was simple. My father was teaching my brother how to use it. In my mind if I just pulled a chair up and stayed quiet, I’d learn something without being “in the way.” This I did religiously. For every lesson my brother had I was right there. My presence went unknown while the men in the house played with the machine. Time went on and my brother was an “expert” on the internet. He decided to be nice and called me to play with it for a while. I remember vividly how he sat me down while he typed http://www.disney.com. Before my poor brother could tell me which button on the mouse to click, I was already with it in my hand and choosing a game by myself. I clicked and closed and switched back forth windows, all while my brother looked in sheer surprise/mind fuck. I remember his face: rejection was worth it.

When I was six I didn’t have a lot of friends because I wasn’t in school yet. My mother thought I deserved a childhood before throwing me into school, so pre-school for her was unnecessary. There was this one little girl who lived next door; she was so different from me. She had straight hair and white skin. I looked at my family (mother, brother, and father). They were all light skinned. I wondered why I was so dark. I thought my eyes were broken. I asked my mother if my eyes were broken, if I was really white and just couldn’t see it. She said “yes.” One day I was on the swings. I looked at my white dress and then my tan arms. What color was the freaking dress then? Something wasn’t right, I knew it. Why was I so different? Why couldn’t I be more like my friend? Then she walked up to me, I saw her bowl haircut knowing I could never have my hair like hers. I saw her pink cheeks knowing mines could never turn that hue. Then I remembered my eyes were broken.

When I was nine I was in the honor roll class of third grade. I guess my second grade teacher thought I was really smart (I was a master in computer skills by now). In this class I let myself loose. I talked to more class mates and never had a problem speaking in front of my peers. On the contrary, I loved it. With all that I don’t think my teacher appreciated my upfront attitude. She thought I was loud and talkative therefore not very productive. No amount of good grades proved her otherwise. Jesus, a classmate of ours, was different from me. In the sense that  he was lazy, had bad grades, and never participated. Despite all of that, he had the affection of our teacher. They were both Cuban immigrants (balseros)[2]. Jesus could do no wrong because she backed up all his flaws and follies. I don’t want to think she disliked me for being Dominican, despite making reference to my culture and nature. Maybe I wasn’t a good student. Jesus, bad English and all made it to the 4th grade honor roll class, I didn’t.

When I was fourteen I was staying at my aunt’s house in Dominican Republic because my own neighborhood was too boring and lonely for a newcomer. My parents would go visit me once a day which was fine by me because I felt an immense liberty. I would come and go as I pleased, with whom ever I pleased. My aunt (great-aunt to be exact) treated me like a princess. I genuinely love her with all my heart. She hadn’t seen me since I was two-weeks old so ignorance of my birthday went fine by me. I told everyone who walked in the door it was my birthday with this burst of joy. I was heading inside the house when my father had mistaken me for his niece and shouted “Sobrina”[3]. Its ok, he needed new glasses. After correcting him I stood there waiting for his own little burst of joy over my birthday. Five-minutes of silence didn’t refresh his memory. I guess liberty comes with its perks.

When I was nineteen I had grown close to one of my brother’s friends. My brother was no longer living in the same city as me so I was more at liberty to talk to his friends. Ever since I saw this boy I had a crush on him. The first thing I heard in DR was his voice through my bedroom window: he lived next to my grandmother’s house. This infatuation was never responded and over the years he became this unreachable person, almost like a celebrity to me. Each time he’d pass by I’d die a little bit inside. He would go over my house every day and every day I would sit nearby just to hear him laugh. Years had gone by and I had grown up and out. This he noticed. So we started talking, then dating. I realized I didn’t really like him. He was sweet and caring but not my type. The only thing I liked about him is that I wanted him for so long and finally had him. Without any pursuit or making so much as a peep he fell into my lap. He entered my life nonchalantly and out he went the same way. The heavens are truly overrated.

When I was twenty-one I read a book called “The Culture of Make Believe.” Our teacher warned us that the book would make us angry, sad, curious and all sorts of good stuff. In essence it was a hard to swallow book, at least according to him. Since we were encouraged to write our reaction to each chapter in our notebook, I, good student and all, complied. Something funny would happen when I would reach the next chapter: The author would somehow plagiarize my ideas.  This was strange in more than one way. Was I copying him? Were we a like? My goodness did this mean if I opened my mouth my ideas would be received as angry, sad, curious and all sorts of good stuff. So I made it my business to use the weekend to think and share my ideas with people. I’d rather be hard to swallow than easy to forget.

This morning at 7:45 am I missed my bus. I had an 8 am class and it would be at least 40 more minutes for the next bus to pass. Instead of walking around in circles wondering where to take another route, I walked inside of a McDonalds. I had never bought coffee there before but this morning I wanted one. I noticed before opening the door that the guy there was upset (maybe he isn’t a morning person). I smiled at him and ordered my coffee. I told him to make it how he likes his coffee. He smiled back. I left McDonalds the same way I walked in, with a smile on my face. I walked ten blocks until I reached the nearest bus stop. I walked those ten blocks like if it was Mr.Roger’s neighborhood. I didn’t rush one step; I never once looked at my clock. I kept saying to myself “I’ll get there when I get there.” At a quarter to eight this morning I decided that if the world was going to have such a fun time playing practical jokes on me I was going to start laughing with it. At a quarter to eight this morning I realized how amusing my life has been.

[1] La vie en rose is a popular French chanson that translates directly to “Life in pink.”

[2] Balsero is a Cuban immigrant who arrived by a small boat.

[3] Sobrina is niece in Spanish.

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Minnie the Moocher

April 30, 2009 at 3:29 pm (College work, Friends)
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Minnie the Moocher

You tend to regret some of the people that walk into your life. Others you remember with a certain amount of melancholy.  This woman I remember with almost a bitter taste in my mouth: as if her whole existence at one point seemed indulging but was ultimately poisoning me.  It isn’t easy to choose something specific about this woman to write about. It’s hard to pinpoint what aspect of my life she had the most impact. I suppose the easiest way is to introduce her:

We’ll call her Minnie. Minnie is married to my cousin, and has been for the last 13 years.  She’s a tall woman in her early thirties.  When she walked in a room she demanded your attention. She could have been wearing the oldest rag but on her it looked like a million dollars. She wasn’t slim but everything about her was expensive and where I come from that’s enough. Of course everything truly was expensive because my cousin is a former drug dealer.  Everyone knew this; small towns tend to hold very little secrets.  Upon meeting her she treated me like you would treat the thirteen year old cousin of your husband.  She spoke with an almost lazy humor. Like her politeness was forced.  But then there were times that she spoke vividly and seemed truly interested. Thirteen wasn’t the age I became acquainted with her:  that took time and serendipity.

Flash forward a few years and now I’m her husband’s seventeen year old cousin. Her pharmacy needed a trust worthy cashier. Someone who wasn’t money hungry and Minnie thought I’d be a good choice.  The first day was a basic drill about keeping my eyes open on the rest of the workers.  I was expected to be some sort of watchdog when they weren’t there, which was often. They trusted me too much. It would be hours and hours before they would even call their business to see how things were going.  Since I was family I was treated differently than the rest. One of the first things she told me was if I ever wanted anything to ask her, food, money or anything. She would bring me dinner, buy me drinks. She made it her priority that I felt comfortable around her. For some reason my mother and others would warn me to be careful around her. This was rather confusing because I didn’t exactly see how she would be of any threat to me. I mean we started to become friends. Slowly we were sharing things about each other. She was an intimidating person, no argument there. So the fact that she was nice to me made me feel like I was behind some sort of shield from her bitchy side.  The first few weeks were normal. Then I started to really let go.

I had met someone who also worked in another pharmacy. Minnie had known him for some time. She was more excited about our infatuation than I was. She would facilitate ways for me to see myself with him, even if that included covering for me at work. Her husband also knew this to the point that he even offered me birth control. This stunned me so much that all I could do was look at him and smile. He quietly put it in the drawer at my desk and said “It’s there if you need it”. Still all I could do was smile. I told this to my then boyfriend and his response was something that I now call “The first stone on the road to awareness”. He told me that I should have rejected the birth control. To my boyfriend, my cousin offering me birth control was a way of knowing whether or not I was sexual active. This struck me as odd but being or at least trying to be a reasonable person I didn’t discard it immediately. Instead I decided to observe closely their interest in our relationship.  It goes without saying that their interest in my personal relationship was not only overwhelming it was also a bit scary.  The reality was that knowing about my life and aiding me to get things that I wanted was a mean of control. I was miserable working there. I worked every day for laughable pay. But I was trust worthy, something they lacked at the time.  If even for a moment I would have a frown at work Minnie would sit down with me and did everything in her power to make me feel like a queen. Once home, I would rethink if it was a good idea to quit. In general, it was very astute manipulation.

Of course this came as a sacrifice on their part. In order for someone to trust you, you must prove that you trust them.  So Minnie and her husband would often times tell me the most outrages stories. Stores that included infidelity, drugs, crimes, vengeance. I would find myself as the ‘fly on the wall’ that was their marriage. I never shared anything anyone told me and they knew that. So Minnie would feel comfort in telling me when she cheated on him and with whom and likewise would her husband. It was a very odd situation. It got to the point that we were all tied to each other, bond with invisible chains of debauchery. They did everything I wanted and I did everything they wanted. I moved from one boyfriend to the next and in each one Minnie was our self-proclaimed counselor. She didn’t discriminate on who should be a viable candidate for my affection. As long as they were willing to be my subordinate, things like marital status were of no importance. And in and out of trouble we went and more and more I couldn’t recognize myself anymore. By the time I realized this I no longer wanted to be around her. I started to hate her and her husband for the sick people they were. They never showed interest in other people unless it was to their convenience. I no longer wanted to be associated with anything about her. So I slowly started to step down on our friendship. When Minnie would feel me pull away she’d run back into me out of some form of despair. She’d follow me where I’d go, she needed to know who I talked to, any form of secrecy or privacy was an act of betrayal to her. I suppose she felt that if I did walk away I’d lash out on her horrible attitude and thus revealing to the world her true colors. So she did everything in her power to maintain our friendship.

The fact is that I would have never done anything like that and I would like to believe that somewhere she knew this too. So my only other explanation for her sudden obsession with me was that she probably wouldn’t find anyone to listen to her crap and not turn Dr.Evil on her. Although my mother would suggest later on that she might be a lesbian and was in love with me. This makes some sort of sense because she was jealous of my best friend Mabel, and often accused her of being a lesbian and in love with me. I progressively fought the chains that bond us together. You’d think that I might have as well quitted. How could I tell my father, who trusted my cousin so much, the real reason why I wanted to leave the pharmacy. Could I have told him “He sniffs cocaine in the back room”? Or “I know more drug dealers than I should”? Thus it made it really difficult to leave. Time passed by and the pharmacy fell into hardship. This was due to her stealing from the pharmacy to entertain her friends/lovers and his stealing from the pharmacy to buy drugs and entertain his friends/lovers. This led to my cousin to take once again his old job as drug dealer and head to the states, at least to find enough money to restore the pharmacy to what it was. This scared me. A lot. I was in no way afraid of his safety but I was afraid of Minnie. He was going to be away for a few months and she was going to be here alone and in charge. What’s worse is that she’d have money so there would be more of that friends/lover thing. The reason why this startled me so much was because in the end things would come to light and I’d be a star witness, something that I didn’t want to be. So when he left I never spoke to her again. Since I worked the morning shift and she worked the evening shift we would only say goodbye and hello. I never took her calls or anything. I carefully counted every coin before turning over the shift in order to make sure any lost of money was not blamed on me. Even with all this the truth exploded and I was called as star witness. Minnie in a matter of one month stole 2,000$US, which is a lot of money on a small business. My cousin arrived back without saying one word to anyone, crying and upset over his wife’s betrayal. I remember just like today, that night Minnie called me and spoke to me for the first time in months. She was scared and didn’t know what to do. Her husband had suddenly gotten home to find her with a friend and some guy in their home. He got to the pharmacy where I was at the time and broke every glass counter he could get his hands on. He closed the pharmacy and took the long way to my house. He asked me what I knew and I told him the truth: I didn’t know anything. I had stopped talking to her. He believed me for the first two-days. But then his drug fueled rage would lash out on me again and again. He called me names, like backstabber and accused me of pretending to be a saint when I was a good nobody.

I learned something about Minnie in all this and that was that she was also a drug addict. Her husband in a state of anger made it his business to inform everyone. Everything about her became clear. She’d have this huge burst of energy and then fall into tears in a matter of minutes. There were times that she didn’t make any sense but I thought she was just being silly. It was drugs. This scared me even more than anything her husband could do to me. The fact is that I would hang out with this person; everyone knew I was her confidant. I would put up with her bullshit. How could this have escaped me? I wasn’t afraid that people wouldn’t believe my ignorance but that in fact I knew so much that I might have been a participant. I felt like I was in a no exit street. I finally spoke to my father and with tears asked him to please get me out and away from these vile people. Something holy intervened and he told me to hang on a few weeks because we were leaving the country anyways.

I left but in so I left it up to them to decide what my legacy would be. I’ve heard that I was ill spoken of after I left, from everything to robbery to covering up for both of them. Things like this hurt me but in a larger sense most people, at least the ones that matter know the truth. Does it give me any grief over the state that they’re in? (I mean every cent that comes their way is spent on cocaine). Well the truth is it doesn’t. What goes around comes around and if you make lots of money by killing people than you will die from the same thing.

I have never been in a situation like that before in my life. These people were voluntarily in my life and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was as if I was committing spiritual suicide by just having them around. I knew and was involved in more things than I feel comfortable sharing. But in a way I don’t blame them for my follies or the bad experiences. I earnestly believe everything happens for a reason and this was one of those things. It showed me how vicious people truly are. It changed the way I see personal relationships. I grew from being ignorant to being a cynic. I look at everyone now and analyze their attitude searching for any trace that made reveal them as drug dealers/users, backstabbers, liars, egomaniacs etc. I grew -without a doubt- I grew in the time I spent with her. I don’t know if I changed but I know I grew. There isn’t a day that I don’t thank God for having her and her husband thousands of miles away. I have never spoken to or heard of them again since I left. I’ve learned to never let myself get tangled with anyone like that again. Drug dealers or not I never in my life want to let another person in control of me ever again.

*Minnie the Moocher is a popular jazz song by Cab Calloway. The song is about a girl who was with a cocaine addict and she became a drug addict as well.

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