“We were just kids, man- -“ he says. Enrique, literally my entire family’s favorite tio, now nearly blind in one eye from the diabetes, still rocking an open collared shirt, with a gold chain caught in the black and white bush of his chest hair. He recalls how cold the day was when my mom (Enrique’s older sister) and dad, told my grandfather she was pregnant.
“My father was always pissed about whatever, pero nunca like that, man. He wanted to kill your mom.“ Enrique immigrated to this country from Guatemala in 1975 with his sister and my grandfather. My dad had a similar migrant story and came into the picture shortly after that.
“I was like, Gustavo, man, lets get the fuck outta here- -“ he says, now laughing about it, “Your mom wasn't going to stay there, so she came with us.” Enrique doesn't smoke anymore, but he reaches for the pack of cigarettes that aren't in his pocket, dropping his hand, remembering what the doctor said about his smoking habit.
He tells this story often, about that night. He regales details about how scared the three of them were when they left the apartment on a 120th street. How they made their way through Times Square, sauntering in and out of the ways of the hookers and the pimps, dodging shadowy figures with nefarious eyes, avoiding the broken people lying on the cracked pavement of alleys they dared not venture. How they found a seedy motel with a cliche neon-red sign that blinked on and off and on and off.
“Tavo never tells you guys about that night because I think he feels bad about leaving your mom while we got fucked-up.”
After ditching my mom in the shittiest hotel in the city, my uncle says how that was the night that they bought an 8-ball of coke, him and my pops, that turned out to be poorly crushed-up aspirin and baby laxatives. The way he tells it, what he remembers, is that it didn't matter. He says that the LSD kicked in and how the combination of the two meant trouble on my father’s digestive system.
“Your father almost shit his pants on the 6,” Enrique says through his infectious laugh, “- -but the trains were different then.”
He never mentions his sister. My mother. How him and my dad just left her in a motel whose neon sign illuminated dark rooms red, casting still-black shadows of the people who sat in them. My uncle never mentions that my mother was one of them. Alone. With her thoughts. Her fears. She was only eighteen, barely spoke English, didn't have a job. Wasn't a citizen. The only person with her that night hadn't even grown a mouth.
“Your father looked scared, man. It freaked me out,” Enrique now wears glasses, and has thin, semi-silver hair, slicked back because he still needs to look his coolest before continuing. “We went to our friend Memo’s apartment, uptown, this big Puerto Rican guy who owned a snake. Wore it like this, mira,” Enrique’s arms go up, like he’s being crucified, to show how the snake hung around Memo’s neck, “Good guy to us, pero fucking crazy.”
On their way to their friend’s place Enrique says they got lost. “It was like I turned my head and your father was there, when I turned back, POOM! he’s not there.”
Enrique talks about how he got off at the next stop, not knowing where he was or how much time had passed. How he sat there crying with his head in his hands wanting it all not to be happening.
“I was so fucked-up, con todo that we had took, it was too much. I couldn't remember how to get home. I couldn't member where we left Lara. I was just sitting there, man, llorando como un baby.” He pauses, recounting, “Thats when I heard your father scream: ENRIQUE!” he laughs again and gives a glimpse at the relief he must of felt when he saw my dad that night.
“Your father was standing at the other side. He jumped down onto the tracks to get to me, and we both started to cry, man. Your father was pissed, pero he knew he fucked up. He was pissed because he wasn’t looking out for me the way he shoulda.” Enrique takes a pause, reaching into a pocket for a pack of smokes that are still not there, and he tells the rest of the story the same way he has many times before, the way I know familiar, from a future where many years have passed. Where he feels half atoned for his behavior, where retrospect has made it clear to him, that they were only kids.
