Jennifer Morales

Candy can’t play at my house. I think it’s because of the pokey tree in the front yard. One time she came to play and a sharp piece from the pokey tree got stuck in the side of her foot and she cried when her mom came even though my sister pulled it out right after lunch and Candy’s mom didn’t come get her until “Match Game” came on TV, which is only a little while before dinner. It only bleeded a little bit, but when her mom came she cried and cried. It didn’t just happen—it happened a long time before but she was still crying.

            That was when we just started K-5 morning class and Candy doesn’t come over anymore. I telled my mom we need to cut down the pokey tree and she said why and I said because I want my friend to play at our house. Mom just stared out the window at the apple tree in the backyard a long time, so I said that’s not the tree Mom, and I tried to pull her to the front window to show her the one that makes the sharp brown triangles that make your friends can’t come over anymore.

            We had chorizo and potato tacos for dinner and I picked out all the icky onions because onions are for the birds. My K5 teacher, Miss Monroe, says “for the birds” when she doesn’t like something. I don’t know what the birds are going to do with all the stuff Miss Monroe and I don’t like, but they can have my disgusting onions.

Mom said to my biggest sister, Miriam, “Candy’s mom was surprised to find out we are Mexican.”

She said this in a boring grownup voice. Grownups talk about boring stuff all the time but when they want me to pay attention they use a different voice, not the boring voice. But I got interested because they were talking about Candy and her mom.

“She was very sorry she sent Candy home on the bus with Elina. She kept calling her Helena. HELL-en-uh.”

Mom laughed a laugh that means it’s not really funny.

“She said she didn’t realize any Mexicans lived on this side of West Avenue.” One of Mom’s cejas went all the way up to her hair.

I tried to push my ceja up with my finger and show Mom but she made the déjalo face and I let it go.

Miriam said, “Did she say it, like, in a prejudiced way?” Miriam is 17 and likes to use long grownup words she learns at high school.

“What other way could she say something like that?” Mom’s mouth made a straight line.

“That’s dumb,” Miriam said.

Miriam was eating salad because one time she said she doesn’t want to get fat like Mom. Mom and Miriam didn’t talk to each other for a long time after Miriam said that. I liked when they didn’t talk to each other because then I got to be the bringer of messages and I ran through the house so fast to bring the message and nobody yelled at me because nobody yells when you are bringing an important message like tell your sister it’s her turn to run the vacuum.

I asked what does prejutist mean and Mom said nothing good and then she looked at Miriam and her ceja went up again. Then Mom telled Patricia and Linda and Karen and Daniel to eat even though they were already eating and she didn’t look at my face for all the whole dinner after that.

Sometimes Mom stops looking at us when she is tired because she only has two eyes—she doesn’t have eyes in the back of her head, you know—and she has to keep her two eyes on all six kids when my dad is away at the Army and that makes them tired.

***

I asked Candy at K5 the next day are you still my friend even if your mom is a prejetust? And Candy said what is that and I said nothing good. And Candy got mad and shouted that I belonged in Beantown and not on Gates Street because Mexicans aren’t allowed to live on Gates Street.

I stood up and shouted too. I shouted I do belong on Gates Street because that is where I live in my little yellow house with the red fence and all my sisters and my brother live there and sometimes my dad too when they let him come home from the Army and my mom. And then I pushed Candy over and shouted you know that I live there because that’s the place where she got the pokey tree part in your foot and if you didn’t cry to your mom like a big stupid baby you could still come over anytime you wanted to.

This was when we were supposed to be listening quietly to Miss Monroe read the book about Sarah goes to the dentista but we were not quiet. I was crying and Candy was crying and Miss Monroe closed the book and said girls whatever has gotten into you? And I pulled my sweater over my head and said that’s stupid, how could anything get into me unless I eated it? And Miss Monroe said what, I can’t hear you through your sweater. So I pulled my sweater back down and my hair got full of electric and was waving everywhere and it feeled like bugs. I said how could anything get into me unless I eated it? And Miss Monroe laughed and said it’s a figure of speech and I said why, because I have to figure it out? And Miss Monroe laughed some more.

She made me sit on the rug by her chair on one side and made Candy sit on the other side. Then she got out the windmill cookies with the canela sugar sprinkles from the special cabinet and everybody got one. I peeked at Candy between the chair legs and she was still crying but not making any noise and mocos were coming out of her nose onto her cookie. I turned my head away because Candy is a big crybaby who eats mocos, but my hair kept reaching for her because of the electric.

***

For all the bus rides after that day and all the recess times on the patio, this is what I wondered me: If Mexicans can only live in Beantown and we are Mexican but we live on Gates Street, maybe we are not Mexican? I didn’t like this idea one bit because if you are Mexican you get to eat the good food. In your house, you don’t have to eat the beans in the can that are light orange and taste like syrup or the smooshy corn that looks like mocos or tuna salad with the green pickles that are bright and shiny like broken glass or Salsaberry steak.

If you are Mexican you can speak Spanish when you don’t want the librarian or the doctor or someone working in a store to know that you are telling your parents that they are scary looking or have something icky growing on their face. And even if your parents get mad they will yell at you in Spanish and Doctor Scary-mole-face will not understand.

Also, Mexican dresses are better than American dresses and if you are Mexican and in K5 you can wear a pink dress with 12 ruffles but the American dress only has one or three and socks that match with pink roses on them.

And on your birthday if you are Mexican you get a piñata and you get so many turns even if your big cousins hit it so hard and it breaks a little bit. On your birthday, you get to be the one who hits it the last time and makes the candy fall out.

How could we not be Mexican? I could not understand. I wondered me if there was a circle drawed around Beantown and it had one long part like a paleta stick that reached over just to only our house. Then we would be in Beantown and we would be in the little yellow house too.

I kept looking and looking to see that we are not really Mexican. But at my tía’s house in Beantown, her house has the Mexican smell and our house has the Mexican smell. Also, all the families who lived on our street had mostly yellow-haired people and light-brown-haired people. We have all black-haired people, so we are different from all of them. Only Miyuki and her family in the green house on the corner have all black-haired people also. Nobody in K5 plays at Miyuki’s house either even though she is not Mexican.

One day, riding in the car with my mom to work at the church, I had another idea: We are Mexican but when we cross West Avenue from the side where we live, we get not-Mexican. Like if we are at Mr. Sosa’s the barber in Beantown and Dad is getting his hairs cut, we are Mexican, but then when we go to the A&P, where the white people shop and the good sugar cereal comes from, we are not Mexican anymore, but it’s only for a little while, so that’s OK.

I holded my hair to see if anything changed when we crossed back over West on the way home from church, but it stayed black the whole time. Also, I spoke Spanish the whole way just in case, but my mouth and tongue feeled exactly the same and then Mom said basta, Eli, and she said cállate and Daniel said yeah cállate, parlanchina and laughed and I knew what they said so we were still Mexican and I wasn’t even mad at my brother.

I couldn’t decide if I was Mexican at school or not and then one time some kids from grade 4 called me wetback on the patio and I asked my mom what it means and she said it’s a very bad word, don’t you say it and I said a bad word for being Mexican? And she said yes. And that’s how I knew I was Mexican at school.

***

The best day in the whole world was dad is coming back day. Miriam and Linda hanged up the papel picado with lovebirds that Mom and Dad got from Mexico when they had their wedding and I wasn’t even born yet and Mom made a chocolate cake and Daniel and I drawed a card that said welcome home Dad. It really said welcome home Dad from the stupid Army place but Mom made us use black crayons and color over the stupid Army part. Miriam tried to make us put some flowers on it like the black part was dirt but Daniel said Dad doesn’t like flowers he likes guns. When nobody was watching, Daniel and I drew two Army guys with guns.

When Dad came home we all yelled at him the second he came into the door and we all tried to hug him at the same time and he tried to kiss all of our heads at once but Mom was being greedy with his face. We eated the cake and I sat on his one knee and Daniel sat on the other knee and nobody else got any knees. He said he liked our card very much.

That night was an early to bed night even though it was a Friday and I didn’t have to go to K5 in the morning. It was hard to sleep because I was so excited and also because Mom played her Pedro Infante record so loud.

***

In the morning, Mom made pancakes and eggs and nopalitos and jamón and Dad said he missed home cooking and squeezed her around the middle like she was a big lemon and he was trying to get all the juice out. Mom laughed and said to Linda put on Johnny Mathis and Linda did and Mom sang all the songs until it was time to turn the record over.

After Dad had his nap on the couch and we all washed the dishes so quietly as mouses, Dad waked up and said I’m going to David’s. I got my shoes on so quick and said I’m going too and then Daniel and Pati copied me and Dad said OK and it was four people in Dad’s car but I got to ride in front.

David’s is the store where tortillas come from. There is also other food from Mexico like chiles and tamarindo candy and on Sunday they have real tamales but on Saturday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday you can only get the icky kinds that come in the jar. David’s is the best place to go because there are piñatas and every time I pick one out and my parents say it’s not your birthday yet and I say yes it is, it’s my birthday when I say it is and I say it is today. But I only really get one piñata when I have a real birthday and get a new number, like 4 or 5.

In the car, Dad singed a song about going to Beantown. Not a real song, just a song that Linda and Miriam like on the radio that says bad, bad Leroy Brown, but he changed the words. Dad singed bad, bad, bad Beantown, baddest part of the whole damn town. And I am not supposed to say damn but grownups can say damn.

And this remembered me of Candy and when we shouted at each other in the classroom. And I asked Dad is Beantown baddest because that’s where the Mexicans live? And Dad stopped the car even though we were not at David’s yet and my head banged on the seat. He stopped the car in front of Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin is where the birds live in cages and they peep and are blue and yellow and green and you can’t have them because they prefer to live at Ben Franklin.

And Dad said, “Look at me, Elina. Look at me, Eli mia.”

I looked at him, even though I don’t like it when grownups make me look at their eyes. Their eyes have too much stuff in them.

And Dad said, “Elina, Mexicans can live wherever they want.”

“Are we Mexicans?”

Dad laughed. “Of course we are.”

“For real, like really, really real?”

“Yes.”

“And we can live wherever we want?”

Pati made a blowing noise with her lips in the backseat. “You are such a baby. You don’t know anything.”

Dad put his big hand on my shoulder and squished it.

“We can live anywhere we want, mi amor. Who told you that we can’t?”

And Pati telled him about the time Candy’s mom said Mexicans don’t live on our side of West Avenue.

“Candy’s mom is a pree-je-tust,” I said.

“She is, is she?” Dad laughed. He said “pree-je-tust” real quiet. Then he said to me, “Eli, you are going to meet some people in life who don’t like you, no matter what you do. You can be as nice as can be, never speak an unkind word, go out of your way to help them, and it won’t matter one bit if they don’t like the color of your skin.”

I looked at my arm. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Not a thing. There’s something wrong with their heads.” Dad turned the car back on and said, “Who wants to go to David’s?”

***

For San Valentín’s day, Miss Monroe telled us to bring a card for each student in K5 morning class. She gave us a pink paper with purple letters on it which was the names of our whole class. Miss Monroe said We don’t play favorites in kindergarten, so be sure to bring a card for each person on the list.

At Alton Drugs, Mom helped me pick out valentines. Mom helps by saying you can either choose this or this or this, even though there are one hundred kinds. One of the boxes was dogs and cats and one was balloons and monkeys wearing people clothes. But the other one was rainbow glitter hearts that weren’t just cards, they were pockets and in the pocket YOU PUT CANDY.

I said Mom you put candy in the little pocket and that is a very good valentine don’t you think? Mom said but then that’s one more thing you have to buy and that is something a mom says right before she says no we don’t have money for that mi amor and even though she calls you mi amor it still means no even if you say but if you love me, you should get me this thing.

But Mom was a big surprise! She did not say no we don’t have money for that mi amor. No, her face got pink and her eyes got small and she breathed noisy breaths into her nose like she was going to laugh.

Then she smiled and I didn’t know what was going on so I smiled too and she said it’s a special holiday and we should celebrate, right? But we will go to David’s to buy the candy.

I could not believe my very good luck.

At David’s, I picked out the little candy hearts that say CALL ME and BE MINE and look like chalk but Mom said no because we would have to open the box to put hearts in each valentine and they could fall out and get dirty. I needed to pick a candy with a wrapper, she said, so they will stay clean.

I looked and looked and looked. Some things were too spicy and some things were too big to fit in the pocket and some things cost too much money for a whole giant class of 23. When Mom started to say that I needed to choose already, that she needed to go home and cook dinner, I just grabbed a bag of watermelon candies. I do not prefer watermelon, but the wrappers were pink and on Valentine’s Day everything pink or red is good.

I spended the time after dinner writing names on my valentines and putting the candy in the pockets. I was so excited to bring the best valentines in all of K5 morning class. I wrote the names very nicely, even the name of Candy who was not my friend. I was very proud.

Mom said to leave the envelopes open so she could check my spelling and she would close them for me, which was good because I don’t like to lick those icky sobres that taste like licking the sidewalk. I only licked the sidewalk one time and it was disgusting.

After making the valentines I had to take a bath and Linda had to wash my hair and that makes nobody happy. Even though after a bath I am supposed to get Miriam to dry my hair for me so that I don’t die of la gripa, I sneaked downstairs quiet as mouses because I wanted to see if Mom thinked my writing was all good.

Mom was still at the kitchen table and all the sobres were still open and the candies were all took out of the valentines. I opened my mouth to say Mom what is happening but then I saw Miriam looking at me from by the sink and her face was like the moon with big wide eyes that said don’t say anything but not with words.

Mom had the pink paper from Miss Monroe with all the purple names on it and she was reading each one very quiet then finding the valentine that matched.

“Lupe,” she said. And she put the candy back into the pocket and licked the icky envelope. I know I writed LUPE very nicely so why she took his candy away in the first place I did not know.

“Alonzo,” she said. She looked up at Miriam and said, “Alonzo with a z is Italian, no? If he was Mexican it would probably be an s.”

Miriam’s mouth opened and closed like Simon, the goldfish in the K5 room, but no sounds comed out. Then she looked at me and did a little dance like she got one hundred and thirty-two spiders on her.

“Probably not Mexican,” Mom said.

Then Mom did a terrible thing. She opened the candy and put it in her mouth. Then took it out and put it back in the pink wrapper. She put the candy in the valentine and closed the envelope.

“Un sabor de México,” she said. She looked up at Miriam again and did the laugh where it’s not funny.

I telled my feet to step into the kitchen and grab the rest of the candies but my feet are very naughty and they went the other way, back into the dark hallway.

I watched while Mom read all the names and said if they were Mexican or not. For Magdalena and José and Miguel she put the candies back without putting them in her mouth first. But for everybody else she took them out and licked them all over.

And when she said Candy’s name, that one she kept in her mouth for a long, long time.

“A special candy for Candy,” she said and this time her laugh said this is funny.

I ran upstairs then and put my wet head under my pillow and cried.

***

            All the way to school on the bus I tried to think what to do. The valentines were in a paper lunch bag in my mochila and they were terrible now. Not one bit fun. Not the best valentines in all of K5.

When the bus stopped in front of the school I waited until Bus Driver Marcie said are you getting off or what? and come on, dear. She patted my head and I almost telled her the terrible news but went down the stairs and into the school.

Right at the start of the day, Miss Monroe said let’s put our valentines on the snack table, friends, and then we will hang our school bags on our hooks, so I had to take the bag with my terrible valentines out and put it with all the other kids’ valentines. My hands were shaking shaking and Miss Monroe said yes, we’re very excited about Valentine’s Day, aren’t we, Elina?

Then we made pink paper hearts for our parents and Miss Monroe wrote the letters for I LOVE YOU on the chalkboard for copying and my writer hand was shaking shaking and Miss Monroe comed over.

Are you alright, Elina? she asked me. She made the face of two lines up and down over her nose and that is the face of when you are about to be sent to the nurse. For only one second I thinked I can go to the nurse and get away but I was not sick and that is a kind of lying and lying is bad. For another second I thinked I can tell Miss Monroe to throw away the candy. Then she would ask me why and I would have to say Mom licked all the candies or I would have to say a lie. But we don’t lick other people’s food so I started to say Miss Monroe, the candies in my valentines have and I was going to say poison but I stopped. What was worst? Licking or poison?

I thinked of sitting in Mom’s big lap after school. Today when I am going to sit in her lap she will ask me if I gave all the valentines to the children.

“Have what, dear?”

I looked at Miss Monroe and I said, Nothing. But you know, kids in K5 are for the birds.