Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts

Sunday, November 26, 2017

For The Thrill Of It All



Hugs and kisses, velvet wishes
Come to an end and what’s left
Change husbands, like changing an old pair of shoes for new
Like buying a new pair of shoes
Sudden change to my heart’s colder weather
Gets cold outside, feel blue, another breakthrough
Work to get through the next day
Everyone says they’re coming through
Can’t believe what anyone says
It’s a new day and I’m
one flew over the cuckoo’s nest
Hard pressed to think I messed up again
Trying my best to stay compressed, so distressed
My heart thumps in my chest
Please God let me be Mae West
Life’s work a contest, possessed by desire to conquest
Impressed by old things finessed, dressed to kill
Live in an all frills world
Cotton candy clouds
Are worth more than riches         
And more delicious too

Death gnaws at my life
Fret at changes in this body I no longer know like I used to
No longer own
This body betrays me and does whatever it wants to do
It’s not me just a shell, like a tortoise I will shed
My body like a garden hose, thrown around and carelessly mistreated till it grows holes
Neglected, abused, torn inside out, rife with strife
Can’t get away from myself
This body ages without grace
Thoughts seclude me
Nostalgia eludes me
Randomly search inside to know this body that is mine
Life’s burrs consume me
Soul is youthful, yearns to learn, to see the unseen
Physical pains don’t belong to me, only this body I am forced to carry
It can’t all be bad - We all get old
Some of life glows with rhythm like sudden golden shimmers of a glad song
Words are the answer to my body.
Return to my roots, go slow with the flow, my words – this body begins to control what I do
I swear this body is not me and struggle to see what I
truly am made of – sugar and spice, so nice
Destiny tugs at my heart’s strings
I sing my way through the valley of my soul

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Loss and Gains and Living too Well

The day after I came to the United States from Santo Domingo, I had a good job waiting for me. This factory paid minimum wage but hey I needed the money and I know how to use a machine and sew. I wanted to get away from Santo Domingo, not only because there was no future there for me but because the past was stinging. To get away would release me from my painful memory of my ex-husband who left me when I hadn’t had a child after a year of marriage and his new girlfriend got pregnant. After months of suffering humiliation and loss I decided I was ready for a change, something to give me a future where I didn’t need a man. I could start fresh. Have a new life!
There were no jobs back home that suited me and as much as other Americans complain about this type work, over where I came from I wouldn’t have a TV, or steady electricity to keep the TV going so like other young girls I came here to Woodside Queens.
I’d had bad luck before with men so I was looking forward to living independently. And I did live independently for a very long time. I came to this country when I was 20 years old, in 1962 and didn’t speak a word of English but I got along. The stores in my neighborhood were bodegas and were run by Hispanics.
After living alone for five years I met Jose. He seemed like a decent fellow and he pursued me. He was a single Dad and he worked in a European Car repair shop. I liked being with him and he liked the things I liked, good movies and good food. I never met a man before who cleaned either but every Saturday Jose got up and worked till the floors shone. Not to brag but I’m an excellent cook. We finally moved into a decent building, a state subsidized Mitchell-Lama co-op and for the first time, we owned something decent. Working in a sweatshop for thirty years isn’t the greatest but now we could look forward to our golden years. I planned to retire in five years and he said he’d wait an extra year to earn more and get a better social security benefit. I helped him raise his two sons, and his ex wife was grateful, occasionally sending gifts or presents and seeing her son rarely. She was not very stabile and had enough sense not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The time had finally come when we were rewarded and could enjoy the fruits of our labor like the bible promises.  First I retired and a year late, according to plan, Jose retired.  We were both retired and collecting social security, plus had our savings. We’d always put money into an IRA plus saved what we could, scrimping everywhere we could. His social security was much more than mine. Mine was only $958 a month and his was $1469. That’s probably, God forgive me, the one good thing about Jose being gone, is that now I collect his social security, which makes life easier for me.
About a half year before he died, he began to argue with me all the time, which had never happened before. He accused me of looking over his shoulder when he was doing his banking. I had always done so before. After all it was both of our accounts. My looking over his shoulder had never bothered him before. We’d always done these things together before, usually over his shoulder since it seemed too much a bother to drag a chair over to the computer. We’d done everything together, including two yearly vacations, one at his son’s house in Cape Coral and the other week we spent with family in Santo Domingo, near Puerto Plata, for two weeks every winter. These holidays were good times for us. We didn’t have to pay for a hotel, and the basically the extras were only gifts. After all, one eats wherever he goes so it didn’t come from our savings.
Thirty-nine years we were married. It would have made forty years in two more months if he’d stayed alive and hadn’t died. The pain and ridicule feel as strong today as they did the day he died. Can you imagine falling for that young woman? Jose was seventy years old and she is only thirty-eight years old. I am sixty four years old. The day he died I had grown very suspicious about what was going on between Jose and Donora. Donora is the managing agent in our Co-op.

Six months is a long time to go completely deceiving one’s self, but that’s been my entire M.O. these past few years so in actually – in comparison – six months is short. It’s been difficult to hide the truth from myself, but I gave it my damnedest. Now, finally, I’m ready to accept the truth. I’ve lived with this secret so long and been hiding it for over a year. The only other person who knows works here still where I live plus my sister knows but she lives downtown. That’s it. Today for the first time, a year from the day he died, I told another neighbor. I know she will tell at least one other woman who she is close with, a religious Jewish woman, but I need someone to help. I told my neighbor because she is the one who always helps me when I need, like going to surrogates court to fill out papers. Every time I share the truth of what really happened it feels less painful. I’m not sure if this is really true or if I say it to delude and justify myself from telling someone.
Married all these years and Jose had never disrespected me before. I raised both his sons. His ex-wife and their mother had been a ditz who really didn’t want to spend her time bringing up children. I remember she said, “You can have them. I know they’ll love you more than me because you’re more stable plus I know I’m not a great mother. As long as I see them once a week or so is good enough for me.” Ava always seemed grateful and appreciative. The children lived with us. I trusted Jose. He was my life, and even more so since retirement.
I didn’t see what was right in front of my eyes. He even brought Donora to my table to eat and I cared for her two children for free, fed them while she worked late. I did it for Jose, because he asked me. She and her children sat at my table and ate the food I cooked. Black beans and rice, fried fish and salad with bread. I served them too.
           “What are you trying to see?” Jose yelled! So cranky and short tempered, said in the same ill-mannered way, the same way which characterized his tone and behavior towards me during the last year of his life.
           “Don’t you trust me anymore?” Jose said exasperated with me, as he now always seemed.  Jose continued, “We just discussed what I was gonna do and I told you I was moving some money to our bank in Santo Domingo. You said OK do it so we have money when we’re there. So what is the problem now? Why are you looking over my shoulder? Don’t you believe that’s the truth? That I’m doing what I say I’m doing? What are you standing over me for?”
           I backed off. I retreated to the kitchen or another place where he wouldn’t target me that I’m trying to spy on him. I tried to show him the respect we’d become accustomed to before hoping he’d return to his former ways with me.  I’d always allowed Jose to be man of our house. Do I have to say more that that – you know what I mean – old –fashioned Latinos in spite of living here in NYC. We’d both moved here in our teens from DR, and our neighborhood in Washington Heights is like a little Santo Domingo.  
           Jose had last say and he seemed so agitated.  Not wanting to make matters worse, I retreated to the kitchen to prepare rice and beans. Jose had to have his fresh rice and beans every day. They had to be cooked the same way. It had to have racaito, cilantro, onion and garlic plus one large spoon only tomato paste. It was unusual for Jose to pick fights and be so aggressive.  I wondered privately if it was due to the sexual incident between us. I guessed it was the sex thing because the last time we’d tried, he’d been embarrassed when he went soft. The following day, he changed. He began to spend more time in the bedroom next to mine. I think he was afraid of a repeat performance.
           It occurred to me he could see a doctor but Jose is so macho I feared humiliating him, so I thought I was leaving well enough alone. I wish I’d thought twice and in retrospect, I wish I wasn’t so old fashioned. You know pregnant and in the kitchen was familiar and although I’d been barren I had fostered Jose’s two sons, from the time they were four and seven years old respectively.
           I admit I still had no clue why his behavior to me had changed. Before, every morning he went to the gym at 6 a.m., then return by 8 to make coffee for me. I’d cook and shop while he cleaned the house. I liked our little domestic routine. Jose liked the floor to shine. He was immaculate when it came to cleaning house. He’d shine those floors to a spit. I still miss him. Jose was handsome, strong, enigmatic, cheerful and outgoing with light skin. I’m dark and wouldn’t call myself anything but Negra. Not so pretty but definitely not ugly. Standard I’d judge. Nothing special except for homemaking skills, managing being a mother to two children who weren’t mine plus working a full time job and cooking for all of us daily. Serious stuff, women’s work is never done.
           The past week, I’d noted he’d seemed a little distant and came home around noon, kind of shamefaced to be so long, and always with a new story. ‘I ran into Joe, (our local senator), and we had a long talk,’ Jose said with a straight face. ‘Joe asked for help to get Nancy Rodriguez on the ballet as house representative. I couldn’t just walk away. You know I have to help him. This was one story, then there was, ‘I ran into Carol, my sister at the big gym and we had coffee and she took forever she had so much to tell.” I did notice that over the past two months he gradually stayed away from home more and more and seemed more irritable, ready to pick a fight. When I tried to reason with him he yelled at me and as he walked out the door, said he was going somewhere. You fill in the blanks as to what.
           The next day while vacuuming the run I picked up a little blue pill. I wouldn’t have believed a word Irma had said if I hadn’t found that pill on the floor the day before. I brought that little blue pill to the pharmacist to identify.
Irma first brought it to my attention. “Do you know he brings breakfast to the managing agent in the office every day?”
I didn’t know so I conspired to watch him more. I also got mad at Irma. You know what they say about kill the messenger. In retrospect I understand she wasn’t to blame, but it made me not trust her too. Over the next two weeks, every time Jose left the house around 8:30 in the morning. I waited until I heard the elevator close and took the next elevator down. I arrived in the lobby just in time to see him enter the locked door where our managing agent worked. Then he’d go get coffee and sandwiches and go back. I managed to watch undetected.
I bought the pill to my local drugstore. “Viagra,” the pharmacist identified. “Generic kind.”
I accused Jose and he said I was imagining things.  He said, “We have lots of neighbors drop by and one of them must’ve dropped the pill, wasn’t me.” I wanted to believe him.   
            After spending his morning out, Jose came home expecting his dinner. We eat early so I had the rice and beans with roasted chicken ready at 4 p.m. He ate and said his stomach hurt and he was going to take a nap. I left him alone.  I called him a few hours later to see if he wanted coffee. No responses, so I went to see if he was still sleep. I touched him and his skin was cold. I started screaming and my neighbors began ringing my bell to see what was wrong. The coroner’s office came and took his body. My neighbors stayed almost all night. I sat there in disbelief crying.
When Jose was buried, I went through all our papers and a friend helped me go on line to see our bank accounts. Forty-two thousand missing from the last time I’d looked ten months earlier. Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound like a lot if you have millions, but to me – working all my life in a sweatshop - sewing stuff for others since I am came to this country as a young girl, it seemed like my life.
            Like I said the only good thing is that now I get five hundred dollars more per month but that doesn’t make up for my loss or the forty two thousand and who knows what else he gave her.
          The topping on the cake was Donora sending me a card. The card read, “I am sorry for your loss, but your loss was also my loss.” How gross and unfeeling can one get? Unless, I guess, she just had an urge to share, throw it in my face.

  

Thursday, December 26, 2013

REMINISCENCES

            Memories Linger. I always liked hanging out will Willa Dean because Willa hardly ever thought about food. At first, I didn’t realize that this was because she was too busy thinking about hard drugs.  I was happy to be around someone who never seemed to think or obsess about what she was going to eat next, like me.  I really had an appreciation for that because I was always worried about my weight being generally obsessive-compulsive with food addiction. Hanging with her was a device that helped me keep my addiction under control.

            At first, I didn’t realize that the reason she was never hungry was because she preferred drugs. I would’ve never guessed that her drug of choice was cocaine either.  Hanging with Willa was great fun; she was dramatic, enthusiastic, had class and style plus was intelligent. It was a boon that in addition to having an engaging entertaining accomplice; being with her helped me keep my weight down. There was always an element of excitement that sometimes was flavored with fear and wrought with danger.  That can be fun until you see the alternate perils invited to consume you.

            I know Willa for almost twenty years. She owned the first health food store in our neighborhood.  One day in the store, she came over to my son and offered him a slice of dry pineapple she was busy packaging. That is the way to any mother’s heart. Just give something to their child and you’ve won them over. After that, I became a regular customer and we exchanged pleasantries on a regular basis both in the store and on the street. Later, after our initial greetings, we’d discuss children or relationships and share our views.

            One day I ran into Willa on the street and we exchanged greetings.
She said, “You really are the most smilingist person I know besides me.” We both laughed because it was true, I always walk around smiling at everyone. “Are you busy right now?” 
I said, “No, why?” 
“Well, can you walk me to pick up my laundry? It’s right there,” and she pointed about to halfway down the block.
 “Why not?” I replied and that’s how it began.  Afterward, we went to her house, where she kept rummaging around under her couch pillows, lifting them, and digging with her hand.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“I had a small amount of marijuana that I put here this morning. I think maybe my husband clandestinely figured out where it was and he took it for himself, or my girls found it and trashed it.”
Either way, we just had glasses of water and looked at each other
“Hold on, maybe I can find it here.” She led me to a small room off the kitchen and began searching in there. “This is my private room. When I want to be alone I come in here and my husband and daughters know to leave me alone. These apartment buildings are old and I think back in the day most people used this room for the maid but this is my room.” She searched under the pillow and blankets then pulled out drawers and looked underneath. This search failed too”

            She led me back to the living room. “Do you like football?” she asked muting the T.V
“No not particularly interested in any sport.”
“I got into it when my husband insisted on watching and can follow the game pretty much but mostly I watch to see their asses. I discovered it turned me on.”
“It’s ok with me if you want to keep it on,” I said.
After several moments of silence, Willa began in her throaty whisper. To hear what she was saying, I had to lean closer to her.  That was part of her art of enchantment.  I felt like she was sharing her most intimate secrets.  And she did.  Once she got started, there was no stopping her.  She’d go on for a minimum of two hours, and later when I got to know her better, three hours and more. She was never boring.

            Willa didn’t let me know about the hard drugs at first. I kept wondering over the ten years I intermittently hung out with Willa, how does Willa do this?  How does she blow all her household cash on nose candy and then impart the desire to get educated to her children? I definitely admired her skills. Willa was educated. Willa had her masters in English Lit from one of the biggest and most respected black universities in the states. She’d graduated from Spelman and her husband from Morehouse. Willa Dean was bright, engaging, and entertaining. She was witty and made me laugh. Her husband Dwayne was the opposite, quiet and withdrawn. She was often annoyed with him. I guess that her dissatisfaction is what made her take a lover. I never personally experienced her anger but I once saw her yell at a long-time friend who I had experienced as a hell of a pushy broad. 

          Once when we were hanging out at pushy broad's apartment, she said insisted I was tense and needed a massage. I had to yell to make her stop because she was actually hurting me. I probably was very tense. The gal was married to a famous jazz musician and we went to their house to bring them the drugs Willa had picked up for them. I didn’t understand why Willa never told her how annoying she was. Willa and I were straight out with each other. We talked freely and we always were respectful to each other. We also shared things like clothes and costume jewelry. When I started work, she gave me a few beautiful work skirts she claimed she had picked up in Macy's wholesale outlet in Atlanta. That helped me a lot. After I'd worked a while and bought some Betsey Johnson dresses at eighty percent off she begged me for one. I remember how hard that was to find the one that she liked best and that I was willing to let go of. Up till now, I'd been so poor this was the first time I'd ever had money to buy anything except a pair of jeans or a sweater in the $10 Store.

I listened to her complain about her husband.  She’d get high and then she say “I’m gonna go home and get me some.” I never knew if she meant her husband or her lover, so I’d ask. It seemed at that time, it could go either way. Sometimes she seemed surprised that I didn’t know which one she meant.
           
            I got to see things I had never seen before with Willa. She showed me how she had a hole in the cartilage in her nose from snorting coke. I didn’t believe her when she first said it so she took a Qtip while I looked inside her nose and so the tip from the opposite side. I met the world-famous jazz musician who lives not far from Columbia and watched him and his wife get high. Another time, she took me to the Ritz on 5th Avenue to work as a dresser for some high-class fashion shows. It was amazing. I dressed world famous models plus got paid a hundred fifty bucks plus got a designer belt and gloves too. You really couldn’t take more because they watched and counted everything afterward on a big long list that they checked everything off of, which took another hour or so more after the show was over. I also got to see cocaine apartments in my neighborhood.  You walk into an apartment building and there’s a guy who escorts you up the stairs. Once you get inside the apartment, there’s no nothing there except another guy sitting on a chair, a table with a scale, and the drugs. That’s it! I was shocked the first time I saw this.

In spite of her crazy behavior, Willa was very sweet and engaging.  Funny enough, Willa often had dinner together and prepared for her husband by the time he got home. She was a master at throwing leftovers together and using up odds and ends to make an attractive dish. She’d speak in whispers describing her feelings, her lovers, her adventures, and her daughters. What amazed me the most was how Willa could actually separate out her strengths and capabilities from all her craziness and addiction. She accomplished her motherly chores astonishingly well. Both her daughters were well-mannered and got good grades in high school. They were bright and both graduated college a year apart and afterward got steady work. I was impressed. During this time her husband and she closed the health food store and Dwayne became a cab driver. Later, Willa had some jobs on and off doing retail in clothing stores. At this point, I lost touch with Willa. I became busy with my full-time job and helping my son. I ran into her bossy friend at a Board of Education annual meeting. Bossy told me she’d become a licensed teacher. I asked about Willa saying I’d lost contact. She told me that Willa’s two daughters had moved out the year before and got a place together in New Jersey and that after her daughters moved out, Willa moved out and left her husband and moved in with her lover. After Willa left Dwayne, he eventually lost the apartment and went back to Georgia to live with his family. I miss Willa Dean and wonder where she is. I hope she’s still alive.


Monday, September 05, 2011

LIFE JUST GOT BETTER

“It’s ok.” I said, “I’ve been there too
I understand where you’re coming from.
Just show me the dotted line and
I’ll be ready to sign,
I promise I’ll make no demands
for alimony or child support.
My life’s worth more than you could ever pay.”
The gun trained on my face
I heard the click,
saw him pull the trigger back
Imagine the surprise written in his eyes
when still we stood eye to eye 
bullet jammed in the chamber
My life handed to me on a
platter that day, I understand now
But for the mercy of God 
I’d be dead not only broke
Lucky not to succumb to a bullet that day
I said, “Show me the dotted line 
I know when it’s time give in and sign
Because I’ll never get nothing from you 
except a hard way to go.
You never liked sharing anyway 
so I’m glad to let you know
I’m glad to see you go
I want you to know 
I’m glad you know 
I don’t need you to have my own
I had my own before you were born
no - please don’t interrupt," I continued,
holding up my open palm,
"You misunderstand.
Go with your government job 
and all your big benefits.
It’s ok if you refuse to share.
To care for and love your children,
I swear it’s o.k.
I’ll sign it all away to you
As long as you let me go my own way.
I'll sign that dotted line, 
I swear I will!
I’m not giving in to death yet – 
it’s premature to date.
Please don’t make me 
leave my son motherless
Hand me a pen 
I’m ready, willing, able to bend
I’ll sign on that dotted line
By the grace of God
I absolve you from all future debts
Please let me go
Thank God I’m not dead 
Here I go, pen in my hand 
I’m ready to sign on that dotted line.”
The surprise registered in your lifted brows
as you pulled the trigger
and stared me dead in the eye
no remorse for what you’d planned to do
“An eye for an eye,” you quoted, 
“So bang you’re dead, gone in the wink 
of an eye,” and you winked at me.
On your way out the door,
Certainly I hoped this was the last wink of yours I’ll ever see.
In the blink of an eye, my life is worth more than child support
Gleeful smile, no mercy for the bitch written on your face
A New York City minute changes life
when you saw no bullet had emerged from the chamber
no bullet came clambering through 
no bullet rammed through me
By God’s mercy I still stand here before thee
So let me be me and I’ll allow you to be free of me
Free from responsibility demands you could no longer stand 
You were so cruel to me
Ready to sign on the dotted line as long as you’ll let me live
Yes I’m ready to sing there’s a song in my heart
Glory Hallelujah I'm so glad I survived
I'm so blessed to be alive
money ain’t mean nothing, I’ll give it up to stay alive

I got a song in my heart so glad to be alive