I could tell Papi was drunk (which happened frequently) by his loudness and cursing. On the other hand, there was calmness in Mami’s voice — like soft music to soothe the beast. It worked for a while, but as soon as he became quiet (just like the fading thunder overhead), he exploded again. I don’t know whose rage was stronger — the storm’s or my father’s.
Despite all the turmoil, I eventually found sleep.
The early morning came in through my window, but not before my late grandfather’s old rooster’s annoying crowing. He was an ill-tempered creature that seemed to live for three reasons: to scream out his hoarse shriek, to harass the hens, and to stand guard by a hole in the back of the house where a nest of rats made their home.
Like a sentinel, the rooster would wait for them. The second an unsuspecting rat climbed out of the hole, the rooster would peck at it with precise deadliness. One day, forced by boredom, I sat on a rock and witnessed the old feathered bully kill two rats and send a third scurrying back into the hole, with both of its eyes pecked out of their sockets.
Grandpa always said that this particular rooster was no ordinary bird — it had a cursed spirit trapped inside its body. I knew grandpa was lying about the spirit, but there were times when the rooster would look at me with its beady eyes and I had to wonder if Grandpa was right after all.
Mami was sipping her coffee slowly in the kitchen when I came out of my room to go to school one morning. There was a distant look in her eyes, and it troubled me to see her like that. Her hair was brushed to one side, and even though she attempted to hide it, I could see the bruises on her face.
When she noticed me staring, she shifted her body and tilted her face. It was too late. All I could think at that moment was that I hated my father so much.
I knew that Papi had left for the sugarcane fields because I saw the empty hook next to the door where he hung his machete. The machete was his tool, and there were times when I felt like he treated that blade of steel better and gentler than he treated us. I relaxed when I saw its absence.
I went to the table where my mom sat and grabbed a piece of pan de manteca. Not bothering to plaster it with butter, like I always did, I took a big bite and spilled crumbs all over my shirt. “Bendición,” I said to Mami, and without waiting for her blessing, I gathered my books and ran out.
The merciless sun had baked the dirt path. Most of the rain from the night before had dried, although a few little puddles remained. I reached the house that everyone in town called “La Casa Blanca” — because of its rotting walls and peeling white paint — and saw that my friend Carlito was waiting for me.
The house was an eyesore (not that we lived in luxury), a dump. It sagged low to the ground on one side, and the rusted zinc roof was ready to be ripped off by the next hurricane and sent straight to the ocean.
An old woman and her mentally ill daughter lived there. The daughter was in her thirties. She walked with a limp and always drooled, parading around the house naked. Drool and all, we took turns peeking at her unclothed body — salivating at her big brown nipples and what Carlito called “el gran ratón peluo” between her legs.
A truck weighed down by a load of sugarcane came wobbling up the hill at the bend in the road. There was an army of boys running after it, grabbing at the stalks and pulling them off. They hid the stalks at the side of the road and would pick them up later, at the end of the school day.
One of those boys was Guillermo — our fearless leader. He was one year older than we were and had been left back in the first grade. That extra year gave him superiority over me and Carlito, so we caught up to him and took our share of sugarcane.
I snapped a small piece off and began chewing on it after we’d hidden our prizes under a line of bushes not far from La Casa Blanca. We continued on our trek to school and the yellow school bus rumbled past us. We seldom took the bus, for we felt that only little kids and sissies rode it. We often imagined we were three soldiers returning home from war after killing the enemy.
It was the 1960s, after all, and imagination was a big thing.
Ahead of us was a small crowd gathered by an abandoned gas station — mostly housewives returning after dropping their kids off at school and old men too fragile to work the sugarcane fields. They were in the midst of a very serious conversation.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying at first, but when we got closer I heard someone say, “Mataron a un hombre” — a man had been murdered.
Guillermo turned to us, and I knew by the look in his eyes that we would be taking a slight detour on our way to school. We lingered close enough to the group to listen, but not close enough for them to shoo us away.
“Did someone go to the police?” one of the wives asked, her hair still in rollers, dressed in a bata — a faded housedress.
A man next to her, his brown face carved with deep wrinkles, stared at her and spat on the ground. “What for? They can’t do anything about it, he’s already dead!”
“¿Pero qué van a hacer? You can’t just leave that body out there to rot!” she said.
“Quique is already on his way,” another woman said with an air of superiority. “As soon as he finishes his route. That’s what he told me when he dropped off my milk bottles.” Quique was the town’s milkman who finished his deliveries at around eight o’clock.
“Anyone know who the man is?” another guy asked, chewing on an unlit cigar.
Nobody knew. Heads rocked from side to side.
The roller-head wife said, “I heard he’s not from here. Maybe he was a vagabond or a drunk. Maybe he was both.”
“Where did you hear that?” the old man with the wrinkled face asked, not hiding his annoyance one bit. I could tell that things would soon escalate to name-calling. “No sea tan bochinchosa, señora. Why start spreading false stories?” he added.
“Mire, señor, you don’t know me, so I would appreciate more respect. Or should I have my husband come and teach you some?”
The old man, contemplating an angry husband egged on by his woman’s quick tongue, decided to turn around. He started walking in the direction where the dead body was supposed to be.
In silence, one by one, the group followed him. The slow procession climbed the small hill and entered a wooded area. I watched as they disappeared into the trees and bushes, thinking that all the fun had ended.
Carlito and I resumed our walk to school, but soon Guillermo blocked our path with a wild, excited look on his face.
“Are you guys crazy?” he asked. “Come on, let’s go and see the body. How many times do you think we’re going to get this opportunity? Stop acting like cobardes and let’s take a look. Or are the two of you afraid of a dead man?”
How could we back out?
Besides, Guillermo was our leader, El Capitán.
We shrugged with indifference and followed him. I took out another piece of sugarcane and let the sweet juice run down my throat. Some of the adults looked back at us. “Get out of here,” a few of them said in unison.
But Guillermo wouldn’t have any of it. He ignored them and kept going, staying behind just in case they tried to send us back the way we came. Their small talk faded away into quick nods. The breaking of twigs and the dragging of feet could be heard, and a young woman complained that her sandals were getting heavier to walk in.
“That means she’s a puta,” Carlito said, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. “She’s a whore. That’s why her sandals are getting heavy — means she never made it with the dead man and her heart is getting heavy because of it.”
I looked at Carlito, wondering where the hell he came up with such nonsense, and if he really expected that anyone would believe it. He’d also claimed that he saved the school bus from rolling down a hill and killing everyone inside just the month before. He hadn’t elaborated on how he did it, yet he was adamant about it.