Danger of Quiet

“El Wacko is snorting coke in the bathroom,” Daniel shouted. He stormed into his parents’ room. I studied my godbrother, round eyes and mouth open, from my seat on the nightstand. My back pressed against rows and rows of vitamins, all promising weight loss, wishing to be anywhere but here. We were in Corona, Queens, on the fifth floor of a two-bedroom walk up. For a second everyone turned towards Daniel, surprised at his shock, and then they looked away. At least fifteen of us kids were spread over the room. I stared down at the scuffed floor. Daniel’s face had twisted from shock to shame in seconds, and already at eight, I knew ignoring other’s feelings helped dissolve my own.

La Fania All-Stars blared. Despite the winter, the front door was open and all the windows were gaping wide, inviting the outside world to peek in. Jairo was Daniel’s father and Papi’s buddy from Colombia. They drank and partied in Colombia, and living in Nuevo York and having a family did little to slow them down. Children were relegated to the back of the apartment, while the adults roamed free.

Desperate to be heard, Daniel repeated himself: “Did you guys hear me?”

I heard him. But kept quiet. El Wacko was one of Papi’s buddies, a writer like him. He was not a buddy whom Papi called familia, but he was parte del grupo. All of Papi’s friends spoke loud or danced till they ripped their pants or zigzagged when they drove home from parties, or had a girlfriend despite having a wife, but no one did drugs. El Wacko didn’t look like someone who did perico. I thought of his limp gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses.

“I just saw El Wacko doing lines on the back of the toilet.” Danny’s voice cracked. He was eleven, to my eight, and two months older than Joann. Two years ago he carried a Cabbage Patch doll around. Teased by both boys and girls, Daniel defended his right to have a stuffed doll. It was a boy doll after all. Used to the insults of marica by Jairo and the shoves and slaps that came with them, Daniel was unprepared for the painful bruises brought by the pummeling of silence Jairo resorted to. Daniel offered to give away his doll to anyone who wanted it. Now, instead of the soft-body doll with the hard head, he carried stories of the party in his living room, spilling into the bathroom and hallways.

Sammy spoke first, “Who gives a fuck!” He was Daniel’s older brother, and at thirteen, the oldest in the room. He had what Mami called ojos apagado. I looked up. Sammy’s eyes were not dim now, but lit with anger.

“So, it’s okay to do drugs in our apartment?” Daniel crossed his arms across his chest.

My stomach felt like a ball of sharp wire. Fearful of a fight breaking out, I scanned the room. I estimated twelve steps from where I was to the door.

“Go tell Papi.” Sam held a copy of Word Up! magazine. Run-DMC on the cover, like Los Tres Reyes, promising so much in their tracksuits. “See if he gives a shit.” Sammy opened up the glossy pages and flipped through, and just like this Daniel was dismissed.

I looked in the direction of Joann, my older sister, her eyes fixed on the screen of the television set on the dresser. I felt heavy, wondering how I could feel so alone, despite being in the room with my sister and at least a dozen of Papi and Mami’s friends’ kids.

Daniel stood frozen in the middle of the bedroom, unsure what to do next. My eyes drifted to the rack of stolen clothes Daniel’s mother, Lourdes, sold from the apartment. Then bounced to the dresser and in the center a copy of the Santa Biblia. I walked over and turned my back toward everyone and flipped through the heavy black book until I came to the pictures in the middle. I traced the serpent underneath the heel of La Virgen with my index finger. I thought about Mami in the kitchen helping to serve food in order to avoid all the drinking and dancing in the living room. Unlike Papi, who I’m sure was spinning on his heels, holding a beer in his hand, with arms spread wide, as if inviting the whole world to dance with him. This was how my parents were together—always apart from each other.

The bedroom door swung open. Everyone twisted their necks to the front of the room. El Wacko stood in front of the room. His eyes devil-wild and hair a hurricane of gray. I turned toward Daniel. Now standing in front of the sliding closet doors.

“Listen to me.” El Wacko had his hands on his waist like some drugged-out cowboy.

My heart quickened as I thought about Nancy Reagan pleading into the television: “Say no to drugs.” Did Papi know El Wacko was using drugs? Is that why they called him El Wacko?

Danny inched toward the closet. The infamous closet Mami mentioned a year ago on our way to Elmhurst Hospital to visit Lourdes, who was rushed into the emergency room with a broken arm at the hands of Jairo. It was where Lourdes, Sammy, and Daniel hid when Jairo came home drunk and pissed off at the world. Jairo was a violent drunk, which Mami said was the worst kind. Papi on the other hand was a harmless drunk. Later I’d realize a drunk was a drunk.

“You didn’t see anything. Understood?” El Wacko walked toward Danny.

Sammy walked over in the direction of either Danny or the closet. I’ll never know.

Satisfied by the silence that came down like a fist, El Wacko left the room.

And all I could hear was everything not said. Not said by Mami. Papi. Me.

-Connie Pertuz Meza

Connie Pertuz Meza, a Colombian American writer, is inspired to pen pieces about her life, family, and ancestors. She is a New York City public school educator, mother of two teenagers, daughter of a mother who never went to school, teaching herself to read with a Bible, and father who was a journalist. Connie’s writing appeared in The Rumpus, Kweli Literary Journal, Lunch Ticket, Women Who Roar, Raising Mothers, Dreamers Creative Writing, Voices In The Middle, the Acentos Review, MUTHA, and several anthologies. She is a Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival Non-Fiction Prize Finalist and Honorable Mention. Connie is also a three-time VONA/Voices Fellow, an alum of Las Dos Brujas writing workshop, a Cullman Teaching Institute Fellow, a Tin House Craft Intensive participant, and a Kweli Fellow. A member of M. Colleen Cruz’s writing group for teachers who write, based in Brooklyn since 2004, Connie is working on a semi-autobiographical YA novel, and is a staff writer for online literary magazine, hispanecdotes.com, as well as guest writer for Epifania.