Nuyorican Obituary

We were in a bar next to the airport, waiting for our father to arrive. Mami, Titi Evelyn, Tio Angel Luis, and the Skipper were drinking beer and rum and cokes. The tiny planes that flew to Ponce buzzed overhead.

My sister was the first to see the lizard. “Look!”

It was a real, alive lizard, fluorescent green, ambling on the terra-cotta floor.

My brother ran to the bar and got a plastic cup. “Don’t let it get away.” This was one of the cool things about P.R. for all of us, the amazing animals and insects. We didn’t see any wild animals in Brooklyn.

“What are you gonna do?” Evie said.

“I’m going to catch it.”

“You think we can take it home?”

Fever put the cup over the lizard but the cup was too small. He picked it up and realized he had cut off most of the lizard’s tail.

“You cut off the tail,” I said.

“But it’s not bleeding.”

“He doesn’t look hurt.”

“It’s gonna die,” I said.

“It’s not gonna die. The tail’ll grow back.”

“Really?”

“I think so.”

“Ask Mami.”

The lizard began walking again, leaving its tail behind.

“Wowwwww.”

“You see, he’s okay.”

“Poor lizard,” my sister said.

And then my mother said that my father’s plane was arriving.

Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez, is ready for your pre-order. The anthology features my short story “In the Kitchen with Johnny Albino.” The marketing copy reads (have I noted this before?): “This groundbreaking anthology of short fiction by Latino mystery writers… features an intriguing and unpredictable cast of sleuths, murderers and crime victims.

“I have a pre-order form I can send you, or you can find it on Amazon. Go out and buy a copy. I mean, order one. If you bring me one to sign, I will buy you a beer. It’s my first inclusion in a book anthology, so it’s pretty cool for me.

Also in the meantime, if any of you have pictures of crime or noir-type images–this is for another project–give my e-mail a jingle . . .

Every day we were in PR, our mother promised to take us to a pool. And day after day, we would go to another relative’s house and sit around and try to watch TV in Spanish. We were bored to more than death. We were bored to the afterlife.

One morning Ma told us once again we were going to a pool.

“You always say that,” my brother said.

“Yeah,” I concurred.

“You see,” she said.

The car was hot and sticky, and our uncle drove. We liked it better when Titi Evelyn drove because she had what our father called “a lead foot.” The breeze throught the window was the only way to get cool in the car.

So the drive to a pool that we doubted even existed just took forever.

We parked by the side of the road by some trees. Our mother said: “Here’s the pool, kids.” All we could see was trees and a road. Where was the sign for the pool? Where were the lockers?

“Where’s the pool, Mami?” “Mami, I don’t see no pool.” “Mami’s lying.”

Our mother told us to take off our t-shirts. Our cousin the Skipper and Tio Angel Luis took a cooler from the trunk and walked into the woods on the side of the road. We followed.

I heard it before I saw it. We passed through the trees and there was a rushing stream with clear, cool water.

“This ain’t no pool,” my sister said.

“This is a lake,” I said.

“It’s a river, stupid,” my brother said.

“This is better than a pool,” Ma said. “Get in.”

We had to walk over slippery rocks to get to the water. It hurt my feet but I got used to it.

“But what if there’s fishes,” I said.

“They’re not going to eat you,” my brother said.

“You sure?”

“I think so.”

“There’re fishes,” my sister squealed. “Look. Look.” Small fish swam in the rushing water. And did not bite.

The adults sat on the rocks, dangling their feet in, drinking beer. Other people were there and they had a radio playing Spanish music.

“Isn’t this fun?” my mother said.

“Look, mami.” My brother dunked himself into the water past his head. “I can see the fishes swimming underneath!”

I waded over to my mother and told her I had to pee.

“Go ahead,” she said, lighting a cigaret. “Do it right there.”

And, smiling, I did.

My sister ran back with the camera in her hand and coaxed the giant pig closer. “C’mon, Wilbur,” she said to it. She wanted the big pig to come closer, but it stayed in a dark corner.

Fever decided that pig was boring and moved a few stalls down. “Evie, look at this one.” The pig there had its snout pressed against the slats. Ever brave, he touched its nose. “Oh wow, it’s wet.”

I touched it also, but just barely. “Oh wow.”

“That’s snot,” Fever said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. Yes, it is.”

Evie said, “Let me take a picture of you.”

She took pictures of ourselves and the pigs, and then our mother called.

“Quick, take a picture of me.” My sister gave the camera to Fever and he took a picture of her with the wet-nosed pig, which she had also named “Wilbur.”

We ran back to see Ma mother and Titi talking to the thin man. He was smoking a cigaret, and hanging from a hook in front of him was something we didn’t recognize at first. Then we realized it was a pig, much smaller than the ones we’d seen. Its tiny front hooves were bound. We could see its eyes still open and its mouth curled open to show its small bloody teeth. A stream of blood trickled from a hole in its neck. Without taking the cigarette from his mouth, the man cut open the pig’s belly in one, long cut.

“He’s killing the pig,” my brother said.

“Is it dead?” my sister said.

My mother took the camera from her and snapped a few pictures of the gutted pig.

We all stared.

“C’mon, kids.”

On the ride back, the kids were silent. Yvette leaned her head against the window and watched the palm trees lining the road.

“Poor little pig,” she said.

“Yeah,” Fever said. “But you like pork chops.”

“So?”

I said, “Leave her alone.”

“Pork chops is pigs, you know.”

“Leave him alone,” Evie said.

Back at my aunt’s house, they roasted the pig corpse spit over a barrel. The aroma of it filled the backyard. That night the mother tried to get us to eat the pernil. “C’mon, you like this.” She turned to my sister. “Yvette, mira, it’s food.”

But she refused and so did I, although I was very hungry. The adults, theirs faces and fingers greasy with fat, laughed at us. My brother ate a huge plate of pork with pork crackling and rice and beans on the side. Later, my mother brought salami and cheese on buttered bread to my sister and me.

Evie said, “I wish Popi was here.”

“Me, too,” I concurred.

“I guess that means six more weeks of winter.”

My older sister, Evelyn (Evie), loved pigs. Our father had recently taken her to see Charlotte’s Web on her 11th birthday. It was the only time he had treated just one of us three to the movies. But we were all was excited when our mother announced we would be going to see pigs. Born and raised in Brooklyn, we had never seen a farm animal. The Bronx Zoo didn’t count.

It was hot when we left in the morning. We were almost asleep in the car when Titi Evelyn stopped. There were a series of corrugated metal buildings set against a dusty hill. The sun glared off the tops of the buildings, but you could see, underneath, in the dark shade, big things moving around in wooden pens.

“What is that smell?” Rafael said.

“Yeah, it smells bad,” I said.

“Is this where the pigs are?” Evie said. “Ooh ooh, I see them.”

“C’mon, kids,” Ma said.

Our mother told us we could go look at the pigs but not to get lost. We walked quickly toward the pens and saw large, low, moving shapes.  “Oh my god.” “Look at how big they are.” “Can we touch them?” “They’re fat like you are, Yvette.” “Shut up!”

I looked around for my mother. She was with our aunt, talking to a thin, dark man with a big mustache. They were laughing.

My sister shouted. “Look at that one.”

I followed her finger. There, alone inside a pen, was a giant. A pig that could live easily in the Valley of Gwangi. A Gargantua pig. Pink-skinned and hairy, with black and white spots, it was bigger than our plastic-covered couch back in Brooklyn.

“I wish we could ride him,” I said.

“You don’t ride pigs, stupid,” my sister said. “I want to take his picture!”

Fever thought this was a stupid idea, but I think he was curious to see if the pig would get angry and crash through the enclosure. Because I was. “Yeah, take its picture,” he said.

He ran to our mother and asked for the camera.

“Why?” my mother asked.

“We want to take a picture of this really big pig.”

My mother laughed through her cigaret. “Okay, but not too much.”

Friday was a useful day at work in that it resulted in this. How it got illustrates something about office life. Erik Trinidad, who writes the incredible travel mag The Global Trip, IM’d me, asking me to help him complete a list of the top 10 Facebook/Twitter status cliches. I had a desk covered with work-work to do, whatver it is that I do, so I of course quickly complied, and within minutes we hammered out the excellent list you see here, and which of course would be meaningless to you if you did not Facebook, Twitter, or even MySpace. Now run along and make it viral.

We called my brother Rafael “Fever” because when he liked something—Godzilla, baseball, Bruce Lee—he got a “fever” for it. When we were in Puerto Rico in the summer of ’73 he was dying to play baseball, but the local kids told him, “Janqui go home.” To which he replied, “I’m not a Yankee. I’m a Met.” So after they left he went to the ball field down the block from our aunt’s house and hit rocks into the air with the small bat that Tio Angel Luis gave him. I was bored too, because all of the cartoons were in Spanish. So I went to watch him.

“You’re standing too close,” he said. “I don’t want to hit you.”

“You won’t hit me.”

“You better move back,” he said.

“You won’t hit me.”

Fever swung at a rock and probably in his mind he imagined it sailing in slow motion all the way over the fence while thousands cheered. But then he felt his bat connect with something mushy.

He turned, and there I was in a fetal position on the ground, cradling my eye. He probably thought he had hit my eye over second base. While hundreds groaned.

I was shocked more than hurt. But the space under my left eye began to swell. “Oh shit,” we both said. Because we knew our mother was not going to be happy. I told my brother, “I think I can hide it.”

“But it’s getting more swollen,” said Fever.

“I’ll hide it till it goes away.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah, I did it before. I think.”

We walked back to my aunt’s house. Ma was there with our cousin and our Titi Evelyn. I walked in, going the long way around them to keep the right side of my face facing them. “I’m tired,” I said. “I’m going to sleep.”

My mother asked if we wanted to eat something. My brother, who was always hungry, said yes. I rushed to our room.

I lay down on the cot they had for me, keeping the hurt side of my face against the pillow, hoping the swelling would disappear after a quick nap.

My mother came in. “Quieres algo a comer?” she said, and I congratulated myself in my incredible ingenuity in hiding my face. But Ma was much cleverer than I thought. “What’s wrong?” she said.

She kneeled down and turned my face. “Oh my god!” She yelled for my brother. “What happened? Why did you do to him?!”

“It was an accident!” Rafael said.

I concurred. “Mami, it was an accident. I was standing too close.”

To my brother, she said, “Get a paper towel with some ice.”

She said, “You try to hide from me. But I catch you.”

While she held the towel to my face, she asked me again if he was hungry. I said I was, and she got me a sandwich of salami with butter on white bread.

“When’s Popi coming?” I asked.

“Soon, soon,” she said.

New poems up this February, very Valentine-centered.

“Barry, Hit Reply” by Kat Wopat
“Love Poem to the Job I No Longer Hate” by Ed Kornfeld
“on valentine’s day my lover sacrificed a chicken” by Violet Radish
“White Frosting on a Chocolate Cupcake” by Easter Cathay
“Your Corpse Will Go On” by Juan Pastor
“Cool Passion” by Eileen Budd
“god’s wrath” by Alex Galper
“The Women I’ve Dated” by John Grey
“My Other Cat Has Thumbs” by P-Woody
“Gotta Wonder” by Gerald So

Hey, Edgar-nominated author Craig McDonald reviewed The Lineup in the Jan./Feb. 2009 issue of Crimespree. ”I sit down in a chair with a drink and THE LINEUP and pass a sublime couple of hours,” he writes, then adds ”terrific works by R. Narvaez (his poem, “Metro,” reads like the distilled soul of a tough crime short story and even incorporates a vicious twist at the end. All this in just 10 lines.)” YES, that would be me he’s talking about! And yes, I’m just as surprised as you are! Thanks for Gerald So for pointing out the review to me, and to Mr. McDonald for the kind words.