"The friendliest ghost you'll know!"

Raphael was Batman again. He was always Batman. I wanted to be Batman, but I couldn’t be Batman if Raphael was  Batman. So I was Casper the Friendly Ghost again, wearing the same stupid costume I had from last year.

There was nothing I could do. It wasn’t like Mami could buy us new costumes all the time. Even if the rubber band on the mask was hurting my face.

One of Mami’s friends had given me a grown up mask because he knew that I liked monsters. It was a scary mask that look liked teenage Frankenstein. But it was too big and I couldn’t see through the eyes , so I would hit myself on stuff more than usual.

Mami had a lot of nice friends who came by to drink with her in the kitchen. There was Patrick, who always had grease in his hair and who wore lumberjack shirts. And then there was Steve, who had big glasses. He used to say good night to us by leading us in the prayer. We had learned “Our father who are in heaven” in church, but he would do “Now I lay me down to sleep . . . ,” which was a little scary, which I liked.

Then there was Mr. Jimmy, who used to buy us presents all the time because Mami said he was rich. He had white hair like snow and always wore suits. We told Mami to marry him so we would always have presents, but she said he was too old, and one day after that he stopped taking Mami out.

We didn’t trick or treat like they did in the movies. Mami didn’t want us going too far — she barely let me cross the street by myself — and she didn’t trust people giving us candy, because there was always something in the news about kids that got eaten by killers who gave them candy. So we just trick or treated in the building.

The only reason Raphael trick or treated was probably because he wanted to wear his Batman costume so I couldn’t. Evie came with us, too. She was dressed up as some princess lady, I think Cinderella. She was only going because Mami made her go. She didn’t even put her crown on.

First we went to the basement apartment, where Donna and her mother lived. It was always cold in the hallway down there, even though it was right near the entrance to Hell in the boiler room. I knocked on the door because I was the smallest. Donna opened it.

“Whaaat?” she said. She didn’t have a costume on.

“Trick or treat,” I told her.

“Maaa,” Donna screamed to the back of the apartment. “They want candy.”

Her mother Dulce came to the door. She was a big lady. “Oh, look, how cute? Let me get youse some candy.”

She went away and the hallway had light in it again. I asked Donna why she didn’t have a costume. She said she was too old for that stuff.

“You’re the same age as me,” I told her.

“But you’re a baby,” she said.

I never wanted to grow up more than right then in the basement hallway.

"Never let anyone outside the family know what you're thinking again."

Mami worked at the Day Care Center on South 4 and Keap Street. It was a small and skinny blue and white building near the corner. At the corner was a lot with a playground for the little little kids in the center. Mami had her own office on the second floor. She was like a doctor — she took care of the little little kids in the school if they got sick. We used to visit her office and take a nap on the doctor bed that had paper on it. Or Mami would check how much we weighed or how tall we were.

One time they had an office party, and I had just discovered that you could go into the toilet, then lock it, then crawl out under the door. Then the next person wouldn’t be able to get in! I told Raphael about it, and he agreed that it was a great idea! So we went to the toilets on the first floor. We each took a stall, locked it, then crawled out. Then we ran to the bathroom on the second floor, went into the toilets and locked them. Then we checked back downstairs. A man was leaving and he said the toilet had gotten locked somehow, so he had to crawl under to fix it. We waited for him to leave and then locked it again.

We did this five times before someone told Mami that we were doing it. But she wasn’t mad at us. She thought it was funny. But she said we had to stop.

Every day Papi would finish the numbers, then take us to pick Mami up at the Day Care Center. One day we went and Mami had all her stuff from the office. She was very sad and very quiet.

Later, I found out Mami got a lay off. Eyewitness News talked about people getting a lay off, so I kind of knew what it was.

Now every day Mami stayed home. She was very quiet, so we kids stayed away from the kitchen so she could be quiet. My sister Evie whispered to me that now we had to go on welfare.

I had just started going to the store at the corner for milk and eggs. One time Mami told me to go to the store to get milk. She put the fake welfare money in my hand. It looked like Monopoly money. I didn’t want to go.

I stood at the door with the money in my hand. I didn’t move. Mami asked me why I didn’t want to go. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want her to know I was embarrassed. Raphael said, “Gimme. I’ll go,” and he took the money and went to get the milk.

"Yo no soy marinero, por ti seré."

I wanted to be like Popeye. Popeye was strong, smart, and funny, and he had a lot of fights he always won. And Popeye ate spinach. He ate it all the time out of cans that were always around. And then he got superstrong and really, really big forearms. I figured if I got that strong I could get big forearms and win when my brother hit me instead of him winning.

So I asked Mami. “Mami, can you get me some spinach?” I knew my brother wouldn’t want any because he didn’t like Popeye.

Mami asked me, “Are you sure?”

Visions of beating up my brother filled my head.

“Yeah, yeah, pleassse.”

So, a few days later Mami came back from King Charlie with a can of spinach. It wasn’t exactly like the cans that Popeye ate from in the cartoons. This can was smaller, and the spinach on the front looked dark green like old dark snot.

Mami showed me the can and said, “Are you sure?”

The spinach on the can looked like nothing I had ever eaten before. But then I imagined my brother flying across the room unconscious after one of my mighty punches.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I want some.”

She made fried chicken and spaghetti for dinner. But she said I had to eat the spinach first because I had asked for it. She heated up the whole can. When she put all the food on the table, she put a bowl of the hot spinach in front of me. It looked just as dark green as it did on the can. I didn’t want to eat it.

“You better eat it,” Mami said. “You want to be like Popeye, right?”

I did, I did. But it looked like something from the garbage. It smelled like that too.“Don’t waste it. That cost money,” Mami said.

I put my fork in. The spinach was made of long leaves. I got as small a piece as I could on my fork and put it in my mouth.

It was horrible.

My brother and sister kept saying, “How is it?” “Do you like it?”

I told them it was good. I knew Popeye was just a cartoon. But I thought maybe, maybe I would get a little stronger.

“Comelo to’,” Mami said.

I put another fork and took out another small piece. I didn’t feel any stronger. I felt weaker even. I felt smaller. I made Mami buy the can, and we couldn’t afford to waste food.
I put another fork in my mouth.

Mami got up and came to my side of the table. “You don’t like it?” Mami asked.

“No,” I said.

“I knew,” she said. She took away the smelly, snot green spinach. She served me some spaghetti and chicken. Then she sat down with the bowl of spinach that was getting cold and started to eat it.

She said, “It’s good. You don’t waste food.”

I felt really bad. And I wasn’t any stronger. I would never be stronger. My brother would always beat me. I hated spinach and promised myself I would never eat it again ever.

"They were the doggonest gang that man did ever see."

In second grade, Adolph and me and our other friend, Benito, who was deaf in one ear so he talked funny, decided to form a gang. At P.S. 84, we were always in the big schoolyard at lunch, not playing baseball cards or punchball like the other kids, but talking about comic books and TV shows. Benito and I liked Flip Wilson and The Odd Couple, but Adolph liked M*A*S*H and Mannix, which I didn’t understand at all.

“What do we call us?” Benito said. He had a haircut like Moe from the Three Stooges, and he was very white. But Adolph, who was German and Irish, so he was whiter. He wore turtlenecks.

We tossed around ideas, while handballs and basketballs were getting tossed over our heads. The only thing we could agree on was that we wanted to be “Blue” something, since we all had blue shirts we could wear when we were being a gang. Benito wanted us to be called “The Blue Avengers.” I wanted “The Blue Sharks.” Adolph wanted “Blue Death Ray Cult.”

I don’t think we ever decided on one name, for sure.

We wanted to form a gang because another bunch of boys had made their own gang, although they weren’t smart enough to even try having a name. Their leader was the other Edgar in Mrs. Emshwiller’s class. I hated that he had my name, too! He was my enemy!

Our two gangs used to say mean things and look mean at each other every chance we got. But one time, when Adolph and Benito were both out sick, the other gang cornered me at the end of the lunch period.

There was the Other Edgar, my enemy; Tony, who smelled like pee; Charlie, the fat kid who looked like Pugsley; and Charlie’s brother, Phillip, who laughed like a girl. I was in the basketball court, because that was one of the places you could sit by the fence and no one would bother you. It was nice there, except people must come there at night and break a lot of beer bottles.

Suddenly, the bell rang. There were only two exits out of the court. I saw Tony and Charlie on one side, and Other Edgar and Phillip on the other. Uh oh.

I ran for Other Edgar and Phillip, because I figured I could push past Phillip pretty easily — but Tony and Charlie were already there! The bell to go back to class was being rung. We all had to leave. I stood my ground, waiting for them to back off.

But then Other Edgar made a move at me. I ducked — and slipped! My face hit some glass that was on the ground. I started bleeding. Other Edgar looked really sorry. He helped me stand up. I said I was fine, even though I could feel the blood. He walked with me to the nurse’s office, and the nurse gave me a band-aid, which made me feel like a real life tough guy. When she asked what happened, we just said that I fell. We didn’t want the adults to know we were in gangs and having gang fights.

"I hid in the clouded warmth of the crowd but when they said, 'Come down,' I threw up."

Titi Taina, who was my mother’s baby sister, came to visit us all the time. Papi and her didn’t get along, Papi said, because she used to drink all his Budweiser. One time, he said he filled a beer bottle with pee pee and but the cap back on, and when she took a sip it, she went, “AAAAGH.” Maybe that was why they didn’t get along.

Titi was a hairdresser and when our hair got really big she would come with her own scissors. Mami would put a kitchen chair in the middle of the living room. Evie, Fever, and me would wash our hair and take turns in the seat. Titi always have a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other while she cut our hair. My hair came out a little funny sometimes, but I didn’t care because when Titi cut my hair she used to say, “Look at his hair. It’s gorgeous! I love this kid’s hair.”

The best thing about Titi was that she lived near Coney Island. She would pick us up and drive us down there. We would spend part of the day at the beach, but we had to be careful because of all the glass in the sand. If we had to do number one we could go in the water. If we had to do number two, we had to go under the boardwalk, but it was scary down there, so Mami or Titi would always stay nearby.

When it got dark, Titi always liked to go the food stand near so Mami could get friend shrimp and Titi could have frog’s legs. All the kids got hot dogs but we couldn’t go on the rides for a while because of that time Evie sprayed her vomit in the spinning cup ride.

Our favorite ride was the Haunted House. You would sit in a car, and it would spin around and back and forth and all these scary things like vampires and mummies would pop out at you. We loved it! Mami didn’t like the ride, but Titi would come with us. Evie, Fever, and me would fight to see who would sit with Titi. She said only two of us could sit with her, and I liked that because since I was the smallest I was always one of the two.

Titi had a son who was just a little older than me. I always liked him because he was closer to my age that my brother was, and my brother used to beat me up. But Titi’s son was retarded and he couldn’t play at all. He had to stay in a crib when he was with her, but most of the time he had to stay in a special place in Staten Island. One time when he was there, Titi told me to watch him, but to make sure not to give him a metal race car that he wanted that was on the floor. But he kept reaching and reaching for it, and I knew what it was like to want a toy so bad. So I picked it up and gave it to him. But then he started chewing on it and his mouth started bleeding. When they came back, Titi asked me how he got the race car. I said I didn’t know.

I am what I am.

Papi said he would take me and Fever to see the Mets. Fever was so excited he hit me extra hard when Mami wasn’t looking. I was really excited, too, so it didn’t hurt that much.

Papi didn’t take us many places. We would go with him shopping at King Charles sometimes, but he used to make us wait in the car. And sometimes we would go with him when he went to collect the numbers money. So going to the Mets game would be great new adventure with Papi!

I didn’t understand much about baseball. I didn’t really like it, to be honest. Maybe because I didn’t understand it. But Papi and Fever liked it, and I knew that as a boy I was supposed to like it. But every time they would watch a game on TV I would read the cartoons in the newspaper or draw. One time Papi and Fever started cheering something that happened, so I cheered, too, “Yayyyyy!” Then after we got quiet, I asked, “What happened?’

The Mets were important, too. I knew they had won the World Series once when nobody said they would. I knew the names Tom Seaver and Tug McGraw. I knew that in our house we weren’t supposed to like the Yankees.

When we got to Shea Stadium, we had to go high up and way way in the back. Right behind us the stadium ended. Then they did the National Anthem, which I was used to from school assembly. Then the started the game. The field was the greenest green I had ever seen, and there were a lot a lot of people in the stadium. I tried to like it. I really did. But I got bored. I could barely see the players, and I couldn’t understand what was happening.

Then I remembered something very important.

I had recently learned about time, and I knew that my favorite cartoon Popeye was on at three o’clock.

I asked Papi, “Papi, what time is it?”  Papi said it was two o’clock. I knew it took us a long time to get there, and Papi always said there was too much traffic wherever he went. There was a chance I wouldn’t see my show!

I started getting worried that the game would not be finished fast enough so that we would have time to get home and see Popeye. I didn’t want to miss Popeye!

I told Papi, and he didn’t say anything. Some more stuff happened with the Mets.

I told Papi again, and he didn’t say anything. Some more stuff happened with the Mets.

Papi kept checking his watch. Finally, he said, “You want to go see Popeye. Let’s go.”

And we left. When we got home, Papi right away went to answer the phone for the numbers. I went to watch Popeye, but I didn’t like it that much. Something happened with Bluto and spinach again. I felt bad because my brother Fever really really liked the Mets, and we didn’t stay to see the whole game just because I wanted to see Popeye. I guess that’s why he gave me two charleyhorses the next day.

From "Clown" (1968), directed by Richard Balducci

That night Malo came to our room, where Fever and I had bunk beds. He stayed in the doorway and I could not see his face because it was in the dark. He told us with his accent to pray, top pray for Barbie. He said, “Pray for God to make the dog better.”

We were silent. But after Malo disappeared, I began saying the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t think Fever prayed for anything but the Mets.

That night, Malo locked the dog in the bathroom like Papi said he would.

The next morning I was the first to wake up. I went to check the bathroom. There was no one, nothing there. My mother was in the kitchen, washing clothes in the sink, listening to the radio station that played the old music she loved.

“Where’s Barbie?” I said.

“She die,” said Mami, without turning from the sink. “Pobre perro.”

“ . . . Where is she?” I said.

Mami looked to the back window. On our back rooftop. I went closer. There, right outside the window on the roof of the apartment below, I could just see the outline of the body in the bag and the dark parts of her fur and the side of her face. Her teeth stuck out from her black lips. Her head was twisted almost all the way around.

“Why is her head that way?” I said.

“Malo say she probably going around and around and hit her head on the tub.”

“Oh.”

“C’mon,” Mami said. “Eat some breakfast.”

A month later, Malo’s wife showed up from Puerto Rico, and she and Malo got an apartment in Brownsville, which I didn’t know where it was. Later, my sister asked Papi and Mami for another dog, and one day Papi brought Evie another poodle mix. She named it Barbie.