I was living in Pennsylvania again. In the little row home on Oak Street…where the melting pot of the Caribbean took place in Allentown.
I had three sons, who were not home yet at 7 p.m. and I was worried. So I zipped up my heavy coat and headed out into the snow covered alleys to look for them. For some reason I had a picture of them in my pocket, already sensing something had gone wrong with them. Three olive skinned boys, all with olive skin and big brown eyes rimmed with dark lashes. Their heads a mess of soft, loose curls and their smiles all accentuated with deep dimples on their cheeks. I teared up looking at the picture and my chest tightened up. The oldest looked about 13, the middle one looked 11 and the little one looked to be 8. Where was he? Why wasn’t he out here looking for our sons in the snow? I checked my cell phone and no texts or calls. He didn’t even notice I left the house to look for them.
I heard kids yelling out in the distance, and then two gunshots. Silence. I ran and kept falling face first in the snow, and I screamed out “Abdiel!” No answer. My eldest wasn’t answering. I finally reached the alley and simply saw two bodies laying in the cold, a few feet from each other and their blood staining the snow covered pavement. I screamed. I knew. I was late. I saw Abdiel running away from me, even though he heard my cries and screams. My pleas for him to stop. Another teen was trying to hold me up as I walked to the bodies of my younger sons. He kept rushing me with the story, how some of their friends were playing with a gun and accidentally shot my sons. That his friend didn’t mean to do harm…that he would call an ambulance and be right back. I sank to my knees between their bodies, my eyes darting from one face to the other, looking for life. I kept mumbling, and half screaming “Xavi, talk to me, papi, please open your eyes. Mi amor please, wake up, bebe” to my youngest, his mouth and face covered in blood, his curls matted with it. Nothing. My middle one was on his stomach, his backpack crushing him and blood pouring from his chest under him. I shook him, “Jay, please papito talk to mami, breathe mi angel. Dios mio por favor, baby just open your eyes”.
I knew where my oldest son was going, and I kept calling my husband’s name asking him to run and stop him. I left him voicemails, he wouldn’t answer the phone. I texted him. No reply. I just kept thinking, my only one left is going to find those other boys. They’ll shoot him too. So I started running down the street and around the corner where I saw him go. I kept turning corners and coming upon empty streets as the snow piles grew heavier. I finally reached the street where he was, and saw him throwing himself with a knife into the middle of a group of older boys. I screamed his name again, to stop…But all I had left after a few steps was my 13 year old, on his knees with the blade in his stomach. Looking up at me crying and unable to talk, lip quivering. I felt the world go black as he gasped out “Mom…”
I was in the middle of English class, and I was 15 again. The classroom was dim and I could feel the rain beating the roof hard. Muggy afternoon in Puerto Rico. My English teacher, Mrs. Rios, asked me to come to the front of the class. I tried to get up, but my knee wouldn’t bend. My left knee was stiff and hurt like it was burning up from the inside out. I kept trying to get up but had no strength, so I kept wobbling back to my seat in pain. I finally was able to get up, and my best friend Arelys was carrying me from one arm…and David from the other. I told them “I’ve missed you guys so much. We haven’t seen each other in years. You were always my best friends.” Arelys said “Of course I’m here for you, mama. Thinks with me are always the same”…David leaned over and kissed my cheek, whispered “Te quiero, mi negra”. I was so happy I had my two best friends from 1st grade back that I forgot the pain, but I realized I was walking on a slushy surface. I looked down and the floor was a giant pancake covered in slippery syrup. I laughed as Mrs. Rios started screaming in Spanish “Oh my God, the floors are pancakes. Everyone pick it up before the syrup runs through the floor and it makes a hole!”
But I saw myself sink, almost like in quicksand, up to my neck in the middle of the pancake. Except now it wasn’t a pancake. It was soggy wood that had scratched my body all the way to sticking into my neck, almost severing my head off. I looked around me at everyone’s horrified face…probably because my head had detached completely and now lay in a pool of blood. I felt my lips getting cold, and the last thing I saw was a stray dog, sitting at the corner of the classroom…that now looked like a porch. It stared at me, licking its nose.
I don’t even know what to think anymore.
adios mios.
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