Even on days I managed a halfway decent retard knot, as Rafa called them, Papi still had my hair to go on about. While Rafa’s hair was straight and glided through a comb like a Caribbean grandparent’s dream, my hair still had enough of the African to condemn me to endless combings and out-of-this-world haircuts. My mother cut our hair every month, but this time when she put me in the chair my father told her not to bother.
Only one thing will take care of that, he said. You, go get dressed.
Rafa followed me into my bedroom and watched while I buttoned my shirt. His mouth was tight. I started to feel anxious. What’s your problem? I said.
Nothing.
Then stop watching me. When I got to my shoes, he tied them for me. At the door my father looked down and said, You’re getting better.
I knew where the van was parked but I went the other way just to catch a glimpse of the neighborhood. Papi didn’t notice my defection until I had rounded the corner, and when he growled my name I hurried back, but I had already seen the fields and the children on the snow.
I sat in the front seat. He popped a tape of Johnny Ventura into the player and took us out smoothly to Route 9. The snow lay in dirty piles on the side of the road. There can’t be anything worse than old snow, he said. It’s nice while it falls but once it gets to the ground it just turns to shit.
Are there accidents like with rain?
Not with me driving.
The cattails on the banks of the Raritan were stiff and the color of sand, and when we crossed the river, Papi said, I work in the next town.
We were in Perth Amboy for the services of a real talent, a Puerto Rican barber named Rubio who knew just what to do with the pelo malo. He put two or three creams on my head and had me sit with the foam awhile; after his wife rinsed me off he studied my head in the mirror, tugged at my hair, rubbed an oil into it, and finally sighed.
It’s better to shave it all off, Papi said.
I have some other things that might work.
Papi looked at his watch. Shave it.
All right, Rubio said. I watched the clippers plow through my hair, watched my scalp appear, tender and defenseless. One of the old men in the waiting area snorted and held his paper higher. I was sick to my stomach; I didn’t want him to shave it but what could I have said to my father? I didn’t have the words. When Rubio was finished he massaged talcum powder on my neck. Now you look guapo, he said, less than convinced. He handed me a stick of gum, which my brother would steal as soon as I got home.
Well? Papi asked.
You cut too much, I said truthfully.
It’s better like this, he said, paying the barber.
As soon as we were outside the cold clamped down on my head like a slab of wet dirt.
We drove back in silence. An oil tanker was pulling into port on the Raritan and I wondered how easy it would be for me to slip aboard and disappear.
Do you like negras? my father asked.
I turned my head to look at the women we had just passed. I turned back and realized that he was waiting for an answer, that he wanted to know, and while I wanted to blurt that I didn’t like girls in any denomination, I said instead, Oh yes, and he smiled.
They’re beautiful, he said, and lit a cigarette. They’ll take care of you better than anyone.
Rafa laughed when he saw me. You look like a big thumb.
Dios mío, Mami said, turning me around. Why did you do that to him?
It looks good, Papi said.
And the cold’s going to make him sick.
Papi put his cold palm on my head. He likes it fine, he said.
—
PAPI WORKED A LONG fifty-hour week and on his days off he expected quiet, but my brother and I had too much energy to be quiet; we didn’t think anything of using our sofas for trampolines at nine in the morning, while Papi was asleep. In our old barrio we were accustomed to folks shocking the streets with merengue twenty-four hours a day. Our upstairs neighbors, who themselves fought like trolls over everything, would stomp down on us. Will you two please shut up? and then Papi would come out of his room, his shorts unbuttoned, and say, What did I tell you? How many times have I told you to keep it quiet? He was free with his smacks and we spent whole afternoons on Punishment Row — our bedroom — where we had to lay on our beds and not get off, because if he burst in and caught us at the window, staring out at the beautiful snow, he would pull our ears and smack us, and then we would have to kneel in the corner for a few hours. If we messed that up, joking around or cheating, he would force us to kneel down on the cutting side of a coconut grater, and only when we were bleeding and whimpering would he let us up.
Now you’ll be quiet, he’d say, satisfied, and we’d lay in bed, our knees burning with iodine, and wait for him to go to work so we could put our hands against the cold glass.