Breathe, Stretch, Shake, Let It Go

Having a downtown Manhattan apartment that facilitates my shitting, showering, and sleeping in separate defined territories is a bit of a small feat. And having one that is rent-stabilized with a garden view is, well, it's the seas parting and earth tilting, my friend. But while my "humble" and "comfortable" may mean oak wood floors and security gated windows, they take on very different connotations for the above-59th St. crowd (see: loitering minorities and box fans). How does the phrase go? One man's downtown tenement trash is another man's project block treasure? Something like that. So, I expect the seven-figure men and Chanel-suited women to look down on my 750-square foot existence. Hell, I expect the gainfully employed and occasionally responsible to look down on my existence! But what I don't expect, more importantly what I don't deserve, is to receive such psyche-penetrating insults from my 8 lb. cat.

His name is Jerome and he is obsessed with being outside the confines of the apartment. He literally sits facing the front door all day, crying with pained meows, only breaking the tears to look over his shoulder with welling and desperate eyes. He literally jumps off the ground and grabs onto the door's deadbolt so he can dangle from it in an acrobatic fit. He literally writhes on the floor with passion when you so much as hint at opening him to the outside world of 4th floor hallways and tar-covered roofs. Every day is a return to imprisonment for him. He has been on the outside and has tasted the ripe nectar of freedom. Jerome ain't goin' back.

And yet, when I do open the door, the gateway to his heaven, he isn't the appreciative, puddle of feline gratitude that I expect him to be. I expect him to hold out a hand (paw?) of thanks for the warm blanketed nooks and bevy of cat toys I provide. I expect him to nod his head in a gesture of recognition for all the nights I am awoken from my sleep care of razor kitty claws on open toe flesh. When I open that door to the hallway I expect him to skip outside in a sing-song rhythm, tail dancing, ears twitching, the sunset in the background, and him turning at the last minute to wink and say, "Here's lookin' at you, kid".

Maybe I expect too much. You have to love and not expect return, I guess. Even so, when I part that door from the wall and Jerome slides through the sliver of entryway (escaping with just enough space as if in retreat of permeating airborne toxins), it is entirely uncalled for that his first move, every fucking time, is to stretch his legs and look back as if to say, "You skank bitch, now I finally have some real room to breathe." One man's project block treasure truly is another 8 lb. cat's tenement trash.

Back When I Was Puerto Rican, parte dos

By this time Theresa is warbling along to Bien Bellaca, or Horny Girl, the timeless tale of a gal’s quest to get laid. She declares it one of the greatest songs in the history of music. You wanna talk about upchuckin’ baby parts? Honey, my as-yet-unborn or even conceived children (note to the universe, let’s keep it that way) were about to be welcomed to the world care of my own earl fest upon hearing this. As a devout member of the Church of The Wu-Tang Clan, I took personal offense to this. See, I’m more of a DOOM-Devin the Dude-Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Blackstar kind of fool. But before I could blurt out any insults or embryonic organs, her boyfriend, Tony, collapsed into the seat next to us.

Ya know how Theresa is your typical ho? Tony be your typical ho-haver. And ho beater for that matter. Like the better half of the partygoers that hot September night, Tony is a pristine product of Marcy Projects, one of Brooklyn’s finer government funded housing complexes. And although a government-subsidized upbringing by no means solidifies a social-discrediting future, for Tony it means all of that and then some. Tony is always moving to a rugged beat. Hard, but trying too hard. A DMX track if you will. He walks a tough walk but the second he opens his mouth and you see his corn kernel teeth and hear the piglet squeal that eeks out between them, the curtain is drawn to reveal the stagehands working all too hard. Theresa lights up a cigarette and her and Tony start to fight. I sneak out with the image of DMX barking like a dog in my head.

I catch up with BK, Vincent, and Maria in the crowd. By this point it’s pretty late into the party and even later into the night; the guests technically, under party laws, can no longer be held accountable for their actions. It would seem that such a mantra applies to all. Although this party was held in fact for Maria and her turning seven years old, she was, as far as I could see, the only kid there throughout the entire night. One family friend, JoJo, brought his son who was literally born the day before. As in, came-directly-from-the-hospital-haven’t-been-home-yet kind of son. And that was the sole creature, besides the birthday girl, under the age of 15 at the party. Despite this, Maria got down with the adults. Hey, she is in the end the offspring of Theresa “Party All Day and Fu---well, you get it” Jimenez. Apples and trees, people. Apples and trees. I stumbled upon Amanda doing a variety of dance moves that I’m sure even the most vile of video vixens wouldn’t perform. It was hilarious, it was disturbing, it was just another night out for the newly crowned seven-year old. But for all the tootsie roll ups there had to be a da dip down and unfortunately, Jim Jones’ “Ballin’” was a musical casualty of the evening, lost to the bizarre associations from my day as a Puerto Rican. BK and Vincent put it on repeat and I had to say “I love you both but at the risk of choking on a half-developed baby arm, I’m gonna have to go.”

Speaking of catching up, it’s been nearly four years since Maria crossed that seven-year threshold and as everyone knows, a lot can, and in the end did, change. BK and Vincent have since broken up and she moved out, leaving him to move into the basement floor of their building and her back into the city. We still hear about Virgin and the whole gang from time to time. The matriarch herself is still up in Marcy, but more predictably, still up in her P.R. porn star ensembles. BK and I thought we saw her on a bench under the JMZ trains a year or two ago --- it was the fluorescent tube top in October that caught our eyes. Like the good family members we once were, we fucking booked it. And Theresa. Sadly, she miscarried the baby she was pregnant with at the time of the party. But no fear, she’ll pull through as she’s been through this literally tens of times. And to tell you the truth, she’s done just that! Two years ago she gave birth to another little girl and perhaps in memory of her baby lost, bestowed upon her the name Alize. Yes, Alize. Yes, Alize the ill-colored hooch of the hood Alize. I can’t help but think that little baby Menthol Cigarette is in gestation as I sit and write this.

So maybe I wasn’t technically Puerto Rican for a day, but it sure fuckin’ felt like it. And I know what you’re thinking, STRANGEWAYS, this was an isolated event with a small group of Puerto Ricans who don’t in fact reflect their native country but rather the holes in ours. Then again, maybe you’re just actually thinking this really was the greatest story ever told.

At the end of the party I asked Virgin in a drunk-on-reggaeton haze what she really thought of me. After first insisting on giving a synopsis of her survey, one that I'd bet my life played host to many a results tampering, she finally looked right in my eyes and said, "Puta, you are my fav'rite gringa evaaa!" Right then and there I felt more Puerto Rican than I think I'll ever feel in my whole entire life.

Back When I Was Puerto Rican, parte uno

Being Puerto Rican ain’t easy. I should know, I’ve been Puerto Rican for a whole day. Between the Spanish-to-English translations, retina-numbing chartreuse wall paint, and all the babies, baby mamas, and their dramas, it’s no West Side Story in Southside Williamsburg. And to think I already had the bright red hair on lock.

I know what you’re thinking --- this is perverse! This is prejudice! This is the greatest story ever! But stereotypes are spawned from somewhere, aren’t they? As a former boozehound and perpetually freckled, stereotyped Irish lass myself, I think I’m entitled, dammit! And anyway, mocking people by the generalized constraints society places upon them is hilarious. Well, at least to a once Jameson-soaked Mick like myself.

So picture it: Fall 2006. South Keap Street. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My best friend BK has invited me to her and her boyfriend Vincent’s apartment for a party in honor of his daughter Maria’s 7^th birthday. I put on my finest fake gold and shortest of shorts and set forth to the Land of Kings County. I would arrive just in time. The studio apartment is screaming escape from San Juan equipped with all the necessary elements for a P.R. party: incoherent screaming methodically mixed over a megaphone, enough Coquito, that blasphemous coconut beer, to fuel a Honda, and a pink flamingo or two waving from the backyard. The first face I see, of all people, is Vincent’s mother, the infamous Virgin Peralta.

This isn’t my first night with Virgin though, we’ve been together a few times before. Always the classy dresser, this eve she has packaged herself into a spider web-meets-fishnet top that highlights her every stop, drop, and roll. Moreover, she is taking a verbal poll as to if “anyone can bee-leed I is fitty yeas ol?!” To this day it’s a mystery how this woman still manages to spill herself into a size two red pleather pant and not somehow overflow onto someone’s Worst Dressed List. In between jiggles to the salsa soundtrack perpetually playing in her head, she showers me with enough affection to last a blancita a decade and a gringa a lifetime. A lifetime Virgin may never see care of the HIV she’s carried for years, the majority of which she’s spent threatening death. Yes, she threatens her family with proclamations of her imminent demise. I always found it synonymous to that whole Jewish mother guilt trip thing. “Virgin threatens to die from AIDS”. Talk about a headline, huh? A global menace like the AIDS virus couldn’t be further from comedic relief but c’mon, you gotta admit that’s an ironic motherfucker right there.

I offer up a swivel or two to appease Virgin’s ever-gyrating hips and continue my way through the Boricuen maze. But before I can make it to my cheese filled empanada I have to endure the wrath of an aforementioned mama and her dramas. Enter Theresa. Mother to Maria, ex to Vincent, and last year’s regret to much of the neighborhood, Theresa is your typical hood rat ho and there are no color barriers when it comes to a moniker like that. Black, white, yellow, or brown, a ho is a ho no matter where you go and for the past few years, Theresa has reigned supreme around these here parts with her there, um, parts. Virgin, ever the affectionate grandmother, often refers to her as a puta or caminante de la calle, that is a whore or streetwalker. Again, I can’t stress enough that stereotypes come from somewhere and with Theresa they used to come at about 20 bucks a half-hour.

She’s slumped low on the couch, a Coquito resting on her two-months pregnant belly, and she slurs something that sounds like “Hey”. Knowing the vomit reflex that standing up can induce all too well at moments like these, I insist she stay sitting and join her on the couch. I’ll take a pass on sedated baby parts swimming in puke on this particular evening, thank you. (We mocked AIDS people, the path to hell is well paved by now, drunken zygotes or not.)


To be continued...