La Cena Pasada, de Angelie

La cena pasada
(de Angelie)

--The Last Supper of Angelie--

In a room on the second floor of a white washed house, the one with chipping paint and iron bars decorating the windows, Angelie is waiting to die. Though no one’s expecting her death, it won’t come as a surprise. In a sense, Angelie has been “dead” for eight years now—nine, if you were to count the year it took for her Altizmers to gradually take complete control of her mind. Nine of her eldest years being bathed, clothed and fed by unfamiliar, perhaps invisible, hands. Angelie does not listen to the many sounds drifting through the house, but she hears them.
Angelie’s daughter, Maria, is downstairs in the kitchen dutifully cooking supper for her three wild, crying children and a husband that always comes home late, and with headaches. Maria is unaware of her Mother’s last moments on the second floor. She’s been too busy to check on her this evening. Paulo, the youngest of her children, is four and a half years old and has gum stuck in his hair. Gracie, seven, put it there and is now serving time in a corner with no gum left and a sore bottom. Felice, six and nowhere to be found, is making mudpies in the neighbor’s backyard garden—the one Mrs.Wardlaw always yells to keep out of. Later, Felice will also be sorely sitting in a corner of the house. Raymondo, the husband, is home now and grumbles loudly about dinner being cold.
“Could you take this back and tell the cook I want a hot meal?” A man in a booth is raising his voice and rudely snapping his fingers. Angelie is sixteen, waitressing at Pasta Palace on 3rd street. The manager hired her because she “looks Italian, and the authentic looks’ good for business.” Angelie is actually Hispanic, but good for business none the less with, as the boss says, “that body of hers.” She works hard all day, collecting every nickel she earns in the pocket of her red-checkered apron. She’s learned to take orders without saying much of anything, since the customers tend to leave larger tips when they’re unaware of her accent. On a good day, she’ll bring home two dollars in change. On a bad day, she’ll bring home nothing. However, today has been a good day, and after walking the eleven blocks to her family’s small rented room, she pours the change on the kitchen table and counts it with her younger sisters. She calculates that her week’s earning are enough to buy groceries, fabric for two simple dresses (which her sisters need for school) and new stockings for herself, to replace the ones that are tearing at the knees and heels. Angelie goes to put the money in her tin can, which she hides underneath the long skirt of her childhood doll. She pulls it out and finds it empty. Her father comes home a few hours before dawn, reeking of alcohol and cursing loudly in Spanish as he stumbles to his bed.
“¿Dinero que oculta de mí? ¡Usted puta!”
“My papa wants to know if you have a job for him. He says he works hard.” Angelie is ten, translating her father’s words to a white man holding a clipboard. Her feet are tired, and her mouth is drying. They’ve been walking since dawn, going to factories, restaurants, offices, factories, factories, factories. The answer is the same wherever they go:
“There’s no work here for you,” the man says. There’s no work anywhere, for anyone. Especially not her father. “Mañana, papa,” Angelie says, Tomorrow. “El hombre dice volver mañana.” The man says come back tomorrow.
“Tomorrow’s no good for me.” Maria is twisting with the phone cord as she moves around the kitchen. “Felice has a doctor’s appointment—mmhm. Right. Wednesday is fine, Tanya. 11? 11:30. Ok, see you then… buh-bye.” Maria gathers up the remaining dishes from the table and dumps them in the sink. She remembers her Mother’s dinner, wrapped in foil on the counter, and calls out “Raymondo, could you bring Omma her supper?”
“I’ll do it in a minute.” Five minutes go by.
“Bring that too me, mi amor.” Angelie is holding her hands out to Maria, who has just walked home from school. She brings her Mother the flopping, manila paper with colored bright crayon. “¡Oh la belleza!” Angelie dramatically gasps. “Did you draw this?! You must have stolen this from the art gallery! I’m going to have to call the police, Mona Maria.” Maria is giggling with pride, laughing at her Mother’s approving jest.
“Mama, I drew this! See, that’s a flower, and that’s the clouds, and that’s you!”
“That’s me?! My hair is not that long and pretty! That must be you.”
“That’s not me!” Angelie is startled at her reflection in the dresser mirror. She stares into it, blinking as if awaking from a fuzzy sleep. Mi pelo! She gently pats her hair, cautiously running her bony fingers through the thin, grey waves. “Yes mama, that’s you. You’re much older now, remember?” Maria, pregnant with her third child, is standing by the window with a damp towel in her hand. “And your hair is still beautiful—just gray, like nubes de la lluvia.” Maria steps closer to her Mother’s bed, takes her arm and tenderly begins to scrub. Angelie does not remember becoming this old, having hair as grey as rain clouds. She does not know the beautiful woman washing her—but she knows her voice. Angelie politely tells the woman, “Ask Hector to come see me, please.” The woman replies, “Mamma, Papo’s not here anymore….your husband passed four years ago. Él ha visto a Jesús, Mamma.”
Hector is sitting at a lone table by the window. This is where he always sits—where he has the best view of Angelie. It is his lunch break, and for half an hour every day he watches the way the sunlight breathes auburn highlights through Angelie’s wavey pony tail. She always wears it up, the boss’ rule, but Hector likes to imagine how she might look with her hair draping down her back, hanging around her strong shoulders like vides de la hiedra—vines of ivy. In the three months of his eating at Pasta Palace, he’s spoken little more to her than his order, which is always the cheapest item on the menu: “Spaghetti, please. No sauce.” The meal costs fifteen cents, and though he can barely afford the spaghetti he leaves fifteen more cents as tip. On Fridays, payday, he leaves fifty cents. He spends more on her, these meals and tips, than he does for anything else. He skips on groceries, cigarettes and (usually) booze in order to afford his visits with her. Today, he’s scrapped enough courage to break the ice—he will be her romantic, poetic lover and say : “Angelie—an angel with hair of a goddess, and hands of an artist, and the composure of a queen!” He’s practiced this in perfect English—the little the he knows— so she may see he’s intelligent. Hector’s not educated, but he’s intelligent… and wants Angelie to see that right away. As she approaches his table to leave his bill, he loudly blurts:
“Angelie you have hair like spaghetti and compost like Queens!” Stunned, Angelie giggles. Hector, mortified, leaves a full dollar on the table and runs to the bathroom. “¡Estúpido, stúpido, stúpido!” He’s sweating with embarrassment, pacing between the toilet and the sink. A napkin slides under the door, Hector hesitates to pick it up. He crouches down to read it:
“Y usted, mi señor, tiene ojos como los soles ardientes, y los brazos como las estatuas de oro.” And you, my gentleman, have eyes like ardent suns, and arms like golden statues.
Ten minutes after Maria asks Raymondo to bring Omma her dinner, he’s forgotten completely and continues to watch T.V. Maria is busy cutting the gum out of Paulo’s hair over the bathroom sink. He’s still crying in hopes that his mom will give him some chocolate to console him, like she did when he cut his elbow on the concrete. Felice and Gracie have run outside to catch fireflies, barefoot, with the other children on their street.
Meanwhile, Angelie is climbing down the fire escape, sneaking out to see Hector. She’s holding Maria, freshly born and pink, on the small, yellow hospital bed. She’s doing cartwheels on the sidewalk, showing off her new, blue frilly skirt. She’s talking to the doctor in the hallway about Hector’s condition—maybe his cancer will go into remission? She’s telling her angry Father that she’s marrying Hector—with or without his bendición. She’s crying in the bathroom after Maria slams her bedroom door and screams, “¡Le desdeño, you mean bitch!” She’s lighting a candle in church, praying for Papa’s fists to stop swinging in anger. She’s singing Maria to sleep, stroking the soft waves of her hair. She’s making love to Hector, for the first time, wincing, then crying at the sharp pain of his flesh. She’s making love to Hector for the millionth time, grabbing, holding, rocking with his flesh as they both sweat and climax. She’s going to work. She’s getting ready for bed. She’s laughing, weeping, hating and loving. She is living.
Angelie is waiting to die. Meanwhile, her supper, forgotten and wrapped in foil on the kitchen counter, is getting cold.