Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“Casi, stop scaring my son,” Marcela said, entering with glorious food.

“I don’t even want to know what you’re telling him now. Go play gordito ,” she said and gordito did.

“Me scare him? You should be telling him to stop scaring me. What kind of parental supervision is this?”

“I’m serious. You think he doesn’t understand the things you say, but days later he’s quoting you and asking me some bizarre question.”

“Yeah Casi, play nice,” Alana laughed slightly.

“He started it,” I said. The food was on the table: round clay-colored bowls, yellow rice with strips of red pepper and dots of green peas, salted tostones of green plantains and various overdone forms of meat. “Oh man this looks good, I haven’t eaten in like two days.”

—¡Ugh! — gasped my mom. — ¿ Como asi ? You have to eat hijo . That’s not good papi .

“Harumph.”

—¿ Por qué you didn’t eat Casi?

“Because, mom, I got nobody to take care of me. I’m all alone. What am I supposed to eat? Pizza? I can’t get good food like this over there, so what’s the point in eating?”

“Oh please, don’t make me laugh,” said Marcela.

“Something wrong with your kitchen? Because you can come by and use mine anytime,” said Alana.

“You see mom? No love.”

— I’m serious hijo . You have to take better care of yourself. That’s why you look so different.

“I look the same.”

“Something happened, he won’t say what,” added the ever helpful Alana.

“What happened Casi?” said Marcela as my mom looked on all interest.

“Nothing happened, nothing at all. Did I miss something, who listens to Alana? Are we going to eat or just yammer? What about Mary and Timmy?” I said trying to change the subject.

“They ate already,” said Marcela.

— Ay , I’m worry.

“Mom, what are you talking about? What’s there to worry about? I eat like a pig. The only thing is I was on trial this week, that’s why I wasn’t eating or sleeping or anything.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” said Alana. “What happened?”

“I was on trial.”

“I mean what was the result?”

— No, I’m worry about Armando — came the reprieve.

“Yeah, what’s going to happen with that Casi?” said Marcela.

“Don’t worry about that either mami. I’m already on it. I called over there. He’s not going to be coming through for a little while yet. I’ll head over there in a bit and make sure everything works out fine.”

“Why was he arrested?” said Marcela.

“He told mom it was for selling hot dogs without a license, right ma?” I said.

— Aha.

“Total bullshit,” I said, “no big deal.”

“Can they do that Casi?” said Marcela with a look on her face.

“Yes, they can, but it’s not a big deal. I’ll take care of it.”

“Yeah ma, don’t worry,” said Alana. “This is Casi’s bread and butter. This is why we plucked him out of that orphanage and plopped him into that fancy law school.”

— Ay sí , plees Casi. Que pena con those in Colombia. They send him here and we were supposed to take care of him. Ahora look where he is.

“He’ll be fine, he’s a big boy. He’ll be chugging aguardiente tonight.”

— Miren tan buena esta remolacha .

“Ill… beets?”

“No way.”

“Nobody wants remolacha ma.”

“I don’t understand why they would arrest some kid selling hot dogs out of a van,” said Marcela. “He was so happy with his hot dog van too.”

“He’s probably going to want to hightail it right back to Colombia after this kind of hospitality,” said Alana.

“Doubt it,” I said.

“I think he’ll still want to stay,” said Marcela. “At least I hope so.”

“What do you mean you hope so?” said Alana and Marcela did a thing with her lips that Alana saw but ignored. “I mean I don’t get it,” she continued. “Over there, Armando was a computer programmer. Yet he’s willing to come over here to sell hot dogs out of a hot dog shaped van. And for what? What’s his reward? He’s doing this in a country where they arrest him for doing it. They basically arrested him for working. I guess he’s only supposed to come here to take pictures of the Statue of Liberty and buy his share of miniature souvenirs. These guys come here for what exactly? To line up outside in the freezing cold waiting for somebody to come by in a pickup and give them work for the day so they can do the shit nobody else would do, for money nobody else would take, and in appreciation get used as scapegoats by fat rednecks who keep their trailer’s fridge full of Meister Bräu?”

“Easy now.”

— Ah sí, asi es sometime.

“ Pero why ma? Why do they still do it? Can’t we explain to them that it’s not worth it?”

— They do it because dey think ees worth et.

“Well they’re wrong.”

— Alana allá there are no jobs. And aunque you have a job is no mean you’re going to get paid. La hermana de Armando works for the university en Cali and they haven’t paid her in two mons.

No one spoke and in the silence I tried to remember which one was Armando’s sister. Hearing nothing my mom seemingly felt an elaborative tug.

— Y the job que Armando had anyway it finished when they killed his boss walking into the office one morning. Pero even if he still had that job it doesn’t matter because he know he could do better here. Yo no digo que our family is starving over there. ¡ Tampoco! Pero even the people who are doing okay over there know it would be better here and they want to do better. No todos, porque some can assept et, pero otros can’t assept et. Being held down by somesing you no control like jour country where jour born. At the same time, mientras otros can do whatever they want because of the lucky of where they born. ¿Because of lineas en un mapa like your father would say? Juss luck? (She kept talking here but I was thinking how much I disliked maps while others can’t finish entering whatever turnstile-enclosed entertainment before they’re running to the illustrated vertical square that tells them they’re standing on a red dot.) Right now maybe ees harder for Armando than over there. Pero , he’s just un kid. One day he marry, have keeds y those keeds will be born here. They will speak el inglés perfectly and they will know what to do. He does it for them. So allá I wore suits and here I cleaned hotel rooms but today look at my three kids. If we don’t leave, Casi por ejemplo , would be like Armando right now. Instead Marcela has a house and keeds, Alana es un artist con her first show, y Casi is an avocado.

We shut up and ate. She looked kind of sad as if saying things you’d only thought was somehow wrong. We all looked at each other but no one had the heart to tell her how unimpressive these things seemed to us from the inside looking out or that the correct translation for abogado was attorney. No one made any move towards the remolacha either which might have helped matters.

Who would break the silence?

“You guys feel that?” said Alana. “Do you feel it hanging in the air? It’s the four of us. The exact four who would have sat at this very table ten years ago. Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?” I said. “We get together quite often.”

“More often than any other family I know,” added Marcela.

“I know but I’m not talking about the four of us being together, I’m talking about the four us being together exclusively . When was the last time you can recall that?”