Giannina Braschi - Yo-Yo Boing!

— Maybe we can take Santa Claus to Puerto Rico as a Christmas present for my mother. It’s made of marzipan. Will it melt?

My thirst would grow when after the gelato we would visit the Met, and there you would stand in front of Rembrandt and say out loud:

— You were really a buffoon like me. You had Hendriecka and Tito to save you. If only I could have a Tito helping me. I used to have a Jabalí.

It always baffled me how, instead of revering his profounds of mind, you would jot down the dates the portraits were restored. Then you would spend the rest of our visit admiring the museum’s track lighting and gift shops. And it always struck me that wherever we went the most minuscule objects caught your fancy in display windows — sunglasses, whistles, pens. Once a tennis racquet made of chocolate. You thought of sending it to your mother in Puerto Rico. And you browsed for clothes and shoes at the most conservative boutiques, and you would tell me over and over again the story about the only gift Jabalí ever gave you, apart from the Pan Am peanuts he would bring from his MLA trips to Indiana and Mississippi.

— He said he wanted to buy me a sweater, the most beautiful sweater in New York. Time went by and I never received my sweater, so I found it myself in Ferragamo. It was the most beautiful sweater in New York.

You took him to Ferragamo, and he said:

— But that’s half my paycheck!

— I never get anything except peanuts. You promised.

Then you told him how your grandmother used to take you shopping.

— What do you want?

— Nothing.

— Don’t be shy. Take whatever you want.

— These.

— That’s all? And these? You want them? Take them all.

How you used to carry the whole store in your arms, and when the cashier would ring it up, Granma would say to her:

— She thinks she is rich —and then coldly to you— you are not rich.

And how you used to feel humiliated each time.

— But if it weren’t for Granma, all I would have is peanuts.

And with that peanut zinger, you finally got him to buy you the most beautiful sweater in New York. And he always took you to the Right Bank. When we passed the peach stucco facade, we would crouch and peer through the window.

— He really knew how to dine a lady. The Right Bank. There’s a garden in the back where we would have our wine under the open skies. We used to come here when I lived on Madison Avenue.

I used to imagine you and Jabalí in the narrow darkness, drinking wine among the red and white checkered tables, and I’d thirst for a chilled glass of white. My stomach was growling.

— Let’s go to the Right Bank.

I figured if Jabalí brought her here, for once she won’t complain. We took a garden table, sat on cold metal chairs, and sipped our wine.

— White?

— Sour.

— And the salad?

— Limp.

— Well, why did you order a salad? Jabalí would have never ordered a salad.

By this time I had realized he was as common as peanuts and that’s why you didn’t know how to dress yourself, buying old maid sweaters from Ferragamo. Penelope did the same thing with her Dalmatians. After Xochi died she bought a puppy with identical spotting, and convinced he was the reincarnation of Xochi, she named him Xochi Too. But she was in for a big surprise. Whenever she called him Xochi Too, he walked away and ignored her. She was piqued because Xochi never did that before. Xochi was her passion. He was a loner like her husband. If she’d treat him to a snack, he’d curl up in a corner and eat it alone. But no, Xochi Too has no sense of privacy; he wants her to hold the biscuit while he gnaws it and then watch him licking in between his toes and fingers, and then he expects her to spread her fingers so he can give her a manicure.

— Yuck —she says— Xochi never did that!

Once a vet asked her if she traveled with her dog.

— The whole world over —she bragged.

But then it dawned on her that she was confusing him with Xochi, and since Xochi had traveled the whole world, she left Xochi Too at the kennel because she felt he was too old to travel even though he was a healthy pup, eager to experience jet lag and foreign foods. The vet said:

— Maybe it’s true that Xochi is Xochi Too, but you can’t expect to have the same relationship you had with him in his first life. You’ve both changed so much over the years.

From then on, she began to take Xochi Too on every expedition. The point is you have to learn not to compare. A pig is a pig. And a dog is a dog. The other day you went berserk when I brought the wrong flowers home.

— Because you promised me you would. Why did you promise? You should not promise. Always unfulfilled promises. Jabalí promised me he would get my first book of poetry published.

— I want Visor —I said.

— Visor it will be .

And then he published his own book, not mine, and never told me.

— My mother always said two artists cannot live together. Infectious rivalry.

— I told him:

— Just remember that I am the poet. People should know what they are so they don’t take the places of the people who they are not.

— As if you were the only one.

— That’s exactly what he said.

— Don’t compare Jabalí’s lies with my financial situation. The thanks I get. I did the best I could.

— You promised me $60 roses. I received $5 roses almost dead from the Korean grocer.

— A rose is a rose. The thanks I get. You picked a fight in front of Makiko for nothing because Yoko brought you long-stemmed beauties, thorns and all.

— If you don’t promise, I won’t expect. He stole my publisher. I’m sure he didn’t even take it to Visor. The same with my dissertation. He promised he’d get it published when I finished it, but he didn’t take it anywhere. Did he or didn’t he deserve a beating like the one Repolido gave Cariharta? He was losing in a card game and needed 30 reales to win. But she sent him only 24 reales. And because she did not send him what he expected, he beat her senseless.

— But she did the best she could. She sent him all the money she had.

— But not what he expected.

— Doesn’t justify the beating.

— How do you think he felt, depending on a whore?

— Like the thieving pimp he was.

— You want me to be grateful for withered stubs when I was set on velvety blossoms. Cariharta had the money. Repolido depended on her. That’s why he was so riled, he was depending, and she made him conscious of that by sending him less than he expected.

— That does not excuse his beating or your insults in front of Makiko. You should thank him. He did you a favor.

— Thank him because he broke my spirit.

— Your spirit is not broken.

— It’s crushed.

— Be grateful, you would have been bored always analyzing other people’s work without creating your own.

— I would have been a great critic.

— I would have been a great poet if you didn’t break my spirit.

— Whadaya think?

— You write like me, but you have nothing to say. Not now anyway. Maybe, if you start living vital experiences, maybe later, you’ll become a novelist, but definitely not a poet.

— I couldn’t believe you tattled to your father.

— He said:

— She must see a tidy sum of talent or else she wouldn’t try to bury a beginner. Keep your eye on her and back away from her, ever so slowly.

— Why didn’t you?

— I was mature enough to give you the benefit of the doubt. Although it’s true, I never wrote another verse.