Mario Alberto Zambrano - Loteria

Papi hated the word puta because of that time with Memo, the way he probably saw my hand on his dick even though I’d never touched it because his pants were on the whole time. Papi’d see my face when he’d hear the word puta or putita , and I think Mom knew that. She’d say it on purpose because it would remind him of me. Then he’d remember how he broke my hand even though it was an accident.

After Mom called him un hijo de puta they’d call each other all the bad things they could think of. He’d grab her wrists and press her down, probably telling himself that she’d shut up if he could only keep her down. And when I’d see him on top of her like that, I could see it in his eyes, the way he looked at her. He didn’t want to hit her. He just wanted her to stop fighting. But she’d call him names and hit him across the head and when he couldn’t take it anymore he’d use the back of his hand. She’d yell with tears over her cheeks. “¡Eres un hijo de puta! ¿Me oyes?”

In the kitchen the next day, she’d be at the stove making eggs, not wanting to turn around. Then finally she’d turn around and we’d see Band-Aids on the sides of her eyes. Estrella would try to help her with the dishes, but she’d brush her away like if she were some fly.

Whenever they’d fight we’d go to our room because it was safer there. Sometimes watching them would make us feel like throwing up. I can’t remember the first time it happened but I remember when he knocked over the table and we ran to our room like cockroaches when a light is turned on.

We locked the door and held each other like if we were waiting for an earthquake, afraid the ceiling might cave-in. A chair would slam against the wall and we’d flinch. Glasses would break. The walls would tremble. They’d scream so loud it felt like wolves were tearing up the house, saying words that didn’t even make sense anymore, and the sounds that did come out of their mouths were like dogs.

We’d stand in our room staring at each other until it ended. Because that was the game, to see who could last the longest listening to the furniture being thrown without running away. But there’d be a note in Mom’s voice that would mark her breaking point, when she couldn’t take it anymore, and the way we could tell was by the sounds being pushed out of her body. Because when he’d kick her in the stomach or hit her across the face they were different kinds of sounds. And when those sounds would alternate, Estrella would lose.

“Let’s go,” she’d say. Her mouth would tighten and she’d try to hold it in but she’d crawl out of the window and look at me, asking me with her eyes, “What are you doing? Are you stupid?” I’d stand there not saying a word, like a statue, thinking, no, I’m not stupid. I stayed until it was over. Sometimes I’d sit on the floor and deal the cards because looking at the cards would help me forget. I’d tell myself the riddles to keep me from hearing them scream:

The one who dies with a hook in its mouth. El Pescado .

A lamp for the ones in love. La Luna.

Something identical to the other. La Bota.

I stayed in case something happened, in case I’d have to call someone.

After a long stillness, I’d hear them walking around in the living room, neither of them saying anything, putting furniture back where it belonged. The sound of Three’s Company on television.

One time during the quiet that usually came afterward, I crept into the hallway to check whether or not they’d killed each other, because I couldn’t hear them and a long time had passed. But from the hallway I saw Papi holding Mom from behind, leaning over the kitchen table with his hand over her face and her cheeks pulled down. I could see the whites of her eyes and he was banging the table like if he were trying to move it, but it wouldn’t move, and I could hear her sighing. It reminded me of when we’d go hunting and have to twist a deer’s neck after we shot it in case it hadn’t died. Something turned in my stomach and I ran to my room, but even there, with the door closed, and the door locked, I could see him banging her over the table and I wondered if it was my fault, because of that time he’d pushed me down the stairs and I’d broken my hand. Mom said she’d never forgive him for that. And from then on that word puta would start everything. I don’t remember them fighting before my wrist broke or before Papi called me putita . Maybe throwing it in his face was Mom’s way of fighting back, defending me somehow. Or maybe she was mad at me because of what I’d done, and she was taking it out on him, blaming him somehow. Or they were taking it out on each other and really they should’ve been beating me, banging me against the table until I was sighing like a dying dog.

That time I saw them over the table, I crawled out the window and ran down the street to the corner store and stole pieces of chewing gum and put them all in my mouth at one time. I chewed so fast my cheeks burned, and they burned so much that I told myself I was crying because of the sting, not because they were fighting.

Late one night there was a phone call and Papi told us to get dressed and get in the truck. He drove to the hospital near Majestic Harbor and kept saying that Pancho Silva was on the third floor. When the elevators opened, I saw a row of seats at the end of the hallway lit from above with green fluorescent lights. Everyone was there, sitting next to each other with their heads down. Buelita Fe was holding a handkerchief in her hands, twisting it around her fingers, and Gastón stood between Tía Elsa’s knees eating a pear like if he were at a picnic. I peeked into the room where Pancho was lying down and saw Tía Hilda holding his hand. It was quiet and no one said a word. I pulled on Mom’s sleeve and mouthed, “What’s wrong?” She tapped her chest three times. Like if that was supposed to tell me. “¿El corazón?” I asked, and she nodded. Luisa made trips back and forth to the vending machines on the first floor, but she never came back with anything.

After awhile, Tía Hilda called everyone into the room. We walked inside looking at the floor, and stood in a semicircle around the bed holding hands. Mom stood behind me and Papi stood behind Estrella. We looked at Pancho and held hands as Tía Hilda said a prayer. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted back like if there were something crawling up his neck.

I don’t remember what happened after that because all I can remember is wanting to go home.

After he died I was with Estrella a lot of the time. Neither of us knew what to do or how to act. It was like we both had a secret but we didn’t know how to keep it. She’d look through a Sears catalog when we were at home, or cut out pictures from teen magazines while I spent time building a house of cards. Sometimes when I’d build one three stories high, I could hear her go quiet. “Careful, careful,” she’d say, as I put another card on top of the house. But always when she looked, it’d fall.

One day I was sitting on the couch watching television. She walked inside from the garage door and, like all the times she came home, I expected her to walk to our room and shut herself in. But she put her backpack down and walked around the couch and sat down next to me. I wasn’t sure what she wanted, but she put her arms around me and hugged me for a long time. And we just sat there, like a statue of two girls trying to do the right thing.