8
Jail
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A week later, our parents take us to Uncle Aaron’s house in a taxi. They give us lots of wet kisses at the door. I am crying. So is Felipe.
“We will send for you soon. As soon as we find jobs.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Chicago. We have some friends there. They have children, too.”
And then they drive off to the airport with their suitcases.
Uncle Aaron and Aunt Lonia live in a huge wooden house with a large yard. They have two boxers, Farouk and Mosqueta, who are always barking. My aunt and uncle live in a part of Guatemala City that only has houses. It is so far from La Casita, it might as well be on the moon.
Maybe I will never see the National Palace or the fountain in the park again. Or pigeons. Or shoeshine boys.
Every morning, my aunt and uncle go off to work in separate cars. Uncle Aaron goes to his office for the whole day. Aunt Lonia works only in the morning at a store that sells bras and underpants.
Tina, the maid, keeps watch over us. She is not like Consuelo. She’s like a soldier or a jailer who lets Aunt Lonia know whenever we do something wrong.
The first few days we’re only allowed to play card games and read comic books. Aunt Lonia suggests that Felipe write to our parents and tell them how we are doing.
What will Felipe write to them about? How bored we are?
Then Tina says we can go into the front yard, but we’re afraid that the dogs will jump all over us and maybe bite us. They have huge teeth and big fat lips, which swim in white foam when they growl.
Aunt Lonia comes home for lunch. She won’t let us ride our bikes in the house.
“You’ll break a lamp or one of my vases.”
“We promise not to.”
“No. No. And you will leave tire marks on the wooden floor.”
She has answers for everything.
Our bicycles have to stay outside. We can’t even touch them because the back door is always latched.
Nothing’s the same. I miss the shiny pots and the lobster tank.
From the kitchen window I notice that our bikes have become homes for spiders.
One day I see a huge rat gnawing on the wheel of my two-wheeler.
“Aunt Lonia! I saw a rat trying to eat my bicycle.”
“Nonsense. Your bike is made of steel.”
“It was biting the tires.”
“Tires are made of rubber.” She laughs as if I’ve said something ridiculous.
I want to cry. Cry as loud as I can. But I feel that my heart is stopped up.
Felipe says that Aunt Lonia doesn’t care about us.
“Even the rats are having more fun than us,” he says sadly.
It is the rainy season in Guatemala. Every morning Felipe and I play checkers, pick-up sticks and cards to pass the time. Sometimes we are allowed to watch cartoons of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny on the TV.
We never go out.
Every afternoon, as soon as we finish lunch and Uncle Aaron goes back to work, Felipe and I put on our record of Cri-Cri songs. Felipe’s favorite is “El Burrito,” but I really like “El Chorrito.”
It’s a song about a fountain that’s feeling hot, so it is in a very bad mood. Then an ant walks by with her umbrella and gets splashed by the fountain. She also gets into a bad mood because the water makes her pretty makeup run down her little cheeks.
I like the song because even though the music is happy, everyone is in a bad mood.
Just like us.
Sometimes I wonder what life will be like in the United States. Will it be hot or cold? Does it have mountains and volcanoes? Will anyone speak Spanish to me?
Cartoons don’t really show what life would be like there.
Meanwhile, every day is the same. It is always rainy and sometimes it is cold. We play games. We listen to music. We are bored.
One day when the boxers are chained in the front yard, we manage to open the back door and look at our bicycles. The tires are flat. Spiderwebs are growing on the spokes. The paint has begun to peel.
We both curl up our fists in anger, but there is nothing we can do. The rain shoos us back indoors.
We are in a jail. We can walk around, but we can’t escape. We watch tons and tons of television, lots of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd cartoons. But we don’t find them funny anymore.
I miss my parents. I miss Consuelo and Otto. Scary Genghis Khan. Even mean old Augusto.
Every time I ask Uncle Aaron about my parents, he says that he doesn’t know what they are doing. I ask him to call them, but he says no, it is too expensive.
I wonder if they are feeling lonely, too. Maybe they’ve forgotten about us while they look for jobs and a new place to live.
Maybe they have adopted new children.