?Ay! But what I was trying to tell you is that I am worried about the changes the building is trying to make. Every time the management makes improvements they make more rules. Look at what happened to my neighbor Tita that lived in the building for more long than me. She did not take the washing machine out of the apartment—and the new lease says No Washing Machine. The management sent a letter to Tita many months ago to say that if she didn’t take out the machine in ten days she and her daughter Cecilia must leave the apartment because she violated the lease! Violated. Tita is cabeza dura so she didn’t take out the machine because she uses the washing machine almost every day. Her daughter Cecilia makes, all the time, a big mess. All of us thought the management, maybe this once, was going to break the rules for Tita, because she lived in the apartment for many decades, and her daughter has a disability. But they have no feelings.
Yes, yes, Tita went to the court. Lulú made Patricia to help Tita. But this is another opportunity for the management to rent an apartment for three times the price we pay. She had a big apartment with two bedrooms. And because Tita did not want to leave the building and be far away from us, she moved downstairs to the one-bedroom with the windows looking to the brick wall. And the rent is now $450 more than what she paid.
Me? Oh, don’t worry. I’m OK. Yes, I pay rent every month. Sometimes I owe a little. But not too much. If we pay the rent, and don’t break the rules of the lease, Patricia told me that the management can’t throw us out. They would have to give us many money to leave. I can pay everything when I find a job. You will help me find a job, yes?
* * *
Ay, I get nervous because very easily, after working so hard, you can be with nothing. Pobrecita Tita. One day, she is ready to retire to have an easy life, and the next day, her life is an infierno. The management have many properties in all of New York. They are so rich, why do this to Tita? We all had washing machines for many years but that was no problem because nobody wanted to live in Washington Heights, only us. But now everybody wants to live in Washington Heights because it’s not expensive like downtown. And now the area has the white people bar, and the white people gourmet bodega, and the $15 white people personal pizza, not even for a family. Fifteen dollars for one person!
Tita thought she could live with the Social Security and the disability. With the low rent, it was enough. But listen to me, there is never rest for the poor. Now pobrecita Tita can’t pay for her new apartment, so she can’t retire—she had to take a job. A terrible job. She saw a paper in the train that said: $10 an hour! No experience necessary! Yes, that’s right, the one you see all the time written by hand on a paper bag. For two days a week, she works, taking care of a vieja. They pay her in cash so she can still get her benefits. But the lady she works for makes Tita sleep on the floor next to her bed. She wants to see Tita all the time.
Yes, it’s true. Incredible.
On the floor! On a yoga mat!
The lady told her that the mat is very comfortable. That in many parts of the world, people sleep on the floor and how good sleeping on the floor will be for Tita’s back. Can you believe it? Even when la vieja has another room with a good bed. She doesn’t care that Tita is old like her. It’s true she looks good for her age. But to make a human being sleep on the floor? No. And what is Tita going to do? She needs the money.
Of course, if I am desperate I would do like Tita. But I hope at this stage of my life, I am never so desperate.
Tita is a saint. She works for this lady in the night and does not complain because she prefers to give her daughter the medicine that makes her sleep for ten hours and go to work. That way Cecilia doesn’t see that Tita is gone.
So this week, and until Tita doesn’t have to do this terrible job, all of us in the building take turns with Cecilia. Tita’s apartment is downstairs. Her apartment shares a wall with Lulú. This is good because we use the walkie-talkie. If Cecilia wakes up we can run to see if she is OK. Cecilia is not developed in the brain, so she’s like a baby and can’t walk—but she’s forty years old. Most nights Tita says she is calm, but sometimes she wakes up scared, so we listen just in case. She usually gives no problem, but a few days ago when it was my turn, Cecilia woke up screaming, full of terror. And ay, Dios mío, when I arrived, Cecilia was screaming so loud, one hand covering the ear, one arm waving up and down and up and down, the hand hitting the mattress. The neighbors came of their apartments. The feathers from inside the pillows were everywhere. The plant, the soil was on the floor. Everything around was broken.
My neighbor Glendaliz said, I’m calling the ambulance.
Let’s call the police, a tall flaco said. Because you know that’s what our new neighbors do now. Any little noise and they call the policía.
No, wait, I said. Nothing good comes from calling the police. They can report Tita and social services can take Cecilia.
In America the authorities do many things that don’t make sense to me.
I’ve known Cecilia almost all of her life, so I was not afraid of her. The others were afraid because Cecilia does this thing with her eyes where she looks up and around, and her scream—it’s not a scream, it’s like Eeeeeeeeeee!—like an ice pick stabbing in the ears. I sat next to her and, really fast, I grabbed her with all the strength in my body. I trapped her arms inside mine and I held her fuerte, fuerte and I did a sound like Huuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm. She could feel the hum in my body against her body. You know how the engine feels under the legs when you sit all the way in the back of the bus. Huummmmmmmmm.
And she stopped moving back and forth. She got calm. When you have children—oh, that’s right, you don’t want children. Well, I knew what to do because I did it when Fernando was a baby. It works like magic. Cecilia went to sleep.
After, I told everybody to leave—because some people were looking at Cecilia like she was a show. I was alone in the apartment. It was so small. Dique a one-bedroom, but really it was two rooms. Tita took the bedroom and has Cecilia sleeping in the living room. It’s one of those salas where one wall has the kitchen and the other wall has the sofa bed. I tell you, very small. So small that if you sit on the sofa bed, you can touch the stove. That’s where Cecilia sleeps. Why do they make apartments like this? I don’t understand why anybody would not want a wall to separate the kitchen grease from the furniture. It’s obviously an apartment for someone that does not cook, that does not prepare food; they put two or three things together and say dinner is ready. They only boil water for the tea or an egg.
The window looks to a brick wall, so I can imagine it’s very dark during the day. How can people live without light? Qué tristeza.
It’s like living in a closet. Pobrecita Tita lives in a closet.
I could have gone back to my apartment and sleep, but I stayed with Cecilia because I was awake. So I cleaned. Nobody wants to come home to a mess. I didn’t want Tita to see all the broken glass and feathers. I tried to wash away the smell of Band-Aid and humidity that gives me the náusea, because like you know I’m very sensitive to smell. But Tita can’t help it. All those years working in the hospital, all the bottles of sanitizer and antiseptic she brought home.