Mayo Jar

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"Bend forward," Mama said as she poured a few delicate droplets of coconut oil mixed with pungent herbs from the local botanica on my hair. Mama was massaging it in hopes to get it to grow again. I hungered for these moments with my mom. It was only then that I felt loved and assured around her. The coconut oil was kept in a mayo jar and was placed in the left hand side of the refrigerator door. Its sight pulled me in like a silly suction cup.

Thinking back on it today, I can honestly say that it was not the most appealing mayo jar of our whole collection. It has yellowed from within, and it bore a crack from competing for space in the crammed refrigerator. The faded label was so familiar and comforting to me at that time. The s in the word Hellman's was gone from my caressing it lovingly every time I opened the fridge.

Mama began the hair treatments because I was pulling my hair out in chunks. While Mama hummed "Canta y no llores" and parted my hair in a nonsensical fashion, I formed a habit of counting the number of times that she made actual contact with my head and assured myself that that is how much she loved me. Occasionally, as I sat crouched on the floor between her legs, she would provide glimpses of her own childhood.

Mama was born in a small barrio in the Caribbean. She was the second one born in a family of ten children. Her father was a pastor of a Pentecostal church, and everyone called him Abuelito. He was short, stocky, and always wore a black hat with tiny feathers on the side. I laughed the first time I saw him without a hat. He was bald from the top, and he kept rubbing at it as if he were ashamed of his own head. Mama always said that he was a fair person, and he did not play favorites with his large family. Mama would say that if he had just one orange, he would cut up that orange in ten equal wedges for his children. Aida, my maternal grandmother, was petite with milky skin and jet-black hair. In church, she always wore it in a bun, but at home, she will let it cascade past her shoulders.

They arrived in New York in the mid-1950s and quickly settled into a life of immigrants. Long hours working as a store security guard during the week for Abuelito and pastoral duties on Sundays. Aida settled into a life of housework and child care. Aida was significantly younger than her husband, and much later on abandoned her large family. My mama was already married when this happened, but she had younger siblings who needed their momma around.

Mama's childhood was one of deprivation. She and her nine siblings were not allowed to attend social functions. The female siblings had to wear long skirts and dresses all the time. They were forbidden to wear makeup and certain jewelry. Mama said she was once slapped in front of Papa and called filthy names when they first started to date and were caught by Aida holding hands. Mama wanted so badly to escape that lifestyle that she became pregnant with me by the age of seventeen.

When Mama spoke about her childhood as I sat between her legs waiting for the hair massage to begin, I would come to understand why Mama was that way with me. At such a young age, I was emphatic. It did not ease my own pain, but I came to understand why things happened as they did. Mama never cried when she recited her own snippets of abuse. I would at times watch my mama from a distance, wedged in a corner on the kitchen floor, with a razor in her hand, making small crosses on her forearm. The first time I witnessed her doing that, I ran to get a towel. How I longed to get close, but her mood swings prevented me. With my hand outstretched, I handed her the towel, but she seemed to have not noticed. She stood up and said absolutely nothing.

I do not remember pulling my own hair though, but I do recall the events that led up to that. The one time that she attempted to drown me in the bathtub while trying to wash my hair stands out because I was tall enough to see myself in the bathroom mirror. It forced me to witness the toll on my body, mind, and spirit.

The tub was filled to capacity, and the scented bubbles were just beginning to form. I wanted to burst every one of them and giggled to myself. The faucet was still on, and Mama asked me to go under it in order to wash it. When I slipped, she grabbed me by the throat and tried to drown me. As I gasped for air and shot up, my forehead hit the faucet and tiny drops of blood trickled. It was then that she awoke from a trance and dried me off with a towel. She then wrapped my forehead in gauze. I stayed in the bathroom for a long time after that, utterly shattered and looking at my reflection. In my head, I was piecing together what had actually happened. I replayed every second over and over. The mirror begged me to hate my mom, my mind said I shouldn't have slipped, and my heart said my mama did not mean it. The stark truth was I looked like I just survived a war. I did. A war with my mama's demons.

Winston

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Sneaking that first Winston from Mama's pack of cigarettes was not only easy but also strangely funny. Easy because she liked gossiping on the phone with her girlfriend Anita. Strange because it was my first time stealing something, and funny because I was strategic and darn good at it.

It was not my first time holding a pack of cigarettes in my hands. Back in the midseventies, storeowners sold them without hesitation to very young kids. Mama would send me to the store because she had to care for my younger siblings. I was only six at the time when I stole that first cigarette from mom. Luckily for me, the pack was already opened but still fairly new. I carefully tipped the front tab and made sure to pull a cigarette from the back row. Ever so gently and with nervous trepidation, I pulled the front tab closed and placed it back down on the kitchen counter. Pulling a thin one from the back middle row was essential. By doing so, the rest of...