My son Elías and I stood on the edge of Avenida Central holding hands waiting for a bus. He leaned in, turned his head towards the traffic, and squinted to read the destinations on the approaching buses.
"That bus is going to Ciudad Azteca!" he said.
"That one is going to La Bola!"
"The green one is going to Ciudad Satélite!"
'Mom, there's our bus! It says "Metro Moctezuma"!'
I leaned in and squinted too. I recognized the white headdress on a pink background that symbolized our destination.
"Hail it," I said, and he waved his arm.
The day Elías mastered reading, he was at the dining table with Giselle’s kids, Norma and Cesar, who were also doing schoolwork. He read the lullaby, “Cucú.” I was mopping the kitchen when I heard his tentative but determined voice.
“Cucú, cantaba la rana,
cucú, debajo del agua…”
He stood up, his eyes widened, and he focused intently on the text. Halfway through the lullaby, Giselle’s kids had raised their heads, and I leaned on my mop to watch him. When he finished, he lowered his shoulders, and turned towards me.
“Read it again,” I said to him smiling.
After the second time, he turned towards his peers.
“You don’t pause on the commas,” said Cesar.
“You read too slow,” said Norma.
“You read great, son,” I said to him.
Elías and I boarded the bus, and he ran down the aisle in search of a seat. He picked one halfway down on the driver’s side, sliding all the way to the window. The bus driver gave me the look-over before I paid him. When he took my money, he also slid his fingertips across my palm. I jerked away my hand and glared at him. He laughed as he turned back around and shifted the bus into gear.
The bus arrived at Metro Moctezuma and, outside, the day’s first sun rays splashed on the sooty concrete. I led Elías off the bus and walked towards a tamale stand. There was a big woman wearing a red bandana and a white and blue apron, sitting behind a large tin tub.
"What kinds do you have?" I asked.
"Rajas, pollo y dulce," she said
"Dulce? Do you have raisin?"
"Yes," she said, before opening the tub and sticking her arm inside, waiting for my instructions.
I ordered a chicken and a raisin tamale. Once done, we headed towards the subway entrance. Keeping pace with the crowd, we walked briskly down the stairs and got in line for tickets. While waiting, Elías stepped away to inspect the subway map on the wall.
“Mom, this is where we are!” he said as he pointed excitedly at the headdress icon.
“And there is the campanita!” he said, before looking closely at the text under the bell icon and reading, ploddingly, “In-sur-gen-tes.”
“That’s where my tía Susana lives!”
Then he looked at each end of the route and asked, “What direction are we going?”
“Pantitlán,” I said.
Elías turned back around, reading the stations one by one until he reached the two flags icon.
“It’s five stations away!” he said.
When Elías was seven, we migrated to California. My brother Mario, who came before us, and I were eager for him to learn English so he could interpret for us. One time our car broke down and we took him to the auto parts store to help us order. When we reached the clerk, Mario asked my son to ask for a catalytic converter and put him in front of us. Elías looked at us, looked at the clerk, and back at us without saying anything.
We shuffled about and Mario said, “Come on!”
Elías’s face got red, his eyes moistened, and then he said something to the clerk, all while trying to convey his idea with his hands.
The clerk shrugged looked at the line behind us and said, “Next!”
At the time, I did not realize that no kid his age would have even known what a
catalytic converter was, much less known how to say it in another language.
Mario, who was already at his wit’s end trying get the car running again before
sunset, chided his nephew: “I thought you knew English!”
When we returned home, Elías went to bed and lay on his side with his eyes open, but absent. He refused to eat or watch TV. I finally understood that something went wrong and, since he wasn’t talking with me, or anybody for that matter, I went outside to get fresh air. The next day he was back to normal, but that day bothered me for a long time, and I didn’t bother him about anything related to cars again.
I reached the clerk and bought tickets.
When we began walking towards the platforms, Elías walked ahead of me, his head tilted upward, reading the signage. He stopped and pointed at one, saying, "Not that one mom, that says Observatorio."
I knew where I was going but I followed his lead anyway.
"This way!" he said, pulling my hand.
As we approached the platform, I took out a pin from my purse and slid it inside my sweater near my wrist. The car was crowded. Bodies leaned against each other vibrating with the movement of the vessel. Along the walls of the tunnel, a sooty bar, with a surface like a movie screen, flashed with the speed of the train.
"Stay close to me" I said to Elías as I held an aluminum pole with one hand and his hand with the other.
Between the third and fourth station, I felt a hand grab my bottom. I froze and without turning to look at the groper, I pulled the pin from my wrist and poked the man.
"Ay!" he said, before slinking away.
We finally arrived at Pantitlán and were pushed out of the wagon by the large crowd. We walked vigorously along the platforms until we reached the station’s atrium, which was as far as I knew how to go en route to Catalina’s home.
I recalled Catalina’s instructions, "When you get to Pantitlán get on the bus towards Colonia Aurora. When that bus passes the canchas de fútbol, which you can't miss, look for a furniture store called "Muebles Neza" (it's on the corner of a big intersection.) At that same corner, wait for a bus headed to "La Pila." Take that to the last stop. I'm on Benito Juarez 23. See you soon sister!"
Futilely, I browsed at the signage on the ceilings which, to me, read: “axtwmn,” “wqmdptx,” and “slzrbfm.” Elías, unaware that I was stuck, also browsed the signage but he was just being a termite chewing through wood, reading each word he encountered just for fun. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man with a dark horseshoe mustache approach. I grabbed Elías’s hand and began walking away from him, but he accosted me.
“Where are you going, darling?” he said.
“None of your business!” I said to him as I turned the other away.
I glanced down at Elías. He frowned and his eyes looked cross as he looked at the man, scared. The man pursued me.
I stopped and ordered the man, “Stop following me!” but he insisted.
“I’m not gonna do you any harm. I just wanna help,” he said.
I kept walking and he kept chasing but Elías started kicking him. The man kicked him back lightly. I stopped, put Elías behind me and said, “Mira hijo de tu puta madre, si vuelves a tocar a mi hijo te saco los ojos!”
“¡Chinga tu madre, ni vales la pena!” he said to me before disappearing into the crowds.
Several people had stopped and one woman stepped forward to ask if we were okay. I asked her how to get to Colonia Aurora.
“I don’t know, sis, but all the buses depart from over there,” she said, pointing past the ticket booths.
We reached a long, wide hallway with stairs going up on each side every few meters. Off the ceiling was color coded signage.
“¿Y ahora qué?” I thought.
“Son, find the one that says ‘Colonia Aurora.’”
"Okay," he answered and got to work casually.
“This is it,” he said, a minute later.
I put his hand in mine and we walked upstairs into the sunlight. A bus was preparing to go so I ran until Elías tugged hard on my hand, forcing me to stop. He had seen a guava Boing, his favorite soft drink. After what had happened, I really wanted to get on a bus and sit down, but he had earned it so I forgot about the departing bus and took him to the food stand. I felt a sense of satisfaction as I looked at him stab the container with a straw and begin drinking, delighted.
Life with my brother Mario did not work out so I searched for an apartment. I had to get a checking account and started receiving American utility bills in my name for the first time. Elías, 11 by then and completely fluent in English, was a Godsend. He read my mail, wrote checks, and even balanced my checking account. He would take the ledgers the bank would send in the statements, and follow their directions step by step. He wrote down each expense on a table, added them, and compared them to the ending balance. When the difference was zero, he raised his arms in triumph and congratulated himself. When he was off, by cents, by a few dollars, he would do the math over until he got a zero or settled with being close. I always thought he was taking it too seriously, but I didn’t interfere because I trusted him. I trusted that if he thought it had to be perfect, then it had to be perfect.
After an hour on the bus, I saw the soccer pitches Catalina told me about. They were dirt fields, with chipped paint goal posts, and lots and lots of trash, as if they doubled for a landfill. Boys played in them like they were covered in soft grass. We moved to the front seat to get a better view of what was coming on the street.
The avenue was a hodgepodge of businesses, concrete residences with rebar sticking out of their corners, like whiskers, hurried pedestrians, working bicyclists, street vendors
‘Look for a sign saying "Muebles Neza"’ I told Elías.
Elías scanned the periphery with dead serious intent.
The bus had just crossed a busy intersection when Elías found the sign.
"There it is!" he said.
It was a two-story building with tinted glass walls that we passed as the bus raced across the avenue. Quickly, I pulled the stop cord, and the bus came to a halt just past the intersection. We got off and began walking back. We reached the corner of the opposing street and then ran to the median, which was a wide lawn. We were crossing the median when a car turned off the perpendicular street and stopped right in front of us.
I heard a long, slow catcall.
I didn’t turn around and just kept crossing the lawn, but then we got stuck because there was too much traffic.
The car stayed put and after the catcall, I heard a man’s voice ask, “Need a ride, honey?”
The traffic finally cleared and I pulled Elías across the street. The car screeched away. I never saw the man’s face.
On the other side, we stood on the sidewalk and watched the traffic pass. Elías scanned every bus that drove by searching for the one we needed. I looked expectantly at the oncoming buses too. When he spotted our vessel, Elías hailed it and we got on. One hour later we reached the last stop. I took out a piece of paper with Catalina's address on it and gave it to Elías.
“Tell me when we reach this street,” I said to him, before we got going.
After working at a motel for ten years, I tried working for myself cleaning houses and it worked out. In the summer, I’d take Elías with me to help or to just sit in the living room watching TV while I finished working. One day, in his early adolescence, he told me I should try classified ads in the Pennysaver to drum up business. I told him to take his idea and run, which he did. I still have issues of the Pennysaver with my ad in it.
"Looking for a housecleaner? Call Zyanya at 555-555-5555. 5 years experience. Weekly and biweekly service. Residential and commercial. Free estimates. Serving Encinitas, Solana Beach, and Del Mar," said the ads.
Elías answered the phone calls and set up the accounts. The day before I started a new job, we’d drive to the location so I could see how to get there.
It was the early afternoon when we arrived at Catalina's. As soon as she saw us, she sent one of her children to fetch sodas from the local store.
"CARLOS! Go get some refrescos!" she yelled.
Catalina's new home had an avocado tree in the front yard. I had taught Elías to believe that eating avocados made for glossy hair. Elías walked right up to the tree and pulled one. His tía sliced it and he devoured it.