Rice Money (excerpt from my memoir)

 

Rice Money

Almost there. Two more minutes. The classroom clock does not just tick; it breathes, its hands inching toward the three like tired insects crawling across the glass sky. THREE. When the first bell rings, its sound cracks the day open, and I explode out of that shell. I sprint, dodging the forest of arms and legs that scrape and scramble to leave. For a few seconds, I am not a boy but a thin red comet skimming above asphalt and chain link, my shadow flying ahead to touch the finish line before my feet do.

Not much matters as I jet down the sidewalk from Galveston Elementary. I am eight years old, and time slides off my skin when I run. My long legs and dime store tennis shoes know a secret: the sidewalk is not cement, but a sleeping river, and every step I take wakes up another ripple. I jump the cracks that threaten my mother's back, and they open like small mouths, then close again as I land soft as a bird. I jump again, higher, because in the air no one can call me poor.

I run away from the kids, away from school, away from the jeers that stick like burrs. Rich kids are mean. Their laughter has teeth. They polish them on our clothes, our parents, our cars. Their voices smell like Disneyland and cotton candy summers, like vacations that never end and color televisions that glow even when no one's watching. I streak past their new houses with windows that never blink, past their shiny new cars and the dads who water the grass as if it might run away if they look up.

But the real reason I run is that she will be there. My mother. When I think of her name, the air in front of me warms; sometimes I swear I can see it humming. She is the only person I know who can walk through a room and quiet every monster under every bed just by setting down her purse. My brothers and sisters trickle behind me like loose beads from a broken necklace, gabbling and teasing, but I am the string that keeps trying to hold us together.

Once I saw a movie about a boy who wet his bed and became a champion runner because he had to beat his father home to dry his sheets before the anger found him. I do not want to be a champion runner. I want a different kind of winning, the kind that makes no noise. This is my secret race, the one nobody claps for, the one I don't have to share. I time myself with the clock in my chest and almost every day, I win. I am the quickest, the fastest, nearly always the first one home.

Today I burst through the door into the house that usually exhales her name.

"Mom!" I yell.

Silence answers.

I can tell she is not home by the way the kitchen light hangs in the air with nothing to shine on, by the stillness of the chairs, by the way the air does not smell like the tortillas she makes when the world needs to be fixed. I walk into the empty kitchen, and the smell of Pine Sol and old paper bags rises like ghosts to meet me. Even the walls are waiting.

Winter has arrived. I can tell as I open the humming refrigerator, its motor a tired, low prayer, and stare at the lone scratched plastic pitcher of tap water on rusty shelves. The cold air wraps around my face like a hand with nothing in it.

October, November, and December are always bad months for us. The calendar does not hang on the wall; it hangs from my mother's shoulders. In October, the numbers grow heavier as the harvest thins. Fieldwork becomes a rumor, and money turns transparent. By November and December, the months stretch into a long hallway of hurry up and wait, wait and hurry up, the projects growing quiet in a way that is not peace but exhaustion. Families fight. The police sirens sharpen their voices. Even the stars over the parking lot blink less.

In these months, my mother grows quieter, as if every word she might say has a price. There are so many of us, and the littler kids have not yet learned that we are poor. They point at glowing televisions and glossy catalogs as if pointing could conjure things into our living room. The older ones know better. Our wanting hurts her. It hurts so much that by Christmas morning, wanting itself is an unforgivable luxury. There will be no toys, no bicycles, no shiny dresses, and my mother will not get out of bed. Even the sun waits in the hallway.

I shut the refrigerator door. The kitchen hums to itself. Angel, my baby sister, squeals through the kitchen door, a streak of bare legs and wild hair. I grab her, and the warmth of her small body is like a stolen piece of summer.

Lisa, my older sister by two years, grins at me with her cracked front tooth, laughter spilling out as if the crack is how the light gets in. She scoops Angel up and carries her toward the back of the house, wrestling her into a clean diaper and a dress that still remembers how to be new.

I love Lisa. I know because her presence turns the broken parts of the day into something that can hold water. Her caramel-colored eyes sit behind brownish red hair, and her gaze wraps around me with a silent message: it's going to be alright. When nightmares climb the walls at night like cockroaches, her bedroom door is always open. She never gets mad when I come to her, never questions why. She just lifts the blanket, lets me curl against her heartbeat, and holds me gently until sleep remembers my name.

She is my little mother. When our real mother is gone working in fields that steal her voice, Lisa stitches us together with chores and jokes and the simple act of being there. She knows things, heavy things that cannot be spoken because if they were, they might fill the room and leave no space for air. She never told me this. I just know.

I know things without being told. Lisa knows things too. Knowledge moves between us like a small bird that trusts only our hands.

The house fills with laughter as we fight over who sits where in front of the old black-and-white television. Sometimes the picture twists itself into strange, elongated faces, sometimes it snows inside the screen while outside the sky is clear. Roudy, my little brother, huffs once again as he loses his hard-won place on the sofa. He climbs up to adjust the aluminum foil wrapped around the wire hanger that serves as an antenna. When he touches it, the picture clears for a moment, and a woman on the screen blinks at us in surprise, as if she did not expect to be seen in our living room.

I sit quietly next to Lisa, my eyes tugged again and again toward the clock and then the kitchen door.

It is not like Mom to be this late. My stomach folds itself into knots. Ever since Isabel’s mom got shot by a man in a bar, late has begun to mean something else. Late means maybe never.

Isabel’s mom died, and all her kids had to go live with their fathers, scattered like loose change into pockets in other cities, other states. She had seven children. My mother has eight. Numbers like that make grown-ups whisper.

I still remember the night Isabel's sister Maria knocked softly at our kitchen door. The door trembled a little before my mother opened it. Maria stood there with all her brothers and sisters behind her, lined up like punctuation marks, the sentence of their life suddenly cut off. My mother asked what was wrong, but the question broke in half in the air between them. I could tell by their faces that whatever had happened was big enough to rearrange the furniture in heaven.

Maria began to speak, but the words rushed back inside her and burst out as sobs. She fell into my mother's arms, burying her face in the blouse that smelled like tortillas and sweat and something else—something like refuge. In between sobs, she told us that her mom was dead. A lady from the police station was coming to take them away. They were going to have to live with their fathers.

Maria would not let go of my mother, as if by holding on she could change the ending. The other kids stared past us, into some distance I could not see.

I watched from the living room, half-hidden, as if not being fully visible could protect me from the story. All I could think was that I did not want my mother to die. I did not want my brothers and sisters to be folded into strangers’ houses in strange states. We do not even know our fathers the way we know Mom’s hands or Lisa’s laugh. I did not want to be Isabel, and I did not want my Lisa to become Maria, sobbing in someone's doorway.

Mom’s home! Lisa's voice breaks through the memory like a rock through window glass. She runs toward the kitchen door. The living room scrambles; pillows stand up straight, homework slides under books, crayons hold their breath. We want our world to look better than it is when our mother steps into it.

She opens the door. I can tell by the way she sets down her purse and apron that the day did not go well. The apron sighs when it hits the chair. Angel toddles over for a hug, but Mom only gives her a halfhearted squeeze, as if hugging costs money. Then she pivots toward the kitchen, alone.

We all feel it. The air pulls back. My brothers and sisters slink quietly back to their seats, drawn to the flickering television as if it can shield us from her mood.

I know when she stays away from us, she wants to be left alone. Her silence clanks louder than pots and pans.

She begins pulling together her bowl, rolling pin, and comal, the holy trinity of our survival. My heart leaps. Whatever is gnawing at her will find its way into the masa, and the masa will rise anyway. My stomach grumbles before the flour even hits the bowl because it has learned that where there is dough, there is a chance at peace.

"Jeffrey," she calls.

The sound of my name in her mouth is usually a blessing, but today it lands heavy. I run to her side. She digs into her pocket and pulls out a ten-dollar bill. It looks larger than money on TV. It looks like a small miracle that slipped past the guards. She stares at it for a moment, as if maybe she could turn it into twenty just by looking harder. Then she presses it into my hand.

"Mijo, run to Wingfoot Market and buy a bag of rice. Buy this size." From the drawer, she pulls an almost empty small bag of Mahatma rice, “Hurry back, mijo."

Excitement lights up my chest. She chose me. She picked me to carry the miracle. I push through the kitchen door into the cooling afternoon. Outside, the sky leans down to listen.

I run toward Wingfoot, jumping over the cracks, flying across the playground. Kids call out my name, throw taunts like rocks, but they fall short. I am the fastest. I am the one she trusts not to dilly-dally, as she always says. The ten-dollar bill warms in my fist, a second heartbeat.

It is exactly 757 steps to the store. I know because I have counted them many times, each step a number, each number a small spell against bad luck. Today my steps grow even bigger, longer; they feel like they could carry me all the way out of the projects if I did not have to come back.

Wingfoot Market is new, and new things in our world gleam suspiciously. They have everything here: clothes, toys, food, medicine, shelves of possibilities arranged in neat rows under humming fluorescent lights. The air-conditioning kisses my face. For a second, I feel rich just breathing.

I wander through the aisles in search of the rice. The bags stand like soldiers on the shelf, bright and full.

I wonder why she only wants the small bag. I can carry the big one; my arms are stronger than they look. Maybe she does not think so. Or maybe this ten-dollar bill is already divided in her mind, carved into gas money and tortillas and a bus fare we do not yet know we will need.

I grab the small bag and stand in line.

"That'll be 1.85," the cashier says, not looking at me like a person but like the next thing in line.

I reach into the pocket of my faded rust-colored corduroys. My fingers close on air. I reach into the other pocket. Nothing. My back pockets. Nothing.

No money.

My heart begins to race the way it does when I run, but this time there is nowhere to go. The cashier's face tightens with annoyance as I tell him I have lost ten dollars. He pushes the rice to the side, its paper crinkling in protest, and tells me to go find it.

I push past the lady behind me and trace my steps back through the milk aisle, past the vegetables, into the aisle where I first found the rice. The floor gleams up at me. No money. I crouch to look under the shelves, as if the ten-dollar bill might be hiding, scared, waiting for only me to find it. Nothing.

My eyes begin to sting. I wait in line again, smaller now.

"That'll be 1.85," he repeats when it is my turn, his voice like a door that keeps swinging shut.

"I... I can't find the money, sir," I whisper.

"What?"

"I can't find the money, sir. I lost it. It's not in the store. Did someone turn it in?" The words sneak out, each one more ashamed than the last.

"I'm sorry, son. Maybe you lost it on your way here. Try and find it, then come back."

He does not understand. He does not understand that it is not just a ten-dollar bill. It is borrowed dignity. It is rice and gas and a fraction of my mother's pride. He doesn't know my mother had to ask Grandma for that money, how Grandma's eyes turn into sharp coins when she lends things. He doesn't know that inside my chest, something large and fragile just cracked open.

I walk out through the automatic doors that sigh behind me, like even the store feels sorry. Outside, the air is hotter. The fading sun looks away.

I trace my way back through the field, my eyes glued to the ground. Each weed, each candy wrapper, each rock looks for a second like it might be money. It never is. I sweep the earth with my gaze as if the ten-dollar bill might rise up and confess where it's been.

No money.

The quiet playground waits ahead, empty swings moving just a little as if someone invisible is still pushing them. I walk through it slowly, like a condemned man. The distance between Wingfoot and our kitchen door stretches into forever.

At the door, I stop. The wood under my hand is warm. I do not want to go in. I already know that my empty hands are louder than any apology I could make.

I open the door. The sound of my brothers and sisters playing in the living room drift toward me, small islands of normal in an ocean that suddenly feels enormous.

Mom hears me. She turns. Her eyes go first to my face, then to my hands.

"Jeffrey, where's the rice?" Her voice walks toward me before her body does.

She steps closer. "Answer me, Jeffrey. Where's the rice?"

"I... I lost the money, Mom. I don't know where. I looked and looked for it but the man at the store..."

Before I can finish, her beautiful flour-covered hand curls into a fist, and the flour becomes dust around a stone. The fist flies toward my face. Time slows enough for me to see the white knuckles, the streak of dough on her wrist, the raw hurt in her eyes. Then impact.

The world explodes into stars, not the kind in the sky but the kind that burst inside your skull. I land under the kitchen table, my cheek pressed to the chipped white linoleum that glitters with specks of gold as if someone once tried to make the floor into a night sky and then stopped halfway. The cool tile soothes the hot bloom on my face.

Above me, her voice pours out in a long, unstoppable wail. She talks about how she could just kill me, how she had to borrow that money from Grandma, how humiliated Grandma made her feel. Each word is another car of a long train that passes straight through my body, dragging sparks.

I see small feet—Roudy’s, Angel’s, the others—rush into the kitchen to see what happened. Roudy starts to cry. Lisa grabs Angel as she tries to run toward me.

My mother's voice rises again, sharp as broken glass. She screams at me to go to bed and not come out till morning. Her hand grabs me from under the table and shoves me down the long, dark hallway. The hallway stretches, the shadows lengthen, as if the house itself is trying to swallow me.

In the bedroom I share with my brothers, I crawl into my bed. My body shakes, but I am too afraid to let the sound of crying escape. Tears, I decide, are a luxury like Christmas gifts.

From my bed, I hear the kitchen door slam as Mom leaves the house. Silence spreads over the living room like a thin blanket. I can hear Lisa’s soft voice comforting Roudy, his muffled sobs hiccupping into quiet.

Mom comes back. The kitchen wakes up with the sizzling of oil, the chopping of onions, and the rustling of rice. The smell drifts down the hallway, familiar and complicated, like love burning just a little. I do not remember how long I lay there in the dark, wondering what happened to the ten-dollar bill, but eventually I heard her call everyone to the table. Plates click and clatter, forks scrape, and the evening carries on without me.

Lisa and Becky wash the dishes, their voices low. Water runs, and the sink glows with soap bubbles that will be gone in seconds.

Footsteps in the hallway. Someone is coming into my room.

"Jeffrey," Lisa whispers. "Are you asleep?"

I don't answer. Silence is my last shield.

"I have something for you."

She takes my hand in the dark and presses two warm tortillas into my palm. They are soft and thick, edges still damp from the comal. For a second, they feel like two tiny suns she has stolen just for me. Then she disappears back down the hallway.

My throat loosens. I begin to cry, quietly, so the tears run inside instead of out. I rise and tiptoe to the bathroom. The light switch clicks, and the bare bulb floods the small room with ruthless truth.

My reflection startles me. My face has begun to swell and bloom in shades of purple and blue. One eye is nearly closed, fat with hurt. I look like someone else, a boy from another story. How am I going to go to school? Will the kids ask what happened? Will I tell them the truth—that sometimes love comes wrapped in flour and fury?

My thirst disappears. I turn off the light and tiptoe back to my room, holding the tortillas like a fragile secret.

The moon peeks through the thin curtain, smearing its pale light across the walls. I lie down and gently trace my fingers over the bruised skin, mapping the geography of this new world on my face. In the hallway, I hear the pitter-patter of bare feet as everyone gets ready for bed. Doors open and close. Laughter shrinks, then dissolves.

I turn my back to the door and pretend to be asleep as my brothers climb into their beds. Roudy calls my name, soft and afraid: "Jeffrey... Jeffrey..."

I do not answer. My silence is the only thing I have that still belongs only to me.

Tears slip down my face and find the swollen bruise, the salt making it sting. I look down at my hand. I am still holding the tortillas. They have grown cool and heavy, but they are proof that somewhere inside this house, kindness is still moving around, stealing food from anger, feeding the exiled.

Everyone’s breathing slowly finds that nighttime rhythm, each inhale and exhale a small boat drifting farther into dreams. Their sleep fills the room like a tide.

The smell of candles drifts in, mixed with the faint odor of smoke and wax. I hear my mother weeping in the other room. Her sobs rise and fall, tide against shore.

I begin to cry again, but this time the tears are not only for myself. I cry for my mother, whose hands are asked to do too much. I cry for Lisa, who is older than her years and younger than her burdens. I cry for Roudy and Becky and Angel and all my brothers and sisters, who do not yet know how poverty can bend a person out of shape. I cry because we are poor, not just in dollars but in safety, in ease, in the kind of love that never hits.

As the night deepens, the projects outside my window exhale. Streetlights buzz. Somewhere a siren sings itself hoarse. The stars over our roof flicker like someone slowly turning the dimmer switch on the universe.

Lying there, I feel myself begin to drift—not asleep exactly, but away. Away from the projects, away from empty refrigerators and calendars heavy with bad months, away from November and December and ten-dollar miracles that vanish. I travel inside myself to a place where my face is unbruised, where my mother’s hands only knead dough and never tighten into fists, where Lisa laughs without the world resting on her shoulders.

I close my eyes and dream a better day into existence, as if somewhere, in some other version of this world, that day is real and waiting for us.

In that world, the ten-dollar bill is never lost. In that world, the rice pot is always just full enough. In that world, my mother’s tears water something that grows tall and strong, something like a tree or a boy who learns how to turn pain into tenderness. In that world, kindness is a seed.

In this world, I fall asleep clutching two cold tortillas. And still, somewhere deep inside the bruise and the hunger and the fear, something in me refuses to turn hard. Something small and stubborn keeps whispering run, love, stay soft.

by Jeffrey Lazos Ferns