Moonwalking, page 8
except for the last fact
which happened this year
and which Dad and Uncle Russell
talked about on Sunday after church
over a bottle of vodka
and a twelve-pack of beer
“I liked the part
where he climbed the fence
to lead the workers on strike
after the shipyard fired him.”
“Not the shipyard. The government
fired him,” I say.
“The Communist government.”
Though it wasn’t
a Communist government
that fired my father
and Uncle Russell
and took our old lives
away
but the president who said
Communists are the enemy
we’re not like them
and we stand up to them.
IV
I take my worksheet from Pie
cross out my answers to the question:
In what way is this person similar to the Founding Fathers, and in what way is this person different?
I imagine
two aunts
and an uncle
I’ve never met
in a country I’ve never seen
in a city, Warsaw
invaded by one side then another
flattened by bombs and big guns.
The encyclopedia
had pictures from the war
even if my grandparents
didn’t.
One aunt
crushed in a bombing.
Another aunt
married in Poland and happy.
At least that’s what Dad says.
The uncle no one talks about
on the other side
in the government
against Lech Wałęsa
against Solidarity
even though
we’re supposed to be
family.
Solidarity means
we all belong
we all work together
we’re like union brothers
and sisters
but my family is broken
and scattered
in Poland and in America
and I’m here alone.
Loner or Leader
Time to choose.
I flip my paper
to the other side.
Lech Wałęsa is similar to the Founding Fathers because he stood up to a big country that had taken away his people’s freedom, and he wasn’t afraid to die or go to jail to win their independence and freedom. He’s different because he was poor instead of rich and he didn’t do well in school or have much education. He also believed everyone should be able to join a union and fight for their rights.
PA’LANTE
I do all I can for my mother. The food I cook tastes so good that I can usually get her to eat but when she locks herself in her room and even
Pilar’s sobs can’t coax her out, then I have to call for help. Except today our phone doesn’t work ’cause Mami hasn’t paid the bills in
a while. I stack them neatly on the kitchen counter but she can’t see them ’cause she only leaves her room to use the toilet in the middle
of the night when she thinks me and Pilar are asleep (I’m not). So I go down the hall and knock on Mr. Ashrawi’s door. With his oxygen tank
he can’t get around all that well but he always lets me in and I always take him a plate of food when we have extra so tonight when I need to
call for help Mr. Ashrawi lets me in right away and silently watches from his recliner as I call my tío up in the Bronx and tell him what’s going on.
When Uncle Lou shows up he’s not alone. His girlfriend Marta is with him which means me and Pilar each get a long hug and when it’s my turn
I try not to cry as I press my face into her softness and breathe in her spicy perfume. “Don’t worry, papi, everything’s gonna be okay,” she says.
I nod without looking her in the eye and that’s when I notice that Marta has brought her cosmetics case and when Uncle Lou can’t
get Mami to respond by yelling and pounding on the door with his palm, Marta pushes him aside and starts talking softly in Spanish, her
lips close to the door. Before long we all hear the click that means Mami’s ready to open up but she doesn’t come out. Instead Marta
opens the door just enough to fit her curvy body inside. I manage to get a glimpse of Mami before the door closes and what I see makes
tears fill up my eyes again but I can’t let Pilar see me crying so I put my arm around her shoulders, give her a squeeze, and tell her to go
get the playing cards. Pilar loves Go Fish and I know Uncle Lou don’t mind playing for a while since it keeps her mind off what’s happening
behind Mami’s closed door. If it was just me and my tío we’d play dominoes but when Marta opens the door to Mami’s room she tells
me and Lou to clear out so she can start working her magic. “The spa is now open. Pilar, chica, you want a makeover, too?” Lou nods at
the window and says, “That’s our cue, kid.” I follow him out onto the fire escape where he lights up and blows a stream of smoke into the
night sky. I shiver a little and ask Uncle Lou to tell me about his time with the Young Lords, the years when he wasn’t much older than me,
wore a beret, and did crazy stuff like piling mounds of garbage in the middle of Third Avenue to force the sanitation department to respect the
barrio. “Those were the days, papi—we did it all: free breakfast for the kids, health care for the old folks, and education for us all so we could
free our minds.” Uncle Lou stops talking and the smile on his face slowly vanishes. / These dreams / These empty dreams …
I know he’s probably thinking about the time he spent locked up so I tell him about the worst teacher at my school, Mr. Zullo, and how
he never calls on me even when my hand is raised and he knows I know the right answer. “Now we got this project—we have to write
about a leader who changed the world and I don’t wanna write about some dead white guy … even though I know that’s the only way
to get an A.” Uncle Lou nods and tosses his butt into the alley. “You thinking ’bout picking one of the Young Lords for your project?
Plenty to choose from—you got Cha-Cha Jimenez who started it all out in Chicago and then you got the Nuyoricans like Felipe Luciano
and Pablo ‘Yoruba’ Guzmán—and you can’t forget the hermanas: Iris Morales, Denise Oliver, and Sylvia Rivera—she started that uprising
down in the Village. You know about Stonewall, right?” Before I can answer, Uncle Lou shakes his head and looks away. I can’t tell if he’s
looking at something real or something in his mind’s eye. “We tried, you know. We really tried. Who knows what we mighta done if the
Feds hadn’t busted us up. Made us turn on each other—just like they did with the Panthers. And where are we now?” Uncle Lou nods with
sad eyes at the smoldering trash and rubble in the vacant lot next to our building. “It’s a shame, man. It’s a damn shame. And they
locked a whole bunch of us up but we know who the real criminals are. We know.” I roll my lips in and nod. Uncle Lou’s been through a
lot and now he’s here taking care of Mami even though he’s her little brother. I try not to call Tía Rosa ’cause she asks too many questions
and always makes us feel like this is our fault, like Mami wouldn’t be this way if Pilar and I were better kids or if we all went to mass each
week or if Mami got married and had a man to depend on. Uncle Lou doesn’t judge or blame us, he just tries to help and that’s why I’m not
surprised when he punches my shoulder (not hard) and tells me to spill the beans. “I can tell you got something on your mind, papi.
You worried ’bout your mom?” I nod again but say, “Actually, Tío … I been thinking ’bout my dad.” Uncle Lou nods and waits for me to go on.
“I thought maybe … maybe I could write about an African leader. You told me once that he was a revolutionary.” “Definitely!” Uncle Lou says,
leaning in so I can hear him over the sirens and shouting in the street. “You got plenty to choose from—Nkrumah, Kenyatta. Shoot—
you could go way back and write about Ramses. Or Taharqa—the Black pharaoh.” That sounds cool but tell him I was thinking about
Patrice Lumumba. “He’s from the Congo, right?” Uncle Lou’s smile creeps back across his face and his eyes go soft for a few seconds.
“Your father—he ain’t here and I know that’s hard for you but he’d be proud of you, papi. Real proud. I know I am.” Uncle Lou reaches out
and pulls me close so he can plant a kiss on my forehead. “I miss him, I guess.” (Can you miss someone you never met?) “And I do wish I
could talk to my father sometimes. But I got you. I got Tito. I got Mr. Ashrawi. I’m good.” “You good?” Uncle Lou asks playfully. “I’m good,”
I reply with a grin. “Then go do your homework, muchacho, and I’m gonna go down the hall and pay my respects to my friend—if I can
make it through Marta’s ‘spa’ without coming out smelling like roses and covered in glitter.” We both laugh, then Uncle Lou kisses the top
of my head and climbs back through the window leaving me alone on the fire escape. I climb up to the roof ’cause from there I can see the
lights on the Williamsburg Bridge. It stretches across the East River to Loisaida. The East River leads out to the Atlantic Ocean. My father is
somewhere on the other side of the ocean. Maybe he has other sons in his other life. Maybe he doesn’t even know I exist. I climb back down
the fire escape and slip inside our apartment. Mami looks like a movie star. She’s laughing and dabbing pink lipstick on Pilar’s parted lips.
I look at Marta and hope my smile tells her how grateful I am. When Mami gets better, I will ask her to give me my father’s full name.
Maybe it’s not too late to find him. Maybe Uncle Lou is right. Maybe my father would be proud of me.
Leader Worksheet
Social Studies 7H-8
Pierre Velez
Mr. Zullo
October 25, 1982
Your chosen leader: Patrice Lumumba
Place and Date of Birth: Katako-Kombe, Zaire; 1925
Place and Date of Death: Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo; 1961
Key moments in life that shaped your leader’s character:
How did this person create change in their community, country, or world?
In what way is this person similar to the Founding Fathers, and in what way is this person different?
-Lumumba never enslaved anybody
-Lumumba believed Black people were fully human (not 3/5)
-Lumumba wanted his country to be free & independent, not a colony that was controlled by Belgium
In what way has this person inspired you?
If you could ask this person three questions, what would they be?
Leader of the MNC (Mouvement National Congolais)
United his people
Made colonizers nervous (Belgium and USA)
Uttered the truth through passtionate poetry and speeches
Met with UN secretariat in NYC
Believed Africa was at the dawn of freedom
Assasinated at age 35
MY NEW WORLD
Manny and Oz think I’m nuts
and maybe I am
I mean how often does a cute girl
stop by my locker to ask if
I’m going to the dance on Friday?
the answer is: probably not
since Benita can’t go
she’ll be at church with her father
and there’s no one else I want to dance with
but I can’t say that out loud so I play it cool
wink and tell Ana I’ll see her around
she smiles and writes her number on my hand
before walking away with her homegirls
Manny can’t believe a girl that fine is into me
and the truth is, neither can I
Oz slaps me on the back like I’ve hit a home run
and says no doubt about it—Ana’s a ten
that’s what they do now, give the girls we grew up with
a number on a scale from one to ten which is why
I haven’t told them how I feel about Benita
I know just what they’d say and I don’t want
her name coming outta their mouths
unless they say it with respect
we been friends since forever but sometimes I
feel like Manny and Oz are a pair of shoes
that don’t really fit me anymore
when I told them about the program at
the museum they just nodded and went
back to comparing their Donkey Kong scores
everything’s gotta be about a number and I don’t know
how to tell them about JMB and how I want to
learn to do with my hands what he does with his
how I’m combing the bloque for objet trouvé
so I can paint a masterpiece that will wipe the
smug smiles off the other kids at the museum
who only want to paint like Picasso or Monet
one Asian girl Sue took the train with me after class
she asked if I liked Andy Warhol and Keith Haring too
I didn’t even know who they were but she didn’t
make me feel dumb, she told me they were
white artists with rich and famous friends
who liked to party with JMB downtown
Sue also told me there’s a gallery in SoHo
showing some of JMB’s art
“You should totally check it out,” she said
before getting off the train and I nodded
like that was something I do all the time
never been to SoHo and I know Manny
and Oz won’t want to go
could I go by myself? would they let me in?
the museum is open to the public and
they gave us ID so we don’t have to pay
when we show up for class
if I want to find a place for
myself in this new world
I’m gonna need
a bigger pair
of shoes
SOUP
at lunch on Thursday
I tell Ms. K about my last
class at the museum and how
Sue told me about Warhol and Haring
and their epic parties downtown
Ms. K pulls a book off the shelf behind her desk
and opens it to a painting of a can of tomato soup
how is that art? I ask and wonder if someone like me
could paint a can of Goya beans and become a star
(I doubt it) then I ask Ms. K if she knows about the
