This Father’s Day Week Exclusively in “Stories for Pito” : “The Amazing Grace Race”

     I remember the time I thought I had misplaced my father…it was the fall of 2008 and I thought he was right where I always left him, at his upholstery shop on 6th street, enjoying the lunch I just made for him. A diabetic, low salt, low fat diet; a tall order for a short man. As I enter the shop, he looks up from the sewing machine where he is sewing together the patterns that would form someone’s slip covers.The shop is dusty, messy with multi-colored fabric scraps strewn everywhere there’s an empty space. Postcards and photos sent from all his daughter’s travels are arranged on a makeshift bulletin board on the wall behind his desk. The desk has every inch of surface space covered with books, pens, receipts and unopened mail. Bills, mostly. Fabric sample books lie on the work bench in no particular order. Pages open to customer’s whims. When he sees me, he takes his foot off the pedals, cuts the thread, removes the slip cover from under the clamp and sets it aside, sweeping the surface clean with his other hand.“Y que hay de comer hoy?” he asks me. I know that face. Hungry, hopeful that it’s good.
“Te hice arroz con pollo hoy” I put the plastic bag down in from of him.He carefully divides the chicken and rice from the Tupperware unto two separate plastic plates and shares his lunch with his worker, Tony. I silently seethe. Tony, the no-good lazy worker who constantly takes advantage of my father. The sicker he gets the more Tony takes. A job here, $50 there. My dad says he knows all about it. The sharing of the meal was not a random act, it happened daily. It’s as if Pito means to kill him with kindness. Tony blows through his Friday salary before Wednesday of the following week and counts on my father’s kindness, or anybody else’s to get through until the Friday paycheck again.

“Cooroota, cooroota, y Buena que ta!” my father praises my food today.
As I leave the shop, I glance behind me – both men head down over their food, one arm protecting their plates, another shoveling food in their mouths.That night like many nights, I would wait to hear that he arrived safely at home after work. Today by 7:00 PM, Access Hollywood is on and I realize I have not heard my usual alert so I call his cell nonchalantly – leaving a polite message. Perhaps he had said he would be out and I didn’t listen? He rarely went out alone at night anymore – he couldn’t trust his eyes to see. Diabetes had a done a number on his vision. At 8:00 PM, I am edgy. Did he forget to call me? His mind has been playing tricks on him lately – forgetting doctor appointments, not writing down full addresses when his clients called. I pace around my kitchen, phone at the ready.It seemed like yesterday that my father was so independent, sometimes I wouldn’t hear from him for days, a week even. I lived in New York, he in Hoboken, a whole river away. Of course, I knew his health was declining, he was gradually deteriorating. I was concerned but not enough to question his judgment. At one point I decided to move to Hoboken. To be closer. Just in case. I stare at the clock, 9:20PM. No word. His cell just keeps ringing until voicemail kicks in. It’s my own voice telling you not to leave a message, call him back later. He can no longer remember the instructions on how to retrieve his voicemail. I flip through the TV channels, not settling on anything to watch. 10:10PM. I am panicked and began to think of all the possible scenarios – he fell in the street on his six-block walk home? Did he faint, have a heart attack again? Oh my God – he’s probably at the ER. I try to remember if this has ever happened before. I feel my heart pounding, the heaviness of my head on my shoulders.By 10:30 PM, I am in full meltdown mode, convinced he has collapsed in his apartment – why am I wasting time here, he needs my help! I get dressed and tie on my sneakers. I dither about calling a taxi and decide that by the time I get through and they drive up, I can run to my father’s apartment. The Senior Assisted-Living apartment with the one advantage – an emergency button in each apartment. The distress signals no son, daughter or grandchild wants to receive. Would he even remember it’s there, in the bathroom?

I grab my keys off the counter and throw my cell in my pocket. Ten blocks. Ten city blocks and I will know what’s happening. I sprint through the park that separates our 10 blocks apart in Hoboken. Nobody left but the teenagers with nowhere to go. As I round the corner of St. Mary’s hospital, I catch a glimpse of the ER waiting room, willing he not be there – and my cell phone rings. I wipe the sweat from my brow and take out my phone.

10:45PM and it’s Edita, my father’s best friend’s wife. I pull up short and lean against a tree for support, out of breath. She calmly tells me that my father is there with her and her husband and that he couldn’t remember my cell number so he gave her his wallet and out of there she found my business card. I stare at the ER sliding doors. People in, people out. But not him. Not tonight. I am frozen to my place on the sidewalk like a pillar of salt and I was running from Sodom and Gomorrah. I hear her pass the phone to him. Rustling, crackling sounds ensue. Then his voice. He sounds a little sheepish; the words stuck together, his tongue thick. He left the shop to go see a client in Jersey City and left his cell in the taxi. He decided to visit his friend William who lived nearby and stayed for dinner. No, he didn’t ever realize the fright he put me through. He’ll leave right away.

I enter the foyer of his building and ring the bell. He buzzes me in. I take the elevator to the fourth floor and see his front door ajar. As I enter the apartment, I see the familiar blue green hall carpet, family pictures on the living room cocktail table, the quiet buzz of the TV tuned to the Spanish channel. Every light is on and I don’t see him sitting in his usual spot, his recliner. My heart drops. Again.

“Grrrrrgh!”     My father jumps out of his hiding place in the kitchen. His hands are curled, the lines on his face form a grimace, he’s laughing at me now, and I drop to my knees from fright. He helps me up and envelopes me in a hug. “I’m sorry, Ma!” My tears mix with the sweat on my face and I taste the double saltiness. I start to laugh hysterically as relief floods my body. His grip loosens but I can still feel the force of it.

“I ran all the way here!”

“A-ha?” Maybe you’ll run the New York Marathon next time!” ” In the Central Park?”

HA! All I know is that I was the one that was lost and now I am found.

This Father’s Day Week, Exclusively in “Stories for Pito” – “Taking the Bull by the Horns”

You remember that time when something funny or something bizarre happened to you? And your best friend told the story better than yourself? Like it happened to them? You stare at them in wonder and laugh because they own it, they own that story!

Pito had such a friend. William, or as my dad used to call him, by his full name,”William Lara Cintron”! They met in the D.R. as teens, and when Pito arrived to NY in 1962, it was William who welcomed him, found him a room to rent in the same boarding house that he lived in, on Amsterdam and W. 83rd Street on the Upper West Side.  In just over a week William also helped him get his first job at the factory in Brooklyn, where he worked.

William was a national poet laureate for the D.R. and in their youth, he and Pito composed and recited poems together – it was their greatest joy to outdo each other. This sense of competition carried over to other aspects of their lives. They both studied upholstery craft and opened shops that also sold plastic and slip covers and sold furniture on credit plans. They both married twice had children and would go out a couple of times a month together. They shared work, helped each other out during bad times and celebrated good times. Their children became friends, friendships that endure up to this day. William was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years ago. It’s about mid-to-late stage now. He may forget what he ate or even where he lives, but he always remembers Pito and their grand friendship. And he loved to tell stories about my dad repeatedly.

Whenever they would visit towards the end of Pito’s life, they would reminice. Pito would sit on the plastic-covered couch with his friend and talk softly to him. William would stare straight ahead in his own world. One time we were all sat around the living room. Our conversations had the ebb and flow to them of familial things. Suddenly, William turned to me and says,
“Rose, did you know that your dad killed a bull?”
I know this story but I let him tell it anyway. (it was a donkey, not a bull)
“Si! this bull kicked him and threw him against the cactus lining on the road and he got stung all over!”
“Really?” (I say trying to looking interested in a story I had heard before.)
“Si, and you know what he did?”
“Tell me.” (this is the best part)
“The next week he tied a bottle rocket to the bull’s tail and lit it up –  that thing landed on the road with all four hoofs in the air, haha!”
Pito turned to me and added:
“Yeah, Papa gave me such a licking that I was bed-ridden for a week!”
William chuckled to himself and then went back to staring straight ahead.
As we waited for a taxi to take us back home, I asked my dad if he ever regretted what he did.
“Claro que no – that bull had it coming!”

And just like that, the legend grew by William’s storytelling. It was no longer a poor hapless, ungraceful donkey but an enraged, indignant bull that narrowed its eyes on my father, the innocent by the side of the road. William never forgot that story, nor did he change the way he told it. He made it his own. And my dad was one to let greatness have its day.

William recently celebrated his 80th birthday surrounded by lots of family and love. My father would have loved to have been there, heck, I would loved to have been there. No doubt, Pito would have spun that well-told yarn about how after painting the town red and black, William would precariously drive them both home, crossing the George Washington Bridge with just his index finger on the steering wheel of the car. Barely making it home alive only to laugh it off the next day. Well, talk about taking the bull by the horns!

This Father’s Day Week, Exclusively in “Stories for Pito”: BFF’s Forever!

There they are….the 3 Musketeers!

My dad posed with his 2 best friends in July 2010, just 2 months before his passing. It’s hard to believe but these guys had known each other since childhood and had remained friends their entire adult life.

Pito first met Nicholas Garcia when they were both five years old. He’s the one on the right with the black and white shirt. They lived a few houses away from each other  in La Vega and went to the same school. When my dad was 8, he met Ramon  Belen. “Belen” as every calls him was the clown in the group – exhibit A, he pointed to my dad in this photo and introduced him, “El Chemo!” his childhood name for him. Nicholas’ easy charm spun many a funny story, but he was the elegant one of the trio, Pito was the “mischievous” one.

Pito and “…’Cola” as he called him, played on the same little league baseball team. Nicholas’s big brother Quico, played on the rival team. If you know Dominicans, you know they ARE baseball or “pelota” as they call it. Each weekend they would have their show-down on the dusty field of the Gaspar Hernandez Ballpark. Quico was the best pitcher on his team and the only one who could succeed in striking out my pop, sometimes three in a row! My dad, one to hold a grudge, didn’t speak to him for years after that.

Gradually, all three made their way to the Big Apple. My dad landed in 1962. ‘Cola was already in New York. Belen was not too far behind. They came for pretty much for the same reasons – to get the hell away from the crumbling epic failure that was a post-Trujillo D.R. They lived a block away from each other (much to their wives chagrin!), on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  Belen lived in Washington Heights. There were parties on the weekend, where drinks and good food where in order. Sunday was “Sancocho” Day. The Dominican stew was artistry in the making but definitely an acquired taste for a 7 year-old! Dancing late into the night in small living rooms, couches and tables were pushed back against the walls.  Merengue, Salsa, Guaracha, Mambo, what have you, all on vinyl, the scratches and skips were all part of the fun.

And the stories – they couldn’t stop once they got started. ‘Cola, would tell riddles, elaborate stories, my dad will tell stories of their childhood and their little gang of boys, Los Chucharos, and all the “travesuras” (mischief), they would commit. Belen was and is a die-hard Yankee Fan and many summers were spent plotting which games would be attended in “el yuankee stadium”. I considered it a lucky day if there was a ticket for me to go as well.  Their spirited shouts over beer and peanuts were contagious: “Let’s Go Yankees!” Clap,clap,clap,clap, clap.

Through first and second wives, through children and jobs, these men supported each other, were there for each other and when Pito got sick, they would come and visit him often. There was no hospital off-limits, nothing they wouldn’t try to make my old man laugh and forget his pain.

I am eternally grateful to these men. They showed us love, acceptance,  and support through-out the years. They were there for birthdays, weddings and funerals. They made us laugh and made us look at our dad with different eyes; as a man just trying to stay afloat in a new country. They were immigrants, all of them and they all succeeded in their own way.

But most of all, they were able to nourish a life-long friendship that set an example to all their children. Señores, thanks for the memories!