Walnut (Chapter One) — of Lafayette

Goodbye Mr. Chips

To this day the smell of massive amounts of flowers, like in a flower shop or funeral parlor will make my stomach queasy. Boys would not get bonus points for sending this girl flowers

I can’t tell you the day of the week or the actual date on the calendar but the when, October 1967, and the where the backseat of a limousine in a funeral procession on the way to the cemetery. Sounds like the board game Clue, but the characters are all different. Yes, there is a death, just like in the game, but the characters in this game are my family - well what’s left of my family. My older brother, Manuel, and older sisters Emily and Fernanda and my Aunt Leontina and my mother, Sindina, (a crumpled up version of herself), piled into this one limousine. In what was, at most, a twenty-minute ride, sitting in the backseat of the limousine, I instinctively knew nothing would ever be the same and definitely not better. Up until this day, when I saw him lying lifeless in a casket, I had no idea that my father had died. A tiny detail the so-called grown-ups forgot to mention to me. Even as they prepped and prompted me to wear my Sunday best and helped me squeeze my extra wide feet into my black patent leather shoes (my feet were as wide as they were high, inexplicably). In all the primping and prepping, not one person thought to brace me for what I was about to see.

My father had been in and out of the hospital for two years prior to his death. He was thirty-seven when he was first diagnosed with leukemia and given six months to live. The details are sketchy for me. Since no one had thought to tell me he had died, or some other fluffy version of the truth, like he’s with the angels now, or my favorite, God needs him up there more than he is needed here (serious, almost painful eye-roll). Why would you think anyone had even mentioned to me that he was seriously ill? That was not in our family’s DNA. In fact, the whole thing was very hush-hush, as if we were spies or worked for the CIA. Or the worst feeling! That we were somehow now contaminated or contagious to the outside world. There was a silent sense of shame that lingered in the air and you can’t see it but you carry the weight of it, like a backpack, everywhere you go. He had cancer people, he was not a leper! You can only follow the lead of your parents at this point in life, and silence was golden apparently. This was my mother’s way of coping, I assume. If you don’t speak of it, it isn’t real.

I knew that my father was in the hospital at times during those two years because we would go visit him but because of my age, I was never allowed up into his room. You had to be at least 12, such a ridiculous rule! And I was between the ages of five and seven during his hospital stays. I’d have to wait in the main lobby with my brother or one of my sisters taking turns keeping me company and sometimes by myself. Once, my family nervously and gleefully snuck me into the elevator to go see him in his room! (one of his glorious nurses was in on the caper). It was the same day my mother let me buy something from the gift shop for him. So many things to choose from, what a daunting task! What gift will scream, I love you! the loudest? Maybe there was a budget of how much I could spend? (of course, there was). I picked a small artificial plant that was in its own clay pot. It was tiny and unassuming but I expected it to speak volumes. It was a big job for a small artificial plant. The littlest plant from his littlest child. The little plant that could!

My parents met when my father rented a room at the boarding house my grandmother, Amelia, owned and lived in on the first floor with her four daughters, one of them my mother, Sindina, the second child. The house (on Lafayette Street in Newark, New Jersey) was magnificent in size and beauty, nestled in a bustling European immigrant community.

My grandmother Amelia, was a divorcee in 1939 and in a league all her own. Ahead of her time, odd (woman) out in that small immigrant community, out but not down. It was an uphill battle for a woman to take initiative and demand her life back. She was the sole owner of several multi-family houses in town, for a woman number one and an immigrant woman who could not write in English to boot. But she sashayed into Sunday mass every week with her shoulders back and head held high with her eyes saying, “I dare you to say something to me, come on, try”. She was not a big woman at all, actually small but mighty, with brown hair, that had a reddish sheen in the sun, sparkling hazel eyes, and a sly smile. At home, she wore housecoats and support pantyhose for those pesky varicose veins. Even so, she had a regal air and a don’t mess with me vibe. She enjoyed her soap operas, especially General Hospital, her massive and carefully curated garden, and cooking meals with wine (a lot of wine!) A little wine for the roasting chicken and even more for the cook as I remember, all done with glee and a twinkle in her eyes!

My grandmother, Amelia, her rose garden and me

My grandfather, Jose, was never mentioned (ever!) and not a picture to be found, not even their wedding photo. But there were rumblings or bits of stories that spilled out here and there. It was an arranged and turbulent marriage where at some point my grandfather contracted a man to kill my grandmother but she fought off her attacker and pushed him out of a window. This frightful marriage began in Funchal, a city in Madeira Island, Portugal, where both my grandparents were born and raised.

The story goes that my grandmother’s mother had died and her father remarried. Wife number two wanted my grandmother out of her hair. So, my great grandfather married his daughter off to a ne’er do well who had a stint in jail at some point. Why him? We’ll never know. My mother was a teenager when her father was no longer in her life. She tried to remain close to him but I think her attempts were thwarted by my grandmother. Who knows what my mother saw or suffered herself during the time my grandparents were together but I do know that my mother was distressed by physical and verbal altercations or loud voices of any kind but especially the alcohol-induced kind. She would rather flee than fight.

Behind the huge blue doors of Lafayette Street, there had been a family, a turbulent marriage and daughters growing into women and many secrets left untold that remain within the bones of that majestic home. But to an immigrant man seeking the American dream, that house represented a beacon of hope. A place to rest their weary head while they struggled to achieve their dreams. One such dreamer was my father, Fernando. How he landed at that address at that time only he could say. My father came to the U.S. from Leca da Palmeira, Portugal but he was born in Tourem, Portugal, which was a much smaller, village-like town than Leca.

He was extremely handsome and charismatic with wavy brown hair, brown eyes, and a killer smile. (Elvis, Gordon McCrae, and Ricky Ricardo rolled into one). My mother was smitten with him the moment she laid eyes on him. She never considered herself a pretty girl, but she was in her own way. She had coarse curly brown hair that she wished was straight and light brown eyes. She was witty and her eyes lit up when a topic was exciting and she had a giggle that was slurpy if she was really having fun. Together they looked like a glamorous Hollywood couple, from the photos I’ve seen. Back when men wore suits and hats just because and women wore heels with fitted dresses without a hair out of place and they wouldn’t dare be seen without lipstick. Even their pajamas and nightgowns were glamorous!

The courtship was not a long one. When they married my father was only twenty and things seemed to come easy for him. A confident bad boy who thrived on attention and all the girls flocked towards him. What he lacked in financial wealth he made up for in an abundance of charm and panache. He led with his looks and confidence.

My mother was a hopeless romantic and she had found her Sinatra. And it was somewhat of a coup to snare such a popular man as a husband! She was the opposite of an attention seeker and would much rather blend in than stand out. But, she did enjoy snaring the hottest catch in town from the girls who were batting for his affections. At twenty-five, in those days, she was on the road to Spinsterville. Her options were either to get married or take care of her strong-willed, boozy mother. This was not a shotgun wedding but faced with only these two options it might as well have been. She knew the devil she lived with, so she chose the devil yet to know. A chance at a new life (fingers crossed, a happy one). She was playful and liked to have fun but she was not a wild party girl. She was a dreamer and an avid reader, tearing through a book in a day was a breeze for her. Romance and murder mysteries were her escape from reality.

When they married, they moved into an apartment in another building my grandmother owned. The apartment was on Walnut Street (in Newark too). The building looked like it belonged on the set of The Flintstones. It was a massive rock with cuts made into it. Almost like a sculptor’s block of clay yet to be shaped and molded into something specific. I have never seen any building that looks like this one. It lacked style, finesse, and the come hither appeal of Lafayette Street. It was Lafayette’s ugly step-sister. Inside was just as dank and dreary as it’s exterior. Cold and soul-less and no redeeming qualities (not even a hint of beauty or whimsy did she offer). Except for the backyard which was a gift and a luxury in the Brick City. But even there, it could not compete with the likes of Lafayette Street’s massive garden. But, it did allow moments of imagination and wonder, where I could add to my bug collection with so many rocks to overturn discovering yet another bug. A lonely child’s delight…. nature, silence, and fantasy. There was always a stray cat to chat with or Orange Jack, our neighbor’s cat, who terrorized our dog Shota(meaning pest in Portuguese). Shota stopped dead in her tracks when Orange Jack sauntered towards her.

!Within four years they had three children: a boy Manuel, a girl Emily and another girl Fernanda. I’m not even a thought in their minds just yet. Seven years after my sister Fernanda was born, I came along. A big kerplunk of an oops! Or maybe a happy accident, I’ll never know. By the time I came along, my siblings had already formed their own club of sorts and they were all closer in age to one another. They had already shared things that I could never catch up with. When I looked at them, I often wondered if we were really even related.

My brother is eleven years older than me but I could see where we fit together, like two bookends to frame those two in the middle, creating some sort of cohesion. My brother was naturally handsome with the boy next door appeal but he didn’t lead with that. He had wavy light brown with golden flecks and fair skin. He was tall and thin and we had similar facial features but his eyes were light blue and mine green. He was quiet, not boisterous as boys tended to be. He was cerebral and artistic, always writing or drawing. He was patient with his inquisitive, attention-seeking littlest sister, always allowing me into his room to watch him draw and inviting me to do the same. I was drawn to him naturally, he was welcoming, gentle, and safe. He seemed like he belonged in another more bohemian family that I secretly wished we both had been part of. I had full access to his room and his art supplies. He was quietly encouraging when he saw my interest and some natural talent for it. He bought me oil paints, pastels, and all the best art supplies he could afford. Thanks to him and to the horror of many of my elementary school teachers, I handed in all my book reports with covers done in pastels, which left the teacher's hands with pastel residue. Even if my reports were lackluster and forgettable in content, my book report covers were definitely memorable. Manny, as we called him, felt like a kindred spirit. My sisters, on the other hand, were a mystery.

My oldest sister Emily, had the darkest curliest, almost kinky brown hair, darker skin tone, and dark brown eyes. She looked more like my parents, especially my mother than anyone. She was brazen and extroverted, always keeping my mother on her toes. Emily was known to disappear from the apartment without permission at any point in the day or night to hang out with friends. A wild free spirit compared to the rest of the brood. Although really smart, school and rules were not her thing.

My sister Fernanda, Nana for short, was the polar opposite of Emily. She had light brown hair with golden flecks, light brown eyes, fair skin, and wore eyeglasses. She was a straight-A student and never caused any commotion. She was quiet and introverted. My sisters were both tall and thin and I was built more like a block of ice, with a strong square-shaped face and body to match and my extra wide feet to keep me upright. My sisters and I shared one small bedroom with our twin beds lined up side by side, so close that we might as well have all been in one bed. Thankfully we weren’t ‘cause this gal was a consistent bedwetter into my teen years. As if I wasn’t already unpopular enough with my sisters, that would have really sent them running off yelling “cooties”!

Cousin Laurie, Emily, Dad, Nana, Manny and me at Point Pleasant Beach

Another kid was the last thing my parents needed when I came along. Well, my mother mostly. We all know she was going to do the grunt work here. My mother was overworked, stressed about money, distracted and devastated by the comings and goings of my father, and in a constant state of simmering fret. According to my brother, my father dipped in and out of family life. Not always coming home at night or as expected on our summer vacations at the Jersey Shore where he would deposit us but not return as planned.

My brother and sister, Emily had spotted him making out with different women on different occasions in his car, not far from home. Ballsy move, pardon the pun. His car was easy to spot since there were few if any like it in the neighborhood. My father drove a Chevrolet Corvair, a compact car. Not the car of a resigned family man with a wife and four children. A car that kept him in perpetual bachelorhood. But this is the same car we crammed into for summer weekends at the beach. Four kids crammed into the backseat and I was perched on one of their laps for the entire hour and a half ride. Each of us taking turns (or simultaneously) getting carsick!

This car certainly had a lot of stories to tell, romantic and otherwise. I am almost certain my mother found an earring or two that were not her own. Although my mother may not have seen any of it with her own eyes, she was no fool. She was, however, in love. But these were different times when it was not uncommon for women to look the other way. And what were her choices really? Go back to her mother’s house with four kids in tow? Having to hear “I told you so”, on a loop.

My grandmother was not a fan of romance and the weakness of women who fell for the fairy tale. Having been through the wringer herself, she didn’t trust men as a means of emotional or economic support. She also was not my father’s biggest fan from the get-go. He may have been a welcomed paying lodger once but as a son in law, he would never measure up. My mother was literally stuck between a rock, my grandmother, and a hard place, my father. The Walnut Street apartment building, with its rock exterior, perfectly reflected the life my mother was living. This was not the life she expected. She was trapped in a tiny dark apartment with four children of varying ages. I’m surprised she didn’t booze it up like her mother, but she didn’t. But there was palpable anxiety or a woman on the brink with a cloud looming over her head. If I wrote a book report back then on my mother, the book cover would be a drawing of a woman with a fretted face mustering up a smile while a cloud sits above her head with a thunderstorm brewing on the horizon. It was as if she took a deep breath but never exhales. We were fed and clothed and had a roof over our heads. But because she had other pressing realities to deal with, she had no time to be playful. And believe me, she would have been if things weren’t so hard. I see that now, but I didn’t see it then, I was just a kid. I wanted the kind of mom I saw on tv, Donna Reed or June Cleaver, I thought that was the norm and I had somehow been gypped. For a long time, I wished I had been adopted, because my siblings teased me enough that I sort of believed it. So, I secretly wished my real family was going to show up and claim me, their prized possession.
After a long day of being home with someone who was not playful and my siblings off in their own worlds, my father felt like the sun by comparison. He was the bright spot in my day. I would wait outside for him to come home from work. Who knows if he came home every day but when he did, I know I was thrilled! When I could see him down the street coming towards me, I was beside myself. Seeing his big smile from afar, I knew a big hug and an overripe banana from his metal lunchbox were coming my way. Let it be known, hugs were not given out willy nilly by my mother, if at all. Just not her thing. What is it they say in the south? Bless her heart. But I was all about the hugs, yes, please!!! There’s the lady I stay home with all-day who won’t engage with me and then there’s my father’s bigger-than-life personality who seems genuinely pleased to see me. Of course, I’m going to hop onto the shower-me-with-love train. All aboard! Choo Choo!

My father was already diagnosed by the time I was five and he was probably spending more time at home than he had in the past. Maybe he was ready to do this parenting thing better than he had handled with the other three? Maybe with dire diagnosis, he was rethinking his life and how he had lived it up ‘til now? I have more questions than answers about the details. But the way a person makes you feel has a lingering effect. More than what they said or did. But either way, he lit up a room and my heart. We had a real bond. Our birthdays were a day apart and we celebrated together. He seemed to revel in my innocence and he had a willingness to play. I was eager to please and starved for attention. I finally had a captive audience of one. Monkey see monkey do. Whatever he did, I mimicked and vice versa. We practiced boxing moves, mostly bobbing and weaving and a lot of touching our noses with the boxing gloves and no real punches ever landing. He had actually boxed when he was a little younger. I think he had probably wished for another boy, one to roughhouse with but I was more than happy to fill the bill because my brother didn’t like any physical boy foolishness or macho chest-pounding bravado.

My father was all bravado, it just came with the Portuguese immigrant blood coursing through him. I am man, hear me roar and watch me soar! But he was gentle, you just felt it especially when he would play my favorite board game, Pillow Fight, with me whenever I asked (which was often). And when just he and I watched whatever he liked on tv, mostly swashbuckling period pieces, our favorite, Scaramouche, which we watched more than a few times. Maybe that’s where my fantasy and reality intertwined thinking my father killed crocodiles for a living. Yes, really. I saw him as a swashbuckling, sword carrying crocodile slayer by day and a dad by night. But his day job was not as exciting as I had imagined. He worked at a leather factory and one day he brought home a purse made of crocodile skin and said he had made it at work. So how could my superhero be just a factory worker? He had to have a more fantastical adventure every day because he was bigger than life...the kind of man you only see up on the big screen in my eyes.

As popular as he was at home with me, he was also well known and respected in the community. Always fighting for the underdog and bettering the immigrant experience. Even rallying and successfully organizing a union at the factory he worked at. No easy feat for a legal resident of the United States and not an official citizen. He was working on his American dream on the side. Attempting various business ventures, a peanut bar named Iberia for one (the bar is still there today). But, I don’t think his business ventures brought him much success. Rich in spirit but poor in pocket. As popular as he was in the community for his generosity of spirit, he was even more popular with the ladies for those same qualities, probably why his actual side businesses never garnished him any big success, too many extracurricular activities.

With my father being a swashbuckler by day and a freedom fighter and my pal by night, my mother didn’t fit into the scenario. I just saw her as the help and that’s a terrible thing to say but, I want to be honest here. She got the job done. But because she didn’t have time to play with a babbling, excited, eager to please, five, six, or seven-year-old or whatever age it is you become aware of who you can pander to and who you can’t, I dismissed her. I didn’t show her the same excitement I would shower upon my father. She had the dirty job of keeping me safe, fed, and healthy. She wasn’t there to be my personal court jester or window into the world. I was going to figure that out on my own, I was soon to find out. My mother was a dreamer and a romantic even though she would never admit it. And her life certainly did not go as smoothly as she had hoped. She had a talent for drawing and was supposed to attend a prestigious arts high school(Arts High) on the other side of town. Why she didn’t, I don’t know. I can imagine that her mother didn’t think studying art offered any monetary future. And my grandmother was all business and a tough cookie.

Not that I would learn directly from my mother any of her hopes or dreams or real feelings. She kept things very close to the vest her entire life, at least with me anyway. And I had pretty much written her off instinctually when I was seven. On that very day in October 1967 in the backseat of that limousine on the way to my thirty-nine-year-old father’s burial. I unwittingly harbored resentment towards her, her entire life. A resentment for not protecting me from seeing my father in a casket without giving me a head’s up first or hey maybe not making me see that at all and explaining in some way, he was gone. And the second strike was silent but deadly. In the backseat of that limousine, I glanced over at my mother, who was sitting behind me, for some sign of hope, love, or I got you, kid. I would have gladly taken her hand reaching out to me, touching my shoulder, something to let me know, we’ll be alright. But my eyes met with hers and there was nothing, no sign of life or comfort to be found. She had emotionally checked out. On that day I lost both parents. Even though I’m in a car full of family, I had never felt more displaced and alone than I did with them in that car that day.

The burial was in the morning and afterward, we went back to our apartment, which today looked even more dismal than usual, and now it was filled with zombies. No tears, no words, no statement or expression of the obvious. Our world has crumbled but no one is acknowledging it. Each of us harboring our own panic and fear. I realized that my brother and sisters were no more informed or prepared than I was for what had just happened. They might have known he was gone before I did but they certainly did not seem any less scared now than I was, which was frightening. I knew at seven that I would have to figure out things on my own. My place in this family and in the world.

But DNA holds a lot of silent power. My answer was to deflect, deny, and ignore all the bubbling volcanic feelings rumbling inside of me. Only a little while after getting back to the apartment the day of the burial, I asked my mother if I could go to school for the remainder of the day, it was before noon and the afternoon session hadn't started yet.

You see my father had left me with a parting gift, whether he knew it or not. He had my mother register me for private school when I began first grade. Maybe he wanted the catholic religion to be more prevalent in my life than it had been for my siblings, who always attended public school. Maybe religion was a solace to him while he was ill, I’ll never know. But this school, Saint James Grammar School even though only a few blocks from the cold hard rock building, in which I lived, felt like home. I could breathe, smile, learn, play, and excel here. I loved the order and the discipline, the routine of my day and even wearing a uniform. I knew what was coming, no surprises here. There was continuity, comfort, and safety, things I craved.

How could he have known that this was exactly what I needed in his absence? But I think that it was all a part of his American dream as a young man coming from a small town in Portugal, to do better and be better. And though fate did not afford him the chance to age into the man he wanted to be, he had the foresight to make my life a little gentler than it had been for him or anyone else in our family. I’d like to think it’s a wink and a nod to our special bond and how he tried to cushion the turn my life was about to take without him.

We never spoke of my father again(never my choice) around the dinner table or ever, as if he never existed. We followed my mother’s cues and silence was her choice. If you don’t speak of it, it isn’t real.