PLANT OF CONTRADICTIONS: PUERTO RICO

Abstract

9 2 Y P L A N T O F C O N T R A D I C T I O N S P U E R T O R I C O T I P H A N I E Y A N I Q U E Papa’s hands are in my mouth. The pliers are frigging deep. He always starts at the back. That makes it worse at the end, which is the front. All confusing, but he’s that kind of bastard, my Papa. He twists the pliers. The pain now is in my gums, but it is also up in my jaw, in my ears. Sometimes it’s like the pain is in my actual skull. Like I am the pain. The suction pump inhales all the gross spit, and then screeches whenever I swallow. Scream, scream is what I need to do, but I never do. Never scream. Instead I grip the chair arms and hold tight, dig my nails in. Papa glances down at my hands, gripping. He’s checking to make sure I don’t mess up his chair. Then he gets back to work. I never ruin the leather. Not even close. I wonder if I’m ever going to get that bag of teeth. See, right now I look like a torture victim. But usually, when I’m not in this chair, I look Jewish. But I also look Puerto Rican. Which tells you something about what kind of sense all that how you look stu√ makes . . . none. Though maybe it’s also saying that being a Puerto Rican Jew is being a torture victim. Anyway, I could easily be a Muslim or an Arab or a half-black kid. And whatev. A Jewish kid is the same as a Muslim kid. Same damn 9 3 R people. And Puerto Rican is just another way of saying half-black. That’s what Angelo Torres Daniels says, and his father is proper black – from the States. It’s all the same, Angelo says. And I agree. I usually agree with Angelo. He also says that how I look is like how all people used to look before we left Pangea, or wherever. This also means that I look like how all people are gonna look in the future, when we get back to basics. Blond and blue eyes is a mistake, a hiccup – like what Papa says about homosexuality. Papa isn’t totally homophobic or whatever. He says it’s not the gays’ fault, but that it’s a genetic dysfunction. The world will set it right, and the blonds and the gays will fade away. But Papa is the real black one. Negroni. A big lick of the tar brush. But he’s also actually the proper Jew. Kosher all the way. See, Mom is the real Jew, which she says doesn’t mean shit, but Papa says it means everything. Hear that? I cursed just there. Real cursing. I’ve been cursing lately – me and Mama both. It’s because of Auntie Mermaid and cousin Maristela coming. Anyway, Papa is proper because he’s not real. He converted to marry Mom, ocean mikveh and everything. That mattered to Mom then, though really I can’t imagine it ever mattering to her. I can’t see anything mattering to her more than our lime trees. And me. And maybe the bag of baby teeth she carries around her neck. Me and Ma, we matter a lot to each other. But I think Papa has a problem with his complexion. It matters like way too much to him. Me? I don’t see anything wrong with being really brown. I mean, I didn’t know the president of the United States could be white even. We’ve had a brown one, like, almost my whole life, you know? When I’m in his chair, Papa sometimes talks to me, asks me questions while he’s deep in there. I usually answer all garbled, but he always-always understands. It’s maybe the one thing special about us, I guess. That he can understand me even when my mouth is stu...