Irma Awakens Evangeline Blanco (bio) December 1929 At midnight the tenement's wooden stairs groaned under the weight of climbing feet. Half-dressed neighbors jolted awake by a feud rushed upstairs to see the ruckus. What they saw on the warped tar of the roof near a crumbling edge was a woman and her children in combat with a man over a small white bundle. One little boy escaped his father's grasp and ran to hide among spectators' legs. Two sons stomped their father's feet and kicked at his knees. When that failed to bring him down, they clasped their arms around his legs. "Stop, Papi, stop," they yelled. He shook his right leg and then his left. His two sons lost their hold and flew, landing with a thump near onlookers. Quickly the boys rolled, jumped up, and attacked again. The two older boys joined their mother in throwing punches and sinking their teeth into their father's hands. All the while, they screamed in Spanish, the language of their panic. Figures pulled and tugged back and forth in a crazed mambo. They crashed against laundry hanging out to dry in the night air. Ripped off, the clothes' lines fell. Some sheets floated to the street below. Others turned black with dust and tar under mashing feet. Lahara arrived on the rooftop in a blur of dark blue uniforms to test their night sticks on the hard head of the man responsible for the melee. "Ya coming to the station with us?" the policeman asked. His wife, clutching the disputed and ragged bundle to her chest, shook her head. Loud complaints rose from other new immigrants. "Spics!" Neighbors shouted and pointed at their soiled clothes littering the roof. [End Page 112] The wife, chin uplifted, filed through the crowd of onlookers. The white bundle she held squirmed and screeched. The Thirties A balding hairbrush rose above my five-year-old head and pounded my skull, reverberating like hammer blows. On a wooden stool, I stood cringing. "Mami, let me," said my eldest brother, Ricardo. "You're killing her with cocotazos." He wore long wool socks, knickers with straps, and a sweater vest over a loosely knotted tie. Ricardo looked more like a rich golfer's caddie than a Puerto Rican working boy. Mami handed him the brush and marched out of the kitchen. She left us with Sergio, my third brother, whose over-long tongue lolled out of his mouth. While he sat on the floor, Sergio bent and straightened his plump legs many times. Earlier, brothers four and five ran out into the dry and crisp September day. Outdoors, Ferdinan and Herman engaged in their favorite before and after school activities, stealing and fighting. Ricardo fashioned my chestnut hair into two, fat braids and tied each end with ribbons stolen by Ferdinan from Russian Jews on Orchard Street. After looping both braids forward around my ears, he secured them with hairpins. Then he walked around the stool to face me, stepped back to inspect his handiwork, and burst into laughter. I kissed Ricardo's cheek, avoiding the purple bruise near his mouth. Had I seen myself, I might have bitten him instead. With those tremendous bows, he gave me big, drooped rabbit ears. "Remember not to cry like comemierdas." He hated weak crybabies and called them shiteaters. [End Page 113] "Ricardo," Milagros said. Mami lifted the heavy strap of his shoe-shine box and draped it over his shoulder. "You going to be late for work just to spoil her. And don't get into any more fights." He winked at me, covered his silky hair with a brown wool cap, and playfully hit Sergio on the head. Sergio smiled and drooled. On his way out, Ricardo slammed the door. Mami tied Sergio to the radiator inside our apartment. As I stepped into our dark tenement hallway, joy filled me. This was my first school day. Because I wanted to see Edgardo, I ignored Mami's often repeated warnings and climbed past the top floor where ferocious drunks lived. I thought Mami followed me. To enter the roof, I stood on tiptoe to unlatch a cold...