Revenge

The story goes that when my dads brought Luis home for the first time, I stared at my brother as he lay on the carpet, arms and legs waving like a bug stuck on its back, and I said, “He looks like a chicken before you cut it up.” For awhile, they nicknamed him Pollito, Little Chicken—or Chicky in English. I didn’t like any of the names, mostly because I didn’t like Luis. He was a baby which didn’t do anything except cry and need to be fed and get diaper changes. One day I could play with him, but not for a long time.

I was almost five, and I don’t remember much from back then, but this I will always remember: returning from a walk, they let me push Chicky in his stroller, and for a loose moment as we came to a crosswalk, I didn’t stop but kept going, Papi shouting and grabbing the stroller before I could make it into the street with traffic.

I got a good talking to then. But they thought I was careless and distracted when in fact, I knew exactly what I was doing. And because I knew it and I was caught, I started to cry. Not just a normal four-year-old crying but an animal wailing. I remember it clearly: standing on the street corner, feeling everything crumpling. I remember them picking me up, trying to hand me back and forth as I beat at them. I vaguely remember running.

I don’t know how I got there, but I found myself hiding among the bags of rice in the back of Amar’s Corner Store. They say that when my dads tried to leave with me, I went crazy, panicked, shrieking for help. The clerk thought I was being kidnapped. He was about to call the police when Amar arrived. He knew Papi, and he took us in back of the store where he gave me strange-tasting candy, and swung me in a hammock chair. Amar had kind eyes, and a large, fuzzy moustache that seemed too big for his face.

That day, I cried and let him swing me as my dads took turns sitting on a stool, watching as if holding a vigil. I knew they were scared in some new, unsettled way. As if they weren’t sure who I was anymore, like I’d transformed into a wild child, unpredictable and a little feral, and they were afraid to touch me or ask anything of me. They sat and waited, as if enduring an emergency room visit. Eventually I exhausted myself and fell asleep.

If they were scared of me, I’d become terrified of them. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a thought but something I felt in my bones. That day at the crosswalk, something horrible had escaped from my gut, and they’d seen the monster in me.

For days and weeks, maybe months after, I felt numb. I remember this time well. It was a time that I behaved and followed the rules and made no demands. I kept quiet. I know they saw the change. I know they were being careful with me as if I’d suddenly turned fragile, as if anything would send me spiraling into a helpless, panicked fear.

They weren’t wrong to think this.

At some point, somehow, things must have returned to how they had been, but not completely, because for years I feared sleep, for then the nightmare would come and coil itself about me. Even now as an adult, it creeps into my sleep and wakes me with a shutter. If ever I glimpse a body of water seen through some trees, I feel that same, sinking dread, the panic rising in my blood.

This is the nightmare: the four of us are at the town pond, though the pond in the dream has a dock. Luis is in front of me, and I herd him towards the end of the dock, but before he can fall in, I’m the one sliding and skidding, unable to stop, slinging into the water, being pulled and held under by enormous, beautiful hands.