Ellathought

When I was nine months old, my father crashed into the pole of a backlit sign that read “Londsdale Liquors”, exactly 0.5 miles from my home.

My mom went away the summer after kindergarten and came home when I was in the end of second grade. I did not like her when I met her and I behaved like it. I felt strongly about the way I was treated way before my brother introduced me to mobster movies and I’ve never hid my feelings. I knew she was hiding things from me, I just didn’t know it was pain and poverty. I was a kid and only saw what I was missing, not what I had. We never went on a family vacation (we barely saw family). We only went to restaurants for really special occasions, and that might still mean a buffet. I would beg her to go to the movies so often that, one day, I decided to stop.

“Can we go to the movies?” I plead. I don’t remember where we were going, but I know we were just getting to the bottom of the hill at Claremont Street and taking a left onto Londsdale Ave. Probably going towards the highway, and on the way, we’d ignore where my dad died.

“Cuando yo cobre,” which means, When I get paid.

“¿E que tú no cobra?” On this particular day, I got fed up. You never get paid? I snapped back, but in Dominican, the feeling I had was more literal — Is it that you don’t charge them? For anyone realizing that the Dominican in my mother should have smacked me, you are correct. But, she thought that was funny & retells the story herself. Years later she said “Yo era pobre mija,”… I was poor, she explained. My mom was working all the time. I found it ridiculous that she didn’t have money for movies & McDonald’s. I always had heat, hot water, food, a good pair of shoes, my hair done and a new outfit for the school dance. She also admitted that Benny’s Auto Shop didn’t “sell” the Barbie Jeep on her like she had told me… she couldn’t afford the payments. For years, I would say Fuck you, Benny under my breath as we drove by that store.

We weren’t destitute, and that’s where I reflect and know there are and have always been people with less than me. I know kids who looked like Pig-Pen in Charlie Brown — I was previously one of them. From what I know, my brother and sister had it worse. But I can’t speak to what I don’t know. Still, we didn’t have “enough” for my liking. My personal dependency on (and alertness to) money was crafted early.

My father, Alfredo Leroy Thousand, was born on May 26th, 1959, and never made it to his 30th birthday. My mother was 32 years old with a 9-month-old child and two children from a previous marriage. My sister was 9 and my brother was 11. This was the second dad they lost.

In 1980, my father left Cuba with the Marielitos. The story goes that he had been in prison for stealing a mattress from a neighbor’s house. Cuba has an Animal Farm vibe and neighbors spy and tell on each other, especially if you’re anti-government. My father took the mattress at his mother’s request. I have visited his childhood home where his parents and four siblings lived. They have always needed and still need. When Castro allowed prisoners to leave, my father left and met his brother in Miami. From there, Cubans would be “sponsored” (I’ve havent researched that enough) and given jobs across the country. My dad ended up in Providence, Rhode Island, and that’s where he met my mom.

His family missed him, and I learned a lot about him when I visited his family in Cuba. He was someone everyone liked — one of those “beautiful smile, lights up the room” types. He was a gardener and was the one who took care of the family home. Later on, he’d get landscaping jobs in Rhode Island & my mom would beg him to start his own business. He stole the tree that bloomed the most beautiful red leaves in front of my childhood home from a neighborhood park. I’m delusionally proud of that. He would do anything for the people he loved, he felt obligated to — and that’s what killed him.

My mom & dad were together for years before I was born. He helped raise my siblings. For reasons I’ll get to, my mom tried for a long time to have me. My father’s siblings would write him letters asking him to help them back home but he didn’t have it to give. There is a particular letter from his older sister that changed him when he received it; his mother had died and his sister was blaming it on him. My mother saved all the letters, and I read them while I was in Cuba. My mother said she saw the change in him after that letter. After that, my father went to crack-cocaine and my mother went through hell.

It was the 80s. My mom found viles in the car and tried to find my dad a bed in rehab but the lines were long. I don’t know how long he was using, but it was long enough for him to drain a large chunk of their bank account. He would disappear for periods of time and return to steal things. He once tried to steal the air conditioner and my mom tried to fight him off. She was pregnant at the time and lost the baby.

I didn’t know he was on drugs until after I graduated from college. Everyone did a fantastic job of keeping it from me. After my brother died, the relationship between my mother and I changed and we learned to talk. Over time, I’ve been gathering the pieces and trying to understand how they fell apart. I know I don’t know it all, but it’s time I put it together what I have & get it out, for my own sanity.

On February 6th, 1989, my mother had just put me to sleep and my siblings were already in bed. There was a knock at the door and my father must have answered. He was going out with a “friend” (you’ll note I’ll put “friend” in quotes often). He gave my mother a kiss goodbye, kissed me on the forehead, and told us he loved us. The next knock at the door would be from the police.

Personally, I don’t know what a dad does. I decided he should be there, he should help and he should make a mom happy. My father disappeared for two weeks after I was born. My mom said she asked him what it felt like, and he told her that “when you’re high, nothing matters. And when you need to get high, nothing else matters.” I believe he was in queue for a bed in rehab when he died. I know she loved him. I know he loved her… But drugs are better than love for those who find the love they have is not enough.

My mother was left with a man to bury and three mouths to feed. I say “man” because they were never legally married. My mom was “illegal” before she went away. (I say “illegal” because that’s the word we used back then and my mother did have documentation. We’ll get into that in another chapter. We’re not there yet.) She was using an identity that wasn’t hers, but Maria was a real person with a real social security number. The house we owned was in my father’s name and my mom had to act fast to keep her world from falling apart and her children on the street.

Her first plan had been in progress for years: Me. I am my father’s only heir and if she had a child, she would have more legal ground to stay in the home. My mother has always been a hard worker, but my father worked, too (when he was sober). She had to make extra money and she was mixed up with the wrong people. My mom knew people doing bad things, offering to help but she also knew people doing good things who offered her nothing at all. I recently found out one of my favorite aunts was just starting in estate law and gave my mother advice. When you know so many shitty people, the good people you keep around are amazing.

While putting food on the table, my mom agreed to hold something and an undercover cop came to pick it up. They said they’d let her go if she gave names (of Colombians in the 90s). She accepted the threat from the lesser evil and set up her children while she went away for the next two years. I stayed at home with a friend where the social security I got from my dad’s death paid the mortgage (& we had tenants). In addition, Maria’s food stamps should have clothed and fed me. (Instead, Doña Colombia was throwing parties and going to Colombia.) My brother and sister were separated with aunts and uncles upstate.

My mother is my father. She’s not afraid to remind me and I send her cards on Father’s Day to remind her. I didn’t make dating easy for her either. Once, she was dating a guy I didn’t like for many reasons. First of all, she was dating. To me, “until death do us part” meant she should die and meet my dad again. (Just kidding, but not really.) Secondly, Juanito was my dad’s friend, or at least knew him [something like that] and whatever it was, I did not approve. I’m telling you, I’ve been judgmental from the womb.

My final straw with Juanito was when, I had straightened my hair and he approached me in the backyard to say “Tú quieres ser blanquita,” which means You want to be white. In return, I left him a clearly written note on the middle of the bed that said, “Juanito, You are not my father,” and I signed it. I was probably 10. I remember because it was intentional, and I knew he’d show my mom.

My mom kept some major things from me and we had a tough relationship, but she also tried to give me everything she could. She literally gave up 2 years of her life for us. Once upon a time, she didn’t know if she could give her kids Christmas. Over time, we’ve worked hard to get to know each other and I’ve realized she’d give us anything.

When I go clean up my father’s gravesite, I talk to him about my mom. I tell him how lucky he was to have found a woman like her to be such a wonderful mother to his daughter. & she did it alone. I also tell him I’ll take care of her for him because I love him. I think of that 20-something-year-old man who was trying so hard to take care of everyone else, that he destroyed himself. I ask my dad to protect me against evil; he’s shown me that the happiest person in the room can be found drowning in the darkest depths of despair with people they call “friends”.

I’ve never missed my dad because I never knew him. I just wish my mother had a different experience. Once I found out the truth about him, I was grateful I didn’t have a life where I had to deal with his addiction. My brother and sister have a different dad, and a different experience. My brother claimed my dad over his, but both have since passed. My sister has always been hard to figure out.

When my brother turned 13, he got a job in construction. He gave my mother the entire check. But… my brother always had the spirit of a child, so that job didn’t last forever and my mother didn’t force him.

After my mom got out, my siblings came home. My sister came home worked overnight shifts at Dunkin Donuts to save for college. She’s always been brilliant, and she went to Fordham soon after. My brother dropped out of SUNY Buffalo and became the most constant figure in my life. My mother worked multiple jobs, went to school and often had to live in other places when the IRS would report her/Maria to Immigration.

My youth was glorious. Rebellious, scary, and painful but glorious. I just read Finding Me by Viola Davis’s as inspiration/research as I write my own story and I found a lot of solace in it. She’s the only person I can point to from where I’m from. Otherwise, it feels like we’re invisible. I often describe my hometown as a corner of nowhere, but still the same as everywhere. My story is a bit different from Viola’s, but kids from Central Falls really do grow up young. I think it’s important I add a voice. Although my story has dark moments, there’s a lot of light.

The “Londsdale Liquors” has been since removed and I’ve never been happier to see a Dunkin Donuts. But I’m grateful it was there the entire time I lived there. I was never able to escape or ignore reality… and I’ve never wanted to. I have wanted to write my story… and I’ve never been good at fictional writing.