The Pond

Growing up, there was a little pond by our place. Rumor had it that it was where people would go to score, and I would confirm that as a teenager when Marco would send me in the middle of the night to pick up his dope. But back then we were only kids, Marco and I, and during the day, while Ita was at work and we were supposed to be staying with Güela, we liked to hang out at that pond. It was easy to sneak out; we both knew that Güela didn’t like taking care of us, so all we had to do was tell her we’d go home and watch TV, for her to send us off. About half an hour before Ita was due to arrive, she would come to our apartment and make it look like she had just brought us in to save Ita the five-minute detour to her place.

In the summer, a lot of children played at the pond. Most of them were like us: kids whose parents worked long hours and didn’t have money to pay for a summer camp or any other form of childcare, and resorted to leaving them alone or with people that didn’t really take good care of them. Amadou was one of those kids. His parents were from Mali, and I knew that because we went to the same school. We had actually been in the same class since kindergarten. His mom was a part-time language teacher in middle school, and I remember thinking they didn’t belong in our neighborhood. They seemed awfully sophisticated, and their French was definitely better than our Spanish. But over the summer, their struggles were the same as ours, and Amadou and Youssouf would be at the pond pretty much every day.

That one summer in particular we were fresh out of fourth grade. Our days at the pond were becoming a much-needed rendezvous, and I was starting to miss Amadou whenever he didn’t show. He would always bring Cry Babies and would give me the blue ones because blue was my favorite color and my favorite flavor, too. In the beginning, I thought it was the candies that I missed until the day he told me he wouldn’t be coming the next day, but that he had hidden extra candy for me right next to the pond to make up for it. The next day, as I unearthed the little ziplock bag with three blue Cry Babies—one more than usual—I understood it was him that I missed. So, when I saw him again, the first thing I asked him was whether he’d let me hold his hand, and he said yes right away. We sat close to the pond, his hand in my hand, without looking at each other.

“Yuck,” I heard someone say.

I turned around and saw Carlos, a kid who was also in our class. He kept going, “Amadou’s holding a boy’s hand, gross.”

Amadou looked down, evidently ashamed, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

“You’re dumb, Carlos,” I told him. “No wonder your mama doesn’t love you and left your sorry ass.”

In my defense, I was only ten. But I knew it was wrong as I was saying it, so I might not have a defense after all. Carlos’ mom had left them, yes, but it was because she had been deported back to Guatemala. Right after it’d happened, Ita had us stay at home for a week, no school, no work, no turning on the lights, working the stove, nothing. She was scared that they would take her, too.

But, as wrong as I could’ve been, Carlos was still a goddamn snitch, and that same afternoon he went to his tía, who then went to Ita. Of course, I only learned about that the next day, when I was holding Amadou’s hand by the pond again and I saw Ita rushing toward us, the devil in her eyes.

“Jesús sacramentado!” She shouted.

Amadou ran to Youssouf, who was playing ball with his friends, and I just stayed there, frozen.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She looked me in the eye, and I knew it was over, whenever there wouldn’t be people around, she’d kill me—she’d kill me and feed my body to the pond so that nobody could find me.

She dragged me back home by the arm as she shouted for Marco to follow behind. She closed the door and looked at me as she grabbed the electrical cord. She’d never hit us while school was in session, that was how one of her friends had been deported—when the school had reported her daughter’s bruises to DCF. But during the summer, the pressure was off. She’d beat us to her heart’s content, and require Güela to stay with us to make sure nobody saw us until the wounds healed. I was bracing myself for quite a paliza at that time. But instead, she let the cord fall to her feet, got on her knees, and looked into my eyes.

“Papito, for Dios,” she told me, “don’t do that again, that’s not okay.”

I knew that what she was saying was important because she was saying it in English. She had this thing where she’d talk to us in English whenever she wanted to make sure that we would understand her.

“What, Ita?” I asked, genuinely curious, “What did I do wrong?”

At the time, to be honest, I thought it was the candy. Ita didn’t like it when we ate candy — she didn’t have money to pay for the dentist.

“Boys can’t hold hands, papi, that’s wrong. Plus,” she said, resting her hands on my shoulders, “that boy is black.”

“So what?” I asked her, confused because our skin wasn’t exactly that many shades lighter.

“Maybe it doesn’t make sense now,” she told me, “but believe me, one day you’ll understand.”

As I grew up, I realized that Ita was right about many things. But that day, after hauling me home from the pond wasn’t one of them. As it turns out, I never understood.