I’ve forgotten how crying works. I’ve also forgotten what it means. What’s funny about it is I say this as though at some point in my life I knew these things. But I must have.
I knew it (I think) when I was standing on the southern side of the Aranguez Savannah, and I could see the hills to the north. It was about 3 PM, and the sun was still out, and the sky was a light blue, and there were all types of clouds hanging in the sky, some right on top of the hills like thick blankets. Over in the center of the savannah, right in front of the bleachers (how strange to set up just one set of bleachers right in the middle of the huge field) there were some kids playing football. I think they played in a league and they were practicing, but it looked more like a pick up game of short post the way they were acting. And to the west, to the west I could see an Indian man selling coconut water out of a red pickup truck. I was thinking about walking over to get one (I can’t think of a more perfect time for fresh coconut water than on a cool, breezy, blue afternoon), but decided against it. In the east is where I would find it, or I should say him, the man that, I think, made me know how crying worked.
I was moving in a daze more or less, watching the football game, and the stream of maxis that would speed by along the bus route every few minutes, and the clouds moving slowly over the hills when I got to the big acacia tree on the eastern side of the field. It was huge, and marvelous, and majestic, and it filled me up with some…thing (maybe tears) as I stood there looking at a tree that I’d only heard about, or read about, but had never been so close to that I could just walk right up and touch it. I was ready to walk up and touch it, and feel whatever it is that huge majestic trees like that feel, but I was stopped by a man.
That isn’t to say that he physically stopped me, that he actually put a hand in front of me to bar me from making my presence known to the tree, but rather I saw a man standing, or squatting in front of the tree, in front of a small tent that he had placed in front of the tree. There was some garbage strewn about as well, but he didn’t seem to notice a thing. He was just standing, and staring forward at something. I felt like I couldn’t go to the tree, not while he was there, and kept walking around the track.
I go back there sometimes, to the tree. I was there when my mom was making breakfast one cold, Sunday winter morning. She was making an omelet, with tomatoes and onions. On the side she toasted some fresh bagels, and lightly spread some garlic butter on them. The smell creeped in under my door and permeated my whole room. I’m sure it was the same in my sister’s room as well. It was one of those few mornings, or moments really, where we all left our rooms and locked doors and came together as some kind of unit. I was writing a letter at my desk, a letter that was covered in a few tear drops, to a girl that…well she was gone. I stopped going there. I tried to stop going there. Instead I left the letter and went down to the dining table where a bunch of plates were set out with the omelet and the bagels, and my sister and mother were seated, and eating, in silence.
My sister is always the first to break the silence. She doesn’t know how to sit still. She doesn’t know how to keep quiet, not unless she’s sitting in front of a television set. She started talking about the usual nonsense little girls talk about: boys, girls, friends, jokes. Those topics would eventually change and meander into new areas, like tv shows, and music, and the hottest new clothes she saw at the Source mall or Roosevelt Field mall. And those might stray even further away towards topics that weren’t really topics, but just things that people say just to say, to keep up the level of noise, to make sure that the silence is kept away. Before long the laughter would come. Laughter is the only thing appropriate for the dining table. Tears had to be kept away. Maybe this is why I forgot.
I would ask my uncle, that night at supper, over some macaroni pie, and callaloo, and provisions, and barbecue chicken, who that man was over by the tree, the big acacia tree right by the field that he and the boys from the block played short post. That big beautiful tree. And he just looked at me like I had lost my mind, told me it ain’t have no man that live in front of no tree. My other uncle replied the same. My aunt too. I swore up and down that I was out there, and I saw him, and he was standing there, staring out towards all the homes, right near the entrance at 2nd avenue. And my uncle started talking about how it used to have nothing but corn all across that area. Just one big field of corn that they went and mash up to build up all those apartments, the real pretty blue ones that look fancy and cost $3000 a month to rent. But I knew he was there, right there at the acacia tree, next to those blue apartments and I went back out on the field that night around 8 PM and stared up at the new lights they put up (well, new to me) and all the bugs that flocked to them, and all the bats that flocked to the bugs, and I started walking, counterclockwise, around the track, not wanting to disturb the natural flow, but always with the intent of finding that small little tent that hung low to the ground where the strange old man, probably a vagabond, was living.
When I got to the acacia tree, he was still there, still squatting and staring out towards the street and the houses, and I started in towards him on the savannah but my foot got caught up in a big puddle of mud. All I could do was stand there on the track staring at him, as he stared out at the street, he himself also trapped by the mud. We laughed, together, he and I, because that’s what people trapped by the mud do. It was laughter mixed with tears.
When the laughter finally subsided, and the omelet was eaten, and the dishes were washed and put away, we all returned to our corners of the house and I was able to resume my letter to a girl that was sitting at her own table, crying, while I hurled insult after curse at her in a violent barage of rage. I was eating a turkey BLT on a toasted baguette, but by the time I had taken a bite into the sandwich, it was stale. So was the letter.
There were tears on the letter, but I knew they weren’t mine because I had already forgotten how to cry. They were hers. I picked them up (I think) from her chicken ceasar wrap that she had left half eaten on the table when she ran out of the place after suffering as much abuse as she possibly could from me. She was speaking real hurriedly apologizing for all sorts of stuff that she did. Maybe. I think she was also blaming me for a lot of things I did. I lost my cool though. She went to a place she shouldn’t have and I lost my cool and that’s when the yelling started. And it continued even after I walked out of the door onto snow covered roads with signs like Allen Street and Pugh Street on that late and desolate night.
The yelling stopped when I put the pen on that piece of paper. The words made no sense, but I kept writing anyway, hoping that if I put enough words down on the paper they would be able to sort themselves out into something that did make sense. It rarely ever happened though. I knew that, because words didn’t exist in that sort of time. If they did, then my uncle wouldn’t keep on with his it ain’t have no man that live in front of no tree. But he did. And I knew I had to go and speak to him (the man under the tree) before I could finish my letter, because the only way the words would make sense was if the paper was covered in my tears, and not hers, and the only way I could remember how to cry was to talk to him, so I pushed away her tears, and my sister’s laughter, and my uncle’s it ain’t have no man that live in front of no tree, and walked, counterclockwise, around the track at the Aranguez Savannah, until I got to the acacia tree by the 2nd avenue entrance and the new big blue apartment complex where it costs no lower than $3000 a month to rent and saw the man, that I must have talked to at some point in my life, because he taught how crying worked, and as soon as I set my foot onto the field I could feel the mud, and I thought how could so much rain fall right here, at this part of the field, and cause this much mud at this part of the field, and no where else, and I was forced to sit there and wait, and watch him looking out towards the houses and 2nd avenue until the mud dried because there was no where left to go, and nothing left to do until I learned how to cry again.
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