RC Cola
The fizz of soda being poured into a cup on my kitchen counter reminds me of late nights with my mom. My hair was greasy, long enough to touch my tailbone. After mamá left, I didn’t know how to properly shampoo. I kept my hair up in a limp ponytail for days on end, refusing to shower. Mom ordered pizza and rib tips from Mama Lunas that always came with a free 2 liter of RC. We would binge watch America’s Most Wanted sitting on her bed. I waited, hoping we knew one of the bad guys that they showed on TV so we could call in. I tried to remember their faces, to look out for them on the streets. We never caught any of them. We could’ve been heroes.
I only remember watching TV in the living room with her a handful of times. She relocated to her room and has been there ever since. I think we stopped watching TV in the living room after the first time our front windows were broken by bricks and boulders. The fear shook my tiny body to the core. It was the first time I had felt immediate danger. I was there seconds before the danger struck. I had picked out a movie for mom and I to watch, it was probably the first Beethoven movie. The one with the slobbery dog. I walked away to call her over, tell her I put the VHS in. She was on the phone with mamá and papá. Then crash. I froze and watched mom run to the living room. She thought it was burglars breaking in. Or maybe even the big tree out front had gotten tired and fallen over.
The cops came but they couldn’t do anything. The people that did it were gone. We were standing outside while my mom spoke to the cops. It was the first time I felt my body shake. Different from the shivers you get in the winter when you regret not wearing a hat and gloves. I got more and more shaky as the years went on. All I understood from that night was that my sisters were involved with the wrong crown. That the bad guys weren’t that far away. And that there were no heroes that night. There were no heroes the other three times the living room windows were smashed in with rocks either. The second time it happened the following year, a boulder landed in my nephew’s infant swing. I had picked him up from his swing minutes beforehand. I was too shaken to ask if I was a hero that night. That I saved him from that boulder his father threw. It took me a while to go near the living room windows at night again.
