Memories of a Manhattan Childhood
by Marie Delgado Travis
I was once a little girl posing for photographs on the rooftop of our Manhattan tenement building. I insisted that the picture be taken in my new pink and gray chenille robe and slippers, a present from Santa. I also asked that my Mom forego the usual pigtails or ponytail and leave my hair loose with the ribbon tied as a headband, so that I could look like a ¨señorita.¨ I clutched a huge doll, almost as big as I was. It had also been waiting for me under the tree that Christmas morning.
My teenage Uncle José Manuel (we called him Pepé, to distinguish him from my other eight Uncle Josés on my mother's side: José Antonio, José Enrique, José Luis, etc. and my grandfather, José Gumersindo) snapped many of the photographs that day. He held me in other photos–a tall, striking young man with a ready smile for his favorite little niece.
I had never been to the top of our building before. Only three, I was amazed by the endless panorama of rooftops. The buildings seemed to touch one another. If I were as big and tall and strong as my Uncle Pepé, I figured it would be a cinch to jump from one building to another and then another, all the way around the world. “This is important, ¨ I told myself intuitively, ¨I'll remember it always.” Funny thought for a child.
Flash forward: Christmas Eve ten years later. Everyone dressed in black. My Uncle Pepé, not yet thirty, alone in a casket. His children (the youngest no older than I was on that rooftop) won't be celebrating Christmas anytime soon. On his way home from work, Uncle Pepé stopped at the corner bodega to buy milk and bread. It would be his last act of love for his family.
Someone, perhaps sensing that it was pay day, robbed him. How or why it happened is a little out of focus. It’s not clear if Uncle Pepé resisted. Perhaps his assailant panicked or figured that dead men don't talk. In any case, he stabbed my Uncle in the chest. By the time the ambulance arrived, Uncle Pepé had bled to death, just yards from the apartment where his children counted the hours till Santa arrived.
The perpetrator was recognized as he fled from the scene. He was eventually caught, but released three months later on a legal technicality. As they say, life is sometimes cheap in the big city. I'm fully grown now, but still haven't mastered the art of leaping tall buildings in a single bound. If I had, Uncle Pepé would still be here, a tall, elegant, smiling figure in Christmas photos taken over the decades, his children and grandchildren held close to his heart.
MARIE DELGADO TRAVIS is proud of her Nuyorican roots. She has won awards for her poetry and prose in English and Spanish. Visit her web site. sw
