Monkey Boy Francisco Goldman (best ereader for students .txt) 📖

Class B squash champion, and he invited the young bilingual secretary to some of his matches. Sitting in the spectator seats elevated above that cramped, white box, Mamita watched my father and his rival scuttling around in short white pants, swatting at the speedy black pea ricocheting off the walls and corners. Bert had once played Cape Cod League baseball, not that that meant anything to my mother. He eventually let Mamita know about some of the immigrant hardships he’d endured as a boy, how his father had made him sell potatoes from a pushcart after school when he was only eight and how his mother, Rose, had died when he was in early adolescence.

When he met my mother, Bert was living with Uncle Lenny and Aunt Milly at their house in Waban. At my father’s funeral, Cousin Denise affectionately recalled that when she was a girl her uncle Bert used to sneak into her bedroom to hide presents inside her shoes. Lexi once told me that our father, during his courtship of Mamita, used to take her to the most fashionable restaurants and nightclubs in Boston. When those Zbiggy Brzezinski grad student types also invited her out, she delighted in knowingly name-dropping restaurants and clubs she knew those muchachos usually couldn’t afford to take her to. Lexi said that Mamita thought that was part of the fun of going out with an older man. Jewish, no less. What did that matter? Lucio Grassi, who claimed to be a devout Catholic, had stolen from her and lied. Maybe by taking Mamita to those expensive places, Bert gave her a misleading impression of wealth.

I’ve wheeled Mamita upstairs to her room again. She sits on her bed with her back to Susan Cornwall, who’s returned from her hospital outing. I’m in the chair in the corner facing my mother, the tin of French butter cookies on my lap. We’ve each just eaten a cookie. I offered one to Susan Cornwall, too, who now, on her back under her blanket, is eating her cookie in slow, savoring nibbles. Since we returned to her room, Mamita’s been answering my questions without even the usual hesitation. I offer her another cookie, take one for myself, and, sensing that there’s not going to be a better moment than this one, I ask, Mami, in all the years you were with Daddy, did you ever have an affair?

She’s just taken a bite of her cookie, and as if stimulated by baked French butter and sugar and a humming “afternoon tea” lucidity, Mamita answers, Yes, I did.

You did, Ma, really?

Yes, she says. She smiles wanly and says, Just one, Frankie.

Was his name Miguel? I ask.

But Frankie, how do you know that? Yes, Miguel, she says, slightly widening her eyes. He was from Mexico City. He worked for Honeywell. But Honeywell brought him to Boston for a year to learn about their new computers.

It’s so obvious that they must have met at the Latin American Society of New England that I don’t even ask. Mamita, I say, I’m really happy to hear this. I’m so happy for you that you had a love affair. She sits back, her expression girlishly complacent. My words are heartfelt, but I also feel a little bad. Still, I can’t stop myself and ask, Mamita, when you and Miguel wanted to be alone together, where did you go?

Sometimes we used to meet at the Hilltop Sheraton, she answers.

The Hilltop Sheraton, really? It’s as if the French butter cookies have drugged my mother like a truth serum. The Hilltop Sheraton is in our town, out by Route 128. On summer nights in high school we’d sometimes sneak into the swimming pool there. I ask, This was around when I was in high school, right?

She thinks this over and says, Yes, it was.

So what happened?

What happened? Well, he had to go back to Mexico, Frankie.

Ay, Mami, I say, I’m so sorry. Were you very sad?

Yes, I was sad, she says.

Did you love him, Ma?

And with that tone of voice and enunciation that reminds me of a polite contestant in a 1950s quiz show who masters her composure even as she knows she is providing the winning answer, Mamita says, Yes, I did love him, Frankie.

And this Miguel, he’s the one who gave you The Teachings of Don Juan and those other Carlos Castaneda books?

She laughs quietly. Oh, I don’t remember, she says. But he did like to read.

“I am a controlled warrior,” I say. Do you remember that one, Ma, your favorite Don Juan quote?

Recognition like two tiny fragile bubbles of light float up into her eyes, is that what that is? Do you remember, Ma? I repeat. “I am a controlled warrior.”

She giggles a little. Yes, she says. I do. Now she’s smiling to herself.

Was he kind of a hippie type?

He had long hair, she says and laughs again. But not as long as yours used to be! But, yes, Frankie, he enjoyed life.

He enjoyed life, I repeat. But, you mean, in a laid-back way.

In a what way? she asks.

He wasn’t a drinker or a big party guy, I say.

Oh no, she says. He had a tranquil personality.

A tranquil personality, not like Daddy.

Ay no, she says.

Do you still think about Miguel?

It was only a year, you know, she says. And only in Boston. But I have some good memories of Miguel, yes, and she smiles with closed lips.

After he left, did you ever see him again, Ma?

I was going to take a summer course on Mexican writers in Cuernavaca, on Juan Rulfo and some others, she says. She pauses, seems to be holding herself as still as she can as if that will help her remember, though suddenly her eyelashes rapidly blink. But, no, she says, I didn’t go, Frankie. We never saw each other again. She sits with her hands folded in her lap, staring off, but when she shifts her gaze to me, she lifts one hand over the end of her