HABÁNAME (Havana [Verb Transitive] Me) by Ana Ortiz Copyright © April 22, 2002 Ana Ortiz All Rights Reserved
Disclaimers: Not written for profit.  Several languages are used profanely. Unpleasant m/f sexual contact this chapter only. Thanks to Prof of Xena Warrior Lesbian, and to Jessica Michallet for coming on board as beta-readers and editorial advisors for this story. Thanks to the Masked Punctuation Goddess. A special thanks to Old Warrior for test driving this story. Note to readers: In scenes set in the United States, I use the convention of italicizing dialogue when ? in bilingual contexts ? characters choose to communicate in Spanish. In scenes set in Cuba, I invert that practice: when characters opt for the use of English in dialogue, it is italicized. Noche de ronda que triste pasas que triste cruzas por mi balcón. Noche de ronda cómo me hieres cómo lastimas mi corazón. Luna que se quiebra Sobre la tiniebla de mi soledad. A dónde vas? Dime si esta noche Tú te vas de ronda como ella se fue Con quién estás? Dile que la quiero Dile que me muero de tanto esperar que vuelva ya que las rondas no son buenas que hacen daño, que dan penas y que acaban por llorar. Agustín Lara, ?Noche de Ronda?, (Used without permission.) Chapter 7 -  Dream of Serpents The next day, a Sunday Not again. Please someone wake me up. So friggin? ashamed. Yeah that?s me, all right. Jesus I looked dorky in that plaid school uniform. C?mon Murphy, pull out of it?nope, here we go. I?m scootin? up those stairs as fast as my little legs will take me.  I have the Archies lunchbox that I have been wanting for months ? the one that Louise Sproull got from sending in I don?t know how many Cheerios box tops. It?s taken me a while but it?s mine today and I?m gonna show it to Willie and Ruthie. But more than that ? more than wanting to show them my prize ? I?m runnin? hard because today?s the day that Da comes home. He?s been in the hospital for three months. Actually, he?s been in two hospitals. He was in one for a month right after the machine fell on him and then he was in another one for two months to teach him to move again.  When I get upstairs I carefully hide the lunchbox in the front hallway under some old board games that no one plays with anymore, because I haven?t thought of a good story to tell Ma yet about how I got it. When I run into the living room there are two strangers there ? two women with briefcases who are wearing glasses and gray skirts? and my Da is lying on a bed that they?ve put right there, right in the living room. My Ma is there too, and so are Connie and Bridget and Ceci. I don?t see Willie and Ruthie. I come right up to Da and hug him, and he gives me a big fuzzy chin kiss right on the nose, and he tells me I am his Baby Bee, which embarrasses me because I?m already seven years old and there are these ladies I don?t know here who are listening to us. Then they aren?t listening ? they are asking Ma questions about how much money we have and what she made us for breakfast this morning and what we ate for dinner last night. I am still looking at Da. I?m walking around to where he got hurt the worst. His right leg looks like one of those old sticks that come up on L Street beach, which is where I go to float on my back and pretend to be a little boat. It?s all twisted and thin and there are parts that look like a monster took a bite out of it. I am at the end of him, where nobody can see me and I decide to play a joke and tickle him. He always screams when I tickle him and then he runs and catches me and tickles me back for a really long time. I don?t understand, because I?m tickling him very hard and he isn?t laughing at all. And then I don?t know why but I try a little bit of my fingernail ? I scrape it along the bottom of his foot. Nothing. He is looking at the ceiling and coughing a bit ? I think he?s forgotten that I?m here because he is praying to Jesus to keep his lungs clear and says he?s sorry that he smoked for so long, and I know that we aren?t supposed to know that he smokes. Ma always makes him go outside under the stairwell of our building but we know what it smells like because we all smoke. I wonder if Ma has something wrong with her nose that she never catches us or says anything. I don?t know why, maybe it is the devil inside of me ? Ma says that I belong to him sometimes ? but I pull out this pin from my uniform pocket, which I used to prick Howie Curtis in music class today, it really made him scream and Sister said he was getting better on the high notes. Please somebody wake me up. So friggin? ashamed. At least watch from a grown-up place. Fuck. I make a little hole between Da?s toes and a few drops of blood come out but he isn?t moving or saying anything. I thought that he would whack me for sure. Ooof. Now I?m getting slapped but I don?t think it?s from the pin, because nobody saw. It?s Bridget and she?s telling me that everything is my fault. She stops hitting me because Ma and the two ladies are coming back into the room. The uglier of the ladies asks ?Is that Barbara?? And Ma says yes. And the lady says ?She doesn?t look malnourished but the reports have been very clear: parents have been letting us know that this child has increasingly reported not getting meals. And thank you for showing us her closet ? it appears that the report that she didn?t have any clothes other than her school uniform isn?t true. The school nurse said she found no evidence of the reported beatings when she examined her today.? I thought Mrs. Flinn was checking me to see if I?d gotten the chicken pox from playing over at Sally McHarty?s house. I almost