Papi and Boyfriends - The Early Years

I was chatting with my sister on the phone and she reminded me about the time Papi went after a boy that was bothering her.  It makes a young girl feel safe when her daddy is willing to be her knight in shining armor and save her from the advances of some unseemly suitor.  Then again...

Here is a short history of my dad’s interaction with his four teenaged daughters’ boyfriends, the early years.

Chased boy with a crowbar, a guy bothering Youngest Sister.

Chased boyfriend P with butcher knife, boyfriend arguing vehemently with Sister After Me.

Chased rival boyfriends P and W, fighting over Sister After Me.  Stupid guy, W pulls small knife, Papi pulls much bigger butcher knife, chases both guys away.

Frightens future suitor of Middle Sister while wielding a baseball bat in the air.

Finds oldest daughter making out with boyfriend on couch.  Boyfriend suddenly disappears, flying through the air, landing on butt about fifteen feet away.  Daughter looks up to see very angry father, very frightened boyfriend, and Youngest Sister (could have warned me that Papi was home from work, but chose not to, Punk!) and friend coming in to watch the fun, laughing their arses off.  Boy ordered from house. Boy running as fast as possible.

My dad, the Dark Knight, fiery eyes, with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth, wielding tools of mass destruction – priceless.

The Humbug Routine

Hey, hey, time for sweet Christmas memories.  I've had tons and tons of them.  I remember the joy of running down the stairs and seeing bikes in the living room! I remember the smell of a new doll, nothing better.  When I was sixteen, I received my first gift of jewelry from a suitor, a pair of opal earrings from Queen Maker,  followed by an opal ring three days later for my birthday.  Okay, getting jewelry is way better.

So I am now going to tell a tale from the Belen family files, describing one of those rare but cathartic Christmases. The one dramatically silly.

CHRISTMAS, BAH! HUMBUG!

My father sometimes played games that would backfire on him.   Everyone knew that every Christmas Papi would start the humbug routine. He’d start with saying that Christmas was too commercialized. Even hinting that, maybe, there would be no tree this year.  We of course would protest and beg for our tree and he seemed pleased with the rise he would get out of us as kids, pretending to relent or keep us in suspense for a few days.

His main complaint was that everyone was knocking themselves out buying presents they couldn’t afford and he hated watching it.  The true spirit of Christmas was lost.  He’d be joking at first and then get angry, and soon he convinced himself and us that no Christmas was coming. But of course, it always would.

The way my dad showed affection was by picking on you.  He baited you, bantered back and forth, sometimes poked or pinched you when you walked by. We all knew he loved us and that was his way.  Although my little sister did once ask Mami why Papi didn’t like her since he would pinch her every time she walked by.  But Mami would always explain and remind us, that Papi was a product of his own upbringing.  That he did love us but didn’t know how to express it. That Papi was trapped and didn’t know how to change.  He couldn’t make himself pass out the hugs and kisses so he would show his attention and affection the only way he knew how, by bugging us.

As we grew older, Papi continued to repeat the annual Christmas rhetoric.   As preteens we would tease him and counter, “Yes we are going to have Christmas." Although it always started out as playful banter, he would work himself into a corner of stubbornness where there was no retreat and then get angry.  We learned to modify our responses to his Christmas diatribe.  But this became a never ending pattern for him for many years.  At Christmas parties, he wouldn’t open his gifts, his stubbornness, childlike and unyielding. But he always took them home with him.  He’d try to say hurtful things though by this time we just let the comments go by.  We knew it was his way of venting and that in reality he didn’t mean a word of it.

One year in my 20’s I went to my mother’s home to find that the Christmas tree was in a horizontal position. Apparently someone had thrown the tree to the floor, the tree lights still twinkling.  The carnage of broken bulbs and ornaments were everywhere.  Papi was sitting in his chair, as always watching television.  Where was everyone?  Papi pointed his finger upwards and told me to check the upstairs flat.  Upstairs my mom, my brother, and three sisters were huddled together. Sister in the Middle is crying her eyes out.  What happened?  Well apparently Papi was doing his usual Christmas rhetoric, when Sister in the Middle said as a joke, “Oh Papi, quit being such as scrooge.” It was the trigger Papi needed and he jumped up and hit her on the back of the head, a patented dope slap.   Now mind you, we are all in our 20’s, adults, not children anymore.  Our relationship with our parents had evolved to that of mutual understanding and respect. So to be attacked like this, just for making a joke, unprovoked and by your own out of control father, was too much for any of them to bear.

I asked is this when Papi threw the tree down?  To my surprise, Mami had done it.  She stood up to him at last.  Always the peacemaker and the soother of every potentially volatile situation, Mami finally exploded herself and threw down the tree he so hated.  I was shocked. Mami did it?  Way to go Mom. My father’s game finally backfired.  My anger grew, because I am just like my father. Here we are gathered to celebrate being together and he has to pull his usual crap.  This time, regrettably he took it too far and successfully ruined everyone’s Christmas. 

I went downstairs and was about to give him… what? My anger, to scold him, to tell him off, to tell him what a bad person he was?

No, that would give him exactly what he expected or perhaps in his own self-destructive way what he wanted. Poor guy, I thought, he’s a little messed up.  And really when you think about it, the whole situation was ridiculous.  His stubbornness, the passion play, my mom tossing the tree down with a stomp, (wished I had witnessed that myself).  finding my family huddled together in despair all to be forgotten tomorrow as “one of those things.” I just had to smile. As I walked down the stairs to confront him, I stifled a laugh. The last few Christmases have been a tad boring.

Instead I said, “You know what Papi?  No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you can’t make us stop loving you.  You can be as stubborn, mean or as hurtful as you want, but it still won’t matter a bit.  We will always love you, no matter what you do to us.  So you can keep on trying to drive us away, but I’m telling you right now, it isn’t going to work. We will still be here and loving you. So there!” And I left.

Ah those cathartic moments. Christmases were damn good after that one.

Bye...AND I love you.

Check out Sprite Keeper for all the spins on the phrase, "I love you."

We never held it against him. We understood.  We were patient, and we finally wore him down. I remember when Papi first told me he loved me.  I was approximately 26 years old and he just volunteered that information to me one day.  I was shocked; you really don’t know what a pleasure, euphoric feeling, and the wonderment to actually hear your father say he loves you. I didn’t do anything to prompt him.  I didn’t do anything especially nice or thoughtful for him. 

We were at a church social and about to leave so we went to say good-bye to my parents. I gave Papi his kiss, when he said it.  “Bye and I love you.”  And he meant it. He even said it to Queenmaker, my boyfriend of nine years.  We looked at each other in astonishment. Queenmaker mentioned how honored he felt that Papi said he loved him too. He saw the look on my face and said, "What?"

"Do you know that’s the first time my father has said he loves me?!!”  The most important thing about that phrase is the “and”.  That’s where he put his emphasis. It created the necessary pause to let me know that he means and knows what he is saying.  I think he told all his children that year that he loved us.  And we knew that something had triggered the beginning of a relationship we had always wanted.  He says he loves us more and more often as the years go by.

As children we were just such a huge responsibility. He may have looked at us as adversaries, the reasons that kept him from the quiet life he wanted, the dreams never to be fulfilled or to have my mother to himself.  As adults, he could see himself in us, that we were good kids, who showed patience, intelligence, tolerance, courtesy and love. We all established an excellent work ethic, which we tribute to him.  Maybe he realized that we were all grown up and he was seeing less and less of his children.  Maybe he even missed us. I don't care why he said it. I was okay if he never had said it. But when I heard it, the still waters deep inside of me gushed like a happy  geyser.  

No matter how hard he tried to push us away, we always came back with unconditional love for him. That is what we learned from my mother. My mom was all about unconditional love. My dad was always an open book. His emotional state was always right on the surface for us to read and it was usually angry. He wasn’t an absentee father not physically, but definitely emotionally. 

He loved a good joke and when he was happy and Mami was happy, the kids felt like vases being filled up with their laughter and happiness.  Don’t get me wrong.  Papi was not always a sourpuss.  He was just moody.  He was just Papi.  

From Papi we learned acceptance, justice, tolerance and truth.  We also learned stubbornness, candor, detachment and irrational anger. He was one extreme while my mother was the other extreme.  We picked and chose from their characters both positive and negative. We learned what or how to be and what not to be. As adults we have learned that the phrase, "I love you" is one that must be heard and said a dozen times a day.

My mother taught us to look at things from the other guy’s perspective. She told us that it was very hard for him to express his feelings. As children we always did look at it from Papi’s perspective. When I look back, if I had five noisy, fighting brats, all trapped in a little house, I’d go crazy or just run away.  But he stayed because it was the right thing to do.  He always taught us the right thing to do. But that day I knew he did it because he loved us.

 

Tongue Out and Belt Jumping

When Papi got mad it was an amazing sight.  He had a look that could stop you in your tracks. The phrase, “if looks could kill…” comes to mind and his were lethal.  I’m proud to say I have inherited that look, a look that stops people in their tracks, keeps children in line, and can make a husband turn on a dime and leave a room.   What power. 

If Papi told you to do something you did it immediately.  If he asked you a second time, you may or may not be safe, but don’t push it. He’d asked for quiet, but with five loud, screaming children, playing or arguing, some days he just had enough. Rage would overtake his face.  His eyes narrowed, his head would snap toward the offending child, and his tongue would settle on the side of his lips.  He’d begin to unbuckle his belt and everyone would scatter. Sometimes the guilty party would get away and he’d get the wrong person. So it was always best to scatter first, ask questions later. He was like a T-rex instinctually going after the slowest or the weakest at times, but his pinpoint accuracy to track and capture a known offender is also legendary.

He had no trouble with the prospect of chasing you down, even if it meant climbing the stairs two or three at a time or chasing you into the basement.  Sometimes it was better if you just stayed where you were and took it.  He always made sure not to hit too hard and never above the waist. But the belt did sting which is why it was so effective. Yes, occasionally he would just threaten, but if the unbuckling process had begun, it was going to be used, much like the code of the samurai, a sword drawn from its sheath is a sword that must draw blood. 

Experience taught us that if we started wailing right away and yelled the words, “Ow, ow, OW” each time he swung that he would stop sooner. Distraction techniques were deployed, such as pointing to another sibling and tattling on some heinous deed yet to be discovered. Another talent developed was avoiding the belt like a jump rope. Although this made Papi angrier, he got tired more quickly and we got away with hardly a scratch. We got so good at jumping, that we would compare notes afterwards to see who got the worse and who got away, offered tips, and reviews on particularly good performances.

The most comical moment was the time Papi holding Youngest Sister’s arm while trying to belt her and Youngest Sister jumping over it like a gazelle over and over again. Her rhythm was fantastic and when he tried to change up on her, she jumped even higher and matched every swing of his belt with a skillful leap that even Nureyev would have been proud.  Papi missed every time and finally gave up. What a girl!

With four girls in one room, we would talk and giggle for hours. Mami or Papi would yell up to quiet down and go to sleep. If we heard the first step squeak, we’d shut up and listen. At times, Papi would sit quietly on the bottom step, waiting. We would forget and the steps would creak heavily and we knew we were in for it.  We start wailing before he hit the top step. “It’s wasn’t me, it was Middle Sister.  I wasn’t talking, it was those two!”

Afterwards, we would compare notes. How many times did he land a strike and the percentage of swings vs. strikes?  We analyzed his particular striking method, soft or hard, which was a reflection of his particular mood that night, either very angry or slightly annoyed.

As we got older, Papi didn’t pull out the belt as often. Plus he was getting worn out by now, right? Wrong.

Only Brother, who was in his teens, decided to act all “alpha” and talked back to Papi. Judging from Papi’s reaction, Only Brother soon realized his peril and jumped the fence. Feeling pretty smug about getting away from the “old man” he looked over his shoulder in time to witness the “old man” kick down the fence without breaking stride.  The combination of fear and awe on Only Brother’s face was priceless as he sped away down the street.

Here are some tips on how to avoid the belt…

1) Start whimpering right away, crying “No Papi, No Papi, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.”  It is helpful to have at least three or four siblings you can implicate.  The art of misdirection, a much needed trait for survival.

2) Tattletale – Start the blaming right off the bat so you don’t get bunched in with the offenders.

3) Secret hiding place – No one must know where it is, because you’ll find another sibling there in your place, or they will surely fink on you.

4) Stay put – Take what’s coming, finding comfort that the real offenders will be chased down and  get a really good whooping.

5) Run – Easy to do, faster than Papi. Lots of places to run him out like running upstairs, then downstairs to the basement, then around and around the kitchen, dining room and living room doors or run out the back door if its a warm day. Stay away at least 20 minutes to an hour. If a new infraction has taken place and justice has been dealt to a new offender you may return because Papi’s already forgotten about you. Maybe.

5) Subterfuge – Scream “Ow” louder with each strike reaching a dramatic crescendo. The Pavlovian Response will kick in and he’ll stop. This important observation helped us create other verbal cues signaling we had had enough, triggering the response, becoming all Meryl Streep to sell it. (I want to thank the Academy for the Oscar.)

6) Learn to jump with great skill and timing.  Special skills must be developed to jump while he is holding your arm. Be a gazelle. Be the gazelle. You are the gazelle.

7) Learn the warning signs.  Head snap, eyes become like slits…. Swoosh, that’s me running out of the room. Don’t want to be there when the tongue comes out. 

8) Proximity - Sit next to Papi the whole time he’s home.  Watch his favorite shows and ball games with him, ask him questions about the ball game, and try to engage him. He will recognize you as the only child that should have survived and make you his heir apparent, because that’s all you really want anyway.

 

PECAN SANDIES

One of my most cherished memories of my father is when he was getting ready for work.  Because the family didn’t own a car, he had to take the bus everyday.  He got up before 4am every morning.  He would make his coffee, eat a chuck of bread and a few thick slices of cheese and this would be his breakfast, which is pretty much what it is today at the age of 79. One morning I heard him moving around. I carefully made my way down the stairs trying not to make the steps creak. I pretended I had to go to the bathroom and when I came out, surprisingly he didn’t shoo me back to bed.  He always wanted us away from him, didn’t he?  I sat and watched him prepare his lunch and breakfast.

I don’t remember if there was much conversation, very little. He offered me a little bit of coffee or milk and two Pecan Sandies. I picked coffee so I could be just like him, I’d tell him.  This was a most special time.  We would sit and eat our cookies and then he would send me back to bed. Sometimes I would try to wake up the next morning to be with him and of course to get those cookies. This was our secret and I felt special that he let me be with him from time to time. 

Thirty years later the sisters were talking about our favorite cookies.  I said, “Pecan Sandies of course. If you put a bag of Pecan Sandies down in front of me they’ll be gone within the hour. I can’t help myself. I had to stop buying them.”  Sister After Me surprised said, “I didn’t know you liked them so much.  Those are my all time favorite cookie too. Papi used to let me come downstairs when he was going to work?”  Middle Sister and Little Sister confirmed the same thing. My sisters are all afflicted with the same condition when presented with a bag of Pecan Sandies, uncontrollable bingeing.

Little Sister said,   “Remember the time I cut my foot so badly and Papi had to carry me upstairs every night? I loved it when he carried me.  Papi went upstairs one morning and picked me up and brought me downstairs to have cookies with him. I loved him so much at that moment.”  A few years later, I spied a bag of Pecan Sandies on my brother’s kitchen table.  I asked him if he ever sat with Papi before he went to work and ate Pecan Sandies. Only Brother said, “Of course. I sat with him lots of times before work.”

Although I initially thought that I was the only fortunate one to have shared those quiet mornings with my father, I feel comforted in knowing that each one of us had our turn downstairs with Papi. I cherish those moments and now I know that my siblings share those same strong feelings, similar to mine, but each a beautiful memory belonging uniquely to each one of us. It puts daddy in a whole new light.  He seems less alone. He must have realized how much his little girls and boy loved him and wanted to be with him.

I realized that Pecan Sandies was a sacred icon on the desktop of my life. Press the icon and a big picture of my Papi pops into my head. 

The Art of Work

My dad was a laborer.  He worked in a factory that made lard and other types of shortening.  He took the bus every morning at 4:30 and ride an hour to the factory located around the Detroit Eastern Market and would return home around 4:30pm. He worked hard and took pride in that fact.  He would tell us stories about how he made something run faster or smoother at the plant.  He could outwork, outthink any man there.  Whether it was boosting, fantasy or not, we were enthralled by his stories and his work ethic.  The man was no slacker, not when it came to his job.  If a job needed to be done, he didn’t wait for permission or instructions.  He just did it. Tired and exhausted from the day, he would fall asleep while reading the paper or the encyclopedia and then watch television before he went to bed.

Papi taught us what work really meant.  He had five children to feed and no car.  He got up every morning and went to work for 40 years for wages that barely covered the family expenses. Although I knew we drove him crazy, occasionally giving my mother the look that says, “This is your fault. Why did we have all these kids?” He still had the strength to keep going, to make a life for his wife and children, even if it meant he didn’t have one himself. He was our Boxer.*

One of the many things my dad told us and stuck with me my whole life was, “When the man pays you for forty hours, you give him his forty hours. No hiding, no whining.  You made a contract with him that says you will work forty hours and you were willing to take this amount to do it.  It was your choice.  So you give him his full forty. Make them a smart forty.”

So consequently every one of his kids developed a solid work ethic.  He taught us to be innovative at work; to raise work to an art form.  That’s how you get through the tedium of the job.  No matter how small the job, you could probably find a way to make it faster and smoother.  Look for ways to change the way things are done, because if you can make it better, you make it far easier for yourself in the long run. Look for ways to change the way you move, or think, or judge a particular task.  When you raise your job to an art form, you can take real pride in your work. You made a difference, maybe one that no one else will see or recognize, but a conscious difference within yourself. 

*from George Orwell's animal farm