Clap When You Land(12)
on the news
blunt force
trauma on impact
medical examiner
unidentifiable
extreme forces
not intact
unconfirmed
dental records
anthropological forensics
tattoos fingerprints
teeth personal items
I watch video footage of the plane spearing into the ocean.
The waves rising open arms welcome.
I wait for news that the passengers
got their life jackets on.
That there were previously unreported life rafts.
That their initial assessment was wrong That the Coast Guard found someone breathing.
The news only repeats the same words:
No survivors found. The number of dead: unconfirmed.
Where the plane went down is 120 feet deep.
Divers have been jumping into the water, fifteen-minute intervals at a time,
trying to pull up what might be left.
I tell Mami we need to go to Queens,
the closest shore to where the plane fell.
Dozens of people have been lighting candles by the water. The small hope inside me is illogical.
I know this. But it urges me to go. If I can just be as close as possible to the crash site, my presence might change the outcome.
All Mami does is drag herself to her room where she denies my request
with a sharp but quiet click.
Papi sat me in front of a chessboard when I was three years old.
He patiently explained all the pieces, but I still treated each one like a pawn.
He loved . . . loves to tell the story of how I would give up my king
all willy-nilly but would protect my knight because “Me gustan los caballitos!”
(In my defense, why would a three-year-old pick a dry-ass-looking king over a pony?) But even when I was bored, I was also good at memorizing the patterns for openings & closings, for when to castle & when to capture.
I was fascinated by the rhythm of the game; it came as naturally to my body as when Papi taught me how to dance. It’s all just steps & patterns.
By the time I was four,
I could beat Papi if he wasn’t paying attention.
On my fifth birthday, I defeated him
in just six moves.
After that, he would take me downtown on the C train to compete against the Washington Square Park hustlers who played for money. They were straight sharks & thought the little girl too cute to beat.
But Papi would put a twenty-dollar bill down, & those dudes learned quick: shorty had patient fingers & played three moves ahead.
Most important, I loved how much Papi loved to watch me win.
I began competing in chess tournaments when I was in second grade.
From September to June,
Papi never missed one of my matches.
Never complained about picking me up from late team meetings or the cost of additional coaching, even though I knew he must have cut funds from other places & people to afford both.
Every couple of years
he built a new shelf with his own hands & put up my trophies & plaques, pinned up my ribbons & awards.
“Negra bella, lo vas a ganar todo.”
& so I did. I won everything for him.
Until I couldn’t. Until I didn’t know why or how I should.
Did I love chess?
I did chess.
But love? Like I love
watching beauty tutorials?
Love, like I love when
something I say catches Dre by surprise & her laugh is Mount Vesuvius— an eruption that unsettles & shakes me to my core? Love, like I love the scent of Mami cooking mangú & frying salami?
Or how I love Papi’s brother, Tío Jorge, holding my hand & saying I make him proud for myself not for what I win?
Like I loved my father, that kind of love?
Consuming, huge, a love that takes the wheel, a love where I pretended to be something I wasn’t?
I did chess. I was obsessed with winning.
But never love.
Mami wanted me to be a lady: sit up straight, cross my ankles, let men protect me.
Papi wanted me to be a leader.
To think quick & strike hard, to speak rarely, but when I did, to always be heard. Me?
Playing chess taught me a queen is both: deadly & graceful, poised & ruthless.
Quiet & cunning. A queen offers her hand to be kissed, & can form it into a fist
while smiling the whole damn time.
But what happens when those principles only apply in a game? & in the real world, I am not treated as a lady or a queen, as a defender or opponent
but as a girl so many want to strike off the board.
I’ve always wanted to go to the Dominican Republic.
Every year my father left on his trip.
Every year I asked if I could go along.
But Papi always said no. I assumed it was because he was busy with work.
I never thought Papi would be doing something he didn’t want me to see.
Mami’s straight up told me since I was five she wouldn’t let me set foot on the island if it was the last inhabitable place on earth.
Although she still has cousins there, she hasn’t been back once.
I assumed Mami had bad memories of home.