The Book of Unknown Americans(40)

“You can open it,” I said. “It’s for you.” I felt nervous all of a sudden, like maybe it was too much or maybe she wouldn’t like it.

“It’s light,” she said, and I nodded, anxious for her to get on with it.

She pried off a piece of tape and folded open the tissue paper at one end. She held it up at eye level and squinted inside.

“It’s a scarf,” I said before she’d even pulled it out all the way. “It’s alpaca.”

She unfolded the whole thing and laced her fingers through the yarn fringe at the ends.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I picked out a red one so that it would match your sunglasses.”

“It’s so soft.”

“It’s alpaca,” I said again, like I was suddenly some kind of alpaca salesman or something.

She wrapped the scarf around her neck.

“I’m sorry I haven’t seen you,” I said. “My dad grounded me.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“It means he’s not letting me go anywhere besides school. Whatever. It’s not a big deal. I just wanted you to know why I haven’t been around.”

She nodded.

“I wanted you to know that it isn’t that I don’t want to see you.”

“Okay.”

Then, there in the shadows of the hallway, I kissed her. This strange electricity shot through my body. My first real kiss. Her skin was warm, and she smelled like laundry detergent and frost, as fresh as the winter air. She pulled away first, but she peeked at me and smiled. All I wanted was to do it again—to kiss her, to inhale her, to feel her mouth against mine. I was fuzzy with the thought of it, like I’d somehow slipped underwater. But then, from the living room, my dad started singing along in English: “I want to wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart,” warbling like a yodeler on “heart,” and Maribel giggled and the moment passed.





Adolfo “Fito” Angelino


I came here in 1972 because I wanted to be a boxer like the great Juan Carlos Giménez, who was from Paraguay. Like me. There was a trainer in Washington, D.C., who was good, who was very good, legendary, and who specialized in flyweight fighters. Which is what I was. Skinny but strong. I wrote the trainer a letter. Sully Samuelson. What a name! And he wrote me back. A letter signed with his name. He told me he wasn’t taking on new fighters but that if I was ever in D.C. I should look him up. Maybe he assumed that because I was all the way over in Paraguay, the chances weren’t good I would ever be in D.C. Maybe it was just a bluff, is what I’m saying. But I thought if I could just get a meeting with him, if I could show him what I was capable of, that I was going to be the next Giménez, there was no way he wouldn’t want to work with me. So I went to his gym, and every day I bounced around, pow pow pow, light as air on my feet, and then, boom! a hook you never saw coming. I wore red satin shorts and the best pair of boxing shoes I could afford. I was waiting for Sully to take notice, to see me and recognize that I was a champion. But after a few days, nothing. And when I finally asked one of the other guys about him, I found out that Sully had moved to Vermont, which was a place I’d never heard of back then. Vermont? What is that?

I thought I would go. ?Vermont, jaha! But I only made it as far as Delaware. I ran out of money on the way, so I got off here and found a job laying blacktop for a few days, trying to earn enough for another bus ticket. It was supposed to be temporary, but I was sealcoating the parking lot of this building and the landlord, he used to stand out on the balcony, smoking a cigar while I worked. Name was Oscar. Turned out he was heading back to Montevideo, where he was from, and the guy who owned the building back then wanted him to find a replacement to manage the property. For some reason he thought I could do the job. “No way,” I told him. “I’m gonna be a boxer!” He took one look at me and laughed. “You?” he said. I challenged him to an arm wrestling match. I said if I beat him, he had to give me the money for the ticket to Vermont, but if he beat me, I’d take the building manager job instead.

Well, here I am. No shame in it.

Who comes to the United States and ends up in Delaware? I for one never thought I’d be here. But I’ve been surprised. It’s popular with the Latinos. And all because of the mushroom farms over in Pennsylvania. Half the mushrooms in the country are grown there. Back in the seventies, they used to hire Puerto Ricans to harvest everything, but now it’s the Mexicans. And they used to set up the workers with housing, too. Shitty housing with rats as big as rabbits, boarded-up windows, no hot water. After Reagan’s amnesty deal, the workers started bringing their families up from México. They didn’t put their wives and children up in that shitty housing, though. They found other places to live. Places like Delaware. It’s cheaper than Pennsylvania. And no sales tax. We have all the Spanish supermarkets now, and the school district started those English programs. I know some people here think we’re trying to take over, but we just want to be a part of it. We want to have our stake. This is our home, too.

I like it here. I started off as the manager, but now I own this building. Bought it out almost ten years ago after working jobs on the side, saving up. I got a good deal. The area is changing, though. A clash of cultures. I try to make this building like an island for all of us washed-ashore refugees. A safe harbor. I don’t let anyone mess with me. If people want to tell me to go home, I just turn to them and smile politely and say, “I’m already there.”