Excerpt from my autobiography-in-progress in honor of daddy (II)

“Porque estan llorando?” Mami wanted to know the reason my sisters were crying. As if she didn’t know . . .

“You know very well that that is the Devil’s box. Didn’t you hear Pastor preaching last night?”

Mami herself sounded like a preacher today. Papi nodded his head slowly, assenting what she was saying. He agreed with everything Mami said, even when he knew she was way off base. I held back my tears, failing to understand why our television set was being taken away. Why had it become a sin all of a sudden? We watched as our black and white friend wobbled its way out the door and down the stairs. Then we rushed to the window and stuck our heads out. We watched the heartbreaking scenario unfolding five stories below.

They hauled the television set into the back of Papi’s mud-colored station wagon. Papi went over to the driver’s side, got in and started the engine. Black exhaust smoke burst from the rear of the vehicle rising slowly towards us, but we didn’t turn away. Papi must have felt the warmth of our tear-inundated eyes upon him because he looked up at us, slightly. But he quickly turned away, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him, steering the car away from us, mercilessly ignoring our pain, or so he pretended.

We knew him better. If it had been up to him, I’m sure that Papi would have turned his station wagon around and carried that black-and-white up the stairs, all by himself, right back to his crying nenas.