I went to my classroom, and as I walked in, I could feel everybody staring at me. I sat near the front and ignored all the murmuring. The bully didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but his buddies were not happy at all. They tried to get me after school on the way to the bus stop. “Hey Monroy! We are not afraid of your brother” they said, as they ran after me. I ran but they caught up with me in no time. One of them shoved me against the wall. My books flew everywhere, getting bent up and soiled. I felt very angry. I was always careful to keep my books clean and thought of all my mom had gone through to get them for me.
For the first time. I was not afraid of them. They put their books down and started coming toward me. Pulling my sling shot out, I hit one of them on the chest with a steel ball bearing. He screamed in terrible pain as he fell onto one knee crying. Moving away quickly, I tried to reload but another boy knocked me down. I laid there flat on my back. I tried to reload as I kept on kicking at the boy who was trying to sit on me. It was no use, the boy grabbed my leg and was dragging me through the dirt. I lost my slingshot!
By now a circle of boys had gathered to watch the fight. I thought everything was lost but somehow I managed to stand up and charged the kid with all I had. He punched me in the mouth and I felt the taste of blood instantly. I kicked him where it counts and although it hurt him he seemed to get more enraged. As I stood there, with my fists clenched, he was coming back at me, I knew I was no match for him, but I was determined to fight him to the end. Just then, Armando who had been there all along stepped in and polished the boy right up! Armando in the meantime had beaten one of the other boys and chased him off. Then he had joined the crowd to watch my fight just to keep an eye on me. Back on the bus and on the way home, I asked Armando why he waited so long to step in. He just smiled and said “Because you were doing just fine.” Then putting his arm around me he told me he was proud of me and pointed out that I was getting to be a big boy and how I was catching up to him in height. “They will never bother you again, because now they know you mean business“.
He was right! The bullies would say nasty stuff about me but never to my face and never again did I have to run from them. When everything was said and done, my shirt was ripped, my buttons where gone and I had a fat lip but I felt it was worth it.
A public transportation bus similar to the one where I found the wallet.
I had found a small fortune on the bus while sweeping for my father. Looking at the bills, I didn’t want to come out of the bathroom. Somehow the darkness of the outside outhouse felt safe. Still, I had to think quickly before somebody came looking for me. Robert Wagner was my favorite actor at the time. He played in a show called “It Takes a Thief” as a super clever and audacious thief. I was absolutely convinced I looked like him, especially when I wore a black turtleneck that belonged to my brother. I wanted a turtleneck of my own so that I could wear it all the time. Every day I combed my hair like him as well. What would he do in this situation? I put on my best Robert Wagner face and bravely came out of the bathroom walking past my brothers who were looking at me with suspicion(so I thought). I just returned their look with a cool scowl, went to my bed, and hid the wallet under my mattress. It was time for bed and my brothers again asked me why I was so quiet because usually we talked and talked in bed. I didn’t answer them and that night I didn’t get much sleep.
Twenty three Quetzales was a lot of money. My dad at the time earned twenty five Quetzales for a weeks work and managed to support a large family like ours on that amount. A kid could buy four pieces of candy for a penny. You could buy a good size popsicle, a cucumber, an orange or a mango with pepita, for a penny or two. For an eight year old, this was an enormous amount of money! I didn’t say anything to anybody, not even my mom.
It would be fun to be secretly rich. Extremely rich! I could buy anything my heart desired which for the most part had something to do with food and fun snacks. However, being secretly rich can be kind of a lonely. I was used to doing everything with my brothers and it took a lot of thinking to figure out ways to buy things without them knowing I had money.
Oranges with pepita. Yum!
In those days we would get a penny when we went to school to buy a snack at recess, sometimes I would buy a piece of sweet bread that they sold in school, they were nice big delicious pieces. They were best with the powdered milk they used to mix and serve in school for free. Sometimes my mom didn’t have any money to give us. When I went to school with my new fortune, I decided to buy a snack for a kid who came from a very poor family and never had money for a snack during recess. I told him he could have anything he wanted so he got himself a big mango with pepita and a big radish with pepita too. I will never forget the grin on his face as he tore into that mango. The juice ran down his arm all the way to his elbow. He didn’t even noticed nor did he wash his hands when he was done eating it. He just wiped his hands on the side of his pants as he walked away declaring me his best friend.
I liked the feeling of being able to make somebody so happy and I could certainly identify with him. The best part was that buying something like that, didn’t affect my fortune! I actually went to school a few days in a row because when I was in school I could buy stuff without my brothers knowing about it. I would buy snacks for the kids that usually didn’t have money and before I knew it, I was surrounded by a lot of friends all of them claiming I was their best friend! I remember walking the hallways during recess surrounded by a bunch of renegades treating me like a king. It was all fun until the teacher got wind that Robin Hood was in town and was planning to have a talk with me about where the money came from. Most likely she was going to ask me to bring my mom in. As you can imagine it was not normal for a kid my age to be going around spending money. When a kid was found spending money it was assumed he was stealing, either from his parents or from somebody’s piggy bank. I left school and went back to hang out with the shoe shine boys at central park.
Time went by and I was getting tired of sneaking around so, of course, I consulted with my brother Armando and told him how I was feeling stressed out. I didn’t like keeping a secret from my mom. I had bought a bunch of things for myself and the kids at school and still had a lot of money. He just sat there quietly and made understanding noises as he listened to me. Then, very generously, he offered to help me spend the rest of the money and boy did he ever have the ideas on ways to spend the money!
When I was 4 years old, we lived at a place called El Palomar, which translated meant “The Pigeon House”. The pigeon house was a place where poor people or young couples lived. Many were just starting out and could only afford to rent a single room. It was a great big house with many separate rooms that shared a common yard, and a set of two outhouses that sat in the middle of the yard. There was also a set of pilas which were sinks made of concrete. There was a water reservoir in the middle that served as a water supply to all the sinks which had no faucets. Water had to be drawn out of a deep well which was very dangerous for kids.
People would take turns washing their dishes and clothes. Of course there were always those people who would take too long or those who would create conflict. This often resulted in the ladies arguing and sometimes when the husbands got involved, there would be fist fights. Other men would intervene and sometimes it got bad enough that the police would come and take a few men to jail. I remember my dad closing the door and ignoring the trouble. He said it was not smart to get in the middle of that because you could get hurt, end up in jail, or make enemies. He kept a piece of car belt (a long very hard strip of rubber with steel threads) about foot and a half long behind the door to use as a weapon if he ever had to protect himself out there.
I was just a little guy at the time. Only Chino and Rafa were living with my mother and father. Mama Tula rented another room and lived with Oscar, Marina and Percy. My mom would go out to work, and Mama Tula would take care of all of us. At that time, my father was a taxi driver and would play in a marimba band. My mom was not very fond of the marimba jobs because although my dad made a little money, it also involved drinking and staying out really late.
My Father (far right) playing Marimba c. 1963
Colocho was my cousin from my father’s side of the family and was a couple of years older than I was. His mother was my father’s sister. We called him Colocho because of his curly bushy hair. Sometimes we would play together, but he would pick on me and my mom would call me back into our room. Colocho would just stare at my mom as he walked away.
As a rule, I usually stayed really close to my mom. Sometimes, I would sit on the doorstep and watch the kids playing in the yard. The threshold of our door was made of concrete and had a few cracks. I would sit there and clean the dirt out of the cracks with a little stick. I could not understand how it always got dirty again. Colocho came around one day and sat next to me. He had a hand full of dirt and started filling the cracks up again! That really bothered me, and when I told him not to do that, he stood up, pulled my hair, knocked me down to the ground, and then ran away to his room. My mom came out and comforted me, she went and talked to my aunt about it and she assured my mom that it would not happen again. I was scared and hurt.
A few days later, he came by again with another handful of dirt. This time, as he walked by, he threw it in my face then he ran away. With dirt in my eyes, I sat there crying. My mom came out and took me inside to wash me up. I could see that my mom was really upset and heard her say under her breath, “What that kid needs is a good whacking!” Of course she meant a spanking. At that age, I guess we are very resilient to situations, so not long after, I went back to playing with Colocho. It still bothered me that he always wanted everything to go his way, and I often retreated into my room with my mom.
Not long after, sitting on the doorstep, I saw Colocho pick up a hand full of dirt again and start to walk toward me. I pretended not to see him and as he threw the dirt on my face, I turned my face the other way. Suddenly, to his surprise, I grabbed him by the hair and whacked him on the face with my father’s piece of car belt! I was so mad I felt as if I was in a dark tunnel and I could only see him! I hit him again and saw his face bleeding… My mom came running when she heard the screaming!
Colocho was bleeding and had to get some stitches on his eyebrow. I was so scared, I thought I was going to have to go to jail like the people who got in fights in the yard. I remembered having dreams about it, over and over again. It was hard for me to get over it. My mom told me later that she worried about me because I would not eat, just wanted to be next to her, slept a lot during the day, and cried often. She would have Rafa and Chino take me with them to the fields and fly kites or play soccer so my mind would be on something else. I remember Rafa making a big parachute with the cloth from a large umbrella. He also made a little wooden war tank, with a piece of wood and a pipe. He would load it with two firecrackers. The first firecracker would explode and propelled the second one which in turn would explode in the air! I always thought Rafa was a genius and was proud of him.
Soon after that we moved away from El Palomar. My father got a different job and we rented a house. Mama Tula and the rest of the kids moved in with us. I didn’t see Colocho as much after that but he never bothered me again. Decades have passed. I still see him now and then when I go home to Guatemala. He may still have a slight scar.
