Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro (75 page)

Serena said, “How do you know where the first kiss will lead?”

“I’m not gonna kiss someone I’m not with,” Priscilla said defensively.

“Kiss him first, and see what happens,” Serena said, and rolled her eyes.

Serena had been kissing a boy named Derek, who lived in the neighborhood. He was fifteen years old, with an ex-girlfriend who was pregnant by him. Priscilla’s sister, Monique, dated Derek’s friend. The boys passed
by nearly every hour. Once in a while, Serena and Monique ventured to the store to buy lollipops or up the block to the fire hydrant, which Derek would try to open until an old lady threatened to call the cops.

Jessica didn’t approve of Derek since learning about his pregnant ex-girl. Jessica believed that his having sex with Serena was just a matter of time. “Either he’ll expect it from her—cuz you know if he’s sexually active, he’s gonna have to have it—or he’ll go to another girl,” she said. Serena didn’t agree, but she perceived the challenge much the same way as her mother did—as a competition between girls—and she worried about her rival’s long-term advantage: “I think when the baby comes, there’s gonna be a lot of problems. Cuz he’s gonna go to see the baby, and I’ll think he’s gonna see the mother,” she said.

Serena had other, pressing problems. She was teetering on the edge of academic disaster; if she failed summer school, which seemed increasingly likely, she faced the embarrassing prospect of a third year of ninth grade. Jessica assumed that Serena’s educational failure was part of her daughter’s personality—“That’s just Serena,” said Jessica. Virginity was another thing entirely. But if Jessica complained that Serena spent too much time on her social life, Serena retorted, “You jealous I’m the one having fun?” If Jessica mentioned pregnancy, Serena said, “
You
the one never should have had kids.” Jessica complained bitterly that Serena put friends before family. Serena coldly reminded Jessica about a lifetime of being pushed to the side for Jessica’s men. When they were younger, Serena had always remained behind, longing for Jessica, waiting; now that Jessica had finally created a home for her, it seemed to Jessica that all Serena wanted to do was leave.

Lourdes expressed more confidence in Serena, whose success she viewed in opposition to both her own and Jessica’s experience: “I haven’t gotten nowhere because, from being a mother, I became a mother again for my grandchildrens.” Lourdes spoke her mind to Serena, who laughed nervously at her grandmother’s directness: “Honey, the boys that are growing up now, it’s only for your pussy. A girl has to be smart now. Study. Be somebody. So when you become somebody, you don’t have to have this straggly shit on your lips, sitting on your ass, to see if they could support you. You could support yourself. They respect you, because they know they could lose you right there and then. You don’t need
them,
you understand?”

Serena wasn’t the only one who seemed to be passing Jessica by. Shortly after Jessica met Máximo, she’d introduced Elaine to John, one of Máximo’s
friends; Elaine and her former boyfriend had split, but remained on good terms. Elaine and John became a couple; now they led such a busy social life, Elaine had to carve out time for Jessica. John treated Elaine to dinner. He took her dancing. John had already introduced Elaine to his mother and his six-year-old son.

Jessica had yet to meet any of Máximo’s children. They’d become engaged—but only because she surprised him with a ring at a seafood restaurant on City Island. Now she suspected he was cheating on her, although he denied it. She said she’d traced his cell phone calls and spoken with two girls who said they were involved with him. Neither sounded surprised to hear from Jessica; they’d been suspicious of his living arrangement; humiliatingly, Máximo had told them he was living with an aunt.

John, on the other hand, had publicly claimed Elaine with his anniversary gift—a thick gold chain, studded with her sons’ birthstones, and earrings that matched. “What’s ten years from now? A house? A car?” Elaine joked. “Westchester County, baby,” she said.

Jessica’s move to Hunts Point was a demotion by comparison. Once, Jessica’s little cousin Daisy had been dumped there in the dead of night by a disgruntled date. Prostitutes milled around the corner from Jessica’s apartment. Even Spofford Hall, Cesar’s old juvenile detention center, had graduated to a better neighborhood. The stench of fumes from the incinerators seemed ominous, like the risks the area posed for both mother and daughter—invisible, yet pervasive. For Jessica, though, the ghetto’s familiarity might have been its greatest threat—the danger that felt like home.

Boy George’s letters had finally reached Jessica. “So tell me, how was your transformation from convict to Jane Doe Citizen?” Was freedom similar to being reborn? What kind of food did she eat? Had she finally learned to drive? “I’ve had all types of things run through my mind upon a possible release date. I believe I’ve thought of 1000 things I’m going to put on my priority list, buy a couple of dogs, get a couple of nice cars, take a vacation, raise a baby boy, just
live,
Jessica.”

He’d heard that she’d finally reunited with Serena, and he congratulated her. He hadn’t heard much about Luciano, his firstborn, since his arrest. George had effectively disowned his other boy. The teenager had ignored the primary lesson his father’s grim life could teach. “He’s into some heavy hoodlum shit,” George said with disgust.

In fact, George’s son was the rule rather than the exception. George’s
old Chinese supplier, who was also still in prison, marveled at the staying power of Boy George’s legend. “Twenty-two-year-olds coming in from the Bronx still idolize him: so young, so much money, girls, cars. He becomes like a bedtime story,” the supplier said. Like George, the supplier was baffled by the youngsters’ shortsightedness. “I feel sad by the fact that these kids don’t know what they are getting into. He’s doing life in jail—what about that point?”

Jessica read George’s letters aloud to Serena. Serena blamed George for the anguish she and her sisters and brothers had been through; she wrote to him and told him how much she’d hated her mother’s incarceration. Jessica forwarded the letter to George, wrapped inside her own. He responded to mother and daughter separately.

In his letter to Jessica, George acknowledged that he’d abused her and told her how humiliating it had been to hear the wiretaps (“To say that I was deceived,” he wrote, “that would be the understatement of the millennium”). He marveled at the brazenness of her cheating and mused, “I knew you were just crazy cause God couldn’t save you if I would have found out. Who knows scholars would probably say he did, and that’s why I was arrested.” He reminded her that she had deserted him just when he needed her most. But his concerns about the future outweighed his grievances about the past. He encouraged Jessica to stay on track and suggested that she periodically reassess her progress and her goals. “You are a good person and a smart person who has suffered,” he wrote. “Now hold your head up and move on.” He hoped she could let go of the bitterness she held for him.

In his letter to Serena, George asked her to set aside her preconceptions and reintroduced himself: “My name is George.” He acknowledged that he truly loved her mother, but that they both had been living the fast life and couldn’t commit themselves to one person. “If I could’ve seen into the future I swear I would have declined to meet your Mom, but destiny took its course and so did the misunderstandings. Serena, just as there is evil in my past deeds with your Mom, so too there were good ones.” He apologized for the pain he had caused her and her sisters and acknowledged that she might not accept his apology. The cordiality of his parting words recalled the George who’d driven up to Tremont thirteen years before: “I hope that one day upon my release I can be of assistance to you.”

When Serena’s sixteenth birthday rolled around, she had been at Priscilla’s for almost two weeks and Jessica wanted her to come home; Serena wanted to celebrate her birthday there. Máximo advised Jessica to
try reverse psychology. “Act like a bitch; have an attitude; play her own game; show Serena that you’re not interested,” he said. But Jessica thought Serena already believed she wasn’t interested. “What Jessica did to her mom, Serena’s doing back to her,” said Máximo. “She throws the past at her, and Jessica will give in too easily. Jessica had all that time incarcerated to dwell on what she did. Serena, as a young child, was always grabbing Jessica’s leg and saying, ‘Don’t go’—that plays a lot on her mind. All that time, Jessica ain’t going to make it up to her.”

It was a sunny summer day in 2001 when Jessica walked to Southern Boulevard to buy the party supplies for Serena’s surprise sweet sixteen. Jessica had abandoned the formal celebration—Serena had flunked out of summer school—but Jessica wanted to acknowledge that Serena had made it to the age of sixteen with her virginity intact. “I’ve got to give her credit for that, come on,” Jessica said. The party would be a small family affair, but Jessica had rented a limousine for afterward.

That morning, Jessica first went to the ATM—she’d promised Serena $100 for a new outfit and she wanted to get a money order for Cesar’s commissary account. With the baby, Giselle was struggling. Jessica, too, constantly worried about cash: she had to order a cake, party favors, corsages, a keepsake, and pay the balance on the cell phone she’d put on layaway for Serena’s gift. An old prison pal let Jessica charge the limo on her credit card, which gave her a month’s reprieve on the $300 bill. If Jessica calculated right, she could pay for most of the party and still cover her monthly expenses. Elaine had offered to pay for the food. Lourdes would cook.

Jessica climbed the steep stairs to the party store, which felt like a relic from another era. The cartoon figures for the party favors dated no later than the Ninja Turtles. Garfield hadn’t even replaced Felix the Cat. No Powerpuffs, no Stone Cold, only the staples—Barbie and Tweety Bird. The Saran Wrap–covered display of fake-flower corsages was powdered with dust. A middle-aged woman was sitting behind the counter wielding a glue gun, affixing miniature bottles and pacifiers to an enormous corsage. Her husband mulled over a crossword puzzle in the breeze of an industrial fan, balloon streamers whipping above his head. Jessica wandered through the graveyard of milestones. Precious wedding trinkets were tucked safely in an enclosed glass case, but toy babies were accessible everywhere—on open shelves, beneath the counter, in plastic bins, in the protruding bellies of clear plastic storks.

Jessica decided on traditional ribbon corsages and votive-candle favors.
She chose Serena’s keepsake with extra care—a girl, pert at a vanity, holding a brush, turned away from the mirror, with a vacant expression on her face. Everything would be in Serena’s favorite colors—pink and lavender. As the lady tallied the bill, Jessica perused a clutch of photocopied pages, like a tattoo book, and chose a design for the balloons: a solo Minnie Mouse to match the cake.

The Minnie Mouse theme was reminiscent of Serena’s sixth birthday, the last party Jessica had given her. Jessica had been twenty-three then, free on bail while awaiting sentencing. Serena had worn a brown mother-daughter dress, with flowers planted along the trim, even though Jessica wouldn’t wear hers because she was going out partying afterward. The next morning, Lourdes told Jessica how Serena had refused to take off the dress after they had gotten home; she’d even slept in the thing. Now Jessica could barely get Serena’s attention.