Carribean Fragoza
Long Beach Pa’ la Niña
Now
that the last bouts of autumn heat have surrendered to this winter’s dusk’s
deepening cool breath, I begin to think I can warm up to Long Beach. And
because I’m ardently from South El Monte –believe me, this is no small thing to
say.
From
the shadows cast by the furniture in the house I’m staying at for now and that
is not mine and still new to me, I can tell it is near sunset. A loud call from
down the street confirms the hour.
Tamales
calientitos champurrado!
Para
la cena, of course.
Sonorous,
la señora tamalera makes her rounds down the streets of this Long Beach
neighborhood. A car follows very slowly behind her, a rust-red hatchback
exposing a two giant silvery ollas de tamales y champurrado. It reminds me of
the call of the eloteros that once honked down every street of my neighborhood,
joining the broken-music-box dissonance of ice cream truck It’s a Small World
and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star remixes. I realize just now that you don’t hear
the eloteros anymore and the ice cream jams are occasional, except in the
summer. I’m not sure why.
As
the evening progresses, darkening and hushing, I begin to notice that the
piercing screams of a baby in tantrum or pain have not stopped. Somehow, I find
this endearing. Through the flurry of sobs, I begin to discern a rich sing
songy voice,
The
voice, -at first I can’t tell the language of its song -undulates in the
night, traverses backyard fences, iron window bars and grows corpulent as the
baby gradually ceases its cries. It is a man’s voice, I imagine by his timbre,
not too old.
Ay
que chula que linda esta niña mas preciosa del mundo esta niña
mas preciosa mia.
Before
long, the baby is silent.
Cinco
cinco cinco, cinco los deditos..
The
man continues, now inventing new songs about little fingers,
Una
una una, una narizita
And
little noses
And
muchos muchos muchos, doggies and gatitos
The
baby begins to squeal intermittently, responding to the song perhaps an
improvised dance or new tactile choreography. I think la niña is laughing, with
her father, both still warm from the day in their home, something cooking
perhaps in a pot in the kitchen. Que niña mas linda, mas preciosa.
La
niña continues to squeal. And squeal. And scream. And cry and scream again. The
father continues to invent songs about no llores no llores porque porque llora
la niña porque. The nina, of course, no déjà de llorar.
The
sweetness of the moment is over. I’m ready for the kid to stop crying.
But
for once, I begin, just barely, to think that I could find something familiar
enough to be comforting and homelike in a place that is not my home. I think
that perhaps, it’s in the intimacy of language and familiarity of sound, the
simple assonance of a song that I can recognize glimpses of a life I think I
remember. Certainly one I can imagine having.
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