1979 – 1980

MAY — I am ten. Double digits at last. We went for pizza at Unicentro and then some bowling with my friends from school. Andres is really good at bowling whereas I am terrible. Mom and dad are fighting more. We had to go to Mrs. Litchenberg’s house again in the middle of the night because my mother didn’t want us in the house with our dad. We slept together in her guest bedroom. She has a big brass bed and peacock feathers as well as several heirloom quilts. In the morning I watched the movie “Coma” on her betamax as well as a bunch of episodes of Welcome Back Kotter someone had taped for her and mailed from the US. I wasn’t that into the show but I just wanted stuff to distract me from my mom and Mrs. L talking about how best to go about getting a divorce lawyer and bringing us back to the US. The whole time they were talking, Mrs. L was smoking one of her long Capri cigarettes.

JUNE — I have riding lessons after school. The stables are located way in the mountains above the city. I’ve been learning Western and English riding. Western makes more sense. I really like jumping the horses. I did get bit by one — which is a very strange sensation. This mare just came up and bit my calf when I was riding my horse. Anyhow, every Thursday after school we take a bus to the stables and have our lessons. Then once it’s all over our parents come and pick us up. Well today my mom never showed up. So I was all alone, waiting and waiting. It started to get dark and I was hungry so I went to the tienda nearby and bought a blow-pop for dinner. I continued waiting for — I don’t know, hours? I don’t have a watch. Finally my mom and Mrs. Litchenberg showed up. They’d been at a Mexican restaurant having margaritas and lost track of the time. Then when my mom remembered she had a child she got lost looking for the stables because of all the margaritas. This seems like the kind of memory I might throw in my mother’s face for the rest of my life whenever I want to make a point.

JULY — things are getting weird here in Bogota. There’s a group of communist rebels in the jungle who are trying to start a civil war. The FARQ — so now on a daily basis we see trucks and tanks in the city loaded with soldiers who are carrying machine guns. Everyone’s tense. There have been assassinations and kidnappings — like more than normal. Also, we get the Miami Herald here as our newspaper and it seems like Florida is a crazy place. I’ve been reading about the Cuban Refugee Crisis. Wow. There’s talk of relocating us out of Colombia. The company my dad works for said they’d like to send us to London or Los Angeles. Both of those places sound great. My parents, however, were not excited about it. They don’t want to live overseas anymore and my dad said “I don’t want to move to California because it’s full of fruits and nuts.” That sounds like a reason to me TO move there but as you know he is no fun at all. We were driving back from dinner the other evening and when we came to a traffic circle a man carrying a gun started shooting at the cars. He came straight at our car and was aiming his gun at us. My dad floored it and the man had to jump onto the hood of our car. My dad then drove around the circle at high speed, slammed on the brakes sending the guy rolling off the hood. When we got home no one said anything about it.

AUGUST — My mom finally explained to me that the embassy had trained them both in evasive driving techniques to avoid kidnappings. We went to the mountains for a picnic with the Litchenbergs. This was not a good idea. A group of Farq rebels blockaded the road back to the city and we were captured by them and held at gunpoint. Susan and I were both freaked out but we kept really quiet. One of the Rebels recognized Mrs. Litchenberg as “Gloria” from the telenovela “Gloria y sus amantes.” They made her take a bunch of pictures with them and had her hold up a communist flag in support in one of the photos. After that they let us go. The whole ride back my dad was laughing and calling her “Hanoi Jane.” I’m not sure what that means. They all decided then that they were getting us out of Colombia. Until then we’re not leaving the city again.

SEPTEMBER — We’re moving to Miami. I cannot tell you how horrible this news is. I held up a copy of the Miami Herald and showed it to my parents. on the cover was a picture of the tent city being built to house Cuban Refugees. I asked my parents if they had read the paper lately. They told me that Florida was beautiful and I would love it. I have been to Florida. My Aunt moved to Tampa last year and also, we’ve been to Disney World. I don’t actually love it there. It’s hot and the bugs are prehistoric. Even the plants are all angry — stinging and stabbing everything that comes near. Why would we move there? Sure Colombia’s on the brink of a civil war but I’d rather stay here. I like my school. I like my friends. Tonight at dinner I read them a story from the Miami Herald about a herpes outbreak in a junior high school. I also told them about a Miami City Councilman arrested for taking bribes of cocaine. They told me to shut up. They don’t want to hear anything about Florida. My dad told me point blank that my bad attitude ruins everything. I tried to talk sense to them — London for example has an amazing school system. Susan and I are both young enough to develop British accents which would only be a career asset in later life. Or if we moved to Los Angeles I could start my acting career right away. They don’t care. They like Florida and what we want does not matter.

OCTOBER — I have become deeply depressed. The more I think about Florida the worse I feel. I tried to research things I might like about Miami and had to stop. The history of Florida is blood soaked and ugly. The general consensus is that it is a state of last resort. The population is made up of fantasists who have failed elsewhere or who never escaped the gravity of its humid oppression. Con artists and hucksters flocked to the state in the 19th century. Cultists set up camps there to strip the “faithful” of their cash. The circus Ringling Brothers Barnham & Baily do their winter training in Sarasota because Florida has no problems with animal cruelty. South Florida is an ecological atrocity, having been built by destroying huge swaths of the Everglades. Florida is meant to be an uninhabited buffer for hurricanes and primordial creatures. If we move there I will probably end up dead.

NOVEMBER — I am grounded. I set my bedroom on fire. I was playing “airplane crash” where I set paper airplanes on fire then throw them around the room. Look, don’t get all judge-y about it. The low oxygen at this altitude means that you really have to work hard to start a fire. I’ve been playing this game for years. AVIANCA FLIGHT 102 en route to Miami encountered an electrical problem moments before landing at Miami International (played by my trash can) and burst into flames before crashing into the terminal and killing hundreds who were waiting for the flight. It’s one of my favorite scenarios. Anyhow, the trash in my trashcan flared up and my curtains caught fire and before I knew it my room was out of control. Our whole house is made of brick and plaster so there wasn’t much danger. I smothered the whole thing with my sleeping bag but the smoke was too much to hide. My dad came in and beat me pretty severely. I have welt marks from his belt, still. I’m not saying I didn’t deserve it. I’m not one of those anti spanking cry-babies. For sure I won’t be playing airplane crash anymore. At least not with real fire.

DECEMBER — On our last day in Bogota we checked into a hotel because our house was empty. Mom and dad got in some huge fight and he tried to kill her. Susan and I freaked out and started running around the halls, waking up people trying to get help. He was crushing her ribs with his knee. I won’t forget that anytime soon. It feels like the sort of thing that might make me afraid of relationships and generally distrustful of men for the rest of my life? Not sure. So we’re in Miami now and it is worse than I thought. One thing though, everyone speaks Spanish here and it annoys the hell out of my parents. They were both expecting they’d never have to speak Spanish again but they are forced to rely on me in order to translate. I think it’s hilarious. My dad’s all like, “This is America, they should learn English.” I really, really want to remind him that he half-assed learned Spanish when we lived in Colombia so that makes him a total hypocrite but I don’t dare because when my mom back talked him he tried to kill her. Oh, so get this, we’re staying in a hotel overlooking the Dadeland Mall where there was a machine gun battle. I didn’t say anything about it — I just made sure that the TV was on and reporting it when my dad came back from the pool. I hope he likes it here.

JANUARY — Happy new year, I guess. My new school is terrible. The kids are disgusting. Seriously gross. One of the girls came up to me and said she wanted me to finger her. I’m 10. What happened? Why is everyone so sexual and creepy? My teachers are all sweaty and their pupils are dilated. They treat us like prisoners. I got in trouble for reading too quickly. I finished reading the assignment before everyone else because it was super easy and my teacher was mad at me. Like he didn’t want to be bothered. His name is Mr. Cunningham and he is wretched. Plus it’s crazy hot here. It’s January and we have to run the air conditioner all the time. We’re in a rental home in a neighborhood called Calusa Estates. I think they don’t know the meaning of the word “Estate” because these are horrible little houses filled with ants and brown carpet. UGLY! I was looking at a bottle of bleach yesterday and thinking I should just drink it.

FEBRUARY — We bought a new house. It has a pool. The back yard is tiny. My room is tiny. The grass in our yard is coarse and stabby. When you walk on it it hurts your feet. My mom and dad think this place is beautiful. I hate it. They’re idiots. We went to a seafood restaurant in our neighborhood. The whole place stank like a giant fart. They kept talking about how amazing and moist the grouper was. Barf. My sister and I are miserable. The other students at our schools hate us. Susan goes to Arvida Jr. High and they have race riots in the hallways. She got beaten up yesterday buy these mean Cuban girls who draw their make up on with Sharpie Markers. She even spoke to them in Spanish to try and make friends with them and this only made them madder – the accused her of being a spy. At my elementary school one of the elderly teachers passed out in the parking lot from the heat and fell on the pavement. She was out there for an hour and she got third degree burns all on that side of her body from the asphalt. The paramedics have a special medical spatula they use to remove people from the pavement here because this happens a lot.

MARCH — Susan is taking drugs. She’s twelve. She’s smoking pot and doing cocaine. It was the only way she could fit in with the other kids at her school. I’ve been trying to tell her that it’s a bad idea, reminding her of all the people in Colombia who we saw get killed as a part of the drug trade to the US. American cash funds the terror in Colombia. She has all these gross friends. She’d rather have friends than not. I’m happy to not have friends because these kids are disgusting. My mom tried to make me be friends with these two boys in my neighborhood, Brett and Kenny. I hung out with them for a little bit but then they wanted to put firecrackers in the mouths of lizards and I was not interested. Good thing I told them I was going home because later they went to the shoppes of Kendall and got arrested for shoplifting at the Kmart. I told my mom to please not introduce me to any other kids in the neighborhood because I don’t want to go to jail. I want to do my time in Florida and then get out as soon as possible.

APRIL — Our neighbors woke up to find a goat head on a spike in their front yard. Apparently they’ve been subjected to a Santaria curse for some reason. The cleaning lady explained that they have to pee on their hands to clean the curse off of them. My teacher Mr. Cunningham was fired because it turns out he doesn’t have any real teaching credentials. He lied on his resume and the Dade County Public School System hired him without checking anything. He doesn’t even have a college degree! He’s been teaching for ten years. I told my parents about this and they told me to stop complaining and that they were sure it was no big deal. Most nights my dad gets black out drunk while watching jeopardy on the back patio. Our brand new patio furniture is already covered in black mildew. They bought this lemon yellow patio set and within days the mildew was growing all over it. I have to use bleach to clean the patio and the furniture but I can’t keep up. The pool has turned green with algae and there are tadpoles swimming in it. I would not swim in there if you paid me. I hate it here so much. We have air conditioning but we can’t run it enough to keep the house cool. At night I lay in bed with no sheets or anything, a fan full blast, just sweating. The gunshots echoing through Calusa Estates keep me up. Speaking of murder, they found a headless body in the dumpster behind the McDonalds we go to the other day.