jaime

Jaime is all hip-hop when she bounces into the car: broad-brimmed snapback lid set rakishly akimbo on her head, a pattern shaved into the close-cropped hair on the side of her head, an oversized baseball jersey, long baggy basketball shorts, and a pair of Air Jordans.

“Hi Jaime, I’m Santiago.” I orient Jaime to the poems and the notebook. 

“Cool. Very cool,” she says, looking through them as I pull away from the curb. “Oh, okay. This one’s for me.”

“Great! What’d you get? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Jaime begins to read haltingly, sounding each syllable slowly. The accent is familiar: somewhere between Puerto Rico and the Bronx. It is the final line of Mary Oliver’s poem “Summer Day.” In it, the poet affirms the sacredness of attentively idling in the grass on a summer day and then ends by inviting the reader to share what they intend to do with their “one wild and precious life.”

“Ah! I love that one, too. It’s such a powerful question at the end. It always wakes me up! I’m glad it’s meaningful to you.” 

“Oh, most definitely. I been clean for 22 years, one day at a time. We just have this one day, like the poem says. A precious day. Got to live it to the fullest. Feel me?”

“I do. And congratulations. That’s a tremendous accomplishment.”

“Thank you. It is what it is. But it can be hard. Just a year ago, I lost my little brother. Overdose. He kept trying to get clean. Kept saying to me, ‘I’m gonna get like you, Jaime.’ But then, when he’d start using again, he’d just disappear. I knew he was ashamed ‘cause I’d been there too. I knew that shame. So every time he got clean and called me, all proud, I’d say, ‘You know, I love you however you are, little bro. I always got you. You don’t never have to hide nothing from me.’ But he did, and I couldn’t help him. Now he’s just gone.”

“Jesus. That’s so heartbreaking. How tragic. I’m so sorry. It sounds like it was hard for him to accept that he needed help, like he wanted to show you he could do it himself. I’m a little brother, too. I get that.”

“I get it, too. I used to be that way. But getting clean taught me to be humble. Ain’t nobody gets anywhere by themself. Thinking you do is just pride. And pride gets you in trouble.”

“I agree. You’re right. Still, I just feel very sorry.”

“It is what it is. Just got to keep living.”

I park in the cramped convenience store parking lot, where she will make a stop and turn to Jaime. 

“I’ll be right here. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” But Jaime pauses before getting out of the car. 

“You know, I was raped from age 4 to age 12. The man who did that did time. Not for what he did to me but for other things. Similar things. When he got out, I gave that man a place to stay, I clothed him, I fed him. He was my biological father.”

Jaime is leaning slightly forward as she tells me this. 

“Fuck, Jaime, damn. I’m so sorry that happened to you. Jesus. I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay. I’m not saying it for that. Everybody’s got their shit. That’s just mine.”

When she returns to the car a few minutes later with a gallon of milk and a plastic bag with a few groceries, and we start the short ride back to her apartment, she tells me that she has just returned from Puerto Rico. Another brother had gone missing. She went to try to find him, but he’s just vanished. 

“I’m pretty sure he’s been murdered,” she tells me. “People down there told me he was maybe mixed up with Ñeta. Motherfuckers don’t play.” I don’t know what Ñeta is exactly, but asking seems to miss the point. Besides, I get the picture.

“My god, how are you still functioning? I mean, and not just functioning, but you got in the car all cheerful will all this going on? I’ve driven people who seem to have life in their hands and are whining about the world this and the world that.” 

By now, we’re already back, pulling up to her place. I put the car in park and turn to her.

“There’s no time for that. Like the poem, bro, one precious life. But I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. It’s been hard for me, for sure. I’m homosexual… you might realize… I’m a lesbian. That’s hard in my community. In Puerto Rico, there’s no tolerance. One day I was walking down the street, and some dudes standing in front of a building starting talking shit, like, ‘So you think you a man?’ I always just ignored that shit. But I guess I’d finally had it. So I stopped and turned to them and said, ‘Y tú? You think you a man?’ Next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital with 47 stitches on my neck.” She cranes her head and gestures. “That’s why I got this big tattoo.”

“The fuck is wrong with people? I just don’t understand this world.”

“It is what it is, homie. But it’s okay. I’m still here. I got today.”

“You’re amazing. I’m curious: what do you do for a living?”

“I write music. Like lyrics. Mostly for other people. Mostly hip hop.”

“Ah, so you’re a poet too. You know, the woman who wrote the poem you took—Mary Oliver?—she was also sexually abused by her father. And she was also gay.”

“That’s dope,” Jaime says. “Well, I mean not —”

“No, you’re good. I get it.”

“I knew that poem was for me. It’s all meant to be.”

“For real. It was an honor to meet you.”

“You too.” We shake hands.

“I wish you well. I hope things start looking up for you.”

“Thanks, man. They already have. You be safe.”

“I will. And thank you for sharing your story with me.”

“Of course! But it’s not a story. It’s my testimony.”

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