Ernesto Quiñonez - Spanish Harlem, 7th Grade

 

 

So, I'm from the Spanish Harlem section of New York City, and while I was growing up in the seventh grade, I was being bullied by a big Italian ninth grader named Mario. And Mario had a routine. Mario had this scene that he would create, and it was that he would wait till lunchtime, and then what he would do is that he would pace in between the tables where the seventh graders were having their lunch. And he would pace in between the tables and he was carrying his milk. And then he'll pick out a victim or a target, one of us Latino kids. And then Mario will spill milk on our back. And then he'll say, "You're a wetback. What are you going to do? I mean, you're a wetback anyway. You're a wetback, so I don't do anything wrong."

 

We didn't like it. We didn't like it one bit. But this guy was big, man. Mario was big. You seen the movie Grease? When they don't look like high school kids? [audience laughter] Mario was like that. People would come, say, "He's a teacher, right?" Like, "No, he's a ninth grader." [audience chuckle] He was big. His father, I remember his father was this hulk of a man, and he used to have these big hands. They were like milk crate hands. He could like, take the phone book and rip it in two. And Mario was like that. None of us liked it. And I knew that sooner or later I was going to be one of his targets. One day, they were serving ice cream, and I had my tray, and I went down to sit at the table. And from the corner of my eye, I see Mario pacing between the tables.

 

And the seventh graders, when we would see Mario doing this, it was like we would tense up. Everybody would just get nervous. It was like those National Geographic shows that you see when the herd is all antsy and nervous because the lion is [audience chuckle]. And then once she pounces on one person-- on one antelope takes it, then the herd is like, "Okay, cool, now we can eat." [audience chuckle] It was like that with Mario. We would be tense and. And we're like, "Okay, not me. Not me. Oh, Hector, good. That's it." [audience laughter] I knew it was going to be me sooner or later.

 

That day, when they were serving ice cream, I saw Mario and I said, "I'm going to hit him. If he does this to me, I'm going to hit him." I was determined to hit him. I feel Mario doing his little scene. And I feel him on my back. I feel him. I know he's back there. And then I feel the cold running down my spine. And I shoot right up. "What are you going to do? What are you going to do? You're a wetback anyway. What are you going to do, huh? What are you going to do? Wetback." And I barely-- I was-- He was towering over me, and I barely reached his neck. And as angry as I was, I just sat back down and he took my ice cream. None of the seventh graders would think less of you. They're like, "Dude, he's big. I mean, what are you going to do?" And we were pretty much determined that, “All right, he's a ninth grader. Eventually he's going to graduate. He'll be gone in eighth grade. We'll be in eighth grade. And we just let's weather the storm. Let’s weather the storm. No one's going to face this guy.” But I just felt so angry, and I just felt so humiliated.

 

Then one day, they were serving hot dogs, and I had my tray, and I saw Mario doing his little thing again. And I felt him behind me. And I was waiting for the milk. I was waiting for that cold to run down my spine. But instead, an arm came from above. And he took my hot dog. And I shot up, and I grabbed the hot dog. I said, "Hey, that's mine. Give it back." And it broke in two. So, then Mario said, "Oh, freak. Here, you take it." And he threw it at my face. And I jumped him. I jumped him. Mario slipped, and I started beating him up. I started hitting him. But before I knew it, Mario had flipped me over and he was beating the crap out of me. [audience chuckle] I mean, he was really beating me up. He gave me a black eye. He gave me a really bruised cheek. This cheekbone was really bruised. And he loosened my tooth, which years later came out. But I had stood up to the bully. [audience holler] I had stood up to the bully, and I was the toast of the seventh graders. [audience laughter] I was like the Obama of the seventh-grade class. [audience laughter] And I was so proud of my bruises. They were like badges. They were like war wounds, and everybody was like, "Wow. Ernesto, you did it. Wow." So, I was eating my lunch in peace. See, Mario isn’t to bother me, I stood up to him.

 

So I am eating. Mario doing his thing. And then I feel the cold milk running down my back. And I felt so betrayed. I felt so betrayed by a principle. I felt betrayed by a principle that if you hit a bully, he will stop picking on you. [audience chuckle] It was a principle. The way that the planets revolve around the sun. It's a principle. [audience chuckle] The way that gravity says, if you throw something up, it will come down. It's a principle. You hit a bully, he stops picking on you. But it wasn't working that way. What I had to realize was that Mario wasn't a bully. He was a racist. He was a racist bully. And other measures had to be taken. And I was just tired of it. I was fed up.

 

So, me and my friend got together, who had also been one of Mario's victims. We got together and we decided to do this. And what we did was that we went to a stationary store, and while my friend kept the clerk busy, I went to where the magazines were, and I knew exactly what genre I wanted, and it was easy to find. And I took the magazine that I knew was the magazine I wanted, and I put it inside my pants and I put my shirt back down. I went to my friend and said, "You ready? Let's go. All right, let's go. You're not going to buy anything? Okay, let's go." The magazine I stole was called Blue Boy. And Blue Boy is like a men's porn magazine for men. It's got all these naked men. And what we did was we got a six-month subscription and we were broke. So, we saved and were pulling our money [audience laughter] and we got two vibrators and we mailed it to Mario as if Mario had actually asked for this. [audience chuckle]

 

And we knew. We knew, like, every family Spanish Harlem, it's the mother who has the mail key. Everything goes through the mom. [audience chuckle] The welfare checks, the bills, it all goes through the mom. So, we knew it was the mom who was going to get this first. And we knew it. [audience chuckle] And so we went to school, and we waited and we waited, and we got terrorized, and we waited. One day, Mario didn't come to school. [audience chuckle] I said, "All right, maybe he's sick." Then, second day, he did not come to school. And then word was that his father had beaten him, and he was in the hospital. His father had given him a beating. It was so bad that he was in the hospital. And I knew why. I knew. But I still held on to hope that maybe that's the kind of family they are. That's why he's a bully. His father beats everybody up.

 

But there was this kid named Felix, and he was, like, the gossiper of the school. And soon enough, he was telling the boys, "Yo, yo, you guys heard? Mario is G. Mario is G." And then I knew that we had gone too far, that it was us. I asked my friend, "You going to come? Should we go visit him?" He said, "I'm not visiting Mario." But I went. I went. He was staying at Metropolitan Hospital. And I walked in, I went to the visitor's desk. You had to say you were family. So here I was saying I was family [audience chuckle] to this guy. And I got the visitor's pass, this big plastic card. And I was wondering, “What is it that I'm doing here? Why am I here? How is he going to receive me? What am I going to say to Mario?” You know? But somehow, I also felt like maybe I should take-- I should do this visit. And I got on the elevator, holding my pass. I punched the floor. The doors open. And they closed back. And I went back down. And then I went home. And I didn't see him.

 

The next time I saw Mario in school, when he did come, he had a cast on his face. He had like a hockey mask because his father had also broken his nose. So, he had a big cast. And he wasn't-- he wasn't the same Mario. That swagger, that atmosphere of this invulnerable person was gone. And it wasn't this-- it wasn’t because his father had beaten him up, it was because of this rumor that was going around, a rumor that I had started. My memory of him was in the yard smoking with his friends. And I felt, should I say something to him? And I also didn't. But I realized that he was leaving people alone, not because he didn't want to bully them because he wanted to be left alone because something had humiliated him.

 

It was only years later. It was only years later when I started writing novels. When I started writing about El Barrio, about Spanish Harlem, and started scrutinizing my life. What was it that happened in these neighborhoods? What exactly? What was this all about? When it finally hit me that prejudice is so evil that it can creep up on you, and before you know it, you yourself have become the bigot. And I was guilty of that because I had subscribed to this notion, this fear of homosexuality that was rampant in El Barrio. I knew that was the reaction his parents were going to have towards Mario. And I wanted him to feel this discomfort. And I was guilty of that. There's not much you can do with the past except learn from it and maybe get a chance at asking for forgiveness. And if lucky, be forgiven. And so, tonight, I'm going to throw it out to the universe, and maybe it'll reach Mario's ears. "Mario, I am sorry. We were just two kids stuck in a ghetto. We didn't know any better. It was me. I'm sorry. It was me."