Alexandra Rosas - The Candy Bar

 

It's Thanksgiving, 1965. I'm barely five years old, and my family has just immigrated to the United States from Colombia, South America. All right, Colombia. It gets better. [audience laughter] My mother wants to assimilate quickly, and she hits the ground running. Her English is strong, and she gets a good job right away. My father spends his Sunday afternoons at Brown Deer Park. It's a bicycle racetrack. My father has this beautiful silver Cinelli bike. It's the only thing that he's brought from Colombia with him, and he races there. 

 

Now, my mother wants to do what all Americans are doing on that day. She wants to celebrate Thanksgiving. My father doesn't understand, but when my mother asks him to go to the store and get groceries, he does. As he's about to leave, I hear them having a loud discussion, something about his job. Now, I love my father. But with five brothers and sisters, I have to find a way to get him to myself. So, I become his voice, his translator. And he takes me everywhere. We're getting ready to go, and I'm so excited because errand day with my father means that I get him to myself, and we also both get our special treatment. We stop at a tavern. 

 

Now, before you start feeling sorry for me, I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You take your kids to taverns. And in the 1960s, there's a tavern on every corner, and there are places that feel more like living rooms than anywhere else, and they have fantastic names like Chuck's Place, George's on the Tracks, Ted and Betty's. My favorite, The Office. Because you can lie about where you are, [audience laughter]; but you're still telling the truth. [audience laughter] So, I love that place. I love taverns. My dad gets his special treat, a tap beer, and I get my full-size Hershey candy bar. 

 

Now, in a house with six kids, candy bars don't happen, especially full-size candy bars. And if a candy bar does come into our house, it's divided into six pieces. Six teeny-tiny pieces, one for every kid, but not on errand day. So, we go to the store. I'm flying through it. I know where everything is, and I'm, "Come on, Papa, come on." Because I want to get to that tavern. We go up to checkout like we usually do, but this time something happens. My dad reaches in his pocket to get his wallet, but then he puts his wallet back in, and we have to leave our groceries there.

 

Now, I don't understand what's happening, but as long as the tavern happens, I don't care if we have food at home. [audience chuckles] I also don't want to question it, because I want to get to the tavern. So, we get to the car and we're driving. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that we get to the tavern. When I see my dad slow down in front of a white sign with black letters with a picture of a typewriter underneath, I know we're at The Office. 

 

So, my dad parks the car, and he takes my hand and we walk in. And our usual plan is, he takes off my coat, he sets me up on the bar, and I smell this wonderful, yeasty smell of beer. I love the whole dim light, and the way the sunlight barely comes in, and the dust motes are swirling in the air, and there's all this yeast from beer, I love it. So, we sit down at the bar, and my dad orders his tap beer, and I'm waiting for him to give me the clue to ask for my candy bar. But he doesn't say anything. So, I lean in closer and I say, "Papa, mi dulce. Papa, my candy.” But he just takes this long pull on his cigarette, and he doesn't say anything. So, I have to get bolder. "Papi, mi chocolate." Nothing. He says nothing. 

 

There's an older man nursing his beer. He's up a few bar stools away, and I see that he's watching us. The older man motions to the bartender to get me a candy bar. So, the bartender reaches from behind, and he sets the candy bar right next to me, and it sits between me and my dad. Now, I stare at the brown wrapper. The first thing, the number one rule that every kid learns growing up, is never take candy from a stranger. I know what I'm about to do is wrong, but I take that candy bar, I keep my eyes down on my lap and I unwrap it and I shove it into my mouth as fast as I can. I don't look up, because if I look up, I know my father is going to make me stop eating it, and I am not taking this candy bar home to share. [audience laughter] 

 

So, this chocolate wads up in the back of my throat like a piece of peanut butter. I keep waiting for my dad to say something, but he says nothing. Instead, he just sets his full glass of beer down on the bar, he lifts me off the counter, he helps me put my coat on, and we walk out. Now, we drive home, total silence. All I feel is that chocolate balled up in the middle of my chest. We get to my house. I know he's not going to come in. He leans behind me, he pops open my car door, and I slide out. I walk up the front steps to my house, and I stand on the front porch, and I watch my dad drive away. 

 

In a house full of six kids, it's easy to get lost. So, I walk into my house and I disappear. It's getting late, and we're all watching and waiting for my dad to come home. It's Thanksgiving. My brother and I are standing in the front window watching, and the sky is turning a blue-black by then. My mother is on the sofa. She's nursing my two-month-old baby sister. My grandmother is in the kitchen with my little brother, and my uncle is sitting next to my mom on the sofa. 

 

Now, as I'm looking out the window, this icy blue light comes in. I look at my brother. Now, this light makes him look like there's this light bulb turned on inside of him. I'm so surprised and I ask my brother, "Pachito, don't you think it's weird? Didn't you always think that the light from a police car would look red up close and not blue?" I turn around to ask my uncle about this. But my uncle has made this huge leap from the sofa to the front door. He has the front door open before the two policemen walking up can even knock. We all hide behind my uncle. I hear the two policemen say to each other, they look at all of us, and then they look at me, and they look at the kids, and they look at each other, and they say, "He did this to her with all these kids." After that, everything explodes. 

 

My mom stands up. She drops my baby sister on the floor. My grandmother screams my dad's name, and my uncle just stands. The rest of us scatter. What my dad does after he drops me off that day is drive to Brown Deer Park, the park where he races his bicycle. He parks his car facing the track, and he shoots himself in the temple. His funeral is a few days later, and it's just a block from our house. My aunt walks us there. I get to the church and I see the gray casket in front of the church. I know my dad's in there, so I run up to see my dad. But when I get up there, his face is the deepest, darkest purple I have ever seen. I mean, it is such an unforgettable color that if he showed me that color right now, I could recognize it in a minute. 

 

My family is sitting in the front row of the church. I start to hear people behind me whispering. They're asking, "Why? Does anybody know why he did it? Why did he do it? She's got all these kids. Why would he do that?" I get scared, because I know why. So, I run from the front of the church, and I hide in the back pew. My aunt tries to pull me out. I don't want anybody to ask me why, because then I have to tell them that I know why. It was that candy bar. I never should have asked for that candy bar. 

 

After my dad dies, I physically stop talking. I don't use my voice again for the next five years. As I grow up, I learn more about my dad. I find out that he's an educated man, but because he could barely speak English, the only job he can find is sweeping floors. And the last job he has here, the employer cheats him out of his six months' work, saying he never worked there. I learned that he never got used to living in this country, and he never got used to my mom being the one who fed the family. As I get older, as an adult, I understand the reasons my dad did what he did. But the child in me remains in that moment when I took that candy bar and I know that day is my fault. 

 

Five years ago, I read an article written by a hospice nurse. She says that the biggest regret that people have on their deathbeds is not living a life true to who they are. I have lived a double life ever since my dad died. I have the life that the world sees and then I have the day, the only life I know of, which is frozen in that day in that tavern. Two years after I read that article, I get a chance to be who I really am. I hear of an open call for submissions to a show called Listen to Your Mother. Now, I have never read in front of an audience before, but I drive the two hours, and I audition, and I tell the people the story of the last day with my father. A week goes by, and I make the cast. 

 

On the day of the show, I stand in front of 300 people. My heart is pounding in my ears, and I am positive I'm going to faint when it's my turn to talk. But when I get up there, I'm so scared because I don't know what's going to happen. I'm about to tell the deepest, darkest secret of my life, and I don't know if the audience is going to understand. I get up there to talk. As soon as I start speaking, all of that disappears. I feel this unexpected strength that comes from telling my story. After the show, I feel 10-feet tall, and people are waiting to talk to me in the lobby. There are so many of us that have a candy bar moment story from somebody they know that killed themselves. We all have a candy bar moment. 

 

Months go by, and the videos go up from the show, and I start getting emails. Somehow, I became the president of the Parent Suicide Club. And around the world, people are sending me letters. They want to talk about how they feel like their parent's suicide was their fault. One day, I get an email and it's different. It's from this young woman in Canada. She has a two-year-old boy. She tells me she's been suffering from this deep dark depression, the kind that makes you wonder about your place in this world. 

 

Now, she doesn't want to leave her boy, but she just wants this pain to stop. And one day, she's home alone and she's so scared. While he takes his nap, she locks herself in the bathroom, and she pours enough pills in her hand to kill herself. She doesn't want to leave her boy. She adores him, but she's just done. And in the middle of this moment, she is crying so hard she can't breathe. And she's terrified. She doesn't know what she's going to do. All she can think of is my story. She says, “She doesn't want my story to be the same story her son tells 20 years from now.” She's alive, and she's my friend now. We tell our stories, because they save us. Telling mine kept a little boy from losing his mom that day, and I found my voice again. Thank you.