Summer

Days are long now and I spend most of my time outdoors, in the small patio behind the kitchen. A tree taller than the building lives there. I like to chew the bark and dig around the roots. There are 2 young plants in pots, where I curl and sleep under the sun, dazed by the smell of the flowers. We have a small room to rest in the afternoon. It sounds like a confined, bare place but I cannot keep up what all the events in the patio.
The fence that separates us from the next house is broken at the edge and the kids next door peek on us and stick their tiny hands, trying to call our attention. A young boy throws plastic toys for us to play. Some kind of blue and yellow fish with wings and wheels ended up under a chair. It was so weird, so almost alive, that we couldn't break it to pieces as we did with everything else.
A couple of times, the children opened the door and we escaped through the parking lot, being back in minutes, scared and excited by all the animals moving and coming to sleep in the stalls.
Many birds circle the air over the patio. Animals that even my mother has never seen before. Big black birds called crows, jays and hummingbirds and the familiar sparrows. Eloisa hates them because they intrude in our land without asking for permission, eat all the insects that we allow with us and the seeds of our plants. That hatred will be a source of trouble in the future but at this point in my life, I respect her decisions.
On the streets in front of the house, big cars and trucks cruise without respect for the living. There is one in particular,people seem to love. It is a white square thing that comes announced by a repetitive tune, offering what I would later know as ice cream. The army of children breaks free at that call and follows it as they follow us, screaming in glorious expectation. It suddenly stops to deliver its treasures and then vanish until the next day. It is a summer tradition. I don't know where it lives the rest of the year. The tune of the truck is still anchored in my memory as a reminder of happy times. I love music but I love that one the most. Sometimes Elena or Jack sing it for me and I cannot repress my enthusiasm. I have to jump, need to dance. They look at me in disbelief. For them is harder to find joy.
One day, they took me downtown. The land of this pack is so big you could not walk through it in several days. A crowd of dog and human people was in the central square. It was hot. A hidden spring was blasting cool water. Children and fat women and tired workers got rid of their shoes, run across barefoot, leaving their opaques selves outside, suddenly covered in the glowing light of Summer.

With friends and my sisters

Sharing a good time with my sister

My sister

Sleeping with Jack

another pic, as a little child.

At 6 weeks..

All the children

First excursion outdoors

Eloisa and Puppies

Community

My first memories are warmth and darkness, being pampered, fighting for space with my brothers and sisters. I have the sound of the rain through the sliding door, scratching the windows of the house, heard but not yet seen. I have the tactile memory of a battalion of ants, leaving their flooded home for the kitchen and crossing over my hands in their fugue.
Suddenly, it was spring. We were already jumping on chairs and running under tables, sleeping on the sofas while the adults were busy with their papers and screens. They took us out one sunny afternoon to get acquainted with the sun. It was also my first experience of grass. New people stopped by to see us, and we became instant celebrities. Children of every color and shape, speaking in different languages, rushed in to play with us and watch us live. They brought their siblings, friends and parents. My recluse home was transformed into an open house with a constant flow of admirers. Because Elena was with us for most of the day, she was in charge of letting people in and out. She also cooked cookies and muffins and the tiny people ate them and stayed to play with the toy cars Jack was collecting.
In the evening, desperate parents looking for their kids came to the house and grabbed them against their will. I really believed we were some kind of royalty although in occasions I felt fatigued and scared and left crying for my mother.
Once we grew up enough to take walks through the neighborhood, they followed us to the playgrounds and gardens around the school, engrossing their lines as we advanced, calling for Eloisa. They also talked about taking my siblings and I knew before my mother told me that we could not live together any longer.

My Birth Place

Family

We are a family of four. Each member has specific tasks. Elena and Jack provide food and shelter. I am the indoor guardian. Eloisa patrols the outdoor territory. When we are not at work, we spend time together as a pack. Even being lost in my own toughs, I feel them around.
Cats and other animals despise our sense of community, our longing for company. They think it distract you from higher purpose, it alienates you from yourself. They also blame us for being condescending and tolerate offenses. I don't care to reply that such is the base for our long lasting success. We are not nice to each other all the time. We don't even try. My mother is sometimes called the Queen, but occasionally is just a "fat bitch", I am praised as a Warrior one day and the next I am a hound plus some other diminishing adjective. they are not better with their own race. From the inside, such words are fleeting sparkles in the surface of a quiet lake. We have the tacit understanding of being a pack and it's enough for me. If we prepare for a walk I refuse to leave until everybody is at the door. When a suspicious subject approach I am always at the front and the same they do for me. Until recently I have not spent one night alone. I have lived my dreams and observations from my quiet corner, the life of others following me in my journey as the music of a distant song, as the scent of a favorite tree. That's all I have to tell the cats.

My Home Town

Shots

Now that I am old enough to run in the backyard and play with other children, my family is taking me for a physical exam.
Eloisa, my mother, comes along. We are asked to wait in a bare office smelling of bleach. A young woman forces us to step on a rubber esplanade and checks our weight. shortly after, a brown chubby man with crooked fingers call us in. My mother climbs on the table and endures the exam. She doesn't say a word, no complains. I grind my teeth witnessing the senseless abuse, while the same man sticks her skin with 3 or 4 needles.
When is my turn, you can only tell by my dilated pupils what I am planning to do. He gives me a dismissive look,
"He is skinny for his height"
I stay still until the miniature spears perforate my back between the shoulders; try to jump, turn my face against the oppressor, my mouth wide open as if I were to eat him alive. He is surprised, but being so young doesn't take me seriously . Put one hand on my neck and gives the shots with the other.
Back at the front office. J. and E. seem relieved. The young woman puts a stamp in a paper (what they called a certificate) and hands it to them. It appears to be important, some kind of accomplishment. So much so, that we receive treats back home. But when I ask my mother the meaning of the ceremony she shrugs and say,
" Don't ask, child, nothing makes a lot of sense around here"
Later she explains that the shots are not intended to be a punishment or a warning. It is an ordeal they put themselves through, particularly their children and it is done less often as the person grows up. For that reason Eloisa believes that it's a rite of passage.
I don't know yet that shots may have a different, ominous meaning for our race.

Birth

My mother concealed the pregnancy until the end. She looked weary and thin after the long trip, the slightly prominent belly more a suggestion of undernourishment than a promise of fruit.
She has been legally admitted into the new land but I would not have been. The only reason I am alive is the struck of luck that postponed my birth until it was safe to come.
Eloisa was taken through the back door of the plane into a cold, crowded building. Crowded not with living beings but with cargo. There she waited for immigration clearance, which surprisingly took a few minutes. Her family was waiting and put her in the back seat of the car with an old guitar and a wreck of a backpack. Then she opened the window and smelled the winter; the acid, wet perspiration of the city, the spilled oil in the parking lot and the pungent blood of the trees mercilessly cut by the thousands at that time of the year. Nothing gave her answers, there were no memories, no associations. Other than the people in the car, she could have been in another planet.
As everybody knows, we don't linger in the past. For much of my life I didn't know about my history. She doesn't say much about those weeks before I was born. In passing, she mentions the never before seen abundance of food, the inexplicable rules and the funny accent of the neighbors. Eloisa got to know every spot in the house but the kitchen was her favorite place. It was always warm, always filled with promising scents and there were a couple of dark quiet corners to rest a tired body and even take a nap.
It was that room where she chose to be one evening in the middle of winter, when she started labor. The family and one visitor were looking at her with a concerned look. She placed a mattress on the kitchen floor and without help, gave birth. I have siblings, but I am the first born, the strongest. I knew it right away. Barely conscious and blind, I grabbed the breast, was the first to feed and knew my life was as good as any and I was going to defend it and expand it with my bare teeth.