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waiting for the inevitable signs of trouble. Even in the midst of the wildest mayhem that Nelson and I could concoct, even sinking my teeth into Abuelita’s irresistible crispy chicken, even when everyone else was lost in music and laughter, I would be watching my father from the corner of my eye. It would start almost imperceptibly. His fingers would slowly curl up into claws. Then his face gradually scrunched up, just slightly at first, until finally it was frozen into a contorted grimace.
    I usually noticed the early signs before my mother did, and for an agonizing interval I watched them both, waiting for her to notice. As soon as she did, there would be sharp words. It was time to go home, while he could still walk. I didn’t have a name for what was happening, didn’t understand what alcoholic neuropathy was. I only knew that I saw my father receding from us, disappearing behind that twisted mask.It was like being trapped in a horror film, complete with his lumbering Frankenstein walk as he made his exit and the looming certainty that there would be screaming when we got home.
    Best were the times when I didn’t have to go home. Most Saturday nights I stayed over at Abuelita’s. When there was a party, Mami would take Junior home; Tío Benny and Titi Carmen somehow managed to get Nelson, Miriam, and Eddie down the street and into their own beds.
    When I woke up in the morning, I would have Abuelita all to myself. She would stand at the stove in the housecoat she always wore for an apron, her pockets full of cigarettes and tissues, making the thick, fluffy pancakes she knew I loved. Those mornings were heaven. When Mami came to take me home later, I would kiss Abuelita good-bye.
“Bendición, Abuelita.”
She would hug me and say without fail every time we parted, “
Que Dios te bendiga, te favorezca y te libre de todo mal y peligro
.” May God bless you, favor you, and deliver you from all evil and danger. Just her saying it made it so.

Three
    W ITH THE EXCEPTION of my cousin Nelson, who was in a category of his own, Gilmar was my best friend in elementary school. To tell the truth, he was my only real friend who wasn’t a cousin. He lived in the Bronxdale projects too, in the building across from ours, and we played together outside almost every day.
    We were lying down in the concrete pipes next to the far playground, our favorite hiding place, when he told me the news. His parents—Gilbert and Margaret, who’d each given him a bit of their names—had decided to move to California. They had palm trees in California, he told me, and the weather was always sunny. I had seen palm trees when I visited Puerto Rico, but beyond that I had no mental picture of California. Still, I could imagine what having to leave must have felt like to Gilmar: not seeing our corner of the world and all the people in it anymore, maybe ever.
    “Gilmar, you have to say good-bye to everybody. Everybody! Come on, I’ll do it with you.”
    The good-bye tour on which I accompanied Gilmar that day was a snapshot of our life in the projects. Pops was the first person we both thought of. We scrambled out of the pipe and ran to the gray truck he kept parked on the service road off Bruckner Boulevard. Every day when my father got home from work, he would give us each a penny,and we would run over to Pops’s truck to buy candy. On Fridays we got a dime, because it was payday.
    Pops was surprised to see us so early that day; Gilmar explained that he was moving to California. Pops said he was sad to see Gilmar go, and they shook hands. Then he let us each choose a candy and said we didn’t have to pay.
    We went to Louie’s building next and knocked on his door. Louie lived with his grandmother because his parents had died in a car accident. It was a story that I’d only heard in neighbors’ whispers, but it seemed to be confirmed by the fact that his grandmother always wore black. She was Jewish, but I surmised that they had the same