EMINENT DOMAIN by Raul Palma

Beatrice wants to spend the night on our porch until the moving trucks arrive, so I change into my pajamas and meet her out there even though it’s windy and I’d rather not. We play Monopoly under the glow of Mom’s devotionals. Trice is the battle ship. I’m the thimble.
Even when it’s my turn and I roll the die, Trice moves the pieces. She guides them from property to property with her press‑on nails, which are cracked and jagged-looking from all the packing we’ve been doing.
Tomorrow the whole block on this side of the river is getting evicted. That’s why it’s so quiet around here. Papi’s office window is open, his radio broadcasting old Cuban country songs into the breeze. There’s the soft moaning coming from the viejos next door.
I roll the die; it tumbles off the board.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” I ask, but Trice hardly notices.
We’re deep in that stage when all the properties are taken, and each of us has one Monopoly and nobody wants to trade, so we’re just collecting cash or paying bullshit fines. And the viejos; they’re going at it. Now the metal from their bed frame is hitting their bedroom wall. You wouldn’t think two people as old as them, walking around with canes and getting picked up by those medical buses and shit, could make such a performance of it.
Trice pushes the die back towards me. She’s sitting with her legs crossed, her long shirt covering her underwear. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Her legs look so long and lean. Damn it! I don’t want to think about her that way, but lately I can’t help it. The way she walks around the house with a towel wrapped around her is just wrong. She treats me like I’m a sister, not her younger brother. Now under the glow of the devotionals, she looks entranced by the board game. She’s swaying side to side, picking at a scab on her knee.
“You’re the one that wanted to play,” I say. “So roll the die already.”
She kicks her legs out, leans back. “Let’s go look.”
“Come on,” I say. “They’re so old. Why do you want to see that?”
She stands and flashes me. I see more of my sister than I care to, but I can’t unsee her – the hairs sprawling on her inner thigh, spilling and curling out from beneath her shirt.
“You flashed me,” I say.
“Ay, Richie. Don’t be weird. Let’s see what these viejos are up to.”
She doesn’t wait for me. We cross the yard and approach their bedroom window. It’s open, the lace curtains spilling onto the hibiscus bushes. I hide behind the lace, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Squares of moonlight illuminate the wall and their bed. Trice is next to me giggling. She says she sees el viejo’s croquetta de jamón: “Coño. Not so bad for a geezer.” But I still don’t see nothing, except for a crucifix over their bed.
Then I see the bed sheets – red, satin – and la vieja’s hair infested with curlers. Fragments of their bodies emerge from the darkness only to withdraw into the sheets. Their skin is pale, knotted in blue veins and scars. I press the darkness from my eyes, feel myself swelling. I’m not sure what I’m looking at. The bed’s metal frame jerks against the wall and la vieja moans, she croons: “Ay, Julio. Julio!” Trice is laughing. She takes my hand and squeezes. Then she whispers, “Ay, Julio. Julio!”
Soon there’s only the sound of Papi’s radio. The breeze blows the curtains back into the room. But now I see their faces. They look swollen or dead under the moonlight. When the old guy jerks up and starts snoring, he just about scares the shit out of me.
I follow Trice back to our porch. The breeze is much stronger now, almost violent. It puts out the devotionals, takes my bills and blows them into the street. “Aren’t you gonna go after all your cash?” Trice asks.
“What for?” I ask, shuffling through my properties. “You won’t trade with me.”
“You saw his croquetta?”
“Shut up,” I say, slapping her arm. “Let’s call it a night, okay?”
Trice shushes me. She’s looking off into the street.
“What is it now?”
There’s a guy. He’s walking down our block holding something. At first it looks like it could be a bag or something, but then we see it’s alive; it’s moving, kicking. It’s going wild, flapping its wings, bucking. The guy’s dressed all in white. Trice says it could be a baby.
Neither of us recognize the guy – hair slicked back, shiny as a new car. He stops in front of our house, lifts the thing over his head, and snaps its neck. Then he cuts it open. Now he’s pacing back and forth, rubbing all that blood onto him.
“It’s a chicken,” I say.
I’m used to waking up and finding dead chickens on our street. Apparently, the crossroad next to our house is the primo place to kill chickens. Mami says its desperate people praying to, and she furrows her lips and points to hell, which is apparently located directly beneath our house. Mami usually goes out in the mornings and sweeps the carcasses up, says if they lie around too long, they stink, or worse, they attract devils.
Now the guy’s singing or chanting. I’m not sure which. He kneels in the street. I feel sorry for him, seeing him there all by himself. “What do you think his deal is?” I whisper.
“Maybe he hates chickens,” Trice says. “Maybe he’s made a secret pledge to kill every chicken he finds. Maybe this chicken was sick and he promised the chicken he’d off it rather than let the chicken suffer. Or maybe . . .”
“No. Really?”
Trice giggles and says, “Maybe he’s a cock beater,” but she says it a bit loud. I’m not sure the guy can see us on the patio, dark as it is. But he looks in our direction for some time. It isn’t until all my Monopoly bills flutter past him that he leaves, chasing after them. He must think they’re real bills – his prayers answered, perhaps.
“You want to touch the dead chicken, chicken?” Trice asks.
I shake my head.
We sit there, listening to the breeze weave through the palms.
“We need to stay awake,” she says. “Don’t you get soft on me, Richie.”
“I know,” I say, caressing the die. “But I’m so tired.”
“Don’t be tired. Be awake.”
“Okay.”
I wake up in the morning with feathers on my face. Trice is sleeping, her feet on my lap. The feathers have scattered – some across the street, some onto the patio. Mami comes out with her broom and duspan. Seeing all those feathers, she probably expects a dead chicken, but there’s nothing to dispose of. The carcass is gone. Taken to? Who knows where.
“Yo no puedo creer que durmieron afuera,” she says, poking me with the broom.
“Wake up,” I say, nudging Trice. “It’s our last day.”
Trice rubs her eyes, puts her head on my shoulder and sleeps a bit more. I hold her while Mami sweeps up the feathers and game pieces around us – all the little neighborhoods we’ve built, all our little game pieces and possessions, swept into a dustpan and discarded. Then I lay Trice out on the porch and leave her sleeping there so I can help Mami with the final boxes.

* * *

When the moving trucks arrive, we’re all in the living room eating bread and butter. It’s our last meal in the house and we all know it. Mami’s positioned the boxes so we’re facing each other as if at a table. What strikes me as odd is that our parents seem dressed up for the occasion. Mami’s wearing a red cotton dress and Papi’s in a short sleeve button‑up and khakis. Papi is even wearing his good watch.
We eat. But seeing these trucks, Mami sets her bread down on the edge of a box and excuses herself. She stands by the window.
They look like a train from where I’m sitting – old rusted containers in formation, like somebody coordinated the whole thing in advance. When our moving truck pulls into the driveway and honks, Papi takes her the bread and says, “Eat, mi amor. We have a long day ahead of us.” He embraces her, and they sway together by the window to a song that neither me nor Trice can hear.
Mami doesn’t show us her face, but I know she’s crying. How familiar these relocations must be to her – first the Cuban revolution, now this government displacement. She holds the bread at the tips of her fingers like she’s not sure whether to let go or not. Then she breaks off a little piece and eats it.
I know nothing will come of it, but I pray to Jesus Cristo that something interrupts this chain of events. I pray that the police come and knock at our door and say that they’ve made a grand mistake, that we can stay, that this can be our home for much much longer. That we are the exception.
Mami wipes her tears with her arm. Then she turns to us and commands, ”Comen.”
Trice and I excuse ourselves and finish breakfast on the front porch.
I pray.
Some of our neighbors don’t seem prepared for this move. All morning, it’s a chorus of glass breaking, couples arguing. Police patrol the block, which make our parents nervous. I spend most of the day helping Mamí make sure the boxes are properly labeled.
And still I pray.
Trice and Papi sit on the porch, playing cards. Before we leave, we see la vieja outside. She’s hunched over, cutting the hibiscus flowers off her bush, prepared to take those with her, too.
El viejo comes out. He’s supervising the movers, but when he sees us getting ready to leave, he grips la vieja’s arm, and they come to see us. They follow the sidewalk rather than the lawn. I stand there, my back to the truck, and take my last look around: Mom’s little garden, all those roses in bloom; the tile porch chipped from the time I dropped Papi’s hammer; and los viejos, still in their pajamas, struggling, walking towards us because it’s the decent thing for neighbors to do before they say goodbye forever.
El viejo is leaning on the cane and also la vieja. When he lifts his face and makes eye contact with me, he’s smiling, but when he looks at the ground, he’s grimacing. His face looks as distressed and fissured as the very sidewalk he’s on. La vieja is holding a little basket. It’s got her scissors and the flowers she’s cut. We should really meet them halfway, but for some reason we don’t. When they reach us, el viejo leans against the truck. He’s panting and enthusiastically shaking our hands. I want to ask him, “Who were you when you were young?” But I don’t.
“Where you moving to now?” Mamí asks.
He shrugs.
“Where are you moving to now?” she asks, louder.
La vieja kisses Trice’s cheek. Puts a flower in her hair. ”Que linda,” she says. ”To siempre eras tan linda. Cuidate.”
“I will,” Trice says, smiling, swaying back and forth. She loves being adored this way.
I pray, even though it’s quite clear by now that nobody is listening. And I pray for these old people too, who can barely walk and yet somehow found the strength last night to make love in their home one last time.

* * *

We’re following the truck across the Venetian Causeway, silverware jangling with each bump on the freeway. Somehow, leaving the old neighborhood doesn’t feel as permanent as it should.
I’m mesmerized by the truck in front of us. The top of its trailer is downing brittle tree branches and crashing into palm fronds. Truck’s so big, I can’t see what’s coming up ahead. Trice is looking out the window. Looks like she’s watching the current draw out to sea. “You think it’s God flushing his toilet,” she says.
“No, Trice. It’s the gravitational tug of the moon.”
“You think the moon is God’s way of making sure the toilet flushes,” she says.
“What are you talking about? There’s no toilet. It’s the ocean.”
“Of course it’s a toilet, Richie. This is all shit. So it has to be.”
The movers takes our things to my father’s night club. Hardly a home, but it’s what we have for now. MANTECA. That’s the name of this place. It’s supposed to mean smooth or cool, but it’s really just lard – the kind people throw on pans and cook with. It’s not even good for you. I mean, sure, manteca has flavor, but too much will clog your arteries. I mean, it can kill you.
Papi thinks this place is something that’s worth holding onto. But it doesn’t make money. It’s a nostalgia-rich joint on the corner of Washington and 13th with red fading carpet and faux gilded furniture, and it’s pretending to be anything but that. Posters of Mario Bauza, Dizzy Gillespie, and Compay Segundo adorn the walls, though none of them have ever played here. This place is a dive, an ugly little hole that’s been carved out between a dry cleaners and a florist, and now it’s our home. Mami thinks Papi should give up his ridiculous dreams and sell the place so we can afford a proper home, but he won’t consider it. “This can work,” he announces before we get off the car, even though nobody has said anything.
When we’re standing on the street, he tells the movers to take the boxes and furniture upstairs. Then he invites us in, even though we’ve been here plenty of times. Still, he’s proud that he’s prepared a place where we can live – a cramped loft that doubles for liquor and janitorial storage. As kids, Trice and I would play in the loft. We loved how old it was up there. Sometimes we’d lie in all that dust and look up at the wooden beams on the ceiling, at the cobwebs swaying among them, and imagine we were inside an old guitar. But Papi cleaned this space in anticipation of our move. Now the wooden floors are clean, shiny. The rafters are cobweb free, and whatever was wonderful about the place seems disinfected and wiped clean.
“What do you think?” he asks, rubbing his hands against the wall.
Mami doesn’t answer. She’s inspecting the place – the kitchen appliances, the bathroom – no doubt looking for something to complain about. Trice and I sit up there, watching the movers carry boxes in, watching Mami pour herself a glass of scotch and sink into the corner. “This is temporary, children” she says, sipping her drink. “Once your father sees this doesn’t work, we’ll be somewhere else.”
“Bienvenida, por favor. Give this place a chance. Set an example for the kids. Mira. There’s something I want to show you.” Papi directs us to a metal ladder behind the club’s small stage and suggests we climb it, so we do. It leads to the roof – mostly tar and asphalt, though there are also a couple of air-conditioning units chained down. Near the edge, empty beer bottles lie in a puddle of rain. Looking out at the other buildings, I can hear the ocean, but I can’t see it. The hotels on Ocean Drive block the view. It’s humid on the roof. Clouds smolder overhead. We stand around waiting for Papi to tell us what we’re doing up there, but he seems to assume we already know. Finally Mami says, ”Que coño?”
“This,” he says, pointing to some wood. “We can build raised flower beds. You can still garden, mi amor.” He fixes the wood up just to make his point, but Mami is not paying attention. “It won’t be terrible,” he says. “We can carry dirt up here. Plenty of sun. We can make this nice. Y la playa. It’s right around the corner. And the schools aren’t so bad.”
We find out soon enough that he’s right. And Mami does garden up there. She grows tomatoes and onions and even some carrots. She also has Papi carry up little potted mango and mamey trees, even though it’s unlikely they’ll bear fruit with all their roots tangled in those pots.
What’s only really terrible is the weekends when all that old Cuban music is playing. Then it’s exactly what it sounds like – a home inside a nightclub. The loft is where the smoke accumulates, so I have to pop open the windows to vent it out, even if it’s raining. Mami’s always concerned with whether the smoke bothers us, but I kind of like the way it smells. She’s usually working the bar, so she doesn’t really see how bad it gets. We lie so she has something less to feel sorry about.
Then there’s the music – I don’t know what he’s thinking. He’s not in Cuba anymore. I tell my father: “If we’re going to live in the club, you should get with the times. Invite Miami Sound Machine, Earth Wind & Fire, Three Dog Night.” It’s a subtle way of saying I’m interested in the business. Maybe you should consider appealing to the market. But there’s no swaying him; he’s set on the kind of music he likes. “When you run the place, you can erase our heritage,” he says, wiping down the bar. The veins on his forearms rise when he presses the rag to the wood; they’re prominent, vulnerable, exposed much like my own.
In the loft there’s a small kitchenette overlooking an alley; this is where Mom spends most of her time now, negotiating counter space, whipping up meals. Sometimes she stares into antennae on the tarred roof across the street like she’s channeling into Havana herself. “This is only temporary,” she tells us some mornings over coffee. Papi ignores her.
Mami has a small statue of San Lazaro on the refrigerator; him and his dogs always look so much hungrier than us. She’s also pinned a photo of Pinar Del Rio’s mountains on a case of rum – something that’s supposed to make the place feel more like home. Neither of us have said it yet, but already I get the sense that she’ll be pinning more photos on liquor boxes, more vistas of Cuban mountains or tobacco fields. In the evenings she lights devotionals and prays to the saints. She used to do this on a slab of concrete in the backyard, and I never paid much attention to the whole ritual. But now she lights these devotionals and chants with us right there, sleeping. It’s creepy as hell when I look up all groggy and find her there kneeling and chanting or handing us amulets and asking us to keep them in a safe place.
My sister shares a bed with Mami and Papi. Poor Sis. No room for her elsewhere. “No privacy. Nowhere to hide my womanly body,” she says, even though she’s flatter than me. She’s a senior in high school and says that she can’t wait until she gets a real job and her own place so she doesn’t have to smell Papi’s farts. She wants to live in Coconut Grove, says there’s more night life there than at the beach. She’s always in the bathroom, looking at her face in the mirror, pulling at it, brushing powder onto it.
I sleep in a cot near the window, even though it’s hard as the street and the window leaks when it rains. When the brass and percussion are popping on the weekend, my sister and I don’t sleep. We try. We press our faces into our pillows, which only muffles the music. Sometimes we’re asked to work, carry ice, throw out the trash. Sometimes we do this because there’s nothing better to do, but we do it in our pajamas.
But what my parents don’t know and are too busy surviving to realize is that sometimes my sister and I sneak out. We get stoned and roll up and down Washington Avenue. Or we go to Burdines, stuff clothing into our pants and run out the front door, or we go to the beach where we drink, smoke, and dance under the moon. Often, we go to Rafa’s apartment and practice disco; we dance and spin and tear his place apart like we might be preparing for an audition for Saturday Night Fever.
Rafa’s the whitest guy I know. When he was just a stranger delivering pizza, I used to call him Bombillo. He’s skinny. All these bellbottoms and silk shirts dance on his body when he walks, but it’s not an elegant dance; he’s truly got the rhythm of a light bulb. But he’s a good guy, even if he is trying to get into my sister’s pants. I help him shave his head every week with a razor; the guy trusts me holding a razor to his white-ass head, doesn’t even flinch when I accidentally cut him.

* * *

It’s been three months since we were forced to move, and Trice isn’t handling this all very well. Tonight there are a few performers warming up on stage. Un negro strums his bass guitar, preparing for a crowd that probably won’t show up. His notes are deep, long, and if I’m not listening for them, I hardly notice the tune. But Trice must hear something. Earlier she was lying in bed, skimming through old magazines, but now she’s squatting on the stairs, looking down at the club, hands over her ears. “Does it stop?” she asks. “Does it ever stop?”
“What?”
“Stop,” she says. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
We sneak out. Go see Rafa; he’s busy spinning dough at a small pizzeria on Collins Ave, but he tosses Trice the keys to his Ford Bronco and a bag of garlic rolls. “Treat her well,” he says, referring not to my sister, but to his car.
“Where we going?” I ask.
We take his car and drive out of Miami Beach. We’re on the Venetian Causeway, the skyline in sight. Downtown Miami’s One Biscayne Tower presides over it – all white – the red beacon on its antennae burning into the low clouds.
“Where we going?”
Trice doesn’t respond.
“You gonna tell me where we’re going?” I ask.
“It’s probably bulldozed,” Trice says, and she drinks from a bottle of rum. Then she passes it to me.
“Our home?”
“Sure, Richie. What’d you think they were going to do with it?”
On the bay, shrimpers flood the water with light; they canvas the waterways with nets, following the run. I drink rum, pass the bottle back. Now we’re near the mainland and already the air smells like brine and mud. We take NW 14th Street to the river, which leads to our old neighborhood. Trice parks in a vacant lot and we step out of the car – headlights still on.
“Where are the palms?” she asks.
She’s right. There were a bunch of palms – palms growing on top of palms even. It made the block look classy. But it’s the lack of houses that surprises me now. I’d expected rubble, the crumbled remains of the block, but there are just holes. It seems impossible that an entire neighborhood can vanish this way. I think of the moving trucks that day pulling in like cars on a train, and the cops forcing people out, arresting them.
“These laws,” I say. “Who can make sense of them?”
“What are you talking about, Richie? I said ‘palms.’“
We get back in the car and drive further into the neighborhood. Now we’re driving through iron and concrete pillars. They must be thirty and forty feet high. “What do you think they’re building here?” I ask.
“The fucking Coliseum,” Trice says. She drinks from her bottle. “Who cares?”
When we get to our address, we’re surprised our house is standing, only it’s not exactly on the ground. Mom’s garden is gone – just mud and sand now – and there’s a pit that’s been dug under the house. We park a ways away, shut off the engine, and step out of the car. It’s hard to see, but under closer examination, steel rods have been drilled into our home’s foundations. The house itself is sitting on a series of hydraulic jacks and iron support beams, each marked with red reflector lights. Our home is raised a good three feet off the ground. When I crouch, I actually see the swirls and cracks of the foundation’s underside. I want to touch it.
“We going in or what?” Trice asks, pulling me out from under the house.
“Are we looking for something I should know about?”
“Help me up,” she says, and she pulls me to the front porch.
I kneel. She steps on my thigh, and I lift her onto the threshold. Now she’s sitting on the porch, legs dangling off. “View’s different. It’s all different,” she says. “Want me to help you up?”
I hear the porch settling under her weight. Seeing it from this angle, it looks so fragile – three or four inches of concrete. “I think you should get down,” I say.
She lies back, kicks her feet onto the porch too. “I miss being out here. Don’t you miss this too, Richie? Look. Even the viejos’ house is gone.”
She’s right. We’ve got a clear view of the river now. Something about seeing all the windows all lit up across the river makes me wonder why it was our block that got taken. Nearby, headlights move along the river. I can see now that there are pickup trucks parked along the bank. I see the red glows of cigarettes. Occasionally, I hear laughter or coughing.
Trice is still on the porch, looking into the windows. She tries the door.
“It’s locked,” she says, jiggling the handle.
“Knock.”
“Knock?” she says and falls towards me. ”Come mierda.”
We circle our home, checking each window, looking for some way in. Eventually, she climbs up to her bedroom window and breaks it with the heel of one of her platform shoes. She works the window, shattering more glass, creating a safe entryway. The breeze dulls most of the noise, though I worry we’ve been heard. When she’s done, she slips her shoe back on and climbs in.
“Toss me the bottle,” she says, so I do. Then she slips back into the house. Doesn’t even check on me or help me up. I have to jump so I can pull myself up through the window. When I finally climb through, I spill onto the floor.
Inside, I can’t see anything at first, but I’m immediately taken aback by the stench – something like must and dark coffee. It’s home, undeniably the place we were raised, but it’s ripe, like it’s been buried under the earth for some time. I know there’s a wall in the hallway constructed of reclaimed and refurbished Florida pine, so I find my way to it. The slats run horizontally; they’re as hard as concrete, resistant to termites. I feel them now, the grooves familiar to my fingers. Slowly my eyes adjust. I see that the door to the bathroom is propped open. I light a match and run the water in the bathroom sink, out of habit. It runs orange, spiraling into the drain, but then it dries out.
“Trice, where are you?”
I light another match. The carpeting in my old bedroom is marked by the shape of my bed, but everything is gone. I didn’t realize we’d done such a good job packing. Something about seeing the room under the flickering light makes me feel like I’m in a dream. The room is both familiar and unfamiliar, mine and not mine. I’m intimate with it, the crevices, the scuffs on the wall, but seeing it this way reminds me that it was waiting for me the day I was born, and it was likely there, home to another, long before me.
Mom’s kitchen is spotless. She cleaned it on moving day. Though we were leaving forever, she felt compelled to wipe down the counters, the cabinets, the linoleum. She wanted to leave the house in the same condition she’d entered it.
I light my last match. There’s ash in the dining room, something Mom had done as a kind gesture to the house. After the furniture was taken, I remember sitting in the dining room, watching the sage wither. “It’s the least I could do,” she said, “for a place that has been so generous to us.” She talked about the house like it was a living, breathing thing. Walking through its dark rooms now, I don’t feel it. Its breath or pulse. Off the grid and raised this way, it’s just another repeated structure: concrete, wood, wires, plumbing, hollow walls, likely on its way to be wrecked.
“Trice?”
I hear the unfolding of a foil wrapper, and I follow it to Abuela Nana’s old room. Trice is kneeling on the carpet and holding one of those little cream-filled candies, which are packaged in strawberry-printed foil.
When Nana was living, we’d spend time with her after school. We’d run our hands along her soft, thin arms. She’d give us little candies and ask us about our days. She was senile, thought she was a fifteen-year-old girl, even had a crush on the mailman. Every piece of correspondence – bills, solicitations – seemed a love letter to her. When she died – a fall off the bed that resulted in a broken hip, later complicated by pneumonia – the mailman attended her wake. He even brought the last of her mail. Trice said she saw him standing over her body, crying, but she’s a hopeless romantic and of course she’d make something like that up. Papi had to fish the telephone bill, which was under her name, out of the coffin. “Still got to pay it,” he said.
What Trice doesn’t understand is how we’d missed the candy. All those years. Even when we cleaned out her room when she died. Or when we were packing and moving out, we’d missed it. But here it is now, unraveling in Trice’s hands like it’s risen from the floor for this occasion.
“Nana,” Trice says, rocking the bottle between her legs. “She left it for me.”
I laugh and sit beside her. “Or maybe it was for me. You should share.”
She holds up the rum. I shake my head. “The candy? Sure.” She bites through it and shoves half in my mouth. Then she lies back, kicks off her shoes. “Maybe we can stay here tonight?”
“Here?”
“It was our home,” she says. “It’s quiet.”
“It is quiet.”
“Well then.” Trice sits up, pulls me back. “Lie down for a bit.”
“But the rug smells.”
She pulls me back and cups my mouth with her hand.
“Cut it out,” I say.
She shushes me. Puts her press-ons to my lips.
Headlights cross the window slats; the lights circle the room, settling on the closet.
A car door slams.
“You hear that?”
Engines rev.
More lights dash across the walls, rising and falling.
Doors slam.
We hear men’s voices – just murmurs.
Cigarette smoke seethes in through Abuela’s old windows.
Trice pushes me, whispers ”Cállate,” even though I haven’t said anything.
I kneel by the slats.
I peek outside – the lights are too bright.
“We need to leave,” I say.
“We wait till they leave.”
“What if they’re bulldozers? What if they bulldoze us? What if we die here?”
“Stop that.”
There’s a beeping sound like a truck is getting ready to back up through the wall. The sound is getting louder, reverberating through the floor. Trice takes my hand and squeezes. It stops.
The floor shifts.
Cracks blossom on Nana’s walls.
The house rises, tilts, and we fall.
It sounds like the floorboards are ripping apart, the way this house is shifting. I crawl to Trice; she’s rubbing her shoulder, looking at the lights coming in through the slats.
“We need to get out of here,” I say.
“And go where?”
I hear the cabinet doors in the kitchen slam open.
The bathroom mirror shatters.
Now the house has settled. The lights slowly seep back through the slats until the room is dark again. Trice open the blinds on one of Nana’s windows.
“What do you see?” I ask.
She’s rubbing her shoulder, scanning the outside.
“What are they doing?”
“Look for yourself,” she says.
There are men wearing hard hats, signaling with glowing batons, and there are cops, their squad lights flashing. We hear footsteps on the roof. Outside I notice men throwing thick straps onto the roof and other men securing these straps to the foundation.
When the men are done working, they gather by the police cars. Then it’s Bowie’s Space Oddity blasting through the walls. The men with the glowing batons signal ahead, and we’re moving. The initial impulse almost throws me into Trice, but I grab the blinds, breaking a few. We pass the Ford Bronco, the giant columns. Eventually we’re on the road, cruising by the Miami River, merging onto a highway, into a slow procession of houses atop flatbeds, heading heaven knows where.
I unlock the front door and open it. The pavement is rushing off beneath me.
Trice pulls me back inside, slams the door shut.
“We’re not leaving. We need to know where they’re taking the house.”
“I don’t,” I say.
“What are you going to do? Jump without me?”
I open the door, sit on the porch.
“You’re a chicken shit,” she says. “You’d never do it.”
Though the house isn’t moving so fast, seeing all the flecks of pavement glittering and then vanishing into the dark street scares me. I lower my foot, let its sole drag along the pavement.
“Who you kidding?” Trice says.
She’s right, but I let myself off the ledge anyway. My right foot hits the ground first and I tumble. I tumble on the street. Then it’s all a whirl, a tumble – the speckled pavement, the stars tumbling too. I roll into a concrete barricade, but I’m not hurt. From the side of the road, I dust myself off and watch the processions of houses – dark, aglow by occasional brake lights. They’re getting further and further away. I see Trice standing at the threshold; she’s waving. The distance between us is growing, but then she jumps too.
She’s just a dark figure by now rolling along the pavement and into the grass. I run to her, watching the last of our old neighborhood cruise north.

* * *

I thought she jumped because she didn’t want to leave me behind, or maybe because she didn’t want to be alone in that old house, but when I finally reached her, I learned that she hadn’t planned to jump at all; she’d fallen.
“I left the bottle in the house,” she says, dusting herself off. She pats her mouth with the back of her hand, rubs the blood on her forearm. “We need to go back and get it.”
“It’s gone,” I say.
She punches my shoulder: “I shouldn’t have brought you.” And she turns from me.
“Cover yourself up,” I say. The back of her skirt is ripped. She’s exposed.
“This,” she says, ruffling her skirt. “From who? Even the moon’s not looking tonight.”
One of the police cars, which had been escorting the houses, pulls away from the procession.
“That’s for us, isn’t it?”
“I think so, Sis.”
It speeds towards us, strobes flashing, then hits the brakes and comes to a dramatic stop. We walk along the side of the road, pretending we haven’t noticed that the cop is now standing outside his cruiser, shining a flashlight at us. In fact, Trice is walking even faster, like she expects to casually saunter away from this confrontation. But it’s hard to ignore the red and blue lighting the pavement, and the officer’s boots grinding against the pebbles and pavement.
“Turn around,” he yells.
“What are you?” Trice asks.
“What do you think?” he says, tapping his badge.
He’s wearing sunglasses even though it’s dark. His light-blue uniform shirt is unbuttoned, revealing a t‑shirt of Meep from The Muppet Show. He shines the flashlight in my eyes, but then lowers it and drags the lights across my body. He does the same to Trice. “I saw what you two did,” he says. “Either of you hurt?”
We don’t respond.
“You both speak English?”
We shake our heads. The cop shines the light at Trice’s pale legs and at the rip on her skirt; he stares at her.
“Why were you two trespassing?” he asks.
We don’t answer.
He takes out some cuffs and says, “I’m getting answers.”
“We used to live there,” Trice says.
“IDs.”
We hand them over, and he studies them with his flashlight, jotting down notes. Then he slides my ID into my pocket and Trice’s ID into the band of her underwear.
“Hey,” she says, swinging at him.
The cop laughs. “Easy there, princess. What were you two really doing in there?”
“Just looking,” I say.
“Just looking, huh?”
“Yuck,” Trice says. “He’s my brother.”
“It could happen,” the cop says, pacing in front of us.
“Not really. He’s my brother.”
“Do you know what they’re building in your old neighborhood?”
The cop shines the light back towards the construction as if it could illuminate the scene, but the site is too far now. “They’re building a freeway,” he says. “Out to the Everglades.” He moves his flashlight, like he could conjure a freeway with the light. “For all them alligators, right? Next they’ll build a highway to Havana, the way this city is going. Do you believe the shit these people build? My whole neighborhood. Used to be respectable. Jews. Whites. Christians. Now it’s full of Cubans, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, Blackies. A bunch of pigs.”
“Are you going to arrest us?” Trice asks.
“Did you vandalize the house?”
“Our own house?” Trice asks.
“No, sir,” I say, but I’m eager when I say it, and I feel like I’ve clued him in to the broken window.
The cop paces around us, adjusts his crotch. “Then you’re free to go.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Really,” he says, and he slaps Trice’s ass.
We walk away from him. Trice is silent, staring down.
“We were lucky,” I say.
She shoves me. “You’re not going to say nothing about him touching me.”
“What?”
“Touching me.”
“Seriously, Trice.”
She nods. Then she turns around and runs at the cop; she runs to the cop like she’s going to tackle him. He’s dragging his feet back to the cruiser, looking off to the stars; he’s got no idea she’s coming. I see it all happen, even though it hasn’t happened yet: Trice hitting him, us in jail, our parents coming to bail us out.
I grab her wrist and pull her towards me. She’s trying to wiggle her hand free and saying, “Do something, Richie. Do something.” But all I do is tug at her wrist and watch the cop get into his cruiser. When he drives off, she tries to punch me, misses, and tumbles into the pavement.
“You all right?” I ask.
She’s kneeling now, her knees scraped.
She refuses my hand when I offer.
“Sis. We’re going to do something about this.”
“Now you want to do something?”
“Of course I do.”
“You just stood there,” she says. “You should have hit him.”
“We’ll file a complaint,” I say.
“Oh, brother. You’re pathetic, you know that Richie?”
“Ok, Trice. Let’s get the car and go home.”
“No,” she says, rubbing her knees. “Not home. To Rafa.”

* * *

This isn’t the first time Trice lashes out against men. In middle school she broke a kid’s nose because she could feel his little pecker during a slow dance. She wasn’t sure what it was at first, but he kept smiling and pressing it into her, and when she realized he was essentially rubbing his prick against her, she pushed him and punched his face. Might have broken his pecker too if the kid hadn’t hit the ground. Then there was Rafa, walking her down Collins Ave, his hand sliding from her lower back to even lower. She pushed him into the street; a bus nearly ran him over. She apologized and apologized again, and I don’t even think Rafa was consciously doing anything. He’s a straight‑up guy, and he hasn’t made a move since. He asked me once, “What should I do? I want to touch her. Be near her.”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe just keep touching yourself?”
“I’m being sincere,” he said.
“I’m her brother. What am I supposed to say?”
What I wanted to say was that something must have happened to her a long long time ago to instill this kind of reaction. I mean, she can be perverted as hell one minute, using “cock” in every sentence, but then she acts this way.
She’s had boyfriends, and they’d hold hands, sometimes peck, but that’s about as much as she entertains them. One of her boyfriends tried making a move during a movie; she dumped her soda and her popcorn over his face and stormed out; I’m not sure what he was going for – a cheap feel, a hand on her thigh. But what I think is entirely likely, also, is that it’s a reflex. I mean, she’s punched me just for accidentally brushing my elbow against her breasts; she didn’t even apologize or anything, just went on folding the laundry. And I’m her brother.

* * *

It’s almost five in the morning when we get to Rafa’s. He lives in a small art deco walk‑up at the end of Ocean Drive. Elderly men are playing dominoes on the building’s front stoop, clouding the entrance with cigar smoke. I’m not sure if they’ve been playing all night or whether slamming fichas is a morning ritual. There’s a modern floor lamp – no shade – lighting up their table. Moths fly around it, beating their wings into the bulb. It’s the brightest spot on the street, and no doubt the place we too have ended up tonight. Coming up the steps, the men notice Trice’s legs; she’s wearing her platforms, which make her thighs look muscular. They jeer and whistle. One of them stands – a bearded man with no shirt – offers her a seat at their table, but we walk past them. Their laughter follows us up the stairs.
Rafa’s not expecting us. We can’t decide who’s going to knock. Trice rolls her eyes and bangs on the door with her fist. It seems every one of Rafa’s neighbors opens their doors, glares at us, but he doesn’t answer. She bangs on the door again. “All right already,” he yells. “Who is it?”
“Me,” Trice says.
Then there’s silence.
Trice bangs again.
“Ok. Ok. I’m coming.”
When he opens the door, he’s got the nylon closures of a garbage bag wrapped around his forearm; it’s stuffed. It’s clear he’s been tidying up a bit, but the place is still a mess. He’s shirtless. He’s waving us in. “I’ve been working a lot lately,” he says.
Trice sits on top of some boxes, settles into the armrest. I stand by her side.
“The car ok?” Rafa asks.
“Your car. Your car is fine,” she says, tossing him the keys. “You care about me too, right?”
He lets go of the bag; it swirls around until the closures slide off his wrist. Then he kneels in front of Trice, holding her hand.
“You’re bleeding,” he says. “What happened?”
“Was. It’s dry now.”
Rafa rises and jams his finger into my chest: “This how you take care of your sister. Look at her.”
I hadn’t noticed how swollen her eyes were. She’s sitting back, trying to act calm, but her arms are crossed, and she keeps running her fingers through her hair.
“Tell me what happened,” he says.
“We were . . .” I begin to say.
“Not you.”
Trice takes his hand and shakes her head.”Rafa. I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t come here to talk about it. I’m tired, Rafa, and my feet hurt, and I don’t want to talk about this. I just want to relax and I wanted to see you because I thought that would be nice. But no, I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to relax and be nice and that’s it.”
“Ok,” Rafa says. “Ok, Babe. Ok. Maybe we can get some fresh air.”
“Any leftover pizza? Matches?” I ask.
Rafa tosses me a box with a few pepperoni slices and a lighter. He wraps Trice in a blanket and we leave. The domino players are gone by the time we walk out, and the sun is just beginning to rise.
We go to the beach. The water’s rough. I settle near the ocean, into the sand, dig my toes into its warmth and smoke a joint. Trice and Rafa meander along the surf.
A stream of seagulls rises from the South Pointe pier; they dance over the beach, rising and falling. I’m tired and hungry and mesmerized by this dance. Between the smoke and the birds, I fade. See Trice and Rafa fade in the light too. Now it’s the lull of the surf – waves breaking on the shore, and all this sunlight.
I’m stoned.
I’m a shell. I look right: the gulls dart left. I look left: the gulls dart right. In the sea, I see waves rise then sink beneath the surface. Beneath the surface I see a plane, all pink in the sun’s rays, soaring through the waves, loose as a noodle. Not straight and erect like the one above. Beneath the surface I see a skull rising. No. They’re clouds reflected on the water.
The surf kisses my toes, and I roll onto my side, watch Trice and Rafa play on all that wet light. They’re holding hands, close. It pleases me to see them this way. Then Trice throws Rafa onto the beach, lays on top of him. Frisky. I know I should drift over there, say something about my sister’s honor and all that, but I don’t move. I don’t want to.
The sea takes ahold of me, cold, rushes up to my shoulders, and I want it to pull me in, warm. So warm. To hold me. I close my eyes, and I imagine sinking. Hitting the ocean’s bottom. All those pulverized bones. Trice and Rafa and MANTECA’s pink lights refracting at the surface. My sister dancing in all that light, her shirt rising, an iridescent jellyfish, flowing away in the current. And I’m there anchored to the sea floor, sinking into the sand.

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Raul Palma’s stories have appeared in Calliope, Gargoyle Magazine, NANO Fiction, RHINO, and Sonora Review.