Unwanted

I get mail. Lots of mail. Mountains of mail. Amazing credit card offers, museum membership renewals with special perks, nonprofits begging for donations, and of course of course of course, catalogs: clothes, home interior, gardens and landscaping, computers and electronics, kitchenware, books, toys, sporting gear, plumbing and electrical supplies, restaurant trends for food professionals, gadgets straight out of in-flight magazines, and the ever-tasteful Jockey underwear collection. The recipients of this postage cornucopia are as diverse as the senders, each envelope a dot plotting the history of those who lived here since the house was built, thirty odd years ago. And it’s been driving me bonkers since we moved in.

At first, I thought I had the perfect plan to curtail the flow of junk mail. I would take every piece of mail addressed to prior occupants, strike out the address, apply a big red “RETURN TO SENDER” stamp ($5.99 on Amazon,) and stack them up until the pile was large enough to justify a trip to the mailbox. Then one day the mailman took me aside, and with a polite yet firm tone he instructed me to stop. The seasoned government employee explained that the post office throws returned mail to the trash unless the sender paid extra postage fees for the return service. Very few mass-marketers buy first class stamps, so my crusade against junk mail was little more than an exercise in futility.

For a while, I made the effort to discern between marketing mail (trash, straight into the recycle bin) and envelopes that might be important (big red stamp, return to sender.) Every time one of those ‘important’ letters showed up, I would mumble and curse the careless recipients who never made the effort to inform their bank, the school district, the DMV, or even the IRS of their new address. Damn these people! Then gradually I stopped caring.

“Hay niños que quieren hablar contigo,” says the construction worker that has been installing our kitchen cabinets. There are children who want to talk to me. Intrigued, I walk down the stairs to the front door. Two kids stand by the door and look at me. The older one, a teenager, wears a mask over her round face. Her long, dark hair falls well below her shoulders, and her short plump body is covered by a modest dress with colorful patterns. The younger one looks about 8 years old and peeks at me from behind a cup of ice cream. He came unmasked. And barefoot. His feline, triangular face reminds me of indigenous people I encountered during our journey in Latin America. Which part? I cannot tell.

The kids remain silent.

“Hola, buenos días,” I say without even trying English. After 6 months of construction, my ability to communicate in Spanish has improved significantly. Most of the crew is originally from El Salvador and Guatemala.
“Buenos días,” responds the girl, visibly relieved. “¿Es el nuevo dueño?” Am I the new owner?
“Si.” I explain that Paolo, who sold us the house, moved to Texas.
“Vivíamos aquí antes,” she explains. They used to live here.
I don’t know what to say.
Neither does the kid.
“¿En qué cuarto?” I finally enquire. In which unit?
“El de abajo,” she responds, pointing down to… the garage. Our house is officially a single-family home that previous owners had divided into rental units, and while most of the building made for good living quarters, the basement “unit” remained a puzzle: below ground level, cold and damp, with a tiny 3-foot by 1-foot window as the only source of air and light, the place could never shake off the musty scent of mildew. Who would want to live there? The answer is staring at me with innocent eyes.
Silence. The girl shifts her weight from left to right in a slight wobble, embarrassed.
“¿Tiene correo para mí?” she finally asks. Do you have mail for me? “Me llamo Yessica Velasquez.”
The familiar name brings to mind a kaleidoscope of envelopes. T-Mobile. Bank of America. San Francisco Superior Court. IRS. School District. How do I find the words in Spanish to explain why I trashed her mail? Please forgive me, Yessica. The mailman made me do it! Where do I begin? What is the word for ‘mailman’? I settle for “el hombre que trae el correo” (the man who brings the mail) and begin recounting. Her smile slowly fades, overcome by the shadow of crushed hopes.
“Y el cheque del gobierno, ¿lo ha tirado también?” What about the check from the government, did you throw it away as well?
Oh my god! Now I really feel like an asshole. I remember seeing the IRS letterhead and wondering if it was indeed the famous stimulus check. For the life of me I cannot remember if I threw it away or returned it to sender.
“Lo siento mucho, no lo tengo.” Sorry I don’t have it.
Her disappointment meets my guilt in a heavy silence.
“Quieren ver el cuarto?” Would they like to see the flat? I ask. Anything to move the conversation to a different topic.
“Claro que sí,” of course! She smiles and nudges her little brother, excited. I guide them through the construction debris towards the basement. I ask the barefoot boy if it’s a good idea to get in without any shoes. He looks at me in puzzlement and continues to eat his ice cream while walking on rubble.
“¡Mira!,” exclaims Yessica to her little brother as we step into the basement. Look! There used to be a bathroom here, and the kitchen was there.
Although we got city permits to legalize the units above ground, there was no way to make the basement a living quarter due to fire safety issues so the illegal kitchen and bathrooms had to be demolished. The basement is returning to its original function: storage. In broken Spanish, I attempt to explain. “En caso de fuego,” in case of fire…
“Nosotros morimos primero,” she quips with a smile. They die first.
My eyes tear up. I can’t shake the image of these children living in the mildew-ridden basement, with barely any air or light, trapped without a fire exit. I look the other way, pretending to turn my attention to the former bathroom. I take a few deep breaths to push the tears away and regain my composure. When I turn back, her arm is wrapped around the boy’s shoulders. Lovingly.

Yessica is not a child. She is a mother.

~Cedric, July 2021