The Holes Game

Warning: Mentions and implied domestic abuse.

A daughter is her mother's representative in the playground. She is her valiant stand-in when someone means to insult the absent elder. And praise to her is praise to her mother for raising her. The only exception to this is when the father leaves for whatever reason, and suddenly she is no longer the mother's 'mini-me'; she is clearly 'her father's child'. This dubbing of our roles as children are reflections of our parents' hierarchical community. Consequently, the scripts we follow frequently flip directions along with the games we play within the fences of La Vecindad. Today, at our apartment complex's playground, is no different.

"We are going to play Los Hoyitos," explains Helena, the older of the bunch and also the one who decides which kid we hate and which kid we like everyday.

She withdraws a thin branch stick from a bush and passes it to me. 

"You. Soledad, use this to dig the holes."

I take the stick nervously, unsure where I land on the popularity spectrum today. Unlike the rest of us first or second gen chicanos, Helena is a real Mexicana, having crossed over to the United States when she was only four. Everything she says is the unfiltered truth. She is our role model and our leader. So I follow her dutifully towards a clearing in the sand.

As I dig the holes tediously one by one with my meager stick, accounting for each child present, everyone quickly scatters to grab an item to represent them. Xochi chooses a piece of confetti left over from last domingo's party, Miko carries over a small pebble covered in dirt, Julio grabs an abandoned green soldier toy, and Ana brandishes a shiny yellow fragment of glass from an old tequila bottle. One by one they each place their sigil over one of the holes I dug for them. All that's left is for me and Helena to pick our own. Across the barren sand, I spot a single rose growing from an otherwise sad, dry bush. I move to reach it but am stopped by Helena.

"You can't choose that," Helena says, now in front of me, with her arms spread out wide like the Jesús on my aunt's altar. She shields the flower from me. "It's still growing."

In the rose's stead, I settle for the same skinny brown stick I dug all the holes with, and place it at the head of my chosen sand hole. Helena plucks an upturned root for herself then at last the row of holes is complete.

Suddenly, we are no longer Helena, Xochi, Miko, Julio, Ana, and Soledad. We've changed, transformed and been reborn as Root, Confetti, Dirt, Toy Soldier, Fragment, and Stick.  

Root grins in satisfaction at the sight of all of the holes and walks away to retrieve an old ping pong ball with Spider-Man's face on it. She hands the small ball to me and smiles. 

"Because you dug all the holes, you get to go first."

I beam with pride at my handiwork and then toss el hombre araña into the air in the general direction of the holes. We wait with bated breaths as the small ball rolls contemplatively between two posts until finally slipping inside Fragment's hole. 

"Fragment is it! Run," shouts Dirt. 

We take off immediately towards the first post (the slide). Our feet rain loudly down on the footholds up the ladder, butts diving down the red slide, until several sandal-clad feet land into the clear. I've just reached my turn up the ladder along with Root, Fragment hot on our heels. She manages to take a hold of Root's arm before she can finish climbing up. I catch a glimpse of her crestfallen expression looking up at me before I slide down into safety with the rest.

We all peek around the slide, where Fragment clutches onto Root triumphantly. "You're frozen! If anyone wants to save her you'll have to risk getting caught too."

Dirt hesitates, clearly weighing the chances of him making it. We all look at one another, our memories fresh with the times Root has bad mouthed each of us or turned us against one another. Root watches us all silently, understanding clear in her beady black eyes

"It's okay," Root says, voice steady and her expression blank. "You can all leave me behind. Go to the next post."

"On the count of three we'll all take off running," Dirt whispers. "Uno…dos…."

But Dirt's already taken off before he even reaches three. We all chase behind him while Fragment runs around the slide. She flails her arms forward wildly like the billowing inflated tube man from the street corner's car shop in hopes of reaching any of us.

I've fallen behind all of them, and feel a small breeze at the nape of my neck. A warning. My heart sinks. Fragment's bony fingers wrench my shoulder backwards. I stumble and fall over the sandbox's border and into the dirt. I've been caught.

Fragment helps me up from the dirt and I stare behind at Root then turn to look ahead at the rest of my friends, all firmly touching second base(a big dead tree stump). Fragment then takes a few steps back and gestures at me, mockingly she says, "Anyone wanna come back for Stick?"

I eye Confetti, who whispers something to Dirt. I wonder if she tells him that last Sunday at the party, when all the adults were too drunk to speak, and their dancing no longer had bachata's rhythm, my Mami and Confetti's Papa disappeared together at the same time. Me and Confetti had looked for a hiding spot together among the bushes during our last game of tag. That's when we found Mami trying to eat her Papa's private area. 

It's not my fault my mom is a zombie. But now I can tell Confetti thinks it is, as she and Dirt give me the stinky eye. I look pleadingly at Toy Soldier. He seems to remember when I pulled him and his little sister, Mayita, out from their bedroom window when their father had gone to fetch the whooping belt from another room. It only delayed the whooping but that had been enough time for Toy Soldier to gather his strength and for his father to forget about also spanking Mayita.

Now, before I can even blink they've all run off towards the third post, minus Toy Soldier. He takes advantage of Confetti's distraction with the others and runs in my frozen direction to tap me. I laugh with him as we pass by a frozen Dirt and Confetti  and make it to the third base by the swing.  Fragment is looking worn out now, panting with her hands on her knobby brown knees. 

"We just need to reach home base by the holes," I say to Toy Soldier excitedly. 

We take off and once again Fragment follows us. Before we can reach home base Fragment falls to her knees on the ground, panting even harder than before.

"I can't breath!" exclaims Fragment in between gasps. 

For a second she is no longer Fragment, but Ana again. I worry she is having another 'Ass-mahh' attack (as my Mami had told me Ana's condition was called). 

"Are you okay," begins to say Toy Soldier but then Ana -now Fragment again- suddenly lurches forward and grabs his ankles.

I turn on my heel and reach home base without looking back. When I finally do, it's with a slight sense of guilt for leaving the rest of them, the feeling only outweighed by my pride at having surpassed them all. 

Before anyone can speak, Mami exits out our apartment door in a rush. She descends down the staircase with a startled look on her face when she sees me. 

"Soledad, get over here! We are leaving," She says it all quickly, tears and snot running down her chin. 

I don't know what to do, not used to seeing her look unperfect without her hair in a slick pony tail, hoop earrings, denim skirt, and her favorite wedges. Now she is an ugly stranger with a plain Old Navy shirt and jeans. What cues me as her being my mother is the smell of her perfume, soft, and sweet like pan dulce. 

From above my father has emerged, red in the face and looking bigger than usual as he prowls down the stairs. He grabs my mother by the arm, even harsher than Fragment had grabbed mine, and slams Mami's head at the side of the stairwell. 

Me and the rest watch in horror at what my father does to my Mami. When all is done, and the other parents have taken all my friends into their individual apartments. I am left alone with only my sobbing Mother crumpled like a wilting flower by my side. She pulls at my skirt begging forgiveness. But I think she should be begging for help.

When the policemen arrive later on to take Papi away, I stay hidden in my room with the deep sense that nothing will be the same from now on.

The next day, I watch Mother give one last prayer to La Virgen. She packs my things and hers, and as we descend with our luggage down the staircase I can see Helena peek out from her apartment window. I wave at her but she does not wave back. 

We leave La Vecindad apartments behind and never return. My new school is strange. Its playgrounds are much bigger and plentiful. The children here are more vast in color, though mostly paler than me, and they also primarily speak English. Despite the larger number of students I feel an unquelled solitude that follows me well into my adult years in college.

"Did you know, your old friend Xochi just got married? She's expecting a child too," my Mother says one afternoon as she stirs the pozole in the pot over the stove.

"She's only twenty," I reply, in shock. 

"That's not too bad," Mother protests. "I got married off to your father at fifteen. At least Xochi chose her husband."

She is Confetti, my mind supplies. The memories start rushing back to me.

"How are the rest?" I ask, no longer interested in the dishes I had been washing. 

What I really want to ask is: how is Toy Soldier? What happened to the sore loser, Dirt? Where is Fragment now? Is her asthma gone? What became of our leader Root?

"Helena is very bright, I hear. Unfortunately she couldn't afford the college she got accepted into. Ya sabes, ella no tiene papeles, so she got very little financial help. Julio got recruited into the military, just like his father. Mika and his family moved back to Mexico. I don't know what happened to Ana, last I heard she was chasing after her no good cholo boyfriend. Have you spoken to any of them?"

"No," I respond, desolate. 

My stomach feels hollow, as if the weight of the years has finally rolled off me and fallen on my feet instead. All that's left is the bruises from it all, vibrant in colors and shaped like the holes I used to dig for my friends.