In the 1970s, children went outside and looked around to see who else was outside playing and went over. It was usually physical, even for girls, and involved complex negotiations, hierarchy, the gives and takes of clans, alliances and enemies, the rules and rituals of games, and the pair bonding of best friends. It was rich. I regret that the culture of childhood is being co-opted by the corporate buy buy buy world and the "fear the child molesters" world of helicopter parents to maximize profit. It is a real loss.
Immediately next door to us was a widow named Concha who didn't like us climbing her magnolia tree, but we did it anyway. Her house was a rose velvet museum, everything in perfect order, smelling of old age. I think I was allowed in once. Next door to her was a house full of girls born at one-year intervals ranging in age from slightly older than me to the same age as my younger sister.
We had entered heaven.
They were Catholic, of course, though they seldom went to church. Their mother was not very mobile, and their father didn't want to spend his one precious day off at church. Somewhere in the wreck of a house was a rhinestone tiara with a white veil for someone's first communion. I remember it being passed around and tried on, someone being slapped, someone crying, someone laughing and running out of the room, the veil being ripped, and the bauble being tossed who knows where on the floor until the next episode. Whose tiara it was is lost in time, one of the younger girls's I think, but when there are six girls in a small house, nothing really belongs to anyone.
Sunday morning in the barrio was calm. The men had exhausted themselves from the riotous drunkenness of Saturday night, and were home with hangovers. Mass was held every hour on the hour until about eleven, and the respectable folk could be seen walking to church in the morning. My best friend Linda and I went a few times. Immaculate Heart of Mary on 76th street. We didn't have any fancy clothes. Linda was Catholic, but had only had the barest instruction on what to do. It was a strange world to me, bowing and dabbing holy water on yourself. I didn't dab any water on myself, but I envied her the water, the knowing of stuff I didn't know, stuff that carried a numinous promise; I envied her for belonging to this large and opulent thing. We saw and listened, knelt and sat, sang. A nun sang by herself from behind. Afterwards, people spilled out into the street.
Then came the real fun: the bakery. I don't know where I got the money, but there was always money for Mexican pastries. My favorites were the crumbly polverones with some kind of jam on them. We stuffed our faces on the walk home.
I went to confession with her once, and tried to confess some stuff, but didn't know how to do it or what to do with the instructions I was given. I had to get the priest's hints as to what I'd done that was a sin, because there was no such concept in my home, just the vague sense that not doing what your mother says would bring serious consequences in the here and now, not in the world to come. About seven "Our Fathers" and two "Hail Marys" was my penance. The D. girls knew the Hail Mary, so we said that a bit. We saw girls on the terrace in white, with their white dresses and tiaras, adoring family nearby taking pictures. Latinos love girls in pretty dresses. I suspected this "first communion" thing was just an excuse to put a bunch of beautiful girls in puffy dresses and adore them. In a few years, the dresses would be brightly colored, only this time the celebration would be called the "Quinceanera."
I lost interest in the Catholic religion, though I loved the trappings. The sermons were not very engaging, and the pastries really weren't worth getting up that early in the morning.
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