Geñito

I’ll start by describing the picture. It’s in black and white, or at least it was in some far off time, now it’s greenish. He’s standing very proud. With features much like my own. Black and proud, black and beautiful! That’s how we stand in my family. That’s how all the brother’s and sister of this proud race should stand so that we stand out above others and stop hiding from society! But that would be another topic. Good for a poem too.
Anyways, his nose is broad as a black man who must work hard must have to make his heart work when it doesn’t want to any longer. His face is scarred by pain and suffering. His expression is nonexistent. It’s neutral as a hired killer’s. His eyes are cold, robbed of every expression as if an icy liquid ran through his veins and humanity’s vulnerability had been stripped from him by years of hard work and abuse.
When they first met, his father was a slave. Then he was made free. It was not easy growing up, in a household like that. Cutting canes with a dull machete and coming home to defend his sisters’ honors. Everyday was a slow destructive grind between the sugar canes and wheather against hunger and humiliation, peeling off the layers of soul. It was destroying his feelings.It was destroying his humanity. It was too much to take. A pointy sugar cane would stab him and nail him to the wall. His body would slip and the cane would start searing his flesh, cutting him in half. Then he’d wake up screaming with a picture on his mind. They were once his brothers.
Smart as he was, he was forced to leave school at an early age to go work with his father. All that his father could bring to the table were small breadcrumbs for which he begged and some people would feed the leftovers to the dogs in front of his begging eyes, his crying eyes. He was not hungry – or at least he was not concerned with his own hunger – all he cared about was his family. He would not lose anymore. Geño didn’t like this. So he quit school.
He quit school at 8th grade. A very educated man he was considered. After all, most people didn’t get past the 4th. He knew how to read and write – not everybody knew how to back then. His father had worked hard for this and wanted him to finish at least the 9th grade. But it had been impossible. His father got sick and the family famished. He couldn’t keep his arms crossed while his sister lay on the floor crying because the pain in the stomach was so great she hadn’t slept in days. He couldn’t watch his mother try to act like everything was alright while considering prostitution to save her children’s miserable souls. There were already enough dead and if he didn’t take a stand there would be more.
All of them fought for it. Don’t misunderstand me. He worked hard but wasn’t alone. All thirteen of the survivors worked. Even the women which then were not allowed in certain jobs – picked a machete, basket or shovel. Whatever was necessary to keep from famishing. They learned to work hard for what they wanted. They learned that the weak die. “They’re weak because they won’t fight. Fight! Fight for your life! Fight for your freedom! Fight like a man who has nothing to lose but a world to win!” He used to say.
They worked so hard to keep the family alive and well, that they got rich by black men standards, becoming a recognized family. This was Geño’s dream. To move out from the slow destruction of his body and soul. He wanted to take his family with him. He wanted to move on be what his father could not. Become a man that could proudly walk among all people – black and white – and not be discriminated against. His father taught him never to bow to anybody. He was very proud of his father – just not of the fact that he was a slave. If he could I believe he would’ve erased it. Back then, it wasn’t like now. Society had made it so that brother would fight brother. Therefore, he didn’t exactly trust blacks more than whites. He also hated the way it all happened.
His father died soon after he was 17. His death affected him much since he looked up to him, a lot. It wasn’t easy, but then again nothing is. The worst part is, He took a piece of his humanity with him. He thought it was his last but he still had some inside of him. The biggest piece of his humanity had been robbed long before. He should’ve given his father some credit but he had not any more to give. That was as much as he had to spare. Most of it had been taken by someone else.
I’m not about to tell you a love story. There has not, is not and will not be a woman capable of breaking my grandfather’s heart. There are images in his head though. They’re not pretty. There was a great lawlessness then. Justice was taken with your own hands. I won’t say exactly what happened, but I’ll ask you something. Think about you best friend (girl), your sister, your mother, your girlfriend.
Somebody is forcing himself on her. She refuses. A hand comes sweeping trough the air with the sound of a whip. As her limp body falls to the floor unwillingly on its knees as if it was being pulled down by other forces – a grin builds on the face of the bastard. His open hand becomes a fist and lifts up high to come down with all the force of a man who will get his desires at whatever cost. His hand goes down on the falling mannequin as its eyes lose glow and seem stripped of life. The blow lands. A hand goes down and pulls her head to his crotch. Hands groping and a knife unveiling, it is tearing the clothes off. A bloody face that looks like a scene from CSI and a frantic pant of somebody who thinks he will get what he wants. There is another man doing the same on another side to another woman and a third man who starts undressing the first one. The man forces himself into one of their mouths.
Then he feels warmth in his neck. Blood. But whose? His own. As his head falls to the floor and his neck sputters blood. The second man pulls out his machete. He feels for his stomach. He’s already done what he wanted but doubts this was the happy ending he looked for. He begins to feel as lifted off the ground. The blood is running yet he’s still alive. The beating that awaited was the end of him. But, what of the third?
The next day, my grandfather went to the plaza unable to sleep because of the images. He was happy that they got what they deserved. But still, there was something terribly wrong. Only his mother remembered what happened and it had not been the first time she’d been raped and it was not the first she’d seen the rapist die in front of her eyes. She was “used to it”. Then… he saw two bodies being dragged by horses. They were still alive and they cried out: “Geño! RUN GODDAMNIT!!! CORRE PUÑETA!!!” They were his brothers, just before they bled to death, stabbed by the same bastard who forced himself in his sister’s mouth. He ran, and luckily found the man who was boasting about his acts. There was a red moon that night again and his brother’s bodies rejoiced even though they were left to rot. Hanging like pigs who are put out to dry.
This was all before he met the woman that brought it all back. The one that made him feel. The one for which he would give anything. The last picture that exists of him, is hidden in a safe box by my mother. It is very precious to her and she only looks at it when she needs strength. His face is scarred with the ghost of yesterday. There is such a determination and strength in those eyes. He seems indestructible, the kind of man that would stand up in heaven and questions God’s motive’s for taking it all away and then thanking him because of what was given to him. If it weren’t for all the suffering, happiness wouldn’t feel so sweet. If it weren’t for all the hate, love wouldn’t feel so good. If he hadn’t lost so much, what he kept wouldn’t feel so good. If it hadn’t been for my grandmother he would’ve never known that.
His face is scarred with the ghost of yesterday but… His eyes… Are filled with the hope of tomorrow…

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