It was either enter school through a metal detector and be molested by a school cop, or go to my place, get high, and watch The Jerry Springer Show.
My grandmother was in Santo Domingo that winter. It was you and me smoking weed, watching box TV. The only other person in my grandmother’s place was the man renting the living room turned bedroom. He wore a gold watch and gold rings. He made his money selling “antiques” on the corner of 190th and St. Nicholas Avenue. He was barely ever in the apartment, too busy selling the used shit that didn’t fit in the large blue drums to be shipped to Santo Domingo. You and I fucked nonstop. We’d run out of condoms but that never stopped us. That winter, it was just us two hiding from truancy police.
We thought we could cut class, do half the work, and graduate high school in four years. Our teachers couldn’t put a face to our names on the attendance sheet by the second semester. We only knew our teachers as the last names on letters informing our parents about attendance.
One day, while you were crushing Puré as I cracked a Dutch, someone knocked on the bedroom door. We stashed everything in our bookbags before opening. The antique seller said there was a stranger at the front door, a man asking for my grandmother. I thanked him. On my way to the door I imagined who the stranger might be. Right away, I thought it was the asshole who had tricked my grandmother into buying an overpriced water filter on credit. My fists gripped. I rushed down the hall past the rented living room, the kitchen, the bathroom and opened the front door. My father—who I hadn’t seen in two years—stood in front of me wearing a deflated black, North Face bubble coat.
I was happy to see my father out on parole or maybe it was probation. I was happy for his freedom. I told him my grandmother was in the D.R. As we walked down the hallway, I noticed how dark it was and turned on the lights. I introduced him to the antique seller. My father asked about men from around the way. The ones who owed him and the ones he owed. He put his hands behind his head in shock when he heard who was away doing time. I might have mentioned my mother’s whereabouts.
My father apologized as soon as he saw you in the bedroom. Steam banged in the radiator. The bedroom smelled like Puré, but no one said anything. It was an old woman’s bedroom, a queen bed with a lint-covered gray and red quilt, a folded navy-blue comforter and blankets in different colors and fabrics. Paintings of baby angels and zinc roof houses by a river hung on the wall and orange prescription bottles were scattered next to the television on a bureau mismatching the bed frame that clashed with the night stand.
“Where do you sleep?” he asked.
“Here,” I said. I felt embarrassed because even though you already knew, I didn’t want to remind you.
My father hustled for years on your block before moving onto 173rd Street, sometime after his fourth bid. Seeing you make eye contact with my father as you both spoke about the block you lived on made me jealous. I imagined coming back from peeing in the bathroom and finding you and my father fucking on the bed I slept on with my grandmother. In my jealousy, I wished I had hustled how he hustled so I could know the names of all the men you and my father seemed to know so well. I tried to hustle on your block one summer, but I was terrified of cops after seeing what they did to dealers they caught alone in the basement or on the staircases. I was also scared that the gossipy old women who, from their window sills, couldn’t tell the difference between a drug dealer and a junky, might start rumors that would reach my grandmother.
When my father went to the bathroom, I told you he hadn’t said anything about us cutting class and you exhaled. When he got back, he told us about his new job at a bookstore by Columbia University. We stared at him, still expecting him to confront us about cutting. We thought he would shame us like the police did at school. We thought he would yell at us like the dean. We thought he would hit us with our counselor’s favorite line: “You’re smoking away your potential, don’t squander it.” It was years before I learned the definition of squander. My father wasn’t listening. Or maybe he was, but didn’t care. He showed us a gold ring he found in the bathroom. The ring belonged to the antique seller.
Someone turned on the TV. We watched commercials waiting for a new episode of Jerry Springer. The TV asked, “Are you pregnant and working in the sex industry? If so, please call us at 1-800-96-JERRY.” And we went silent for a second. Then my father said he’d call and say he was pregnant if they paid him enough. You said white people appeared on the show because they were poor. I said they did it because they were shameless. You and I argued until my father said, “Oh shit, Big Al is on TV!”
I don’t know if you remember, but Big Al from your block had his mugshot on a Crime Stoppers commercial. A picture of Big Al and the name Allan A. Medina, his height, and weight. In big, capital, red letters, it said Big Al was a fugitive. The commercial made it seem like he killed a cop or something. The truth was Big Al missed a meeting with his PO and was now in hiding for the violation.
The three of us watched The Jerry Springer Show in silence. The day’s episode was “Shocking Family Scandals.” I looked out the window. Snow covered the streets, and the sidewalks, and the parked cars, and for once, east of Broadway Washington Heights looked clean.
Darrin has a confession to make to his girlfriend. The relationship was good at first, but he’s over it. Thirty seconds in, and the audience is booing Darrin for his change of heart even though he hasn’t yet shared his confession. Darrin asks the audience, “Boo...?” The audience boos louder. “Are you serious?” he asks. He gets up from his seat. The audience boos even louder. Darrin walks to the edge of the stage with his arms out. “Come up here!” A bouncer gets in his face, and the audience boos and cheers. They have yet to hear Darrin’s confession.
While we watched Jerry Springer, I realized we wouldn’t be alone to smoke the Puré we copped on your block or eat the leftovers your mom cooked the night before. We offered my father cold chicken with rice and beans, but he didn’t want any. You and I sat against the headboard and ate from the same plastic container. We hadn’t smoked, but ate like the munchies had hit. My father sat on the corner of the bed facing the TV. This isn’t that bad, I thought.
Jerry Springer brings out Darrin’s girlfriend, Melanie. She tells the audience she loves Darrin because he’s a romantic and a caring lover. The audience “awws” and laughs at the same time. Darrin tells Melanie that all she blabs about is how she pays the rent. Melanie shouts at him, “How can you say this to me?” She rushes at Darrin, and the bouncers get in between. “After all I’ve done for you. I pay your rent. I pay the bills.” Darin and Melanie yell at each other while the audience chants at Darrin, “Loser! loser! loser!” Darrin tells Melanie, “I don’t care. I’ve been sleeping with someone else.”
Melanie swings at Darrin, and the bouncers are there again. Then Jerry brings out the person Darrin has been sleeping with. It’s a man. The audience explodes, “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” Melanie shouts at the other man, and the other man shouts back.
When things settle, Melanie, Darrin, and the other man sit.
“Do you trust Darrin?” Jerry asks the other man.
“Of course. I love him,” the other man says.
Darrin makes another confession: He’s been sleeping with this other man’s twin brother, too. The audience chants. “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!”
A month after my father’s arrival, nothing had changed except now the snow was dirty. One morning, I woke up early to pick you up to cut at my place. When we got back, my father was in the lobby of the building, hiding from the cold. I told you we could still cut class, but you got all paranoid, acting like my father was an old-school parent. He was not old-school. He was younger than my mother and my mother was young enough to be my older sister. On top of that, my father saw me as a “good kid,” even though he barely saw me. Because I had never gotten in trouble with the police except maybe once or twice for trespassing, some minor shit like that, my family saw me as a good student. They used my little to no police contact as evidence that one day I’d be President.
You told me you wouldn’t cut at my place if my father was there. So, we called our friends, trying to find where to hide from the cold and the truancy police. No one picked up our calls or answered our texts. We left my father in my room and ended up going to school that day.
We went through different metal detectors at school because the woman school cop touched the girls and the man school cop touched the boys. The man cop made me throw out my Snapple bottle because it was glass. I begged him to let me drink it before going into the building, but he ignored me. I took the bottle from the table and started guzzling it but the man cop snatched it. The juice spilled down my neck. The school cops surrounded me as if I was gonna do something. They called me “tough guy” as they escorted me to the dean’s office.
The dean was busy so he sent me to the guidance counselor, who was also too busy to deal with students. The school cops had to take me to the next class on my schedule. The math teacher told the school cops I wasn’t on his roster. Some students in the back of the classroom called out my name. I tried looking in the classroom, to see their faces, but the cop pulled me back by my hoodie. I collapsed on the floor and complained that the school police officer’s boots scuffed my Jordans. A teacher had dismissed her class way before the period was over so I had an audience. The students laughed. The cops said I should get my ass beat for resisting.
The school cops dragged me to the main office where I spent half the day. The secretary gave me a bunch of forms for my parents to fill out in case there had been any changes in my living situation since the last time I popped into school. They allowed me to pick up my lunch from the cafeteria on my own, to eat in the main office with the secretary. I couldn’t believe how dumb they were. I walked straight out the school building through a backdoor. Thinking about it now, they knew I would leave the building. That’s why they let me go on my own. They wanted me to leave just as much as I wanted to leave.
When I got home, I found my father nodding off on the corner of my bed. I remembered the fights between him and my mother. He was always out late, pitching. I woke him up and told him to lay down. He almost fell off the bed and mumbled something. Right then, I imagined he was selling drugs again. I could see him getting to his brother’s apartment exactly at 8pm, or whatever curfew his PO gave him. Then he’d break the night curfew, pitching on the block until morning. I bet he got to his brother’s place right before dawn, before his PO called or popped by in person to check if he was home. My father would then come to my grandmother’s place to see me and drop off his bookbag. If he had the money and the energy, he would bring groceries and cook for us. He tried teaching me how to cook omelets and rice and beans. He used to tell me to be careful eating other people’s food because you didn’t know what was on their mind when they made it. At first, I tried not to think about the fights between my mother and him, but his voice reminded me of fake wood furniture breaking and glass shattering. To get my mind off all that I focused on the TV, but sometimes The Jerry Springer Show reminded me of the past almost better than my own memories. I wasn’t sure if I was watching two strangers or my parents arguing over who cheated first.
For Valentine’s Day, we cut at my place, hoping my father wouldn’t show up. We smoked and tried figuring out which stories on The Jerry Springer Show were fake and which were real. I thought you would complain about me not getting you anything for Valentine's Day, but you didn’t. I think about that to this day.
My plan was to use some of the antique dealer’s rent money to get you balloons or flowers, but I hadn’t seen him since my father popped up and we started going back to school.
I was worried, waiting for you to bring up Valentine’s Day when I heard a knock on the bedroom door. I jumped off the bed expecting the antique dealer to have the weekly rent money, but instead he asked me if I had found a gold watch in the bathroom. He said his watch had been missing for over a week. He said he left it in the bathroom. I told him we didn’t have it and he said he wouldn’t pay the rent until he got his gold watch back. I wanted to knock him out, but thought of my grandmother. When the antique dealer went back into his room, you said he was trying to get away with not paying rent. I asked you if you saw the watch in the bathroom and you gave me attitude and said I should ask my father that question.
You saw that hurt my feelings so you changed the subject and asked if I would ever go on The Jerry Springer Show and tell some wild made-up story if it got us paid. The question helped me forget about the antique dealer’s missing gold watch, about the rent being short that month, and that Valentine’s Day gift I hadn’t gotten you. I told you I couldn’t take people booing me, even if it was make-believe. Halfway through the performance, someone might call me a dumbass, and I’d forget it was theater. It’s one thing to have people judge you while watching you on TV, but to have a whole audience judge you in person must hurt. Having strangers tell you how dumb you are for all your dumb mistakes. And laugh at you. I never understood how the guests on the show didn’t take it personally. You told me it wasn’t that serious. You said being on the show was like any other hustle. You said you do it for the money, the way the antique dealer lied about losing his gold watch.
We watched Jerry Springer and I imagined us two on the show rushing at each other before a bouncer got between us. I imagined us going shopping on 145th Street and Broadway with the Jerry Springer money. I saw you buying a Baby Phat coat and some Parasuco jeans. I saw myself buying a black Vanson leather jacket and some Vasquez boots.
You snapped me out of my daydream and told me I had to ask my father about the gold watch even if it scared me. I ignored you and kept watching “Secret Mistresses Confronted.”
Eleanor and Ralph accuse Ralph’s ex-wife, Nancy, of stalking them. Nancy agrees to go on The Jerry Springer Show, expecting Ralph will choose her over Eleanor. But when Nancy comes out, the audience boos her. Jerry questions Nancy’s actions. She tells him that she kept sleeping with Ralph, even after the divorce. Jerry tells us that on the eve of the show’s taping, the three of them stayed at the same hotel in Chicago, in two different rooms, paid for by the show. And still, Nancy and Ralph managed to fuck.
Jerry tells us that after the show was taped, Nancy got an order of protection against Ralph. Weeks later, Ralph, Eleanor, and Ralph’s nephew went to Nancy’s home to collect the last of Ralph’s things. A fight broke out. Eleanor and Ralph’s nephew took off in their car. Ralph panicked and escaped through the back door. Ralph’s nephew returned to Nancy’s home but no one answered when he knocked on the front door. The door was unlocked, so he tried to push it open, but something was blocking it. So, he called the police. They found Nancy’s body on the floor. She had been beaten, and strangled to death. Ralph is serving life in prison. Eleanor is still out in the world, outside the TV.
As Ralph strangled Nancy, the show they appeared on was airing on TV. I can’t remember if we ever saw that episode, or if we saw the news of Nancy’s murder after. I wondered what could’ve driven Ralph to murder. And then I remembered that time I choked you while you clawed my face.
By late February, my father began sleeping over. This meant we took another break from cutting at my place. I remember telling you that I no longer had my spot to cut at, asking if we could cut at your spot instead, and you getting angry. I didn’t have the heart to ask my father if he was back to hustling. Maybe I did ask him, but I don’t remember. Most likely, I didn’t. To be real with you, I was less upset that he was risking his freedom, and angrier that his being around meant I had to go back to school. He didn’t care that we were cutting class, but I convinced myself that he did.
I told my father that the antique dealer didn’t want to pay rent until I found his gold watch. I never told you this, but my father suspected it was you, because you stopped coming over around the time the watch disappeared. My father asked if you came from a good family, and I wasn’t sure what he meant by “good family.” That night, my father tossed and turned in bed. His crying kept me awake.
I kept thinking about whether you came from a “good family.” I remembered what happened to you the summer before my father was released from prison. You lived with your mother and father then—he wasn’t actually your father; he was your mother’s boyfriend. He had been dating your mother and he helped pay the bills. You lived in a one-bedroom apartment with a single air conditioner in the bedroom. You slept in the living room on a blanket-covered sofa. You used to say you took cold showers every few hours in the middle of the summer nights. On those nights, when you couldn’t take the heat, you slept on the bedroom floor while your mother and her boyfriend slept on the bed. When he didn’t sleep over, you slept in the bed with your mother. You complained she always wanted to cuddle, through heatwaves in the summer and the steaming radiator in winter. You said she hugged you in ways she never did when you were both awake in the day.
Some nights your mother’s boyfriend came in when you and your mother were sleeping in the bed and he laid down on the bed. You knew to get up then and lay on the floor. You used to say something about him that made you fear him when the lights were off. I asked if he had done something to you. And you answered, no, no, no. So, then I asked, “Well what’s the problem then?” And you just shrugged your shoulders.
One summer night, something did happen. You laid on the floor so close to the AC that you had to cover yourself with the same quilt you spread on the floor to lay on. Your mother woke up in the middle of the night and asked you to get into bed, but you pretended to be asleep.
Later, right before dawn, you heard your mother’s boyfriend come in. The street lights shone in through the gaps between the window shades. It wasn’t night, but it wasn’t morning either. It was that brief period during which it was finally quiet enough to sleep east of Broadway. That time when the car speakers rested from blasting music, and whoever was out hustling, selling dope or their body, was nodding off from dope or cumming.
Your mother’s boyfriend lay on the bed, his body near enough you could smell the liquor on his breath and the street on his skin. I remember you telling me you couldn’t sleep that night. But I remember you telling me you could never sleep at night. The only time I saw you sleep was after smoking or fucking. Although calling it “fucking” would be lying. It was just me humping on you for a few minutes and then both of us taking a nap.
Like all other nights you heard your mother snoring, passed out from drinking. Then you heard her boyfriend moving around in the bed. You could smell the liquor. You could feel the quilt being lifted off your body. His hand on you. It was cold and sweaty, and gentle.
I asked what you did. You never moved. You just lay there. He rubbed your thigh. You said you couldn’t move. You said you were frozen. I didn’t believe you. I didn’t believe you could be frozen. Minutes later, you could hear your mother and her boyfriend fucking softly, and telling each other how much they loved each other.
By March, the school had gotten in touch with your mother about cutting class, and she beat you. Children’s Services went to your apartment, but not because of the beating. The bruises and bite marks were under your clothes. Your face was unmarked, except for pimples. Children’s Services had shown up to investigate your poor attendance. They also showed up at my place but the antique dealer didn’t open the door because they didn’t speak Spanish.
I hadn’t asked you again about the antique dealer’s gold watch. I believed when I did, that you would return it. It wasn’t until the landlord sent my grandmother a letter saying we were a month behind that I begged you to come over. I knew I couldn’t talk to you about it over the phone, or chatting through AIM or MySpace. My father was out visiting his parole or probation officer so you agreed to cut class. I prayed you hadn’t sold or pawned the antique dealer’s watch.
That day, you showed up with Tupperware filled with your mother’s leftovers. We were stressed out. Someone on the block had just gotten shot, so Washington Heights was full of cops. They had those big bright tower lights on your block, and on 190th Street. Big Al had been arrested around that time. I left you in the apartment and went out to get weed, but the corners were empty. Potheads couldn’t get bud, dope fiends couldn’t get dope, Johns couldn’t get ass.
I was waiting for the right time to ask you about the gold watch. The Jerry Springer Show played while I ate your mother’s food, while you cried, complaining everyone was calling you a hoe because there were rumors about you and the school cop in the stairwell. The audience on the TV awed. Even though the dirty snow was melting and the spring sunshine came in through the window, everything felt super sad. We were too sober. Listening to you talk about the rumors about you and the school cop got me jealous. I felt like the audience on the TV were laughing at me. Listening to the way your mother talked to you made me angry. Someone in the audience yelled something. The food tasted like shit. The audience laughed. The Jerry Springer Show wasn’t funny anymore. It was depressing. I couldn’t take how real the show felt. How real it all felt. I missed my mother, I missed my father, and my grandmother. The audience awed again. You were the only person I had, and to think you were with the school cop made me hate you. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! the audience chanted.
When I asked you about the watch, it felt like everyone was looking at me: my grandmother, my father, my school counselor, the antique seller, and even my mother, from faraway, wherever she might be.
Secrets Revealed: My Girlfriend is a Cheating Thief:
“Did you take the watch?” I ask.
The audience jeers and heckles, shocked at how I cut to the chase.
“What watch?”
The audience laughs because they know you are lying.
You pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. But you know. I know. The audience knows.
“The gold watch the antique seller left in the bathroom.”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“She’s lying!” an audience member yells, and the rest of them cheer and clap.
“Why did you stop coming over after the watch disappeared?”
“Because your father was always there. I ain’t feel safe.”
The audience members whisper to each other, waiting for you to explain what you mean by safe.
“You stopped coming over after the watch disappeared. You stopped coming, even on days he had to see his PO and wasn’t here. You saying he’s a creep?”
“He’s not a creep, he’s a junkie.”
A collective gasp from the audience.
“He don’t use drugs!” I yell.
Nothing from the audience. They just stare at me.
“He still goes to my block—”
“Yeah, to hustle.”
“No, to cop dope, I saw him.”
“You're just saying that because you don’t want to talk about the watch. Where is it?”
“I ain’t say nothing because I thought you knew.”
“Stop changing the subject. Where’s the watch?”
“Whenever I mention your mother or grandmother, you start slamming doors or dropping shit and ignoring me. I see your father copping dope on the regular. Shit ain’t news.”
“You sneaky bitch, I haven’t paid the rent because you won’t return the watch!”
“Did you ask your crackhead father about the watch?”
“Did you ask the school cop whose dick you sucked?”
The audience explodes. They gasp and stomp and shout and laugh.
You lunge at me and scratch my face, calling my mother a whore and my father a crackhead. I block, and remind you of the rumors around school about you and the school cop. I yell Superhead. You yell crackhead. You shout out those secrets I only shared with you about what they did to me when I was a child. Before you can finish yelling your secrets, my hands grip your neck. You dig your nails into my face. The Jerry Springer bouncers separate us.
Only it wasn’t the bouncers. It was my father and the antique dealer. You put on your sneakers, crying. I looked in the mirror, touching the blood on my face, pretending I wasn’t crying.
The audience chants: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
That was the last time I saw you.
You changed schools after the rumors about you and the school cop got back to your mother. Word was you moved in with family in Connecticut. I thought I forgot about that winter. I thought I forgot about it until I heard your voice.
I was scrolling Instagram when I heard you. Your voice was the same from when we cut class to smoke weed and watch Jerry Springer. It was the same voice that said people only went on Jerry Springer to get paid. The live-stream showed a pair of hands with gold rings and green nails shuffling a tarot deck. It was your voice talking about Jupiter’s return, death, rebirths, cycles. When the hands stopped shuffling, I saw your face—the same face—twenty years later, like you hadn’t aged at all.
I went on your profile. Your bio said: Afro-Latinx bruja-healer, my ancestor’s wildest dreams, money is energy, Paypal, Cashapp and Venmo available. One picture showed you in a white dress, rocking big curly hair, with the ocean behind you. Back in the day, you always blow dried it straight. Another picture had you with an orange head wrap in front of a botanica. I remembered how we used to make fun of people who spent their money on overpriced candles. You posted a lot about Black Lives Matter—I guess that’s the wave now. I liked the pictures of you in LA, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. You used to say you’d never get on an airplane. Now look at you, flying.
I direct-messaged you, but you still haven’t replied. That’s why you’re reading this email. I’m in the medium security section of Mohawk Correctional Facility in upstate New York. Remember I wished to live upstate one day? Shit, I learned you gotta be real specific with wishes. I got my GED up here, and as soon as they reopen the substance abuse program and the parent education courses, I’ll get on that too. Inmate programs have been on pause since Covid, but that’s just temporary. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll decide I’m vulnerable to Covid and release me ahead of time.
I want to apologize to you. You were right about the antique dealer who rented the room at my grandmother’s, and accused us of stealing his gold watch. I found out he rented rooms all over the Heights and got out of paying rent by accusing landlords and roommates of theft.
I’m sorry about the last time we cut together and how I brought up the rumors of you and the school safety officer. You probably heard they moved him to another high school where new rumors spread about him and other teen girls. The point is, I was wrong.
This email is probably sounding like Jerry Springer’s “Final Thought.” Your least favorite part of the show. You said Springer humiliated guests only to end with some moral to the episode. On this one “Final Thought” Jerry Springer said, “deep down we are all alike, except some of us dress better or had a better education or better luck in the gene pool of parents.” He didn’t mention some of us have dealers for parents who broke Biggie’s fourth Crack Commandment. Some of us have parents who have curfews, who have their blood and urine surveilled by parole officers. Some of us have parents under the state's custody. Some of us are in the medium security section of the prison while our fathers are in the maximum security section. Jerry Springer was wrong. But this email isn’t about Jerry Springer. It’s about us.
JPay operates the correctional services up here and they’re running a contest where a lucky inmate can win up to $500 in their commissary. To be eligible, you’ll have to wire me some money through JPay and add a message explaining how JPay has helped our relationship since my arrest and how it’s reducing my chances of recidivism. I made my inmate ID or BOP number the subject line. You don’t have to send me much, anything helps. I see you sell rocks, Palo Santo, incense and thirty-minute trauma healing Zoom sessions. Good for you, sis.
In the end, I guess you were right. Jerry Springer guests humiliated themselves for the money.
Contributor Notes
JP Infante is the author of On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue and Aquí y Allá: un retrato de la comunidad Dominicana en Washington Heights. He is the winner of PEN’s Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and Thirty West’s Chapbook contest. His writing has appeared in Kweli, The Poetry Project, Rigorous, A Gathering of the Tribes, and elsewhere. He has been awarded scholarships and fellowships from the NY State Writers Institute, PEN America and The Center for Fiction. He holds an MFA from The New School.
