decision terribly upset my parents, especially my mother. When Barbara was growing up, before Veronica and I were born, my father worked late nights, and my brother was a socially active teenager and seldom at home. Barbara and my mother were often alone together in the house, and they became very close. The thought of leaving Barbara behind, alone, terrified my mother. Her decision was the subject of a very heated disagreement between them. If Orlando truly loved her, my mother argued, he would marry her now or follow us to Las Vegas. But more than her relationship with Orlando kept my sister in Miami. All her friends lived there. It was her home. And as painful as the separation would be, she would not change her mind.
There was no turning back for my parents, though. In early June, dressed in a brown suit and tie, I boarded a plane with Veronica and my parents, and flew west to our brand-new life in fascinatingly strange Las Vegas.
My first impressions of the place were of its striking physical qualities: the sun-glazed reddish brown mountains surrounding the Vegas Valley that looked like painted cardboard scenery; the blast of hot air that rushed us as we emerged from the airport, so unlike the still, humid heat of Miami. It was all alien and intriguing to me.
Strange, too, were the complicated relationships between my mother’s sisters, which I was exposed to soon after we arrived. We lived with Aunt Irma and Uncle Enrique for our first two months in Las Vegas.
Irma was the fourth of my mother’s sisters, and in childhood she had been the most generous and protective sibling. My mother recalls Irma often taking the blame and the punishment for her sisters’ misbehavior.On a few occasions, when my mother or another of her sisters found themselves on the wrong end of my grandmother’s belt, Irma had jumped between them and taken the lashes herself.
But Irma’s compassion was one facet of a sensitive nature that could make her touchy and querulous over the slightest injury, intended or not. Irma viewed Lola as a rival for our affection, and she had wanted my parents to buy a house near hers. When my father informed us he had purchased a home three blocks from my aunt Lola’s house, Irma was not pleased.
Our new home at 3104 East Lava Avenue was situated on the corner of a U shaped cul de sac in a working-class neighborhood in North Las Vegas. The one-story house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a curved driveway with a covered carport. The front yard had a single tree in its center. Sliding glass doors led to a covered porch and a small backyard enclosed by a wooden palisade fence. In my child’s imagination, the fence served as the walls of an Old West fort. The semicircular driveway was an Olympic speed track for roller skating. The low-traffic street became a football field with a tall street lamp marking the goal line, and sidewalks indicating the sidelines.
We quickly made friends with the five Thiriot boys, who lived directly across the street from us. Their father worked for the Clark County juvenile justice office, and their mother stayed at home. The Thiriots were members of the nearby Mormon Church and had become friends with Lola’s family. They were a close-knit and lively family who were always doing things together. They represented the kind of safe, respectable family life my parents wanted for us.
Veronica and I began our new life in earnest in September 1979, when we entered second and third grade at C. C. Ronnow Elementary School. Our new school was only a few blocks from our house, close enough that we could walk there every day with the Thiriots and other neighborhood kids, while my mother trailed a few steps behind us. In Miami, our schoolmates had all been like us, the sons and daughters of Cuban exiles. But C. C. Ronnow had an ethnically diverse student body. We went to school with white, non-Hispanic kids like the Thiriots, with African American students who were bused in from a
There was no turning back for my parents, though. In early June, dressed in a brown suit and tie, I boarded a plane with Veronica and my parents, and flew west to our brand-new life in fascinatingly strange Las Vegas.
My first impressions of the place were of its striking physical qualities: the sun-glazed reddish brown mountains surrounding the Vegas Valley that looked like painted cardboard scenery; the blast of hot air that rushed us as we emerged from the airport, so unlike the still, humid heat of Miami. It was all alien and intriguing to me.
Strange, too, were the complicated relationships between my mother’s sisters, which I was exposed to soon after we arrived. We lived with Aunt Irma and Uncle Enrique for our first two months in Las Vegas.
Irma was the fourth of my mother’s sisters, and in childhood she had been the most generous and protective sibling. My mother recalls Irma often taking the blame and the punishment for her sisters’ misbehavior.On a few occasions, when my mother or another of her sisters found themselves on the wrong end of my grandmother’s belt, Irma had jumped between them and taken the lashes herself.
But Irma’s compassion was one facet of a sensitive nature that could make her touchy and querulous over the slightest injury, intended or not. Irma viewed Lola as a rival for our affection, and she had wanted my parents to buy a house near hers. When my father informed us he had purchased a home three blocks from my aunt Lola’s house, Irma was not pleased.
Our new home at 3104 East Lava Avenue was situated on the corner of a U shaped cul de sac in a working-class neighborhood in North Las Vegas. The one-story house had three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a curved driveway with a covered carport. The front yard had a single tree in its center. Sliding glass doors led to a covered porch and a small backyard enclosed by a wooden palisade fence. In my child’s imagination, the fence served as the walls of an Old West fort. The semicircular driveway was an Olympic speed track for roller skating. The low-traffic street became a football field with a tall street lamp marking the goal line, and sidewalks indicating the sidelines.
We quickly made friends with the five Thiriot boys, who lived directly across the street from us. Their father worked for the Clark County juvenile justice office, and their mother stayed at home. The Thiriots were members of the nearby Mormon Church and had become friends with Lola’s family. They were a close-knit and lively family who were always doing things together. They represented the kind of safe, respectable family life my parents wanted for us.
Veronica and I began our new life in earnest in September 1979, when we entered second and third grade at C. C. Ronnow Elementary School. Our new school was only a few blocks from our house, close enough that we could walk there every day with the Thiriots and other neighborhood kids, while my mother trailed a few steps behind us. In Miami, our schoolmates had all been like us, the sons and daughters of Cuban exiles. But C. C. Ronnow had an ethnically diverse student body. We went to school with white, non-Hispanic kids like the Thiriots, with African American students who were bused in from a
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