How I Met My Mother’s Exes

I’m on a trip to NYC, recording a bunch of podcast episodes. Here’s another one from the vault.

My sophomore year of college I visited New York City for the first time since infancy. I call my mother, Gloria, to tell her. Gloria is from New York City. She is the daughter of first generation Nuyoricans. My mother’s mother would call my grandfather “negro” and my mother would call my father “negro” because it’s a pet name not a slur in Latin America.

I went up to New York City and my mother called her exes: Ahmed a.k.a. Tony who she had dated seriously while they were in their early twenties; and Manny who she had married for a brief time. Ahmed is Palestinian American. His family came to America to escape the Israel/Palestine conflict. Ahmed changed his name to Tony in the years following 9/11 to avoid discrimination, but my mother will always call him Ahmed. Gloria and Ahmed were supposed to marry. Gloria had worked to put Ahmed through college, but their relationship ended bitterly when Gloria learned he was cheating. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I don’t know what that means. For my mother, watching porn is cheating. Having female friends is cheating. Did he cheat?

Gloria and Manny worked together as personal trainers. They taught classes at Brick Bodies, where most notably my mother trained one of the members of the Village People and Dr. Ruth. Manny had always dreamed of owning his own stunt company. He was one of the earlier practitioners of MMA. He created his first gym in the basement of a brownstone. My mother loved being trained by him. Together they carved their bodies, etched out each muscle. Manny told Gloria to always wear her belts tight to remind her to keep her abdominal muscles engaged. I imagine they were beautiful together. Gloria wanted children, but Manny was focused on his career. He had no desire to be a father. Gloria is very fertile. One day they conceived. Gloria wanted to keep the child. Manny was livid. Manny beat Gloria and told her to get an abortion, so Gloria got the abortion. Their marriage ended soon after.

I came to New York City to visit my mother’s past. She once lived in a duplex in Flushing, Queens with her immediate family, aunts, uncles, and cousins all together. When I arrive in the city she sends me Ahmed’s and Manny’s numbers. She tells me they are expecting my call and would like to meet me. I arrive in New York City nearly the same age as my mother when she knew them and every day I look more like her.

I visit Manny first. He owns his own stunt company now and is in between shoots. He invites me to a Cuban restaurant. It’s midday and the restaurant is empty. Even with age he’s handsome and I can see why my mother might fall for him. Manny has dark hair and looks like a Latino Bruce Willis. He regards me with a fondness and familiarity I find curious in a first meeting. He tells me he’s getting a massage later, that his body is very sore from falling through windows. He asks me what I want to do with my life, I tell him I don’t know, but I perform and make music. Manny remarks that I look just like my mother and we order black beans and rice with roasted chicken. He asks me what I know about him, and I tell him I know more than he might imagine. We eat and I inform him about my existence in the intimate darkness of an empty restaurant. I think to myself it looks like we’re on a date. I’m a young woman out with an older man, taken out on his dime. I imagine him both as my lover and a man who could have been my father.

Through the years whenever my mother has been in trouble and needed money, she’s called Manny and Ahmed. I do not understand this or in what way they could be so indebted to her. She once was fundraising to make a “religion room” at the daycare she worked for, which was connected to a Catholic church, and she asked them for donations. They told her to pick whatever she wanted and it would be hers.

Manny and I leave the restaurant and go walking. It’s early spring and still very cold. He has me walk beside him so that he is closest to the street. Manny assumes the role of my protector and guide. We take the subway back toward where I’m staying. He grabs my wrist as the train stops in a gesture to steady me. He tells me my mother is a good woman who has been through a lot and to be good to her.

I spend the next few days wandering the city trying to steal as much as I can. I feel so greedy and invisible. I walk out of stores visibly carrying stolen goods with a shit-eating face like it belongs to me. I want souvenirs for the occasion. I want to return like the prodigal son to a feast and gifts even though I’ve burned through my inheritance.

Near the end of my trip Ahmed “Tony” has a few free hours. He’s second in command of the NYC subway system, directing construction in one of the tunnels. He invites me and my friend to the subway command center headquarters. Ahmed “Tony” has not aged particularly well. He’s fat and hairy but walks like a man with a lot of power and money. He reminds me of my stepfather and I recognize my mother has a type. He has a heavy New York accent, which is a recent development, according to Gloria. Ahmed “Tony” guides us to an elevator, hits the bottom button and swipes an electronic card. We’re transported underground to a room like the CIA headquarters in some cyberpunk espionage thriller. The walls have blinking subway diagrams. The space is open and sprawling with low-walled cubicles and modular desks. Ahmed introduces me as “the daughter of a dear old friend” and talks to me both to fill space and with the understanding I likely care very little about the inner workings of the subway system. I shake hands with strangers I don’t care about and will never meet again, pretending like it matters. He then escorts us back upstairs to his office and asks if we would like a tour of the city. Ahmed Tony rummages through his desk looking for keys and a few trinkets he’d gotten from Palestine for me to bring back to my mother. Among them is an evil eye bracelet. My mother doesn’t believe in brujeria. I decide to keep it for myself. I thank him and we walk to his car.

Ahmed “Tony” drives a large black SUV with plates that indicate he is NYC Transit Authority and is able to park Anywhere without getting ticketed. Perhaps this is his greatest show of power. He speeds through the streets, taking us to landmarks. He parks us before a historically significant church with a “no parking” sign marking the block and tells us to take our time. We respectfully walk around the church. It’s grand and gothic, with buttresses, vaulted ceilings, and priceless stained glass windows. I hate churches, having spent years in Catholic school with obligatory mass attendance. I light a candle in an empty gesture praying for nothing. We leave after having sufficiently violated parking regulations and continue on, driving around Manhattan to Battery Park. He shows me where my mother worked and places they used to haunt. He tells me he bought a home in Palestine, but it was demolished by Israeli forces who told him he was not permitted to own the land. He bought the property again and is having a new house built in its place. I watch the city from the passenger’s seat grow and slip by— part to reveal the harbor and a large ship on the water. The sun is setting and I unlock my phone to take a picture. Ahmed Tony sees me and tells me to wait, that I should take a good picture, that he’s pulling over. Once again he pulls over on the side of a busy street which connects to the highway. He tells me to take my time, but it’s apparent he’s obstructing traffic and I feel guilty stopping the city’s circulation. I run out with my friend and she takes a picture of me in front of the ship even though I didn’t want the picture, because I had been photographing the evening sky and the light had already changed and my phone was too shitty to pick up the sunset. He thought I wanted a picture of the ship. I didn’t. He drops us off near the apartment where we were staying. He doesn’t have time to eat, but wants to catch up more another time. He is happy to have met me and my mother is a good woman who I should appreciate and take care of-- and I should know she loves me. He gives me $80 and leaves.

I add it to my collection of stolen goods and buy weed.

We leave the city. My mother calls while I’m on the bus to ask how the trip went. She hasn’t visited the city since she left in the early 90’s when I was born, before Giuliani cleaned it up. Now she lives in Oklahoma, an errant hair in the flat fleshy mass of open plains, red dirt, and whiteness. I tell her we’ll talk later and sit in silence as we exit through the tunnel coming and going as if we’d never been there.