The house on mango street hips

The House

on Mango

Street We didn't always live on Mango Street. Before that

we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can't remember. But what I remember most is mov­ ing a lot. Each time it seemed there'd be one more of us. By the time we got to Mango Street we were six-Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, my sister Nenny and me.

The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don't have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people J downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn't a landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom. But even so, it's not the house we'd thought we'd get.

The HOlde on Mango Street S

'".«,~

I

We '-d to leave the flat on Loomis quick. The water .... .... and the landlord wouldn't fix them because • t.ouJe was too old. We had to leave fast. We were using * washroom next door and carrying water over in empty .... gallons. That's why Mama and Papa looked for a .... and that's why we moved into the house on Mango Screet. far away, on the other side of town.

They always told us that one day we would move into I. bouse, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn't have to move each year. And our house would have running water and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs inside like the houses on T.V. And we'd have a basement and at 1caSl three washrooms so when we took a bath we wouldn't have to tell everybody. Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence. This was the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed.

But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It's small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don't own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two build­ ings on either side. There are stairs in our house, but they're ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one washroom. Everybody has to share a bedroom-Mama and Papa, Carlos and Kiki, me and Nenny.

Once when we were living on Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing out front. The laun­ dromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had

.. s-dn Ciuaeroa

I \ !.

~;

been robbed two days before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE'RE OPEN so as not to lose business.

Where do you live? she ask.ed. There, I said pointing up to the third Hoor.

You live there' There. I had to look to where she pointed-the third

Hoor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn't fall out. You live there' The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived

there. I nodded. I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One

I could point to. But this isn't it. The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go.

1.(

01"

The HotUe on Mango Street 5

Hairs Everybody in our family has different hair. My Papa's

hair is like a broom, all up in the air. And me, my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or bands. Carlos' hair is thick and straight. He doesn't need to comb it. Nenny's hair is slippery-slides out of your hand. And Kiki, who is the youngest, has hair like fur.

But my mother's hair, my mother's hair, like little \ rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet to put your nose J into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the I

I I ~

, Suadn CiaDeroa

smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama's hair that smells like bread.

The House on Mango Street

,,,,,i­

!.

7

Boys & Girls The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The

boys in their universe and we in ours. My brothers for example. They've got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can't be seen talking to girls. Carlos and Kiki are each other's best friend ... not ours.

Nenny is too young to be my friend. She's just my sister and that was not my fault. You don't pick your sisters, you just get them and sometimes they come like Nenny.

She can't play with those Vargas kids or she'll turn out just like them. And since she comes right after me, she is my responsibility.

• s-dn Cimeroa

Someday I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them. Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor.

The House OD Mango Street

,,{~

9

My Name In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means

too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.

It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse-which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.

My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have

10 Sandra Cisneros

known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.

And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked I out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.

At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer some­ thing, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name­ Magdalena-which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.

I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Espe­ ranza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.

,..

.... f.

t

The House on Mango Street 11

".--- ­

Cathy Queen of Cats

She says, I am the great great grand cousin of the queen of France. She lives upstairs, over there, next door to Joe the baby-grabber. Keep away from him, she says. He is full of danger. Benny and Blanca own the comer store. They're okay except don't lean on the candy counter. Two girls raggedy as rats live across the street. You don't want to know them. Edna is the lady who'owns the building next to you. She used to own a building big as a whale, but her brother sold it. Their mother said no, no, don't ever sell it. I won't. And then she closed her eyes and he sold it. Alicia is stuck-up ever since she went to college. She used to like me but now she doesn't.

11 SF lin CUaero8

Cathy who is queen of cats has cats and cats and cats. Baby cats, big cats, skinny cats, sick cats. Cats asleep like litde donuts. Cats on top of the refrigerator. Cats taking a walk on the dinner table. Her house is like cat heaven.

You want a friend, she says. Okay, I'll be your friend. But only till next Tuesday. That's when we move away. Got to. Then as if she forgot I just moved in, she says the neighborhood is getting bad.

Cathy'S father will have to fly to France one day and find her great great distant grand cousin on her father's side and inherit the family house. How do I know this is so? She told me so. In the meantime they'll just have to move a litde farther north from Mango Street, a little far­ ther away every time people like us keep moving in.

The House on Mango Street IS

.'"r~

Our Good Day If you give me five dollars I will be your friend for­

ever. That's what the little one tells me. Five dollars is cheap since I don't have any friends

except Cathy who is only my friend till Tuesday. Five dollars, five dollars. She is trying to get somehody to chip in so they can

huy a hicycle from this kid named Tito. They already have ten dollars and all they need is five more.

Only five dollars, she says. Don', talk to them, says Cathy. Can't you see they smell

like a hroom. But I like them. Their clothes are crooked and old.

They are wearing shiny Sunday shoes without socks. It makes their bald ankles all red, but I like them. Especially the big one who laughs with all her teeth. I like her even though she lets the little one do all the talking.

Five dollars, the little one says, only five. ! Cathy is tugging my arm and I know whatever I do

next will make her mad forever. Wait a minute, I say, and run inside to get the five

dollars. I have three dollars saved and I take two of Nen­ ny's. She's not home, but I'm sure she'll he glad when she finds out we own a bike. When I get back, Cathy is gone like I knew she would be, but I don't care. I have two new friends and a bike too.

My name is Lucy, the big one says. This here is Rachel my sister.

I'm her sister, says Rachel. Who are you? And I wish my name was Cassandra or Alexis or Ma­

ritza-anything but Esperanza-but when I tell them my name they don't laugh.

We come from Texas, Lucy says and grins. Her was born here, but me I'm Texas.

You mean she, I say. No, 1'1)1 from Texas, and doesn't get it. This bike is three ways ours, says Rachel who is think­

ing ahead already. Mine today, Lucy's tomorrow and yours day after.

But everybody wants to ride it today because the bike is new, so we decide to take turns after tomorrow. Today it helongs to all of us.

I don't tell them about Nenny just yet. It's too com­ plicated. Especially since Rachel almost put out Lucy's eye about who was going to get to ride it first. But finally we agree to ride it together. Why not?

Because Lucy has long leW; she pedals. I sit on the

,.... I

i

.. ,

t

The House on Mango Street 1514 Sandn Cisneros

back seat and Rachel is skinny enough to get up on the handlebars which makes the bike all wohbly as if the wheels are spaghetti, hut after a bit you get used to it.

We ride fast and faster. Past my house, sad and red and crumbly in places, past Mr. Benny's grocery on the corner, and down the avenue which is dangerous. Laun­ dromat,junk store, drugstore, windows and cars and more cars, and around the block back to Mango.

People on the bus wave. A very fat lady crossing the street says, You sure got quite a load there.

Rachel shouts, You got quite a load there too. She is very sassy.

Down, down Mango Street we go. Rachel, Lucy, me. Our new bicycle. Laughing the crooked ride back.

16 Sandra Cisneros

.,.--­

Laughter Nennyand I don't look like sisters ... not right away.

Not the way you can tell with Rachel and Lucy who have the same fat popside lips like everybody else in their family. But me and Nenny, we are more alike than you would know. Our laughter for example. Not the shy ice cream bells' giggle of Rachel and Lucy's family, but all ofa sudden and surprised like a pile of dishes breaking. And other things I can't explain.

One day we were passing a house that looked, in my mind, like houses I had seen in Mexico. I don't know why. There was nothing about the house that looked exactly like

The HOUle on Mango Street 17

_ ..II [' I remembered. I'm not even sure why I thought ...... it seemed to feel right.

Look. at that house, I said, it looks like Mexico. Rachel and Lucy look at me like I'm crazy, but before

Ihcy can let out a laugh, Nenny says: Yes, that's Mexico all right. That's what I was thinking exactly.

Gil's Furniture

Bought & Sold There is ajunk store. An old man owns it. We bought

a used refrigerator from him once, and Carlos sold a box of magazines for a dollar. The store is small with just a dirty window for light. He doesn't turn the lights on unless you got money to buy things with, so in the dark we look and see all kinds of things, me and Nenny. Tables with their feet upside-down and rows and rows of refrigerators with round corners and couches that spin dust in the air when you punch them and a hundred T.V.'s that don't work probably. Everything is on top of everything so the whole store has skinny aisles to walk through. You can get lost easy.

The House on Mango Street 1918 Sandra Cisneros

'I1Ic owner, he is a black man who doesn't talk much ..-ajmes if you didn't know better you could be in *" a long time before your eyes notice a pair of gold • es Boating in the dark. Nenny who thinks she is smart ..t Wk.s to any old man, asks lots of questions. Me, I never said nothing to him except once when I bought the Statue of liberty for a dime.

But Nenny, I hear her asking one time how's this here and the man says, This, this is a music box, and I turn around quick thinking he means a pretty box with flowers painted on it, with a ballerina inside. Only there's nothing like that where this old man is pointing, just a wood box that's old and got a big brass record in it with holes. Then he starts it up and all sorts of things start happening. It's like all of a sudden he let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and swan-neck shadows and in our bones. It's like drops of water. Or like marimbas only with a funny little plucked sound to it like if you were running your fingers across the teeth of a metal comb.

And then I don't know why, but I have to turn around and pretend I don't care about the box so Nenny won't see how stupid I am. But Nenny, who is stupider, already is asking how much and I can see her fingers going for the quarters in her pants pocket.

This, the old man says shutting the lid, this ain't for sale.

to Sandra Cisneros

Mettle Ortiz. Meme Ortiz moved into Cathy's house after her family

moved away. His name isn't really Meme. His name isJuan. But when we asked him what his name was he said Meme, and that's what everybody calls him except his mother.

Meme has a dog with gray eyes, a sheepdog with two names, one in English and one in Spanish. The dog is big, like a man dressed in a dog suit, and runs the same way its owner does, clumsy and wild and with the limbs flopping allover the place like untied shoes.

Cathy's father built the house Meme moved into. It is wooden. Inside the floors slant. Some rooms uphill. Some down. And there are no closets. Out front there are twenty-

The House on Mango Street 21

-.e.... all lopsided and jutting like crooked teeth (made .. tfaJ on purpose, Cathy said, so the rain will slide off), aDd when Meme's mama calls from the doorway, Meme aoes scrambling up the twenty-one wooden stairs with the dog with two names scrambling after him.

Around the back is a yard, mostly dirt, and a greasy bunch of boards that used to be a garage. But what you remember most is this tree, huge, with fat arms and mighty families of squirrels in the higher branches. All around, me neighborhood of roofs, black-tarred and A-framed, and in their gutters, the balls that never came back down to earth. Down at the base of the tree, the dog with two names barks into the empty air, and there at the end of the block, looking smaller still, our house with its feet tucked under like a cat.

This is the tree we chose for the First Annual Tarzan Jumping Contest. Meme won. And broke both arms.

Z2 Sandra Cisneros

Louie, His Cousin &1

His Other Cousin Downstairs from Meme's is a basement apartment that

Meme's mother fixed up and rented to a Puerto Rican family. Louie's family. Louie is the oldest in a family of little sisters. He is my brother's friend really, but I know he has two cousins and that his T-shirts never stay tucked

in his pants. Louie's girl cousin is older than us. She lives with

Louie's family because her own family is in Puerto Rico. Her name is Marin or Maris or something like that, and she wears dark nylons all the time and lots of makeup she gets free from selling Avon. She can't come out-gotta baby-sit with Louie's sisters-but she stands in the doorway

The House on Mango Street 25

:t

a .... aI me time singing, clicking her fingers, the same .-g:

Apples, peaches, pumpkin pah-ay. You're in wve and so am ah-ay.

Louie has another cousin. We only saw him once, but it was important. We were playing volleyball in the alley when he drove up in this great big yellow Cadillac with whitewalls and a yellow scarf tied around the mirror. Louie's cousin had his arm out the window. He honked a couple of times and a lot of faces looked out from Louie's back window and then a lot of people came out-Louie, Marin and all the little sisters.

Everybody looked inside the car and asked where he got it. There were white rugs and white leather seats. We all asked for a ride and asked where he got it. Louie's cousin said get in.

We each had to sit with one of Louie's little sisters on our lap, but that was okay. The seats were big and soft like a sofa, and there was a little white cat in the back window whose eyes lit up when the car stopped or turned. The windows didn't roll up like in ordinary cars. Instead there was a button that did it for you automatically. We rode up the alley and around the block six times, but Louie's cousin said he was going to make us walk home if we didn't stop playing with the windows or touching the FM radio.

The seventh time we drove into the alley we heard sirens ... real quiet at first, but then louder. Louie's cousin stopped the car right where we were and said, Everybody out of the car. Then he took off flooring that car into a yellow blur. We hardly had time to think when the cop car pulled in the alley going just as fast. We saw the yellow Cadillac at the end of the block trying to make a left-hand

Z4 Sandra CisDeros

turn, but our alley is too skinny and the car hashed into

a lamppost. Marin screamed and we ran down the block to where

the cop car's siren spun a dizzy blue. The nose of that yellow Cadillac was all pleated like an alligator's, and except for a bloody lip and a bruised forehead, Louie's cousin was okay. They put handcuffs on him and put him in the back­ seat of the cop car, and we all waved as they drove away.

The House OD Mango Street 25

I

Marin Marin's boyfriend is in Puerto Rico. She shows us his

letters and makes us promise not to tell anybody they're getting married when she goes back to P.R. She says he didn't get a job yet, but she's saving the money she gets from selling Avon and taking care of her cousins.

Marin says that if she stays here next year, she's going to get a real job downtown because that's where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far

away. But next year Louie's parents are going to send her

r back to her mother with a letter saying she's too much trouble, and that is too bad because I like Marin. She is older and knows lots of things. She is the one who told us how Davey the Baby's sister got pregnant and what cream is best for taking off moustache hair and if you count the white flecks on your fingernails you can know how many boys are thinking of you and lots of other things I can't remember now.

We never see Marin until her aunt comes home from -. work, and even then she can only stay out in front. She is there every night with the radio. When the light in her aunt's room goes out, Marin lights a cigarette and it doesn't matter if it's cold out or if the tadio doesn't work or if we've got nothing to say to each other. What matters, Marin says, is for the boys to see us and for us to see them. And since Marin's skirts are shorte' and since her eyes are pretty, and since Marin is already older than us in many ways, the boys who do pass by say stupid things like I am in love with those two green apples you call eyes, give them to me why don't you. And Marin just looks at them without even blink­ ing and is not afraid. t

Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life.

The House on Mango Street 2726 Sandra Cisneros

I"

Those Who Don't Those who don't know any better come into our neigh­

borhood scared. They think we're dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.

But we aren't afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davey the BabY's brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that's Rosa's Eddie V., and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he's Fat Boy, though he's not fat anymore nor a boy.

All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes.

28 SaDdra Cianeroa

r

/

There Was .... ,an Old Woman She Had

So Many Children She Didn't Know

What 1:0 Do •Rosa Vargas' kids are too many and too much. It's not her fault you know, except she is their mother and only one against so many.

They are bad those Vargases, and how can they help it with only one mother who is tired all the time from buttoning and bottling and babying, and who cries every day for the man who left without even leaving a dollar for t)()lo~na or a note explaining how come.

The kids benn trees and bounce between cars and dangle upside down from knees and almost break like fancy museum vases you can't replace. They think it's funny. They are without respect for all things living, in­ duning themselves.

But after a while yOIl ~ct tired of heing worrien about kids who aren't even yours. One day they are playing chicken on Mr. Benny's roof. Mr. Benny says, Hey ain't you kids know better than to he swinging up there? Come down, you come down right now, and then they just spit.

See. That's what I mean. No wonder everybody gave up. Just stopped looking out when little Efren chipped his buck tooth on a parking meter and didn't even stop Refugia from getting her head stuck between two slats in the back gate and nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a faIling star, and exploded down to earth without

even an "Oh."

The House on Mango Street 29 30 Sandra Cisneros

,­ I

whole life in a factory or behind a rolling pin. Is a good girl, my friend, studies all night and sees the mice, the ones her father says do not exist. Is afraid of nothing except

four-legged fur. And fathers. I

I

r.... ,

Alicia "Who Sees Mice ­

Close your eyes and they'll go away, her father says, or You're just imagining. And anyway, a woman's place is sleeping so she can wake up early with the tortilla star, the one that appears early just in time to rise and catch the hind legs hide behind the sink, beneath the four-clawed tub, under the swollen Aoorboards nobody fixes, in the corner of your eyes.

Alicia, whose mama died, is sorry there is no one older to rise and make the lunchbox tortillas. Alicia, who inher­ ited her mama's rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university. Two trains and a bus, because she doesn't want to spend her

The House on Mango Street 31 32 Sandra Cisneros

Darius & the C1oud~

You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad. Here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful. Still, we take what we can get and make the best of it.

Darius, who doesn't like school, who is sometimes stu­ pid and mostly a fool, said something wise today, though most days he says nothing. Darius, who chases girls with firecrackers or a stick that touched a rat and thinks he's tough, today pointed up because the world was full of douds, the kind like pillows.

The House on Mango Street 55

You all see that cloud, that fat one there? Darius said, ~ that? Where? That one next to the one that look like popcorn. That one there. See that. That's God, Darius said. God? somebody little asked. God, he said, and made it simple.

And Some More The Eskimos got thirty different names for snow, I

say. I read it in a book. I got a cousin, Rachel says. She got three different

names. There ain't thirty different kinds of snow, Lucy says.

There are two kinds. The clean kind and the dirty kind,

clean and dirty. Only two. There are a million zillion kinds, says Nenny. No two

exactly alike. Only how do you remember which one is

which? She got three last names and, let me see, two first

names. One in English and one in Spanish ...

The House on Mango Street S5S4 Su1dra CUneJ"08

ADd clouds got at least ten different names, I say. Names for clouds? Nenny asks. Names just like you

~mc?

That up there, that's cumulus, and everybody looks up.

Cumulus are cute, Rachel says. She would say some­ thing like that.

What's that one there? Nenny asks, pointing a finger. That's cumulus too. They're all cumulus today. Cu­

mulus, cumulus, cumulus. No, she says. That there is Nancy, otherwise known

as Pig-eye. And over there her cousin Mildred, and little Joey, Marco, Nereida and Sue.

There are all different kinds of clouds. How many different kinds of clouds can you think of?

Well, there's these already that look like shaving cream ...

And what about the kind that looks like you combed its hair? Yes, those are clouds too.

Phyllis, Ted, Alfredo and Julie ... There are clouds that look like big fields of sheep,

Rachel says. Them are my favorite. And don't forget nimbus the rain cloud, I add, that's

something. Jose and Dagoberto, Alicia, Raul, Edna, Alma and

Rickey ... There's that wide puffy cloud that looks like your face

when you wake up after falling asleep with all your clothes on.

Reynaldo, Angelo, Albert, Armando, Mario ... Not my face. Looks like your fat face. Rita, Margie, Ernie ... Whose fat face? Esperanza's fat face, that's who. Looks like Esperan­

56 Sandra Cisneros

za's ugly face when she comes to school in the morning. Anita, Stella, Dennis, and Lolo ... Who you calling ugly, ugly? Richie, Yolanda, Hector, Stevie, Vincent ... Not you. Your mama, that's who. My mama? You better not be saying that, Lucy Gue­

rrero. You better not be talking like that ... else you can

say goodbye to being my friend forever. I'm saying your mama's ugly like ... ummm ...

... like bare feet in September! That does it! Both of yous better get out of my yard

before I call my brothers. Oh, we're only playing. I can think of thirty Eskimo words for you, Rachel.

Thirty words that say what you are. Oh yeah, well I can think of some more. Uh-oh, Nenny. Better get the broom. Too much trash

in our yard today. Frankie, Licha, Maria, Pee Wee ... Nenny, you better tell your sister she is really crazy

because Lucy and me are never coming back here again.

Forever. Reggie, Elizabeth, Lisa, Louie ... You can do what you want to do, Nenny, but you

better not talk to Lucy or Rachel if you want to be my sister. You know what you are, Esperanza? You are like the

Cream of Wheat cereal. You're like the lumps. Yeah, and you're foot fleas, that's you.

Chicken lips. Rosemary, Dalia, Lily ... Cockroach jelly. Jean, Geranium and Joe ... Cold frijoks. Mimi, Michael, Moe ...

The House on Mango Street 57

Your mama's fTijoles. Your ugly mama's toes. That's stupid. Bebe, Blanca, Benny ... Who's stupid? Rachel, Lucy, [speranza, and Nenny.