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8. Pistachio Nuts
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8 Pistachio Nuts I ARRIVE EARLY to set up the arroz con pollo I've prepared at home for today's cooking group. The work has been done ahead of time, leaving no chores for any of the women. The enormous white pot attracts attention as I carry it through to the library. "It looks so good." "It smells so good." "When do we eat?" I am pleasantly bombarded with questions. "You did this for us?" someone shouts from the hallway. "You must have a really nice kitchen," another remarks, carefully checking out the quality and quantity of food and tools I've brought in. Agroup ofwomen settles at the table. The library fills with the fragrance of onion and pepper sojrito, green olives and capers, garlic, bijol, and beer. While they wait, the women sit in a strange, passive silence. Suddenly Hattie speaks up. "It's Sol," she tells me, "she's decompensating." Before I can reply, Hattie says, "Well, anyway, that's what the case managers are saying. But what does 'decompensating ' mean?" "I'm not sure," I answer honestly. 143 Copyrighted Material 144 Chapter Eight "I think it means her medicine isn't working well anymore ," Hattie surmises. Sol is having accidents all the time now, urinating on herself . Sol always had this problem, but it's getting worse. She tries to use Depend but finds they really don't help when you have a full bladder. Depends are good for ifyou're on the bus or something and you let a little urine out, but it's not for when you have a full bladder. When they see she is wet, Sol's friends remind her to change her clothes. It's so humiliating that Sol just gets mad at them. Sol has been yelling at Hattie. "She says things like 'I hate white people,''' reports Hattie. "It's just that she is so angry because she knows she is peeing on herselfand that ashames her and she doesn't have control over herself, and all ofthis makes her very angry. Something is happening with her medication." Sol Revilla has no teeth and always wears a baseball cap. With a bright red tongue and bright red gums against her deep brown skin, Sol's coloring is remarkable. She looks at least twenty more than her forty-something years. Sol never would meet with me for a formal, private chat. She explains, "Every time I talk to anyone, they never listen to me." Sometimes we would hang out outside the front door or in the dayroom. Sol has spent her life in and out of institutions. She lists about fifteen different people all with the last name of Revilla who didn't visit her when she was in the hospital. She doesn't want to have anything to do with them anymore, ever again. These are people who call themselves family, but they had nothing to do with her when she was sick in the hospital and now her mother is dead. Sol is sucking her thumb and petting her head. She has lived in five different Manhattan and Bronx hospitals . Eventually, she ran away from most of them. After Copyrighted Material [3.236.145.110] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 00:23 GMT) Pistachio Nuts 145 the last runaway, Sol found herself in a shelter, and then she was brought to Woodhouse. By then, her mother was dead. Sol can't believe her mother would leave her like that She was kissing her mama when she died, stroking her head. She was dead. Her mother had false teeth, and Sol was worried she would choke on them. Sol removed the teeth from her mother's mouth. Her mother's lungs burst and the ambulance guys said they couldn't do anything for her. She was DOA, dead on arrival. Sol loves Ronald Reagan and says she's always been a Republican . The Democrats are always taking away people's money. One day, Sol saw Ronald Reagan. She was just walking down the street when she saw him. He told her that when the three golden worms appear in front of her eyes, it was a sign that she, Sol Revilla, should go away. Sol wouldn't say where she was supposed to go to. Sol belly-laughs, "I'm not going to tell you that secret" Sol likes Woodhouse because here they don't force you to go to programs. She's tired of programs. The...