"Do You Know A Carlos?"

>>OK here goes PART II...

But first read Part I...

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2006...11:51PM

“I remember those days when Hell was my home…”
That’s my 'not sure who this is' ring tone…

“Hello, this is Wise.”
That’s me answering the number that I don’t recognize.

“Hi, do you know a Carlos?”

Awww Lawd. Every woman, at some point in her life will get this phone call. If she’s lucky, she either won’t know dude, or will be long over his azz.

I was prepared for this…or so I thought…

“I’m sorry, who am I speaking to?”

“This is Carlos’ daughter’s mother. I have his phone and I got your number from a text you sent him.”

“Really. I don’t know any Carlos.” [I really don’t. And dudes, trust, if I had known him his biz woulda been out on the corner of Front Street.] “Where is he from?”

“The Bronx. He’s Dominican. They call him Nino?” She was asking, not telling, holding her breath for my answer.

“Naw Mami. I really don’t. And believe me, if I did I would tell you.”

“I’m sorry to be calling you,” she said…sounding like she was slowly coming undone, “but I took his phone, and I saw the text and I just pressed talk.”

“What did the text say?” I ask…still silently scanning my memory to figure out who the hell this might be.

“I don’t even know. Like I said, I just pressed talk. I never EVER called another woman before, but I just been going through it with this man.”

Like I said…up until this point, I could have dictated the convo verbatim. But I could have never scripted what followed. Except maybe the tears that came quickly.

“What did he do?” I ask. Shit, YOU called ME…so the least you can do is entertain me, cuz aint shit on TV. [editor’s note: for real, for real…are TV programmers on permanent hiatus or something?!] damn…digress…

“What did he do?” I ask…sincerely.

“He told me to quit my job to stay home with our daughter, who is 2, and THE DAY I quit he tells me that when he went back to Dominican Republic this summer, he got this chick pregnant.”

“Damn.” I probably only said this in my head, or if I said it out loud she probably didn’t hear me, bec by now she was a sniffling, hiccupping mess.

“I told him I couldn’t stay here with him in the same bed and I left and came back every day to see my kids, and I just got tired of doing that so I told him he had to leave. I put him out. I flipped the fcuk out because he was telling me that he told her it was over, and I didn’t believe him. I pushed him out of the apartment and we were fighting and he beat the shit out of me. I blacked out and woke up spitting up blood. So now I have an order of protection against him, but I don’t have anyone to watch my daughter during the day. She is 2 years old and is autistic and she has special teachers that come to the house, and someone has to be here with her. So I just sit at home all day and go crazy trying to figure out what the hell to do.”

“Whoa.” I’m sitting down now. Listening intently, as if this was one of my home girls. “So why do you have his phone?”

“I took it because I needed to see if he had called the girl. But of course by the time I got it all his calls were cleared out. All except the text messages. That’s how I got your number.”

“I really don’t know any Carlos from the Bronx.” [editor’s note: No offense to any Boogie Downers (dammit Slishy just hear me out)…but I don’t do the Bronx. Literally in my 7 years living in the City I been to the Bronx MAYBE 7 times. And 2 of those times including last month, were at Hostos College, so I don’t think they count.]

“He’s 39 and he owns a bodega?” Again asking…hoping to jog my memory. And I’m really thinking hard now, like, maybe did somebody give me a fake name?

“Naw, I couldn’t tell you the last Puerto-, I mean, Dominican dude I met. Much less from the Bronx.”

“I’m so sorry. I NEVER called a woman’s number before.”

“It’s ok, I know how it is,” I say. “So, why did he tell you to quit your job?”

“I swear to God, he was telling me to quit for a long time and I kept telling him no. But then he said he didn’t trust the babysitter and you know you can’t tell a mother no shit like that. So I quit because my daughter is autistic and now I’m stuck. My job was begging me to come back, offering me better hours, more money and I was like naw I gotta quit, cuz someone needs to be here while the teachers are here with her, and because of the order of protection I cant have him here with her. He can’t come within [however many] yards of me or the kids.”

She continues…”See he went to DR in August and I was pregnant with our second baby.” [chick speaks in Rosie Perez warp speed so I’m trying to keep up] “While he was gone I lost the baby and I was so upset that he wasn’t here, then come to find out he was down there with this young bitch.”

“How young?”

“17. And gets this bitch pregnant. Then he comes home and I find out he’s calling her and shit and yet he’s telling me that he told her it’s over. But one day he comes home after work and where I live there’s not a lot of space to park so when he comes home I leave for work and he parks in my spot. So I come home and we’re moving the cars and I take his phone to check my voice mail because I lost mine. This muthafcukah don’t know how to set up his voice mail so I thought I was calling mine but it went to his. So I set up the password and heard the message from her. So I flipped on him and that’s when he beat the shit out of me. So when he was locked up I called the girl to find out. But I don’t speak Spanish…I’m Puerto Rican…but I don’t speak Spanish so I had my mother talk to her in Spanish and ask her when they met and what was going on. She said they met in August, slept together in August and then she got pregnant.”

“How you know she’s really 17? How you know he aint lying about that too?” I ask.

“Because he showed me her fcuking picture. She looks 14! And I swear to God I don’t know why he showed me that picture because now I have that visual stuck in my head of like, her azz on his balls. Oh my gosh! Plus you can tell the chick is young because she don’t even know her own cycle. Any woman knows you don’t have sex like 2 weeks after your period! Plus she said she was pregnant all quick. I wrote down the calendar of when she said they were together. There’s no way that could even be his baby. She’s just young and dumb.”

“So did she say they were together?”

“No she told my mother that she didn’t really talk to him that much. So I been online trying to look up his phone bill to find out if he was calling her too or if she was the one doing the calling, like he told me. But Spr!nt wouldn’t let me open up the bills because I don’t have Adobe.”

“Oh girl, you can download Ad.obe for free from their website.”

“Oh for real? Cuz I got dial up so you know that shit is gonna take all day. I’m gonna have to go to the library tomorrow. I swear to God I’m so sorry for calling you. It’s so late, too. I am just out of my mind trying to figure out if I did the right thing by kicking him out. Because I am almost all the way through my savings by being out of work, and I don’t know what I’m going to do. A lot of parents with Autistic kids apply for disability but when I tried before they said I made too much money. Now I just applied again and do you know those muthafcukahs said I cant get it because I have life insurance! God forbid something should happen to me I need that insurance. Now they got me over here contemplating getting rid of it! I tried to get an evening job from 5-12, but I also have a 12 year old, but there’s no way I’m gonna leave her in charge of the baby. Especially not at night. I swear I wish my daughter was regular.”

“No Mami. Your daughter is a blessing just the way she is. I’m sure she is a beautiful blessing and you need to just gather strength from that blessing.”

“I know she is,” and she is weeping now, and says, “but she just gets so frustrated because she can’t talk and we cant understand her sometimes. So she gets so upset when she can’t communicate with us. I’m just saying if she wasn’t autistic I could at least leave her at daycare and get back to work.”

“So where is your mom?” I ask. “She can’t watch the baby?”

“My mother has a bad arm and she cant keep her. And I have a sister who don’t work, she don’t do shit but she refuses to help me out. And the thing is I always do everything for everybody else, but nobody wants to help me when I need it. Im SO sorry for calling you!”

“Listen, it’s ok. I understand. Let’s just figure out what you can do to get back to work. I mean, there has to be some kind of special daycare for your daughter. There has to be SOMETHING.”

“I’ve tried and there isn’t. I’ve asked her teachers and all they say is that if she goes to the school there has to be someone here at 3:00 to get her off the bus, and if I work I wouldn’t be here. But if I work evenings I don’t have anyone to watch them. He used to be here but now that I put him out I’m stuck. I gotta go back to work."

"Does he help you out at all?"

"He gives me $400 every week, but I got rent, a cell phone, car insurance. And I'm almost out of my savings."

"Girl, you are better off than most. I know girls in your situation right now who don't have a dime to their name and a man with even less. At least you got your stash," I offer. She's obviously not a slug chick. She just got a snake dude.

I just need to see the phone bills so that I at least know if I did the right thing.”

“You want me to look it up?” I say, already at my computer typing in the website. [I got Spr!nt, too]

“Would you mind?”

“What’s the number?”

[OK this is hella long. This is a good stopping point…and when you come back for the dramatic conclusion, just click the link for Part II at the beginning of the story. But for those with nothing better to do…here goes…]

I look up the bill and sure enough there are a bunch of calls to DR.
NO calls from there.

“Ok, so what you gonna do if he did call her?” I ask…stalling.

“Do you feel safe around him?” still stalling…

“I know your feelings are running amok, but what will happen to you emotionally if you let him come back just to watch your daughter?” still…

“And you don’t got no brothers to whup his azz or nothin’?” still…

“Are you afraid to tell me what’s on the bill?” she says, in an eerily calm voice.

Deep breath. “Ok what you wanna know?”

“Did he call her on Sept 12, the day he got out of jail? 809 area code.”

“He called her at 3:32 pm, and then again at 3:42.”

“I knew it.”

I’m looking thru the phone bill, blogger fam, and dude was quite liberal with the chit chat.

“Most of the calls are at midnight or around then. And they’re also for only like 5, 9 minutes. The longest call is only like 15 minutes. And it wasn’t on no, “Call me right back” either, bec there are no incoming calls afterwards.”

“Any 800 numbers?” she asks.

“Oh calling cards. Nope.” [I later found 2 quick ones]

“I fcuking knew it. This whole time he was telling me that she was the one calling him. What the fcuk is he even doing with a 17 year old? What the hell do they have to talk about?”

“And you know what, he didn’t call at all the entire month of November.” I announce.

“Fa real?” A glimmer of hope. I could hear it. But she kept it real. “Whatever. At least now I know. I asked him what she had that I don’t and he said that honestly it was a bullshit little relationship, just him calling and saying ‘hi, how’s the weather’ cuz he would never leave his child out there like that. But still, he threw away our family for a little girl. Bought her a damn cell phone so he could call her. He is 39, and he said, ‘she’s young, she’s not gonna like me for long. I’m getting older, looking older. She don’t want me.’”

“How old are you?” I ask.

“29.”

“Awww. Me too.”

“Wow. I swear I cant believe I’m talking to a complete stranger. Im so sorry.”

“Mami. You’re good.”

We sat on the phone for 2 and a half hours. Two women bound by an errant text msg. I had her read me the text I sent and turns out I thought I was texting a friend in Philly as I was driving thru.

I was struck by how different our lives were…yet how easily that could have been my life, my man’s phone, my dilemma, my burden. I thought about a very good friend of mine, whose story is not far from this one.

“Well you have my number now. Don’t be afraid to use it again,” I say and mean it.

“Thank you so much. I really appreciate you looking up his bill for me. I’m gonna download A.dobe tomorrow so I can see it for myself. But thank you.”

“Good luck, girl. I know you will make a way to get back to work and take care of your baby.”

“Thank you so much. I can’t believe you actually talked to me for this long. Thank you.”


You know the part on the Brady Bunch after the last commercial, but right before the end credits…that last 30 second punchline? ...Well, this is it…


The next day I went online and looked up Autism day care facilities in Brooklyn. I found a site, emailed the director and the next morning got a response.

I called Mami to give her the info.

As the phone was ringing I realized I was calling HIS phone. I didn’t have her number.

She answered. Surprised to hear from me. Grateful for the info. Turns out she did some more digging and found a spot around her way that might take her daughter.

She’s a lot more stable, now that she knows the deal. She confronted Carlos with a copy of his phone bills. He did the typical Trife Negro move and tried to turn it around on her…accusing her of invading his privacy, threatening to tell the cops that she stole his phone.

Son, how did you get the copies…did you violate the order of protection?

That shut him up.

Obviously she’s heartbroken. But she’s prepared to move on.

But there’s a little piece of me that hopes she’ll call me again and tell me that she’s back to work and back to life.