The Day You Were Born

Raul Guerrero Jr., center, standing.

22 years ago, it was cold in Washington, you were born, and I couldn’t find words to define my feelings. That’s right. A man of words and words and words could not find one to define what he felt after his son emerged to his world and the nurse handed him You, still attached to the umbilical cord, and asked, giving him a pair of scissors, to cut it.

I left the hospital and bought a battle of fine wine, grabbed a dictionary from home and sat on a bench at Dupont Circle. Not able to find the word to define my feelings I went back to the apartment and wrote an article for the newspaper El Pregonero, the leading Spanish-language newspaper in Washington, entitled: My Son Was Born Today, Mr. President, Please, Stop Fucking-up the World.

In those days we had no computers, well, some people did, I didn’t. I didn’t even have an electric typewriter, I had an old machine I bought at a thrift shop. So I had to deliver the article in person or by mail. Mail was out-of-the question. It was a weekly newspaper, if the article was to appear the day after you were born, I had less than an hour before it went to the presses. I called the Editor.

-Please, I pleaded, could you wait just a few minutes. I have already finished writing it.
-How long?
-I don’t know, I said. I had just realized that I had no money left, not even to take the metro. I was a graduate student on a very tight budget who had spent his weekly allowance in a battle of fine wine. How could I have bought cheap wine-my son had just been born?
-How long?
The newspaper was ten miles away from the little apartment in Dupont Circle.
-Two hours, I said, calculating it would take me two-hours to walk at a high speed.
-Are you crazy? I give you forty-five minutes.

I took the article and ran. I ran five miles, walked three miles, and ran the other two miles. I arrived soaking-wet. The Editor opened the door. It was a small office. He only had three journalists working with him and a couple secretaries. They had all gone already.

-You are sweating.
-I ran ten miles.
He was a logical man. He took out a map from his desk and made all these measurements. He said it was not ten miles. But seven miles and half was a respectable distance, anyway.
-Let’s see what you have. It better be good.
I handed him my article.
-Jesus Christ, he exclaimed, turning red. This is a Catholic newspaper, man, what kind of lead is this: Can you stop fucking up the world?

But he started laughing. It was a crazy article, full of poetry and fear, full of joy and anxiety. I don’t remember what I wrote, I vaguely remember asking rhetorically if you would grow up to be a son of a bitch or the President of Ecuador. Whether you would inherit Abuelito’s big nose or my passion for words. Or maybe, not taking after anyone known, you would become a unique specimen, a kind of intellectual and biological marble...

He gave me a ride back to the hospital and advanced me the fifty dollars he paid me for the articles. He gave me an extra twenty-five form his own pocket.
-You don’t need to do that, I said, handing him back the two bills, a twenty and a five.
-No, he insisted, take it. You made me cry. I haven’t cried in a long time.

The article was published on the front page. That happened twenty-two year ago. Happy birthday, my son (here are the twenty-five he gave me –go and buy a battle of wine.)