Breaking Night

After her mental breakdown in 1986, Ma experiences six schizophrenic bouts in four years. She is hospitalized each time, sometimes for several months. Her breakdowns become more frequent and severe as her drug use increases. Ma always returns from the hospital healthier and more energetic than she’d been before her hospitalization. But each time, Ma resumes using drugs and, soon enough, has another relapse.

In Ma’s absence, Daddy does a good job of taking care of his children. He learns how to stretch the monthly relief checks as far as possible. He even gives Liz and Lisa a small allowance—although Ma later steals Liz’s savings to buy cocaine.

In 1990, Ma and Daddy are at a low point in their relationship—not coincidentally, a time when they’re using more drugs than usual. They shout at each other, and Ma accuses Daddy of being “conniving.” Liz doesn’t know whether or not to believe Ma: maybe she’s right, but maybe she’s just sick.

Liz says that she still thinks about a faint memory of Daddy. In this memory, Liz is about six years old. Daddy is walking by a park with Liz and Lisa when, suddenly, he turns away. Daddy tells Lisa to take Liz into the park, where he’s noticed a teenaged girl named Meredith. Lisa leads Liz by this teenager without saying anything. Daddy never talks about Meredith again, but Lisa later tells Liz that Meredith is Daddy’s daughter from a previous relationship, who Daddy abandoned when she was only two years old. Moving forward, Liz often feels that Daddy is “mysterious.”

In 1990, Ma begins sleeping on the couch instead of with Daddy. Sometimes, when Ma and Daddy fight, Lisa and Liz lock themselves in their separate rooms. Liz reads her father’s detective books, and in this way she becomes a good reader. Even though she isn’t going to school, she finds she can pass her year-end exams and thus qualify to move on to the next grade.

With home life so repetitive, Liz looks for distractions outside the home. Since 1987, Liz has been friends with two brothers named Rick Hernandez and Danny Hernandez. Rick and Danny sometimes invite Liz to their house. Their mother is a kind woman, also named Liz (to keep things straight, we’ll call her Liz Hernandez). Instinctively, Liz knows not to tell her parents much about her friendships, and especially about her relationship with Liz Hernandez. Getting joy from someone else’s family always feels like “a betrayal.”

One day, Liz, Rick, and Danny make a “torch” for themselves by lighting a branch on fire, and then go into an old shed near the local nursing home. They accidentally set fire to the shed, and within a few minutes, the fire department arrives to put out the blaze.

Liz loves horsing around with Rick and Danny, and she’s always lonely when she returns to her own home. One night when Liz returns, Ma tells her that Daddy is “not a caring man.” Liz tries to convince Ma that Daddy loves her, but nothing works. Privately, Liz guesses that it won’t be long before Ma returns to the hospital.

One day, Liz hears a knock on the door. Ma opens it and finds a young man standing outside. To Liz’s surprise, Lisa greets the man, Matt, by name and invited him into the living room. Liz realizes that this man is a representative from the Encyclopedia Britannica company—a few weeks ago, Lisa saw a commercial advertising two free volumes of the encyclopedia, and it appears that she called the company. Matt proceeds to give a lengthy presentation to the entire family. Liz is baffled—why would their family need to learn about history or science when it can’t even find food every day? In the end, the family never even receives its two free volumes of the encyclopedia.

Shortly afterwards, Ma is committed to the hospital yet again. Bored and desperate for food, Liz meets up with a friend of Rick and Danny’s named Kevin, who claims he could find Liz some “odd jobs.” Liz learns that the job involves pumping gas for customers near the Bronx Zoo, and then begging for a tip. Over the course of the day, Liz learns how to pump gas and ends up making twenty dollars—a lot of money for her. She learns how to be confident and look the drivers right in the eye until they agree to give her money. She wonders “what other opportunities were out there for me.”

The next day, Liz goes out to Fordham, hoping to find more work. She walks down the Grand Concourse, asking for jobs at the different stores. Each time, the owners turn her away, pointing out that she’s far too young. Eventually, she returns to pumping gas. By afternoon, she’s made another twenty dollars. She begins to feel invincible—she imagines buying her own bus ticket and traveling far away.

At the end of the day, Liz goes into a grocery store and decided to “take things,” as she’s done many times before with Rick and Danny. But then she notices the checkout area. After watching carefully, she realizes that she can stand behind a cash register and collect tips from the customers. She takes her place, and nobody stops her. She works quickly to bag customers’ groceries, and collects tips in return. She feels very proud of herself. At the end of the day, however, she slips a small container of cheese and crackers into her pocket and walks out with it.

Liz gets a call from Ma, who’s currently in the hospital. Ma complains that the hospital is harsh—she hates not being able to smoke or use drugs. When visiting Ma in the hospital, Liz hates the nurses for the way they speak to Ma—as if she were a small child.

Liz sometimes watches Lisa put on a bra. This fascinates Liz: Liz is young and boyish, and sometimes people call her a tomboy. She doesn’t feel like a boy, but she doesn’t feel she has anything in common with “girls who wore frilly dresses,” either.

One night shortly after Ma returns from the hospital, she comes back to the apartment late at night, waking up Liz. She complains to Liz that “this guy,” a local drug dealer, has refused to take Lisa’s winter coat in return for some drugs, instead telling her, “Go back to your kids.” Ma begins going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. But she keeps selling her children’s things for cocaine.

Money continues to be scarce for the family. Liz tries to go back to the grocery store again, but she always finds that the checkout stands are full. One night, Liz stays up late working on a diorama for school. In the middle of the night, she wakes up to the sound of Ma crying. Liz begins to hug Ma and comfort her, which she’s used to doing. Suddenly, Ma tells her, “I’m sick, I have AIDS.” Even after Ma insists that she’ll be fine, Liz knows the truth: Ma is going to die soon. Furious, she smashes her beautiful diorama to pieces.