Summary
Part Two: Winter
Sylvie
It is snowing outside and the children are having recess indoors. Mrs. Finnegan gives Bing an envelope and tells him to put “it” in there. Sylvie asks what it is for, and Clara says knowingly that this is the year they do testing for the gifted program.
Sylvie wants Bing to show her but he says it is for his Ma. After school she sees Mama with an old television set that she is excitedly saying was outside National Thrift. When she plugs it in when they get home, there is one channel that comes through. Sylvie hears two spies on the show and gets an idea.
She writes a letter for Bing in code and watches him in class as he deciphers it: “Dear Bing, You are my best friend. Love, Sylvie” (107). At recess, she finds him hiding in the alcove of the school’s back doors and she sits down, knowing he wants to talk. He says that his dad is sick in head and heart, according to his mom, recalling how his dad put his hand in the frying pan. He ends by saying Sylvie is his best friend too, and he begins to cry. Sylvie gives him a napkin and asks if he will go to the gifted program. He does not know.
After school, Sylvie returns to Christy and her story. As the baby orangutan, the zoo gave her the name of Clementine, but her mother gave her a true, secret name. Something spoke to her mother from the wading pool in their part of the zoo and she began pacing about and behaving oddly. One day her mother heard the water calling to her and was taken away for her behavior. Clementine grew old and alone and began acting oddly too, but the Painted Box Turtles spoke to her and asked what she dreamt of. She said the place where the long hairs came from and where she belonged. They told her to be patient.
Christy was losing her focus with the story of Clementine. She had begun dog-earing self-help books and spoke of aligning herself with her desires. She would ask Mama for sage, which annoyed Mama. Christy had a new cellphone and texted her boyfriend Roy all the time. She would cry and then be happy as they fought and made up.
Sylvie did not get to keep telling her story even though she wanted to speak of the animals stealing certain items from the zoo to get ready for something special.
Bing
Bing cannot stop thinking about Hakim. Hakim is wild, immodest, and funny, and he goes about kissing all the girls. Clara complains but Bing wishes Hakim would kiss him. He thinks about what it would feel like and how they would sit together, pass notes, and be happy.
Bing thinks about how some families, usually with lighter skin, have fun weekends. They have two parents and healthy children and pets, and they get to play hockey and go ice-skating. Other families, usually with darker skin, have one parent and phone behind Plexiglas and wait for the weekends to be over. The ice rink would throw all the used snow out after the weekend and the darker kids will ride down it on garbage bags. One Monday, a freezing rainstorm turns the pile into an icy castle that takes ten minutes to ascent. Bing burrows into it and digs a cavern. He hears people playing above him and turns to see Hakim also burrowing into the space. They look at each other and Bing’s heart beats fast. Hakim says that the people above don’t know they are in there: the cave could collapse and they’d never know. Then, he kisses Bing. It is a movie kiss and Bing never wants it to end. He would be happy to die in the arms of this boy he loves.
Cory
Cory reads aloud from a flier about the annual winter Carnaval. There will be snow castle-building and ice sculptures and candy, and Mrs. Landau’s students will make signs with their French word or term on it. Laura has “bonhomme de niege,” which she tells her father means “snowman.”
Cory gets all the supplies and turns on a CD. As he thinks about Peter and the old days of listening to this music and stealing Black boys’ shoes, he sees Laura is sticking cotton balls to the paper without glue. He blurts out that she is a retard, then feels himself grow hot and tries to open the glue bottle. He cannot, and grows angry, so he throws it and Laura flinches. Glue comes out in pillowing piles. The CD starts to skip and his anger mounts, so he slams the CD player door. He takes a breath.
He then looks at Laura who is trying to scoop up the glue. He screams that she is a “stupid bitch” (119) and asks what is wrong with her. In fright, she begins to pee herself and she grabs her chin tightly in his frustration. Behind him, the ravioli he was making burns and he throws the pot against the wall in rage. He screams out that she made him do this.
As he paces the room, Laura turns off. She is numb and clenched, and Cory begs her to be okay. He begins moaning about her mother and how she was in a foster home and then went to her grandmother who tried to lose her, and Cory thought he found her but didn’t, and found Laura but didn’t, and now he is just as bad. He tries to hug Laura but she remains limp. He grabs her hands and orders her to hit him over and over again. She is still limp. He cries, crawls to the door, and leaves.
Laura
After Daddy storms out, Laura eventually comes back to life. She sees she is alone again and tries to clean up after herself. There is snow falling outside and she watches through the window. She sees a woman outside and they wave to each other.
When Laura lived with Jessica in the apartment, she had to reach for things and guard the door. Jessica was always gone and Laura had to entertain herself. She did not know how to read and could not tell what the notices from the landlord were about. Sometimes she would hear sirens and watch what happened, or play, or shave her body like her mother. She went to visit Mrs. Kamal, but when the woman found lice in her hair, she could not go there anymore.
When Jessica came home, she’d collapse into bed and Laura would tuck her in and eat gum to feel weight in her stomach. Jessica eventually gave Laura over to her dad when she got in trouble for not adhering to the Daycare and Nurseries Act.
Laura visits Ms. Hina and watches her make snacks. She gives her the letter “u” and says “umbrella.” Delighted, Ms. Hina says her new letter is “g.”
Ms. Hina
On the last morning before the Christmas holidays, the kids have to listen to Celine Dion’s version of the national anthem, which Hina hates. Fern, a white mother, passively-aggressively asks when they’ll sing Christmas carols.
Hina has the children start to clean up and some parents help. Laura shyly comes by and Ms. Hina knows she likes one-on-one time with her. Cory is not helping clean up and looks annoyed when Ms. Hina high-fives Laura for helping.
It is circle time and the children gather and Hina tells them to pick up their air guitars. They sing a funny song and smash their guitars. Afterward, she lets them all take as many snacks as they want, knowing food is always an issue over the break. She fills a few boxes with non-perishable items and addresses herself to everyone, knowing who will actually take them but not wanting to single them out.
Laura is watching the snow at the window and Hina goes over to her, knowing she will be sad not to see Laura’s sweet face for a while. Laura tells her “goodbye” with her letter “g” and gives her the “h.” She helps Laura spell out and say “hug.” She asks Laura if she can hug her, and Laura’s face transforms into the biggest smile she has ever seen her make. She holds out her arms and Ms. Hina hugs her tiny body. Laura utterly melts into her.
Suddenly, though, her face assumes a scared expression. Cory is there; he calls Laura to him and angrily tells Ms. Hina he does not want her hugging his child. She tries to explain Laura just spelled the word, but he takes her away with disdain.
Ms. Hina remembers when she needed an emergency appendectomy and feels the same knives all over her body. She does not know what to do.
Sylvie
It is Christmas Eve and Mama prepares food from the box from Ms. Hina. The children decorate Michelle’s office door. Sylvie plays doctor with her father, telling him he will get much better soon. Dad whispers to her that when he gets better she can come to the track with him. He means Woodbine Racetrack, where parents look at the action and not their kids, but Sylvie knows he is not going to get better so she smiles and says yes.
After he falls asleep, she listens to his body—his tummy, his heart.
Michelle
Every Christmas the kids decorate her door at the Galloway Shelter, where she has worked for seven years. This is usually a cold time of year for people here, but she always takes this shift and loves it.
She steps outside into the cold, crisp air for a cigarette. She hears a man yell “Faggot” (140) outside the Everything Taste Good Caribbean restaurant and sees two men, one slipping on the ice and another driving away. She retreats into the shadows and sees the man who slipped. He is clearly drunk and has a Prussian eagle on his jacket.
Then Michelle sees Christy, who asks her about the bus, and thinks how many young ones like Christy she’s seen come and go over the years. They have dreams and want to be success stories; they want love but look for it in the wrong places. They come when they are young and then again and again until they are old.
It is Christmas Eve and Cindy is with her dog, who is about to have puppies. She makes a little manger-nest for Eunice and as she waits, looks outside the window to the community housing cul-de-sac. She sees Victor and knows he never would have made anything of himself. He was vandalizing with paints, she heard.
Her son Travis comes in, his terrible haircut reminding her that she should not cut hair while watching HGTV and dreaming of what could be. Travis wants to know when the babies are coming.
Cindy thinks of her vet, who clearly was the one who called the police on her when she took Wendy, her old dog, to him. She was breeding puppies, yes, but who cared? She and her kids vacated before the police burst into the garage and found Wendy in her cage, shaking in her dramatic fashion.
Travis hasn’t brushed his teeth and Cindy grimaces that this is because he goes to school with a “bunch of Caribbean people” who “have no manners” (145). If only more people would realize what it was like to be the only white kid in a school full of brown ones. She remembers her own childhood and how all the immigrants came—first the El Salvadorians, then the Sri Lankans, Pakis, Chinese (sneaking in all this time), Filipinos, etc.
Cindy rubs the dog’s belly because she knows it will feel good. There seems like there will be something different with these puppies.
Winsum marvels at how different it feels to take off your apron and sit at the counter of your own restaurant, and not have to deal with anything. It is Christmas Eve and she has Melvin work because this night is for her and her family. She’d hired Melvin because her sister begged her to. Melvin wanted to be a chef and tried to make the pizzas at Little Caesar’s gourmet, and was fired.
Winsum’s sister Lorna and her husband Clive, Melvin’s parents, sit next to her at the counter. Lorna is bragging about Switzerland and Winsum is privately annoyed. She spent her life raising her son Joffrey on her own and did not have the luxury to travel as her sister did. Lorna goes on about “culture” and Winsum mentions that Joffrey would be here but he is working while finishing school. Lorna smiles that she did not even know boys could be nurses until Joffrey said he was.
Melvin plunks down a few plates with a flourish and says dinner is served. He claims it is Trinidadian Doubles, but this is not what Winsum asked for. As Winsum’s anger starts to mount, Clive silently packs up and heads outside because he does not like conflict.
Lorna begins to complain but Winsum puts her foot down. She announces that this is her restaurant and she does not want any funny business. They are supposed to have a simple dinner, a traditional dinner. Mom’s restaurant was Everything Taste Good as well, and Winsum opened this restaurant to continue the tradition. This is the number-one island restaurant in Scarborough, she reminds them, and she tells Melvin that people want home when they come here—they want warmth and simplicity. She orders Melvin away and tells him she wants this home in her food right now; he ought to go learn “the beauty of big spoons and big plates” (151).
Clive
Clive steps outside into the silence and the coldness. A filthy white man approaches and asks if this is the place with the free chicken. Clive tells him it is not open, but he begins to protest that he has no food for dinner and his daughter is alone and he slept too long. He sobs absurdly and says his daughter is hungry.
Clive gives him a bit of change but the man refuses it and protests that he wants the chicken. Clive tells him to go because the restaurant is closed, and as he moves to gently push him away, the man becomes angry and agitated and calls Clive a homophobic slur. Clive is shocked and then tells him he is a disgrace and his daughter deserves better: he says that he ought to go home and change things or let someone else father her.
Clive gets in his car and leaves the man lying there in the snow. He sees him drunkenly stumble off into the darkness. Clive feels a sob in his own throat and stifles it. He decides it is time to go to his special place, as there is no time for casual Craigslist encounters. There is a slight chance that the East Point Bird Sanctuary will be happening tonight, so he drives there.
He pulls through the gate, parks near a snowbank, and finds his rubber shoe coverings. With a handful of condoms in his hand, he heads toward the thicket. Beyond is a scene of debauchery with men writhing and “making music of their sinfulness” (156). Clive walks further into the clearing near Lake Michigan and watches couples breathing hard. It is exhilarating, this game. He and these other men are the ones who blend in at cocktail parties, smile at their wives’ stories, and pretend to shudder when someone gossips about a homosexual—knowing that later they will be cavorting with that man.
After Clive has sex with many men, he zips up and feels like howling happily at the moon. He always does. He returns to the restaurant and sits down with his family.
Analysis
Though the novel is told through the voices of children, it deals with some extremely weighty, difficult themes—racism, poverty, sexuality, and child abuse, among others. In Trevor Corkum’s review of the novel, he praises this aspect of the text: “Hernandez demonstrates the way power operates intersectionally across markers or race, gender, sexuality, age, income, employment, and ability. One of the strengths of such a large cast is the ability to observe markedly different characters interact with one another. A character may wield privilege and power in one situation — owning a store or business, for example, with the right to deny service — but experience visceral oppression or abuse in another, replicating the complicated webs of oppression and power that underlie our relations in large, complex cities.”
In Scarborough, the diversity of the cast of characters does not mean that everything is harmonious; rather, racial and ethnic differences manifest themselves in subtle and visible conflicts, stereotype and prejudice, and, when considered alongside poverty, actual lived conditions that are cumbersome, wearying, and unfair. Readers see the obstacles Marie has to face when trying to find help for her son, and for the Beaudoin family’s general need for housing and shelter. Christy, a woman who lives at the same shelter, is an example of how a poor woman without a support system might look for love to meet her needs and struggle with problematic partners and constant up-and-down cycles of loss and gains. Michelle, the shelter director, notes how tough a time of year Christmas is for the residents, for they have nothing and this nothingness is in stark relief.
Though most of the characters have racist thoughts, two white characters, Cindy and Cory, express their racist views most conspicuously. Cory has a Prussian Eagle tattoo to symbolize his white-supremacist beliefs, and he reminisces often about his time with his friends when they’d “[roll] some Black boy for his shoes” (118). He is openly hostile to Ms. Hina and fills Laura’s head with cruel falsehoods about her. He uses the n-word against Clive, takes free food from Winsum but complains to Laura about Black people always wanting free things, and inwardly criticizes the Black woman at Laura’s school for being too “loud” with her fashion. He pays no attention to the fact that he is poor, that he is a bad parent, and that he wants the same things in life that everyone does. He is a hypocrite, doling out slurs and stereotypes because they make him feel better about his own terrible situation. Cindy is the same, displaying the noxious traits of arrogance, crassness, ignorance, and indifference as she whines about the “buses” of immigrants coming into her neighborhood and ruining it. Whiteness inflates these characters’ sense of self even though it is a false construct and utterly useless in rendering any real material differences in their lives.
In this section, Hernandez explores the sexuality of two characters, Bing and Clive. Bing is the more hopeful situation of the two, perhaps suggesting that the younger generations have an easier time expressing their sexuality as well as being accepted for it. Bing’s queer, femme identity is alluded to multiple times, and his kiss with Hakim is a beautiful, moving expression of young love. Hernandez doesn’t seek to put any labels on Hakim, as the child kisses girls too, and she avoids the standard trope of the tortured, closeted gay kid (Hakim) who bullies the out gay kid (Bing) while simultaneously desiring him. This kiss, as well as Bing’s musical performance, gives the reader the sense that while Bing’s life might not be easy for a variety of reasons, he’s going to be okay—he will be open with his sexuality and he will be loved.
Clive is a different story, however. As an older, middle-class Black man who is married to a woman and has children, he does not feel he has the ability to be truly himself. His homosexuality is hidden safely away, only able to reveal itself in anonymous sexual encounters. Hernandez describes the Christmas Eve scene Clive attends in a sensuous, almost bacchanalian fashion, sympathizing with the men who have to come out here to feel truly themselves. There is the sense that Clive and some of the others are to be pitied, if only because they abide in a society that would not accept them for who they are: “We were the men who knew the power of blending in at cocktail parties, who kept our opinions neutral around the water cooler, who knew to nod in recognition at our wives’ stories…We held our newspapers up high, and we kept our activities on the down-low” (157).
Finally, the novel does not shy away from exhibiting child abuse (or talking about it, in Bing’s case). While there are some sympathetic aspects of Cory, ultimately there is no way to excuse the fact that he is abusive towards Laura: he yells at her, frightens her, throws things around her, shakes her, and tries to emotionally manipulate her. It is a terrifying, tragic scene and Hernandez depicts it with compassion and realism.
