Brownsville Bred: Dreaming Out Loud

By Elaine Del Valle

A coming-of-age memoir. In the face of her father's addiction, an altruistic young Latina struggles to reclaim her self worth amidst her deteriorating Brooklyn projects. Brownsville Bred (adapted from her autobiographical stage play) is a young adult novel told in a series of vignettes—some funny, some heartbreaking, that together tell

• Language: English
• Publisher: Del Valle Productions, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734309966

Elaine Del Valle

Elaine Del Valle is an award winning playwright, director, producer, screenwriter and casting director. She first garnered critical acclaim with her autobiographical, Off-Broadway stage play, Brownsville Bred for which she won the 2011 HOLA award for excellence in playwriting, and was named Trendsetter at the Multi-Cultural Media Forum. The play chronicles Elaine's true Nuyorican (New York-Puert Rican) coming-of-age amidst the deteriorating backdrop of her 1980's Brownsville Brooklyn welfare projects. Brownsville Bred was subsequently published as a Young Adult Memoir and became a quarter-finalist in Publisher's Weekly BookLife Prize (2020). The novel is now a part of Creative Writing and American Latino Cultural studies in NYC public schools. Her books are featured globally on the shelves of the Latinx House libraries at major film festivals.​ Elaine has won numerous Best Director and Best Short Film awards. Her short, Me 3.769, has screened in competition at top tier film festivals and was licensed by HBO. ​ As the owner and operator of Del Valle Productions & Casting, Elaine has become the go-to person for up-and-coming diverse talent and rising stars for many high profile brands, studios and agencies. Elaine was featured in the PBS documentary Beating The Odds, alongside luminaries such as Michelle Obama. Ebby Magazine called her a Tour De Force.​ She is a Sundance Institute grant recipient, and her scripts have been amongst Cinequest's TOP 50 (2019 & 2020) . In 2019 Miami News Times named her as One of 5 Filmmakers to Watch. Elaine was named Madrina ("Godmother" by Prime Latino Media-2017) and as Vanguard (by Official Latino 2019). Both awards reflect her leadership in and support of the Latinx, independent filmmaking community.

Book preview

1 OUT MY WINDOW

From out my window ...

I could see the whole world ... and even though I am twelve stories up, I could hear the rap beats blasting from the shoulders of every other guy brave enough to take the shortcut through my Langston Hughes Brownsville projects.

You see, mine are the tallest buildings in all of East New York. The toughest, the hardest, the baddest.

On the ground, necks just about be breaking off trying to see who playing their favorite songs. But from up here, I see.

They find the beat easily and shake they booties, like I wish I could.

Everything moves just right on black bodies. They are lean and pretty and have muscles even though they ain’t no gyms around here.

Black hair stays just in place, and they get real pretty, different color, beads on the ends of their braids. Those beads make a music of their own ... by walking and especially when double dutching.

My hair is a straight flat mess, even after I spend some time with a curling iron and Aqua Net.

When I wish, I wish for caramel skin and curly hair. That I could find the beat and dance as good as the dancers on Soul Train—better even. Wouldn’t nobody call me white cracker, even though they know I’m Puerto Rican. And wouldn’t nobody make fun of me when I recite my rap songs.

I look over to the neighboring building and wonder if there is another girl out there, looking out of her 12F apartment with her bangs falling in her eyes, thinking the same thing that I’m thinking. Doing the same thing I’m doing. Wishing the same thing I’m wishing. Rapping to the beat she taps on her window sill.

Able to see the world through her window too.

2 NEXT CAR

Back when we was real little kids, me, my brothers and my sister and Mami and Papi used to play a game...just looking out our window. All we needed was the cars that drove by. Papi called our game "Next Car".

We start by choosing a color and wait for the next car of that color to pass by. Whatever car that is will be your car when you grow up. On Sundays you could wait for like an hour till all our colors finally drive by...Especially if the color is orange or something stupid like that. Whoever got the nicest car is the winner. Whoever picked the ugliest car, we all make fun of, and say that they will stay broke forever.

Once I called black car, and it took almost a whole hour before a black car drove by. But when it did, it was a big black limousine—no dents or nothing, tinted windows, and real clean. You could see the sun shining on the top of the sunroof. That was my car and it meant that I would be rich.

It musta lost its way said my brother.

No other explanation for a car like that to be here. My brother said that the Heavyweight Champion of the whole world, Iron Mike Tyson, is from Brownsville, and that was prolly him come to check out the old neighborhood.

Last year they said he came by and that this dude from his old block knocked him out!

A corner dude knocking out the World Heavyweight Champion?

I believe it, but it musta been a sucker punch.

Mami said, you leave Brownsville long enough, you prolly forget to remember to watch out for what’s coming.

It was a real, real, real, real nice day. A day you could breathe, y’know. The sun shining, and the air crisp. A day when Mami opens up all the windows, so her laundry could dry as it hung on the line tied to the steam pipes of each room.

Mami made us all scrambled eggs for breakfast. Papi cut open a big Italian bread and smeared Parkay on top. When he toasts it in the oven, the whole apartment smell so good, like Downy clean from the clothes, fresh air from the outside and baked bread and butter from the oven.

That morning I called next blue car, my sister Ana called third red, my brother Danny called next brown. I ‘on’t know why anybody would want a brown car. Mami called black and Papi called second blue. Big Head (aka my brother Benjamin ’cause he kinda mean and got a big head) picked next white car.

We ate Papi’s bread and hung out our kitchen’s windows waiting. Looking up in the distance I could see a white airplane. But airplanes don’t count. At night Mami be thinking they UFOs gonna come and get her for experiments. One night she woke up and said they had taken her for sure. But she musta been dreaming. Like out of all the people in the whole world, they gonna choose my moms to experiment on.

White. Ben’s white car was a big white Mack truck come rolling down the block. We was all laughing at the thought of Ben blasting music from out a big white truck. Papi joked how Ben could trick it out by painting the Puerto Rican flag on the hood—like the one we painted on our living room wall earlier that year...The WHOLE living room wall.

On nice days, like this one, even that embarrassing wall don’t bother me none. It’s a day when you can’t help but notice all the colors in the world ... Like a picture so beautiful that it makes you wanna cry.

We was all laughing ’bout Ben’s truck when—when this little girl, black as tar and skinny as a crack head caught my eye. Running fast as a rock shot out of a slingshot, straight outta the building next door. On her way to get that free lunch prolly. We stopped going for the free lunches years ago, ’cause it’s embarrassing to be standing round waiting to get free food. Only little kids go for that—cause little kids is too stupid to feel shame.

The free cheese line—that’s a whole other story. That line be round the block. Even grown-ups be on that line. Especially crackheads and winos, ’cause they know they could sell it to corner stores that make sandwiches with it.

That little dark skinned girl, she running just at the same speed as Ben’s white Mack truck is rolling down the block. Look like they was about to intersect. I was just about to scream out,

Watch out!

When it happened.

I heard the PING! of her body jump off the bumper of Ben’s white Mack truck.

The last time she moved was the first time I ever seen’t somebody die.

Crazy how I could see it all coming from up here.

She was like eight years old or something. She ain’t even stop to look see if there was a car coming, or if the light was red or nothing. She ain’t never stop to realize that she was about to be toe-up underneath that white Mack truck. Ben’s truck wasn’t even going fast enough to make it screech when it stopped or nothing. After it hit her, and the driver changed his gear to park, I could hear its engine running. That’s all I could hear. We all saw it, but couldn’t none of us make a sound.

I gasped as the driver got out. He was shaking like a leaf, and it wasn’t ’cause he was a white man in Brownsville, neither. I remember thinking exactly what Mami said right before she said it, "Ay dios mio, he better get back into his truck and lock his doors until the police come." It ain’t take too long for him to figure that out for his self.

The crowd started up. People started screaming and coming at the truck. Banging on his bumpers. This woman ran out of the neighboring building with her knees bent, one of her hands over her mouth and the other one over her heart. Body bouncing like she never missed a meal—musta been the girl’s grandmother or maybe her mother. Not that I couldn’t make out her age, she was like 35 or something. But round here we got grandmothers and moms that be ’bout the same age.

The lady with the bent knees took her hand away from her mouth and start screaming. Her cry echoed between the buildings. In no time, all the building windows on Sutter Avenue was opened, and people huddled out of them, staring. Nothing to do but watch. They was all prolly wondering what happened. Prolly blaming the driver—but I seen’t the whole thing. My whole family, together, seen’t the whole thing. I think I seen it even before it happened. I shoulda said it. I shoulda yelled, Watch out!

The crowd grew madder, and Papi scream’t out,

IT WASN’T HIS FAULT!

But couldn’t nobody listen to nothing but that (grand)mama’s heart breaking. Why was that little girl alone? Mami woulda never let me go nowhere alone when I was that little. She still watch me and my sister from out the window for as long as she can.

I hope somebody call the police said Mami. We ain’t had no phone, or for sure Mami woulda.

Maybe that truck driver got a walkie-talkie radio in his truck, Ben said.

That girl was going high speed like the Road Runner, but everything else about that day was creeping and just kept getting slower. Like everybody was stuck in quicksand. Like her being dead was part of a recipe that made everything else thick. People looking out they windows watched like blinking wasn’t allowed. Others was scratching they heads outside of they buildings ... afraid to get closer. Just waiting for the police to come ... waiting ... waiting ... for nothing to change.

The police came, sure enough. They put a bright yellow plastic cover over her little body. The sky was so blue, and the clouds so white—even the street looked fresh-paved black.

The breeze was just enough to cool you down without noticing it—until the police put that yellow plastic over her body. That’s when we all noticed the breeze. The invisible wind was like an evil ghost that kept lifting up that bright yellow blanket and reminding us that a little girl wasn’t never gonna grow up. I used to pray for cool breezes on hot summer days. But these came with screams like the ones you hear in scary movies—when the characters know a axe is coming and it’s gonna hurt. That blanket came up with that breeze, and felt like a axe every time. I didn’t want to look,