Estrella Angelita Maria de Ramón, part 1

Estrella Angelita Maria de Ramón is a native of Florida. She’s Catholic by upbringing, and hedonist by practice. She is the ninth of thirteen children, and the only one, she will tell you, who got a really good name.

At 55, she is a cross between Lady Gaga and Beyoncé: flamboyant and terribly sexy.

Her father worked in pest control. Her mother worked as the alterations tailor for an upscale department store in Tampa. The de Ramon children have all finished high school, a major accomplishment for a Spanish American family of their generation. Two of the boys and three of the girls finished college as well. Of the thirteen children, there is no thirteenth child. Mama has a baker’s dozen. Of the twins, she refers to them as girl-twelve and boy-twelve. The boy-twelve, the one they owed to the church: he’s a priest. He’s not a particularly happy priest, what with the de Ramon hormones and all, but he’s still a priest.

Estrella’s oldest brother, Ramon, goes to Viet Nam when Estrella is four years old. He serves his two-year term and comes home again to finish his tour of duty in Tampa. Ramon comes home wounded in spirit and deeply bitter. He goes to work with his father in pest control. Ramon the elder thinks of pest control as a service to help brothers and sisters live better. Ramon the younger thinks of pest control as committing never-ending murder—-the only job he thinks he is fit to do.

When brother Roberto signs up to go to Viet Nam, the family is proud to send him off to fight for their country. But Roberto doesn’t come home. He’s killed by a mortar blast at the ripe old age of eighteen. He had been in Viet Nam for two weeks. Ramon’s bitterness reaches a new depth, and his parents fear for his life as well. His mother goes to six o’clock mass every day for four months. Finally, one day Ramon tells his mother that Roberto was the lucky one. His mother slaps him across the face, telling him, “You are the lucky one. You can see the sunrise. You can eat with your brothers and sisters. You feel the rain on your face. Your brother feels nothing. Nothing. Not even the bitterness you hold on to so hard.” His mother’s action shocks Ramon into deciding to keep on and to feel the rain.

(continued)