On the Street

A short story about not knowing

Mar 14, 2026

Smiling brightly her beautiful voice in song echoes against the city buildings in the early morning air.

“Soy pájarillo errante…”

She walks confidently forward with a wheeled suitcase in tow. Salt and pepper-streaked curly hair frames her copper brown face which shines like a new penny. She wears a yellow button-down blouse and a flowing floral skirt that hangs down to her mid-calf. It’s her smile that first draws me in. Then, her deep steel blue eyes, ablaze with wonder and excitement, captivate me. She looks right at me and exclaims joyfully, “I want the Russians to bomb this whole country!”

I have no way of knowing in this moment that things hadn’t always been this way for her. So, the shock of her statement sets me back onto my heels.

It hadn’t always been that way. She was born far away from here fifty-three years ago into a large family of sugarcane farmers in Puerto Rico. By the time she was born; however, the sugarcane industry had collapsed there. While the rest of her family was forced to diversify into other forms of work, her father stuck it out and struggled as a cane farmer. Her mother gave up on that struggle by 1980 and left them to return to her family in New Orleans. What she remembered most about her mother, besides her blue eyes, was her claim of being a descendent from French royalty. The girl and her father were left to struggle on their own. She loved growing up amongst the sugarcane. The burning of the fields prior to harvest mesmerized her. She would sit for hours singing folk songs while watching the tall black columns of smoke rise high into the blue sky while the tongues of orange flame licked at their bases.

“Soy pájarillo errante
Que anda perdido…”

She especially loved the sight of the fires at night. The orange glow that lit the horizon long after the red of the sunset had dissipated to black was beautiful to her. What she remembered most was the smell of the burning cane; that unique smokey caramel smell. For her, burnt sugar was always a comforting aroma.

At seventeen after a decade of struggle since her mother left, she met a man at a worn-out disco in Old San Juan. That night they danced the hours away. Then, while watching the sun rise from the grounds of Castillo San Cristóbal, she knew he was the man she would marry. He was in Puerto Rico visiting family. As she understood it, his father had left for the States over thirty years earlier and now owned a prosperous restaurant in Camden, New Jersey.

Her father saw a way out for his daughter in this young man. He sensed wealth in this boy’s situation - what with his father being a successful businessman in New Jersey. He quickly agreed for his daughter to marry. And with that consent, she and the love of her life were married and set off for the rich and famous lifestyle of Camden.

She was not disappointed but was startled to find that Camden in 1990 was not much better off than what she left behind in San Juan. Her new husband’s father didn’t own a restaurant. He owned a small café, La Carreta, which catered to the local Puerto Rican community there. He served them favorites like Café con Leche, Pan de Mallorca and Revotillo de Huevos. They were only open for breakfast but sometimes stayed open for lunch. A strong following and solid customer base helped the family survive. She was in love. That was all that mattered. He too loved her. Their love for each other was obvious to anyone who saw them together. His admiration for her glowed as he looked at her. Her smile sweetened the sparkle in her eyes as she looked back at him. You could even see it in photographs of them during that time.

At the age of eighteen she gave birth to their first child, a boy. This boy made them both proud as it did his family and her father back in Puerto Rico. A year and a half later, they had their second son. Everyone was ecstatic for the growing young family. His family helped the young couple raise their two boys while she helped in the kitchen of La Carreta cooking and preparing coffees always singing to herself.

“Que anda perdido
Y va por la enramada
En pos de abrigo…”

No one knew precisely when things began to unravel for her. In looking back, one could point to a time five or six years after the boys were born when she began to smell something that no one else did.

The first time was one summer afternoon while watching the boys’ Little League game. She began to sniff the air trying to locate the source of the old familiar smell of burnt caramel. This immediately took her back to memories of childhood and her father. A wide smile formed on her face. Although no one could locate the source of the smell, nor could anyone else smell it, they all brushed off the experience as nothing.

The second time was about six months later in the middle of the night when she bolted upright from a deep sleep and smelled the sweet burning of sugar. She believed the fire was just outside their bedroom until he calmed her down, and she accepted that she was safe. After that, the episodes began to repeat more frequently and to her with more realism.

For a while the young family navigated the bizarre episodes without wanting to examine them too closely. The young boys, now entering middle school, never failed to stand up and defend their mother from neighborhood children who were beginning to gossip. Her husband and his family refused to consider that there might be something more serious. Their pride was strong. Until the day when he found her in front of the stove at La Carreta burning sugar in a saucepan which caused a thick choking smoke to infiltrate the café. This forced everyone there to abandon their breakfast and evacuate. It also created a conversation with the Fire Department which forced the issue about her mental health within the family.

She was hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia. At first, she experienced improvement with therapy and medication but would quickly relapse after failing to keep to her medication protocol. Her husband and the boys tried to help. Most of the time that only seemed to aggravate her further. More hospitalization, more adjustments to her medication, and some improvement followed by relapse - that was the cycle. At some point she unilaterally decided she would no longer take her medicine or see any more psychiatrists. No one could convince her otherwise, and she settled into her own reality of hallucination and chaos. If she lived in a different culture, maybe she would have been embraced and supported as an oracle or a sage who could communicate with the otherworld. But Camden, New Jersey, was not that culture. She made people uncomfortable. They avoided her, looking away in embarrassment, in shame, or, more likely, fear.

This also put a financial burden on his family’s finances so that La Carreta was at risk. With his heart broken he divorced her, the love of his life. He thought he was setting her free, but from a truth he could not admit he was setting himself free. He and the boys did not abandon her, however. He bought a home for her several blocks away. It was a modest two-bedroom row home made of brick just like his family’s only smaller. He could not bear to visit her, though. He was not strong enough to witness the shell she had become; a remnant of the woman he fell in love with. He arranged for the boys to deliver a regular allowance of money to her and ensure that she was getting the groceries and the medical attention she needed. She would attend holiday gatherings with the boys and her husband’s family. Mostly, she lived independently with her bright smile, beautiful voice, and the lingering aroma of burnt caramel.

The neighborhood community grew to accept the situation, and life settled into a new normal for several years. Then the boys went off to college, and one day she found herself on a bus to somewhere else; somewhere west. No one in Camden knew she left, or where she went. For a long time, they searched for her with no success. To this day, her boys still pause and look a little more closely when they see anyone wandering the streets. It’s now mostly out of habit, not hope. She just became a ghost.

She appeared here, confidently stepping off the bus and onto the streets of a new city singing with her beautiful voice and smiling at everyone she meets.

“Alzo el vuelo
Siempre cantando”

Here she is in front of me. I have no way of knowing how many years she’s been on the streets or what happened to her up to now. I can only try to recover from my startle of her direct statement and piercing demeanor. I try my best to keep my fear under control. Fear of what, exactly? I don’t know, but the shift from singing joyfully to making such a harsh statement has me rattled a bit. Surely, she’s harmless?

“I’m going to work for the Russians,” she continues. “I’m going to have them bomb all of this starting with this city!”

I smile at her in my best attempt at reassurance as she carelessly steps off the curb into the middle of the street as if she has nothing to lose. The car turning the corner doesn’t have time to react. Suddenly, she is in mid-air, slow-motion tumbling end over end, a ruptured suitcase, her belongings forming a cloud around her. It all comes crashing down onto the street with a hollow, sickly thud.

I join some other pedestrians as we rush to her. The driver stops their car and jumps out bewildered and hysterical. Her body doesn’t move. Her belongings litter the street. Someone dials 911. I look into her open eyes which now have a far-away look. She closes them and a hint of a smile forms on her lips. Then, I hear singing.

“Siempre cantando
Y el que escucha no sabe ¡ay!
Que estoy llorando”

I look up. Across the street I see a young girl watching, singing. I recognize that same smile which first drew me in. Her steel blue eyes are full of the joy and potential of youth. She smiles at me with a calm understanding and waves. Oh! It wasn’t always this way.

I am a wandering little bird
Who is lost
And wandering through the thicket
In search of shelter.

I take flight
Always singing
And the one who hears doesn’t know, alas!
That I am crying