The grapefruit tree had branches extending over the back right section of the yard. In the summer, the shade from the branches was a place of refuge for a young boy. A low trunk combined with the extension of multiple thick branches gave it the unique characteristic of climbable. Yellow, a soft Naples yellow ascribed to those grapefruits, peppered the tree in season. As boys, we picked and threw them at one another. The fruit would explode when it missed the target brother and crashed into the wall. Large pieces of fruit flew and the sticky juice ran down our fingers. Hearing the thud – thud and subsequent laughter, our grandmother would come outside in a fury. She respected the natural fruit and we did not. To us the tree was a jungle gym in a backyard stale from being built in the 1960’s. Rambunctious children: we were brothers and boys.

The tree’s starting branch was taller than our tallest brother; we had to work together to climb it. The youngest would go first, as his strength was quite minor. Then competition would ensue between the next two. During these scuffs, grapefruits were ripped off the stems and thrown. It did not help that grapefruit, as a species, fit perfectly inside of a small boys hand. There is no other thing that breaks with harmless consequences the size of a grapefruit. It is the most prized fruit for throwing: it does the most damage but remains fruit after being thrown. Grandmother had lemons in the backyard, along with pomegranates and limes, but we never threw those. To be specific, we used the lemons as baseballs and the limes as golf balls. The pomegranates we mutually left alone, as the evidence of smashed pomegranate remained on the clothes forever. Pomegranates had an extremely pleasant taste and the boys knew that eventually the fruit would ripen and they could eat it. Grapefruits were sworn trajectories, the sourness of the fruit itself a conviction to this kind of treatment. While grandmother did not enjoy the taste of grapefruits as much as the others she had in the yard, it was a living plant.

I remember coming to her house with my other two brothers and noticing the flowers in the front yard frazzled. I asked her about this and her face darkened into a scowl. She knew the culprit. “Los gatos… son diablos!” Sprinkling spicy peppers near the flowers, she set the trap for the cats to eat them. When the cats did eat the peppers, unusual diarrhea would plague their bowels. From then on, the cats would know where our Yaya lived.

Yaya’s backyard was the place where we as boys could escape the elder woman’s eye. She had a keen one and knew exactly when my older brother had spilled the sugar on the table. When younger brother dropped popcorn on the carpet, Yaya could smell it from three rooms away. We spent the night there on a frequent basis growing up, and in the morning, Yaya would shake my toe to get up. I hated that shake because it meant I would have to make the bed to impossible Spaniard standards. She wouldn’t feed us before making the bed -sometimes I would hide the sheets under the comforter to satisfy my hunger. I always forgot Yaya had x-ray vision and would see straight through the sheets. Her tiny body would bend over and straighten the bed. “Why don’t you put over here,” she would ask, but it was not a question. Gentle words and tiny daggers, she got us into line quick. That was inside of the house.

Outside, the backyard had a glass window separating us from her. With all of the rules and tidiness of the house, that is why we threw the fruit. I made my younger brother cry from a well-placed lemon to the ear. Older brother brought justice on me in the form of a move he learned from watching the wrestlers on television. Much yelling and fighting happened in that backyard, but the quarrelling was settled in climbing the tree. In that back corner of the yard, the tree was hidden from the watchful eye of my grandmother. We prayed she would not come back while we were throwing the grapefruit, but she walked softly in the grass. A predator pouncing on her prey, she would catch us every time. Boys would be ordered inside and she would stand near the branches, bending low to pick up the fruit. Those grapefruit intact sat on the ground, the black decay crawling over the soft yellow. She knew the time for that fruit came too early but she could not stop the boys from doing what they were born to do. When she turned to walk back towards the house, she could smell the sweet zest of the grapefruit, the sour of its’ spoiled innards.