Unbreakable: My Story, My Way Read Online Free Page B

Copas.” My father gave me his full support, telling me, as always, that I could do anything I setmy mind to, but on this night I was nervous as hell. I took the microphone, just wanting the whole thing to be over with. But when the music started, I panicked and forgot the words. I wasn’t even halfway through the song when I ran out of the room and heard the “you’re not good enough” bells ringing. I spent the rest of the night sitting next to our car in the parking lot.
    When the contest was over, my daddy came and found me. He was heated . I wasn’t used to his screaming and scolding me. It was always my brothers who had to deal with that side of my daddy, never me. But, boy, did I get it that night. “I thought you said you were prepared for this, Janney. You always need to be prepared for everything you do in life. Don’t just jump into things like a fool. You ran out of there like you were scared of something. Is that what I taught you? ¿ No que muy chingona? Where is the warrior in you right now? ¿Dónde estan tus huevos? ” He went on and on. He didn’t stop once we got in the car. The trip home seemed endless. As we drove down the 710 southbound, I thought we would never reach the Willow Street exit.
    He wouldn’t stop. By the time we made it to the West Side, I had decided that if my singing was going to cause my father to scream at me, I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wasn’t used to this and I wasn’t going to have it. That night my father found out that not only did I have his character and personality, but his balls and attitude as well. I turned and looked at him: “I’ve never been scared of anything, Dad. Just like I’m not scared of telling you right now that I don’t ever want to sing again. I don’t want to play this music game that you play. I’m done. I promise you, I will never touch a microphone again. And I will show you that I will become something, even if my voice is not involved. You’ll see.” By the time I said those last words, I was crying. And even though he didn’t show it, I knew he was hurt. I was too. To this day he thinks it is because he yelled at me. It wasn’t. I was hurt and sad because I had failed my daddy.
    As soon as my father parked the car in the driveway, I jumped out and ran into the house and straight to my room. I didn’t even say hello to my mother, who was washing dishes in the kitchen. I cried into my pillow and I contemplated getting Pilly’s mini-radio and bumping to George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog,” just to make my father even angrier. Instead, I listened to him tell my mom what had happened. I thought the conversation was over when my mother said, “I told you, singing isn’t her thing.”
    But it wasn’t over. My father got the last words, of course. “ Como chingados no . She will be back one day. I will never bother her with this singing thing again. I will never insist again. But one day, ella sola, se dara cuenta que esto es lo suyo. Her love for music is too great. Without me or anyone pushing her, eventually she will be back. I will just sit here and wait.”
    As a little girl, no matter where we were living, whether it was the apartment in Culver City, the ever-too-small homes in San Pedro and Wilmington, or the two-on-a-lot house my parents were finally able to purchase in Long Beach, there was always music. My father always had the radio turned to Radio Express, the station that specialized in playing the old-school hits of Vicente Fernández, Ramón Ayala, Pedro Infante, Javier Solís, and all the other greats of that time. My father would sing along to his favorites as he worked on the cars in the yard.
    Inside, as my mother cleaned the house, she would put on her LPs and sing along with Chayito Valdez, Chelo, Lola Beltrán, Rocío Dúrcal, and Yolanda del Río. I learned the lyrics, and at the tender age of seven I would sing along to songs about drinking to get over men and spending nights at the bar. On Sundays, I