BY DAMARYS OCAÑA

 I press the play button and I'm a little girl again, my 9-year-old voice on the cassette heavily accented but strangely confident. I'm reading a story called The Boat Ride.

 ``I know the way home, said Mr. Jones. Give me an oar and I will row this boat.''

 I finish reading and after a pause, a patient, kindly voice comes on, sounding pleased and slightly surprised. He simply states: ``That was Damarys Ocaña.''

 It's the voice of the person who gave me the oar, my fourth-grade English tutor Rockwell Carrier.

 Confidence is not what comes to mind when I think back on my family's first years in the United States, especially those spent living in a little Central Florida town called Avon Park, where my parents decided we would move in search of better jobs, and where I met Mr. Carrier.

 Mostly, I think about being paralyzed, stunned by the cruelty we encountered, about silently absorbing everything around me -- the taunts from kids, the verbal and physical battles that my older sisters fought every day on account of our having committed a great sin: We'd come from Cuba, and on a boat, no less.

 I don't suppose that life for us -- Dorys was 12, Madeleine, 10, and I was 8 when we arrived during the Mariel boatlift -- was much different than for any new kid in town who gets picked on. Except that in our case, we were not just new in town, we were a dirt-poor family adjusting to a new country and language -- and the abuse never let up.

 But in a room under the auditorium stage at Avon Park Elementary, I found a haven -- thanks to Mr. Carrier, a retired sales engineer.

 MORE THAN A TUTOR

 I was his first student at the school. Later, two other kids -- a Puerto Rican girl and a Mexican boy -- joined us.

 Mr. Carrier quickly became the grandfather I never had, and my closest friend. But foremost, he taught me to master the roundness of vowels, to say ``yard'' instead of jard, to be an excellent speller and reader. His was one of the few, constant voices of encouragement I heard outside of my home in those days.

 I don't remember many specific moments with Mr. Carrier. I just remember stepping into that tiny subterranean room and breathing, and feeling safe.

 Outside, all was tension.

 Every day brought a new cruelty and continued old ones. One kid spit on the ground every time he saw one of us. A bully pushed Dorys around daily. Few kids wanted to be friends with us.

 ON THE BUS

 Every child's favorite part of the school day -- the bus ride home -- became our most dreaded because, for our tormentors, we were a captive audience.

 One afternoon, Madeleine and I were sharing a seat as usual, while Dorys sat four or five rows back, trying to mingle with the other kids. One boy took his turn in chiding us.

 ``Why don't you go back in your banana boat?''

 ``You should go to Eighth Street in Miami!'' the fiercely protective Madeleine fought back. ``You'll see what Cubans have done for this country!''

 The kid and his friends roared with laughter.

 Confused and nervous, Dorys inexplicably tried to laugh along. At 12, she desperately wanted to be accepted. I think it was after that incident that for a brief period, Dorys pretended to be Puerto Rican -- even learning the accent and adopting a new hometown, Rio Piedras.

 It was after one of those tense bus rides that I stepped into our trailer expecting, as usual, to see my mother. She wasn't there. I looked everywhere -- the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom. I asked neighbors, but no one had seen her.

 Something told me to walk down to the lake behind the trailer park.

 I found my mom sitting on the lakeshore, trying to evoke in that dead body of water a memory of the sea and home. She was crying, quietly. And it broke my heart.

 Her hair had gone almost entirely gray from homesickness, from stress at work and worrying about my father, who had just had three heart attacks and triple bypass surgery.

 I just stroked my shoulder, a wordless offer of a place of comfort.

 She got up and we walked along the shore, hand in hand.

 MILK AND HONEY

 The next year, we moved back to Miami, where our only exiled relative lived, and where an entire church founded by fellow Seventh-Day Adventist Marielitos that we had known all our lives, thrived. Miami was the Promised Land.

 But here we found a place where Cuban had turned against Cuban in their desire to distance themselves from Marielitos, some of whom helped the crime rate soar in Miami. Even Marielitos denied their provenance. At school, other kids and I shared similar ancestry, but the occasional snickers were still there.

 That's when I stopped being the paralyzed little girl, too stunned to speak. Mr. Carrier had not just taught me a language. He had given me a weapon.

 At school, I became the person on whom fellow classmates called to check the spelling of a tricky word, the person who proofread their term papers. I worked on my pronunciation until I spoke almost like a native and strived to write and speak better than most. I was a happily mediocre math student, but I got an A on every composition paper from high school through college.

 ORANGE BOWL ADDRESS

 And when people assumed that I had been born in the United States, I made it a point of telling them I was a Marielita; that my family crossed the Florida Straits in a little boat called Marilu, and that my first home was the Orange Bowl.

 Mr. Carrier had been one of the last people to visit us in Avon Park as we packed. Before he left, he gave me a gift: stationery. I promised to keep in touch. But I got far more than that from him; I got nurturing support during my college years, poetry, discussions on everything from philosophy to religion, and most of all, friendship.

 I saw Mr. Carrier only two more times: when he was a patient at an Orlando hospital, and when he was recovering at home.

 He died in 1995 of complications from diabetes and congestive heart failure. I got a note and a card from his funeral from his widow, Evelyn.

 DISAPPOINTED HIM

 Although I thanked him for teaching me, I think I disappointed Mr. Carrier three times -- each time turning into the paralyzed little girl again, and embarrassed to show emotion.

 Once, I backed out of a reunion with him in Miami.

 Another time, in a letter, he asked me to call him Rocky. All his friends did, he wrote. I never did.

 When I saw him for the last time with my parents and Dorys at his Avon Park home, he wrapped up our visit by saying: ``I love you.''

 He looked small, thin and frail. I swallowed hard to keep from crying, but I was still paralyzed.

 ``Aw, we love you, too,'' I said, lightly.

 I don't know whether he ever fully understood what I owed him.

 Thanks, Rocky. I love you, too.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald