A Nation of Amor

by Christopher McConnell

  A professor at his dais will administer the vaccine to me alone, for alone is the vaccine, and for their part, together they will try to discover the causes of disease. Together, which is the disease.

  In the past, Flaco and Mano missed the first six weeks of third grade because my mother didn’t emphasize immunization and the school prevented us from spreading polio, measles, and other communicable diseases, which was the least of their worries.

  This afternoon, Uncle Bobo will pass through the neon corridor at the airport to greet my mother who has suddenly taken a greater interest in her family, who has returned to study whether those factors which affect the incidence of certain disease in the Matos population have been passed on from her husband to her son to her granddaughter. Until more recently, it was easier for her, because Poppy was considered an isolated factor, the rest of us only scar tissue.

  My mother will profess that she is trying to encourage good health practices. With time and public support from her brothers-in-law, she will delude herself with a maternal wisdom which maintains that simply cradling the most recent symptom will ensure a healthier population. This concept will dominate the field of Westtown.

  Flaco had heredity and environment, Flaco was together, Flaco was along with the general public, too. Flaco was the cause of disease. Flaco was. And me, Freddy Matos, alone in my room at St. Francis University to concentrate on becoming successful.

  Now, twenty-seven minutes for twenty-seven questions, back straight, diaphragm expanded, feet flat on the floor, breathe, think, concentrate. Twenty correct answers and I’ll score high enough not only to pass, but to be reborn as a scholarship student. No longer a peer, a King, or a Flaco …

  1.

  Sentence 1: One of the lifelong memories many of us share are the moment we obtained a driver’s license.

  What correction should be made to this sentence?

  (1) change the spelling of memories to memorys

  (2) insert a comma after memories

  (3) change are to is

  (4) change driver’s to drivers

  (5) no correction is necessary

  REYNALDO MATOS

  June 17, on Division Street

  Jessica moors her burgundy, 1977 Coupe De Ville hardtop to an unclaimed chunk of Division Street. She idles in crushed velour splendor while I stealthily make for the school doors. Say … If I were a B-movie director, I’d swear that in this simple scenario all the stock connotations demanded of an armed daylight heist have been met. Sadly, we attract no undue attention.

  Hold it. What the fuck? Impeded and confused, I reassess what seconds beforehand I considered moot; my door, check, my school, check, Division Street, check. But the door handles are bound by a length of chain that looks as if it’s on loan from Marley’s ghost. The volume of lock is ludicrously grand, and it is turned, no doubt, by a bulky skeleton key billeted with scores of indistinctive mates on a ring in the possession of some lifer on the city payroll.

  That fucking Bobo! After a few double takes, I find that every uninhabited storefront along Division Street has been similarly remanded.

  Before I can make it back to Jessica’s Guinea-mobile she lowers the passenger side window via the chrome button on her central command panel.

  “Espera,” I tell her, “I gotta see Bobo.”

  As if I expected her to follow a simple instruction? I trudge down Division Street, but Jessica shadows my progress at 3 mph, like she’s some rebuffed conventioneer pleading with Candy Striper, Division Street’s star of the world’s oldest profession.

  Fratricide, the only clear and infinitely justifiable option. Administered with extreme prejudice. Did the kids see this? None of them mentioned anything this morning before they went in for the test. Dios! My school is shut down on the day my first crop of uneven sheaves hits the marketplace. No longer suffering from the recurrent paranoia of a healthy drug habit, I can only assume that my existence is being scripted by a ham-fisted Almighty with a laden shaker of poetic justice.

  Bobo could’ve warned me! Right there, for all the world to see! The futility of education reaffirmed for every unemployed rubberneck and functionally illiterate punk passing by. Bobo’s party stunt, yank a cloth from the table Reynaldito spent nine months setting.

  The talk has been talked, I was the only one who didn’t realize the walk would never be walked. Another gangster for the sake of the gangster; noun, a process of achieving ends by threatening the imminent use of force. Ends; $250,000 extorted in the name of a brown community. Extortion; write me a check Mr. Mayor and I won’t declare you a racist. Racist; hatred or intolerance …? Intolerance; incapacity to bear or endure … Endure what? Endure who? Those eighteen kids finishing their GED Tests right now. Kids who want to be high school graduates rather than gangsters.

  Bobo paid me to tolerate and endure them. I was head matron of the asylum, paid to keep the inmates from sight. And nobody ever really cared if any of them passed the GED Test, it was all just another politically correct entry on a City budget …

  Pink! His fucking offices are redecorated in pink! Book-end flunkies guard the counter in front of his office door, protecting the popularly elected official from his electoral populous. I slam my briefcase on the counter, some maricón curls his lip in my general direction.

  “Get Bobo!” I yell.

  “Sorry Rey. Simply impossible. The alderman—”

  “Get the motherfucker!”

  “If you come back at—”

  I reach across the counter, grab a handful of wires and yank the life support system out of his computer terminal. One of the monitors crashes to the floor. I see Bobo beyond the glass wall of his office, the outline of his fat body taunting me through the blinds.

  “Bobo! Get the fuck out here!”

  With a pace unexpected from a man of girth, Bobo hurries from the office, quickly closing the door before I can detect the moneychanger inside. Bobo prudently retains the counter as a safety measure.

  “Rey! I’m in a meeting dammit. We’ll have breakfast, how about Thursday?”

  When did the gap-toothed motherfucker get braces? At 32 years of age does he sincerely believe strips of tightened wire can possibly turn the tide of a lifetime of such manifest homeliness? I yank him toward me by his paisley imitation silk necktie, the enormity of his belly bows the particle-board counter.

  “OK,” he reconsiders, “if we can’t be civilized, let’s take it outside bro’.”

  Bobo, inappropriately confident, edges from behind the counter, eyes intent on my clenched fists. Once assured I’m not about to bloody his wall-to-wall nylon pile he deploys an element of swagger to his step. The limited dregs of my self-control are nearly exhausted as I refrain from propelling him through the plate glass of his “Alderman Matos of the Fighting 42nd Ward” front window.

  Suddenly intuitive of an attack to his rear flank, Bobo scoots through the door like a child maintaining an arm’s length lead ahead of the spanking hand. Reaching the assumed sanctuary of his BMW, Bobo leans thankfully against the only readily available support he can find on Division Street.

  My la segunda purchased, circa 1967, Samsonite attaché is heavy in my right hand. When empty a welterweight. But beefed up from nine months of high protein homework, it has aspired to light heavyweight. I chuck it at Bobo, the case arcing at a speed even he’s agile enough to avoid. It lands with a satisfying thud on the BMW passenger door, leaving a gash worth a good $200 of body work. His arms rise, palms open, Bobo rope-a-dopes for expected blows, his porky eyes clamped shut.

  “Only a greasy fuck like you wouldn’t wait one more day,” I sputter.

  “Cool out Rey!”

  “Dígame Bobo!”

  I dance a two-step, as if waiting for a urinal, a last-ditch attempt to expunge the energy goading me to penetrate the five feet of space separating us. I plunge my hands into my pockets to keep from smashing his face.

  “We’re going to Washington, bro’,” he answers.

&nbs
p; Jesus Christ … He did it. How? How could Bobo be the one to go so far? I guess it’s not a matter of whether one kisses ass, but how choosy one is in terms of the asses we kiss. Although wired by a couple of fat lines of righteous indignancy, nothing remotely resembling rage registers. Maybe … envy? My shoulders sink back from crowding my neck, I focus beyond him, westward my son, past the park, down Division Street. I pause, reflect, allow my diaphragm to decelerate from hyperventilation to intermittent gasps, while pondering the escaping ribbon of Division Street past the foreground of Bobo’s wide-screen face.

  “Washington, the capital, Congress …” I mutter.

  “Rey. Nothing can stop us now. You should see the new boundaries for the congressional district, it’s shaped like a goddamn six-legged horse. Quid pro quo …”

  Bobo recoups for a moment, a safety check list in his subconscious warns him to sidestep the land mine of Reynaldito’s idealism over which his chunky heel is currently suspended.

  “… but it’s not a compromise, it’s the future Rey. We can build a coalition and shape a new community. Nobody can stop what’s going to happen here.”

  “How much Bobo?”

  “They had to redefine the ward anyway.”

  “How much Bobo?”

  “We need investment. We need jobs!”

  “The price Bobo?”

  “Up to here.”

  He points downward to his tasseled loafer.

  “Western Boulevard,” he continues, “I’ve drawn them a line in the sand. The new developments stop here. That’s less than one-third of the ward. We’re still the majority.”

  An image of Congressman Matos, napping through U.S. House of Representatives motions, stirs my resolve.

  “You sold one of your babies Bobo.”

  “What?”

  “Remember Tío Miguel? That crazy conga player from New York? Stayed with us one summer when we were kids?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Bobo reaches into his breast pocket and produces a Havana, immediately conjuring an image not of Fidel Castro, but of a Hispanic version of the Kingfish.

  “When we were naughty,” I continue, “Tío Miguel used to threaten us by saying we were worth $50. Because the first Puerto Ricans in New York used to farm out their children as guinea pigs for medical testing at Bellevue. What else do you hock when there ain’t any family silver? This is our community Bobo—”

  “No it’s not,” he answers. “We don’t own it. We don’t own anything here Rey. We’re transients. Who do you think owns your school? Huh? Nobody had to negotiate any kind of deal with us. I represent the interests of this community Rey. All we can play on is guilt. You just be goddamn thankful that the folks moving in here only call us spies behind closed doors.”

  “The thin edge of the wedge Bobo. You’re gonna go down as Marco the Puerto Rican Garvey. By the time they’re finished, we’ll be living in a nice patch of reservation on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River.”

  To my back is the next Lincoln Park, before me, a golden sun on the horizon blazes over the new eastern front of the Puerto Rican community.

  “This is just typical of you Rey,” he whines. “What would you prefer? I sit here like one of those wooden cocolo leaders on the south side? Huh? Be an alderman for the next twenty years, and every year watch my ward sink further and further into poverty because I refuse to attract opportunity, business, jobs to the ward. Because I’m too scared that all those things will bring in people that might be too wealthy or white to vote for me? We’re playing the game now. From Washington we can—”

  “—llava platos.”

  “What?”

  “The children you haven’t sold will wash dishes in the new age cafes they open up on Division Street.”

  Bobo shakes his head back and forth, I get a premonition that he will chime, “there you go again.” But he reconsiders, clenches the cigar between his teeth, and fishes for a lighter.

  “Light that cigar and you’ll die choking on it,” I threaten.

  He deposits the stogy in his breast pocket, sodden side up.

  “We tried confrontation. We tried isolation. What happened? Angel’s dead, and you … You’re becoming a bitter young man Rey. Clear your head. It’s not the 1960s anymore. We need them a helluva lot more than they need us.”

  At Bobo’s back, Jessica is double-parked, jamming westbound traffic on Division Street all the way back to Goose Island.

  “White guilt,” he opines, “I think it’s gonna be big. I’ll defy all those bleeding heart liberals moving in to not vote for me! It’s fucking brilliant, and you know it. That’s the future. I will be the first Puerto Rican congressman elected from Chicago. Nobody, especially you, can convince me that I’m not contributing to our people.”

  “And the school Bobo?”

  “Oye! Fuck the school! In Washington—”

  “So who’s minding the store while you’re away?”

  But I stop. Because it’s all so fucking clear that I’m surprised Bobo doesn’t bust out laughing at me for being so stone stupid, again. Here she comes, mother earth steps through the office doors and deigns to lay a glass slipper upon the pavement of Division Street. Fucking Lourdes Matos, wearing some lime green expression of what on la isla they assume passes for yanquí corporate wear. She’s wearing sunglasses, had them on before she stepped outside, she’ll probably wear them for the campaign posters … No, we can do better than that. A black arm band, sure, and then photo op’s, some with Mano at Stateville, some with Flaco at St. Francis. And if I had pencil and paper to hand I could calculate to the minute just how long through her first term a Westtown equivalent of the Stumpy McKeskie story will break. But that won’t slow Lourdes down, no boss, because she will rise again, and then Bobo better be lookin’ over his shoulder, the trump card of electoral guilt for a scorned brown widow is greater than what a fat political hack like Bobo could ever muster.

  Why don’t I ever learn? After all these years, the most logical, pragmatic, moral, and decent ideas; for instance, say, operating a community-based school where kids can get a decent education and assume a bit of autonomy over their lives. That idea gets scuppered, sidetracked, overlooked, and underfunded, all because of one clandestine conversation, long-distance, person-to-person, Westtown to San Juan, charge that to the City of Chicago if you please, operator.

  Fucking democracy. They can have it.

  “Bobo,” I ask, “what about me?”

  “If you’d listen Rey! We, you and me, are going to Washington. Rey, bro’, I’ll always have a place for you. When you’ve finished as campaign manager for Lourdes—”

  I shred my knuckles on his mouth, his braces causing more damage to both of us than my feeble roundhouse. Bobo hits the deck while I retrieve my briefcase from the pavement and proceed to smash it through the windshield of his car. My brother groans, spitting blood to the pavement he bartered for a gerrymandered congressional district, for his rainbow coalition of marketing managers and public aid families. A small crowd forms, bores, makes its way down Division Street. Voting with their feet, nobody stops anymore for just another bloody Matos. The Matos family, we’ve turned into an anachronism, we can’t even count on our own people to elect us, we’ve become a traveling side-show for Anglo audiences, Bobo riding the rails to Washington in a circus caravan …

  I wipe the blood from my hand onto Bobo’s suit and walk to Jessica’s car. Don’t let the door smack you in the ass on your way out.

  SARA FIGUEROA

  June 17, moving day

  I stop to think. Where’s the kid? Where’s my little Teresa? I’ve forgotten about my baby. Am I out of practice? I guess motherhood ain’t exactly like riding a bike.

  So I listen. There it is, the sound of Teresa’s shoes clomping down the stairs. A clumsy, reassuring kid sound. The kind of sound that usually gets capped by a burst of tears.

  From the window seat I can see her spill into Tom’s front yard. She’s safe inside the iron fence. Fo
r a minute it all almost seems domestic. My Teresa smiling into the summer sunshine, her fingers around the iron bars like a sawed-off jailbird. Everything’s hunky-dory. A regular commercial. I should be ironing. Whistling a happy tune. Something like that.

  But mommy’s packing her bags. It ain’t daddy’s house. It’s Tom’s. And it’s been on this window seat that I’ve spent every morning for the last six months wondering whether my own kid was eating Cocoa Pebbles or Trix for breakfast. From now on, Trix are only for kids.

  My new, used car is parked at the curb. No Miss America, but it runs. Anything I can call mine is in Hefty bags on the back seat. Except for the stuff I’ve forgotten. Whatever I’ve forgotten. Because if I can try to move apartments in one afternoon with a child in tow and forget to bring a coloring book or a bag of candy, I’ve forgotten plenty. Ditto, for assuming that a one-hour job won’t take all afternoon when I’ve got Teresa as my little helper.

  Tom will have the locks changed before he cracks his second beer. No doubt. But I’ll leave the key anyway. That is, if I can get the damn thing off this chain. Myra Santiago gave me this key chain in the sixth grade. A coquí. Every door I’ve unlocked has been with a souvenir frog from PR smiling at me. I could leave the coquí, but Tom wouldn’t get the joke. Not cerebral enough. Then again, it wouldn’t make much difference if I keep his key. No. Don’t give him a reason to come and get it back. I won’t be that hard to find.

  Teresa quits the front gate. She wavers around the yard like a human divining rod in search of trouble. Then, inspired, she takes off down the gangway towards the back yard. Sure. I’ve got nothing better to do than chase up and down this apartment screaming at her from second floor windows.