She took out her cell phone as she hurried back up Broadway to the N train. She thought of just calling him, of telling him what she thought of his little trick. She thought about it long and hard as she walked those long and hard blocks.
When she got to the train station, she decided she would not call him. Not from Queens. The block being activated like that would already tell him she had been there. She had to be somewhere else, stepping off the N train at Queensboro Plaza. Crossing the platform to catch a Manhattan-bound 7 train. Alan could be scanning Astoria streets just as she disappeared into the belly of five million people
to Grand Central. Windows cathedral size and filled with sun. Stopping to check the big board with its flickering letters that sound like mosquito wings. Arrivals, departures. To wander the platforms of Metro-North. The smell of carbon and train exhaust. A strange, thick heat. Crumpled copies of the new York Times. Peeking into slumbering trains that stood empty, open-mouthed. The 9:40 to New Haven, Connecticut. Some place far north, almost hinting at a flight back to Boston
(there could be five million people coursing through the New York City subway system every day. At least)
while she walked through the empty train. It let out small breaths, like someone napping on a couch. Soon a dinging of bells, voices on the PA.
An engine sound. She picked a seat in a car she hoped would remain empty all the way home.
She pulled the cell phone out. Held it like Kryptonite. There was no air. It felt like the inside of a closet. She had the strange longing for a vodka, coffee, and a cigarette. That small kitchen. Him breathing out smoke.
“Changó, Changó.”
She turned the phone on.
“Mink Presario Ravel Melendez.”
The voice came through the small speaker by the phone. By the phone where the desk was. By the desk where the picture windows were. Boxes crates blank canvases paint supplies bursting from ripped cartons. A wooden floor. A pair of easels under a big chunk of skylight. (To work two at a time, that was the thing.) In moments of UNfocus, the picture windows were the go. To see street through them was to float above it. Head to toe it was Prospect Avenue and a view of the South Bronx pouring in was as captivating as any R. Crumb street scene any time any dare. It was a pure inspiration hit.
The skylight. Not dingy dirty frosted glass seen at the top of some stairwells. This was beautiful sunlit glass full of sky and old rain that collected along the edges. The deep green of thin vines hanging down, green lush dangling from skylight so nature one would expect birds, the flapping of wings. Instead, the squishy sound of wet brush. Into glob of paint on palette, that mixing board—he was a fucking deejay at his mixing board blending this tone into that. No instant color splash this time, but hours of pencil and charcoal to lead to this, having her first materialize in blackand-white. It was a big stretch, from sketchbook to canvas size, and he stretched them canvas big, about 200cm x 140cm. When the color attack came, it found him squeezing tubes searching through boxes looking for that weird metallic sunlight. Chrome glint, but no silver. A color he would have to invent. To yellow some ochre. To materialize the face the body the curve the lower back almost like that ’50s pinup. Pulled out that big book on Vargas. Her feet dangling from the edge of that sandy island. (Get it? The island’s floating OVER the ocean.)
“Mink Presario Ravel Melendez?”
His agent was Bruce Hornsby, a London art critic who came to embrace all things mutliculti. Long after the term grew cold in the United States, the Brits took it up. Mink was doing well in London, but when faddy terminology hits the skids, it generally takes everyone associated with it along for the downride. Bruce had a good feel for Mink’s work, but lately whenever he called with a gig it was about some fucking rootical tribal slave Yoruba Aztec jungle ghetto CROSSING BORDERS show, and Mink didn’t want that. To him it was just cheap shoddy instant packaging by people who didn’t know there was more to being Puerto Rican than that. Mink wanted different packaging. Bruce knew the song pretty well, and didn’t call much. Besides, there was nothing new to sell because Mink hadn’t been painting. It was pretty much understood that whatever Mink did now would probably not fit a faddy preconceived cultural market. It was a bit of a curse and a bit of a thrill, for both of them.
“It’s Bruce, Mink.”
“Yeah, I know. How’s it hanging and all that?” (Mink mixing paints, lovingly slow stroking.)
“Good. You know I don’t normally make it a habit to call this early. I’m surprised you’re up. I just sent you something by special courier. It’s something from the Romero brothers. I know they contacted you recently. Do you know much about them?”
Mink dabbed red. The swirl of color upset him.
“Yeah. Entrepeneur spicks. Young. Music scene. Parties. Building some kind of skating rink.”
“It’s not just another skating rink. It’s a whole new scene. They’re talking about turning the South Bronx into the next new hot spot for the well-to-do clubbing crowd.”
Mink laughed. “We only spoke by phone. I thought they were inviting me to some opening. A big honor, they kept saying. I couldn’t tell who was who, they kept talking at the same time. A big honor. I just laugh because, you know, this rink they want to build isn’t far from my house. In some big old factory building down by the Bruckner Expressway.”
“Mink.” Bruce sounded prissy. “It’s not just a skating rink. You’re thinking Rockefeller Center. This is not that type … Are you listening?”
The different layers of red were parting, opening up. Hinting at space, depth. He dabbed in more swirls. Rose petals. Mixing it darker. A deeper hole, an emptier room.
“They’re taking a big empty space and converting it into a multilevel, Euro-style dance palace. The first floor is going to be a roller rink. Not a frigging skating rink, a roller rink! Do you know the bloody difference? Jazzy birds in spandex shorts and inline skates will spin about while techno music pounds. A bar, a lounge. Video screens.”
“I can’t wait to see Madonna on skates,” Mink said. Magenta, rippling the edges turbulent.
“The real dance floor is on the second floor. More lights, video screens, two big deejay booths. There’s a frigging hole smack dab in the middle surrounded by a kind of mezzanine. You can be up there reclining on a rail, sipping your drink, while looking down on these gorgeous birds skating about below. The third floor has a lounge, a fucking executive VIP lounge with access to a rooftop Jacuzzi, sauna, and penthouse accommodations for those who stay late and don’t want to brave the trip back to civilization!”
“Can you imagine the view from the roof?” Mink said, squeezing out another paint tube. “Who would come all the way up here for a view of the Bruckner Expressway overpass?”
Bruce sighed.
“Evidently, the Romero brothers found a lot of people who would. They’re not like you or I, Mink. They’re hip.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re famous for running some of the best parties and raves around. People hire them to throw successful parties. Record companies, film studios, J. Lo. They know how popular the South Bronx has become in the cultural life of the bohemian underground, the white subculture. Just imagine London, a place where hip young people think of the South Bronx as the birthplace of hip-hop, graffiti art, fashion. KRS-One. Record scratching pioneers like Kool Herc, Disco-B, Grand Wizard Theodore. Didn’t you see that piece last month in Mojo? It’s not so unlikely that the bored rich famous might mount their trusty limos and head north, away from the crowded island run by a fascist dwarf who’s been shutting down clubs, threatening museums, arresting people for carrying a beer can across the road! The QUALITY-OF-LIFE GESTAPO has been raiding every club that hasn’t gone underground. Fuck, it’s ALL underground! Didn’t you see Groove, for chrissake?”
“I just don’t see why you should be so excited about it,” Mink said. A stroke of flesh color ripped across the canvas like a wound.
“Mink, they want you to cover the
place from top to bottom with your art. Walls, ceilings, furniture. Your work would be intricately bound with the concept of the entire place. You’re the whole presentation. It could be the commission of your life.”
The words seeped through all beach all sand all surf. A door opened. He felt the breeze.
“You’ve been bitching so much about ending up on another LATINO-OF-THE-MONTH show. Well, here’s one gig that doesn’t fall into that mold. They’ve sent me the CD-Rom and now I’ve sent it to you. Give it a good look. Of course, they haven’t really mentioned money, but I can’t imagine on such a huge project as this, that they—”
Mink slammed his thick brush into the water can.
“Mink? Are you still there?”
Clatter clatter can cranking slam pounding that brush then tap tap tapping to drain it wetless.
“Mink! Caw, that sound … Christ, Mink. Are you painting?”
Rise and fall breath. Brush tap tap tap. She was NO blocks and cubes. That was funny. He laughed. Bruce laughed. They were both sharing it. Almost old times.
“I’ll check out the CD-Rom,” Mink said.
Those old Vargas books, those pinup poses splashed on bellies of B-17s. Her face, that face, there was a picture in his mind and the more he thought about it, the crazier the vibe felt. When he was sure he knew what he was looking for, he hit the speed dial on his phone.
“Monk is home or Monk is not home,” the answering machine said in Monk’s voice to a background of cascading crunchy power chords from a band called Feeder. “Monk might not be here or Monk is listening to your message right now so make it brief and interesting.”
(beep)
“Monk. It’s me, Mink. Hey, listen, do you remember that picture book about Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler we were thumbing through last week? I forgot what it was that took us there but I really want to look at some of those pictures again.”
There was a click. Monk disengaged the machine with a peal of feedback.
“The book was Eva and Adolf by Glenn B. Infield,” Monk said. “What took us there was you seeing a documentary about Eva Braun’s home movies on THE HISTORY CHANNEL. I got it right here.”
There was a feel of relief, a feel that things were now swinging into a regular rhythm. Uninterrupted unstoppable as always, whether painting whether not, whether writing whether not—there was Mink. There was Monk.
“You think you could bring it over, man? I mean, if you’re not too busy …”
“Yeah, sure.” No hesitation no pause no sense of discomfort, just the usual fusion with something new. “I picked up my copy of EL DIARIO. There’s something in here I gotta show you.”
“Come on down, bro.”
The sense that things don’t change. That buildings that streets may come and go, change colors change shape, but that things still stay the same. To Alex the problem wasn’t the South Bronx, or the people. It was inside him somewhere and it made it impossible for him to be happy there. He felt stuck there. The air was gone. The clouds hung like gray drapes. He was thinking that a life is made up of events that happen, forming a chain that creates a narrative. It adds up to something, it becomes the story of a life. A direction is visible. Alex would have given anything to feel he was on a path, that his life was a sum of events leading to now. He remembered one night, sitting in Mink’s apartment with Monk, talking out this blackout problem. Vodka flowing freely, plus Mink made killer cocktails that started subtle and turned deadly.
“Sometimes I think Puerto Rican history is one big blackout,” Monk had said. “Some people have collective memory loss, a whole tribe. Other people train themselves, like the Americans are learning to do. It’s picked up. A learned behavior. B.F. Skinner. Electromagnetic physics. The luminiferous ether.”
“I think the problem is the narrative,” Mink had said, getting a squint-eye from Monk. “The fucking narrative. The day-to-day. The sense of beginning and end that memory gives us. The trap of having to tell a story in its proper sequence. It’s because of memory, Alex. You don’t know how lucky you are to black shit out! I met her on a Sunday, I fucked her on Monday, on Tuesday she left me. But what if between every moment, there was a blank? A dark spot, a smudge on the tape? Something that obscured the narrator’s voice?”
“A blackout,” Alex said.
“Exactly.” Mink snapped his fingers. Tore a scrap of newspaper from some nearby place. A chunk of charcoal. His hand worked fast. A slash, a few taps, some scribbles. “I would diagram it as
so that memories are a series of events that progress on a line, theoretically from A to B to C. The narrative moves the events along, gives them perspective and clarity. It’s what we call the passage of time. But say we interrupt that narrative? If we cut into that line with a series of blackouts, events lose their connection. They become random, disconnected moments with no perspective, no predetermined flow.”
Alex was thinking a lot right now about these disconnected events in his life that meant nothing. He did not want to accept that this Ava Reynolds episode was just another meaningless nothing event that led nowhere. He just couldn’t get it out of his mind.
Robert trooped in late, more in the mood for a slow cigar and a long talk about the weekend’s excesses, than work. Diana from the perfume counter came over and asked why he hadn’t called her. Taína brought him a homemade pudín. He didn’t really know her but she sat for twenty minutes, chattering away about how committed she was to the battle for Vieques before asking him what he was doing for dinner. There was that young girl checking out the flats who looked like Penelope Cruz and wouldn’t leave. There were three women who made a habit of visiting him in the mornings, and this morning they all came at once. It had never happened before, and was vaguely stressful. Alex avoided it. Robert could be a real barnacle. He got rid of the guy by telling him Penelope Cruz was asking for him, then stepped outside for another cigarette break.
The clock moved slow. The streets teemed with life, a buzz of expectation. When his cell phone went off, he flipped it open, checked the screen, clicked the line.
“Monk,” he said, almost breathless.
There was a sound, a clatter bang.
“Alex. Go to the newsstand and pick up a copy of EL DIARIO.”
Alex didn’t think to question. He crossed the street and cars honked. There, by the subway station entrance, was a newsstand. He plunked down some moolah and picked up the newspaper. Pinning his phone between cheek and shoulder, he walked like a hunchback.
“Got it,” he said.
“Turn to page five,” Monk said.
Alex flipped pages, almost dropping the phone. He tightened his grip, he arranged the page, he stared at the photograph in the story about a murder in the Bronx Saturday night.
“Shit,” Alex said, feeling a deep chill.
“Okay, you got to tell me. Is it her?”
The picture showed her with that guy from the ID. The two of them snuggled together, smiling. He had his arm around her.
“Alex! Is it her?”
“Yes, it’s her.”
Just like that, the line went click.
22.
When I left Myers last night, it wasn’t even raining. There was no air. The empty dark quiet was a shock. There was hardly a transition between night and day, almost blackout almost mirage almost a dream full of answers to be deciphered. I don’t remember sleeping. It all flowed from wake to dream to wake, seamless like a montage. Milagros gave me a special bath of herbs that Santeros call a despojo. There was a lot for us to talk about. We were booked to fly to Mallorca in a week. Lieutenant Jack was not so happy I was heading off on vacation soon. Maybe he thought I would cancel the trip, like I would’ve in the old days when it was all pasion and fire. His round crinkled face was bursting with energy and it wasn’t just the coffee or the cigarettes we smoked outside the window. It was his still-throbbing cop heart and the belief he had that he could solve the murders of David and Spook with that cop head of his, that cop heart. I couldn’t
tell him cop answers wouldn’t work. I couldn’t tell him about the answering machine tape, about a trail and where it led me. I knew if I told him, he would try to talk sense into me, talk me down from the ledge, talk me out of it. I just couldn’t go there with him.
“Hey,” he said, “what the hell is the matter with you? I’ve been blathering over here for about an hour already. It’s like you’re in a fuckin coma …”
“It’s just this Myers shit.”
“So what? What’s that got to do with us?”
I sucked in that smoke. I closed my eyes. Cigarettes help the stall. A sick feeling came over me in waves.
“Jack, they’re not going to let US find who did it,” I said, knowing at once how crazy that sounded.
Jack ditched his cigarette. “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
There was an empty space. Between US, just words and time, which increased the distance minute by minute. I might as well have already been on that plane, crossing the Atlantic.
“I can’t,” I said. I could hardly look at him.
“You know I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
“I’m banking on it.”
He pulled three loose cigarettes from a pocket and handed them to me before he went back through the window and left me standing out there, fielding that call from Myers. The man always had timing.
“Yeah?”
“Sanchez. I’ve got her.”
“What?”
“I’ve got a bead on her. We picked up her cell phone. She’s on a fucking train!”
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