Blutarski shook his head. “I never liked police.” He reached into his pocket. “Storm troopers in my shop. Here.” He peeled off three 100-dollar bills. “A week’s pay through today, Ed. Don’t come back.”
“But—”
He held up his bifocals. “Listen, kid, it ain’t you.” He looked at the mess. “I depend on a certain routine, and this ain’t it. Take the money.”
Coltrane and Johnson were tightening the strings on their puppets. One little rampage, and they had canceled my work permit. Blutarski stood in front of me, reeking of body odor, with a look of defeat and defiance as he held my severance. I took the money.
“Can I help you with the mess at least?”
“Just go.”
It was the end of my career in the ink business.
I took a quick account: The money I got from Pelón that first night? Gone. The money I made on the job? Spent. In my pocket? Three bills. Financial prospects? Fucked.
I walked east down Hubbard, past some old faded murals. Cut over to Kinzie and headed downtown. Wind sliced through urban valleys and whipped flags in a way that would eventually shred them. I thought about everything that went down, and about nothing at all. I walked for hours, until the sun disappeared. I had nowhere else to go.
I leaned my elbows on a railing on a bridge over the Chicago River. Night had taken over. The surface of the water reflected the lit city as a phantasm and my throat tightened. I wondered how deep the water went. How cold it might be. I put my face in my hands and saw the past as if it were a private movie.
I saw my reflection as a child, looking in a mirror, trying to get a tie to come out right. I was nine, and had never worn one.
“Hey, Mom, can you get this for me?”
In Spanish she said, “I told you to pick the one that clips on.”
“But I like this one.”
“You’re just like your father.” She tried to figure out the tie, but couldn’t. “You’re gonna have to bother him.”
My father had brooded by himself in their room all morning. I stepped quietly and stood in the doorway. He sat on the edge of the bed and faced the wall with his back to me.
“Pop?”
He remained motionless.
“¿Papi?”
He turned his face toward me. The color was gone. All that remained was ash.
I held up my tie. “I don’t know how to do it.”
His eyes were almost blank. He swallowed. I walked over and stood in front of him.
He did not look at me. “Dame.”
He took the tie, hung it around his own neck, and tied it. Then he untied it and looked me in the eye for two seconds. “Mira,” he said. “Watch. Aprende.”
He tied the tie again slowly, step by step, but did not pay attention to the tie itself as his eyes remained in some other, lonely universe. He untied the tie.
“Trata.”
I tried to do it. He reached and guided my fingers until it came.
“Así está bien. You gotta practice.”
The three of us rode in a taxi for the first time. My father wore all black, which included a leather sport coat and black shades. My mother wore one of her most somber church dresses. I sat between them. We pulled up to the funeral parlor and walked in.
The lobby was crowded with gangbangers. In the mid-seventies Puerto Rican and Mexican gangs in Chicago were organized and visible. They didn’t just sport colors, they wore jackets and sweaters and vests with patches of their gangs’ insignia. There were sets all over the city in those days, with names like the Latin Kings, Insane Unknowns, Imperial Gangsters, Spanish Cobras, Latin Lovers, Maniac Latin Disciples, the Gents, and Villa Lobos. I won’t say which set my father’s brother belonged to, but they came to the wake forty or fifty deep, all of them in their gear.
My father walked in, and there was this hush of recognition that spread through the room. First one, then another, then another gangbanger, expressed his condolences. My father only nodded. My mother signed the guest book and found a friend in a corner. My father asked for his own mother, and somebody told him that she was inside.
He looked at me. “¿Quiere’ entrar?”
The truth is that I did not want to enter. I had never seen a dead body and I didn’t want to start. But it seemed to me in that moment that my father was asking me to accompany him. I took his hand and we walked in.
His mother sat in one corner, and at first we went straight to her. My father bent and kissed her. Her eyes were swollen. She kissed me, although I didn’t really know her. She lived in New York.
She looked at my father. In Spanish she said, “Go say good-bye to your brother.”
I squeezed my father’s hand as we made our way toward the coffin. Some gangbangers who hung around the body walked away. We stepped right up to the open casket.
My uncle looked fake. Not real. Like a very lifelike, sleeping mannequin of himself. His face was swollen, and the makeup was thick, and not his exact skin tone. He was a Vietnam veteran, a marine, and somebody had decided that he should be buried in his dress blues, medals and all. He lost his right arm when some kid next to him stepped on a land mine, a story that he once relived in my presence. The sleeve of his service uniform was folded and pinned to itself. I knew from my mother’s gossip that my father’s brother had returned from the war addicted to heroin, and also that he had fallen into gangbanging, she believed, to prove that he was still a man. His death had been spoken about in whispers, but I overheard that he hanged himself from a tree.
I began to cry.
My father rubbed my back. “Get on your knees and pray.”
I did, but my father did not join me. I opened my eyes and noticed the bruises on my uncle’s neck, which were poorly covered by the makeup. I looked up at my father. Tears streamed from under his sunglasses. I stood next to him and saw that he had his hand on his brother’s mutilated arm, the stump. My father rubbed the part where his brother’s elbow had once been. Massaged it. He began to sob and I began to cry again. I wanted to run, but I could not let go of my father’s leg.
When my father finally came down from the emotion, he spoke to his brother as if the ears still worked.
“You was a very good brother, Paco. You was beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for bein’ my brother.” My father continued to rub his brother’s mutilated arm. “I’m always gonna love you.”
My father looked at me finally. He removed his sunglasses and used a handkerchief to wipe his bloodshot eyes. “Eddie, I ever tole you that my brother coulda been a pro baseball player?”
I shook my head.
“We never talk about that no more. He was a pitcher at Tuley. He was the best. He throw that ball so hard and so fast, it make your eyes spin. One time he threw a no-hitter and it made the paper. I think the Cubs were looking at him.”
I looked at my uncle’s body in the box. He was a long way from the major leagues. My father bent, kissed his brother’s forehead, really lingered on it, then whispered something in his brother’s ear. My father stood, reached down, and removed his brother’s Purple Heart. He pinned it to the center of my tie.
“This belongs to you,” he said. “You a warrior too.” My father took one last look at his brother. His mouth contorted. “Let’s get outta here.”
I removed my face from my hands and tasted salty tears. A slight gust kissed the surface of the Chicago River, and the city’s reflection rippled. I reached for my wallet and found a quarter, which was buried deep inside. I flipped it, but did not make a wish. Instead, an ancient voice inside my head said this: Do not make dreams your master.
A heavy truck crossed the bridge, belched noxious fumes, and shook the bridge a little. I wondered what would happen if the bridge collapsed. Woe to the soul who finds out.
CHAPTER 26:
BACKSLIDE
The thugs were out there, as expected, on La Esquina Caliente. I went up to the kid who had shown Tony his shiner my first night back from prison, when Tony introduced me around. His black eye
pretty much healed since then.
“What up, shorty?”
The kid looked at me a little distrusting.
I said, “What’s your name again? JJ? Remember me? Tony introduced?”
“Oh yeah, yeah. What up, old school? Palo, right?”
“That’s right.”
The other kid, the skinny one, shook my hand. “What up, dawg?”
I pointed at him. “Moco?”
“Word.”
I said, “Moco, I need a quarter.”
“Weed?”
“Naw.”
“Cornuto?”
“Naw, junior. Sugarcane. You carry that?”
“Bet.”
JJ went over to what looked like a discarded beer can in the gutter. He looked around, picked it up, twisted off the top to reveal that it was actually a trick can, a container disguised as a beer can. JJ picked out a small bag of cocaine, brought it over, handed it to me.
I looked at the bag. “That’s it? That’s how much I get for twenty-five dollars?”
“That’s how we bag ’em, G.”
The thought Just drop it, run! passed through my mind. I had three 100-dollar bills in my pocket.
I said, “Let me get three more bags, then,” and right there went a third of all my cash.
JJ went back to the discarded beer can. I looked at the others who stood around and noticed the two girls who had been at Tony’s house the night I returned from prison. The dark-haired, olive-skinned one named Nena that Tony fucked in the bedroom, and the light-skinned, green-eyed one that had given me the hand job in the living room, Nieve. JJ and I finished our transaction. I walked up to Nieve.
I called her by her street name. “Sweetleaf, right, mami?”
She nodded.
“You still like to party?”
Nieve smiled. She looked at Nena, then back at me. “You just cop somethin’?”
I patted my jacket pocket. “A little blow.”
“I got weed.”
“Perfect.”
Nieve looked at her partner. “Can Nena come?”
I looked at Nena and calculated the chances of a threesome. But then I thought about sharing the coke.
“Why don’t we make this a party for two—you know I don’t bite.”
Nieve did not seem concerned. We left Nena on the corner and walked toward my place. Nieve told me she was seventeen. She asked how old I was.
“You don’t wanna know, girl. Remember when Carter was president?”
“Who?”
“Exactly.”
“Age ain’t nothing but a number, anyway,” she said, which only proved how young she really was.
We walked past a bodega.
“Should we grab some forties?” she said.
“I spent my cash on the coke.”
“I got a fin.”
“Hurry up,” I said, desperate already to get back to my room and put down a bag.
Nieve walked out with the 40s. We got to my place and hustled up the stairs. We threw our jackets on the bed. Nieve was dressed in tight white jeans and a hooded sweatshirt that didn’t take anything away from her taut, young body. She cracked open her 40 and checked the view.
I emptied a bag onto a plate, cut it into two little lines, pushed one nostril closed, and sucked. It was so instant, it had to be psychological. I mean I just sat back for like half a minute, and I was like soooo happy. Ecstatic. I felt like it was a good thing that Xochitl and I broke up. Real good. And the job? Fuck the job. Hell, in that minute the coke popped like Independence Day. It gave me a thousand little hugs and I didn’t even understand why I had been so upset earlier. Shit, now I could play the field.
I looked Nieve up and down.
Yeah, I thought. Now I can fuck all types of females. Who needs just one? Fuck being tied down. It was time to fly. Time to taste everything. To make life an adventure. And Florida! Fucking Florida. That was just like this big, wet, juicy papaya, waiting for me to put my tongue on it. How did Chiva put it? “So much delicious poosy, you pinga gonna send me a thank-you note?” Hell yeah.
I could make money doing whatever. Real money.
I floated on that first powerful rush. I said, “Nieve,” and pointed at the plate. “Get busy, already.”
Nieve did a line.
I patted her firm ass. “Good girl.”
“Wanna smoke a blunt?” she said.
“Is the pope Catholic?”
She’d bought a cigar along with the 40s. I watched her cut it open and fill it with weed. I shoved a towel under the door. We smoked. Nieve giggled. I put on some Eddie Palmieri. Nieve didn’t know who he was.
“You ain’t got no reggaeton?”
“Hell no.”
“Hip-hop?”
“Nope.”
“Merengue, at least? Bachata?”
“Only salsa up in here.”
“Can I put the radio on?”
“Just listen to this.” I turned it up.
Nieve made a face.
I said, “We’ll do another line, you’ll get over it.”
We emptied another bag. Palmieri broke into “V.P. Blues” and it sounded really good. Even Nieve said so.
I said, “You know how to dance salsa?”
We danced in my room. It felt stupid, since she had no clue how to move to it and I did not know how to lead the uninitiated. The carpet didn’t really let us slide. And that is not a song that lends itself to dance as well as others. My limbs felt heavy from the coke. We tripped into each other and Nieve laughed, even though it wasn’t funny. Every two minutes she paused to grab the 40 off the table and pour malt liquor down her throat.
At one point she put the bottle down, but instead of dancing again, I said, “Come ’ere, girl,” and grabbed her by the back of the neck and kissed her hard.
The kiss was sloppy and wet, but Nieve did not pull away. I pressed up against her and tongued her like it was passion, though it wasn’t that at all. My heart beat too fast, and I told myself it was just the coke. I wasn’t used to it. I squeezed Nieve’s little tits over her sweatshirt, stroked her firm thigh, and tongued her like I wanted her to take me seriously.
At one point she pulled away and laughed. “Damn. I thought you was shy.”
We made out some more. The natural thing would have been to proceed to the bed, but I didn’t want her there. I wanted her on her feet, and as we kissed, I led Nieve toward the wall—toward the door, actually—and when we got there, I pressed her to the door and kissed her hard. She didn’t resist.
Nieve tasted like spit, actually—that was one thing I didn’t like. Like when you drool in your sleep and you wake up and your own spit has gotten all over and it’s gone kind of stale. Whatever. I didn’t give a fuck.
I reached down to undo the button on Nieve’s white jeans and unzip them and pull them down over her white hips. I wanted to pull her panties down, too, just to the middle of her thighs, and expose her bush. I wanted to smell her, to find out whether she smelled different from Xochitl. I wanted to part her and stick my finger in abruptly, and stir up the juices until they filled the room with that strange, sour aroma.
Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror with my hand on Nieve’s zipper. I saw the lines in my face. The bags. The mileage in my eyes. And Nieve, with her eyes closed, and her head tilted back—not in ecstasy, but in something else. I thought about the crookedness of Xochitl’s mouth, her pain when she talked about the abortion, and I backed off.
Nieve opened her eyes. “Are you all right?”
I went to the table to line up another bag. Nieve stood with her back against the door.
I snorted a line. “Shit!” I looked at her. “You shouldn’t follow strange men to their rooms, Nieve.”
Nieve did not seem to know what to make of that. “Are you OK? You want me to suck it?”
“No.”
Nieve paused. “You got a bathroom?”
I did not look in her eye as I tossed her a roll of toilet paper. �
�In the hall.”
I snorted the next line by myself. It burned my membranes and dripped down the back of my throat. My heart made like it wanted to bust a hole through my chest. Nieve came back and sat on the bed.
I sat at the table, and tried mentally to bring my heart rate down. I was breathing erratic.
Nieve said, “You got any more sugar?”
I had one bag left. “No,” I said. “I’m out.”
She said, “I’m gonna spark the rest of that blunt, then.”
“Do what you want.”
She stood by the window and smoked. I looked at her. She really was very pretty.
“Nieve, you see downtown?”
She nodded and held in smoke. I looked her over as she stared out the window.
“You ever been to the Art Institute?”
She shook her head. “What they got in there?”
I laughed to myself. After a while I stood and went to my dresser and found the box with the earrings. I handed it to Nieve.
“What’s this?”
“For you, Nieve. But don’t open it here. Take it home.”
Nieve made a face that showed that she honestly did not get it. “Today ain’t even my birthday.”
My head raced from the coke, but I said, “Maybe it is your special day, and you just didn’t know it.”
Nieve looked at me, stuck out her tongue, and crossed her eyes. “You’re a little freaky.”
“You should go now.”
Nieve nodded, but finished her blunt. Without being asked, she wrote her name and cell number on a napkin and left it on the table. She gave me one final kiss, and it still tasted like stale saliva, despite all her smoking.
Once Nieve was gone, I put the last bag of coke in the top drawer. I looked at the napkin. Nieve signed her name in big, round, childish letters. She dotted the i with a little heart. I tossed the napkin in the garbage and went by the window.
The skyscrapers in the distance had not changed their positions, yet somehow they seemed diminished. The coke was in the top drawer. I thought about washing up.
CHAPTER 27:
CONFUSION’S MASTERPIECE
I had a helluva time trying to fall asleep that night. The coke wound through me and I wrestled with the sheet on my bed until it was balled and pinned in the corner. My naked body scraped the rough fabric of the piss-stained mattress. I thought to go for a walk, but then a slight, coke-induced paranoia made me afraid of what I might find out there. So I just did circles on the mattress, with the lights and the radio off.
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