“You don’t wanna get that newsprint ink all over your hands. You’ll look like a bum. Let me see your cravat now, Captain.”
Ted reached over and fiddled with Marty’s tie the same way Marty would have knotted Ted’s tie so many Thanksgivings ago. It seemed each action tonight was fraught with symbolism and import. It made Ted feel like he was inhabiting two worlds, the real and the symbolic. He felt a slightly pleasant vertigo from this. Mariana reached over to straighten Ted’s tie. Ted looked at Mariana and wished there were something out of place on her that he could touch or correct. But there wasn’t. She was perfect.
51.
When they exited the subway in Spanish Harlem, they could hear the Yankee game broadcast in Spanish on many transistor radios. Men sat outside bodegas, on stoops, on their cars, radios by their ear or at their feet. Ted could see his father was curious for a score, so he kept up a constant stream of obfuscating chatter as he hustled Marty forward as quickly as the sick and tired old man could. Onward to Maria’s address.
They stopped outside the building. Marty looked up at the windows, lost somewhere deep within himself. “You recognize the place?” Mariana asked him. Marty didn’t answer, just kept staring up at the windows or the sky, it was impossible to tell which.
To get up the stairs to the third floor was slow going. At every landing they stopped for breath. “I’m fucking ridiculous,” Marty gasped. “I hate this. I’m breathing like a fucking fish. I look like a goddamm grouper.” They finally made it to Maria’s door and Ted, the stage manager, pushed Marty to the front so Maria would see Marty, and only Marty, when she opened the door. Ted waited for Marty to catch his breath. He knocked and then stepped back again behind his father. The knob turned, and Ted saw Marty straighten his back as best he could, trying to iron out the effect of decades of gravity and illness. Ted pulled at the tail of Marty’s jacket to make the fit work best and take the hunch from the fabric at his shoulders.
The door opened and there was Maria. She had transformed herself from the somewhat dowdy older woman of that afternoon into a beautiful relic. She was not trying to look young, she was just trying to look like her best self, and she had succeeded. Marty and Maria stood there speechless, looking at each other over the expanse of years, taking in all the damage, sensing all the experience in the other that they had not been part of and would never ever really know.
Maria’s eyes were wet and shining. She had no doubt who stood before her, and she said in her heavily accented English, “You look like a man I once knew.”
“I feel like half the man you once knew.”
They fell into eloquent silence again. Ted felt like they might stay here at the threshold all night, and that would be okay. The aroma of home-cooked Latin food seemed to draw them forward, however. Marty pulled the six-pack from behind his back, and said with a maître d’ flourish in a thick, put-on Nuyorican accent, “Ice-col’ Buh-whyssser.”
Maria laughed and wistfully repeated, “Buh-whyssser.”
Then she stepped away from the door, extending her arm as an invitation to enter, opening up her world and the past to Marty, Mariana, and Ted.
52.
Maria’s apartment was modest and simple, and Ted could tell immediately that she lived alone and had for some time. This observation pleased him. Ted looked around at photos and such to see if there were hints of Marty’s existence, but he couldn’t find anything. There was a photo of John Kennedy. There were plenty of framed photos of children and a few of a man Ted assumed was their father, but he saw no clues that this man was still around. The Yankee game was on, so Ted quietly went over and turned the TV off, and Marty didn’t seem to care at all. The secret weapon getting open, being deployed. Marty and Maria sat in two chairs by the window, speaking quietly to each other. Marty had a posture and affect that Ted had never seen before—soft, receptive, attentive. He couldn’t remember ever seeing him like that with his mother, but that was a long time ago. It seemed that Marty and Maria had seen each other yesterday, not twenty years ago. Mariana came up behind Ted and said softly in his ear, “Stop staring at them.” Ted felt her breath on his skin, and that made him want to keep staring just so she would have to whisper in his ear again.
They sat at the small dining room table, and ate chicken and pork and beans and rice; they drank beer and wine and sangria. Mariana pointed and informed Ted of the exotica—“Empanadas, arroz con gandules, arroz con frijoles, mofongo, pernil…” All new and scary to Ted. He was afraid to eat. He looked at his food warily, like a wildebeest at the watering hole afraid of submerged crocodiles.
He could see Mariana watching Marty’s beer-and-wine intake. He shrugged as if to say Well, what the fuck—this one time. A new dish caught Ted’s eye—fried plátanos, or fried bananas as Ted knew them. He looked at the dish, and then looked at Mariana, who shrugged.
“Excuse me, Maria, what are these?” Ted asked.
“Plátanos.”
Thought so. He ate a piece. It was one of the best things he’d ever tasted in his life, even better than what he’d had in the diner. “I’m an idiot.”
“Not an idiot,” Mariana said.
“Thanks.”
“Maybe just a little slow. Here, I’ll help you. Now, don’t be scared.” She began to feed Ted a forkful of each dish as she named them for him.
“Empanadas.”
“Mmmmmmm…”
“Arroz con gandules.”
“Mmmmmmm…”
“Arroz con frijoles.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmm…”
“Mofongo.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”
“Pernil.”
“Mmmm … give me that.” Ted took the fork from Mariana and began stuffing his own face. Even though Maria had trouble understanding him with his mouth so full, she got the gist when Ted said to her, “These are the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
Maria got up from the table and disappeared into the bedroom for a minute. She came back with an old manila folder. Ted was a little tipsy himself. “The thrilla in the manila,” he said.
She emptied the contents on the table—photographs. In that distinctive Kodacolor that made everything look immediately like a memory, and made memories seem even farther back in time and more sacred than they ever were.
One photo jumped out at Ted immediately. It was apparently taken at a city ballfield eons ago. It was unposed, of the whole softball team, the Nine Crowns. In one corner, you could see Marty and Maria laughing at a private joke. There was a glow from the setting sun about it, giving it a sense of timelessness. You can’t believe that this time ever passed, and you can’t believe that this time ever really was. Maria and Marty started pointing out people and players that they remembered and telling stories about long-forgotten characters. “This guy from the neighborhood, Carlos Crocchetti, half Italian, half Puerto Rican, could never really make the team, pinch runner maybe, more of a batboy, always a smile on his face. One day, I asked him, ‘Carlos, why’re you so happy? What’s the secret?’ and he goes, ‘I look like I’m happy, but truth is I’m miserable and I hate everything and everybody. Including you.’ He was totally serious, the funniest fucking thing I ever heard in my life.”
Ted pulled another photo from the pile, one in which it looks like Marty is trying to teach young Ted how to hit. Marty is standing behind Ted with his hands around his waist and they are holding the bat together, looking out at something unseen coming at them—a ball? The future?
“Look at that,” Ted said. “I don’t ever remember you trying to teach me to hit.”
“El Spleenter,” Maria said.
“I don’t remember it, either,” Marty said.
Maria moved on and uncovered a heroic shot of Marty pitching, as perfect as a baseball card, upon which someone with a flair pen, no doubt Maria, had drawn a heart like a schoolgirl. Marty laughed and Maria feigned embarrassment. Ted apologized to his mother in his mind, but felt prompted to ask, “Why didn’t you two sta
y together?” Marty and Maria looked at each other, as if trying to decide who would or should take this question. Maria looked at Marty as if to ask if it was okay to talk about. Marty nodded. Maria spoke up, “I tell you sungthing. Stay together? We never get together. We were both marry.”
Ted, obviously shocked at this revelation, looked at Marty for elaboration. “I was a very moral amoral man,” Marty said.
“What about the journal?”
“You can’t believe everything you read, son.”
Mariana came up to him. “Can I talk to you outside?”
Mariana took Ted from the apartment and they walked around the block. “How could I not remember my dad teaching me to hit?”
“It was a long time ago,” said Mariana.
“No, but it’s, like, something that I’ve always been pissed about, you know, about my dad—he never had time, he never thought I was worth it, never believed in me, never tried, but look, there’s evidence of him trying right there. And he was faithful? You believe that?”
“It’s not important, but yes, I do.”
“Jesus, it’s like I’m the one who’s full of shit.”
“Not really,” said Mariana, “it’s just the way you’ve been telling your story. That photo never fit with the story you’re telling, now maybe it does. Now maybe your story is changing. Doesn’t mean you’re full of shit. Means you’re awake and alive and open to a rewrite.”
Ted couldn’t get his mind off the iconic image of father and son that he had completely erased from his own self-definition. It was like damning evidence brought in by a surprise eyewitness on the last day of a murder trial. Ted’s world rolled lightly from side to side like a ship at sea. He felt his balance was a little shaky as he walked.
“Wait.” He stopped. “Why did you want to come out here? Is there something you want to talk about with me?”
“No,” replied Mariana, “I just wanted to get outside for a bit. I love the streets up here in the summer. Like a world party. Disco coming from the windows. It’s like God is having a tea dance and playing disco on his own speakers.”
“God is not playing disco. God hates disco.”
“God doesn’t hate any music.”
“No, he hates disco. He does. He just doesn’t talk about it that much. It’s the creation He’s least proud of. After leeches and television. It’s the worst music ever invented.”
“It’s fun. It makes you dance, and it’s sad, too. There’s a lot of pain under the beat, if you listen—‘Oh no, not I, I will survive…’”
“It’s the end of civilization. I don’t wanna listen. That’s why you wanted to get outside? To listen to ‘Get Down Boogie Oogie Oogie’?”
Mariana smiled with mischief. “Yeah, that. And I wanted to give them time alone.”
“Time alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that kinda time alone? Really? They’re both, like, a hundred.”
“That’s not the story they’re telling.”
“For real?”
Ted turned around and picked up the pace back to Maria’s apartment. He felt like a derelict chaperone, and wasn’t sure if he wanted what Mariana seemed pretty sure was happening. They walked back into an empty apartment. No Maria. No Marty. As Ted was about to call out for his dad, he heard it, rustling from the bedroom—there was an unmistakable feeling in the room. Marty and Maria were in there. Ted said a bit too loud, “I can’t fucking believe it!” Mariana sshed him. They stood there listening and trying not to listen. “I feel like I’m kinda betraying my mother a little bit.”
“Not at all. This is beautiful.”
“I’m kinda proud of my boy. It’s so fucking cute, I can’t stand it.”
But just then, decidedly uncute sounds started emanating from the bedroom. Rapid breaths, little moans, and a kind of purring. Mariana held up her hand for Ted to be quiet so she could hear; she repeated the Spanish to herself: “Incluso el viejo león sigue siendo un rey—even the old lion is still a king.”
“Ooooh. She’s good. I’m no lion, more like the guy who gets eaten by the lion. Like a gazelle or a wildebeest, the unsuspecting guy at the water hole, that’s me.”
“It’s probably never too late to become a lion.”
“Was that something she was saying, or you?”
“Oh, that was me.” Mariana held up her hand again for quiet. “Eso es correcto, amor, yo soy tuya, la mujer te tus sueños. Yo he estado esperando por ti, y tu has estado esperando por mi. That’s right, lover, I am your woman, the woman of your dreams. I’ve been waiting for you. You’ve been waiting for me.”
“That you or her?”
“What?”
“You translating or talking to me?”
“Translating.”
From the other room, the sounds were escalating. “Aye, Poppy, do it. Do it, Poppy. Dass it!”
Mariana dutifully translated, “She said, ‘Yes, Daddy, do it, do it, Daddy. That’s it!’”
Ted raised his hand to cut her off. “That’s okay. I got that, that was half in English.”
The sounds of sex from the other room had suddenly brought the prospect of sex into this room, like it might be contagious. This embarrassed them both a little, so Ted tried a joke. “Man, you Latin women, you don’t fuck around when you fuck around, do you?”
“No, we take that shit very seriously.”
Maria was full-throated now: “¡Ese culo es tuyo!”
Mariana raised her eyebrows. “She said—”
Ted cut her off quickly this time. “Culo is ass, right? Culo means ‘ass’?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, boy. Thought so. Let’s go. Let’s go back outside. Time for you and me to go.”
As he hustled Mariana out the door, she said, “Your father’s Spanish is much better and more colloquial than I thought it was.”
“Stop, I’m a little nauseated. I’m running now, catch up with me. I’ll be in Staten Island.”
53.
Ted and Mariana walked around and around the block. Ted bought them both shaved ice and colored syrup from a street vendor, and as he handed Mariana hers, she said, “First, Jell-O. Now, this. Wow; you sure know how to make a girl feel special.”
“Second date. Gotta step it up.”
“Ah, my favorite flavor—uh, aquamarine.”
Ted slurped at his. “If you put a gun to my head, I could not tell you what flavor mine is.”
“I know—isn’t that the best? It’s like an alternate universe where color is taste.”
“Where do they get those blocks of ice from? It’s like they tore down an igloo.”
“I know. Who makes ice that big? Puerto Ricans, that’s who.”
Ted wanted to ask Mariana about herself. Had she ever been married? What were her parents like? When did she lose her virginity? What were her SATs? But she seemed so happy to just be this evening, just laugh and be silly, that he held back and felt himself getting lighter too. Did any of that heavy shit even matter? It was like a dance where they both put their feet down lightly. Ted remembered an old Columbia professor of his who had said, when Ted complained that The Waste Land was devoid of personality and feeling, “Only those with big feelings know the need to get away from them.” At the time, he had thought it was crap and a curmudgeonly rebuke, but strolling the night with Mariana, he could feel her big feelings shadowed in her need to escape from them. There was a big there there, but it was a long way from here and would not be rushed. He wordlessly opened his heart to her wordlessness, and he had no idea how or why. He kept looking for a moment to kiss her, but felt a second too slow, kept missing the beat. Must’ve been the disco. Blame it on the DJ. He felt like a runner on first, looking for the third-base coach for signs, but the signs had been changed. He had missed some team meeting where new signs were adopted. He couldn’t read the signals, so he stayed put, and they walked and walked and didn’t kiss.
A couple of hours passed as they strolled the neighborhood just laughin
g and bullshitting until Ted deemed it safe to collect Marty. When they got back, Marty and Maria were dressed, sitting on the couch together, holding hands and talking like high schoolers. Fucking adorable. They all kissed and hugged Maria goodbye like the old friends that they were and weren’t.
Marty, Mariana, and Ted walked in silence back to the subway. It felt like one of those perfect nights in life, there was no need for embellishment; it was sad to think that Marty had only a handful of these left. It was late and the subway was mostly deserted. As they moved underneath the water to Brooklyn, the subway car had completely emptied, so it was just the three of them alone. The car abruptly stopped, as they do, for no fathomable reason, in the middle of the river, and the lights died. Subway riders are used to these moments when you are not sure if this is just a harmless, unexplained pause, like the train catching its breath, or a catastrophic failure. The three of them sat in the quiet darkness buried beneath the millions of tons of ancient water. Ted looked over at his dad and asked, “What are you thinking?”
And Marty said, “Good ol’ Walt.” Which is exactly what Ted thought he was thinking.
Ted began declaiming from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.”
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?…
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings …
Marty picked the poem up just as accurately:
It is not upon you alone that dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also …
Now Ted:
The best I had done seemed to me blank and suspicious …
And Marty:
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
They fell silent again. Crossing Brooklyn Subway. Slightly stunned at themselves and stunned at Whitman and at the tangible presence, the sudden unannounced appearance of eternity. A sea change. The lights flicked on and off, then stayed on, and the train jumped to life.
Bucky F*cking Dent Page 17