“Thass ’cause his lady don’t let him smoke inna house. You should meet her, Willie. Fine, but a bitch,” Sapo said in between swigs of his forty.
Bodega laughed. “If a man can’t smoke a joint in his own house, who wears the pants in that fucken place?”
“Nah”—it was time to defend myself—“yo, that bitch does what I want. Blanca has no say.” Of course they didn’t believe me, but they let me get away with the lie. Because whatever you’ve heard about the Latin woman needing to be saved from her sexist man is not entirely true. Keep your mouth shut and your legs open? That’s a myth. My mother had my father on a leash and she never took Feminism 101. Maria Cristina me quiere gobemar y yo le sigo la corriente para que la gente no crea que ella me quiere gobemar. That’s what it comes down to. And if you dare hit a Latin woman God help you, because you’ll wake up with scissors in your back. Yeah, she’ll go to jail for a good twenty years but you’ll be dead forever. And if she isn’t that violent, she’ll get you, one way or another. I didn’t know what Blanca had in store for me that night, all I knew was that it was getting late and she was already mad at me.
“Look, bro,” I said, “I think I’ll pass on this Nazario thing.” Then I realized that I couldn’t go straight home because I was high and Blanca would kill me in this condition.
“Come on, bro. Sapo told me you were busy and shit, with your job at the A & P and your night school. But, like, I want you around.”
“Nah, I can’t.” I got up from my seat and kept shaking my head. “I can’t, man. I hope this works out for you, but I can’t. I’m mad busy.”
“Thass it? You don’t want ta think it over? Drive it around the block? Kick a tire? Spit on the windshield?” He stared at me hard, waiting for my answer as if I hadn’t given it to him already. “Come on, think it over.”
There was something honest in his dishonesty. Unlike Blanca, I believed it was dishonest people that brought change. It was paradoxical people like Bodega who started revolutions. All you could do with honest people was lend them money and marry their daughters. And as much as I loved Blanca, I’d never felt Christ was the answer either. He was taking too long to come. Spanish Harlem needed a change and fast. Rents were going through the roof. Social services were being cut. Financial aid for people like me and Blanca who were trying to better themselves was practically nonexistent. The neighborhood was ready to boil. You couldn’t see the bubbles yet, but they were there, simmering below the surface, just waiting for someone to turn up the heat and all hell would break loose. The fire next time would be the fire this time.
Part of me really wanted to be there, to be part of it. But I had Blanca and the baby to think about and I wasn’t about to throw that away. I was happy with Blanca. I had no idea what good deed I had done in my life to deserve Blanca, all I knew was that she was there. She wouldn’t like me getting involved in any of this.
“Nah, it’s cool. I wish you well, bro.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Nah, I got no time,” I said, and extended my hand toward Bodega. He shook it. I was surprised to see disappointment in his eyes, as if I had had the upper hand all this time. I felt like I had something he needed, something he needed badly and didn’t really know how to ask for. Something he had done a bad job in getting, or convincing me to give to him.
“Mira, Chino, you need somethin’, anythin’, come see me.”
“ ’Tá bien, bro.”
Sapo got up from the sofa and, without saying goodbye to Bodega, placed his half-empty bottle on the floor and headed out the door.
“Don’t forget, you need somethin’, anythin’ …” Bodega broke off and looked at the ceiling, shaking his head as he whispered, “Thass a shame. A fucken shame.” I guess he was saying this to me.
Nene was still outside the apartment waiting, keeping guard.
“Whass wrong with Sapo, bro? He like ignored me and just took off with no direction home. Like a complete unknown. Like a rolling stone.”
“Nice meeting you, Nene,” I said, hoping to leave quickly so I could catch up with Sapo.
“Yeah, like, you know, Chino, it was nice meeting you too and don’t go changing to try and please me,” Nene said. I laughed, not because he could splice songs into his speech but because my system was so fucked up.
“So, mira, there’s this party at La Islita, this comin’ Saturday,” Nene said to me as I headed for the stairwell. “Come, bro. You can bring your lady, Negra, right?”
“Blanca.”
“Right, Blanca. Come, bro. My cousin always throws good parties there, lotsa beer and salsa.”
“I’ll try,” I said and, a little high, I stumbled down the stairs.
When I stepped outside, the fresh air did me some good. It was early spring and there were a lot of people out. The old men were still playing dominoes, sitting on plastic milk crates, but the song on the small box had changed. It was a late-sixties tune, ‘Mangos Pa’ Changó’: Cuando te fuistes con otro bajé a bodega pa’ comprar mangos. I saw Sapo smoking a cigarette by his black BMW and I went over to him. Pa’ luego hacerle una oferta a Changó.
“What’s with you, bro?”
“Nah, man, get away. You got the cooties.”
“Cooties? What the fuck. You think you still in the fourth grade?”
“Nah, don’t talk to me, Chino. You fucked up.”
“Why? Because I don’t want to work with Nazario?”
Sapo looked at me and nodded as he took a long drag. Pero no tenía dinero. So mami, mami perdóname pero es que tuve que darle un holope a alguien. “Yeah, thass why. Bodega’s been looking for a guy to work with Nazario for some time. And I thought of you. You know, I built yous up to Bodega. I told him, ‘Nah, Chino is cool. You’ll like him. He’s a cool guy and smart. He goes to Huntah.’ Shit like that, and then when he meets you for the job, you get all fucked up, laugh in his face, and don’t take the job. Do you know how that,” Sapo said, jabbing a finger in his chest, “reflects on me?”
“Sapo, all I know is, yo’r doing what you want to do. If you want to do this then you do it. I ain’t going to preach to you, bro. If you want to leave that shit in my place it’s cool. You want me to hold money for you, I’ll do that, too. But you know that in this business, the only thing that counts is money. And Bodega might talk all this shit about helping the community and shit like that but what it all comes down to is making money.”
“Shit, I was there. He didn’t lie to you. He said things about money. He said he had to give some away in order to keep some. Money is important. I don’t deny that. But there are othah things involved here.”
“Bullshit. This guy is talking a lot of dreams, bro. Clouds.” As soon as I said that I wished that I could take it back. I didn’t yet know Bodega too well, but I knew Sapo. Sapo was too smart to work for a guy who only blew hot air. I knew that everything Bodega had told me was true, because Sapo believed it.
“No, bro, there are diamonds in that dog shit he talks. I know. You still don’t really know the half of it, bro. Why Bodega is really doin’ all this. You don’t know, so don’t go fucken barkin’ all this shit. Why can’t you see things and say why not?”
“Ho, shit! What the fuck is this? Who are you, man?” This is all crazy, I thought. Bodega thinks he’s Lyndon Johnson with his Great Society and now Sapo talks like he’s Bobby Kennedy with this why-not stuff.
“Look, bro, all I know is when no one would gimme a job, Bodega did.” Sapo got closer to me, like he always does when he wants me to pay attention. As if I’m deaf and can’t hear well. “But I don’t want to be some manager of a few crack houses. I wanna be part of history.”
“Look, Sapo—”
“Nah, it’s true. Bodega is going to own the neighborhood. Legally. And I want to be part of it. Maybe someday take it over when he’s gone or somethin’. You too happy with your alleluia girl to understand.”
“Hey, Sapo, come on, leave Blanca out of this.”
“S
he’s the real reason why you here, bro. Pero no tenía dinero. So mami, mami perdóname pero es que tuve que darle un holope a alguien.”
I didn’t know what Sapo meant but I didn’t press him about Blanca because back then I had no idea how important she was to Bodega.
“Nah, Sapo, yo’r my friend and you know that I won’t lie ta you.” I let what he had said about Blanca slide. “So you have a nice car and make good money, but Bodega, Bodega is the Man. Bodega has made a name for himself. You know about names, Sapo. When you get one it’s only a matter of time before you have to prove who you are. And Bodega has the biggest name in the neighborhood.”
“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you—” Sapo interrupted.
“Yeah, he might,” I interrupted Sapo right back and he let me, because Sapo could’ve started shouting his point and drowned me out. “It’s such a big name that it’s only a matter of time before someone will wan a slice he won’t wanna give up. I don’t know much about this business like you do, bro, I only know that that’s when things start to get sloppy. That’s when dead bodies start appearing.”
Sapo jerked back. He glared at me with the Sapo face that bites, that bites and leaves warts. When he spoke his voice was low and mean.
“Ya know, Chino, at least I admit I only think about myself. But you, you play it off as if you really care about other people when in fact it’s always been you, you, and fucken you.” He opened the door of his BMW and got inside. He turned on the ignition and, before he released the clutch, his tinted window slid down. His Sapo face was framed by the opening.
“Go home to your church girl. Go home and ask her about her aunt Vera. And, Chino, don’t talk to me cuz you got leprosy, ma man.” He tore out, leaving behind the smell of burnt rubber and the squeal of his tires.
ROUND 5
We Needed More Space
THAT night, I decided I’d better walk for a while because I couldn’t go home to Blanca high. I walked down Fifth to Ninety-sixth Street, about half of the Museum Mile. I stopped in front of El Museo del Barrio on 104th Street and Fifth Avenue. Then I walked a block south and sat on the marble steps of the Museum of the City of New York. When Sapo and I were in the sixth grade we would play hooky by going there to play hide and seek, hang out. The museum was usually empty, especially during weekdays. Also, it could only afford one guard, and he was lazy. Once Sapo and I were running and we knocked a woman down. We laughed and kept running. When she complained to the guard we heard him say, “Were they touching any of the exhibits or something? No? Listen, lady, I’m not here to defend you. That’s not my job.”
After the museum got boring, Sapo and I would leave, cross the street, and spend the rest of the afternoon in Central Park. We knew Fifth Avenue was that part of El Barrio with rich people living in it. The buildings along Fifth were different from the project we lived in. Those buildings had doormen, huge glass doors, gargoyles on the walls, and air conditioners in almost every window. The people who lived on Fifth didn’t travel past Madison Avenue. They always took cabs and you’d only see them walking when they were past Ninety-sixth Street, where El Barrio ends. When I was a kid, some residents had taken petitions to City Hall. They wanted Mayor Beame to declare Fifth Avenue from 110th to Ninety-sixth to be its own little neighborhood, separate from East Harlem, called East Central Park.
My mother used to work cleaning the homes of some of those people. One day when I was in the second grade I was too sick to go to school, and since Mami didn’t want to miss work she took me with her. When I entered the apartment my mother was supposed to clean, I felt like I was inside the Museum of the City of New York. The place was huge. There were paintings and statues and mirrors and beautiful wooden things—nothing like where we lived. That was the first time I really saw the difference between those that had and those that didn’t.
That night, after Bodega, after the walk, after I had remembered a few things, I went home hoping that Blanca was already asleep. I turned my key as silently as possible, and entered slowly. I crept into the bedroom and quietly changed clothes. I got into bed and didn’t touch her because I knew she wouldn’t let me and because I didn’t want to fight. Blanca was in her second trimester and I found her incredibly sexy. I loved to make love to Blanca with her belly round as the moon. It was smooth and the feeling was of closeness. I wanted her to know she was still desirable and that I wasn’t out there screwing other women. I wanted her to know I loved making love to her and that her body still excited me. Her breasts were full and her belly was so round and sex was great and different and screw all those men who won’t make love to their wives while they are pregnant.
“Did you eat?”
“Sí, mami. I though you were asleep.”
“You smell like marijuana.”
“Sapo’s always smoking that stuff, you know that, Blanca.”
“When you speak … your breath,” she mumbled.
I stayed quiet, moving my hand slowly over her stomach.
“Julio,” she whispered after a little pause of night silence.
“What?”
“I never really liked your name, but now I kind of like it. What do you think about naming the baby Julio?”
“Whatever you want, Blanca.”
“I like it,” she said, turning around, placing her full stomach close to me.
“I’d like it to have your name if it’s a boy and my sister’s name if it’s a girl.”
“Why? I like your name, Nancy,” I said, and she giggled.
“Nope. I want something biblical, like my sister’s name, Deborah. She was a judge. The only woman judge in the Bible. I like her. I like that.”
“Well, what good was it for your sister to be named Deborah when she turned out so bad that everyone calls her Negra?”
“Julio, my sister is not that bad, is she?”
“Of course not,” I said, but I didn’t mean it.
“Where did you go with Enrique?”
“Nowhere,” I said, sliding my arm around her waist. She didn’t say anything after that and I was happy.
Then I remembered something. “What about the name Vera?” If Sapo had told me to ask Blanca about this Vera, it had to be because we both had something to gain from it. I felt bad asking Blanca about her aunt; it was like me quizzing her on some betrayal that had never happened. “Vera, if it’s a girl.”
“No. No, no, no,” Blanca said firmly.
“Isn’t there a Vera in the Saldivia clan? You mentioned her, way back before we got married.”
“Oh yeah, my aunt Veronica.”
“That’s her real name? Veronica. Oh, yeah, wait, I remember.” It was about two years ago, before we got married. Blanca and I had been talking about those Latinos who Anglonize their names, from Juan to Jack, or Patricia to Trish.
“Yes, that’s the one. We don’t see her much. She sends my mother money for her birthday. That’s the only time we hear from her. I gave my mother an extra wedding invitation for her to mail to her sister in case she wanted to make the trip, but she didn’t come.” Blanca yawned and stretched a bit.
“Is your aunt Veronica married?”
“That’s why we never see her. She married well. Some rich Cuban she met. They live in Miami.” That rang a faint bell.
“Un cubano? Eso está heavy duty. For a Rican to marry a Cuban he better be rich,” I said, joking, because Cubans and Puerto Ricans never hit it off. The Arabs and Jews of the Caribbean. “But your aunt, didn’t she live in the neighborhood once?”
“Yeah, supposedly she was going to marry this guy she was in love with, some street activist or something, but her mother made her marry the Cuban, at least that’s what they told me.”
“A street activist? You mean a Young Lord?”
“Yeah, that’s what he was. I mean I was just being born, so I don’t really know. But I heard the story.” Nothing in Blanca’s voice or body language indicated the name Vera meant anything to her. As it came to me, bit by bit, I under
stood more clearly what Sapo had told me earlier. Sapo believed in Bodega because he knew other reasons why Bodega was renovating the neighborhood. I started to believe a bit myself. I could picture Bodega in an Armani suit, all legal and respectable, his renovated buildings in the background, his name no longer Bodega but something else, something politicians want on their side, a commodity of goodwill. I pictured him finding her: “I’ve always loved you, Vera. Look at me. I fixed up everything, just like it was before.”
I didn’t ask Blanca anything; I could tell she was already feeling talkative.
“My abuela was right in making my aunt do that. I mean, the Cuban guy was rich and the street activist she had been in love with ended up in jail.” In the dark I could feel Blanca smile. “You guys, we just turn our heads and you guys are in jail.” She kissed me.
“Oh yeah, what about you girls?” I laughed. “We just breathe on you and you get pregnant.”
“That’s cheap. Your humor,” Blanca said smiling, “sets Latin women back a hundred years.”
“Tell me more about Veronica and the street activist.”
“Who cares about her, I never even met her. Let’s talk about you coming to church with me. In two weeks we’ll be having a special guest speaker, an anointed.” Blanca propped herself up on her elbow and clearly didn’t feel sleepy anymore. She was done talking about her aunt, but it didn’t matter because I already knew enough.
“An anointed? What’s that?” I asked, letting her think I was interested.
“Someone who will one day, when he or she dies, rule with Christ in heaven for one thousand years,” she said, excitedly squeezing my arm. “And this anointed is only seventeen!”
“Seventeen, huh,” I answered, not caring the slightest bit. I just let Blanca continue talking about this seventeen-year-old anointed. I would throw in a well-timed “really” and “I hear you” and “yes, uh-huh.” My mind was really on Bodega and what he had said earlier that night. About Vera and what Bodega really wanted from me.
In the dark I looked around our tiny bedroom. Our living room was even smaller, with the kitchen set in the corner. The rent was high for this matchbox and Blanca and I’d had our tuition raised last semester because of the new governor. We didn’t want to take out loans and then have to pay off the government for twenty years. It was not a good way to start a professional career, in debt. So we were paying for all our studies at full tuition out of our own pockets. Then there was a baby on the way and we needed more space. And a way to save some money, too. Sitting there in the dark I saw some daylight. Bodega wanted something from me, so I would ask something in return. It was basic, simple street politics: you want something from me then you better have something I need.
Bodega Dreams Page 5