Latin Moon in Manhattan: A Novel

by Jaime Manrique

  Books by Jaime Manrique

  FICTION

  El cadáver de papá

  Columbian Gold

  Latin Moon in Manhattan

  Twilight at the Equator

  POETRY

  Los adoradores de la luna

  Scarecrow(chapbook)

  My Night with Federico García Lorca

  Tarzan, My Body, Christopher Columbus

  CRITICISM

  Notas de cine: Confesiones de un crítico amateur

  MEMOIR

  Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me

  LATIN MOON

  IN MANHATTAN

  A Novel

  JAIME MANRIQUE

  The University of Wisconsin Press

  The University of Wisconsin Press

  1930 Monroe Street, 3rd Floor

  Madison, Wisconsin 53711-2059

  uwpress.wisc.edu

  3 Henrietta Street

  London WC2E 8LU, England

  eurospanbookstore.com

  Copyright © 1992

  The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any format or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press, except in the case of brief quotations embeddded in critical articles and reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Manrique Ardila, Jaime, 1949–

  Latin moon in Manhattan: a novel / Jaime Manrique

  P. cm.

  ISBN 0-299-18754-3 (paper)

  1. New Youk (N.Y.)—Fiction. 2. Hispanic Americans—Fiction.

  3. Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3563.A573 L38 2003

  831’.54—dc21 2002075666

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, places, dialogues, and speeches are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. The author’s use of names of actual persons, living or dead, is incidental to the purposes of the plot and is not intended to change the entirely fictional character of the work.

  ISBN 978-0-299-18753-8 (ebook)

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for a residency in which this novel evolved into its final shape; to Laura Segal for helping me translate the tango lyrics and, most importantly, for the gift of Mr. O’Donnell; to Bill Sullivan for his unflagging enthusiasm; to the Ash Wednesday group, where I first workshopped the manuscript; and, most respectfully, to Helen O’Donnell, in memoriam.

  For Tom and Elaine Colchie

  Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Latin Moon In Manhattan

  PART ONE

  1. Little Colombia, Jackson Heights

  2. Volver

  3. Colombian Queens

  4. Mothers and Sons

  5. Nostalgias

  6. Just Say It

  PART TWO

  7. The Cat Who Loved La Traviata

  8. Mrs. O’Donnell and Moby Dick

  9. The Interpreter

  10. Ay Luna! Ay Luna!

  11. This Island, This Kingdom

  12. Mr. O’Donnell Enters Heaven

  LATIN MOON IN MANHATTAN

  PART ONE

  AND IT WAS A LONG, LONE SHADOW

  José Asunción Silva

  1 Little Colombia, Jackson Heights

  After it leaves Manhattan, the number seven train becomes an elevated, and crosses a landscape of abandoned railroad tracks, dilapidated buildings and, later, a conglomerate of ugly factories that blow serpentine plumes of gaudy poisonous smoke. As the train journeys deeper into Queens, the Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance resemble monuments of an enchanted place—ancient Baghdad, or even the Land of Oz. The sun, setting behind the towers of the World Trade Center, burnishes the sky with a warm orange glow and the windows of the towers look like gold-leafed entrances to huge hives bursting with honey.

  Riding the number seven train to Jackson Heights, I thought of our immigration to the United States eighteen years ago. But “immigration” is too big a word to describe what happened. Let’s just say we moved from Bogotá, Colombia, to Jackson Heights, Queens—from one cocaine capital to another, the main difference being that the former sits ten thousand feet up in the Andes, while the latter is a mere twenty-minute train ride from Manhattan.

  I finished high school and college in Queens and it wasn’t until years later, when I settled in Times Square, that I finally felt I was living in a foreign country. What I had observed through the years was that while Queens became more prosperous and upscale, the city of New York more and more resembled a third world capital; there was a wide—and ever widening—gap between rich and poor, and the streets teemed with crazies, junkies, homeless people, street urchins, hustlers, hookers, and pickpockets, just like in Bogotá. Since I had arrived in America, the human traffic on the number seven train had also changed; there were still a few blacks going to Queens, but now the Asians were just as numerous as the South Americans. The nicely dressed, well-scrubbed people riding in my car looked like solid, hard-working, law-abiding Republicans. That, plus the lack of graffiti, made the Queens-bound trains different from the Brooklyn and Bronx lines.

  I was so engrossed in my observations that I almost missed my stop. Ninetieth Street, with its garish shops, vegetable and root stands, and South American eateries—everything in a small, Lilliputian scale—looks unreal, like a movie set. All the signs are in Spanish, and the pedestrians talk in the various regional accents of Colombia.

  I walked under the elevated, and turned right at Eighty-seventh Street. I began to metamorphose; the closer I got to my mother’s house, the more Colombian I became. Intense cravings for foods that were unavailable to me in the city—such as ajiaco, arepa de huevo, morcillas, chicharrones—awokein me. The tree-shaded street was getting dark and, although this was hardly the country, I felt light-years away from the overheated cement of Forty-second Street. I passed pretty two-story houses with attics and gabled roofs, cypresses on their lawns, rose gardens in bloom, and sidewalks spattered with dog shit. It was hard to believe that just a few blocks away there was a world of drugs and crime in which coke-crazed Colombians iced each other in the most vicious, post-modern ways.

  My mother’s house was in darkness, except for the light above the side entrance that led to the kitchen. This was the house that Victor, my mother’s present husband, gave her as a wedding present.

  Victor, a Sicilian who worked all his life for the mob and Queens politicians, had supported my mother nicely by running numbers until he developed Alzheimer’s disease and was put in an institution. Now my mother lives alone, except for the periods when my nephew Eugene runs away from my sister’s apartment.

  I climbed the steps to the landing outside the kitchen and was about to open the door—which my mother still left open after all these years—when I felt something rubbing against my ankles. It was Puss, one of Mother’s cats. Since her cats were not allowed inside the house, I sat on the steps to play with him. Puss was old and had lost a lot of his thick, tawny coat, but his tail was still beautiful and soft, like an ostrich feather.

  “Hi, Puss. How’re you doing, you old cat? Where is Me-shu?” I said, looking around for Mother’s other cat, who was shy. Although Puss had lived all his life outside—maybe because of it—he craved human affection. He purred and purred, lying at my feet, while I scratched him behind the e
ars. He was wearing the flea collar I had given him a couple of months ago, but he had fleas, and his hair was so matted in places that he looked like a Rastafarian.

  It was dark now, and the pertinacious mosquitoes were determined to get their evening meal. I got up, and as I turned the doorknob, I could hear Simón Bolívar screeching inside, “Who is it?” I tensed up; I intensely dislike my mother’s parrot. Turning on the kitchen light, I saw to my relief that Simón Bolívar was caged. “Hello, hello, hello,” he shrieked stupidly.

  “Hi, Simón,” I acknowledged him so he would shut up.

  On the kitchen table Mother had left me a note: “I went to play bingo. Will be back late. Your dinner is on the stove. Love, Mother.”

  I was hungry so I uncovered the pans: Mother had cooked tongue stew, coconut rice with raisins, and fried ripe plantains. Everything was still warm. Serving myself, I sat down to eat. I picked up El Espectador, a Bogotá newspaper Mother bought every day, and began to peruse the headlines. Although I no longer feel very connected to Colombian life, I still read the newspapers and magazines Mother buys because, invariably, the first question I’m always asked by people I meet is, “How are things in Colombia?” Consequently, even though I’m an American citizen now, I keep abreast of the latest developments in the war against drugs and guerrilla insurgency down home.

  There was a pitcher full of peto on the table, a Colombian corn drink; I poured myself a glass and started sipping it, tasting the cinnamon and nutmeg with which my mother peppered the drink. Suddenly Simón Bolívar said in Spanish, “Long live the Liberal party!” He sat on his perch, staring at me uncannily with his bright yellow eyes.

  “Shut up,” I said, and threatened to fling the remnants of my peto at him. This created pandemonium. Thinking he was about to get a bath, Simón started flapping his brightly colored wings.

  At my grandmother’s death, my mother had inherited two ancestral avocado trees and a parrot. Simón had thus immigrated to the States ten years ago and I used to tease my mother that he was the only Colombian in Jackson Heights with a green card.

  Imitating Flaubert’s Felicité, my mother fell in love with the parrot. Some years back, in early spring, she placed his cage out in the backyard to give the bird some sun, and somehow Simón Bolívar managed to escape. Mother was sure he had been stolen, though why anyone would have wanted to steal such an obstreperous animal is beyond my understanding. Mother cried and cried and stopped eating and when these measures didn’t bring Simón back, she built a shrine to San Martín de Porres in her living room and prayed to the Peruvian saint for the return of her parrot. Months later, a storm awakened her late at night. She claims she saw light streaming through the curtains of her bedroom window. She knew San Martín had answered her prayer, and when she opened the windows she found Simón Bolívar seeking shelter from the rain in the cypress tree. Since that time, Mother has declared him a holy parrot who has been to heaven and back. It was hard for me to believe that this was God’s envoy as he sat on his perch screaming the sickeningly hackneyed words of some Julio Iglesias song.

  I looked away, ignoring his nonsense. I had lost my appetite; it was too warm in the kitchen to eat. I set aside the newspaper. Simón Bolívar had quieted down, but suddenly I heard him screech, “Who’s there?” I heard noises outside. The doorknob turned, the door opened, and a pair of huge decomposing Reeboks burst into the kitchen.

  “Sammy, dude, what’s happening?” my nephew Gene greeted me.

  “Hi, Gene,” I replied.

  Gene sat at the table, lit a Marlboro and started whiffling clouds of smoke. He was seventeen and already six foot two, with the face of a baby Gulliver. Gene glanced suspiciously at the food on my plate. “Is that tongue?” He indicated the stew on my plate, making a face.

  “It’s better than hamburger, which is probably all you eat.”

  “Look, Sammy, I’m an American, not a Colombian, and Americans don’t eat tongue.”

  “That just shows what a hick you are. In French cuisine tongue is considered a great delicacy.”

  “Oh, yeah? But we’re in America not in France.”

  “We’re in Jackson Heights, Colombia,” I said.

  “But don’t let me spoil your chow,” he added magnanimously. “It’s cool with me, man. If you want to eat tongue, go right ahead.”

  “I’ve had enough. So you’re living here now?”

  “I guess so. School’s out.”

  “Are you getting along with Wilbrajan?”

  “Oh yeah, everything’s cool.”

  “Is she working?”

  “She’s singing tangos at the Rose Saigon. The Japanese love tangos.”

  “But Saigon is not in Japan.”

  Gene shrugged. “What do I know; I just finished the tenth grade. I like to come here to keep grandma company. She’s lonely, and she’s getting old.”

  Guiltily, I said, “That’s really nice of you.”

  “She nags like hell, though.”

  “You know what the French say: ‘If you can’t send them the devil, send them an old woman.’ “

  Gene smiled. “You’re so mean.”

  I got up to turn on the air conditioner.

  “Better not,” Gene warned. “Grandma doesn’t like it on unless it’s above one hundred degrees. She’s pretty nuts about conserving energy.”

  “You want to go outside and sit in the garden?”

  As we were getting ready to leave the kitchen, Simón Bolívar, pissed off that were leaving him behind, started a racket.

  “Shut up, asshole,” Gene ordered him.

  “Asshole, asshole, asshole,” Simón Bolívar echoed as we stepped outside.

  “Maybe I should leave the door open and let the cats in. I’m sure they’d love him for dinner. What do you think?” I asked, grinning.

  “The cats are scared shitless of him. That parrot could scare a Colombian pusher away. He’s the meanest mother I know.”

  We walked to the back of the house where Mother had her vegetable and flower gardens and sat down on the wooden chairs next to the barbecue grill. Above us was a patch of open sky. The night was clear and cool, and we could see a spattering of stars and a crescent moon. Pointing to the sky, I said, “That’s the North Star over there, see it? If you ever get lost at sea just follow it and you’ll reach land.”

  “You know the weirdest shit,” Gene snorted. “Thanks for the tip, but I hate the sea. All that activity makes me crazy.” There was a pause, which Gene broke by saying, “I haven’t seen you in a long time. What’s up?”

  “Everything’s okay,” I said, not wanting to sound too pessimistic in front of a teenager. “I’ve been thinking about going back to school to finish my Ph.D.”

  Gene chortled. “Sammy, you have more degrees than a thermometer. Why don’t you finish your book? That’d make you feel better.” He referred to my Christopher Columbus epic, which I had been writing for some years.

  “I haven’t written anything new in some time. You know, one day it occurred to me that I couldn’t go on writing it until I saw one of the caravels in which Columbus traveled.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know, one of the ships he sailed to the New World in. There’s a replica of one in the Barcelona harbor and somehow I feel I have to go see it before I can finish the poem,” I concluded.

  “And when are you going?”

  “Soon,” I said cryptically.

  “Sammy, why don’t you write something good?”

  I bristled at his criticism. “What do you mean ‘something good?’ I want to write a great epic poem.”

  “That’s what I mean. When was the last time there was a best-seller epic poem? Write something like … like … a story about teenagers. In English. You know, I could help you with it. What you have to do is write something that English teachers like so that they recommend it to the students. I’ll guarantee you it’ll make a million bucks.”

  “You write the teenager story, okay, and I’ll
write whatever I want to write.”

  “No need to get sore, man. I’m not gonna write anything. I just want to be an actor.”

  “Like Rocky Rambo, I suppose.”

  “Fuck no. Like Marlon Brando. Man, he’s neat as shit. Did you see him in The Wild One? You haven’t? I’ve seen it thirty-seven times. The way he rides that motorcycle all dressed up in black leather and chains. He’s so cool, so radical—a real bad dude. He’s awesome,” Gene sighed, his face glowing in the dark. “I’m gonna buy me a motorcycle,” he vowed.

  “I wish you wouldn’t; motorcycles are extremely dangerous. People get killed on those things all the time.”

  “You’re so uncool; you don’t know anything. More people get killed going to the post office, at least here in Jackson Heights.”

  “Who’s giving you the money to buy a motorcycle?”

  “I got a summer job. I’m going to save all the money I make, and in the fall I’ll buy it.”

  “What kind of a job?”

  “Making … deliveries … here in Queens. Hey, you want to get high?” Gene pulled a fat joint from his pack of Marlboros.

  “I quit smoking,” I said. Recently I had come to the sudden realization that it was because of drugs and alcohol that I had dropped out of graduate school and the reason why in the past ten years I had accomplished so little.

  Gene lit the joint and inhaled deeply. “You want to smoke this,” he said melodramatically, holding the smoke in his lungs. “This is great Colombian shit; this kind of thing never hits the streets of Manhattan. The Colombians smoke it all as soon as it comes in.”

  “Well, a puff won’t do me any harm, I suppose.”

  Gene was right; this was great pot. It was like pouring hot water in a glass full of ice—I melted right away. Yet the sense of guilt gnawed at my conscience. I said, “Gene, I hope you’re not into heavy drugs.”