Latin Moon in Manhattan: A Novel

by Jaime Manrique

  “Hey, man, what the hell is going on?” Jeff asked.

  “The judge needs you,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I’m busy right now,” Jeff said.

  I offered to shake Jeff’s hand, which he took with a questioning look.

  “I’m quitting,” I informed him. “I’ll miss you, though.”

  “Man, you can’t do that. You’re my chess partner.” Realizing I was serious, he said, “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Write a thriller, I guess.”

  “No shit.”

  “Bye,” I said, feeling a lump rise in my throat.

  As I exited the Federal Plaza building, I knew that I would never reenter it again as an interpreter. I knew Unlimited Languages would never call me again and this was the only agency that sent me out to interpret in Social Security and Welfare cases. I wished I felt exhilarated and free, like heroes do in movies and novels when they stand up for themselves—although in my case, Fridania had done the standing up for me. What I experienced was terror. I told myself it was unlikely that Judge Warpick would call all the agencies in town to ruin my interpreting career.

  Outside, the day was sunny. After last night’s rain, the city looked spic and span; the air was crisp, invigorating. We had just entered the dreaded month of August, but today there was a touch of autumn in the air. Usually, after leaving work I rushed back home. Today I wanted to linger in the streets. The men who had tried to break into my apartment were still present in my mind. Today I longed to sit down with a friend, to chew the fat for hours. I’ll pay a visit to Harry Hagin, I thought. He always brightens my day. I put on my sunglasses and started walking in the direction of the corner where Harry had been selling ices the last time I had seen him. Harry was not at his corner. I walked east for a few blocks, thinking maybe he had moved deeper into the financial district.

  I found hot dogs, pretzels, books, sunglasses, and fruit ice vendors, but no trace of Harry. It’s not like Harry to take Monday off, I thought. I began to feel depressed. I felt as if a huge hippopotamus were being lowered on my head, squashing me onto the pavement. It was time to go home. I couldn’t walk through Wall Street feeling like that. My life was in crisis and I was reacting to it like an ostrich.

  Think positive, Santiago, I said to myself. Do something; buy the New York Times and study the classified section under jobs. I started to perspire remembering how many times in the past years I had done this, and after reading the first column given up in despair, realizing how few marketable skills I had. The heck with the past, I mumbled—I have to change all that. I was talking aloud to myself and the Wall Streeters were eyeing me suspiciously. Obviously, whether I ended up writing a thriller or not, I had to support myself somehow. Moving back to Mother’s house in Queens was no longer an alternative. To prove to myself my new-found seriousness, I purchased a copy of the Wall Street Journal and, tucking it under my arm, I bolted for the subway. The E train was empty at that hour, and I sat down to read the paper and to enjoy the air-conditioning. I opened the Journal to the classified—my heart sank; it looked forbidding, like the obituary page of the Times without the photographs. I shut the paper in haste as if I had just seen a picture of the devil inside. At home, drinking a cold beer, maybe I could stand reading it. But the train was taking so long to fill up at the Chambers Street station that to escape my screaming thoughts I opened the Journal again, hoping against hope to find an article that would vaguely interest me. I flipped through the pages and glanced at most of the headlines until the E train arrived at Times Square.

  I felt excited, manic. As I approached the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-third Street I saw many people bunched at the corner. Besides the riffraff and the crack people milling around, there were policemen and firemen. Police officers were setting up safety nets and pumping to inflate a safety cushion on the street. Was it a fire at the hotel? Now I noticed priests, nuns, and, of course, photographers. I knew an event of major proportions was going on in Times Square. Soon the TV people would be arriving. Everyone was looking up. No smoke came out of the building, but a man on a high floor was sitting on a window ledge threatening to jump. Brandishing a crucifix, a priest started to climb up the fire engine’s ladder. A couple of nuns were praying on their knees. The crack heads watched the scene as if they were in an action movie. The whole thing was a turn-on to them. Looking like angry, demented demons just expelled from hell, they began to chant: “Jump! Jump! Jump!”

  I gotta get the hell out of here, I thought; I don’t want to see this. I was about to start crossing the street when the crowd broke up in a shrill roar and the man on the window ledge dove headfirst to the pavement. I froze; I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. The suicide landed inches away from me with a dull thump. The top of his head opened and shot some blood like a fire hydrant. The man was naked, except for a T-shirt and his legs looked brilliant as if they were waxed. One of my arms was red, as if spattered with ketchup. Touching my face and my head, I discovered I was drenched with blood. I howled, shutting my eyes. The crack heads screamed and tittered and giggled demonically.

  Momentarily insane, I darted across the street, barely escaping the oncoming traffic. Sprinting up the stairs of my building, I stumbled upon a figure sitting on the steps.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Sammy,” my nephew Gene screamed. “What happened to you, man? Is that paint or what?”

  “It’s blood,” I blubbered, breaking into loud sobs and collapsing on the steps.

  “Sammy, did you just kill someone? Did you? Why? Why? Oh man, why?” Gene shouted hysterically.

  A couple of clients of George’s employment agency were coming down the stairs. I nudged against the wall, turning my face away from them, but making enough room so they could go by. When the men reached the door, I said, “A man just jumped out of a building and almost fell on top of me.”

  “Oh, man. What a trip! I gotta go see that!”

  “No, you’re not,” I said. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

  Inside the apartment, I asked Gene to lock the door after us as I ran into the bathroom. Turning on the lights, I was so shocked by my bloody reflection in the mirror I became dizzy and had to sit on the toilet. I managed to remove my shirt and undershirt and used the latter to towel off my hair, face, and hands. Feeling stronger, I took off my shoes and pants. I leaned my back against the cool water tank and closed my eyes.

  “Sammy, are you okay?” Gene asked, coming into the bathroom.

  I opened my eyes. He was carrying Mr. O’Donnell, the cat’s face against his cheeks.

  “Hi, kitty,” I said. “Gene, will you do me a favor? Take all these bloody clothes and put them in a plastic bag and get rid of them.”

  Gene made a face and handed Mr. O’Donnell to me. I set the cat on my knees, feeling his back paws clawing into my thighs. Gene made all sorts of disgusting sounds as he carried the clothes away. I noticed Mr. O’Donnell looked better, almost rejuvenated. “It must be the protein in that mouse you ate,” I said. At that moment, a black, shiny, metallic-sounding fly—the size of a bumblebee—hurtled into the bathroom. Mr. O’Donnell sprang off my lap, caught the insect in midair and alighted at the bottom of the bathtub where he proceeded to chew on his catch. He made scratchy, dry sounds and, sticking out his tongue, started to lick his chops, as if he had just finished a gourmet meal.

  “Get out of my sight, you disgusting beast,” I muttered, rising and chasing him out of the room with the towel. I sat down again; I was shaking badly when loud music began to blast in the kitchen. Gene was playing one of his incomprehensible tapes. Without knocking, Gene entered the bathroom almost running, awkward and impetuous, like a wild horse. He had two glasses with him and handed me one. “Here, I think you might need this,” he said. I took a swig of the scotch and shuddered as the alcohol sizzled down my throat.

  “Why don’t you take a nice bath?” Gene suggested. “I can make it for you.”

  I was
touched by his concern, whether real or fake. This was one of the few occasions ever he had offered to do anything for me. He began to fill the bathtub with steaming water. He left the water running and came back with a bottle of extract of vanilla, which he poured into the tub. I was too upset to argue. Before he left the room, I said, “Gene, how about turning down the volume of the music?”

  “It’s the Beastie Boys,” he said, looking hurt, as if I had asked him to shut off a sublime Brahms symphony. “I’m going up front to listen, is that cool?”

  I nodded. Gene shut the door with a whack that made me jump. I took off my underwear and got into the scalding water. With the water up to my neck, I sat there taking deep breaths and wriggling my toes. The room looked foggy and mysterious in the rising steam. I bean to fantasize: This was not my bathroom but an ancient Inca bath. Instead of the pleasant, mild scent of vanilla, what I smelled was palo santo and burnt eucalyptus; instead of laying in tap water, I was floating in a pool of hot mineral springs emanating from a sacred volcano. I was beginning to unwind when, against my will, a babel of voices started having a conference in my head. What was Gene doing here? He seldom came to visit me, and never unannounced. He’d come to get the coke, of course! I could picture him now ransacking the apartment, turning everything upside down. That’s why he had suggested my bath. It was not concern on his part but sly, devious thinking, and I had fallen for it, giving in to my avuncular sentiments that always made me act against my best interest. “Give the kid a break,” protested the even-tempered voice of reason. “He’s not bad, he’s just scared.” “Oh yeah,” interjected the scoffing voice of paranoia, stepping up to the mike, “Keep thinking like a Miss Pollyanna suppository and soon you’ll lie in the gutter with your head blown off by nice Colombian bullets.” I was freaking out again.

  I was about to leap out of the bathtub when the phone rang. I heard Gene’s caveman footsteps galloping for the phone. I sat still. Maybe it was one of his friends calling to chat. Now the thumping steps approached the bathroom door. I reached for the towel as the door opened and Gene stuck his head in. “It’s the United Nations, Sammy.”

  “The United Nations? Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, something about the United Nations.”

  “Wait, I’ll take it,” I said, getting up, wrapping the towel around my waist, and rushing to the telephone.

  “Hello,” I said, slightly out of breath.

  “San-tiaaaaaa-gooooo, San-tiaaaaaa-go,” sang Virginia, from the Language Workshop, one of the interpreting agencies I worked for. “I’ve got a jooob for youuuuuu, at the Uniiii-ted Nations. It’s a lunnnnn-cheon. Do youuuuu want it?” she finished in her cracked quasisoprano voice. Virginia was a Viennese opera nut. She was in her seventies and still ran her own agency. I had run into her once at the Met when Rebecca had taken me for my birthday to see a performance of La Traviata. Since then, she was convinced that I went to the opera all the time.

  “The United Nations, huh,” I said very impressed. “Sure I’ll take it.”

  “They asked me for my best interpreter, and of course I thought about you,” she said, now in her normal speaking voice. Then she gave me all the information, which I took with great difficulty considering I was dripping wet and Gene stood next to me watching intently everything I said and did.

  “Are you going to translate tomorrow at the U.N.?” Gene asked, visibly impressed, after I hung up.

  “Yeah,” I said, affecting a blasé tone as if I were used to interpreting at the U.N., when in fact I had never been there before.

  “That’s where you should get a full-time job, Sammy, instead of that welfare shit you do.”

  Gene’s advice was undoubtedly not malicious, but I did not appreciate his tacit criticism of how I conducted my interpreting career. To punish him I said, “Will you make some coffee while I get dressed?”

  “Can I use the Mr. Coffee I gave you last Christmas?”

  “Sure. Do it any way you want.”

  He marched to the kitchen with the resolute, indelicate stride of a teenage Ollie Oop. In the bedroom, I toweled slowly, musing on the kind of day I was having. Just an hour ago, for all practical purposes, I had thought my interpreting career was over. And now, tomorrow I was going to work at the U.N. Who knows where that might lead? What if I screw up, though? I wondered. No, no, no, Santiago, I said, shutting off the negative tapes before they started running. I’m an excellent interpreter, I reminded myself. There are no coincidences; the U.N. is where I belong. I’ll do beautifully tomorrow and they’ll be so impressed I’ll end up getting lots of assignments. My money situation will improve, and I won’t have to interpret the squalid and horrifying lives of social security and welfare claimants anymore. Even my mother will be impressed, I thought, as I put on shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers. From now on, I would only interpret for statesmen and politicians. It occurred to me that the social security claimants were more admirable and honest than the corrupt politicians of the world—especially the ones from Latin America—for whom I no doubt would be interpreting. What’s more, as grim as the lives of the claimants were, they were probably a more cheerful subject matter than Nazi criminals, famine, torture, genocide, and everything the U.N. had to deal with.

  A plastic bag on my pillows distracted me from this line of thinking. I emptied its contents on the bedspread; Mother had sent the Colombian newspapers of the past few days with Gene. Wrongly, she assumed that I was interested in reading these newspapers; that I continued to be interested in whatever went on in Colombia. And yet, perhaps she understood something about myself that I denied; I always diligently perused the newspapers and found at least a couple of articles that interested me. I studied the front page of El Espectador, and read the headlines absentmindedly. I set the paper aside and let the back of my head sink into the pillows. Gene came into the room with two cups of steaming coffee. Mr. O’Donnell trotted after him and jumped on my bed while Gene set the cup of coffee on the night table and sat on my desk.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  Mr. O’Donnell walked up the length of my legs and stretched out on my crotch. I sat up, brushing the cat aside. As he moved away, he stuck his back paws on my shorts. “Ouch,” I uttered, covering my genitalia. I gave Mr. O’Donnell a hard look and tasted the sickeningly sweet coffee.

  “How’s the coffee?” Gene asked eagerly.

  “It’s very good. Thanks, Gene.”

  “You look awful, Sammy. I’ve never seen you look so shitty. It’s like … it’s like you need to relax or something.”

  I wasn’t quite sure that whatever way I felt Gene wasn’t at least partially responsible for it.

  “Anyway, what are you doing in Manhattan?” I queried him, becoming suspicious of his motives for visiting me.

  He shrugged. “Nothing.” He ogled Mr. O’Donnell and sipped his coffee. “What a big cat,” he said in admiration, as if he were praising Mr. O’Donnell for his genius or his poetic nature.

  “Don’t change the subject. You came to get the coke, didn’t you?”

  “No, man. I just wanted to get the hell out of Queens for a day. And I wanted to talk to you. You’re like my only uncle. And you’re my friend, aren’t you?” he finished, looking hurt.

  “I guess so,” I mumbled, not being too thrilled at the prospect of being related to a future Al Capone. “I think your friends are after me,” I said, giving him an accusing look. “We have to get rid of that coke. Last night there were two guys on my fire escape trying to break in.”

  “I just love the way you jump to conclusions,” he said, exasperated. “How do you know they were Colombians? They were probably crack heads from the neighborhood. It’s not like you live on Park Avenue, you know,” Gene finished, with the cruelty of youth.

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve lived here for many years and nobody ever tried to break into my apartment.”

  “Sammy, will you get off that horse? How would my … ex-boss know you have the coke? That’s like so paranoid of y
ou.”

  “If they didn’t know before, they know now. I’m sure they followed you into the city.”

  “I can’t believe this shit,” Gene said, getting up and wringing his hands. “My own uncle trying to do me in. I’m gonna go and I’m never, ever no more coming back to see you.”

  “Not until you’ve learned to speak English properly,” I snapped back. “Okay, okay, okay,” I said. “I guess you’re right. I’m overwrought by all the shit that’s been raining on me lately. Please stay, okay?”

  “Really, Sammy? You’re not pissed off at me? How would you like to go to the park?” Gene proposed enthusiastically. Seeing me demur, he went on. “When was the last time you went to the park? You need the inspiration of nature.”

  “Sure, Mr. Wordsworth,” I said, knowing full well that my allusion was completely wasted on him.

  “We can have a picnic,” Gene went on, “and spend the afternoon hanging out. I can chase the girls and you … can do whatever you want. How about that?”

  “I just want to take it easy,” I said.

  “Remember how you used to take me to the park when I was little?” Gene said, waxing nostalgic as I wondered what had ever happened to the cute, lovable toddler I had known. “You used to say to me, ‘Gene, want to go to the patico park?’ That was so cute, the way you called the duck pond the patico park.”

  “Okay,” I said, blushing. “That’s enough. We’ll go to the park for the afternoon.”

  “I’m raring to go,” Gene said.

  Now that I had agreed to do it, I got cold feet. “Wait, Gene. I can’t go to the park just like that. Just cool it for a minute. Let me think about what we need to take with us, okay?”

  Gene sat down again on the desk, although he looked like a race horse ready to take off. Mr. O’Donnell was now aware that we were leaving. He gave me the pitiful, longing, reproachful look he always used when he saw me getting ready to go out. Gene picked up on it.