Latin Moon in Manhattan: A Novel

by Jaime Manrique

  “Hi, Sister,” I said.

  “Sammy, Sammy,” Stick Luster said, giving me a bear hug. “I’m so happy to see you, my friend.”

  “Come, Stick,” Wilbrajan said haughtily, taking Stick by his arm and dragging away my childhood friend before I could say anything to him.

  “Man, do I have a surprise for you,” said a beaming Harry Hagin as he reached the top of the stairs.

  “Oh, yeah. What is it?”

  “You got to wait, okay?”

  Knowing that it would please him, I said, “I finally framed Mr. O’Donnell’s drawing.”

  “You’re catching on.”

  Two vaguely familiar women arrived at the landing downstairs. “Who are those women?” I asked.

  Harry gave them a quick inspection, and with his artist’s intuition pronounced, “You know, they’re … up to something.” He went in and left me to deal with the strangers.

  Are they old acquaintances of my mother I’ve forgotten? I wondered as they climbed the stairs.

  “We fooled you,” cried out Claudia, laughing and clapping her hands. She and Paulina were in disguise! They wore matching outfits: black skirts, white cotton blouses, and sneakers. Claudia hid behind black-rimmed glasses, a short brown wig, no makeup and no jewelry except for a modest gold chain with a cheap trinket.

  Mother and daughter looked like Latin Jehovah’s Witness missionaries. “Where’s the Bible?” I kidded them.

  “Man, I knew you’d get it,” Claudia roared, slapping my shoulder. Her appearance had changed, but not her manner.

  “Mijito, they’re after us,” Paulina whispered, looking behind her back. “We came because we know how much this means to you.”

  “We’re getting the fuck out of this town tonight,” Claudia elaborated. “You’re welcome to come with us.”

  “I told Lucy that now that the cat’s dead nothing is holding you here in New York. Virgen del Carmen, the joint is jumping. Come, Claudia, let’s go in. Muchacha, don’t get out of my sight for a minute. You hear me?”

  Claudia winked and blew me a kiss as they went in. I closed the door behind them.

  Mother’s cumbia tapes were blaring, and Gene was lighting dozens of candles on the table. Ben and Tim chatted on the couch, and all the ladies surrounded Harry Hagin, who stood in front of Mr. O’Donnell’s framed drawing which now hung in the living room.

  “Here, have an aguardiente,” Rebecca said solicitously to Harry.

  “Mr. Hagin, would you be so gracious as to answer just a few questions for the readers of our magazine?” asked Carmen Elvira.

  Seeing Harry hesitate, Irma threw in, “We’ll put you on the cover. We print fifty thousand copies of Colombian Queens. A profile in our magazine guarantees instant celebrity.”

  “I don’t know if you’re aware of the fact that there are many important Colombian art collectors,” Olga said, referring no doubt to the coke kingpins who buy all the trendiest painters.

  Paulina said, “Mr. Hagin, we just bought an apartment at Trump Tower. We already have a Salle, a Schnabel, a Keifer, and all the Italians, but we’d love to have a large painting of yours.”

  “I’ll have to dip seriously into my savings,” Mother said, “but I can pay a good price for a painting of Simón Bolívar.”

  “Thank you, Lucy. You can have my paintings for nothing. But I just don’t paint parrots.”

  “Two thousand dollars,” Mother insisted.

  “Actually, I brought Santiago a present,” Harry said.

  “What? What is it?” asked Carmen Elvira.

  “It’s an oil painting. An homage to Mr. O’Donnell.”

  Everyone present looked in the direction of Mrs. O’Donnell. Her eyes widened thinking a portrait of her late husband was going to be unveiled. Then everyone looked at me.

  “Ben, Tim, Gene,” Rebecca called to break up the tension. “Harry is going to unveil his latest masterpiece.”

  “We have to toast to the unveiling,” Mother said, pouring a big shot of aguardiente into Mrs. O’Donnell’s glass.

  “Watch it, Grandma,” Gene said. “You’re gonna get everybody shitfaced.”

  Harry finished unwrapping the painting. All the ladies, including Mrs. O’Donnell, looked at me with envious eyes.

  “Oh, oh,” Mother opined, “it’s just beautiful.”

  “Pure Edgar Allan Poe,” boomed Ben Ami.

  “It’s, like, so downtown,” said Claudia.

  “That’s the baddest painting I’ve seen,” Gene said.

  “It’s a masterpiece,” sighed Paulina. “We want one just like that for Trump Tower.” Maybe she realized I wasn’t going to marry Claudia, and she thought perhaps this way she could get Harry to solve her problem.

  “It’s definitely appearing on our cover,” said Olga. “We’ll print seventy-five thousand copies.”

  The canvas was an expressionistic rendition of Mr. O’Donnell wearing some kind of crown, and with a real rat’s skeleton glued to his mouth.

  “What does the crown mean?” asked Mrs. O’Donnell.

  “It’s a halo,” Harry explained. “The painting is called Mr. O’Donnell Enters Heaven. I hope it’ll always keep Sammy’s memory green.”

  “But Harry,” I demurred, “it must be very valuable.”

  “Someday it will hang in the Museum of Modern Art,” Harry said.

  Squealing and jumping up and down, Olga announced, “We have a tribute to Mr. O’Donnell, too.”

  “Irma will recite the elegy,” Carmen Elvira said.

  “How poetic,” Mother mused aloud.

  “Oh, God,” I heard Wilbrajan snort.

  “Colombians are most poetic people,” Stick pronounced.

  Harry put the painting on the table, leaning against the wall. Some of the guests sat down, Mother turned off the cumbias, and the rest of the audience stood with their backs against the walls.

  Standing in the middle of the room, Irma began. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first collaborative effort of The Colombian Parnassus in Shakespeare’s mother tongue. Also, please excuse my pronunciation.” She closed her eyes, placed her hands on her Rubenesque breasts, and began:

  For we will honor Santiago’s cat Mr. O’Donnell.

  For he was the best cat in Times Square.

  For he was from the alley but loved opera.

  For he was a foe to rats and mice.

  For he loved his owner and was loved in return.

  For his heart was too big.

  “It has a familiar sound,” I whispered to Tim, who was standing next to me.

  “It’s a rip-off of Christopher Smart’s ‘Rejoice in the Lamb,’ “ Tim informed me.

  Fortunately, the elegy was shorter than Smart’s original, and Irma was now bringing it to a conclusion with:

  For he’s alive in Heaven.

  For God loves Mr. O’Donnell.

  For now he’s been immortalized by Art.

  The applause was thunderous. After receiving and giving zillions of kisses and hugs, Irma approached Tim. “What do you think, Mr. Colby?” she asked, obviously eager for his approval.

  Always the gentleman and the diplomat, Tim said, “It’s very appropriate. Congratulations.”

  “Tim loved it,” Irma announced loudly to her fellow muses.

  Rebecca was going around the room distributing printed matter. “This is a memento of the occasion,” she said to me, handing me a sheet with an engraved photograph of Mr. O’Donnell. Under it were the dates Summer 1988 (when she had found him in the alley) and August 1990. Beneath the dates, in gothic calligraphy, was Albert Schweitzer’s “A Prayer to Animals.”

  Rebecca asked for a moment of silence so she could read her farewell prayer to Mr. O’Donnell.

  “Wait a minute,” Mother said. “I always pray on my knees.”

  Gene gave her a hand and she kneeled, setting a lighted candle in front of her. Paulina and Mrs. O’Donnell joined her.

  We all read: “Hear our humble prayer, O God, for our f
riends the animals.” Rebecca read beautifully. We finished with, “Make us, ourselves, to be true friends to animals and so to share the blessings of the merciful.”

  A moment of silence followed. Still on her knees, Mother was the first to speak. “I can’t get over we have a wake to Mr. O’Donnell and not to Bobby who died a few days past and now is like he never was alive. For my very own part,” she went on, getting up, “I think it’s a useless thing to try to impress a cat. I love my two cats because they killed mouses, and they in return put up with me because I open cans for them, I’m sure.”

  Striking a melodramatic pose, Wilbrajan stepped forward. Oh, my God, I thought, she’s going to sing one of her gloomy tangos. Instead, she said, “Let’s have a minute of silence for Bobby who can’t be physically here, although he’s with us in spirit.” Even those who had never met Bobby bowed their heads. In the reigning silence I heard stifled sobs. I was about to raise my head and wipe the tears when the bell rang. “Who could it be?” I pondered aloud. “Everyone is here.”

  “It’s the Post,” Rebecca screamed.

  “The Post,” parroted Paulina, horrified, “Why?”

  “For Sammy and Gene help to smash the ring of drugs,” Mother told her.

  “Claudia, muchacha,” Paulina screamed. “We cannot have our pictures in the papers.”

  “I don’t know what the big deal is,” Wilbrajan sneered. “My picture has been in the Post and the Daily News”.

  I said to the Urrutias, “You can hide in my bedroom while they take the pictures. Just close the door and it will be fine.”

  Mother and daughter left the scene, and I opened the door. Two New York Post photographers shot their flashes at me.

  “Please, come in,” I said.

  “You’re Santiago Martínez, right?” a photographer queried. “Is your nephew here, too? We’d like to get a picture of the two of you if possible.”

  “Don’t forget the cat,” the other photographer added. “What’s going on here anyway, a party?”

  “The cat’s dead; we’re having a wake for him,” I said.

  “That’s a real human interest story. Is that a Colombian custom? Wow! What a story.” The man began to fiddle with his cameras.

  Carmen Elvira handed two drinks to the men.

  “What is it?” asked a photographer, taking his glass and examining the contents.

  “Aguardiente Cristal,” Carmen Elvira told them.

  “Firewater,” uttered one photographer. “It’s like tequila or something like that, right?” He wolfed down his drink. “Thanks, lady,” he said to a flirtatious Carmen Elvira.

  We entered the living room where silence reigned, and everyone was on their best behavior, with the exception of Wilbrajan, who somehow had managed to get everyone off the couch where she lounged seductively like one of Goya’s majas.

  “I’m Gene,” my nephew introduced himself to the photographers. “I helped Sammy catch the drug smugglers. It was like this. I was here all alone … like really alone with the cat. You know what I mean?”

  “I hear you. You were here alone,” the man said. “Now please stand up against the wall,” he ordered Gene and me. Then, noticing Harry’s painting, he said, “What’s that? A painting of the cat? Maybe you should hold the painting between the two of you.”

  “Great shot,” agreed his partner.

  “Watch it, man. Handle with care. That painting is still wet,” Harry said.

  “Is that the painter?” the photographer inquired.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  The photographers took a couple of photos of Harry and his painting.

  “I wish my mom were still alive to see this,” Harry commented.

  Now the men turned to Gene and me. We positioned ourselves at either side of the painting.

  “Be sure you like print my full name and everything,” Gene told the men. “And like don’t forget to say I’m an actor. Is that cool?”

  When the picture was taken, the photographers were rewarded with another round of drinks. Ben commissioned the men to take a group photograph. Although Wilbrajan was quite miffed she had not been asked to pose for the men, she graciously consented to be part of the group composition. Saying they had to rush to have the pictures developed for the morning edition, the Post men exited.

  As soon as the strangers left, Claudia and Paulina emerged from the bedroom and Mother began to play her cumbia tapes again, and the party went into full swing. Taking Simón Bolívar out of his cage, she perched him on a finger and, grabbing a lit candle with the other hand, she began circling the room, singing along with the tape, “La cumbia cienaguera que se baila sabrosona. ” Mother was totally lit but happy. Grabbing a candle (Colombian style), Gene became her partner and, bending his knees, he started circling around her like a rooster courting a hen. Paulina was the next guest to grab a candle, and she chose as her partner Mrs. O’Donnell, who, to my utter astonishment, needed no prodding to join in. Saying that he hadn’t danced cumbia since he was a child, Stick took my reluctant sister by the hand and they attached themselves to the end of the line that, led by Mother and Gene, was heading toward the front of the apartment. Ben Ami and Hot Sauce, Olga and Irma, Harry and Rebecca, Tim Colby and Carmen Elvira eventually tagged in. Finally, only Claudia and myself were left alone in the room.

  I was standing with my back to the windows when Claudia approached me. It occurred to me I should ask her to dance.

  “No, man. Cumbia is so corny. I’d rather talk to you. What’s out there?” She pointed to the alley.

  “The fire escape,” I said. “Want to go out?”

  “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  I opened the gates and went out first; then I gave her my hand to help her come through the window. We stood close together on the platform of the fire escape, looking into the dark alley and a patch of black-coated sky. The air reeked of the uncollected garbage in the alley, but it was cooler than in the apartment where the lit candles created a lot of heat. We sat down in silence and Claudia rested her head on my shoulder. I was feeling a bit uncomfortable with the closeness of this forced intimacy when Claudia said, “Hey, look at that.” She pointed to the building opposite the fire escape. Reinhardt, wearing tiny red bikini underwear, stood in front of his window waving at us.

  “Do you know him?” she said.

  “We’ve talked once.”

  “Oh, so you’re friends.”

  “Not really. I told you: We spoke once. That’s all.”

  “I knew you were kinky.”

  “Oh, come on, Claudia,” I protested. “It’s not at all what you’re thinking of.”

  “Anyway, Sammy. What are your plans now that the cat is dead? Rebecca is going away. You just can’t live above O’Donnell’s bar for the rest of your life,” she said. “Now there’s nothing standing between you and me. Why don’t you come with us to Europe?”

  “Oh, thanks a lot … but just because Mr. O’Donnell is dead, doesn’t mean anything’s changed.”

  “That’s what you think. Nothing ever remains the same for more than a minute. It’s some law of physics or something. Yay!” she cheered abruptly. A show of strobe lights and rock music went on in Reinhardt’s apartment as he danced seductively for us, with a hand inside his bikini underwear.

  “He’s humpy,” Claudia said, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Oh, what a turn-on, Santiago. I just feel like jumping your bones and smoking.”

  Actually, out of her punk costume, I found her appealing, less intimidating. I was pondering this when I saw her parted lips approaching my face. We kissed on the mouth, lips closed. Yet nothing happened: it felt like when I used to kiss Mr. O’Donnell on his cold nose. I turned to look inside the apartment—Carmen Elvira stood behind the window smiling at us and scribbling furiously on her pad.

  The last guest left well past midnight. I started to clean up right away but was too exhausted. I sat on the couch by the window. I looked across the valley. Reinhardt appeared at his
window, completely naked and with a hard-on. He stood there without gesticulating, looking in my direction with great concentration. I got up, went to the phone and dialed his number.

  “Reinhardt, it’s Santiago,” I said, feeling a hot wave come over me. “If you want to, you can come over tonight.”

  Something crawling across my chest woke me up. In my half-awake state, I brushed it aside thinking it was Mr. O’Donnell. Then I remembered Mr. O’Donnell was dead and I opened my eyes completely: the lean and long body of Reinhardt lay next to mine. He breathed gently, like a child. I moved my nose within inches of his, to drink in the air he exhaled. It smelled sweet—like rose water. The room was cool from the air-conditioning and he was deep in his sleep. All of a sudden, seeing this stranger on my bed, I wanted to run away and to be by myself. I covered his body with a sheet, pressed my lips on his and went to the kitchen where I put on the Mr. Coffee. While I was leaning against the sink, waiting for the coffee, I spotted Mr. O’Donnell’s china on the floor and decided to put it away. I emptied the saucers in the trash can and stacked the dishes in the sink. Next, I decided to get rid of the contents of his litter box. I put the empty box in the bathtub so I could wash it later.

  Sitting on the couch, I savored a couple of cups of coffee. In true August form, the weather had turned warm and sticky again. I didn’t have any jobs lined up for the day, so I was free to go back to bed or to do anything I wanted. I wondered whether I should wake up Reinhardt or let him sleep for as long as he wanted; or whether I should go back and get in bed with him. This I wanted to do: to hold his warm body in mine, to exchange a kiss like the night before, which seemed to last for half an hour. It was the wildest and the tenderest act I had ever engaged in. Of course I had had sexual contacts off and on with anonymous men. But this was quite different. Reinhardt was my neighbor and, after teasing each other for a long time, I felt I knew him intimately—even though I didn’t know the first thing about him. Did the fact that we had been to bed mean that he was now my boyfriend? Would we ever do it again? I didn’t have a clue about any of these things. I wished Bobby were still alive and I could call him and ask him these questions. Rebecca was not homophobic, but did she know anything about gay men? What was very clear to me this morning was that after all the revelations of the past few days, my life was about to change. I didn’t know what any of it meant; but for the first time ever, I felt grown up, ready to leave behind the shackles of the past.