by John Nichols
Alfonso retorted, “Oh? And how come I’ve never seen you hand the boss a tip when he’s running the stand?”
“Because he’s the boss,” Gino said. “He rakes in all the profit. I’m only a hired hand.”
Luigi said, “Che, profe won the bet. You better pay up.”
“You pay up, you’re so rich,” Gino said. “Get the money from your loudmouth concubine, La Petisa.”
Luigi was too small to attack Gino, so instead he opened his wallet and gave Alfonso five bucks.
Gino was appalled. “Wait a minute, you little monster. Are you trying to make me look bad?”
Luigi said, “You make yourself look worse than my face by acting like a pudenda.”
“Fuck you, quemado.” Gino pushed Luigi’s five dollars back at him and slapped one of his own bills onto the counter in front of Alfonso. “And fuck you, too, profe. Go to hell both of you.”
“Thank you,” Alfonso said politely. “Now, who wants an empanada compliments of me? Don’t be bashful, boys, I’m loaded.”
22. Greta Garbo
Okay, it was “finished.” Now I had to act. Into a manila envelope went my college romance novel. Along with the manuscript I included a self-addressed postcard so that the publishers could notify me of their rejection by mail. Then I would travel north and pick up my book, saving the cost of postage. After all, a subway token was only fifteen cents.
I spent an hour going over my list of publishers. Then I made a decision. The Lexington Avenue line took me to mid-town Manhattan where I approached the front desk of my first choice. I explained to the receptionist about the postcard inside. She took the slim package from me and weighed it in her hands. “What have we here?” she smirked. “Moby Dick? David Copperfield? The Brothers Karamazov?”
I departed feeling breathless and humiliated. Back downtown, I hurried west on Bleecker Street as nervous and hungry as a wolf. When I turned the corner at the Figaro, Chuy’s accountant, Greta Garbo, was standing at the kiosk’s window nursing a cup of coffee while smoking a Tiparillo. She had on a fashionable overcoat and tall suede boots. To celebrate the submission of my novel I had decided to order a pork empanada. Eating it would be ecstasy.
“I want a pork empanada the size of the Empire State Building,” I told the cocinero.
“I’ll pay for the pie,” Greta Garbo said. “It would be my pleasure.”
I balked. “Oh no, thank you, but no.”
She said, “I’m serious. You look like a starving artist to me.”
“But I have money,” I protested. I took out my wallet and showed her. “Yesterday I unloaded garment bales on Canal Street.”
Greta Garbo said, “That’s not money, it’s chicken feed. Cookie crumbs.”
While we were arguing, Eddie Ortega appeared at the window still wearing his black leather jacket and the red Converse All-Stars. Also blue jeans with rolled-up cuffs. That was his uniform. Roldán plucked a half dozen bills from the register drawer and handed them over. Eddie scribbled in his notebook. He said, “Gimme a pastelito,” so the boss gave him a pastelito and a napkin. Eddie gobbled the treat, wiped off his fingers, and handed back the napkin.
As he departed Greta Garbo asked, “What was that all about?”
“None of your business,” Roldán said. He flicked his fingertips scornfully.
To me, the accountant said, “I hear you think you’re a writer. What do you write about?”
“I’m working on lots of stuff,” I said. “But I haven’t completed anything worthwhile.”
“What sort of stuff?” she asked, blowing smoke in a thin stream up toward the stars. “Have you published anything?”
“No, not yet. I write novels and short stories. They aren’t any good, though.”
“Oh my, Mr. Self-Confidence. What sort of novels?” she persisted.
I didn’t like talking about my work but feared even worse being impolite. Feeling squeamish, I said, “One is a college romance, another is about a Bowery bum. A third concerns the lives of a robber baron family on the North Shore of Long Island.”
“How fascinating,” she said, already bored.
Roldán wrapped a napkin around the bottom half of my empanada and set it on a paper plate. I took a bite and reached for the Tabasco sauce. The cook plucked Greta Garbo’s five-dollar bill off the window ledge instead of my own. He gave her the change and she pointedly left him a one-dollar tip. My five-dollar bill just sat there.
“Have you ever read any books by Ernest Hemingway?” the accountant asked.
“Of course. I’ve read all his novels and short stories, plus Death in the Afternoon. He’s my hero.”
She said, “I think Hemingway was just a little boy with an enormous dick looking for a big fish to fuck.”
Then she picked up my five-dollar bill and tucked it into my jacket pocket and trotted off to call a cab.
23. Inside, Outside
A strange thing happened. I was standing in the kiosk’s alley watching TV, hemmed against the wall by Carlos the Artist, when Cathy Escudero and Jorge appeared at the window. Roldán slid it open a third. Cathy had on a green Santa Claus cap with a white pom-pom and her shabby overcoat. Jorge wore the porkpie hat and carried his guitar case. He had no gloves and seemed half frozen to death.
“Come on in,” the fat man said, turning down the TV sound. He added in English: “Baby, it’s cold outside.” For two weeks I had been teaching him to say that.
Carlos pushed open the door and, after stamping snow off her feet, Cathy came inside. Jorge stayed on the sidewalk.
“Dale, dale,” Roldán said. “You look like a frozen Popsicle.”
Jorge held up one hand to indicate that he felt more comfortable exactly where he was. He continued smoking a cigarette.
Cathy said, “We each want a pork empanada and a cup of hot coffee with a top. In a bag to go, please. How are you, blondie? And what are your friends’ names, if I may be so bold?”
“I am Carlos the Artist,” Carlos said. “And this is the boss himself, Don Áureo Roldán.”
“Mucho gusto conocerles,” Cathy said, shaking hands with them both and doing a double take on the artist’s getup. He had on a top hat and a bullfighting cape, and a third eye was carefully painted in the middle of his forehead. “What kind of artist are you, Carlito, a bullshit artist?”
Carlos replied, “No, I’m a professional womanizer. But you’re not my type. I prefer girls that have graduated from kindergarten.”
Roldán said quickly, “He’s only joking. He’s really a good artist. He’s having a show uptown in the spring.”
“What kind of show?” Cathy asked. “Finger painting? Connecting the dots with crayons?”
Roldán said, “Oíme, nene, at least put the guitar inside.” He was talking to Jorge, who had never set down the guitar case. “Your hand will fall off in this cold.”
Jorge said, “On the street I never let go of my guitar.”
So Roldán left the window open. Cathy coughed from the empanada smoke. “He’s the best flamenco guitarist in New York City,” she bragged. “Isn’t that right, blondie?”
I leaned forward, my head turned sideways so I could see her past Carlos. “That’s right,” I said.
Carlos wanted Jorge to play a song. “Play ‘Bésame Mucho,’ kid.”
“He only plays flamenco,” Cathy said. “He doesn’t sing. He’s a purist, not a sentimental puppy dog.”
Embarrassed, Jorge turned his back on the window, staring at a slant across MacDougal to Dante’s Café. How did he keep from shivering?
Carlos said, “I heard flamenco was invented by retarded gypsies in order to make fun of themselves.”
Fast as he could, Roldán folded napkins around the empanadas, wrapped them with tinfoil, then carefully placed them in a small brown paper bag. He added clean napkins and put tops on the coffee cups and dropped two creamers and sugar packets into the sack, along with a thin plastic swizzle stick to stir the coffees.
Cathy paid, put a quarter
tip on the counter, told Jorge to take the sack off the window ledge, and pressed backward out the door holding the coffee cups.
She paused at the window. “Thank you, maestro. Toodle-oo, blondie. Adiós, Carlos the Artist, don’t get your cape caught in a fan blade.”
The boss closed his window. Three seconds later Carlos said, “Who was that uppity viper?”
I could tell, however, that he liked her.
“She’s not a viper,” I said.
24. Cops and Sobbers
Uh-oh. Eduardo’s ex-wife, Adriana, descended from a taxi and walked purposefully into the empanada stand as if she owned it, trapping Luigi, El Coco, and me in the alley. She had on a Russian imitation-rabbit-fur hat and a spiffy leather overcoat with a turned-up collar. Her face looked very gaunt and pale and her lipstick was a shade of crimson so bright it almost hurt our eyes. The high tension crackling off her body gave all three of us goose bumps. She stuck a cigarette between her lips and ignored the match Luigi struck, clicking open her own lighter. Adriana exhaled into Roldán’s face, saying, “Qué tal, pelotudos?” That’s when we knew she was plastered.
“We’re not assholes,” Luigi said. “We’re just lonely guys looking for a bit of warmth and laughter to mitigate the horrors of this cold, cruel world.”
“You’re assholes in my book,” Adriana said. “Where is Eduardo, the chief asshole in this city of assholes, which is the asshole capital of the Western Hemisphere?”
The cook asked politely, “Querés tomar algo?”
Adriana ignored him and addressed me. “Let me ask you something, blondie. You don’t have a Latin temperament. You’re very slow like a caracol. You’re probably still a virgin. That haircut reminds me of an aircraft carrier. I bet if you ever get married you’ll be faithful to your wife. So tell me: How come you hang out with this pack of oversexed dogs who always treat women like shit?”
Because I didn’t understand the word caracol, I asked, “What is a caracol?”
Before Adriana could explain, El Coco unleashed a startling tirade: “Go away, you Nazi. Leave us alone. We were having fun here until you came along and stunk up the kiosk like a fart. Maybe the devil thinks you’re pretty but you look like lizard crap to me.”
Adriana paused with the cigarette held pensively in front of her cheek. El Coco was wearing a threadbare hooded parka and gloves with the fingers cut off. His unruly black beard reminded me of Rasputin.
Finally, Adriana belched, checked her watch, and addressed Roldán: “Fijate, tubby, it’s nine P.M.—time to close. So why don’t you grab your human mop over there in the corner and clean up this dump?”
Luigi said, “I know it’s impolite to speak harshly with a woman, so please forgive me in advance. But why don’t you shut your stupid mouth?”
Adriana did not hesitate even a beat. “Why don’t you put your face between two slices of a sesame bun and call it a hamburger, charcoal man?”
Roldán lunged against the counter trying to grab Luigi but he wasn’t quick enough—the burnt man slapped Adriana.
She broke apart, bursting into tears, and banged backward out of the alley shrieking. Then she stood on the sidewalk exercising her lungs like a drowning lady on the Titanic.
Some disheveled beatniks came out of the Hip Bagel. Other pedestrians stopped, inspecting Adriana curiously. Her shrill Spanish invective drew two cops on horseback who galloped down MacDougal Street, dismounted at the kiosk, and gaped at her. One of them shouted, “What the hell happened here?”
Luigi explained in Spanish, “She’s drunk. She’s insulting everybody. So I hit her.”
The cops asked me, “What did he say?”
Before I could think I translated his words, so they arrested Luigi, clicking on handcuffs, and called for a squad car on their walkie-talkies. Two dozen tourists had gathered to watch the fun. Roldán was standing there in his filthy apron and beside him El Coco looked like a derelict that had just crawled out of a rathole. Adriana kept hollering invective at Luigi and Eduardo at the top of her voice. Eventually she spit at one cop so they manacled her too, treating her roughly in the process. By now two cruisers had arrived with their cherry tops blinking. They blocked traffic on MacDougal below Bleecker. Luigi and Adriana were hustled to the rear seats of separate squad cars and Adriana shouted more obscenities about Eduardo. An officer finally asked me, “Who the hell is Eduardo?”
“Her ex-husband.”
“And who’s the burnt marshmallow?”
I summoned the courage to reply, “He is not a burnt marshmallow.”
The cop rolled his eyes. “Excuse me, sir. Let me rephrase my question. Who is the handsome little man wearing the bomber jacket?”
“He’s just a friend. He didn’t do anything. She’s crazy when she drinks.”
The cop snorted. “I hate to tell you, but everybody in this city is crazy, even when they don’t drink.”
“Luigi’s a good guy,” I insisted timidly. “Where are you taking him?”
“None of your damn business.”
The squad cars drove away, the crowd dispersed, and soon enough the police horses clip-clopped south toward their stables below Canal Street.
Luigi arrived at the kiosk on the following night none the worse for wear. “Adriana is like an atomic bomb,” he said, laughing. “I like that in a woman.”
25. An Impromptu Diatribe
“That empanada stand is a silly place,” Cathy said to me. “It’s a club for little boys to hang out in who don’t want to grow up. The men in my country are all like that. The fat man who owns the joint is a child. And that friend of yours, ‘Carlos the Artist,’ is a goofy numskull. Who does he think he is, Cantinflas? If you spend too much time there with those infants you’ll turn into an adolescent basket case yourself, a real boludo. You’ll even begin to look like an empanada. And one day you’ll just be standing on the sidewalk minding your own business when somebody will walk up behind you and shake half a bottle of Tabasco sauce onto your head.”
I don’t know what had prompted the diatribe. She and Jorge had been working on a solear, which was stern and slow moving at the start. You had to enter it carefully, with constraint and melancholia and deliberate moves that were dream-like and ponderous. The effect was created not by flashy footwork or by explosions of artistic zeal, but rather by a slow liberation of dire emotion translated through minimal guitar work and careful dance moves.
Abruptly, Cathy had stopped, put her hands on her hips, and delivered to me the curt dissertation on the kiosk.
“But I like the empanada stand,” I said.
Cathy frowned at me. Then she told Jorge to begin again at the top, which he did, and they continued the practice session.
26. C Rations
Alfonso said, “His stupid publisher was driving the car too fast. The world mourns when a great artist like that is taken away too soon.”
He was talking about Albert Camus. The accident had occurred in 1960, when Camus was forty-six.
Luigi said, “Carlos Gardel was only forty-eight when that plane crash burned him alive.”
Roldán said, “I don’t think Van Gogh was even forty when he shot himself.” He stuck wooden spoons into little cups of dulce de leche, handing a complimentary cup to each of us.
“You’re right, cocinero.” Alfonso reached over to shake the fat man’s hand. “He was thirty-seven. He died in 1890, one year before Rimbaud.”
Luigi banged his own forehead. “How can you remember those dates, profe?”
Alfonso made a cavalier gesture. “I also remember when García Lorca was shot by the Guardia Civil. August 19, 1936. He was only thirty-eight years old. Spain murdered its own heart when those bastards did that.”
Popeye double-parked the diaper truck on MacDougal Street. Carlos the Artist jumped from the passenger side and opened the rear doors. He and Popeye brought over two cardboard cartons that they set on the window ledge and Popeye slit them open with a linoleum cutter. A bold black logo on the boxes
said U.S. ARMY SURPLUS. Carlos was decked out in a black beret, black cape, black silk blouse, black trousers, and black boots with elevated heels. He also wore sunglasses and green lipstick, and was smoking a Gitane.
Luigi said, “Mirá, here’s two clowns from Transylvania.”
The sailor man ignored him, prying forth several drab C-ration kits which he set dramatically on the window ledge. One kit offered ham with pineapple and angel food cake. Another had Spam and beans and cherry Jell-O. A third contained meatloaf and chocolate pudding.
Roldán said, “Where did you find those fossils, boys?”
Popeye raised his hands in protest. “Please, don’t ask. It’s a delicate question and nobody’s business. Watch this.”
He removed a can, fit a tin key in the lid tab, twisted the metal band off, removed the top, and extended the ham with pineapple toward Roldán: “Go ahead, cookie, pruebalo.”
Roldán eyeballed the meal with obvious distaste and suspicion.
“How old is that, marinero—World War II?”
“Nope, Korea. Do me a favor, taste it. This crap is good.”
“Good for parrots and rats,” Alfonso said. “You taste it.”
“Hey, why not?” Popeye probed with a plastic government-issue fork, gouging free a chunk, and ate it, chewing thoughtfully. Then he brightened. “Man, this is wonderful, no kidding.”
Meanwhile, Carlos had opened the angel food cake. “This is almost a culinary treasure from Paris.” But when he turned the tin upside down a shriveled thumb-sized nugget of stale pastry clanged off the window ledge, bounced onto the sidewalk, and rolled across into the gutter.
“You can sell these dinners as snacks to tourists,” Popeye urged the cocinero. “Fifty cents apiece. You keep two bits and I get a quarter to split with my partner here. It’s all on consignment, no risk. I’ll trust you to be honest.”
Alfonso said, “You couldn’t give away that stuff to a starving Armenian.”
“Screw you.” Popeye pleaded: “Oíme, patrón. I’m so broke my balls are falling off. And my partner here hasn’t sold a painting in eight months. One day he’ll be more famous than Picasso. But right now we’re both in deep shit.”