While the kids scattered, some to their rooms and some down the street to the McDonald’s, I went with Raul. I went not because I needed a buddy and not because I longed to keep on trying to speak Spanish in a civil way but because I was curious as to what Raul had found on his own in New York City and what he thought was a nice place.
Turned out to be a bar on Third Avenue called Tapas. I guess I must have walked by it a hundred times and never saw it.
It was in a storefront with the bottom half of the window painted black. “Tapas” was written in orange neon in the window and that was the only light coming from the place. We stepped into the foyer and there was a heavy black curtain that opened into the main — and only — room.
The bar filled the south wall — mirror and bottles behind and drinkers and glasses in front. There was a jukebox and it was wailing some kind of foreign shit, guitars and such. Not country-western and not anywhere near Waylon.
It was dark and smoky.
The voices were in Spanish. On the north side of the room were tables with white paper table covers. On the faded, yellowish wall were posters of bullfights in places like Sevilla and Barcelona and Madrid. I followed Raul to the back of the dining room where there was a regulars’ table. Every good joint has one — a table without a covering, usually round, usually full of the usuals.
They greeted Raul with laconic enthusiasm, sort of the Spanish-speaking equivalent of “how ya doin’.” Raul was offered a chair but he stood and I realized he was going to introduce the gringo.
— This is Ryan Shawn, the manager of the Yankees.
They looked up at me. One was heavyset with clear blue eyes and a dark suit. His tie was neatly affixed to the top of his white shirtfront and he wore a jeweled tie clip. The second man was going bald on top and had large hands with a lot of calluses on the fingers and palms. The third dude was younger — about thirty — sort of hidden back in the shadows of the lamp lights.
“Hey,” I said in English. I didn’t stick out my mitt in the all-American greeting because it didn’t seem to me anyone wanted to extend himself to reach forward.
— He wants to follow you to see if you are in touch with the counterrevolutionaries? (said the man with the tie clip).
— Tell him the Irish bar is at the end of the block. He can celebrate St. Patrick’s Day there.
This came from the younger guy in the shadows. There was a mean edge to it.
I didn’t say a thing, Raul said:
— I invited him to have a drink with me.
— You should make him pay, Raul. He makes much more money than you do, by spying on you.
— Castro’s pet.
I didn’t know who said the last thing. I just smiled in my lazy, Clint-Eastwood way, not taking offense, and I said:
— Raul, I ain’t welcome. You have your beer with your friends and I’ll just go home to Fort Lee.
— Suburbanite.
This came from the tie clip.
— Yeah, well, we can’t all afford to live in the Big Apple.
— You can (Tie Clip said).
— Not me. I’m just a country boy, got to go to sleep with the cows.
— He sleeps with cows.
This got a laugh, even if it wasn’t such a nice laugh. It broke the ice. But Raul wasn’t having any of it.
— He is my guest.
Raul said this exactly the way Errol Flynn might have said it before slicing up the Sheriff of Nottingham or something.
— Sit down, sit down (Tie Clip said, gesturing to empty chairs). Any friend of Raul’s is welcome here. Have you been here before, Señor Shawn?
— Not really.
— You like Spanish food? I sat.
— Oh, tacos and shit like that, yeah.
— This is not tacos and ‘shit’ like that. (This was from the young guy in the shadows.)
Tie Clip gave the young guy a look and then turned to me.
— You speak Spanish.
— Come from Texas.
— I thought so. Mexican accent.
— And you speak like a Cuban.
— Bravo. I am Cubano. My name is Jose Marti Riccardo.
— Any relation to Ricky Ricardo?
That stopped up the conversation a moment and then Tie Clip smiled. He had a weary face and bright eyes and he leaned forward and took my hand without me realizing it was ready to be taken. We did a shake. His hand was soft.
Introductions all around. The young guy was Estavar something and it turned out he was an interpreter at the United Nations, rendering into Spanish things said in English and Italian. The other guy with the big, calloused hands and the hair going to bald was another Jose, this time named Martinez and he was a limo driver who hustled as an illegal taxi on the side. He gave me his card and said he knew where Fort Lee was and he wouldn’t complain about taking me there. This was a good thing to know and I thanked him.
I had beer and it was San Miguel, which is not the same as Miller GD but had its own cool. Raul had a beer and then there was a plate full of things like octopus or scampi and other things like that. I am not much for fish that looks strange but. I thought I should dip in, even if I was going to get poisoned by it. The others were into their cups — Jose Marti Riccardo was into rum and Coke and the other Jose, the driver, was drinking Tio Pepe brandy — and we weren’t going to catch up with them.
— Señor Shawn is the one who came to Cuba to get us to play for the Yankee team, Raul said.
— I know. You forgive them, Señor, they are not baseball fans here but I read the baseball news every day in the Daily News, (This from Señor Riccardo.)
— Football, huh?
Estavar said, in cold, precise English, “I suppose you mean American football but that’s a stupid, barbarian game. I mean football.” “Soccer,” I said. “Football,” he said.
— Call it what you want.
— You should speak English, you don’t speak Spanish very well.
— What do you do in your spare time, Estavar? You a diplomat? That got a smile from the other two — not a laugh, not near a laugh, but
a smile — city, clashing with security forces in the biggest and Estavar leaned into the light a little and I could see his face. Why is it I know every punk’s resentful face and why do they all look the same? He could have been a beered-up pickup truck cowboy on the road to Galveston looking for a pool cue fight just as well as he could be a UN translator sitting in a Spanish bar on Third Avenue.
— Ignore Estavar, Señor. I love baseball, I am a Yankee fan for thirty years since I came to New York. I once caught a Reggie Jackson home run with these bare hands.
I liked Tie Clip. He was sprawled back in his wooden armchair, enjoying the booze and the smell of cigarette smoke forming brown clouds over the tables. There were a few eaters, but I found out the rush came around nine at night. This was a Spanish place and it was a shabby bit of old España, trying to keep alive thoughts of home, even if the customers came from different homes in the Spanish-speaking world. I bought a round when the girl came again and no one turned it down, not even Estavar. Everyone saluted and we laid it back into our throats.
— Señor (began Jose Riccardo), are the Yankees very good this year?
— I don’t know.
Raul looked at me then.
I looked at him. “I dunno,” I said in English. I looked at Riccardo. “Trouble is, everyone feels their way the first forty games of the season. Everyone is trying to figure everyone out. Teams change every year. Players who are dipshit in one league find a new life in another league. Trades and combinations. Not to mention twenty-four brand-new ballplayers on the Yanks that nobody ever saw play outside of Havana.”
“The element of surprise,” Jose Marti Riccardo said thoughtfully. “Yes. I see that.”
Raul said:
— No, no. Much better than just a surprise.
— You, Raul, are the greatest surprise of all (Riccardo said). What a beautiful hitter, I want to cry when I see you hit the ball.
I pulled tickets out of my wallet, good box tickets of the kind that are a manager’s perk. I threw them casually on the table.
— Come on out and see us.
— Much thanks, Señor.
Riccardo palmed the tickets and then examined them and said again “much thanks.” He doled one out to the driver and offered one to Estavar.
— Baseball is a tedious game (Estavar said).
— It has its moments (I said).
— Why are you insulting me? (Raul said).
— I am not insulting you, Raul, I am insulting this gringo.
“Shit, hoss, you can’t insult me. I’m insult-proof.” Said it easy, just like it reads.
Estavar said, “You work for Señor Castro, the pig. You work for the CIA.”
“Hold on, I work for George Bremenhaven, which is even worse.”
“The pig who raped Cuba.”
“George gave these kids a chance to play in the Bigs.”
“Bigs?” said Riccardo.
“The major leagues,” I said.
Raul held up his hand.
— Let’s speak Spanish. Riccardo said:
— Is this a good man, Raul?
— He is doing what he has to do.
There was a shrug in that answer as well. I saw the way this was going. It wasn’t Raul’s fault but it was like the time that Pedro Quininos and I went down into this Billy Bob bar on the road to Galveston with me.forgetting he was a Mexican wearing a sombrero and the next thing you knew, we were playing Zorro with pool cues with half the cowboys in the place. Sometimes you forget where you are when you come out of the workplace and go down home.
— Raul, I’ve got to call it an early night. I appreciate the beer.
— No, no, Señor Shawn. I buy you a beer. I must, before you leave.
— And have this. It is octopus (said Riccardo).
I thought it was. But I took it anyway. It was chewy and I chewed. Sort of like Doublemint gum with all the sugar gone out of it.
More beer came. The juke played this woman singing in a falsetto and there were feet dancing on the record as well as that throbbing flamenco guitar.
“Whaddaya you do, Mr. Riccardo?”
“I am a courtroom interpreter,” he said.
“Like criminal court?”
“Yes. I am on call in the branches in Manhattan to interpret for the clients who do not speak English.”
“Lots of them, I guess.”
“Lot of them. We also have a Korean interpreter, Mr. Kimm Soo Long, and there is the Polish lady, Mrs. Gzenewski.”
“Polish? I didn’t figure on Polish.”
“You only think the lawbreakers are Spanish, is that it?” asked Estavar.
“No, I figured the Spanish speakers played ball for the Yankees,” I said. Little shit was getting me hot.
Raul leaned forward then. He fixed his eye on Estavar. He held it a moment, just like an actor. I swear his eye was going to do an Eastwood twitch, but he just held it there on Estavar, his strong wrists gripping the edge of the table.
“Mr. Shawn gave us his free day. To show us this city. He took us to many places. He didn’t take us to the courts.” He said this in careful and totally unaccented English. “We saw the Statue of Liberty.”
“Ah, the statue. Muy buena,” said Riccardo.
Estavar said, “He wants you to defect. Why don’t you defect and get it over with?”
Raul blinked. The language was too fast for him.
— Defect (repeated Estavar in Spanish). He is trying to lure you to defect. To show you how much there is in America and how little you have in Cuba.
— I will never defect. My fiancee. She is in Havana.
Riccardo appeared uncomfortable. He tapped the tips of his fingers together. He said:
— Please, please. This is a place for pleasant thoughts and pleasant words. Señor Shawn is not an agent provocateur. I have seen him play many times.
Now what the hell did that mean? Did he mean there was something about the way I pitched that said I couldn’t be whatever he said I wasn’t?
— Look. I don’t want anybody to do anything except play ball. We’re going to Texas next week and swing through the West Coast and all I want to do is play ball and get through this season.
— And win the pennant (Raul said). I looked at him.
He stared at me.
— Well, yeah. Everyone’s got a chance.
— We have more than a chance.
— You got a chance, Raul We ain’t anywhere near winning the pennant.
— Look at what we have done.
— Look at Suarez. He don’t pace himself as a pitcher. He’s throwing his arm out. He’ll be a cripple by July. Look at Tomas at short. He keeps getting surprised by the ball.
— The grounds are very alive, Señor. He is used to dead grounds. Dead. The infield, I mean.
So that was it. Raul had just solved a mystery for me there. Sure, the kids were playing on semi-manicured grass with a few crab weeds in it. The ball didn’t have the bounce in Havana it had in the Bigs.
— Raul is hitting well (Riccardo said).
— He might be a spring phenom.
— No, he’s the real thing. I can see Reggie Jackson when I see him swing.
— The second go-round, the pitchers will be seeing him again, figuring out how to pitch to him.
— They can’t pitch to me (Raul said). —- That’s what they all say.
— Another round.
The last came from Riccardo who sprinkled the infield with his index finger and made a circular motion. More beers and I sat still and took it like a man. Raul was waiting for the waitress to leave to have another fight with me. I was ready.
— Raul, I don’t want you to get your hopes up. The season is a hundred and sixty-two games long. You got to pace yourself. Baseball is funny, it’s like life, you got your ups and downs. The best team ever is gonna lose a third of its games, that’s a given. So we still have a lot of losing to do. It’s how you come back from the losing that determines the winning.
— True words, Señor. Very true words (Riccardo said and he burped. His eyes were getting glassy but it was the only sign of intoxication, not counting the burp). I had a case today in which this poor hombre robbed a woman at an ATM machine. He has had bad luck ever since he came to New York two years ago. His wife left him with their baby and she is on welfare in Brooklyn and he has not had a job except in the Roy Rogers on Broadway washing dishes. He has no money and he could not stand any more losing. So he robbed a woman at an ATM on West 88th Street.
I stared at Riccardo. He waved his hand in dismissal and sighed.
—- He was given two years at Attica. This is the end of the season for him. I sat there and didn’t say anything. Raul said:
— It is unjust, all the poverty that drives men to these crimes. “Hey,” I said, getting the words in my personal fog machine, “Poverty
is poverty. Only thing is here that not everyone is poor so it stands oet. I didn’t see a lot of rich people in Havana.”
“You saw people sharing their fate,” Estavar said,
“I don’t have to be poor again to know I was,” I said.
“You’re making a million dollars this year, it says so in the Daily News” Riccardo said. He said it softly.
“Damn right,” I said.
“The American way, reward the Anglo and keep down the Hispanic who does the work,” Estavar said.
“You’re a fucking Communist,” I said.
“No, I am,” Raul said.
We all looked at him.
Riccardo tapped him on the back of his hand. “Raul, little one, you are just a ball player.”
“No, they say I am a Communist”
“That’s just a way of talking,” I explained.
“It is true. We do the bidding of El Supremo. And we do this for Cuba.”
“Where’d you pick up your English?”
“My fiancée is fluent in English,” he said. “She helps me.”
“Then you could talk regular all along?”
“I am not happy with English,” Raul said.
“That’s what the Irish say,” I said. Trying to keep it light and falling on my own joke again. If jokes were sharp, I’d be in bandages.
“You were not born when I volunteered for the Bay of Pigs,” said Riccardo. “They said I was just a boy and they would not let me go. My uncle was killed there and my father was put into prison. He died.”
Raul closed his eyes a moment, as though to absorb the tragedy of what Riccardo said. Then he said to me:
—- You should go home now, Senor. I’m sorry.
I did it with some dignity, I thought. I got up slow and extended my hand to Riccardo and shook it and then to the other Jose who had the limo and then did a wave to Estavar because I wasn’t going to let the snot reject my handshake. Then I rested my hand on Raul’s shoulder.
— I don’t want nothing from you except to make it more comfortable for you. For Tío, Suarez, the others. I know this is just like one long road trip to you, but autumn will come before you know it.
— And we will not win the pennant.
— I didn’t say that. I just said, you got to expect losses along the way. — If you expect to lose, you will lose.
— I didn’t say that. I didn’t say you should expect …
— I know what you said. This is not baseball, Señor. This is a show, some kind of a circus show. This is not baseball. The others on the other teams, they know. They feel they are shamed because we are on the field against them. What are we? Boys from Cuba no one ever heard of.
“Shit and double shit, Raul,” I said. Then, in Spanish:
— I don’t want you to get down.
— I am down. All the time. All I want is to be with my beloved one.
— Maybe that’s all I want, too.
He looked at me. The others looked at me. Damn. I didn’t figure on giving anything away. I took my hand off his shoulder.
— You got a girl, I got a girl. You handle it. You make your living. You’re on the road, you have to do what you have to do.
— You love someone?
— I love someone (I said, thinking to make him feel better). —- And you … “handle” it? How do you handle it?
— You watch westerns on TV and drink beer when you can and when there’s a game, you play the game. That’s what you do.
— And it is not more important than that?
— It’s more important, Raul. You just “handle it.”
Estavar guffawed. He brought up his hand half-clenched and made a frigging movement with it.
“He means like this, Raul.”
But Raul was staring at me.
“You can do that, Señor? Handle it when she is someplace far away, waiting for you?”
“It’s what you have to do.”
Raul shook his head and looked away.
— If you can do that, then I feel sorry for you, Señor.
— Why?
He looked back up at me.
— Because, Señor, then you are not in love at all.
And I had to get out of there, right then, back into the glitter of the shabby street with the shabby cabs humping over the patched up pavement, letting the cool night air slap me around a little.
Lovesick little puppy.
Shit.
I lurched down the sidewalk toward the parking lot.
Handle it! I wanted to scream at him.
But I didn’t make a sound.