Early the next morning, Ted woke at dawn, pocketed the address, jumped in the Corolla, and headed back up to Spanish Harlem. It was nice and quiet on the roads. He pressed play for the Dead and they sang “Uncle John’s Band” from 1970’s Workingman’s Dead. Something about having some things to talk about beside the rising tide. Ted got some things to talk about too. Was Uncle John the martyred abolitionist John Brown? Was he any avuncular man of American wisdom? Was he both? Was the old man’s work a journal or a novel? Was the old man one man or two? Was Razzles a gum or a candy? Ted sparked a Rasta fat doobie to see if he could resolve the puzzle. He could not. It was gray. Always that fucking gray. Ted took a deep breath and settled into his negative capability. He was by nature impatient, but he would wait for Uncle John’s band to play him the final truth by the riverside and resolve the gray into the blinding white of revelation.
He lurched his car into a space across from the address on the paper, a tenement that had seen better days. In about twenty minutes, things started to get busy. The workaday world getting to it. He watched the entrance of the tenement as some people went in and out. A man. A man with two school-age children. A young woman. Two old women arm in arm. Could one of them be her? Could that old woman shuffling down the street be her? Was her name really Maria? How many Marias must there be in Spanish Harlem? Was she real at all? Ted felt a little drowsy, so he walked over to a diner on the corner for some coffee.
As he passed the counterman on the way to a phone booth in the back, Ted called out, “Coffee regular, please.”
“¿Café con leche?”
“Right, café con leche.”
This was a country within a country and Ted did not really speak the language. As his father had said, he knew Latin, not Latino. He dialed the number on the paper. Disconnected. He remembered aimless nights when he was a kid hanging with his friends and looking for the strangest name in the phone book. America was a melting pot and the phone book was most definitely the list of exotic ingredients. There were fantastical Chinese names, Filipino names, Russian names, Thai names—it was truly a directory of the universe. But they had found one name to rule them all. Babu Dudumpudi. Ted figured it was Indian. Best name ever, they all decided. Babu Dudumpudi. That guy must have all the answers.
They called Babu up back then and a man had answered, definite Indian accent. The giggling kids asked for “Babu” and “Mr. Dudumpudi,” but could get no further before breaking down into hysterics and hanging up. He wondered if Babu Dudumpudi still had the same number. Was there a Mrs. Dudumpudi? Were there a bunch of mini-Dudumpudis underfoot? He’d bet that Babu knew some shit. He wished he could talk to the ol’ Dudumpuds right now, and ask him all the questions he needed answered, pump him for the wisdom that came with such a name. The dimes dropped back down and clinked in the slot. Ted gathered them up. No, Babu was probably long gone too. He couldn’t remember the Dudumpudi digits anyway. But he had Mariana’s number. He’d never used it. He used it now. She answered. He apologized for calling, and asked her to meet him at the diner. She said she would come right away. Ted took his coffee off the counter and went to sit in a booth to wait.
She arrived within the hour. She had those Jordache jeans on. Lord have mercy. Ted waved her over to the booth and felt his smile a little too broad, a little too happy. He was definitely not a hipster, not Mailer’s white negro. Ted stood up. Mariana offered her cheek and sat down. Ted decided to show off what he had learned. “¿Café con leche?”
“Sure, that’d be great, thanks.”
Ted called to the counterman, “Café con leche, por favor. Dos.”
“Dos.”
The counterman came to the booth and asked in Spanish if they wanted anything to eat. “¿Que te gustaría comer?”
Ted hung on his favorite phrase, really his only phrase, “Café con leche.”
“¿Vas a comer tu café?”
“Café con leche.” Ted rolled his eyes at Mariana like “get a load of this guy.”
“¿Algo mas a comer?”
“Don’t do that.”
The counterman glared at Ted.
Mariana jumped in and asked Ted, “Do you like plátanos?” Ted wasn’t sure what plátanos were, but they sounded fine, so of course he said, “Love the plats.”
“Plátanos, please.”
The counterman backed away, muttering under his breath.
“Does your father know you’re doing this? Trying to find this mystery woman?”
“No.”
Mariana inhaled audibly, swallowed, and shook her head just slightly.
“This is all twenty, thirty years ago. Life goes on.”
“I know life goes on. I just wanna know what’s real and what’s not.”
“Uh-huh. For his sake or for yours?”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, maybe this is the way you need the story to go, not him.”
“Well, yeah, I would like to see why, I mean meet the reason, of why my father, why he checked out. Why he left my mother.”
“And you.”
“And me what?”
“He left you, too.”
“Okay. So?”
“And you think this woman, if she’s still alive, if she actually exists, if she still lives here, and if she even remembers Marty, you think this woman will clear up the mystery? Of? The mystery of…?”
“I dunno. Why he was such a shit.”
“He’s not a shit, he’s a man. And life is hard. I’m sure there were many reasons, too many to ever be happy with one.”
“And me, why I’m not happy.”
“You’re not happy?”
“No, I’m not happy. I don’t write like I can. Or should. Why I’m getting old and am still so nowhere.” Ted was walking far out on a limb. He didn’t speak to women like this, this honestly and vulnerably, especially a woman he liked. He didn’t know why he was giving her so much. Because she was a nurse, a professional? Because this coffee was so strong? Or just because she was who she was, how she appeared to him as a receptive, accepting being, a receptacle poured out into this amazing shape.
“Are you trying to turn me on?” she deadpanned.
That made Ted laugh and he appreciated it. She had received him without judgment. Then she added, “I don’t think there are answers for that. To why you’re so nowhere, or feel you’re so nowhere. Clearly you have a lot inside you that you want to get out, on a page maybe, but then what?”
“I dunno. Don’t you have things you want to get out and honor?”
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Why not? Can we?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. Some mysteries you have to learn to accept. When you grow up.”
“When you grow up,” Ted repeated. She turned her palms up like, “This is a hard truth, but what the hell.” Ted checked for the five hundredth time—no wedding ring.
“C’mon, what’s the worst that can happen? I could get arrested for harassing an old Puerto Rican lady?”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Not you, not calling you ‘old.’”
“I’m half Dominican. Uh-huh. There are worse things than harassing old Puerto Rican ladies.”
“Are you doing anything today? Again, not calling you ‘old.’”
“No, I have a day off.”
“And you don’t need to spend it with your boyfriend?”
“Subtle. You’re like a detective. A regular Nancy Drew.”
She was funny, and her insults had no sting, not like Marty; her insults felt nice, like acupuncture. How did she do that? Ted wondered. What was her mojo? He liked everything about her. This was bad. Joyce was right when he said, First you feel, and then you fall. Mr. James Joyce, that is, not Dr. Joyce Brothers. He wanted to spend the day with this Mariana Blades just goofing off. She made things seem possible. Was that her gift in general or just her gift with Ted? Was she giving this in particular to Ted or did she just give this to the world, and Ted happened to be sitting across from her today?
“Well, you could always hang around and officiate, I mean, not officiate, and not coach, it’s not a game, or referee, more like oversee, or…” The coffee was running away with his tongue. He sounded like an idiot. He feared an imminent malapropism.
“Babysit?” she offered. An insult? Kind of, but no, not coming from her.
“Bingo. Babysit. And, you know, make sure I don’t do anything stupid? Anything too stupid.”
The counterman arrived with more coffee, exactly what Ted did not need, and put the coffee and the order of plátanos on the table. Ted looked skeptically at the plate and sniffed.
“Ach, what are these, fried bananas?” He pushed them around his plate with his finger. “They are! These are fucking fried bananas! Very funny. This guy’s fucking with me. Doesn’t like the white guy with the Latin girl, right? I get the message, amigo, loud and clear. It’s 1978, okay?”
The counterman just stared impassively and repeated, “It’s 1978.”
“Oh, you’re gonna act like you don’t understand now.”
“Ted…” Mariana tried to cut him off.
“Mariana, please tell this gentleman that this is not West Side Story. This plate is gross.”
Mariana looked pained, looked up at the counterman, and said, “Mi amigo es un poco lento mentalmente en su cabeza asi que por favor perdona lo. Es inofensivo.”
“Yeah, what she said,” Ted seconded.
The counterman nodded and smiled somewhat forgivingly at Ted, apologizing. “Lo siento.”
“Hey, watch it with that lo siento, buddy, I can do this all day.”
Mariana said, “Lo siento is ‘I’m sorry.’”
“What?”
“He said he’s sorry.”
“Okay, cool, cool, tell him it’s okay. I accept. Yo accept, lo siento.”
Mariana said something to the counterman that seemed to go on a lot longer than “I accept your apology.” Then she turned back to Ted and said, “You guys are good now.”
Ted was magnanimous. “Good. Bueno.”
The counterman excused himself and walked away. Ted brought a small piece of plátano to his lips and tasted warily. It was very good.
“These aren’t fried bananas, are they?”
Mariana shook her head no. Then she couldn’t help herself and laughed so hard she almost spit some coffee on Ted. Ted started to shove more and more plátanos into his mouth.
He said, “Oh my God. I don’t care what they are. They’re fucking great.”