Maria’s apartment was modest and simple, and Ted could tell immediately that she lived alone and had for some time. This observation pleased him. Ted looked around at photos and such to see if there were hints of Marty’s existence, but he couldn’t find anything. There was a photo of John Kennedy. There were plenty of framed photos of children and a few of a man Ted assumed was their father, but he saw no clues that this man was still around. The Yankee game was on, so Ted quietly went over and turned the TV off, and Marty didn’t seem to care at all. The secret weapon getting open, being deployed. Marty and Maria sat in two chairs by the window, speaking quietly to each other. Marty had a posture and affect that Ted had never seen before—soft, receptive, attentive. He couldn’t remember ever seeing him like that with his mother, but that was a long time ago. It seemed that Marty and Maria had seen each other yesterday, not twenty years ago. Mariana came up behind Ted and said softly in his ear, “Stop staring at them.” Ted felt her breath on his skin, and that made him want to keep staring just so she would have to whisper in his ear again.
They sat at the small dining room table, and ate chicken and pork and beans and rice; they drank beer and wine and sangria. Mariana pointed and informed Ted of the exotica—“Empanadas, arroz con gandules, arroz con frijoles, mofongo, pernil…” All new and scary to Ted. He was afraid to eat. He looked at his food warily, like a wildebeest at the watering hole afraid of submerged crocodiles.
He could see Mariana watching Marty’s beer-and-wine intake. He shrugged as if to say Well, what the fuck—this one time. A new dish caught Ted’s eye—fried plátanos, or fried bananas as Ted knew them. He looked at the dish, and then looked at Mariana, who shrugged.
“Excuse me, Maria, what are these?” Ted asked.
“Plátanos.”
Thought so. He ate a piece. It was one of the best things he’d ever tasted in his life, even better than what he’d had in the diner. “I’m an idiot.”
“Not an idiot,” Mariana said.
“Thanks.”
“Maybe just a little slow. Here, I’ll help you. Now, don’t be scared.” She began to feed Ted a forkful of each dish as she named them for him.
“Empanadas.”
“Mmmmmmm…”
“Arroz con gandules.”
“Mmmmmmm…”
“Arroz con frijoles.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmm…”
“Mofongo.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”
“Pernil.”
“Mmmm … give me that.” Ted took the fork from Mariana and began stuffing his own face. Even though Maria had trouble understanding him with his mouth so full, she got the gist when Ted said to her, “These are the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
Maria got up from the table and disappeared into the bedroom for a minute. She came back with an old manila folder. Ted was a little tipsy himself. “The thrilla in the manila,” he said.
She emptied the contents on the table—photographs. In that distinctive Kodacolor that made everything look immediately like a memory, and made memories seem even farther back in time and more sacred than they ever were.
One photo jumped out at Ted immediately. It was apparently taken at a city ballfield eons ago. It was unposed, of the whole softball team, the Nine Crowns. In one corner, you could see Marty and Maria laughing at a private joke. There was a glow from the setting sun about it, giving it a sense of timelessness. You can’t believe that this time ever passed, and you can’t believe that this time ever really was. Maria and Marty started pointing out people and players that they remembered and telling stories about long-forgotten characters. “This guy from the neighborhood, Carlos Crocchetti, half Italian, half Puerto Rican, could never really make the team, pinch runner maybe, more of a batboy, always a smile on his face. One day, I asked him, ‘Carlos, why’re you so happy? What’s the secret?’ and he goes, ‘I look like I’m happy, but truth is I’m miserable and I hate everything and everybody. Including you.’ He was totally serious, the funniest fucking thing I ever heard in my life.”
Ted pulled another photo from the pile, one in which it looks like Marty is trying to teach young Ted how to hit. Marty is standing behind Ted with his hands around his waist and they are holding the bat together, looking out at something unseen coming at them—a ball? The future?
“Look at that,” Ted said. “I don’t ever remember you trying to teach me to hit.”
“El Spleenter,” Maria said.
“I don’t remember it, either,” Marty said.
Maria moved on and uncovered a heroic shot of Marty pitching, as perfect as a baseball card, upon which someone with a flair pen, no doubt Maria, had drawn a heart like a schoolgirl. Marty laughed and Maria feigned embarrassment. Ted apologized to his mother in his mind, but felt prompted to ask, “Why didn’t you two stay together?” Marty and Maria looked at each other, as if trying to decide who would or should take this question. Maria looked at Marty as if to ask if it was okay to talk about. Marty nodded. Maria spoke up, “I tell you sungthing. Stay together? We never get together. We were both marry.”
Ted, obviously shocked at this revelation, looked at Marty for elaboration. “I was a very moral amoral man,” Marty said.
“What about the journal?”
“You can’t believe everything you read, son.”
Mariana came up to him. “Can I talk to you outside?”
Mariana took Ted from the apartment and they walked around the block. “How could I not remember my dad teaching me to hit?”
“It was a long time ago,” said Mariana.
“No, but it’s, like, something that I’ve always been pissed about, you know, about my dad—he never had time, he never thought I was worth it, never believed in me, never tried, but look, there’s evidence of him trying right there. And he was faithful? You believe that?”
“It’s not important, but yes, I do.”
“Jesus, it’s like I’m the one who’s full of shit.”
“Not really,” said Mariana, “it’s just the way you’ve been telling your story. That photo never fit with the story you’re telling, now maybe it does. Now maybe your story is changing. Doesn’t mean you’re full of shit. Means you’re awake and alive and open to a rewrite.”
Ted couldn’t get his mind off the iconic image of father and son that he had completely erased from his own self-definition. It was like damning evidence brought in by a surprise eyewitness on the last day of a murder trial. Ted’s world rolled lightly from side to side like a ship at sea. He felt his balance was a little shaky as he walked.
“Wait.” He stopped. “Why did you want to come out here? Is there something you want to talk about with me?”
“No,” replied Mariana, “I just wanted to get outside for a bit. I love the streets up here in the summer. Like a world party. Disco coming from the windows. It’s like God is having a tea dance and playing disco on his own speakers.”
“God is not playing disco. God hates disco.”
“God doesn’t hate any music.”
“No, he hates disco. He does. He just doesn’t talk about it that much. It’s the creation He’s least proud of. After leeches and television. It’s the worst music ever invented.”
“It’s fun. It makes you dance, and it’s sad, too. There’s a lot of pain under the beat, if you listen—‘Oh no, not I, I will survive…’”
“It’s the end of civilization. I don’t wanna listen. That’s why you wanted to get outside? To listen to ‘Get Down Boogie Oogie Oogie’?”
Mariana smiled with mischief. “Yeah, that. And I wanted to give them time alone.”
“Time alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that kinda time alone? Really? They’re both, like, a hundred.”
“That’s not the story they’re telling.”
“For real?”
Ted turned around and picked up the pace back to Maria’s apartment. He felt like a derelict chaperone, and wasn’t sure if he wanted what Mariana seemed pretty sure was happening. They walked back into an empty apartment. No Maria. No Marty. As Ted was about to call out for his dad, he heard it, rustling from the bedroom—there was an unmistakable feeling in the room. Marty and Maria were in there. Ted said a bit too loud, “I can’t fucking believe it!” Mariana sshed him. They stood there listening and trying not to listen. “I feel like I’m kinda betraying my mother a little bit.”
“Not at all. This is beautiful.”
“I’m kinda proud of my boy. It’s so fucking cute, I can’t stand it.”
But just then, decidedly uncute sounds started emanating from the bedroom. Rapid breaths, little moans, and a kind of purring. Mariana held up her hand for Ted to be quiet so she could hear; she repeated the Spanish to herself: “Incluso el viejo león sigue siendo un rey—even the old lion is still a king.”
“Ooooh. She’s good. I’m no lion, more like the guy who gets eaten by the lion. Like a gazelle or a wildebeest, the unsuspecting guy at the water hole, that’s me.”
“It’s probably never too late to become a lion.”
“Was that something she was saying, or you?”
“Oh, that was me.” Mariana held up her hand again for quiet. “Eso es correcto, amor, yo soy tuya, la mujer te tus sueños. Yo he estado esperando por ti, y tu has estado esperando por mi. That’s right, lover, I am your woman, the woman of your dreams. I’ve been waiting for you. You’ve been waiting for me.”
“That you or her?”
“What?”
“You translating or talking to me?”
“Translating.”
From the other room, the sounds were escalating. “Aye, Poppy, do it. Do it, Poppy. Dass it!”
Mariana dutifully translated, “She said, ‘Yes, Daddy, do it, do it, Daddy. That’s it!’”
Ted raised his hand to cut her off. “That’s okay. I got that, that was half in English.”
The sounds of sex from the other room had suddenly brought the prospect of sex into this room, like it might be contagious. This embarrassed them both a little, so Ted tried a joke. “Man, you Latin women, you don’t fuck around when you fuck around, do you?”
“No, we take that shit very seriously.”
Maria was full-throated now: “¡Ese culo es tuyo!”
Mariana raised her eyebrows. “She said—”
Ted cut her off quickly this time. “Culo is ass, right? Culo means ‘ass’?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, boy. Thought so. Let’s go. Let’s go back outside. Time for you and me to go.”
As he hustled Mariana out the door, she said, “Your father’s Spanish is much better and more colloquial than I thought it was.”
“Stop, I’m a little nauseated. I’m running now, catch up with me. I’ll be in Staten Island.”