WHILE riding back to Manhattan Nazario made a call. “Make sure you get all the logos,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Just get them and then get back at me. Get the corners too.” He paused and frowned, as if the person he was talking to was in front of him. “Any news on the building? No? All right.” He dialed another number. “Find Nene and get back to me.” Then he told the driver to turn off the air conditioner. I guess after the meeting he didn’t need to be so cool, he could sweat if he wanted to. He dialed again. “He’s coming the day after tomorrow, in the afternoon. Do you have the flight number? Good. I’ll send someone to pick him up.”
It was a victory for Nazario and Bodega that this big Italian guy had told them he was staying out of their way, but to Nazario it was just one of many hurdles he and Bodega had to overcome.
The last number he dialed received no answer. I knew he was calling Bodega. He must’ve been too busy with Vera to answer. But Nazario didn’t mutter a curse under his breath, he just closed his eyes and sighed.
“Good news,” I said cheerfully to Nazario, “can wait.”
“You think this is good news, Julio?” he said, eyes still shut. I stayed quiet. “Did you see how we were fucking humiliated?” I had yet to see Nazario really angry. His emotions were always in check. Seeing him mad now made me realize things were in bad shape. “Did you see how he kept us waiting? Did you see how he controlled everything?”
“You needed a favor from him, right?” I said after a few seconds of silence. Nazario was looking out the window.
“Getting rid of anyone is bad. Especially one of your own.” I guessed he meant Salazar.
“Salazar was dirty, though.”
“Yes, but”—his eyes left the window and looked straight at me—“as long as Latino kills Latino,” he sighed, “we’ll always be a little people.” Silence fell again. Nazario’s eyes returned to the window.
“Nazario, I got a question to ask you,” I said, breaking the silence. “Do you promise not to be a lawyer and tell it to me straight?”
“I don’t promise you anything,” he smiled faintly, “but don’t be afraid to ask.”
“Why am I here? I mean here with you, today. I don’t bring you any advantage over anything or anyone—” He cut me off.
“Who said? That’s the mentality I’m trying to change, Julio. I spotted you a mile away. I know what you can be. What you might bring to us.”
“Us? Who the fuck is us?”
“Us, man,” he said, a little annoyed. “Us, Latinos, the neighborhood, who else? We want you to join the program, quit that job of yours at the supermarket and concentrate on school.” I knew that I could never do that. If I was going to finish school it would be on my own. “We’re trying to do things here.”
“Through crime?”
“Through whatever means are at our disposal.” He straightened himself in his seat. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “Behind every great wealth, Julio, there’s a great crime. You know who said that?”
I didn’t.
“Balzac.”
“Balzac? The writer?”
“Look around, Julio. Every time someone makes a million dollars, he kills some part of the world. That part has been us for so long, and it will continue to be us unless we fight back. The day will come when, just like the white guy, we will also steal by signing the right papers.”
“And it’ll all be legal?”
“That’s right. But in the beginning, you have to do certain things. What do you think, it comes from nothing? America is a great nation, I have no doubts about that, but in its early days it had to take some shady steps to get there. Manifest Destiny, that was just another word for genocide. But now, when you go out west, Julio …” Nazario looked my way and paused but focused his eyes on nothing. “You ever been out west, Julio?”
“No, I never been out west.” He had to know that.
“It’s beautiful, Julio. The red and orange desert, the hills, all that space, the Rockies, the wildlife. When you see that, then you will understand why the Americans wanted it and called it Manifest Destiny and not what it really was, theft.”
He looked out the window again. What he said was nothing new to me, but I felt like a stagestruck actor who forgets his lines because he’s worried about the audience. That was always my problem; I wanted to be onstage, close to the action, but without having to say any lines. Unlike Bodega and the rest, I never had the balls to hold my own in a big scene, much less an entire show.
But I had started to wonder if Nazario and Bodega were right all along. I mean, on good days, what I was learning in college excited me in ways the street and its erratic and petty rules never could. I wanted to think it was my family that had kept me away from the street scene Sapo had built his life around, but it wasn’t. I had enrolled at school thinking about other ways to come out on top, ways that didn’t hurt anybody and weren’t as dangerous. Graduate, get a good job, save, buy a house—but those ways were slow. And like Nazario’s and Bodega’s ways, they held no guarantees of success just because they were legal. They, too, were gambles, rolls of the dice.
Nazario and Bodega, they were talking something else. How life is born from chaos and explosions. Big Bang. They were talking about starting out as a piece of trash from the gutter and transforming yourself into gold. Nazario and Bodega saw it as all or nothing. You couldn’t have change without evolution and some people would get hurt and become extinct in the process because they couldn’t adapt. Nazario’s and Bodega’s ways made sense to me. But so did mine and Blanca’s, and in tense moments, I didn’t know who made more sense or where my loyalties should be placed.
“Tomorrow.” Nazario swallowed. “Tomorrow it will be all over El Diario that Salazar was a bought reporter.” He took a deep breath and loosened his tie. “Once it’s out about Salazar being dirty, we’re hoping nobody will care.” That had already started—El Diario was about the only newspaper still covering the murder investigation.
Nazario brought out his ledger and started jotting down some numbers. He seemed to be good at adding and subtracting quickly and without a calculator. Only his lips moved, like he was praying. I left him alone. It was getting dark and the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge loomed ahead. Manhattan at night seen from its surrounding bridges is Oz, it’s Camelot or Eldorado, full of color and magic. What those skyscrapers and lights don’t let on is that hidden away lies Spanish Harlem, a slum that has been handed down from immigrant to immigrant, like used clothing worn and reworn, stitched and restitched by different ethnic groups who continue to pass it on. A paradox of crime and kindness. It had evolved spontaneously on the island, accessible to everyone. East Harlem had no business being in this rich city but there it was, filled with broken promises of a better life, dating decades back to the day when many Puerto Ricans and Latinos gathered their bags and carried their dreams on their backs and arrived in America, God’s country. But they would never see God’s face. Like all slumlords, God lived in the suburbs.
As the car sped over the bridge, I looked down on the East River. I pictured explorers in their ships arriving at the shore and making deals with the true native New Yorkers, the Indians. A twenty-four-dollar rip-off, I said to myself. Bodega and Nazario were just reversing the roles. They were buying the island back at the same bargain rate. They were getting it while it was still cheap. El Barrio, run-down and abandoned, was just waiting for them to take it. East Harlem was ugly real estate that no one wanted. No one but Bodega and Nazario, who loved that tired piece of land just off the East River. They would rebuild it, repaint it, and watch as others stepped back, looked at it, and pulled their hair in dismay. “This was always a beautiful place. Why couldn’t we see that before?”
WHEN WE were back home in the neighborhood, Nazario said he would speak with me some other time and to keep the suit, and my eyes, ears, and mind open. I was happy, but I was worried about Blanca. She must be fuming, I thought. Blanca would ask a million questions, and I went upstairs braced for another confrontation.
When I reached our floor and went inside our new place, our second in about a month, it got me down to see it full of boxes. All our things were so out of order, out of place, though the phone was hooked up. I walked toward the bedroom. I could hear laughter and small cries of Gloria a Dios. When I entered Blanca was sitting on the bed. Roberto Vega and Claudia were standing, holding hands. Near them were suitcases and tote bags. When they saw me, the room fell silent. Blanca smiled and carefully stood up, and I hugged her, not knowing why Roberto and Claudia were there. In a way I was glad they were, because I knew Blanca would never argue or grill me in front of them.
“Did you eat, Julio?” she asked.
“No, I’m just tired,” I said.
“Where did you go?” she asked. “We still had a couple of things to move.”
“Like I told Wilfredo Reyes, I had to get something I left behind.”
“Oh,” she said frowning. “El Hermano Reyes must have forgotten to tell me.” Blanca then faced Roberto and Claudia. “Can you believe this, Julio, they’ve been seeing each other in secret all this time and now they want to elope!” I congratulated them, shaking their hands and telling them that was great. Roberto and Claudia seemed happy but also a little dazed.
“Thank you,” Roberto said. “La Hermana Mercado has always been a good friend to Claudia and we wanted to know if you can lend us some money.”
“Sure.” I had Vera’s diamond ring in mind. They could go far with that.
“Well, I’m happy for them,” Blanca interrupted, “but they shouldn’t just get married.”
“Blanca, let them do what they want,” I said. I looked at Roberto and as casually as possible asked him, “You’ve finished high school, right?”
“Yes, when I was sixteen.” He must have skipped a grade.
“Good, and you have a place to live, right?”
“Yes, I have a brother in Chicago. We’ll get married and stay with him until I can get a job and Claudia can get her papers so she can look for work also.”
“See, Blanca, let’s just give them what money we can”—diamond ring included—“and let them go to Chicago.” I thought Robert was a smart guy. Besides, if he was really anointed by God then God was looking after him, and if he wasn’t, well, his plans were still pretty sound. He wasn’t talking about love conquering all. About love being all you need. Roberto was talking about paying the rent. This let me know he was, as Blanca had told me, an adult. Roberto and Claudia probably had a bit of money saved up and now they were doing the right thing, trying to get more. I had no problem with it.
Blanca was thrilled: The girl least likely to be chosen had been. It was like the story of Esther all over again. What bothered Blanca was the disruption this would bring to the spiritual peace of the congregation. The gossip and turmoil they would create by doing this in secret.
“Claudia,” Blanca said, “you know your sisters will hate you. They will accuse you of corruption. Roberto’s mother will hate you.”
“She hates me already. But I did nothing wrong, Roberto is in love with me and I love him.” Claudia was not in tears. She was worried but happy.
“Claudia did nothing wrong,” Roberto interjected.
“Roberto, you’re supposed to be an example. More than an example, what about your mother?” Blanca said to him. “You eloping will kill her. Just go and tell her you fell in love with Claudia and that you want to marry her. Let everyone know the truth. If they hear it out of someone else’s mouth then you will be ridiculed.” That made me uneasy. Without her knowing it Blanca was talking to me about Bodega. About things that I had yet to tell her. Things that I hoped she would never hear from anyone’s lips, Negra’s or anybody’s. “Roberto, you have to tell your mother. This elope stuff is wrong.”
“My mother won’t understand,” Roberto said. Claudia held his arm now, and nodded in agreement.
“Blanca,” I said, a little annoyed, “let them go. We can lend them at least three hundr—”
“No, Julio, this is a mistake,” she snapped at me. Then she looked at Roberto. “This is a mistake, Roberto, just go to your mother and tell her. Please.”
“Blanca, let them go.” I sighed. I was ready to hit an ATM. I thought it was all great. And I was actually happy that somewhere in this neighborhood young people were still falling in love. Of course they were. People are always falling in love, but at times it was easy for me to forget because even though I still loved Blanca, it wasn’t the same as before we were married, when nothing seemed impossible and even her religion wasn’t an obstacle.
“Thank you, Hermano Mercado.”
“All right, all right,” Blanca said. “Please tell your mother that you’re going to marry Claudia. If she disapproves, then you leave.”
“Blanca, let them go,” I said. “You have a place to stay in Chicago, right Roberto?” I asked him again. Blanca jumped right in.
“Do you know who this older brother in Chicago is, Julio?”
I shrugged. “A brother is a brother, right?”
“Well, that’s what you think. Remember Googie Vega?” Blanca puckered her lips and shook her head from side to side. “Roberto is his younger brother.”
Everyone had known Googie Vega. He had once been a good Pentecostal. He was seen all over the neighborhood preaching and playing handball. Those were his passions, Christ and a pink rubber Spalding. He was a tall, good-looking guy and, like his little brother, he was very popular. Googie was a bit older than us. He had gone to school with Negra, and she was always talking about laying him and all that stuff. Lots of girls liked him. It was common to hear girls say when they saw Googie preaching with his brothers on a street corner, “Thass a waste of a church boy.” And they would accept the leaflets he’d hand out, and agree to go to his Bible studies.
No one knew what had happened to him. Not even Negra. The Pentecostals said that the Devil must have gotten inside him. That demons invaded his thoughts. That he made the mistake of entertaining an evil desire and that desire gave birth to sin. It didn’t just turn into a sin, it destroyed him. When it was obvious what he was doing the church kicked him out and guys from the neighborhood started calling him the Junkie Christ. He would hock anything and his eyes were like ashes. The same women who once harbored crushes would whisper as he passed by, “That guy was a church boy once and now he steals from his mother.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before, Blanca?” I turned toward Roberto. “You know, Roberto, Blanca is right. Go tell your mother.”
“You will kill her, Roberto. First Googie, now you,” Blanca implored.
Roberto stayed silent.
“Claudia.” Blanca held her by the shoulders and looked directly in her eyes. “You have to make Roberto tell his mother.” Then she turned to Roberto and said, “You know you will lose all your privileges.”
“We’ve talked about that,” Roberto said. “I don’t care if they take away my privileges, I can serve Christ as a regular brother. I don’t have to have all this status.” I liked him. His modesty and humility made me want to believe he might be anointed after all.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Claudia asked Roberto. “Because I feel Blanca doesn’t want to be the one to tell me. That leaves it to you.”
“My brother in Chicago, Dios lo bendiga, had a really bad drug problem. This was a few years ago. I was a little kid, the Lord hadn’t spoken to me yet. But when He did, my mother sent my brother away to Chicago to live with an aunt of ours, so that he wouldn’t embarrass me.” Silence fell in the bedroom.
Claudia understood everything. Roberto had been sheltered all his life. His mother was determined not to make the same mistake twice. She was going to protect her youngest from everything. Especially since he was one of the chosen, the 144,000 Revelation speaks about. The ones that will rule with Christ for a thousand years. Roberto’s mother had sent the eldest into exile and put all her hopes in the youngest. He was a great orator. That was a fact. But in the religious order to which Blanca and her Church subscribed, Roberto was something much more. He was a heavenly prince Christ himself had handpicked to sit with Him at His table.
“Let’s go tell your mother,” Claudia softly said to Roberto, whose eyes began to water. They said goodbye to Blanca and me and walked out the door.
Blanca and I stayed silent for a moment. She was sad. Her friend had landed the biggest prize of her religion, an anointed one, but somehow she felt as if she was ruining someone’s life.
Blanca smiled faintly and then sighed. “I need to study and this place is a mess. I’ll be at my mother’s.” Blanca was spent. She picked up her schoolwork, kissed me goodbye, and before heading out the door asked me again if I’d eaten. I was happy because I knew that as soon as Blanca finished studying, she would talk with her mother a little, maybe have some coffee, and then return home too tired to talk. That suited me fine. She kissed me goodbye again and said I should study too. Finals were coming. I said I would.
I didn’t study. Even with the apartment empty except for boxes, it felt good to be all by myself. The wooden floors were all shiny. The place seemed huge. I went to the bedroom and got a pillow. I stretched out on the living room floor and it felt like I was swimming. All this space and freedom.
Then the phone rang.
“Got my stuff, bro?”
“Hello to you, too.”
“Fuck that shit, you know it’s me. Listen, I need that stuff. I’ve got work to do.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“I’m comin’ ovah and, Chino, Bodega wants ta see you like now.”
I waited for Sapo downstairs with his envelope. I saw his car turn the corner and I walked over to the curb. He opened the door for me. He was halfway through an entire large Domino’s pizza. I handed over the envelope and he nodded, placed it in the glove compartment, and resumed eating his slice.
“Yo, Sapo,” I said, “you know that Domino’s gives money to those people who fuck up abortion clinics? You helping that shit.”
“Nah, get the fuck? You lying, Chino.” He seemed amused. He finished the slice, with his right hand reached into the backseat, uncovered the pizza box, and brought out another slice.
“Ho, shit, you still gonna go eating that shit?”
“I don’t care who they finance. Their pizza’s good.”
“Where’s your social conscience?”
“My wha’?”
“Something you stand for.”
“Tell you what, Chino, since you have plexes with the pizza, I promise to throw the box in the ga’bage. And as for what I stand for? I stand for myself. One man. Above God. With liberty and just enough patience with your fucken social conscience shit to kick yo’ ass out of my car. I’m like gettin’ tired of drivin’ you around. Bodega must think my car is yellow with a big fucken checkered flag on tha side.”
That night Sapo dropped me off at one of the new-old buildings Bodega had renovated on 119th and Lexington. Those buildings had been condemned for years. The City of New York takes so much time to either renovate or bulldoze a condemned building it’s like those guys on Death Row who die of old age rather than execution. Bodega had bought the entire row from the city and had slowly renovated three of them. He had improved the block. Improved the neighborhood. Given people a place to live.
After dropping me off, Sapo left in a hurry as if he had a lot of work to do. Nene was waiting for me downstairs.
“Whass up, Chino?”
“Whass up, Nene?” But I didn’t have the energy to meet his eager expression that night.
Going up, the stairs didn’t creak and the walls were freshly painted. The doors were new and the air smelled clean and moist as if it had just rained inside the building. Bodega had chosen a neatly furnished three-bedroom for himself. When I walked in he quickly placed an index finger on his lips.
“Shhh,” he whispered, “Vera’s sleeping.”
“You got problems,” I whispered back.
“It’s all going to be taken care of tomorrow.” He accompanied me to the kitchen, the room farthest from the bedroom where Vera must have been sleeping. Nene was in the living room watching VH1 at low volume, almost mute, as if it was the images that he cared for. I didn’t want to ask Bodega how he was going to take care of things. But he told me anyway.
“I’m meeting her husband tomorrow in the afternoon.”
“What are you talking about, bro?”
“Vera’s husband is coming tomorrow.”
“Wait, wait.” I couldn’t believe it. “Nazario just met this Italian about Fisch—”
“Hey, look, thass my problem. You here for something else?”
“Your problem? So why you had me go with Nazario in the first place?” I was upset. We weren’t on the same page.
“Cuz he handpicked you ta go. It wasn’t my doin’.” I remembered what Sapo had told me, that I was sitting on a lot of information and that wasn’t a good place to be.
“So, Chino, he arrives the day after tamorrow.”
“Who?” I was lost in thought about Nazario handpicking me, dragging me out to Queens. Why me? Why not someone else? He had tons of better-suited candidates, no pun intended. Bodega wanted me around because Vera was family; no matter how far apart they had been, she was still Blanca’s aunt. But what did Nazario need? He was the type who needs very little from anybody and if he ever did need something, he could get it from you without you knowing you had given it to him.
“Vera’s husband. That’s who.”
“Yeah, that’s right, you told me.”
“You all right, Chino?”
“Yeah, I’m cool.” I was still thinking about Nazario, but I had to let it go. I would ask Sapo or maybe Bodega at another time. I could never ask Nazario.
So I tried to shift gears.
“Bodega, you happy about this guy comin’?”
“Yeah, and I want you to be there, with your wife, you know. For support, you know.” His face was that of a kid on Christmas Eve who can’t wait till midnight to open his presents.
“Who the fuck invited him to New York?”
“I did.” He sounded as if that was obvious.
“Why?” I thought it was a stupid idea, but couldn’t tell him that.
“B’cause Vera needs to tell him”—he lit a cigarette—“that she never loved him.”
“Wait, wait, how does Vera feel about this?”
He turned away from me. He looked at the floor and then, taking a drag, looked to his left and right before exhaling. “She’s confused,” he said sadly. “See, Chino, she’s a little shaken cuz she’s spent the last twenty years with that guy. You know she got to feel something for him, but she still loves me and always has.” His eyes looked watery, his face drawn. They must have been discussing this all day long.
“I know what yo’r thinking, Chino. But Vera is not like that. It’s just that she didn’t want to talk about it any longer, she was really tired, thass all.” He seemed to desperately need to hear Vera say that she had never loved her husband. He needed to hear it and wanted others to be there as witnesses. It was as if he had forgotten where he stood in the universe and only those words coming from Vera could reorient him to his place in the cosmos. He needed to hear it and he wanted it to be said in his backyard, in East Harlem and not in Miami or anyplace else.
“Look, Willie, you got Fischman, who wants to kill you. You have cops looking around the neighborhood for leads on who killed Salazar. You have this neighborhood thinking you’re some sort of goodies bag. Man, why make things worse by inviting this guy?”
My question went right past him. “I think having you and your wife maybe, her sister, too, near Veronica would help.” He began pacing and then realized that one of the parquet panels on the floor creaked. He walked over it again to make sure which one was the culprit and told me to avoid it so Vera wouldn’t wake up. Then he continued.
“Vera needs support and the more family there the better.”
“If Vera needs family there to support her, then I’m sorry, bee, but you just have to accept that she can’t say it—”
“She’s been with this guy for years!” he loudly hissed at me. “You think thass easy to forget? Wha’ you want, her to just say the magic—”
“If she really loved you, Willie, she wouldn’t need any help from you or anyone else,” I hissed back.
“Come on people now, smile on your brother.” Nene glided into the kitchen with a huge grin.
“ ’Tá todo bien,” Bodega assured Nene.
“It’s cool, then?” he asked Bodega, not me. “Because I like Chino and I would be like sad if I had to hurt him.”
“Don’t worry about it. No one is hurting no one,” Bodega said, and Nene patted me on the back. “I found out your real name is Julio,” he said as he headed back to the living room and the TV. “Thass a dope name, Julio. Meet me and Julio down by the schoolyard.”
“Why don’t you just get out?” I said to Bodega. “You have Vera, you have money. Just go away. Buy some beach property in San Juan and you and Vera can lie on the sand and watch the world go to hell.” I didn’t think he’d heard me. His face was blank. His eyes were focused on the closed bedroom door down the hall.
“Did you see that TV special on the Jewish immigrants?” Bodega’s eyes were still locked on the bedroom door.
“Nah, missed it.” This was hopeless.
“Yeah, well, I was thinkin’ that after this is all over, I should open up a school. You know, like the Jews did cuz their kids were like always bein’ discriminated and so they gave a lot of money to private schools that had no ties with any religious groups or anyone and so their kids went to these schools without bein’ scared. You know what I’m sayin’?”
“I know what you’re sayin’.”
“So, like, you in college and you hate law, so when you graduate you want to be in this?”
“In what?”
“My school, for our kids. Be a teacher since you hate lawyers.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I knew I didn’t mean it.
“Have you seen that old burnt-down school building on 100th and First? That shit has been abandoned for years. But Nazario got it for us from the city. I’m renovating it.”
“Sounds good,” I said. I took the ring out of my pocket.
“Look, if Vera wants this back,” I said, “you’ll know the truth.” His gaze fell on the ring in my palm. He nervously took it from me and read the inscription. He didn’t say anything. I was about to walk away.
“Need anything, Chino, you see me. Ask Sapo and see me.” He put the ring in his pocket. He smiled and then stared back at the bedroom where Vera was sleeping.
As I was heading out, I heard Nene singing, “Mama, I just killed a man.” His voice was strange, tense and tight. I turned toward him, saw the image on the television, saw it had nothing to do with the song. What was on was a shoe commercial. I stared at Nene for a little while, lost. I thought of Sapo. No, Sapo hadn’t killed Salazar. It wasn’t Sapo.
Nene saw me looking at him and smiled. I nodded and left. I took a shortcut through a huge vacant lot. I stopped for a minute and even though it was dark I studied the rubble of a building that once stood there. Scorched bricks with wild grass growing all around the lot. A toilet seat lay on its side, a sink and a bathtub too. Fireflies were flashing, lighting up the lot. Once people lived there, I thought. And some fire displaced them. The city did nothing, as if the problem would go away all by itself. In time the buildings eroded. Later, the city wrecking ball knocked them to the ground.
Bodega, I thought, was at least doing the opposite. He was renovating. And when Alberto Salazar discovered who—and what—was behind all the renovation, Bodega sent Nene to kill Salazar. It was hard to believe Nene was a killer. But Nene could be as imposing as a block of granite. It didn’t matter that he was slow, it doesn’t take much to kill. Nene must have gone with Sapo to do in Salazar together. With Nene and Sapo, you have a lot of brute strength on your side. Bodega did it to protect what was his. He did it to stop the vacant lots from multiplying. Didn’t he? True, Vera was his reason for dreaming all this up, but whatever evil deed had been committed, something good was coming out of it. I looked around the rubble-strewn lot and knew someone had to do something about it. Someone had to step forward and do something. Bodega had, because no one but one of its own residents was going to improve Spanish Harlem. No one.