Adrian Del Valle - Diego's Brooklyn (2 page)

“Nothin’, Louie!”

“Yo Petey, ya sees little Diego over there?”

“Yeah, I see him,” said Petey, sitting at the driver’s seat and smoking what was left of a well chewed cigar. “Hey Diego, how‘s your mudda?”

“Hi Petey, she’s good. Did you find anything today?”

“Yeah…we gotcha dis pinky.”

From inside the cab, the driver threw a crisp, new looking Spalding at Diego. The pink rubber ball, made by the Spalding Company, was great for handball or playing stick ball in the street.

“You want this pimple ball?” Petey held up a dirty white ball covered with bumps for the boy to see.

“Sure, Petey, thanks!”

“Agh, don’t mention it. By da way…where
is
your mudda?”

“Inside! She can’t come out right now.”

“Naw, I wasn’t sayin’ nuttin’ bout dat, just hello or sump’n’”

“Ayyy…Fat Tony! What are ya sleepin’ inside the can?”

“Leave me alone, Petey, I’m checkin’ somethin’ out.”

Louie, Fat Tony’s loading partner, stepped out from behind the hopper and approached the next stop, 240 Dean Street—Diego’s house. He took his greasy work glove off and put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Some partner I got, huh? You see that slouch what’s over there?”

Diego Nodded.

“He’s gotta go through ev-very freagin’ bag he finds like he’s lookin’ for gold. That’s why we never get finished on time. Ain’t that right, Petey?”

Ignoring him, Petey’s focus remained on an old copy of
Playboy’s
center fold of the month for December, 1955, lying salaciously across the steering wheel—Joyce Nizzari—sweet.

“Come on, move it up, Petey,” Louie shouted. “That’s another slouch what sits up there in the driver’s seat like king poop in the butt, right Diego?”

VROOM!

“And when you get to Diego’s cans, don’t bang’m, Fat Tony.” Louie turned to Diego again. “I guess we told him, huh, kid?”

“Can I dump a few?” Diego asked.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead. Help yourself. So…ah, what are ya gonna be a garbage man someday?”

“Maybe?”

BAM, BANG.

“Ay-y-y! You handle that pretty good, kiddo. Like a real pro. Don’t he, Fat Tony? Oh, come on Tony, will ya? Get your fat head out of those smelly bags and do some work. Hey Diego, tell ol’ chubby over here what I said, ‘cause I’m ready to give ‘m a swift kick in the ass.”

Petey stuck his head out of the window of the cab and shouted above the truck noise. “Let’s go! Lunch time! See ya Diego, say hello to Ana for me.”

“I’ll tell her. See you on Wednesday.”

Strange, how roaches know where they live. Bang the bottom of a can on the sidewalk and they fall from the bent rim underneath and scurry toward the building they came from, never to the house next door, but always to their very own Casa Grande.

With the cans returned to the building line, Diego placed all of the covers on them. He swept the front of the building and closed the outside gate. The pay wasn’t much, but it was something. A week’s wages covered a few pounds of rice, a can of beans, and maybe the luxury of a loaf of Italian bread once in a while.

Chapter Two

Making Money

Ana Rivera stood over the stove where she added onions to the day’s soup. She was real pretty once, still is when she covers her dark, tired eyes with makeup. She had bedroom eyes, her husband used to say.

Handicapped with a bad hip, she walked with a limp. On days when the pain was too much to bare, the limp became harder to conceal.

“What are ju doing today, Mijo?”

“I don’t know,” said Diego. “No one’s around. Maybe I’ll go downtown and make some money.”

“If ju make enough, peek up some milk for dee cereal.”

“I will, Mom. Petey said hello by the way. He gave me this new pinky.”

“Oh, si? That’s nice.”

“I think he likes you, Mom.”

“Mm, hm.”

“I don’t think he’s right for you, though. Besides, he’s always smoking those stinky cigars.”

Ana didn’t answer.

Rummaging through a shoe box by the side of the couch, Diego took out a heavy Master lock with string attached and a stick of Bazooka Gum. When he got downtown to his favorite spot in front of the Fox Theatre, he stood at his usual place at a bus stop above an iron grating covering a subway vent. Two stories below, the Lexington Avenue line rumbled by like a muffled freight train. Hot air rushed up into his face, and within the dampness, an aged stench of urine.

He unfolded a two inch Bazooka Joe comic strip that comes with a flat piece of gum. The main character wore his baseball cap sideways and had a black patch over his left eye—or was it the right eye? Diego read it a couple of times while chewing the pink gum until it was nice and sticky. He then pressed it onto the bottom of the padlock and carefully lowered it through the grating. He aimed toward a subway token lying on a narrow ledge 12 feet below. The token was all shiny and new, the brass glistening like gold with the letter “Y” stamped out of it.

Gold doubloons, Spanish coins from the 1400’s; a treasure trove worth millions was below the deck of Diego’s imagined Spanish Galleon. Through this heavy iron grating he could see piles of it worth millions and he would have it all.

This was his lucky spot, the bus stop at Nevins and Flatbush. He had only cleaned it out a week ago and here he could see at least three tokens, a couple of quarters and a dime. The tokens, he could redeem for 15 cents each; a whole buck and a nickel was down there—a good day. It was enough to buy a quart of milk, a candy bar for both himself and his mom, and a ticket for the Lido. For twenty five cents, the cheap theatre on Court Street played ten cartoons, “The Three Stooges”, and two feature films.

He left for home and 15 minutes later turned into his block on Dean Street where he saw Karen’s two girls playing skully. To most of its residents, the street wasn’t all gloom and doom. To Diego it was all that was familiar. It was home.

“How much did ju get?” asked Ana.

“A dollar five.”

“Ju forget to pick up dee milk?”

“I’ll go in a minute, I have to use the bathroom first.”

D’avino’s Grocery sat on the adjacent corner, a store owned by an old Italian couple. Holdovers from the neighborhood’s better days, the D’avino’s carried on like always, despite their advanced age. They were friendly to everyone even though they lived through the trials of two world wars and escaped the takeover of their country at the hands of Mussolini and the Nazi’s.

They used to sell a lot of sausages and cheese, hung from the ceiling in rows. Back then, Olives and pickles came right out of barrels, as well as a dozen forms of pasta. These days, loose rice and various kinds of beans sell by the pound. Plantains and a root called yucca are prominently displayed below ripe bananas, apples and oranges. Puerto Rican spices and the cheaper cuts of meat, like chicken and salted cod, sell well. Unpackaged coconut macaroons on wax paper lay on the counter by the register. Guava, mango, and coconut juice in single serve cans were popular with the newer residents.

Outside, The Daily News and New York Times sit at the forefront. To the right are the Mirror and Post, the latter two, sheepishly displaying copied headlines with steel paper weights stamped with The Daily News logo. Below those are the Spanish newspapers, la Prenza and el Diario.

Inside, fly paper hangs from the ceiling with nearly every square inch black with bug eyed carcasses. Lying on a towel at the end of the counter, a fat cat sleeps the afternoon away. In a back room, parakeets, Luciano and Annabella, chirp from the front kitchen of a rear apartment where the D’avino’s live.

Diego pet the cat while waiting for the line at the counter to shorten. He finally took a spot behind the last customer, a quart of milk under his arm.

“Ay a Dieg, Howsa you motha?”

“Oh…uh, fine, Mrs. D’avino. Here’s for the milk.”

“Howsa you lika theesa summa. You havena gooda time? No more of the school, ay?”

“No…we finished school a month ago, already.”

“A whola month? My, howza the times shes a flies, no? Here iza you change.”

“Thanks Mrs. D’avino. I gotta go, bye.”

As Diego exited the store, the owner called after him. “Hey, taka care of you self. Sayza hello to Ana for me?”

Outside, ol’ Bill finished up sweeping the front of the store. At six foot four, the robustly built black man from the Deep South never lost any of his muscular tone despite an advanced age of 75 plus. His hard lined, craggy face tells of a difficult life of laborious jobs. There were many of those and none of them paid much. Like a lot of his generation, children had to leave school to help provide for their families. School was a luxury and poverties grip hard to break away from. It was a vicious cycle. No food on the table meant everyone had to avail themselves for work. Back in the south, children labored in coal mines, sweat shops, or out in the fields for very little, and whatever they made went to the household. Without a solid education, the cycle carried on from generation to generation.

All Bill and the missus had these days to show for it was a furnished room in a basement and a paltry social security check to live on. Surplus Government food, dispensed once a month, helped: a block of American cheese, a can of peanut butter, a brick of butter, 1 five pound bag of rice and a 2 pound box of corn meal.

Their furnished room is in a three story brick over on Bergen Street, one block away. They were lucky. It’s an absentee landlord building and only three steps down from street level. They have a worn sink, an old noisy fridge, a stove with two burners and a large bed in the corner of the room. Bill even had the use of the yard, though it had been over grown with weeds when they first moved in. With Beulah’s help, they grow vegetables and blueberries. The little extra money Bill makes, he gets from doing chores around the neighborhood.

“Hi, Mr. Jackson.”

“Diego, what all yawls up to? I ain’t seen you in days.”

“Nuthin’ much, Mr. Jackson. Picked up a dollar five downtown, today.”

“You did? Now, how in tarnation you do that? Missus Davina ain’t paid me but twenty five cent to do all o’ this here.”

“With a lock…you know…the bubble gum thing.”

“Oh…oh, oh…yawl went fishin’. Yeah, I got ya. Well, ah needs to do somethin’. I gots to pay my ‘lectric bill. It be two months late and the missus cayn’t be without no ‘lectric. And old Geezer the cat needs to eat, too. Momma been feedin’ him scraps, but thems cats got to have theys meat, and I ain’t seen a mouse in the house since the winter time. I do believe that little bugger went and et ever one of them critters.”

“I can help you make a little money, Mr. Jackson.”

“Yawl can? Now how do you propose to do that, son? It’s nice of you to offer, but you ain’t nothin’ but a young sprout.”

“No…really Mr. Jackson, we can do it together.”

“Bill!”

“Mr. Bill, sir.” I know a lot of ways…”

“No, just plain Bill. Just call me Bill, okay, Diego?”

“Oh, sure.”

“I’m sorry son, what was it yawl was sayin’, now?”

“Oh…uh…there are a lot of bus stops and subway stations I haven’t even touched, yet. We can go partners, fifty, fifty on everything.”

“Fifta, fifta? Well, that’s mighty generous of yawl.”

Bill gave it a moment’s thought. “You know what? I think it just might work. Heck, at this point, I’ll tries anathang.”

“Sure it’ll work and I have a lot of other ways to make spare change, too.”

Bill’s arms folded across his chest as he looked warily at Diego. “Now, Is they legal son? You know…the good Lord…”

“No, really. It’s all on the up and up. We can make lots of spare change.”

“I believe you know what you’re sayin’, son. Our wallets are going to grow fatter than a happy tic in a barrel o’ blood. Ain’t that right, Diego?”

“Ha ha! I sure hope so.”

“Well…if’n you’re a goin’ to be ma partna, then you gots to come and meet momma for her approval. Is that okay with you?”

“Sure, Mr. Bill…, I mean Bill. I have to run home real quick first to drop off this milk, but I’ll be right back.”

“Takes your sweet time there, now. And say hello to your Momma for me. Ain’t no rush, I got to finish up here, anyways.”

Bergen Street is a narrow and busy roadway, too narrow for the two way street it was. Named after a Dutch settler back in the 1600’s, the cobble stones beneath the street had long ago been paved over with asphalt. Here and there, where blacktop is missing, the stones show through.

This is also the Bergen Street trolley route. The bus was a hybrid cross on wheels and runs on power from electric lines overhead. Kids liked to hitch free rides on the back bumper. Diego even did that himself. Once in a while, a kid would hold onto the pole ropes that connect the bus to the guide wires overhead, the source of the vehicle’s power. Nothing but electric current held the connection together, and if too much weight was applied on the pole ropes, the connection separated and the bus lost power.

The driver, interupted from his hypnotic trance on the double line, now had to exit the bus to reconnect the power. This was done by maneuvering the pole ropes to guide the shoes back onto the electric lines

“That’s Mommas place right there. It’s the building next to that hallelujah church. Just listen to them a sangin’ insod.”

Nothing but a store front, the Pentecostal church door stood wide open and alive with song. Tambourines shook in energetic hands, with Spanish lyrics shouted loudly in unison. A few overzealous patrons had fallen to the floor and were either passed out or begging for salvation and exoneration for their sins.

“Come on in, son, meet old Momma. Say, Momma, I got here a frien’ o’ mine.”

Diego stepped down the three steps and passed through the outside door into a long hallway. It creaked closed behind him with the help of a rusty attached spring and barely hung on to the wooden door like an afterthought. He followed Bill to the back end of the house and into the musty air of the Jackson’s furnished room.

“Well now, who all we got here?” said a deeply wrinkled, kind faced Beulah. Her eyes smiled as she tried to focus through her cataracts, her head, turned to the side for a better view.