Bodega Dreams (10 page)

But then one day Popcorn was found stabbed to death on the roof of his apartment building. He used to climb up there to sunbathe. Nobody knew why he had been killed. The cops were lost. They asked questions for a week. That’s what they do when someone is killed in Spanish Harlem, they investigate for a week and if the media and the community don’t make a big deal of it, they leave it unsolved. They figure,
who cares, we made an effort, we’ll keep our funding clearing important cases. But Negra knew who had killed Popcorn. She didn’t tell the cops. She just told the entire neighborhood and eventually someone must have tipped off the cops.

A girl named Inelda Andino had killed Popcorn. Negra’s explanation was simple: “She was always jealous of his hair. Popcorn had the best hair in the neighborhood and that girl was shallow. So shallow, I’ve stepped in deeper puddles.” Later, Negra was proven right when the knife was found in Inelda’s mother’s apartment with Popcorn’s credit cards and I.D. It had been one of those fights where one party is so enraged, so blind with anger they have to kill the other. In Popcorn and Inelda’s case, it had been a heated argument about who had better hair.

No one ever questioned Negra. The cops thought the person who had tipped them off deserved the credit, but the neighborhood knew better. The neighborhood knew Negra.

•

I RUBBED
Blanca’s back. “Why would you want to owe Negra anything?”

“Because I want to help this girl,” she said.

“Blanca, even if you find this girl someone to marry, it’s not that easy. She might still get deported. You think Immigration is that stupid?”

“Yes, they can be. Trust me. All we have to do is find someone who will marry Claudia then—”

“Claudia? Is that her name?”

“Yes, Claudia,” she continued, “then have a lease signed with both their names on it. An apartment with pictures, maybe, because Immigration does send someone to inspect. But that doesn’t mean they really have to live together.”

“And how do you intend on getting all this? It’s hard finding a husband and a place. You don’t just add water.”

“That’s why I’m asking you. Look, it can be anybody. He can even live with his parents—”

“Oh, please, let’s go to sleep.”

“Just promise me you’ll ask around.” In other words, Blanca was telling me it was okay to ask my hood friends.

“Fine. I’ll ask around.” Blanca got up from the bed and bent over to kiss me. I kissed her back. As she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, the phone rang.

“That’s your sister!” I yelled from the bedroom, knowing the only one who would call that late was Negra, wanting to tell Blanca about what had happened with Victor. Blanca went into the living room and picked up the phone. I could hear her voice, worried and excited at the same time as she asked about Victor’s condition. Blanca laughed and then preached to Negra about fidelity, which meant Negra was thinking of getting back at Victor in yet another way. I didn’t care, I was happy this thing with Blanca about this illegal girl hadn’t turned into a huge fight.

As she spoke with Negra, I listened to her sweet, earnest voice in the darkness of the bedroom and I felt happy. I didn’t know what I had done to deserve Blanca but I wasn’t about to ask. I was afraid fate would backtrack and look for errors and take Blanca away. I was just happy she was there with me. Her voice drifted from the living room to the bedroom, light and sweet, like she was still fourteen and at Julia de Burgos. I remembered those springs when she would wear thin cotton dresses to class and make me moan and ache in Spanish Harlem. Or wear her tight skirts while carrying her Bible. And when she sat in the library, she’d cross her legs and let her sandal dangle in midair as she read and played with her hair. I’d watch her from across the room and tell myself that she had no idea how beautiful she looked.

“Negra wants to talk to you,” Blanca yelled from the living room, yanking me back to the present.

“Me?” I yelled back.

“Yes.”

I got up, went to the living room, and took the phone from Blanca.

“You’re in luck,” Negra said.

“You got something already?”

“She’s coming to New York, Mami told me. Her old elementary school is going to name the auditorium after her.” Negra was laughing.

“No, get out? They do that?”

“Yep.”

“What if she doesn’t show up?”

“She’ll show up, all right. From what Mami tells me, that woman is so stuck up, one day she is going to wake up a mirror. Loves attention. I hate her already.”

“Listen, Negra,” I whispered, looking behind me to make sure that Blanca was nowhere in earshot, “don’t tell your sister any of this, okay?”

“Why?”

“Why nothing, I just don’t want her to know, thass all.”

“Why not, it’s her aunt too.”

“Just shut up and don’t tell her.”

“I don’t know, Chino.” I knew she wanted something. She had already paid me back by getting the information and now she wanted me to owe her.

“Trouble in paradise, Chino? Why don’t you want Blanca to—”

“Fine, I owe you.” I gave it to her. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Negra, I got to get some sleep, so think real quick or let me slide for another day.”

“All right, I’ll let you slide but you still owe me.”

“Fine,” I said, and hung up knowing I was going to regret that.

T
HE
following day Sapo gave me a call.

“Whass up,
pana
? Like, can you do me a solid? Like, you my main-mellow-man. Remember the day the entire CIA crew wanted to jump yo’ ass b’cause you were wearin’ a sweatshirt with their colors? Or like the other day when I got to Bodega to send someone to slide a lease undah yo’ door?”

“Sapo,
mira
, tell Bodega thanks. Tell him I have what he wants.”

“In a minute, in a minute. So, like, can you do me a solid?”

“What do you want? Do I have to kill anyone?”

“Bro, you can’t kill a fly. At times I think yo’r softer than yo’r alleluia wife. Like if they mug you, you’d ask the robbers if they need a ride home. So, Chino, like, I have a shitload of stuff, can I leave it wi’choo, Chino? You know you the only guy I can trust, right?”

“Of course.”

“Second thing.”

“Wha’?”

“Bodega wants ta see yah.”

•

SAPO MUST
have arrived at around 10:30 that night. Blanca and I were walking back from the subway after our night classes at Hunter,
commiserating about how much work we both had. I spotted Sapo’s BMW parked outside the building. Blanca stared at me a little while, then said, “Julio, why? Let’s just go to sleep.” That’s all she said, but I knew I couldn’t get out of it. I had to go. No matter what Blanca would say or how angry she would get, I had to do my part. Fortunately Blanca was in good spirits that night, and when I motioned my head toward the car she just sighed.

“You know, Julio,” she said, “the lease says no pets allowed. So when we move he can’t come over anymore.” She kissed me and told me to get something to eat. I gave her a hug and could smell the shampoo in her hair, something like peaches. I let go, watched her walk inside, and went over to Sapo.

“No fits? Whass the world coming to?” Sapo said as I started to get in his car. “Wait, Chino, can you like take this upstairs.” He handed me a nice fat eight-by-eleven envelope, all taped up. Sapo always taped them up really nice and tight, because that way he’d know if someone messed around with his stuff. I took no offense. I knew he trusted me. I ran the envelope upstairs, into the kitchen and slid it to the bottom of a giant-size half-empty Apple Jacks cereal box. Blanca saw me and just shook her head but didn’t say a word.

“Hey, who said that cereal prizes have gotten cheap?” I said, walking over to where Blanca sat on the sofa. “Junkie Flakes, they’re grrrrreat!” I even did the tiger imitation.

“It’s not funny, Julio.” She carefully got up, and walked into the bathroom. “Try not to be home too late,” she said, closing the bathroom door.

“All right, Blanca,” I said to the shut door. I put the box on top of the fridge and went back downstairs.

“Thanks, bro,” Sapo said, opening the car door for me. “You know, I got some girls comin’ and I can’t have that shit around. The girls I’m having ovah are born thieves. They can steal the nails from Jesus Christ and still leave ’im hangin’.”

“Where’s Bodega tonight?”

“Taino Towers. Fortieth floor. Got the best view in the neighborhood.” And we took off.

•

THE TAINO
Towers on 124th and Third took up an entire city block. There were four towers, one on each corner. Four towers of cheap, ugly white concrete. Forty floors of cheap windows and a lobby with a guard who slept most of the night. At the base of each tower were businesses ranging from supermarkets to dental offices. I hate towers. The taller the building, the more people you place on top of one another, the higher the crime rate. They’re mammoth filing cabinets of human lives, like bees in a honeycomb, crowded and angry at paying rent for boxes that resemble prison cells.

Bodega rented an apartment on the top floor of the tower facing the East River, mostly for the view—he had enough other places to live in. When Sapo and I arrived downstairs the guard didn’t ask who we were visiting. “I’m not a doorman,” he sneered. We took the elevator up, and knocked on 40B. Nene opened the door.

“Hey, Sapo and Chino. Whass up, like
I want to take you higher
.” He let us in.

“Tell yo’r cus Chino is here,” Sapo said.

“Oh, man. Wait, like, Nazario is with him. They been talkin’ for a long time.”

“ ’Bout wha’?”

“I don’t know, Sapo. You can wait for him, but …”

“Anythin’ else you know?”

“They keep mentionin’ this guy Alberto Salazar.”

“Who’s that?”

“I don’t know, Sapo. I just know it’s bad.
There’s somethin’ happenin’ here, what it is ain’t exactly clear.
” Just then Bodega and Nazario stepped into the living room.

And that’s when I first met Nazario, or better yet, when I realized who he was. I had never spoken to him or even known his name, but I’d seen Nazario’s face a few times around the neighborhood. He was a tall, confident man in his forties who walked the streets wearing expensive suits and alligator shoes but was never mugged. Now I knew why. It was Nazario who represented Bodega around the neighborhood. Nazario, with his clean-shaven face and the good looks of someone who never in his life has been in a street fight, went around spreading favors for Bodega.

“And he didn’t take the money?” Bodega was asking Nazario.

“No, he looks like a good man. Just doing his job. I don’t know, Willie, this could be bad.”

When Bodega saw me he started to smile. But then his lips froze when Nazario said, “
Willie, esto está serio.
This guy has something.” Bodega walked over and introduced me.

“This is Julio,” he said to Nazario. “He’s in college.”

“Under our program?” Nazario asked Bodega. Bodega shook his head no. I didn’t know what Nazario meant at the time, but later I would. Still, Nazario looked happy. “That’s great!” he said as if it was the best news he had heard all day. “When do you graduate?”

“Next year,” I said.

“Good. That’s one more professional in East Harlem. Soon,” he said, smiling at me, “we’ll have an army of them. An entire professional class in East Harlem and no one will be able to take this neighborhood away from us.”

“Sounds good,” I said, thinking to myself that these guys talked a lot of dreams. But soon enough, I’d start to believe in them too.

“Sapo,” Nazario said, walking past me but stopping a moment to pat my shoulder on the way as if to say, good job, “Sapo, we have to talk.” Nazario and Sapo walked out of the apartment and into the hallway. Bodega drew me into the kitchen.

“You drink beer, right?”

“Yeah.”

He opened the fridge and handed me one. “When you moving?”

“I haven’t talked it over with my wife yet, but soon.”

“That’s good. Listen, you have anythin’ for me?” He sounded embarrassed. “I don’t want you to think,” he said, looking at the floor, avoiding eye contact, “that I didn’t mean what I said a few days back. That I’m some weak fuck who—”

I cut him off. “Hey, it’s cool. Say no more. Look, Vera is coming to New York.”

His body quickly straightened up. “You spoke to her, Chino?” He was like a kid. He pulled up a chair and sat in front of me.

“I haven’t spoken to her, but I know she’s coming next week. Her old school. P.S. 72, you know, on 104th and Lex, is naming the auditorium after her. So you can speak to her then.”

“Will she be comin’ alone? Did she sound happy?”

“I didn’t speak to her, bro,” I said, but it was as if he hadn’t heard me at all. Bodega kept asking me questions and for a minute there I thought he was going to ask me what he should wear. Then Nazario walked back inside alone. He saw Bodega’s face, saw it wasn’t the same person.

“What’s with you?”

“Not’en’,” Bodega said.

“Sapo’s waiting.”

“Tell him to go home.”

“What! No, Willie, this is serious.”

“Tell Sapo to go home,” Bodega repeated.

“Willie, come to the other room.” Nazario beckoned with his hand for Bodega to join him so they could talk in private. Like usual, I took no offense. The less you know the less trouble you’ll get into.

“Nah, Chino is good people,” Bodega said, letting Nazario know that I could stay.

“It was good meeting you.” Nazario didn’t care. He extended his hand toward me and smiled that cold smile. “Can you excuse us?”

“Sure, and it was nice meeting you, too,” I said. “I got to go anyway.”

“I’ll speak wi’choo soon, all right, Chino? Sapo will get in touch wi’choo and let you know where to meet me, all right?” Bodega said, making triumphant fists in the air as if he had won some showdown fight. I nodded and walked to the door. Nene was sitting on the sofa listening to the radio. He got up and opened the door for me. I could hear Bodega and Nazario in the other room arguing and, sure enough, the name Alberto Salazar kept coming up.