Chicago Stories: West of Western (10 page)

“It's one of my favorite recipes, and so warming I only make it in the nastiest weather. Not very upscale, I'm afraid. Pure peasant food. I hope it's all right.” Seraphy nodded, her mouth full.

“All right?” she said when she could talk. “I've had corn bread and beans before, Andre, and they were nothing like this. This is sooo good.”

“Eat up, little one.”

After dinner Richard and Seraphy cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.

“Am I dreaming, Richard? This can't be real. Not in this neighborhood. Last night, cold and rain, cops and a dead body on my doorstep. Tonight, heaven.” She stroked the granite countertop, looked thoughtfully at the wide Viking range and stainless steel restaurant-sized refrigerator.

“We didn't do this all at once, Seraphy.” Richard was wrestling with a furiously-spitting Italian espresso machine.” We've been here for seven years now, and rehabbed as we could afford it. These,” he flapped his hand at the appliances, “were our tenth anniversary present from us to us.”

“You've been together that long?”

“Forever. We were both just starting out when we met in New York. I was a peon assistant scene painter at the Met, and Andre was still a student at Juilliard. Now he's a principal with the Lyric, and I sell a few illustrations. Thus, all this.” The machine let out a ferocious hiss.

“I think I've arrived in an alternate universe.”

“So do I sometimes, especially this winter.” He decanted rich, aromatic coffee into tiny cups and turned to lead the way into the living room. “Coming home it seems like the streets have been even bleaker than usual,” he said over his shoulder. “Maybe it's those damned sodium vapor lights the city loves so much. That dirty orange light just makes all the slummy bits worse. Positively Dantean. I'm thinking God, what did I do to end up in this slum?” He paused under the arch. “And then, just when I'm exhausted beyond belief and in total despair, through the door and here I am, and it's beautiful and warm and there's food and drink and Andre.”

“You forgot the fire and Thelma and Louise.” Andre lay splayed in a huge Barcalounger, his tree-trunk thighs draped with two of the largest Himalayan cats Seraphy had ever seen. “Seraphy, meet Thelma and Louise.” Louise stared, her round blue eyes cynical. Thelma appeared to be asleep. Richard put the tray on the coffee table, poked up the fire, and dropped onto the opposite end of the couch from his guest.

“Now you must pay for your supper, Seraphy,” Andre said, snapping upright and dumping Thelma and Louise protesting to the floor. Both cats slinked over and threw themselves down in front of the fireplace. “Sit and do tell us something scandalous.”

Seraphy searched her comfort-food-drugged brain for something clever while Richard arranged the accessories on the coffee table and handed cups around. “Mmm. I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I think my brain has gone AWOL,” she said. “I don't have much material to work with. All I do is work in the office during the day and work on my loft at night.”

“That's scandalous.” Richard sprawled over his end of the couch. “Gorgeous young thing like you, wasting her time in the daily grind.” He sighed and sipped. “Whatever grind that might be?”

“I'm a lowly architect at Jerrod & Etwin.”

“In that converted warehouse over on Elston? I didn't think Max Chiligiris employed lowly architects, only brilliant ones.”

“We do a lot of renovation and restoration for our clients. And some conversions. A little new construction. I mostly do the kind of thing I'm doing with my place, but on a much larger scale.”

“An arch-i-tect,” said Andre, drawing out the syllables. “And how did you end up over here? There must be places along the river with a lot less neighborhood hassle.” His eyes watched her over the rim of his cup.

“So everybody tells me—and I tried, looked at a hundred yuppie condo clones, but couldn't see living in any of them, too cookie-cutter for me.”

“You don't follow the Stepford Handbook?”

“Afraid not.”

They sat silent, waiting for her to go on. Andre got up to poke at the fire. Richard refilled their cups.

“Why here? I don't know if I have a reason, really . . . ” Her words petered out as she remembered that day, her first glimpse of the building. “I'd picked this one out of the listings my Realtor gave me and she had only left it with them by mistake. It's hard to find a small commercial building that hasn't been chewed up by contractors. She grumbled when I told her I wanted to see it, but I insisted. She hates to go west of Western, didn't even want to get out of the car.” She stopped for a sip of her espresso. Richard circled with his hand for her to continue.

“When we pulled up, I looked out the side window. Ellie was bitching and moaning about getting home, but I took one look and I knew . . . umm, how can I explain? There was a certainty. Not an intellectual kind of knowing, just knowing.” She shook her head. “I know that doesn't sound too bright.”

“Not at all,” Andre carefully placed his empty cup on the enameled tray and leaned forward, brown eyes locked onto her gray ones. His eyes seemed to grow huge.

“I was born in Haiti,” he said, his voice filling the room. “My people believe in spirits, you know. I know this building, for instance, has a spirit and chose us.”

Richard sat up, rolling his eyes. “Spare me.”

“Oh, yes, Richard, you know it's true. Many people tried to buy this place from the old lady,” he said. “Many, over the years after her father died. The store closed and her sisters moved away. But she wouldn't listen to them. Then we came to the door and she said yes the first time we asked and sold it to us so very cheaply, even a freelance scene painter and a part-time opera chorister could afford it.”

“She was broke and needed the money,” said Richard.

“Scoff away. She had always needed money. You know in your heart we were meant to have this place.”

“I wouldn't have believed you a few months ago,” Seraphy said, “but I feel the same way now. My place chose me.” She looked from one to the other. “Did you get harassed when you first came? Or now?”

Her hosts broke into laughter. “Are you kidding?” snorted Richard. ”Would you mess with that monster? Take a chance on being cursed? He'd call the spirits down on you.”

“Hearken unto me!” Andre took a breath, crossed his eyes, and seemed to swell as she watched. “I am the Grrreat God Ban-o-mee,” he rumbled, rolling his rrrs until the room reverberated, and they all collapsed in laughter. “The uses of a classical education are many,” he said primly when they had recovered enough to sit up, “and in opera there are a number of useful demons I could call on for inspiration.”

“Andre loves dress-up,” said Richard.

“When we moved here, Richard kept a low profile, while I was ostentatious in strolling the neighborhood, mumbling this and that. I'm somewhat difficult to overlook, of course.” He sat up and preened, “and as I told you, my parents and I emigrated from Haiti, so you see, I used my knowledge of those legends as well.”

“You scared the fucking shit out of the gangs.” Richard turned to Seraphy. “Andre would get on one of his demon-from-hell get-ups and stalk around after dark, muttering and chanting bits from some opera or other—Rigoletto, Aida, the Ride of the Valkyries, whatever. They think he's some kind of witch doctor or something.”

“I never spoke English where they could hear. A little Latin, and Haitian patois works wonders. When anyone spoke to me, I simply sneered and stalked off.” His teeth gleamed in the firelight. Seraphy found herself envisioning scenes and laughing.

“You do a great stalk. And you lucked out when somebody poisoned the pit bulls across the alley and they croaked after they lunged at you once,” Richard added. “God, I hated those dogs.”

“For a while everything that went wrong was attributed to me—everything,” said Andre, gesturing. “Sprained ankles, burnt dinners, kids with pinkeye, leaking roofs, cars that wouldn't start. The worst troublemakers around here are the Puerto Rican gangs, mostly kids from rural island families, unsophisticated and superstitious.” His smile flashed in the firelight. “It was almost too easy.”

“Type casting,” said Richard.

“Even better, they think Richard is my servant.”

“Andre, you're
such
a drama queen.”

“We all have our talents.”

“We're a mystery to the neighborhood. We leave the outside of the storefront as it was and our blinds pretty much closed—you do know the gang uses spotters in your neighbors’ upstairs windows to look in your windows?” Richard refilled the tiny cups. “And my garden is screened from the street and alley. After all these years, the neighborhood is used to us and leaves us alone.”

“That's brilliant.” Limp from laughing, Seraphy let her head drop back against the cushions. “I'll remember and try to think of something half as good. I could have used you when that batty old woman came after me last night when I was putting out the garbage.”

“Grey hair, looks like a bulldog, smells like a garbage dump, spits?” Richard wrinkled his nose.

“That's the one. Called me an exploiter of the poor, among other things. I think she's called Sister Ann.”

Richard sat up and leaned back, crossing his long legs. “That's Sister Ann. She lives next door to you, as a matter of fact. Harmless, at least if you stay up-wind. Lost in the sixties. I heard she's an ex-nun, one of the Caritas Sisters back in the day.”

“Weren't some of those nuns killed in Central America? I was in parochial school and we thought they were saints. You know, feeding the poor and running clinics and schools and so on.”

“Maybe,” Richard answered, waving a slim hand, “among other things. Liberation theology, all that. I think at least a couple of them were running with the guerillas.” He stood up and stretched.

“More coffee?” He headed for the kitchen.

“That explains the exploitation stuff, I guess,” she said to Andre. “Still, that was a long time ago. How did she wind up here?”

“Nobody knows. She moved in about a year after we got here,” said Andre. “I think she's a few beads short of a rosary, myself.”

Seraphy stretched her arms above her head. “Me, too. You should have heard her yelling at me, and I'd never seen her before. Then some old guy came and got her.”

“Probably Manny.” Richard was back with more espresso. “Sister Ann lets homeless guys sleep in the second-floor flat. Eeww. I hate to imagine.” He shuddered, “From the looks of them, nobody over there ever cleans anything, especially themselves.”

Andre looked up from stroking Thelma, who had crept back onto his lap. “We never drew the attention you've had, but then, we bought from an old lady who always lived here. The Lobos used to meet in your building when it was abandoned, using it as a drug and weapons dump, and probably thought of it as theirs. Then you cleared it out, cleaned it up, changed the locks.”

“So why didn't they attack the contractors when it was being cleaned up?”

“Waiting to see what you were going to do,” said Richard. “Probably didn't realize a girl, excuse the term, was the actual new owner. Must have shocked the hell out of them when you had the balls to move in. So to speak.”

“Not at all. I've got balls,” she grinned. “The cops thought I was some North Shore debutante playing at gentrification,” she said, her lip curling.

Richard laughed and waved his hand, “Well, sure. Wouldn't you?”

“Is that what you think?”

“At first when we heard about you moving in, sure,” he nodded. “Nobody knew where you worked, of course, but you had that red Jeep and looked classy and spent a lot of kopeks rehabbing. That's pretty yuppie.” He put up a hand to stop her protests. “But you stayed, cleaned up the crap the bangers dumped in front of your garage and stayed. Even when they took out your windows, you just boarded up and stayed. They painted death threats on your garage and you stayed. Then last night somebody shot a kid on your doorstep—”

“And I'm staying.”

Andre pushed Thelma off his lap and leaned forward to stare into her eyes. “So, Seraphy Pelligrini, if you're not a yuppie, what are you? Feeb, ATF, undercover cop?”

“Excuse me?” Her eyebrows flew up. Did she hear that right? It had never occurred to her. “Why would anybody think that? I told you, I'm an architect. Period.”

Her hosts were silent, watching her.

“Wait,” she glared at them, her hands up, palms out. There was something strange here. “Wait. The cops asked me more or less the same thing, only they thought I was an outlaw, drug dealer, whatever. Why would the feds bother to go through all that to put an agent in here? What the hell's going on in this neighborhood?”

“I don't think she has a clue,” said Richard, exchanging looks with his partner.

“Tell her?”

“Right,” Richard said, relaxing. He leaned back again, re-crossed his legs and steepled his hands. “Ever hear of the FALN?”

“No.”

“Of course, you weren't even born when they started back in the fifties. It's a Puerto Rican terrorist organization; they claim they want to make Puerto Rico an independent country—sort of like Cuba. Che Guevarra stuff. Bombs, automatic weapons, armored car robberies, like that. Shot up the House of Representatives, but they've been dying out. By 1985 the feds claimed the FALN no longer existed.”

“We wish,” said Andre.

Richard nodded. “But that's not the case. In 1999, President Clinton pardoned the convicted FALN terrorists in federal prisons, trying to drum up Latino support for Hilary. Two of them, Alejandrina Torres and Alberto Rodriguez, came back to Chicago. The FALN’s base in Chicago was, and is, Humboldt Park.”

“Here? But that was, what? Years ago.”

“You think? You know those big ugly flaggy things on Division Street?”

She nodded. The big steel sculptures bracketed the blocks between Western and California Avenues.

“They mark what they call the Paseo Boricua—Puerto Rico Walk. FALN land. And those big banners hanging on the buildings, like Puerto Rican flags but with lighter blue, are FALN flags. That little park with the statue—that's one of the so-called ‘heroes’ of the FALN, a convicted terrorist and felon to you.”

“The one who looks like a tired waiter? So you're saying there's still reason for the feds to hang around?”