Listen Ruben Fontanez (10 page)

“You will see, Mister Meyers—when the right time comes, I gone to work great
brujería
, like Señora Rosa—”

Manuel's eyelids move upwards. “Only I got to wait for the right time. It only good one time—” I am thinking of Jackson again, and I can see his blue earmuffs. I would like to laugh. There should be pictures for the cowboys also, I think, to line their corridors. “You know what?” Ruben says. “I think the reason I come here really is just to show you—” He taps his side pocket. Manuel does not move. His eyes are on the roofs of the buildings across the street. “You think it just silly, I bet—”

“No,” I begin.

“It's okay,” Ruben says. He is silent suddenly. He sits on the bed, leaning forward. He speaks again and his voice has changed. “How you been feeling?” he asks. “I sorry I forget to ask—”

“It is only a cold,” I say.

“If you need something, that the reason we here,” he says. “To get you what you need.” Manuel stops puffing on his cigarette. Across the street, he has seen something. I go to the telephone and lift the receiver. Ruben stands and moves toward me, then freezes. There is no mistaking the look in his eyes. Well. Mad-Man Meyers has a few weapons left. Manuel moves deeper into his corner, his chin at his chest. “I am just checking,” I explain, and I hold the receiver toward Ruben. There is no sound. “Listen—it has been disconnected.”

Ruben relaxes. “You got any kids?” he asks. Manuel's eyes return to the window.

“No,” I say.

“That not so good.” My monkey shakes his head. “When you get old you won't have nobody to take care of you. They put you away, like they did my grandmother—” He taps on the desk with his knuckles. “When they get her, I know what coming—”

“No,” I say. “I was married late, you see. I was past thirty. And my wife, she—”

“You don't got to say nothing,” Ruben says, interrupting me. “If they don't get me, me and Manuel, we take care of you till you get back to work. We get you any stuff you need—” Manuel keeps his cigarette at the center of his mouth. “You just give us a list.”

“I can manage,” I say. I am feeling stronger. It is my turn now. “But what will you do, Ruben Fontanez—? Where will you stay—?”

“In places,” he says. “You gone to see a lot of me, the places I got picked out.”

“You cannot hide forever, Ruben.”

“I know that, man,” he says. He is annoyed. I am reaching him, I know. “I got plans—you don't got to worry. I think it all out.” He goes to Manuel and takes the cigarette from him, roughly. He draws in on it once, then returns it. He rubs his hand against the side of his trousers. “Anyway, after a while they stop looking for me—one more spic kid don't mean nothing to them.” He points a finger at me. “You be surprised how many guys like me making it in this city—”

I do not mind his finger. I think of Mary Santini, of snow. I see my cowboys in their schoolyard. “But what of school?” I ask. “You said you were listening.”

He goes to the window and looks at the rooftops of the buildings across the street. “You don't got to worry. Like I tell you, I got that planned too. I not so stupid—” I hear someone coming up the stairs. Under my bathrobe I am perspiring. I should eat something solid, I know. I will definitely return to school next week. It is a promise. Manuel sucks on his cigarette. I empty the contents of my teapot and fill it with fresh water. Ruben does not stir. His eyes do not move. His mind is somewhere else.

He does not, I realize, hear the steps. Ah, Ruben, Ruben, you will have to be more careful than this. You cannot dream, Ruben Fontanez. Don't you know that? I turn the flame on high. There is knocking on my door.

Ruben starts. He looks at me and for an instant his eyes are wild with fright. Manuel scans the room, looking for a hiding place. He waits for Ruben's decision. “Say who it is—” Ruben whispers.

“Who is it?” I ask, and I smile, for I know already, from the footsteps.

“It is only me—Nydia. I bring the baby.”

I explain to Ruben that Nydia lives in the building. “We can't take no chances,” he says. “You tell her we students from your school. We come to see how you getting along—”

I open the door. “But you are—” I say, over my shoulder, and I smile.

Nydia enters, holding the baby in her arms, wrapped in a blue blanket. “This is for you,” she says, and puts a pot down on my kitchen table. “I got to make for myself anyway—” She stops when she sees my two monkeys. Her eyes go to the floor. She shuffles backwards. “I sorry,” she says. “I didn't know you got people—”

I laugh and explain to her that the two boys are students of mine from the school. She smiles, shyly, but does not look up. “I come get the pot later, when you not busy.”

“That your baby?” Ruben asks.

Nydia nods, embarrassed. Ruben whistles. “Man, you pretty young to be having kids—”

“Ruben,” I say. “There is no—”

“I'm sorry,” he says, and comes toward us. He is not as tall as Nydia, and he too, I realize, is suddenly shy. He tickles the baby under the chin. “Hey,
muchacho
, I got a brother like you—only I not going to see him no more—” He looks at Nydia, briefly. “It's okay if you got a baby.”

“I am married,” Nydia says. Her eyes are defiant.

“Man, I know that—” Ruben says, and walks away. “What you think—every guy want to make it with you?”

“Ruben—!” I say, and move toward him. Manuel gets up from his crouch. He eyes me carefully.

“Okay, okay,” Ruben says.
“Lo siento, lo siento
. You not so beautiful anyway,” he adds. “Manuel's sister more beautiful than you—”

Nydia's baby begins to cry and she soothes it. “I see you later, Mister Meyers,” she says. “You feeling better?”

“Yes, child,” I say. I lift the lid from the pot and steam escapes. Nydia tries to apologize for not giving me something better, but I tell her that I am fond of oatmeal. It is one of my favorites. Ruben comes closer, conscious, I can tell, of every move he makes. Nydia watches him from under her eyelids.

“Your husband got a job?” Ruben asks.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Ruben says. “It's okay then.”

Manuel's eyes are away from us. We do not concern him any longer. “I like to speak to you when you get some time,” Nydia says to me. “About—you know—school.”

I tell her that I will ask the others to leave, but she says no. I promise that I will come down to her apartment later, but she does not like this idea either. She is afraid Carlos will come home, I know, though she says it is because I should not leave my room while I am ill. Ruben says that he will not be staying much longer. He has to go to work also. He looks out the window. He is waiting, he tells us. Soon he will be able to leave.

“Where you live?” he asks.

Nydia looks at me and when I nod, she tells Ruben. “Okay,” he says. “I knock on your door when we on our way out—three times, quick—so you know it's okay to come up.”

The water for the tea is boiling now and I put leaves in. I ask Nydia if she would like some and she says no. She must clean her apartment. Ruben says he will have some tea. He will need it because of the day he has ahead of him. Nydia's baby is asleep now. She looks at him and her face glows. I touch her elbow and walk her to the door. I thank her for thinking of me. “I think I know what you want to talk to me about,” I say. I pat her arm. “I am glad, Nydia.” She smiles and leaves, holding her child close to her.

“You got to see Manuel's sister sometime,” Ruben says when Nydia is gone.

“You were not very nice,” I say to him. “You did not even—”

“I bet you I older than she is,” he says. He looks out the window. His face is troubled. There are no trees out there, my monkey. You will see no cowboys. I fix the tea for us and I hum to myself. Perhaps I will sit in the park with Morris this weekend. We will see. I am happy about Nydia's decision.

“That the truth about going to work,” Ruben says when I give him his tea. He nods toward Manuel. “That the reason he smoke so much—” Ruben taps Manuel on the head with his knuckles, lightly. “You got to see us in action sometime. You be surprised what we do—”

“I am listening,” I say.

“This tea pretty good,” he says. He is enjoying himself, I can tell, and that is all right also. His nose in the cup, his eyes laugh at me. “We take you with us sometime—to show you what we do.” He licks the edge of his lower lip. His tongue reaches almost to his chin. “When you get better. It be a real treat for you—I give you my promise.” He helps himself to a spoonful of sugar and sits down. “Without the money from the welfare I gone to need more for food and things—” Manuel shakes his head. “My good friend Manuel, he want to get me everything I need.” Ruben comes closer to me. “I tell you what I think, Mister Meyers. If you got a good friend in this world, you don't need nothing else. That what I think. Manuel, he do anything for me—” He stops and laughs. “Except to die.” Manuel smiles. I am certain of it. “That the reason he a true friend. When we first come on the boat together, I think he ready to die for me if I ask him to, but he learn things since then. Like I tell you, he not so C.R.M.D.—” Manuel blows smoke toward the ceiling.

“But we taking enough chances already,” he goes on. “And we got to get you the things from your list.”

“I can manage,” I say. “I have told you. I have friends also, Ruben.”

“We get you what you need,” he says.

I remind him of Morris. “We have been friends since we were boys,” I say. “He brings what I need.” I drink my tea and I am watching Morris again, that first time we waited outside the cowboys' Yeshiva. His green wool cap was pulled down over his ears. He was no more than twelve years old then. I laugh because I suddenly remember something: he was smoking. I watch Manuel and continue to laugh. “Since we were boys,” I say again. You walked alongside the cowboys, Morris, and I walked behind you. You flaunted them by blowing your smoke into the air around their heads. They were ashamed. Well. Times change, Morris. It is all right. Harry Meyers does not think less of you because you have come to fear them. You are entitled also. Your life has not been easy. I did not know what went on behind the doors of your house in those days. We never know, after all. I wonder what goes on behind the doors of monkeys. All right. Now is not the time to ask such things. When the door is closed, it is closed. Ah, Ruben, Ruben, even if you would try to tell me all, you could not, could you. It is all right. Save your money, my monkey. As for Harry Meyers, in this instance, he can set a good example. The cowboys and the Board of Education have secured his old age for him. What they did to your grandmother will not happen to Harry Meyers, I can assure you. “He brings what I need,” I say. “Save your money.”

Manuel is tapping on the window with his fingernails. His eyes are wide open. My monkeys have their arms around one another's shoulders. I look to the window. From my angle I can see the top stories of the Hotel Manhattan Towers, on Broadway. The tenements are in front of it, their walls crashed in, their floors used as parking lots. Well. It will not happen on this block. Five-story brownstones do not make good garages. They are too narrow. You are safe from that, Sarah. Ruben is telling Manuel that he was not worried. He knew he would come. I move toward my monkeys. Morris had his arm around my shoulder also. I lift my arms slightly, toward Ruben and Manuel, but I am not ready for such things. The impulse is a momentary one and I restrain it. They are monkeys, after all. “It is Marty!” Ruben says to me. His eyes are bright. He is happy. “There—!”

I follow the direction of his finger and, on the roof of the boarded-up brownstone, number 173, I see the figure of a boy standing at the front edge of the building, his hands on his hips. My eyes move forward. I press my glasses backwards to sharpen the picture. The fronts of his feet are half off the building, his head is bent forward, and he gazes at the street below. I reach toward the window, but Ruben laughs and I lower my hand. “It's okay,” he says. “You don't got to be scared for him. He loves it when he goes up high.”

Manuel is smoking furiously, his neck craned forward. The boy looks our way and his expression does not seem to change. He points toward the street and our eyes follow. A policeman twirls his nightstick as he walks along. The boy walks from roof to roof. Between numbers 165 and 163 there is a wide space.
“¡Mira!”
Ruben whispers.
“¡Mira!”
He is excited. Marty walks backwards and disappears from view. A moment later he is back. Under his arm he carries a long plank of wood. He lays it across the open space, tests it by bouncing on the end, and then, without even looking our way, he walks across. I clutch the back of Ruben's shirt. “He is our leader,” Ruben says. “You gone to like him, Mister Meyers.” The boy is directly across from us now. I let go of Ruben's flannel shirt. My palm is wet. The boy is wearing sneakers and his toes curl over the front edge of the building. Something is slung over his shoulder. He watches the policeman and he makes a gesture with his middle finger that causes my monkeys to laugh.

“He gets the guys who build the buildings to let him walk around up high,” Ruben says to me. “When you better, we take you around with us, you get to watch Marty work with the steel men.” He lifts his head, then waves to Marty. He is very proud. “He the smartest guy I know, Mister Meyers. That the truth.” I watch the boy's face, but it is difficult to see him clearly from this distance. My eyes are not focusing well. He wears dungarees and a denim jacket. His head is covered with something black. He seems to be my monkey's age. Fourteen, perhaps fifteen. “Even where I live, they give him respect, Mister Meyers. He know a lot of things.” His face is animated. “He lives near here by the river, in a place for the rich people. Me and Manuel, we been working with him since after school starts.”