South by South Bronx (6 page)

9.

it was the dress that did it.

not the woman in his bed, for there had been many others after, to disappear in the morning with that first vodka splash. women who left no tracks, no visible proof they had ever been there. he could have dreamed them, but he didn't dream belinda. and he didn't dream that dress.

hanging from shower curtain rod. eye level as he pissed and flushed. there hadn't been a dress hanging in his bathroom since belinda. was her habit, her mark of permanence.

(there was also: bra and panties. actually, a black g-string so flimsy that just staring at it made it slip off the curtain rod.)

“changó, changó.”

the cleansing tobacco rolling slow into the air, he especially puffing the dress. (how it shuddered from his smoke breath.) maybe he should have been praying something, but he only muttered
changó, changó
like in that song by celia cruz

fought off the first wave of disconnected images with vodka and ice. cleansed that sense of DOOM with that first bright hit. that tumultuous puerto rican
aguacero
splashing the windows clean.

the second ice-clinking swallow stopped the pictures. he busied his hands making another vodka ice, then rolling a cigarette slow calm. the cigar had gone out. maybe it meant something spiritually. he parked it on the ashtray for another cleanse later. but now sat in the small kitchen, in the narrow confined space with nothing but the ticking cateyes on the wall as his nerves settled, free of turbulence.

equilibrium.

that was the thing people left out when they started the rap on the evils of drinking. the equilibrium, the sense of things falling into place. someone should tell benny about the peace-and-tranquility part. liquor gave him that feeling of invulnerability. popeye's can of spinach. he could slow the pictures down, pick and choose, no rush. benny should learn that shit before he preaches about the evils, but then benny should know better. he was once a drinker too, even owned a bar. used to toss them back like a pro, but he mistook liquor for a new belief system, depended on it to make him into someone else. benny was always looking to change himself. he convinced himself that liquor changed him for the worse. alex was not so convinced. drinking made him normal. his blood, his nervous system demanded it. “you can't talk a drunk off a ledge with promises of bible,” he said to benny, he said to belinda.

—that did it, she said. you choose: the bottle, or me.

was it such a problem, his drinking? did it have to come up every time something went wrong? he tried it her way, pouring another bottle down the drain. proof he was a new man: but poses become roses, whither and die, crunchy and dry. did he really choose the bottle? was it really a question of choice? she had talked to him, endlessly, about how she had been in relationships before and how this was her last time, do or die. she would force it to work, with her own hands force it with sheer will. she had talked to him. she had always talked to him. she knew he was sick of running around waking with strangers, but she felt the liquor was what caused infidelity. it was like that with her father, she said, it would be like that with him. alex tried to tell her there was no connection, women came through his open doors until he closed them, he swore he was closing them for good. but the fighting about drinking caused more drinking, so alex one night opened his doors. sometimes it's the only way out.

you'll never have a woman again. you're never going to find love like you had it, like I gave it to you, like you spent it.

it was a good speech, he wrote it on the bedroom wall. big letters in drippy black paint, just to prove he would never forget them, drunk or not drunk. alex had a hard time remembering how the rooms were then. it was far from him, almost another life. some people have to fill a room with clutter to remind themselves they're alive. the curtains were all hers, the bureau. the big mirror where she used to stand in her panty hose, adjusting those bra straps. boxes of cosmetics, kitchen utensils, fashion magazines. bulby ceramic lamps. flowered
tapetes
.

the last time he saw her alive she was throwing the vase of yellow peonies at him. hit the wall with the impact of an RPG, him flinching from shrapnel where he stood under those drippy black letters. her face usually so calm, now so furious broken, as she charged out the door, stooping only to pick up her shoulder bag. going going gone. she never called about her clothes, her furniture, her things. “our things,” she would have said, insisted. she never called.

he tried her a few times at work, the investment firm of debussy and stark, but she wasn't getting back. it was what he told the police barely a month after she left, when they came by to visit. it wasn't that he was a suspect, they said, but whenever a daughter kills herself, the family always blames the boyfriend. the cops found it strange that he never met the family, which had nothing but derogatory things to say with what little they knew about him. belinda never spoke well of her parents. she always said they were too rich and too narrow-minded and that was why she was more than happy to move here and write them and say “I'm living with a man in the south bronx.” alex was the part of her rebellion that failed. a half-mad half-dominican blonde with
castellano
to her english, she had stopped taking her medication when she came to live with him. the details were sketchy now, intentionally so.

there was no memory of a funeral, of a gray day and umbrellas poking up amidst tombstones like black mushrooms. he didn't really remember the cops, just monk on a rainy day asking him about it.

—cops looking for you, bro?

—belinda, he said. they're looking for belinda.

—you mean she's missing?

—I mean she left.

it started with the curtains, and after that everything came down. blank walls, her pictures taken down. pulled out, torn down, bundled. paid this one-eyed neighbor from downstairs fifty bucks and all the vodka hits he could take to get the sofa-bureau-love-seat and bed down the stairs. he pulled up the linoleum, scraped at the dirty old floor until it was fresh beautiful wood, varnished fresh slick. the black drippy words in the bedroom gradually disappeared with each different color he applied. by the time he settled on blue there was only

YOU SPENT IT

before that one night, finally painted over, the whole house blue—detoxed de-spirited de-boned. a slate wiped clean. it wasn't that he forgot she was dead, but he forgot he was blaming himself for it. he forgot it was his fault. he forgot that as much as possible. only some things, some times brought it back.

he found her sitting up in bed, half-covered by blanket. she was facing the open windows, tucked into herself like a snail.

he came closer. her eyes were closed.

“Hey,” he said.

Her eyes opened. Green still, but maybe brown-flecked in sunlight. To wetly wetly blink.

“Ten,” she said.

10.

“Did you sleep okay?”

The running through the streets had been no dream. A firecracker kick drum. Shattering glass. Percussive slaps. Things twirl-spinning up to her. Running from one dark zone to the other. Bad dream—this guy staring at her. His face was not so instantly readable. He COULD NOT be connected to that pipeline, that snakelike curling around her fast: He could not—or she COULD NOT have picked a worse place. He looked at her like he didn't know her, was that it? It could be the best way to start.

“Bad dreams,” she said.

(Her thing was still to not acknowledge tears, to never give them any attention.)

He puffed out a thin stream of cigar smoke that hung in the air between them.

“Changó, Changó,” he said. Some private ritual that cut through all the noise in her head. Calmed her the way numbers did. The perfection of them. How things always worked out in the end, if you stuck with it and spoke the language of integers. He was leaning against the window as if trying to figure out a way to tell her: I know you. I know why you came.

“It's
Santería
,” he said. “Changó is a Yoruba god, represented in Cuba by the virginal Santa Barbara. The African version of Achilles. He was born to fight but came in dancing. So why is it he ends up being adored as a woman?”

The scrape of his loafers. The soundless slow descent of planes over tenement rooftops. He puffed out more smoke.

“See, he had enemies. So the manly Changó disguised himself as a woman. Sometimes
Santeros
ask for his protection by chanting his name and blowing tobacco smoke to dispel bad spirits and confusion.”

The pungent aroma settled in the room, thickening the air overhead. It gave off heat.

“And you're a
Santero
?”

Her words felt encased in Jell-O like she was still swimming up from dream.

“No,” he said. Puffing away slow on that cigar, talking about a god of masquerade, a powerful protector. A god who knew the importance of wearing disguises. Had to be. Her god. Her dream—Sarita appearing to her and talking about protection.
Santero
,
Santera
. A direct link from dream to waking.

She closed her eyes. “
Changó
,
Changó
. Like that?”

“Yeah, but you need to puff.”

He was close. Slow putting cigar to her lips.

(He would tell her: I know you. I know why you came.)

She drew in smoke. A cigar-tip sizzle, squiggly worms flaming up ash. He looked just like the type to play it slick. Could rely on good looks, lengthy pauses, and those brown dog eyes, staring. A hard-to-read granite face. No sculptor would have ever used this stone. Marvelous pretty, but horrid to work with. (Unyielding, easy to chip.) She thought she saw disdain, disinterest, compassion, curiousity, and no harm swimming there. He didn't seem too excitable. Could be the kind of person one might sit with and say nothing, and that would be all right.

He sat on the edge of the bed and took back the cigar. It seemed to be just for ritual, the way he stubbed it out before words, as if gathering his strength.

“Listen,” he said. “Last night.”

(I know you. I know why you came.)

“Last night,” she said.

There was a moment of just staring and her hope that he wouldn't say anything. No words, just a quiet, safe blue room.

“I don't remember it,” he said. “Sorry. It's a complete blank.”

The soundless slow descent of planes over tenement rooftops.

“I hope you're not insulted.”

“No,” she said.

He got up and went to the window. The room throbbed with hesitation. He couldn't, she couldn't. Something just couldn't.

“This happen often?”

“Not like this,” he said.

Seagulls seemed to pass awful close. Windows darkened with wingspan. A moment of mad flapping. Shrieks and cries. A voice that said,
Tell him.

“I remember last night,” she said.

He looked at her. He looked away. She hadn't meant to make it sound like that. No telling what was in her voice. No telling what was on his face. Impermeable, but not closed. It would all be guesswork, or he knew her. He was playing dumb. He was a silent player, in with the one-eye. He would probably stall her with coffee.

(There was a muffled gurgling.)

“The coffee's ready,” he said.

“My dress is wet. Did you see?”

“Yeah. It's still wet.”

“Do you have anything I can put on?”

He was scanning the clumsy watercolor sky, a pause to his every step like he was thinking it over carefully. A sense of going, of staying.

“The blue crate,” he said.

She trailed sheet as she walked the floor. It slid off in a heap as she rifled through crates. A blue one, a red one, two red ones, a green.

“Why's it so empty here?” she asked.

“I don't remember,” he said.

She checked his face. Joking, serious, hostile, what? He didn't seem to be scared of her, and if he was wondering about her, he kept it well hid. The coffee pot gurgled more insistent. It was hesitation again, a strange sense that he didn't know what to tell her and she didn't know what to tell him. He left. She slid into a pair of his jeans. A Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt. She walked over to the fire escape window.

The street below was sunny lit. Traffic flow lazy slow. A
piraguero
on the corner scraped his block of ice. She wasn't from here, but the place reminded her of Spanish Harlem. Coffee smell, tenement brick, pots and pans. The sound of Puerto Rican Spanish. The sidewalks glittered with broken glass. A Puerto Rican flag fluttered from atop a tin shack. A graffiti tribute to a girl named Magali who peered back from the brick wall with glowy orb eyes. A flow, a rhythm, the roar of subway coming up through steel gratings. She couldn't describe what the feeling was.

She had been very attracted to that Puerto Rican part of town. She was Upper East Side, nine blocks from Spanish Harlem. (Close enough to smell the
criollo
, Trudy always said, and not get burned. Whatever that meant.) She often headed up there on skates that first summer, drawing some attention as she sped up and down Muñoz Marín Boulevard. (Could have been all that loose blond hair trailing along behind. Could have been the shorts.) She bought her fruits and vegetables at La Marqueta, haggling in her classroom Spanish with pinch-faced fruit vets that called her
La Blanquita
. She got her first real haircut at Sarita's, a beautician joint on 113th Street. White-haired Sarita was a
Santera
, and could foretell events. She did readings and all that, but everyone stopping by for a trim or a manicure could mean receiving any number of tidbits about upcoming events GRATIS. It was Sarita who gave her that 1930s haircut. She sat in the chair with no plan other than getting her hair cut. New in town, new face, new look. But what Sarita did was bring back her face. She stared at herself in the mirror like it was a time portal.

“I've always been attracted to that time,” she said.

Sarita smiled. “We all have past lives. The things that attract us from the past are sometimes traces from places we've been before.”

It was like seeing herself for the first time.

Sarita in her dream, the first time she made an appearance, and what was she trying to tell her? She rebelled against the idea of soothsayers, always did. Never really wanted to know what was coming tomorrow, but it seemed every time she saw Sarita, the woman would always say something relevant, something to come that could only be proven later. She hadn't been to see Sarita for months. She wished she had bothered to stop by, even though every fiber of her being twitched at the thought of believing in such things.

She sat on the bed, checking her feet for those stinging scrapes and cuts before slipping on her Jackie O's. A deep heaviness. If she spent more time thinking about it, she would never leave that blue room. It still felt safe, even with the man in the kitchen preparing coffee—or maybe because of him. It was foolish, impractical, dangerous. She wished she was good at talking. (A voice that said,
Tell him.)
She picked up her purse and undid the latch on one of the detachable handles.

He had laid out coffee mugs, coffee pot, container of milk. Fresh toast. Cold cuts and cheese. There was a tall thin bottle of vodka. He was rolling a cigarette when she appeared in the doorway. She felt comfortable in his clothes.

“Looks good,” he said, tucking in the loose fibers at the end of the cigarette with a pen.

She sat in the chair beside him. “As soon as the dress gets dry.”

“Sure.” He lit the cigarette. “You want I should roll you one?”

“I only want a few puffs.”

Now came that feeling of hesitation again. His, hers. She clutched her purse. He seemed about to say something, but it was only cigarette smoke. She looked around the small, bare kitchen. A thousand words came to her and she refused to speak them. She was not going to play a role or do a dance this time. She would not be guided by voices. She was bad luck, the kiss of death. Besides, she couldn't even attempt to tell the story. She began fiddling with her purse.

“Hey,” she said, “do you have any tape? Something thick, like maybe masking tape?”

He looked at her. Cigarette smoke formed rings. “What's your name,” he said.

The ticking cat-eyes of the clock did not distract her. His eyes were searching her for facts. The strange thought hit her that he was somehow being generous. That he knew, and wasn't saying anything about fire escapes and open windows and women who slip into bed with total strangers.

“My name is Ava,” she said. “Ava as in Gardner, not Gabor.”

The cigarette was between his lips. A glimmer of amusement in his eyes or a show of welcome.

“I'm Alex,” he said, extending his hand. The touch was familiar, no surprise to skin. He passed her the cigarette. She took her first puff but it only added wooziness, blurriness, a flat taste. “You need tape?”

“The strap on my purse is broken,” she said, sort of holding it up.

“There's some gaffer's under the sink.”

She crouched down, opening the metal door to the undersink. Movement was better than just sitting there looking at each other, just sitting there talking, and he wasn't moving. He was working those cups.

“Milk?”

“Oh yes, please.”

“Sugar?”

She put the gaffer's tape on the edge of the table, noticing that he had dipped his spoon into a box of sugar cubes. There was something really funny about that. She laughed.

“Yes. Four cubes, please.”

Plop, plop, plop.

“So, about last night …” he said, just about to drop in that fourth cube.

That's when she pulled the gun from her purse and hit him with it.