Bodega Dreams (8 page)

Then we spotted Nene sitting on the stoop. Sapo pulled over and I unlocked the door so Nene could get in.

“You know each other, so I’m goin’ to start on my flan.” Sapo took out a plastic spoon and began to eat his flan, which floated inside a white carton filled with sugary syrup.

“Yeah, I know you, Chino,” Nene said, recognizing me.

“How you been, Nene?”

“You know me,
I’m just a soul whose intentions are good.
”

Sapo finished his flan real quick, his big Sapo mouth engulfing every spoonful. But when he started the car, Nene got nervous, and seeing him nervous made me nervous.

“Yo, Hunta is on Sixty-eighth Street, bro, you going uptown.”

“This won’t take long, Chino. Nene and me have to do somethin’ real quick.” I knew something was up. I wanted to tell him to let me out, but I stayed because I needed Sapo to set up a meeting with Bodega, so I could make a deal with him. I was hoping that it wasn’t too late. Maybe Bodega had found another way to contact Vera. I didn’t know, so I had to stick around and have Sapo talk to Bodega on my behalf as soon as possible or my chance at making a deal would be over.

Nene was sweating. “You sure about this, Sapo?”

“Yeah, I’m sure about this. Your cousin wants this done.”

“Yo, where we going?” I asked.

“Pa’ viejo.”
Sapo laughed.

“Yo, I got class.”

“Why don’t you fucken put that shit in the news. I heard you the third time.”

And I didn’t bother to say it again.

Sapo stopped his car in front of the poultry house on 110th and Second where you could buy live chickens, turkeys, geese, and ducks. It smelled like a zoo and you could hear the fowl cries blocks away.

Sapo and Nene went inside while I stayed in the car. A few minutes later, they came out carrying a large box with holes punched in it. Carefully, they placed the box on the backseat and Nene slid in next to it.

“This fucken thing is going to stink up my car, man.” Sapo spat out the car window.

“What the fuck is that, bro,” I said, laughing. “I thought you ate your flan already. Like, if you still hungry I can spring for pizza.”

“Nah, this is for Doña Ramonita at the botanica,” Sapo answered, through gritted teeth.

“It’s watching me, Sapo. It’s watching me.” Nene was looking through the little holes. “It knows this is the end.”

“Of course it knows. You think it’s stupid enough to think we got him for a fucken pet?” Sapo took off.

When we reached the botanica on 116th between Park and Madison, San Lázaro y las Siete Vueltas, Sapo parked his car and asked me and Nene to carry the box. “I put in my time,” he said.

Doña Ramonita was a heavy woman with strong African roots from Puerto Rico’s Loiza Aldea. With her hair pulled back in a pink bandanna and her hands on her hips, she looked like Aunt Jemima from the pancake boxes. She was standing next to a life-sized statue of San Lázaro with all his boils and diseased skin. Incense was burning all around the botanica and the shelves were crowded with teas and potions and smaller saints. On the walls were cheap religious pictures depicting the Devil being slain by the angel Michael. In those pictures, the Devil is always painted completely black with horns and a tail; Michael is always rosy and winged with a sword he twirls like a baton.

The botanica also doubled as a pawnshop. It was a place that knew hunger and desperation. A place you could find things hocked out of a deep need for something good or bad. There were wedding rings, baby bracelets, radios, televisions, necklaces, engraved watches, old-fashioned spoons and knives, scarves, pins, coins, and other junk that was left behind for Doña Ramonita to resell. Popular items were the boxes on the floor filled with Spanish LPs from past decades, old mambo and salsa records, plena, bomba, Latin hits our parents would dance to. A few secondhand mint-condition musical instruments like trumpets, trombones, congas, and tambourines were on display inside a glass case, their price tags sticking out like a tag on a dead man’s toe.

“Doña Ramonita,” Sapo said, “Willie Bodega would like you to make an offering to Changó on his behalf. This is for him,” Sapo said, pointing at the box Nene and I had placed on the floor, “and this is for you. It is the favor you asked Willie Bodega for.” He gave her a wad of twenties. She didn’t count them or say anything, just took the money and stuffed it inside her bra. Nene stared at her and started singing softly,
“I got a black magic woman. Got a black magic woman.”
Like most of the neighborhood she knew Nene was slow and paid him no mind. When she went over to the box and opened it a goose flapped its way out and started to walk around nervously as a few customers looked on with admiration.

“
Mijo
, this animal is perfect. It is important that the sacrifice be healthy. Changó will be very happy,” she said, and then went behind some curtains to the back of the botanica, leaving us with a scared bird wandering around.

“You know, Sapo, I can report you to the ASPCA.” I laughed.

“Shit, I could care less about this chicken, my car stinks now.” Sapo spat on the floor.

“It’s a goose, bro, not a chicken.”

“Who the fuck are you, Old MacDonald? The shit stunk up my car. If it was up ta me I’d wring its neck right here.”

Nene stopped singing and stared at the goose. I detected some pity on his solemn face. Then Doña Ramonita emerged dressed in white, with a rosary wrapped around her waist and some beads dangling down
her side. She was carrying a leash and three small jars of lightly tinted water.

“
Díganle a
Willie to wake up tomorrow at sunrise. Make sure that his window has a clear view of the sun,
si no que vaya al rufo.
He must take off all his clothes and then turn himself seven times to the right as he pours the water from this jar, the first jar, on himself. Then he must turn seven times to the left as he pours the second jar. The third jar I will keep and pour on the sacrifice, also at sunrise.”

“Wait. What if it’s cloudy?” Nene piped up, “I know it’s
hot town summer in the city
but it could rain tomorrow.”

“He must wait then, till the sun comes out. I will wait with him too.” Then with deft precision she cornered the goose, leashed its head, and dragged it to a corner where she tied it to a table. “I will pour the water at sunrise, turning the sacrifice seven times.” Doña Ramonita paused and looked at the three of us carefully, making sure that all of us heard what she had to say. “But I can tell you now,” she said, her eyes panning left to right, from Sapo to Nene to me, “I have seen the woman he is after. I have seen her in dreams. She is coming from a hot place. A warm climate, almost like Puerto Rico
pero eso sí
, the woman he is after is coming with a lot of trouble. As if she is the daughter of Changó himself.”

Doña Ramonita was right. Vera would arrive, fading in and fading out of the neighborhood as if in a film. A character so out of focus that it was hard to know when you had her just right, and when you did, the film ran out. It didn’t matter that the show was over and everyone was going home disappointed, only that you felt responsible for the movie being bad. You knew you weren’t the filmmaker, but you were the one who dragged everyone to see it. With Vera it would be the whole neighborhood that got cheated. Many were at fault, and I was among them.

As we walked out of the botanica and headed toward Sapo’s car, Doña Ramonita reappeared, shouting.

“And tell Willie he has to buy new clothes! All in white. Changó’s favorite color is white. Willie will need a lot of white!” she yelled. Sapo nodded to assure her he would relay the message. She then bowed her head ever so slightly and slowly went back inside her botanica.

Sapo opened the car door and a terrible odor rose from inside. “Fucken shit.” He opened all the doors and pressed a button to slide all the windows down. He took out a cigarette and the three of us waited outside the car for the smell to clear.

“I feel bad for that bird, you know,” Nene said, “but you know, at least he gets to meet the spirit in the sky.
Thass where I want to go when I die. When I’m old and they lay me to rest I want to
go
to the place thass the best.
”

I felt this was as good a time as any. “Sapo, I have to speak with Bodega again.” Nene kept singing.

“ ’Bout wha’?”

“Tell him I can deliver Vera. That’s the woman he’s after, right? Blanca’s aunt?”

“Wha’? Now, Chino—” He took a long drag on his cigarette. I knew his loyalty was to Bodega but Sapo was still my friend.

“Tell him I know where she is and I can reach her. All I want from him is a two-bedroom apartment in one of his buildings. Tell him I got a kid coming and I need the extra room.”

“Fucken shit, Chino.” Sapo was mad. He flung his lit cigarette on the pavement with so much force, it made a stream of sparks. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this before I put the fucken chicken in my car!”

I
F
there was one person who was going to know where I could find this Vera, it was Blanca’s sister, Negra. Although I didn’t know yet if Bodega would agree to my deal, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to pay Negra a visit. We weren’t really friends but we were family.

Negra and her husband lived in the Metro North projects on 100th and First. These projects face the East River and have million-dollar views. On the Upper East Side an apartment facing the East River would be priceless, but this is Spanish Harlem, where most rents are subsidized by Section Eight. Regardless, the panoramic scenes are the same from any neighborhood: red-orange sunrises, blue-black moonlit nights. In the wintertime, when the East River freezes, the views are staggering. The ice acts like a mirror and the world seems to have two sunrises and at night two moons, one in the sky and one on the ice. During storms, you can see huge waves pound the FDR Drive, sometimes reaching all the way to the highway itself and washing up against the cars. Above the East River the cloud formations are ever-changing, and when a dying hurricane is about to hit the city you can see how the waves and the clouds synchronize their gyrating motions, like Jupiter’s red eye.

Negra was lucky. She lived on the twelfth floor facing the East River. I took the elevator, punched 12, and tried not to step in a puddle of piss
where vials were floating. As soon as the elevator door opened, I could hear Negra yelling. I reached her door and knocked hard. Soon she peered through the peephole and opened the door.

“
Que me lleven.
I don’t give a shit!” she yelled. She was smoking a cigarette, taking long, angry drags.

“What happened, Negy?” I asked, as she sank into the sofa and continued to smoke.

“Ayy … ayy … You’re crazy, Negy.” I heard a faint moaning coming from the kitchen, where I found Negra’s husband, Victor, sitting on a chair and holding his stomach with one hand. There was blood on his shirt and on the floor.

“That bitch is crazy, man. That bitch is crazy.”

“Victor, let me look at that shit.” I knelt down and gently moved his hand away.

It was a small but deep gash. “That shit is nasty, bro. How’d that happen?”

Negra rushed into the kitchen and began to yell. “That’s good for him, Chino! For being a
cabrón
!”

“She’s crazy, she’s … fucken crazy … Chino,” Victor responded weakly. He was leaking blood slowly but steadily.

“Look, Negra, we have to get him to Metropolitan.”

“He doesn’t want to go!” she yelled, and then lit another cigarette.

“Ayy … ayy … ayy … coño.”
His moaning made Negra angrier and she erupted.

“Chino, I’m doing the laundry, right!”—she took a violent drag—“and I find in his pocket a movie ticket stub for
Donnie Brasco
”—she blows smoke—“I know, I know what he’s been up to. But to make sure I ask him while I’m cooking, does he want to go to the movies tonight after dinner?”

“Thass a lie, Chino, she’s lying,
ayy … ayy … Dios Mío.
”

Negra yells at Victor to shut the fuck up and then continues. “So I asked him, ‘
Papi
, you want to go to the movies?’ He says, ‘Sure, why not.’ I say, ‘I want to see
Donnie Brasco.
’ He tells me, ‘All right, let’s see that.’ I say, ‘Unless you’ve seen it already with your buddies Mike and Nando.’ He says, ‘No, I haven’t.’ I say, ‘Are you sure you haven’t seen it?’ He smiles and tells me, ‘No, I haven’t gone to the movies since I
went with you.’ ” She stopped and stared at Victor. “So I showed him the stub, Chino. I told him this was in his shirt pocket. Thass right, you didn’t see this with Mike or Nando or with me because this is a movie you took another woman to see!”

“She’s crazy. I … I always like Al Pacino … you know that, Chino. Right? Right? Tell her, tell her I always liked Pacino.” In pain, Victor was begging for help.

“I’ll tell her on the way to Metropolitan, man. We got to take you there quick, bro,” I said, and knelt down to check his wound again. He shrugged me away. I turned back to look at Negra.

“Negy, he needs to go—”

“He doesn’t want to go!” she shrieked.

“What about calling an ambulance, then!” I shouted back. Everyone was angry now and I wasn’t about to be left behind.

“Nah … nah … I don’t want anyone called,” Victor said.

“
Que me lleven.
Die. Bleed to death then!” she said, lighting another cigarette and stomping back into the living room.

“Chino, come closer,” Victor said, “You got to … take me … to Mount Sinai,” he whispered.

“But Metropolitan is two blocks from here.” It made sense to go there, because Mount Sinai was all the way west on Fifth Avenue.

“Nah, cuz Negra might wanna come too … and … and … Negra can’t come to Metro … see … my girl … she … she works at Metropolitan … emergency room … an’ this is her shift.”

“Wha?”

“Not so loud … 
ayy
 … man, I feel dizzy.” Right then Negra walked back in. Her face seemed less angry and I thought I even detected some remorse. She joined me, kneeling next to Victor, and started to coo, whispering that he should let us call the paramedics, brushing his hair back lightly. I knew that Victor would never agree to that because the ambulance would drive him to the nearest hospital, Metropolitan.