Chango's Fire (13 page)

“Hey Julio,
mi amor.”
He spots me.

The garden is beautiful, with imported trees, sand, dirt, flowers, benches, and a little man-made waterfall and fountain.

“Qué pasa,
Padrino,” I say looking around the garden. Many years ago this place was vacant lot, filled with carcasses of dead dogs, cats and rats. An ex-junkie named Modesto, along with Hope Community, a church-based organization, had turned this desert of rubble into a little oasis in El Barrio. They couldn't afford top soil, plants, flowers and rocks, it was just too expensive. So they
borrowed
some from Central Park.

“Mira hijo de Chango,
help me find these rocks,” Papelito shows me the rocks he has already collected.

“Rocks? Why?”

“If you look right,” he says, delicately bending down and looking at the ground, “you will find what's left of the Orishas.”

“In the rocks?”

“Some rocks, not all rocks. More like stones
mijo. Mira
Julio, centuries ago the Orishas left their homes and bodies and descended to the earth, to show us their way. Now, all that remains of their presence is in these rocks.” He spotted another one.

“Like this one,” he says. He picks it up, blows on it, and polishes it with his sleeve,
‘ta ma',
cute.”

I look at the rock Papelito shows me. It's a simple and ordinary rock, but it's the story Papelito just told me that makes me get on my knees and join him in looking for stones on the ground. Growing up Pentecostal, God lived in the temple. I never understood why God needed to live in a house with walls, windows and locks. When I asked the pastor why, he told me that God really lives in heaven. So I always thought we should worship outside, at night, when we could gaze up and see His reflection in the moon and the stars. Instead we praised Him in a building. We kept God locked up in a house, like an old man in a wheelchair. Papelito's gods, on the other hand, lived outside, in living things. The black gods hadn't kicked mankind out of the garden. Nature is good, and so, even in this concrete jungle, Papelito can still find traces of his gods, in stones.

I pick up a stone that looks just like the one Papelito held in his hand.

“Like this one, too?” I show it to him.

“No, baby,” he says, “if you learn to listen you'll hear the
ashe
of the Orishas.”

“Ashe?”

“
S
í, the power and life force that the Orishas emit, to help those who seek the help of the Orishas.”

“Papelito,” I ask, as I continue to look for rocks, “these stories that you have chosen to help you live your life—”

“
S
í mijo.”

“What are these stories teaching you at this time in your life, I mean, now?”

Papelito straightens himself up. I do, too. Papelito has a handful of rocks, my hands are empty. His eyes hold mine.

“These stories are telling me now to get ready to leave the planet. But to get ready with dignity. The story of Chango's death is very meaningful to me
ahorita.”

“But you're not dying.”

“Not right now, but I'm sixty-eight, it's getting close
mijo.
What the story of Chango teaches me is not to look at my body as the fire, because all fires die. When I was your age, I just thought of the body. Boyfriends galore,
nene”
and Papelito winks. “I mean I still look at men, because you can't shut the body down. But now that my body is failing, I identify myself with the mind. Chango wasn't the fire, he was the heat from the fire that can't be extinguished. So when my time comes, like Chango, I hope to go as dignified as he did. Not afraid. The Orishas tell me this. Now, stick your palms out,
papi.”
I do as told. Papelito empties the rocks he had in his hand and fills up my palms. The weight feels good, like holding a pound of hard candy when you're a kid.

“But,” he says, lifting a pinkie in the air, “just like with any deities, we must be willing to give something of ourselves in order for them to guide us.”

“I built that altar you said I should,” I say, holding the rocks out.

“Que bueno,
did Ochun help you?”

“Yeah, I met this girl.”

Papelito elbows me and winks.

“See, because you believed. Who is this princess?”

“You don't know her, just someone,” I lie. Papelito then gets a bit serious and stares at my face like he knows I'm hiding something.

“I'm happy for you,” he says.
“Pero mi amor,
what you really need to do, Julio, is examine yourself and decide if you want to start your path toward saintliness, toward the way of the saints. Toward letting Yoruba stories guide your life.”

“I don't know if I can make that commitment, Papelito,” I say to him, because I know that takes a lot of money, time, and what I have less of… faith. Without the same faith Papelito has, I know I'll never hear the music he does. The Orishas won't sing to me. Though it seems that Ochun has.

Papelito's lips barely part, and his head rises slightly.

^“'
Ta bien. So, what are your hands holding?” he asks.

“The
ashe,
the life force the Orishas use to help those who need their help,” I say proudly.

“Nope,” he says.

“What the Orishas left of themselves here on earth?”

“Nope.”

“What then?”

“Rocks, Julio. You never give anything of yourself to the Orishas, nothing. So, those are just rocks, Julio. Like stories without rituals are just stories, those are just stones,
mi lindo.
“

A
t work, it is the same story. Not much has changed.

“That Mario guy is the first white man I ever worked side by side with,” Antonio tells me in Spanish.

“De verdad?”
I say.

We are on lunch break after taking the tar down from the roof via a hoist. We've been working all morning long. We had to make a hole on the roof so we could hoist down large, cut up pieces of roof tar.

“You know, when I first saw him I thought he was going to be a smart, good worker. Now I think he is the laziest of men,” Antonio says in nasty, angry Spanish. He points toward Mario, who has fallen asleep by a parked car as his sandwich gets invaded by flies.

“You know, Julio, when he arrived I tried showing him how to work all the tools and he just wanted to know what he could get away with.”

“Mira
Antonio,” I say, “that Mario was in jail where someone hooked him up with this job and told him it was easy.”

“No?”

“
S
í.”

“But he is still white, an American. He can find other work, no?”

“Unless he's rich, but then he wouldn't have been locked up in the first place.”

“I still do not like him.”

“Okay.”

“Julio, I am sorry about the other day, calling you a homosexual.”

“It's all right. Sometimes I wonder myself why I haven't got married.”

“There are so many women, Julio. What is your problem? In Mexico, you would be able to choose them like a soccer star.”

“This isn't Mexico, Antonio.”

“Yeah, I know. This is America.”

“Hey it's got its good and bad,” I say in Spanish.

“Yeah, but it is a crazy country. I mean this is the only country I know where you go to jail if you hit your wife. That is crazy.”

“Why?”

“Because she is your wife, she belongs to you now. Once you marry her, of course.”

“So would you like your daughter's husband to hit her?”

“No, but that is the tradition. I stay out of it. Same as I would not like the father of my wife telling me what to do to his daughter.”

“Wow,” I say in English, “that's wild.”

“What?”

“What you just said,” I go back to speaking in Spanish.

“But you know, sometimes I think I don't care about anything. I just came to work so I can have a chance to grow old in Mexico.”

“That's a good idea.”

“Hey Julio,” he gets close to me and then looks back to make sure no one hears him. “I met this
puertorriqueña.”
Antonio tells me about her and how she loves sex. “She tells me to turn her over and hammer her like a woodpecker.” Then he howls like a coyote at the moon. I laugh. “She is always stressed out because she runs an organization,” he says, and how she does this and that for people, and Antonio again tells me blow by blow what she does to him in bed.

I'm digging it, because he tells it well, and, judging by his enthusiasm, he's been wanting to tell someone about her for a long time. But he couldn't tell any of the other guys, because they probably know someone who knows someone who knows his wife in Mexico. But not me, so he lets it all hang out.

“She likes me,” he says. I'm not going to throw stones at the guy for cheating on his wife. He is a long way from Mexico. But, more important, it's none of my business.

“Come to my house and drink beer with me, soon?” Antonio says, and I say, why not?

“We can talk more.”

Just then it's time to go back to work. Someone kicks Mario's boots. He wakes up and begins cursing. Spewing out how the boss doesn't give us enough time to eat.

Me and Antonio are still laughing, and I'm happy. I'm finally one of the guys. For once, not locked up in my own little here and there. I'm experiencing people, closely, not just observing. I begin whistling as I work. Antonio has found some sort of happiness, and I think that no matter how miserable you are, how far from home, how rich or poor, everyone is entitled to a quota of happiness. Antonio is living proof. And for some reason I start feeling real smart. I have it all figured out. I have a job and am taking care of my parents. They are living with me and we have our own place and I have quit setting fires for Eddie. I have gotten Trompo Loco a job at Maritza's church, made him feel like he is somebody, which he is and I love to see his face when he smiles rather than when he spins. Maritza is doing what she thinks is right, entangling her feminist, socialist philosophy with God. And I am on the brink of exchanging my stories, my religion for a new one. Things look bright.

Except for Helen. I am thinking, too, about Helen. What happened the other day was great. But Helen, like many New Yorkers that have been injected here, has no clue about my city's past. How, when I was a kid, restaurants and other establishments from the Upper East Side and Greenwich Village would serve us but they'd also let us know, “Why don't you stay uptown, where you belong?” As bad as we got it, black people got it twice as bad. Some Latinos have white skin and could pass, but black people were always being told when to stay in Harlem. I heard it. It rang in my seven-year-old ears like the breaks of a loud and broken subway train. And now that white people are coming into both Harlems, they are whistling a different tune, “Why don't you people get out of Harlem!” So, what's it going to be?

Would Helen understand this?

And what am I doing with her?

I
leave it there and think about school. I have a year left, and I have a class that night, and I have done all the assigned reading and even had my papers written up, and so, I feel twice as smart.

“Julio,” the boss hollers from afar. “Eddie called, says he needs to see you, now.”

At that moment, when I am taking stock, those words awaken me to the fact that it doesn't matter how smart I think I am, it's impossible to see the entire picture. There are glass doors that will take me by surprise and I'll crash against them. The world is too big and I'm just a speck. A dust particle in an evil mess. A mess filled with beautiful people like Helen, like Mom, or Antonio, who might not be doing what's right, only human. And me, who sets fires.

“What he want?” I holler back.

“Just go, he sounded unhappy.”

“I'll see him after work,” I say.

“No, go now. He sounded unhappy.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure. Now go, I'll have to dock you though.”

W
alking toward Eddie's coffee shop, I get this terrible feeling. I remember what Papelito had told me about how all religions have a joker god in them. Loki, Ganesha or Lucifer, they were all the same characters in different stories, Papelito had said. In his beliefs, there was the black god Elegua, who plays with mankind, telling it that no matter what system you got, no matter what you think your life is about, he's going to throw this and that at you. Then he sits back and watches how you get yourself out of trouble. And if you do find a way out, he'll just throw something else.

Papelito said a woman was coming into my life, and Helen arrived. He also said evil things were on the horizon. Evil things, he said, were coming from a powerful source. I was sure that force was sitting, smoking, reading the paper, just waiting for me to walk through his coffee shop's doors.

How
nice to see you,” the old man says in the nicest of tones, like he was a kindergarten teacher. Eddie is reading the
Daily News
and smoking a cigar. Once again, he has the other three city papers neatly piled on the floor, each waiting its turn. His cell lies silent on top of the table.

Eddie stands up, puts his paper aside and hugs me.

“I have something for you.”

I ask again what's happened.

“In D.C., a new policy is going into effect soon. They just informed me.”

I understand what he's getting at. Why he wants to see me.

“They're calling it,” a sarcastic smile arises, “Urban Centralization. Can you believe it, Urban Centralization? In the country's own capital, can you believe that, Julio?”

Eddie knows they can call it Planned Shrinkage, Benign Neglect, Model Cities, Urban Renewal, or whatever they want. It means one thing: slum-clearing for industry and expensive housing, the burning of ghettoes.