Chango's Fire (21 page)

“Yeah, that's right.”

“Ah, ah, no,” I say.

“If you are, tell me now. Maybe you can persuade her to, cooperate as well. I don't know, you tell me?”

“Well what do you want from her? What's she done?”

Mario stays quiet and doesn't say a word for a second.

“About a year ago, the INS was clearing their offices out for relocation. Someone made the mistake of throwing away a cabinet full of blank N-50 certificates. Are you familiar with these certificates?”

“You mentioned them once, at the site. They certify you as a naturalized American,” I say and can't believe the difference in him. If I wasn't in so much trouble I'd tell him to switch careers, because his talents are going to waste.

“That's correct,” he says as he takes a document out from his coat. Mario hands the paper to me. It's very regal-looking, thick like a diploma, its edges green like money, only there is a box for a head shot and a line for a signature right next to the eagle of the United States of America. It's a document that many Americans have never seen, because they have no need for it. Therefore, these papers could be anywhere. Even an undocumented person could have his hands on them, and because they are written in English, he himself might not know what they are. I sure didn't know what they looked like. I knew they existed, but I didn't know what they looked like.

“I've tracked them down.” Mario takes the document out of my hands. “Supposedly the filing cabinet full of N-50s was last seen by the side of the FDR Drive. Left to rot, somewhere in the old Wash-burn factory in Spanish Harlem. I have reasons to believe your friend knows where those certificates are.”

I really want to laugh, but I know Maritza well. Mario could be right. Maritza might have those certificates. Give them away. She could very well be making Americans. Just like that. No permanent residency. No test. No learning of English. No pledge of allegiance to Old Glory. Nothing. Her church was always full of undocumented people. Maybe Maritza knows the true reasons for their attendance but is too proud to admit it to herself. It's possible that her followers care little for her causes, they just want those certificates. They want to be Americans.

“Illegal immigrants are not my concern. It's others who might get their hands on these certificates and obtain an American passport,” Mario twirls his finger in the air like a propeller, “and go ‘jack a plane and do flying tricks. You know what I'm getting at?”

“Look, man,” I say, dropping all my education and social graces, and turning street. “Mario, I know you got me by the balls here. But you're asking me to inform against my own kind. All right, let's leave that out,” I say when he squints his eyes a bit, “but you're just giving me hearsay. You know, in the street, there's a lot of rumors. That don't mean they're true.”

Mario smiles a half smirk, half smile, as if he now is certain who I am. As if he is proud that he has finally brought out the real me.

“Just know that my job is to get those certificates by any means. I'm not going to do anybody's work for them. I don't like that site,” Mario explains, not really answering my question. He doesn't have to answer anything to me. “I don't like what's happening there but that's not my job. So I'm not going to share any information on anything, for what? So some other agent can take the credit? No way.” Now he sounds more like the Mario I know. “I only do my job. I was assigned to find those certificates and that's what I'm going to do. I'm only interested in those papers. Here's where you come in.” And now his voice is rising. “When I see you at the site, you don't talk to me. I talk to you.”

“Okay.” My head drops in shame. I'm not going to challenge him on anything anymore. He has explained my options. He isn't going to explain them again.

“Good,” he hands me his card. Without my eyes leaving the ground, I take it. Mario gets ready to open the door and walk out. “You have my number. If you find something you call me. You don't talk to me at the site unless I talk to you,” he repeats.

I read his card. Mario is his real name. He is more than a cop. That's why he doesn't need foul language or gimmicks, like cops do. Mario is the government, and he carries that big stick and says very little.

“I could arrest your friend. I could storm that church and turn it upside down. That doesn't mean I'll find those certificates.”

Does he want me to thank him? I don't know.

“I'll let you in on a little secret. I stole those pipes. I did.”

“You stole the pipes?” I quickly lift my head in surprise. “Why?”

“Because,” he says, “as soon as that boss finds out, he'll have me arrested at the site. When that happens, it'll mean this sting is over. Hopefully,” he says opening the door, “you or me will have something by then.”

I'm angry. I'm guilty. I'm alone. And worst of all, there is nothing I can do about it. It's no longer just my building or Helen, but also my freedom. I need all the help I can get.

I've heard some of the dumbest ideas come to you when you're so backed up against the wall, so backed up you're past heaving up Hail Marys. So backed up the wall is getting dented in the shape of your back. These ideas are what religious people call apparitions, angels, or visions. Like putting armor on a girl and sending her to lead the troops, might as well. These acts of desperation come to us all. They happen to million-dollar ball players on slumps, to generals losing wars, and to regular people who live to get home and watch television. It's moments like these when people turn to their faith.

A
fter school, I visit Papelito's botanica. He is about to lock up but I knock at the glass and he lets me inside.

“I need help, Papelito,” I say, wanting to cry on his shoulder. He understands.

Papelito sees and hears the urgency in my voice. He doesn't press me or anything. He takes my hand and guides me around his botanica. He kindly instructs me to purchase a statue of a Native American chief. It's a tall statue of a man with his arms spread out like he is calling the wind to form a twister. Papelito instructs me to light seven lavender candles and place them at the statue's feet.

“He shares a duality with Oshosi, the hunter,” Papelito says.

Then he points at a statue of Saint Peter. Instructs me to purchase it and light seven black and green candles.

“This is Ogun,” Papelito says. “And you already have an altar for Elegua. Together these three will eat anything. Feed them almost anything.”

“Why?” I say.

“Because
mí amor,
these three are warriors. They eat anything,” Papelito answers in that delicate voice of his as he places books filled with specific prayers for each Orisha. “And from the look in your eyes, you are going to need warriors.”

I
walk inside the First People's Church of God in Spanish Harlem, the greatest collection of misfits, sinners and freaks. Christ himself couldn't have put together the motley crew Maritza has.

Getting the sound system ready for the service is Trompo Loco. He sees me and waves. He takes his job seriously. He has his hard hat under his arm, because I'm sure Maritza has told him he can't wear it inside. Working alongside Trompo Loco is Sweet Suits Pacheco, an ex-junkie of all trades. Pacheco is in his fifties and he can fix, assemble or build anything. Sweets Suits Pacheco lived off others once, and that's why he could get you anything you wanted. For a price. And now he lives off lazy supers who hire him for odd jobs in their buildings. He had fallen in love late in his life, and had gone clean—“Yeah man shot the horse, pa'. Right through the head. Horse is dead, pa'.” He was proud of kicking his addiction, then his wife got breast cancer and died, leaving him with three kids, and so he went back to shooting up. It was Maritza who helped him through it. Even helping him get his kids back from the state.

Distributing the pamphlets and books for the service is Minerva “Three-Dollar Mindy” Vega. An ex-crack whore who got her name after the other crack whores heard she was fucking up their prices by charging three dollars instead of the usual five for a blow job. All the Johns would rather wait for her, and so the crack whores went on a manhunt and beat the shit out of her. It was Maritza who found her on the street, bloodied, and saved her.

I keep scanning the room and see someone I thought I'd never see at Maritza's church. La Hermana Garcia comes up to me and extends her hand. I had always disliked her. When I was a kid and she was a young woman, she claimed that she had never known a man. In fact, she swore that no man had even seen what her bedroom looked like. When brothers and sisters would visit her house she would shut the door of her bedroom and lock it with a key. “No one can ever accuse me of loose conduct,” she'd say, “my body is
pa'l Señor.”
And dien, for emphasis, she would lock the bedroom key in a little toy safe for all the visiting brothers to see. I don't know why she thought she was so hot. Who would sweat her? Who would want her fat body? She had more rings around her stomach than Saturn. Even when Sister Garcia was young she was nothing to look at. Maybe it was her way of making herself attractive for the young ministers who were always on the lookout for virgin sisters. Now, well into her forties, she has become a bitter spinster.

La Hermana Garcia doesn't live alone though. Her sister and her sister's husband both died of heart attacks, and she is taking care of her two young nephews who she keeps in a tight, godly line. They are about ten and twelve, and I know they will never have sweethearts. They will never know what it's like to steal a kiss from a girl, or the security and sense of belonging when hanging with the boys. I really feel sorry for them. When she extends her hand to me, I nervously shake it, only to be pulled into her huge body and given a kiss on the cheek.

Then there is Big Black, the fattest and most beautiful person in the neighborhood. When Big Black smiles, his whole face glows, like a little kid's. His big smile is radiant and, caught in that beautiful light, you smile back at him. He is an African American whose mom was Puerto Rican, the church's very own Arthur Schomburg.

Chuito, who is mute, Pabellon, who is blind, and Sandra, who is deaf, all sit together, helping each other along. Each one filling in the gaps for the others.

Most of Maritza's congregation is made up of undocumented people. New immigrants from Mexico or Central America who need a kind community that will take them in. They have nothing to offer the streets, and therefore the streets of Spanish Harlem have little use for them, so they network in church. Just like politicians who need voters, any voters, Maritza has taken in what other churches in the neighborhood had rejected or ignored. There are single mothers galore. They are wearing tight, short dresses, so tight that the only word for it is “scandalous.” I spot the “new virgin.” The girl that the women sheltered that day when they humiliated her father for what he had done to her. She is talking to her mother. They see me and turn away as if I'm going to hurt them. I leave them be.

The church space itself is nothing special, filled with folding chairs and a sound system that sounds worse than the MTA's. Except for a few pictures of landscapes and Bible texts, the walls are pretty bare. The place does have two flags, Old Glory and the Puerto Rican flag. They hang next to each other, with a few plastic flowers decorating the center of the platform.

Watching Maritza talk with Papelito before the service is about to begin only makes me feel shame. As much as Maritza called me names and pushed me around, truth is she has never done anything to hurt me or my family.

“Mi amor,
nice surprise, wha-choo do in' here.” Papelito weakly hugs me.

“Que pasa
Papelito,” then I point at Maritza, “You owe me money. You ain't paying Trompo.”

Maritza can't believe it. She looks at me like I just asked her to die.

“This is church, Julio,” she says, hands on her hips, her pastor gown on, ready and waiting to get on that pulpit. “Talk about that later.”

“Give me a break? Please, I know what church is. This ain't church.”

Maritza rolls her eyes. I steal a glance at her breasts, which, even with that baggy pastor's gown on, call for attention.

“Julio,” Papelito smacks my hand weakly, “that's not nice,
chulo
face.”

“Sorry Papelito, but you know, I'm broke,” I say.

“A son of Chango broke, what else is new?” he says, fixing my shirt collar.

“Stop it,” I say as Papelito begins to tuck in my shirt more neatly.

“Mira papi,
it's for your own good. A lot of single sisters here, look
good, papi,
look good.”

Antonio walks in. I see him looking around, and many of the people in the church greet him. He must be a regular. I knew he and Maritza have something going, but I would have never thought that a church like this one would attract him. Despite his infidelity, Antonio seems like the old-fashioned type. The ones that you see in those old black-and-white Spanish movies, where the peasants are dumb enough to give their hard-earned pesos to the church, all the while starving.

Trompo and Pacheco turn the music on. Everyone heads for their seat.

“You staying
feo
?” Papelito whispers to me.

“Imma stick around,” I whisper back, because people are getting ready to sing. Maritza heads to the pulpit. “Nine hundred dollars is a lot of money, Papelito. And she hasn't paid Trompo Loco, like she said she would.” I have no other legitimate excuse to be there. In truth, I am ashamed.

Papelito leaves me to go compliment three fat women.

“Nenas,
you look so good. What you been doing?” I hear him say.

Then the music plays and the people start singing and I love it. Even though I'm not there to worship, never would worship again, it feels good and warm to listen and be around all these families. Because when you have been raised by the belief in God, one that loves and cares for you, that dream that He really exists stays with you. And when you hear the gospels being sung, or something that strikes up those young memories of when He was as real to you as your parents, it fills you with joy. I'm very happy to be here, to hear all these people sing and praise the Lord. Tears almost come to my eyes as I drift back to my childhood when I was told the earth would be a paradise and I could play with baby animals. Those religious days when my parents were young, in all their glory, and sang to God and to the angels for light and fire.