Cubop City Blues (9 page)

SALAO

T
he underlying hum of construction, the spires, the bridges, the sweetshops, the concrete and glass rising into the slate gray sky, the jackhammers drilling into the street. From above, Cubop City spreads like metal filings out from a magnetic center one may call the heart, but it is more like the liver through which all toxins pass.

There are days when you think the city sucks into itself all who come into it, spitting out bones and clothes. People walk in knowledge of this, in summer heat, cross-town to the East River, and when that offers no relief, back to the West Side and the Hudson. They live in all manner of ways, some in high-rises that almost touch the sky; others, like you, live in tight, airless spaces in which the only way to know the weather is to watch it on television, the only source of comfort in summer an air-conditioning unit that has never worked right. A crazy man who speaks in tongues often stands by your bedroom window at four in the morning and you have to shoo him away. He hurls obscenities at you, sticks out his tongue, long and lascivious, and, after some time, ambles down the street.

If you're a salao like him, you live sprawled on the street under whatever shade the buildings provide. Next to you is a grocery cart packed with your possessions—an old down coat with a ripped sleeve through which feathers escape, an extra pair of pants you haven't worn since last winter because they are too tight around the waist; many, many plastic bags from the different stores of the city; one old wingtip shoe, which you insist on keeping in the hopes that you'll find a matching one; several books you haven't opened since you found them on the curb outside a building in Loisaida; two cans of tunafish; and a transistor radio that gets only one station. On especially hot days you can smell yourself and this causes you great consternation. You'd give anything to take a shower, let the water run over your grime-encrusted body, wash your hair, comb it back like you did when you were still hoping better things would come your way. Hope? Hah!

Salao. That's what you are. You wish the passersby would be quieter, less willing to chatter nonsense or scream at each other from across the street or get into fights when you're trying to sleep; you wish you had more space, a newer air conditioner; you wish language fitted you like stockings. It is loose and unwieldy and makes you mum when you should speak, makes you the butt of jokes told by young lanky men in T-shirts who think they own the world. Lucky they, who have never known what it is to be cursed with the salt of bad fortune; lucky they, who banter and laugh as they walk down the street to the bars on the avenue, where they'll pick up men or women, drink till they're numb, forestall the passage of time, the slow roll downhill, by fucking through the night.

These young people will leave, go back home to Kansas or Indiana, or else marry and move to Massapequa. The salaos remain. Ask the Chinese delivery boy with the bad cough in the freezing rain; ask the Mexican man who arranges flowers outside the Korean deli 24-7; ask the Cuban with his placard denouncing the myriad conspiracies of communism. Ask yourself as you turn on the television to check the weather. The weatherman predicts rain, a cold wind. You take out the little black umbrella you bought for three dollars from the Senegalese vendor on Fourteenth and Fifth. You put on your Yankee hat and a Windbreaker and your waterproof leather boots. You walk outside into the shining sun, the hot gritty air.

THE DEVIL'S SPITE

N
ext time I saw him he was seated on a bench in Tompkins Square Park. His mustache had turned a yellowish white, and old age had endowed him with a supernatural clairvoyance.

Hammers, he said, hammers and saws. I sensed you coming since yesterday at 3
pm
.

Yesterday at three I had no idea that I would be walking by this spot. My plans were to be at my desk writing. I tainted the day that way and called Amanda, who suggested I put aside the writing and go to a movie, trace the outlines of continents on the map, palpate my way out of stasis into the lapidary process of discovery. In other words, Don't call again. Leave me alone.

I tried many things and only walking sufficed. I went to the uptown edges of the island, where the waters of two rivers met and fought each other. I looked down from the Palisades across to Marble Hill and Spuyten Duyvil. As a boy I'd cross the railroad tracks and jump into those waters fully clothed. The game my friends and I played was to avoid the condoms, dead rats, and feces that floated downriver as we swam and came back to the breakwater untouched by the city's effluvia. Last I heard two of them had AIDS, scourge of city pleasures, city life. The others have gone their way speaking a language I no longer care to understand. If they feel the way I do, they have no ambition to see me. One, who liked bridges, may be an engineer; another, who liked animals, may be a veterinarian; the third, who attended Mass daily, a priest; and the youngest, oh, the youngest. He liked nothing, had no ambition, went off to war at eighteen, and returned with half a face and a heroin addiction. Bones, he must be beautiful bones now. He's won the race, left all of us in the dust, and saved himself a lot of time.

The day passed in a thicket of thought, lost passion, youthful dreams diverted, crushed. That night I slept poorly. The next day the computer screen remained blank. I went out and walked in the opposite direction and found myself there in that spot, before the man with handlebar mustache. He recognized me first, since he'd been waiting for me. I sat next to him, disregarding the dried-out pigeon droppings on the wooden slabs of the bench.

Why did you do it? I asked.

He said some nonsense.

I grabbed his arm, which I could have snapped as easily as a dry twig. I tried to explain to him that I could have forgotten the event, forgiven him long ago had he simply disappeared. But he insisted on showing up, tormenting me with sudden appearances, and bringing back the moment of the knifing. This time he did not smile like a rabbit. He looked up at the trees, which were beginning to sprout greenery. I sensed another interpretation.

Some things are done without reason, he said. Some things, if you look deeply at them, shimmer with mystery.

You knifed me, you son of a bitch.

I was done with the subterfuge. That is all I had gotten from this man. And now, without a woman, without a future, I would die alone, in a first-floor walk-down four-hundred-square-foot cave in Chelsea, where no one, not the Korean grocer at the corner or the Indian owner of the liquor store or Frank, who sat outside all day smoking Tiparillos or the actor on the fourth floor who still hoped to make it big or the lady who walked her two pugs on a grocery cart permanently borrowed from Gristedes would care if I lived or died or sought revenge or forgot all about my knifing.

All that matters, Handlebar continued, is not memory or desire, is not hope or despair, or happiness or misery but the fact that you, who were once victim of chance, and I, victimizer of chance, continue to cross paths. The devil's spite? Think that if you wish. The hammers and saws of fate is what I hear. They condone all actions; they turn evil to good and good to evil in an instant. I remember you as a function of something I did at night before a liquor store, unlike you who remember the act as a function of you. If you forget me you will never forgive me; if you forgive, you will never forget.

I stood and looked down at him. The man was a loon. I became convinced he was not the one who knifed me. Perhaps on the next block I would find the antidote against the hammers and saws of fate.

THE ARCHITECTURE
OF PRINCES

B
elles lettres. Juan Antonio loved beautiful letters so intensely that sometimes, after reading a story by Nabokov or the prose of Henry James or a passage from Proust, he had an urge to run down the hallways of the university and proclaim in a loud voice that they, not crass Hemingway or boozy Fitzgerald or redneck Faulkner, were the pinnacles of modernity. Borges came close, but his late fictions took a distasteful turn toward violent plots and lowbrow themes. Women writers he considered not worth the mental effort, except Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, but they were from a century that was veritably owned by the crackpot French, not the petticoated English.

Juan Antonio liked to dress in dark suits with light shirts and brightly colored bow ties. When a lighter mood struck, which was not often, he'd wear light gray worsteds or, in the warm months, olive poplin suits that were popular in the 1970s. If there was the merest chance of rain he carried a bumbershoot, which is what he liked to call his umbrella, thinking that it was an English term, and which he used primarily in the British style as a walking stick.

The short version of his name, Juan Pérez, caused him consternation, for it was as common in Spanish as John Smith is in English. Instead of changing it, he adorned it by adding his second name and surname so that the plaque outside his office door read, Juan Antonio Pérez Ibargoitía, PhD, Comparative Literature. Granted, the Basque name was cumbersome in English, and hardly anyone in the institution, limited by the rigidity of their Anglo-Saxon tongues, knew how to pronounce it. One in particular, a rustic fellow from Alabama, mangled the name so terribly that he took to calling him Ibby for short, a moniker that, to Juan Antonio's dismay, soon caught on in the department among faculty and students alike. Everywhere he went, every door he passed, that silly name was hurled at him, almost as a barb it seemed at times. Hello, Ibby. Ibby, can I talk to you? Juan Antonio swallowed hard and thought it below his dignity to correct them, and so he consoled himself that a nickname was the price one paid for living in a democracy. He was Ibby, or Dr. Ibby to the secretaries in the department office.

Then the new hire showed up. In his midtwenties, he was thin as a rail and wore torn jeans and black high-top sneakers. The department head was beyond herself with glee at having stolen a brilliant prodigy from Princeton who had published a book on the intertextual underpinnings in the work of an obscure Paraguayan novelist. Juan Antonio ignored the young theorist until one day when they met face-to-face in the mail room and the theorist said, Hey Ib, how you doin'? Juan Antonio stopped breathing and felt the muscles of his shoulders tense up. He slowly lifted his eyes until they met the wild matt of hair that sat atop the young man's head.

Hello, Dr. Spellman. How are you finding our department?

Much like any other, Ib. Lots of bullshit, little substance.

Juan Antonio rolled his eyes, but he was nothing if not discreet. He allowed his lips to thin out into a smile, took his leave, and went back to his office, where he seethed with anger. Ib! he thought in disgust. It was only a matter of time before his second surname would disappear altogether and he'd be left with his father's lowly Pérez, which the North Americans would mispronounce anyway, stressing the final syllable, Israeli-style, merely to annoy him. Barbarians, that's what they were. Unwashed barbarians. He packed his leather briefcase, turned off the lights, and headed for home.

He lived half a block off Riverside Drive in one of those grand buildings that was no longer so grand. The paint in the lobby was peeling, and the fake-marble columns in the hallway had cracked and crumbled in places, exposing the plaster underneath the facade. The elevator, an Otis from prewar days, was sufficiently slow to give him time to look through the bills he had collected from the mailbox. When the elevator door finally opened, he found an old woman with too much rouge on her cheeks. She gave a faint whimper of surprise before composing herself and scrunching her face into a hard, untrusting stare. It was the look of a city dweller, tough and forlorn at once, whose children had long ago moved to the suburbs and stopped visiting her. He snorted as she passed on the way to the front door and he ascended to his floor, trying to avoid the thought that someday he would reach the same precipice on which that lady was perched, smudged and shriveled and alone. O Lord, if you exist at all, he prayed, let me not get there. Let this elevator plummet to the basement right now and crush me like a cockroach.

Once inside his apartment the smell of old furniture and plaster comforted him. Everything was in its proper place, that is, the place he had chosen for it when he first moved in. There was the china closet in which he kept his Hummel collection against the far wall, and across from it was the sofa in dark blue upholstery with bear-claw legs like something rescued from a Victorian bestiary. The window curtains, patterned in autumnal oak and maple leaves, showed their age and were strangely reminiscent of the old lady who had stepped out of the elevator. He'd bought the furniture twenty years before, when, elated that he had been granted tenure at the university, he'd gone on a buying spree and loaded his credit cards to the limit. In his apartment he felt truly himself, and he could indulge his secret fantasy of living like an English nobleman. Most days he didn't want to leave, but he was a man of responsibility after all, and teaching was his chosen profession, even if his students were a crew of suburban hooligans with green hair and tattoos on their foreheads.

Saturday, his favorite day, he lay in bed all morning in his silk pajamas under the sheets and rose only to prepare himself a cup of English breakfast tea and buttered toast. He loved his own insouciance. His apartment was a kingdom of this world, to echo a phrase from his favorite Cuban writer. All he was lacking was subjects.

Just then the bell rang. There'd been a robbery on his floor the month before, and so he took the brass-plated poker from the nonfunctional fireplace, stood behind the door at the ready, and looked through the peephole. All he could see was a mop of black hair.

He raised the poker over his head and injecting as much authority as he could into his voice, said, Who is it?

It's me, Ib, Josh Spellman.

Juan Antonio lowered the poker and opened the door. It would have been impolite not to.

Spellman slipped by him and entered the apartment, followed by the stale smell of unwashed denim.

Ib, I understand you write poetry, Spellman said with the careless tone of the recently anointed.

Juan Antonio was taken aback. Fifteen years before, he had written and published a series of sonnets in the symbolist manner under the pseudonym Arturo Prisma. He stopped writing them when, due to the limited rhyming possibilities of English, he fell into free verse, a style he detested as much as the American poets who had popularized it. Juan Antonio was convinced that he was born in the wrong century. He straightened his shoulders and stood in the third position, a habit he had acquired as a young man when he realized that the posture extenuated his already considerable height by a few inches. Even in his slippers he loomed over Spellman. Juan Antonio let his eyes roll down.

That was some years ago, he said. Somewhere in him he felt the spark of flattery growing into a small flame. Stay, please, and have some tea.

I'd prefer coffee, Spellman said.

Good, Juan Antonio said. I have my coffee ground specially for me by a lady in Queens.

Juan Antonio's mood immediately improved. He went into the kitchen and, after a few minutes, returned with a silver tray on which sat an Italian espresso maker, along with two Chinese cups so delicate you could practically see through the porcelain. Next to the cups was a plate with almond and chocolate biscotti, a creamer with heated milk, and two glasses of ice water. His mother had taught him that you must temper the strength of the coffee with the coolness of water.

What distinguishes our coffee, he said, sitting on the sofa next to Spellman, is that we brew it with sugared water. It gives the coffee a silky texture, much different from Italian espresso.

I love Cuban coffee, Spellman said with that peculiar enthusiasm of a liberation theologizer fond of all underdeveloped things. I live on the stuff when I'm in Havana.

Juan Antonio's lips parted into a slow smile.

When were you there? he asked, pouring the coffee carefully so that none of it would dribble outside the cup.

Seven times in the last couple of years, Spellman answered, not without pride.

Juan Antonio grew serious and felt himself stiffening again. He was facing a barbarian of the first rank. What took you there?

My solidarity with the people. To experience the island before it is modernized and turned into an American playground.

Juan Antonio took a deep breath and continued with the preparations. When he was done, he passed a demitasse to Spellman and took the other in his hands. The space between the two men was steeped in the aroma of the best coffee in the world. Juan Antonio waited for Spellman's reaction.

My God, said Spellman, this coffee's incredible!

Have you had coffee like this in Cuba?

No. Not even my girlfriend's mother makes it this good.

Girlfriend? In Cuba?

Yes, Spellman said. He was holding the cup around the sides, ignoring the handle.

Ah, Juan Antonio thought. So that's the solidarity.

She's fifteen, Spellman said. But in Cuba that doesn't mean anything. In Cuba age is relative.

Of course. We Cubans have liberated ourselves from those antiquated notions. He did not allow Spellman to continue. She's probably dark skinned, too, he said. What we call a mulatica, not yet a mulatona.

What's the difference? Spellman asked. Apparently he'd not visited Cuba enough.

About fifteen years and forty pounds. Then you won't be able to handle her. She's a handful as it is, no?

She's vivacious, yes.

And in bed you've never had better. With her mother's blessing and your dollars. Afterward, her mother gives you coffee, which she cuts with ground chickpeas so it'll last longer. Americanos can never tell the difference.

Are you implying that Yareli is a prostitute? A faint blush of anger crossed Spellman's forehead.

Not exactly. She's a survivor. We call them jineteras
.
We'd do the same thing if we were in her shoes—or her mother's.

Juan Antonio poured a little steamed milk into his coffee to make a cortadito and took his first sip. He closed his eyes and hummed with pleasure. The coffee reminded him of his mother, who died believing that manners and morals are inextricable. In this case, manners had almost made him forget that the young Dr. Spellman had interrupted his morning without so much as a phone call announcing his visit.

And to what do I owe this surprise call, Dr. Spellman? Surely not to let me know that you've read my poetry.

I've just moved into the building, Spellman said. We're neighbors.

Really, Juan Antonio said, barely keeping his horror at bay.

I'm planning an anthology of Cuban poetry in translation, Spellman continued. I thought you might consider contributing a poem to it.

Juan Antonio threw a laugh up to the ceiling. I gave up that silly practice years ago. I have nothing to give you.

Merely saying that relieved him. He did not want to resurrect that part of his life, when he still had hope of being more than a mere academic critic, a backseat driver. He felt a pinprick of nostalgia inside just thinking about those days, when he wrote poetry to his lovers and the world burned with energy. It was the same pinprick he felt when remembering his childhood in Cuba: his mother's hands parting his hair in the morning as she readied him for school, the steaming cup of café con leche the maid prepared for him in the afternoons, the tropical clouds rolling across the cerulean sky of Havana.

Well, I found one published in 1985 in the magazine
The Yellow Egret
. It's called “The Architecture of Princes.” Perhaps you recall . . .

I do, I do, Juan Antonio said, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. He very much wanted Spellman out of the house now. It's an old piece. I cannot honor your request.

Spellman seemed confused by Juan Antonio's reaction and offered to show him the proposal he'd submitted to the editors. Juan Antonio was steadfast.

Thanks for the coffee, Spellman said. I wish you'd reconsider. The poem is quite good.

Is it really the best coffee you've ever had? Juan Antonio asked as he accompanied the young man to the door.

My taste buds are still jumping, Spellman said walking out.

When he closed the door Juan Antonio realized that he was prouder of his coffee than his poetry. Had he missed his calling? There was a time when his food was celebrated by his guests and he was known as a witty host. Now he had no visitors. His friends had scattered to other parts of the country or preferred to spend their time with children and grandchildren. One by one they dropped away until the last, Ofelia Sánchez de Ortelio, the first lady of Havana society in exile, too, stopped coming, felled by a hiatal hernia that kept her at home dining on dry toast and tea and shriveling up like a yellow prune.

Juan Antonio went to his desk and rifled through his file drawer until he found “The Architecture of Princes.” He read it silently first, then a second time aloud, noting its iambic meter, its careful use of end stops, enjambments, and caesuras, and was impressed by how well it was constructed, how resonant of the deepest music of his soul. He spent the rest of the day tinkering with the poem, and by nightfall he had a new draft, solid enough that he was tempted to call Spellman and offer it to him.
Festina lente,
he thought. Hurry slowly. One shouldn't act too rashly in these matters.

When Monday came he reread his revision before his morning class and found the poem awful. He spent the day avoiding Spellman, who rushed from class to class with the energy of a mongoose and, after lunch, held court with eager students on the sidewalks under the faculty offices, where he smoked and laughed with them as if they were his cohorts. Later that week a student came to Juan Antonio extolling Spellman's virtues as a teacher—how passionate he was, how friendly, telling wild stories about his year in Prague. He's brilliant, the student added. Juan Antonio nodded, forced out a smile, and quickly took his leave.