Bodega Dreams: Book II

It had been a gruesome display of hate and anger and Sapo, as only Sapo could, presented it with showmanship.

I’ll tell you why: because the people in this district are simpletons, that’s why.

Blessington then went to the board and wrote, “Analogies Between Frost’s Poems and New York City.”

As I stepped out I spotted a tall man in an Italian suit, standing in the bright spring sun glowing like an apparition.

Some tenants were gathered around him as if he was manna from heaven sent by the Most High.

I would sever all ties to Bodega.

He had the uncanny ability to be stoically cold under pressure and extremely warm with the people.

He had the uncanny ability to be stoically cold under pressure and extremely warm with the people.

His smile could be magically disarming but his head was crowded with practicality and genius.

Bodega would then dispatch Nazario to talk with this person’s neighbors, depending on what he heard (whether this person was “good people” being honorable and trustworthy or some cheap-ass who would rip off the neighborhood).

For the first time I thought I had seen in his eyes some sort of nostalgic sentiment, a weakness maybe.

Nazario would lead, leaving Bodega to take all the hits, absorb the stigma, because of what he was.

But if we build a strong professional class and accumulate property, we can counter that effect.

“This is not the sixties. The government isn’t pouring any money in here anymore. It’ll take some time. But one day we might be strong enough, with enough political clout”—and he pointed at the Johnson Houses —“to knock those projects down.”

Even Bodega with his street smarts and cunning lacked what Nazario had.

He was what we all wanted to be like, the Latin professional whom the Anglos feared because he was just as treacherous, just as devious, and he understood power.

He looked at me with bravado, took a third drag, put out the cigarette.

He then went on about something else, something that only makes sense when you are afraid of death or desperately in love and will say anything to alleviate the terror.

And because his everyday speech didn’t have any diplomacy, he defended his case the way he always did.

Her gestures, her voice, her social graces had been so well studied and cultivated that she could have fooled anyone who wasn’t familiar with her past.

She was returning to her old neighborhood to gloat, to show her family what she had made of herself.

The rich Cuban family Vera had married into still kept the pink slips of their nationalized lands in Cuba, along with high hopes of reclaiming them once Castro was ousted or finally, finally died.

He must have believed that if he kept winning these tiny skirmishes, victory would eventually be his.

Her liberator who was first going to free her from her mother, then free Puerto Rico, and later they would both sail back to America like conquistadors in reverse.

They would arrive in New York Harbor and Latinos from all five boroughs would be there to greet them.

I pictured her telling all this to her friends until they were so sick and tired of it that Veronica herself began to question her liberator until finally the day arrived when she gave Bodega the ultimatum, the Young Lords or her.

They stood there facing each other and for a second I thought they had reached that stage of intoxication where silliness gives way to melancholy and self-pity.

They will soon fly with angel wings and He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, nor will mourning or strife or pain.

The congregation was growing angry because Roberto had imbued them with outrage.

You never think it will be your own home that’s on fire, but when it is, all the toughness, the calloused nonchalance of watching fires and hearing sirens falls away.

You never think it will be your own home that’s on fire, but when it is, all the toughness, the calloused nonchalance of watching fires and hearing sirens falls away.

A tall, elegant man came into focus with his arms outstretched and a face of pure empathy.

Not with the fire department, which would know right away it was arson and dismiss it as another case of pyromania in a neighborhood crawling with firebugs.

Not with the fire department, which would know right away it was arson and dismiss it as another case of pyromania in a neighborhood crawling with firebugs.

I was about to ask something else when we heard the tenants say Amen in a chorus of hope and then begin to disperse.

The windows facing the street were covered with plywood and only the first floor was renovated so it looked as if the fire that emptied the building hadn’t affected that floor.

It was an ugly, desolate store, with posters of Marvel superheroes taped to the wall, where all you heard were stories of things that might have happened.

I mean, on good days, what I was learning in college excited me in ways the street and its erratic and petty rules never could.

“You will kill her, Roberto. First Googie, now you,” Blanca implored.

It was as if he had forgotten where he stood in the universe and only those words coming from Vera could reorient him to his place in the cosmos.

I was enjoying hearing his saga of being thrown out of his home, living on the streets, and doing short stints in jail for petty theft.

He was a tall man with white hair and a ruddy complexion.

The following day El Barrio resembled a country under martial law.

Instead of salsa music, police walkie-talkies were on full blast, bombarding the streets with what sounded like a nest of hissing snakes.

Nazario was too practical for vengeance.