Boys of Life (11 page)

"You want a job? He's offering you a job. They like you here."

"They don't know me."

"I'm sure that's why they like you SO much. Von could work here and live a regular life."

Carlos had never talked to me about getting a job. It always seemed like it was okay with him if I just hung around the apartment.

I hated the idea o( getting a job. How was I going to drink it I had a job? Though it was true, all those Cubans seemed to be drinking

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beer all the time. But they made me nervous—I didn't want to work for a bunch of Cubans.

The man who'd asked me did I want a job just kept smiling. He was missing one of his front teeth, and he was wearing this T-shirt that said staying alive across the front, and also what looked like a blood stain, or maybe it was grape juice.

I had this sudden fright—Carlos was trying to unload me on these people.

"A job," I said. "Do I have to?"

"Gracias, no," Carlos told the man with the staying alive T* shirt. "Tony's got better things to do. He's a genius. He sits around all day and thinks."

I couldn't tell whether Carlos was criticizing me, and I guess he knew that.

"I'm serious," he told me. "You should just sit around all day and think. A boy your age."

Even if he was being straight with me I could never tell if he was also spoofing. I think he was probably doing both at the same time, all the time, and that's maybe one of the five hundred secrets about Carlos that made him tick.

He shook hands with all the men in the store, and pried the little kids loose from his waist, and this big fat woman kissed him on each cheek. He took the six-pack from them like it was made out of gold, and handed over the three dollars, which they took like it was three dollars they were going to frame instead ot ever spending. Then we were out of there, the street was full of trash, it was starting to spit snow and this wasn't Cuba anymore, it was New York.

I gueSS it was Carlos'S idea of a compliment, but We never stole

from the Cubans. I don't know why—we stole from just about ever)

other grocery in the East Village. In fact, we'd go .ill OVd Manhattan. The way we'd work it was this. Usually it was nu- and Carlofl and

Sammy and Verbena we'd make a regular Saturday afternoon outing of it. We'd go into sour- store, Samtn) would grab a basket, and the foui of us would wander up tnd down the aisles.

I remember flu first tunc we did thai I didn't know what was happening. I diced me around tl 1 >id I like to

up fruits and vegetables and ( ana oi thii But whethei I aid yes 01 no, ot I don't know, he just put it back on

imy was loading a feu things In the basl ;i loaf of whit< rt of pork and beans ()kay, ( arlos said aftet

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a little, we're through. "You go with Sammy," he told mc, "and we'll

wait tor you outside."

So I stood in the checkout line with Sammy, while Carlos and Verbena stood out on the sidewalk and made faces m ar us through the window. Verbena in this faded maroon winter coat she always wore, with about six pieces of costume jewelry pinned to it. And Carlos with his headband on, since we'd had a little too much to drink the night before, and this funky black leather jacket that had just appeared on him one day, I don't know from where.

Sammy handed the things in his basket out onto the counter and then started to fumble around in his trousers pocket like he'd lost his money. Finally he pulled out this little change purse, the kind old grandmothers carry, but then he couldn't get it open because his hands shook so much.

Because I didn't know what was up that first time, I was incredibly embarrassed standing there with Sammy while he took forever. I tried to catch the eye of the cashier, this Asian girl, to say I really didn't have anything to do with this old man. But she was bored with him and me and everything else too—all she did the whole time was inspect one of her fingernails.

Finally, after about five minutes, Sammy managed to pull out a folded-up ten-dollar bill, which he took forever to unfold. The whole time there was this line of other people formed behind us, but he didn't seem to notice.

Then while the cashier was getting him change, he managed to drop the change purse on the floor right where she was standing, so in the middle of giving him change she had to bend over and help him pick up the pennies and quarters that were rolling off in all direct i After about ten more foul-ups like that, Sammy managed to get the right change, and in a minute we were out on the street with Carlos and Verbena.

"You carry the bag," Sammy told me. "It's a great honor."

"This isn't very much," I told them, hefting the bag and thinking how it was maybe one meal and that was it.

"Not to worry, shy girl," Verbena said. And right there in the middle of the street she opened her maroon coat—inside, the pockets she'd sewn in were stuffed with tomatoes and packages of Oreo cookies and cheeses and a Danish ham, all from the grocery.

"Miss tricky fingers," Carlos said. And at the same time Sammy was brandishing his folded-up ten-dollar bill, which I could see in an

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instant was the exact same one there'd been all the to-do about back in the store.

I practically fell down laughing right there. It was the first of at least a thousand trips I must've made with them over the next tew years—food zaps, Carlos called them. Finally I think that ten-dollar bill just came apart, it'd been used so many times.

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sneaked a can of it one day, just to see what it was like—but I couldn't stand it. It was like eating little pieces of tire. But it's about all Netta ever ate.

When she came into the kitchen that day I was washing, she just stood there watching me, in between bites. Like seeing me standing there at the sink with my shirt off made her remember something.

"Carlos has no business," she said.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Just look at all this," she said. "What does Carlos tell you?"

"What do you mean, what does he tell me?"

"About anything. About any of this."

"He doesn't tell me much of anything," I had to admit, "but then, nobody does."

"Of course he doesn't," she said, like she was suddenly putting her finger on something. "He doesn't tell anybody. Nobody knows what's going on. Ever." She said it like she was furious. "He doesn't even know what's going on. It's just like him—hoping it he doesn't talk about it nobody'll notice. But everybody notices anyway. All the time, everybody notices everything. Even you probably notice things."

I wanted to ask, What things? But I didn't want to sound more in the dark than I was.

"He thinks you can go back and salvage, and you can—but mv God, nor the way all this stuff has to be salvaged. There're just too many pieces.' 1

I couldn't tell exactly what she was talking about. Bui it scared me a little—the way when von nicer somebody and you think they're just great, bur then von hear somebody else saying these terrible things about them, and von gel worried thai maybe you're wrong. Von get this little knot m the pir ot youi stomach.

"Wh.it do von expect.'" she went on. "The man doesn't know

hot* to use a movie camera. He can't even do .1 toom without Seth.

And it you're expecting him to direct you ask anybody who's acted

tor him. You have to just completely ignore even lingle thing he says.

ough to wake up one day and find yourself In one d

,11 I 1 an say is you're (ompletely on youi own

.1 clue. And besides, what's tins stud about revolutionary mot ie mal

He watche "tint people's movies and steals theit ideas, and then he

l hA\ he does it so crudely everybody thinks he

must've meant it to look like It lot I could've had 1 careei without

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I didn't know, h could all be true, what with me not knowing anything about movies at all. I had to adnur-uh.it I'd seen that da^ when he was filming hack in Owen didn't look much like any movie I'd ever seen. It scared me to think maybe he was craz\ after all, and I was just some dumb kid falling tor a gimmick anybody else could see right through. Because 1 have to tell you—even though I went right on

thinking Carlos was the greatest thing in the world, there were lots ol tunes when 1 was pretty miserable that winter. Tunes when I'd wake up and not know where I was, or what 1 was up to. I'd lie there in bed in this total panic, not remembering. And then I'd remember and that'd

almost he worse. To think how I couldn't go hack from wherever it was I'd got to now.

But back to Netta—it was like this anti-Carlos talk was some speech she had to give me, and once she gave it to me. then, whatever happened, she'd given me some kind ot tair warning. And that's tine— that's the way she was, the way she related to people. I remember that first time, after she'd gone on destroying Carlos tor a while longer, slu-looked at me and said, 4t Do you really know what you're getting into?"

"I think so," I told her. I felt like I had to stand up to her or she was going to take Carlos away from me with her talking, so 1 said, "I think I'm getting into what evervhodv else gets into."

"You make me want to weep," she told me.

"Save it," I said. "I can take care o\ myself."

She studied her tin can of cuttlefish. "We all s,n rhar. don't we?"

I was feeling a little put out with her. "Do you s,i\ that?" 1 asked.

She smiled at me, but I could tell she didn't mean ir. "No," she said. "I don't say that anymore."

She looked straight at me.

"You're so young," she said. All o\ a sudden she sounded incredibly sad, and she just kept looking at me. She reached our with her free hand and touched my hair—only I \^\- Then she looked

away toward the floor. "I was just thinking," slu- said. But slu- stopped and didn't say anything more.

One more thing about those cuttlefish. I'd been out shoplifting enough with The Company to know what food was brought home, and I knew we never brought home an\ cuttlefish. And as tar .i- I could tell, Netta never left the apartment to go out shopping on her own. But the shelf was always full o\ cans. Then one A,\\ 1 figured it 0U1 how it was Carlos who brought them for her. I heard him one- night, restocking the shelf. I was sure rhar was what the sound was, and when

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he came to bed, I asked him. He looked at me like I'd surprised him, hut then he just nodded, Yes, this harsh abrupt nod that said he didn't want to talk about it.

I knew that nod from Carlos, but I wasn't letting go. "Thai strange," I told him. "We had this cat back home—it used to bring little dead mice around when you were asleep, and put them in vour shoe, or under the covers with you. Like they were little presents."

I don't know why that popped in my head, but it did, and I said it.

"You're so smart," Carlos told me—and he started to lick mv ear. It you want to drive me completely crazy rhat's the one thin^ to do— get vour tongue down in my ear.

"Stop it," I told him. "I'll Laugh. I'll tnach ache." But

he kept it up. "I'll piss on the bed," I told him.

"Promise/"

"You're ^ross," I said. "Tell me about Netr.i ."

"Why? You hit the nail on the head."

"What do you mean? What nail?"

"About your cat. That's exactly wh.it ir is."

"I don't j^et it."

•ins laughed. "It's a peace offering," he said. Then he just lay • in the bed and laughed and laughed like somebody invisible was tickling him. It almost made me worry.

"It's been .1 long, long war," he fold me.

• like you," I said. "Personally speaking, she's not so crazy about me. no." "Then v. I living in vour apartment and everything?" Which

something I still hadn't gotten quite used to .ill these people camped out here like thej owned the pla

"It's not iii\ apartment," Carlos said. "It's The <. !ocnpan> 's aj ment. You know, share and share alike."

rloi had this utting me In m\ place At tin- moment,

though, I was more li In Metta than I was In the apartment.

"W , t shr III

used me up I've

; It ha] ;

Whn li I III n v .iin

• thingi like d

| .

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"There've been others?" It seemed to me like The Company must've been the way they were forever.

"Lots," Carlos said. "We're the leftovers." He smiled. 'The ones who didn't have any other place to g

"But how do you know she's leaving too?" I asked him—though from what she'd told me, it wasn't too hard to guess.

"I can tell these things," he said. "It'll take another month or two. Rut she knows she's used US up, and she tccU sad about that hut

it's the way it is. She's been with us a very long tune, since the begin* ning. We did some wonderful things with her."

Thar was what I remembered later—how Carlos said th.it. like she was some very accurate tool you could use where nothing else worked. But then he went on to say, and this just sort of stunned me, "Yen know, everybody's been in love with her around here, in their time. Everybody." And he left it like that.

I'd think about it from rime to time, even though we never talked about it again. I think Carlos wanted me to piece it together, and 1 think that's finally what I did. Who knows.' Maybe I'm all wrong about it—but what I think is, once upon a time, way back in the beginning ot everything, when The company was just getting started and a long time before Carlos ever took up with his first bov. Carlo* and Netta were lovers. Maybe from when they were teenagers—I don't know. Rut they understood all about each other. Then over the years lots ot things happened, things I'd never know anything about, and they hadn't been lovers for a long time. They'd gone their different directions, but here they still were. They were still working together because it was something they both believed in, even though they knew each other so well that a long time ago they'd lost faith in each other but not in wh.it they were doing.

Maybe I'm saying that not because it has anything to d^ with Netta and Carlos, but because it's what I wish I'd been abl about me and Carlos at some point in our lues together.