Bodega Dreams (14 page)

“Wait, don’t tell me, the Grass Roots? Right? The Grass Roots?”

“Yeah, how you guess?” I couldn’t care less. Why wasn’t Sapo doing the calling?

“I knew it, I knew it. So,
mira
, Chino, my cousin wants ta see you tomorrow. Nazario will meet with you. He said he had to meet you. Some girl is comin’.”

“Cool, tell him I will.” And I hung up.

That was all I was going to do for Bodega. I had decided then and there that as soon as Bodega met Vera, I owed him nothing more.

When Blanca finished eating she asked me if I could go out and get her a Hershey bar with almonds, she had a craving. I was putting on my shoes to go out when Blanca switched on the TV to Spanish CNN. Like me, she studied with the TV on. She sat there with her nose already in a book, waiting for me to bring her chocolate. Then Alberto Salazar’s death was mentioned. Her body stiffened and her head shot up as if she had been stabbed in the back.

T
HE
day Vera was to arrive back in New York City I was walking out of our new building to go to work. 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. Mothers kissed his cheek, fathers were bowing to him and introducing their kids to him and making them greet him. It was as if I’d woken up in a village on the mother island and on my way to get water I’d met fellow villagers acting with that modesty and politeness you only find in places so poor that all you can offer is your kindness.

“Julio, right?” Nazario walked over to me, extended his hand, and we shook. I knew I was to be the link between Bodega and Vera. I was determined to fulfill my part of the deal; once Bodega and Vera met I was completely free. I would sever all ties to Bodega. Now more than ever, I wanted nothing to do with Bodega because I was sure he was connected to Salazar’s death. I hated to know that that would include Sapo too, but I had begun to wonder if Salazar was the first man Sapo had killed. If Sapo killed that reporter then he deserved to go to jail. I thought that, but I knew I didn’t mean it. I felt bad for Sapo.

I also knew I would never rat out Sapo or Bodega. I wasn’t going to say a word. It wasn’t my job or my style. All I needed was to keep my
part of the deal and get free of Bodega and free of my own conscience, which would nag me and call me names if I backed out.

“So Nene called you last night to tell you I was coming to meet you,” he said smoothly, as if he and I had been friends for years.

“Nene called me,” I said.

“Great.” I could already see that Nazario was a chameleon. He had the uncanny ability to be stoically cold under pressure and extremely warm with the people. But from the day I’d met him at the Taino Towers I knew it was Nazario who went around carrying out the favors for Bodega. Like Bodega had told me, he needed people to represent him in his absence. Who better than Nazario to visit the people and give them help in the name of Bodega? It was Nazario who, by blending his education with politeness, had made himself be looked upon with love, respect, and a little fear throughout the neighborhood. His smile could be magically disarming but his head was crowded with practicality and genius. Unlike Bodega’s eyes, which were pools of ghosts and sadness, Nazario’s were black holes, nothing could escape them, not even light, as if he could read your mind. He inspired and at the same time intimidated me.

“I was thinking of telling Bodega to meet me in some restaurant and then taking my wife and her sister, Negra, and Vera to dinner. A family thing, you know, and Bodega could walk right in. With people around them that should diffuse some of the tension. That sound good?”

“That’s brilliant, Julio,” Nazario said, smiling. Then someone who had just stepped out of the building walked over to us. She gave Nazario a small packet of food wrapped in tinfoil. “For your lunch,” she said. He refused to take it, gently suggesting she needed it more than he did. The single mother of two, who lived in 5E, told him it was last night’s
pasteles
, which should still taste good, all he had to do was heat them up. He finally accepted, telling her in Spanish, “Who am I to take from you the gift of giving?” After that she kissed his cheek, then left to take her kids to school.

“Are you late for work?” he asked me when we resumed.

“I’m going to be.”

“Then I’ll walk with you.”

“No, it’s all right. It’s just three blocks from here.”

“Exactly, three blocks. What’s three blocks? Some people have to take eight-hour flights in the company of uncomfortable people.” He knew he made me nervous and he was smiling faintly. “You, Julio, just have to walk three uncomfortable blocks, with me.”

Unlike Bodega, Nazario spoke cleanly and used his slang only when it suited him. Nazario’s and Bodega’s speeches were as different as a glass of tap water and a glass of wine. And unlike Bodega, who said exactly what was on his mind, Nazario would tell you only what he felt was necessary. Later on, as I sank deeper into all this mud, I would realize how much of his success Bodega owed to Nazario and his connections at City Hall. It was something about knowing who the important little people were, the forgotten ones who don’t wear suits, the mailroom clerk, the secretaries, the custodial staffs. They would hide letters, delay them, too, steal files, copy disks, shred documents, all for Nazario. These workers who sympathized with Nazario knew that they had a union, so it would be difficult for them to lose their jobs. What Nazario offered them in return was something their union didn’t cover, that if their sons and daughters needed legal help one day, he would be there. And so would Bodega’s financial backing.

“That’s a great idea, Chino. The restaurant. That way Willie can just walk in casually as if he didn’t know anything. He’ll see you, your wife, her sister, and Vera. Brilliant.”

“Well, I hope it works,” I shrugged.

“In theory, it works like a socialist peasant but in real life”—he stopped walking and placed his arm around my shoulder—“in real life we have to do what Willie says. He wants you to accompany him to the school this morning and see Vera.”

“Wha’!” I was angry. “Hey, man, Bodega has waited more than twenty years. A few hours won’t kill him. I gotta go to work. You know, it’s bad enough I was going to miss a class tonight so he can see this woman. Now work, I can’t miss work.” Truth was I was angry because I was in the dark. I could tell something else was happening. Something big. Something that worried Nazario enough that he wanted to do anything he could to keep Bodega calm and happy. I didn’t want to get more involved, but not knowing what was really happening might hurt me. With Salazar dead, I didn’t want the cops coming to my house asking
questions because Blanca would kill me, maybe even leave me. I couldn’t chance that. Right then I wanted Nazario to level with me. But I decided to wait and ask Bodega himself, because if I asked Nazario anything, he would only do that lawyer thing on me, say a million things while telling me nothing.

“I understand.” His voice was like small waves, like the swells at Coney Island. “I know exactly where you’re coming from. You can’t miss work.” As Nazario said this an old man who was about to open his barbershop on 110th and Lexington crossed the street to greet him.

“Don Tunito,
bueno verlo
.”

“Bueno verte a ti, mijo. ¿Y cómo va todo?”

“Bien. Este es Julio.”
The old man shook my hand and said I could get free haircuts at his shop. Their conversation was purely small talk. It was a silent agreement in which each party knew what proper respects to pay, a polite farce created to ease the strain of acknowledging who owed who and what.

Looking back, I figured Bodega must have taken a lot of pride in these favors he handed out through Nazario. It made Bodega feel like some kid with a lot of toys who is happy to share them with the kid next door who owns a broken tricycle. Bodega took pride in helping someone who had just arrived from Puerto Rico or Nicaragua or Mexico or any other Latin American country. He’d get them jobs, legal jobs that didn’t pay a lot but got them started on their new life here in America. His buildings were run by good, hardworking men from Puerto Rico who just wanted to work. Bodega would make them supers or plumbers or
dishwasheros
at his pizzerias or anything. As long as they had some way of feeding their family and could hope to someday find something better they were happy. No wonder Bodega’s name had spread like a good smell from a Latin woman’s kitchen.

So, if someone wanted to set up a small business, be it a bodega or a fruit stand, but only had half the money and couldn’t get a bank loan, that person would get in touch with someone who knew someone who knew this Willie Bodega. Bodega would then dispatch Nazario to talk with this person’s neighbors and, 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),
Bodega would offer or deny him support. All Bodega asked in return was loyalty. For them never to forget that it was Bodega who got them on their way. Nothing dramatic would happen if they’d forget. Nothing would be broken. Nothing would be thrown. But usually they’d remember. Usually that small business Bodega had loaned money to, that just-graduated kid whose tuition had been taken care of, that person who’d just passed the bar and whose prep course fees had been paid for, or that family just arrived from Puerto Rico who had been set up in an apartment, never forgot who had helped them in their time of need. They were loyal to Bodega without ever having seen his face.

Sapo had told me one day, when he was drunk on his fifth forty-ouncer, that Bodega had met Nazario after the Young Lords broke up. Bodega was selling dope and Nazario was just getting out of Brooklyn Law School. Nazario had told Bodega to get himself a hot-dog vendor’s license, place the dope inside a frankfurter cart with real franks in it and, before taking the money, to tell the customers that the heroin was free and that they were really paying for the hot dog. That way if an undercover cop bought from Bodega, he couldn’t bust him for
selling
heroin. A year later Bodega did get busted. Nazario represented him and used the frankfurter cart as Bodega’s defense. He told the judge that Bodega, as an American citizen in business for himself, could set any price he desired on hot dogs, since hot dogs were not controlled substances. That his client specifically let the undercover officer know, before taking his money and giving him the dope, that the officer was really buying the hot dog for five dollars and that the substance was free. The transaction did occur, which meant that the officer had agreed to the terms. It was brilliant.

The entire courtroom knew Bodega was guilty, but the officer had agreed that he was buying the hot dog and that the heroin was free. Nazario had found a loophole, though it was closed right after that case. But Nazario was always one step ahead. So instead of Bodega getting fifteen to twenty for selling drugs, he only got five for possession, then got paroled in three for good behavior. And now, years later, Bodega and Nazario were running an entire neighborhood.

“Where do you work?” Nazario asked me after the old man left.

“Right there, the supermarket. Only till I graduate and then I don’t
know. I have to find a real job; besides, I have no choice. I got a kid coming.”

“The A & P? The one on the same block where the Aguilar public library is? No kidding?”

“Yeah, it’s convenient. During lunchtime, I go there to read or study. It’s the best library in the city.”

“Hey, I should know,” Nazario said, “I practically grew up inside that building. My adopted family were librarians and books.”

We reached the supermarket. I told Nazario that I could meet Vera either later that day or some other time but I couldn’t miss work. Nazario said that was okay and that he would like to talk “bookshop,” as he called it, with me maybe even at the Aguilar branch, since he hadn’t been inside that building in years.

A few minutes later I punched the clock and checked the schedule. I was penciled in at meat packing. I went to my locker and brought out my green apron along with a stained heavy sweater. I hated meat packing, it smells like what it is, a bunch of frozen dead animal corpses. Your hands get cold even if you wear gloves, and after your day is done you come out with a cold. But I had put on my gloves, sweater, and apron and was ready to get all bloody and smelly when I was called to the manager’s office.

“Julio, you’re sick, go home,” he told me in front of the other employees.

“I’m not sick,” I answered.

“Yes. Yes you are.” He gave me this meaningful look that told me he didn’t want the other employees to think I was getting special treatment. “You’re sick. No shape to be in the freezer packing meat.”

I got it. I coughed loudly and played it to the fullest.

“With pay, right? I get today off with pay?” I asked.

“No, you know we”—he looked at the other employees’ faces—“we don’t pay you for sick days.”

“Well then, I can hack it. I mean, I’m sick but I can hack it, just put me shelving or something away from the freez—”

“Okay, but just this once,” the manager said over the other employees’ protests. “New policy. What do you want me to do? I can’t have
Julio give everyone the flu. Knock this place right out of business,” he said to save face.

I ditched my apron and punched out again.

Outside, when I crossed the street, there was Nazario. Standing straight, hands at his sides and stone cold, he told me, “The manager owes Bodega. We’re going to your place. You have to change clothes.”

On the way home Nazario asked me what I was studying. I told him. He nodded. Then he asked me, “You ever thought of going to law school when you graduate?”

“Nah, I hate lawyers. No offense.”

“That’s fine, but consider it. We’ll take care of the expenses. We will need people like you in the near future. We will need as many as we can get.” It was obvious by now who he meant by
we.
“A single lawyer,” Nazario continued, “can steal more money than a hundred men with guns.”