Bodega Dreams (24 page)

“Who the fuck invited him to New York?”

“I did.” He sounded as if that was obvious.

“Why?” I thought it was a stupid idea, but couldn’t tell him that.

“B’cause Vera needs to tell him”—he lit a cigarette—“that she never loved him.”

“Wait, wait, how does Vera feel about this?”

He turned away from me. He looked at the floor and then, taking a drag, looked to his left and right before exhaling. “She’s confused,” he said sadly. “See, Chino, she’s a little shaken cuz she’s spent the last twenty years with that guy. You know she got to feel something for him, but she still loves me and always has.” His eyes looked watery, his face drawn. They must have been discussing this all day long.

“I know what yo’r thinking, Chino. But Vera is not like that. It’s just that she didn’t want to talk about it any longer, she was really tired, thass all.” He seemed to desperately need to hear Vera say that she had never loved her husband. He needed to hear it and wanted others to be there as witnesses. 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. He needed to hear it and he wanted it to be said in his backyard, in East Harlem and not in Miami or anyplace else.

“Look, Willie, you got Fischman, who wants to kill you. You have cops looking around the neighborhood for leads on who killed Salazar. You have this neighborhood thinking you’re some sort of goodies bag. Man, why make things worse by inviting this guy?”

My question went right past him. “I think having you and your wife maybe, her sister, too, near Veronica would help.” He began pacing and then realized that one of the parquet panels on the floor creaked. He walked over it again to make sure which one was the culprit and told me to avoid it so Vera wouldn’t wake up. Then he continued.

“Vera needs support and the more family there the better.”

“If Vera needs family there to support her, then I’m sorry, bee, but you just have to accept that she can’t say it—”

“She’s been with this guy for years!” he loudly hissed at me. “You think thass easy to forget? Wha’ you want, her to just say the magic—”

“If she really loved you, Willie, she wouldn’t need any help from you or anyone else,” I hissed back.

“Come on people now, smile on your brother.”
Nene glided into the kitchen with a huge grin.

“ ’Tá todo bien,”
Bodega assured Nene.

“It’s cool, then?” he asked Bodega, not me. “Because I like Chino and I would be like sad if I had to hurt him.”

“Don’t worry about it. No one is hurting no one,” Bodega said, and Nene patted me on the back. “I found out your real name is Julio,” he said as he headed back to the living room and the TV. “Thass a dope name, Julio.
Meet me and Julio down by the schoolyard.
”

“Why don’t you just get out?” I said to Bodega. “You have Vera, you have money. Just go away. Buy some beach property in San Juan and you and Vera can lie on the sand and watch the world go to hell.” I didn’t think he’d heard me. His face was blank. His eyes were focused on the closed bedroom door down the hall.

“Did you see that TV special on the Jewish immigrants?” Bodega’s eyes were still locked on the bedroom door.

“Nah, missed it.” This was hopeless.

“Yeah, well, I was thinkin’ that after this is all over, I should open up a school. You know, like the Jews did cuz their kids were like always bein’ discriminated and so they gave a lot of money to private schools that had no ties with any religious groups or anyone and so their kids went to these schools without bein’ scared. You know what I’m sayin’?”

“I know what you’re sayin’.”

“So, like, you in college and you hate law, so when you graduate you want to be in this?”

“In what?”

“My school, for our kids. Be a teacher since you hate lawyers.”

“Maybe,” I said, but I knew I didn’t mean it.

“Have you seen that old burnt-down school building on 100th and First? That shit has been abandoned for years. But Nazario got it for us from the city. I’m renovating it.”

“Sounds good,” I said. I took the ring out of my pocket.

“Look, if Vera wants this back,” I said, “you’ll know the truth.” His gaze fell on the ring in my palm. He nervously took it from me and read the inscription. He didn’t say anything. I was about to walk away.

“Need anything, Chino, you see me. Ask Sapo and see me.” He put the ring in his pocket. He smiled and then stared back at the bedroom where Vera was sleeping.

As I was heading out, I heard Nene singing,
“Mama, I just killed a man.”
His voice was strange, tense and tight. I turned toward him, saw the image on the television, saw it had nothing to do with the song. What
was on was a shoe commercial. I stared at Nene for a little while, lost. I thought of Sapo. No, Sapo hadn’t killed Salazar. It wasn’t Sapo.

Nene saw me looking at him and smiled. I nodded and left. I took a shortcut through a huge vacant lot. I stopped for a minute and even though it was dark I studied the rubble of a building that once stood there. Scorched bricks with wild grass growing all around the lot. A toilet seat lay on its side, a sink and a bathtub too. Fireflies were flashing, lighting up the lot. Once people lived there, I thought. And some fire displaced them. The city did nothing, as if the problem would go away all by itself. In time the buildings eroded. Later, the city wrecking ball knocked them to the ground.

Bodega, I thought, was at least doing the opposite. He was renovating. And when Alberto Salazar discovered who—and what—was behind all the renovation, Bodega sent Nene to kill Salazar. It was hard to believe Nene was a killer. But Nene could be as imposing as a block of granite. It didn’t matter that he was slow, it doesn’t take much to kill. Nene must have gone with Sapo to do in Salazar together. With Nene and Sapo, you have a lot of brute strength on your side. Bodega did it to protect what was his. He did it to stop the vacant lots from multiplying. Didn’t he? True, Vera was his reason for dreaming all this up, but whatever evil deed had been committed, something good was coming out of it. I looked around the rubble-strewn lot and knew someone had to do something about it. Someone had to step forward and do something. Bodega had, because no one but one of its own residents was going to improve Spanish Harlem. No one.

T
HE
next day when I got home from work, our apartment was still a mess. We’d be living out of boxes for at least another week or two. Somehow, though, a sofa had been installed in a corner and there, drinking coffee, were Blanca and Pastor Miguel Vasquez. After greeting me in Spanish, Pastor Vasquez suggested I join Blanca to hear Roberto’s sermon later that week. I politely declined, saying I had other things going on.

Blanca jumped on that. “With your friends? He has bad associations,
Hermano
Vasquez. He won’t tell me what he does with them but I know it’s things that Christians don’t do.” I was relieved when the pastor politely explained that since I wasn’t baptized in the Truth he wasn’t going to impose the ethics of a Christian on me. Of course, if I wanted some Bible guidance that was another matter entirely.

“He needs it,
Hermano
Vasquez,” Blanca implored. “He associates with that man Bodega.” Pastor Vasquez’s eyes grew big and he laughed nervously. He tried to change the subject, told me how the Lord had saved him at a time when he was one of the biggest junkies in the neighborhood, injecting anything and everything, even
gasolina
, he joked. 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. But then the Lord appeared to him and I lost interest. Yes, he informed me,
he was a lost sheep and the Lord had saved him,
gracias a Dios
, and who knew, I was probably a lost sheep too. Blanca hung on his every word, nodding her head and taking sneak peeks at me as if to say, “Listen to this, this is for you.”

He was reaching into his fat briefcase, to retrieve his Bible so he could read me a text, when the doorbell rang. I excused myself to answer it, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Who is it?”

“Police.”

When I opened the door two detectives were standing with their badges out.

“Does a Julio Mercado live here?” one asked.

“Julio?” Blanca stood up and walked over to the door. “What do these gentlemen need to see you for?” she asked with artificial formality. Pastor Vasquez was right behind her.

“I’m Detective DeJesus and this is Detective Ortiz. We would like to ask you a few questions.” Both were tall and heavy, so heavy that if either were two inches shorter he’d have been considered fat.

“Concerning?” I said, as my stomach knotted.

“May we come in?”

Now, I know that cops love to get you to invite them in because then they won’t need a warrant and anything you have that’s illegal and in plain view they can arrest you for. It’s a trick they like to pull when they suspect someone but don’t have enough evidence. They invite themselves in and then look around. If you have so much as a half-smoked joint in an ashtray, they’ll haul your ass down for booking. Never let cops inside your house unless they got a warrant, that’s my philosophy.

“Of course!” Blanca said, because she didn’t know any better. To her, authority figures were always good. But I knew that it didn’t matter that these two cops were Hispanic, cops are a race unto themselves. It’s blue first, brown second.

“Would you like some coffee?” Blanca asked them.

They declined, and then looked at me. “Are you Julio Mercado?” It was more a statement than a question.

“That’s me,” I said.

“It looks as if you just moved in,” DeJesus said, stepping over a small box.

“We did,” I said.

“Do you know an Enrique Guzman, goes by the name of Sapo?” That right there told me that although they were Hispanic they weren’t homegrown. They knew as much about East Harlem as Oscar Lewis. Only Blanca referred to Sapo as Enrique. Sapo was always Sapo. Just Sapo. Nothing else.

“We went to junior high together.”

The detective that wasn’t asking the questions started looking around. His head rotated like an owl’s. Blanca and Pastor Vasquez were whispering nervously to each other. At that moment all I wished was for Blanca not to be there. If I could only send her to buy groceries or something, because I intended to say as little as possible to avoid digging myself a hole.

“Do you still keep company?”

“It’s a small neighborhood,” I said. My distrust was palpable.

“Mr. Mercado, we are just here to ask you some questions about the murder of Alberto Salazar. Heard about it?” Another question disguised as a statement. Like welfare caseworkers, the ones that stare at you and your children and know full well what the answers to the questions are but still ask, “What is your sex? Do you have any children?”

“It was all over
El Diario
,” I answered, stealing a peek at Blanca, whose nostrils were flaring.

“Anything you can tell us would be beneficial.”

“Other than what I’ve read, I don’t know anything.”

“The woman at the botanica, Doña Ramonita, said you were Enrique Guzman’s best friend.”

Even when you’re bleeding you should cover up your wounds. Detectives are good at getting things from you. Like a friendly machete they clear a path through the grasslands for you and then lead you into a pit.

“Exactly, I
was.
Back in junior high.” I saw angry tears form in Blanca’s eyes.

“We have reports that you’ve been seen riding in Enrique Guzman’s car.”

“He gave me a lift to school once or twice.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“Hunter College.”

“Is that your girlfriend?” He motioned with his head toward Blanca.

“No,” I said, lifting my hand in a fist and showing him my wedding ring. “That’s my wife.” I could see that this upset DeJesus a bit, so in my most respectful voice I said, “Look, detective, that’s my wife and that’s Pastor Miguel Vasquez. We were having Bible study. So unless you need something else from me, could you excuse us?” They looked at each other for a second.

“Would you mind coming with us? We have a few pictures and documents we’d like to show you at the station. Take your time. We’ll wait in the car until your meeting with the pastor is over. You’re not under arrest or anything.”

Of course they wanted me to come down to the station; they could have brought those documents and pictures with them. But I couldn’t point that out to them.

Instead I said, “Sure, anything to help.”

“Pleasure.” They both nodded to Blanca and the pastor as they made their way out the door. I now had to look Blanca in the face and explain myself. I wasn’t ready, I had no idea what to say to her. In fact I was shaking with nerves. I had promised to let her know the truth but I had kept things from her.

“I’ll be at my mother’s,” she said, standing. “I need to study. I have an exam tomorrow and I think I’ll stay at my mother’s. Please excuse me, Pastor.” She was crying, and moving around the room with a heavy grace, collecting her books.

I followed her around the living room as she started putting her things in her bag. “It’s nothing. You heard them, no one is arresting anyone.”

“That’s good, because when I see you tomorrow, we’ll need to talk.”

“Blanca, it’s nothing.”

“Nothing! It might be nothing to you, but do you know what just happened? The police were in my house! What do you think you’re doing?” She turned and headed into the bedroom.

I heard her ripping open boxes. She gathered her vitamins, her schoolbooks, and a few items of clothing. She returned to the living
room with a duffel bag. Pastor Vasquez obviously felt uncomfortable. He didn’t say anything, just looked down at the floor as if he had mistakenly opened a women’s bathroom door while someone was in the stall.

Blanca was embarrassed too. She knew the congregation would hear about this.
“Bueno. Que Cristo te proteja,”
Pastor Vasquez said to me as he took Blanca’s bag. Blanca didn’t say anything. They just walked out. I knew they’d talk about me as they walked to Blanca’s mother’s house.