Bodega Dreams (3 page)

Blanca laughed and called me stupid. Then she said, “I have an aunt named Veronica. When she married this rich guy from Miami, she changed her name to Vera.”

“That’s wack,” I said.

“I’m not going to do that. I’m going to keep my name, Nancy Saldivia, and my friends can always call me Blanca. The only time I’ll change my name is when I get married.”

I could have married Blanca right then and there. Instead we enrolled at Hunter College, because we knew we needed school if we were ever going to change ourselves. We got married the following year. Those were the days when all conversations seemed as important as a cabinet crisis. We’d always talk about graduating and saving up to buy a house. About children who looked like me and slept like her. With Blanca next to me, El Barrio seemed less dirty, life less hard, God less unjust. Those were the good days, when Blanca and I worked hard to invent new people. It was important to have someone help you as you grew and changed.

•

THAT
’
S WHAT
it was always about. Shedding your past. Creating yourself from nothing. Now I realize that that’s what attracted me to Willie Bodega. Willie Bodega didn’t just change me and Blanca’s life, but the entire landscape of the neighborhood. Bodega would go down as a representation of all the ugliness in Spanish Harlem and also all
the good it was capable of being. Bodega placed a mirror in front of the neighborhood and in front of himself. He was street nobility incarnated in someone who still believed in dreams. And for a small while, those dreams seemed as palpable as that dagger Macbeth tried to grab. From his younger days as a Young Lord to his later days as Bodega, his life had been triggered by a romantic ideal found only in those poor bastards who really wanted to be poets but got drafted and sent to the front lines. During that time Bodega would create a green light of hope. And when that short-lived light went supernova, it would leave a blueprint of achievement and desire for anyone in the neighborhood searching for new possibilities.

It was always about Bodega and nobody else but Bodega and the only reason I began with Sapo was because to get to Bodega, you first had to go through Sapo.

Anyway, it was Sapo who introduced me. Sapo would knock at my door at crazy hours of the night.

“Yo, Chino, man, whass up? You know yo’r my
pana
, right? And like, you know yo’r the only guy I can trust, right? I mean, we go way back.” He’d rattle out credentials as if I might deny him the favor. Then after recapping our friendship from the fourth grade to the adult present he would say, “So,
mira
, I have this package here and bein’ that yo’r the only guy I can trust, you know, can I leave it here wi’choo, Chino?” Of course I knew what was in the paper bag. Blanca did too, and she had fits.

“You know he’s bad news. Always has been. I don’t want you around Enrique.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“He’s a drug dealer, Julio.”

“Man, you’re brilliant, Blanca. What could have possibly given him away?” The honeymoon had been over for months.

“What is your problem? You know, Julio, I married you because I thought you had brains. I thought you had more brains than most of the f-f-fucks in this neighborhood.” When Blanca cursed, I knew she was mad. Even when she was angry I could detect some hesitation, a stutter before the curse. Blanca measured her curses very carefully. She didn’t waste too many.

“Just look at Enrique,” she continued. “He has all these women who sleep with him hoping to rip him off when he falls asleep. So he brings his dope here so you, my idiot husband, can guard it while he has a great time!”

“So what’s wrong with that? It’s not like we have to change it and make a bottle for it.”

“
Dios mío!
Enrique might have some money and drive a BMW but he still lives in the same roach-infested buildings that we do. He can’t leave because his money is only good here. You don’t see him living on Eighty-sixth Street with the
blanquitos
, do you?”

“Did you figure all this out by yourself, Blanca?” I acted more interested in looking for the remote, so I could switch on the television.

“Did it ever occur to you,” I said after finding it under the sofa cushions, “that maybe Sapo likes it here? Maybe, like a pig, Sapo likes the mud. Not everybody wants to go to college, Blanca.” I switched on the TV and began to surf. “Not everyone wants to save up. Buy a little house in the Bronx. Raise some brats. You think everyone wants what you want?”

“What
we
want, Julio, what
we
want.” She pointed at the two of us.

“Blanca, I hate that supermarket job and I’ve no classes tonight so don’t ask me right now what I want. Right now just let me watch
Jeopardy
, okay?” She went over to switch the television off. She stood in between the remote and the television so that I couldn’t turn it back on from the sofa.

“I don’t like that receptionist desk, either.” Blanca stepped forward and snatched the remote from my hand. “But unlike you, I’m almost finished at Hunter. Maybe if you would stop hanging around with Sapo, you could finish up before the baby arrives. We’re going to need real money, real jobs.”

“Ahh, Blanca, this is all reruns. It’s all been said before. Come on. You may know what to do when you get that degree; me, I don’t care. I’m getting it because I like books and all that stuff. Give me the remote.” Blanca sat down on the edge of the sofa next to me. She was calm, staring straight ahead, avoiding any possibility of eye contact. When she did this, I knew a little speech was coming.

“Julio, I know how you feel about your studies. I do. But I’m only thinking about the baby. I would have preferred to have waited a year or two after we graduated, but it didn’t work out that way.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault, right?”

“It’s no one’s fault. Look, I don’t intend to keep badgering you about finishing school. And who knows what you’ll do when you finish. I wish you’d talk to me about it.” Her tone changed, a bit more angry. “But if you’re up to something, something stupid with Sapo that’s going to get you in some trouble, I want to hear about it. I want to hear it from you.” Blanca faced me. Her hazel eyes stared fiercely into mine. I blinked. She didn’t. She poked a finger in my chest. “I want to hear it, understand? From you and not from someone else’s mouth. From you. So I can decide if I’m going to stay with you or not. I want to know. At least give me that. One hundred percent of that. If you are up to something illegal, you tell me. Let me decide for myself if I want to stay with you, if I’m going to be one of those wives whose husbands are in jail. I’m willing to put up with a lot, but I want to be told. If you keep me in the dark it’s like insulting me. And you know Enrique is trouble.”

“Blanca, I’m here with you, right? Have I ever been in any trouble? I’m here, right?”

“But what if one day Enrique doesn’t tell you where he is taking you and actually takes you somewhere bad? What if the police bust him and since you were with him you get in trouble too? That happens a lot, you know.”

“Sapo would never do that to me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know.”

“Julio, when we were teenagers at Julia de Burgos, I knew guys had to play this macho game and I knew you didn’t really want to play but you had to. Even though you were this kid who just wanted to paint. I liked you even back then.”

“I liked you too—”

“No, let me say this, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I remember when they would call you on the loudspeaker to go down to the office and paint this for Mrs. So-and-So, or paint a mural
for an assembly. It happened a lot. Sometimes you would miss all eight periods because you were painting something for some teacher. I remember how cool you thought it was that you were singled out and had this special privilege. But I knew you were being ruined by those terrible teachers. You were just a kid. You should have been in a classroom and they didn’t care about you, they only wanted you to make their assemblies look good.”

“So what are you getting at, Blanca?”

“Listen, I know this neighborhood, Julio. Just because I go to church doesn’t mean I don’t know this neighborhood. Here it only matters what they can break, take, or steal from you. I know that Sapo is your friend. I know that. But his friends are not your friends. His friends don’t have friends.” I saw her point. It was a good one. But I just played it off as if she was wrong and told her to go to sleep. Without saying another word Blanca handed the remote back and slowly walked into the bedroom. I guess she’d had her say and was leaving it up to me.

•

BUT THE
fights with Blanca over Sapo only got worse. Finally, during her second trimester, Blanca didn’t even bother, more out of preoccupation with the baby than out of hopelessness. When she knew I was going to hang with Sapo, she would throw her hands up in disgust and ask the Lord for forgiveness. To forgive me, that is, never her. Always me. This also meant I couldn’t touch her. I was impure and her body, round as the moon, was still the temple.

I can’t say I blamed her. When I asked her to marry me, her pastor, Miguel Vasquez, had warned her that if she married me—a worldly person, a mundane—she’d lose the privilege of playing the tambourine in front of the congregation. That meant a lot to Blanca. At times she’d beg me to convert so she could be in good grace again. Besides, she hated going to church by herself. Now I know about wanting some sort of recognition, of wanting to have some sort of status, but when I think about yelling things like
Cristo salva!
I get the heebie-jeebies. You don’t know what it’s like inside a Pentecostal church full of Latinos. They really get down to some serious worshiping, with tambourines here, tambourines there, some guy beginning to wiggle on the floor because he has the Holy Ghost in him. The pastor gives his speech, yelling
about Christ coming, every week Christ is coming.
Christo viene pronto! Arrepiéntete! Arrepiéntete!
Then an entire band goes to the platform and begins to jam on some of that religious salsa. It’s like a circus for Christians. But the one thing you could never make fun of about Pentecostals was their girls. They had the prettiest church girls in the neighborhood. You knew their beauty was real because they didn’t wear any makeup and still looked good. And I had married one of the the prettiest. Like with Sapo while I was growing up, I needed Blanca with me so I could feel valuable. No, I didn’t want to mess that up.

•

THEN ONE
day when I came home from work and was getting my books to go and meet Blanca at Hunter, I got a call from Sapo.

“Yo, Chino, whass up?”

“Whass up, man.”

“So like, can you do me a solid? Like, you my
pana
, right? You know, like the day Mario DePuma jumped yo’ ass at school? Who was there to save you from that fucken Italian horse? I mean, I know you didn’t back down and shit but, like, he was fuckin’ you up pretty bad.”

“Sapo, I’m in a rush. Are you gettin’ somewhere or just swimmin’ laps?”

“Yo, I hear that. All right, you know that taped-up paper bag I left wi’choo lass night?”

“Yeah, but if you picking that up you gonna have to wait, bro. Because I have to go to class and meet Blanca.”

“Oh, I’m touched, Jane and Joe Night School. How sweet.”

“Whatever, bro. Look, I have to get off.”

“
Pero, bro, no corra
, I call to ask ya if, like, could you drop it off for me?”

“What the fuck! Sapo, you think I was fucken born yesterday? Yo, I’m not going to do your dirty work, what the fuck. Me letting you keep that shit in my place is one thing, taking it around is another—”

“Hold your
caballos
, bro, like I wouldn’t be askin’ ya unless I knew it was somethin’ easy and not out of your way.”

“Yeah, well it’s way out of my way. I have to go to class, man, I’ll see you around.” I was ready to hang up.

“Nah, wait! Bro, that’s the beauty of it. You’d be droppin’ those fucks
right at Hunta. Yo, I swera-ma-mahthah. There’s a guy in the library. You know where the library at Hunta is, don’cha?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, just put the bag in a backpack and he’ll take it. It’s no big deal. You’ll lose the backpack but it’s a cheap fucken bag anyway. My bro, you even know the dude. Tweety, remember him? Tweety from Julia de Burgos? Later on everyone started calling him Sylvester b’cause when he talked he gave you the weather. Remember him?”

“Ho, shit, that guy still alive?”

“Alive and spitting. Yeah, so Chino, come on. Some rich white nigga on Sixty-eighth Street ordered all this shit for a party in one of those penthouses by Park.”

“I don’t know, Sapo.” I was afraid. Not of the cops but of Blanca.

“Yo, come on, man, one last favor for your
pana
, Sapo. You be just taking the sack to Tweety, bro. He’s the one who’s gonna be doing the real thing.”

“So why don’t you take it to Tweety? Look, I’ll wait for you here to come pick—”

“I’m in the Bronx, Chino! You think I would’ve called you if I coulda come by? Fuck, man, you go to school or what?”

So, without telling Blanca, I did as Sapo had asked.

•

THE NEXT
night Sapo knocked at my door and handed me fifty dollars, just for taking something to where I was already headed.

“Compliments of Willie Bodega, my man. For your backpack.” Sapo slapped the crisp bill in my hand.

And that’s when I heard the name Willie Bodega for the first time.

“Willie wha’?” I thought it was a funny name.

“Willie Bodega? You nevah heard of him? He’s like the big Taino in this neighborhood, you know? Although only a few have seen his face.”

It’s important for me to remember that night, because once I heard that name it was never about Blanca or Sapo. As important as they were to me, it was always about Bodega. We were all insignificant, dwarfed by what his dream meant to Spanish Harlem. And in obtaining it, he took shortcuts and broke some laws, leaving crumbs along the way in hopes of one day turning around and finding his way back to dignity.