Bodega Dreams (15 page)

“I’m not a thief.”

“Everyone’s a thief. Crime is a matter of access. The only reason the mugger robs you is because he doesn’t have access to the books. If he did, he’d be a lawyer. I’m not sure what you have access to”—he gave me a look as if I was guilty of something I myself was too afraid to say out loud—“but whatever it is that you have access to, that is what you will steal. What you are already stealing, Julio.”

“If you see it that way it’s cool,” I said. “But like my father always said,
‘El dinero robado tú te lo gastas con miedo.’
I’d rather make five bucks honestly and spend it knowing it’s all mine than fifty and worry about my back.”

“Then you don’t understand, Julio. See, what Willie and I are trying to do is make sure that you, the future of the neighborhood, doesn’t break its back. That this neighborhood isn’t lost. Sure, some people are going to get hurt, but that’s just the law of averages. Listen to me, Julio.” He stopped walking.

“You guys,” I said, laughing, continuing to walk, “are crazy, man.”

He yelled at me and grabbed my arm, stopping me. “You, Julio, think small! You live small and you’ll die small! Always paying rent because you never thought big. Like most of the people in this neighborhood you think that things are impossible!”

“So what? You puttin’ down your own people now!” I shouted back and he calmed down and took a deep breath.

“Don’t you see that it’s always been only about our people,” he said calmly. “All I ask is that you walk with me four more blocks north—”

“I thought you said Bodega was meeting me,” I protested, preferring to be in Bodega’s company than Nazario’s. At least with Bodega you knew where you stood.

“Humor me. We don’t even have to speak to each other,” he said, laughing a bit. “I just want to show you something.”

I nodded. The rest of the way neither of us said a word. Those four silent blocks with Nazario lasted an eternity, one of those moments in which you live a lifetime. I tried to think of other things, but all I could think about was why Nazario didn’t just leave me alone. He must have something else to tell or show me; he was too practical to take pointless walks.

We stopped at 116th and Third Avenue, in front of what looked like a bodega. It wasn’t. Inside that small space were framed gold records and instruments hanging from the walls and the ceiling. It was jam-packed with salsa memorabilia. There were the drumsticks Tito Puente used when he played Carnegie Hall in ’72. There were album covers, Joe Cuba’s congas, guitar picks, ticket stubs, all from salsa’s golden days in the sixties and seventies.

“It’s the salsa museum, Julio. The only one in the country,” Nazario told me. I was in awe, because I didn’t even know it existed. I had lived here all my life and didn’t know we had this. I started to read labels of the gold records on the wall: Willie Colón, Hector Lavo, Cheo Feliciano, Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, the Fania All Stars—all were represented. It was the history of salsa. Nazario pointed. “See that ticket stub? I went to that show. It was at Madison Square Garden, the old one. Great show. I danced salsa all the way home.”

“This is awesome, man,” I said, and for a moment I forgot about everything and wrapped myself in the glory days of salsa. Back then it was a different dance music than the one in my time. The salsa music was new and always evolving into something else, but it always returned to its
afro-jíbaro-antillano
roots. This place had a deep association with my parents’ time, when the neighborhood was still young
and full of people and not projects. It was a symbol of past glory, of early migration to the United States and the dreams that people brought over along with the music.

“That conga there belonged to Ray Barretto. Hearing Ray play was like watching Changó, the thunder god who suffered the consequences of playing with fire and became lightning itself—that was Barretto in his heyday. Night after night.” Nazario went over to the drum and circled his finger over the skin. For the first time I thought I had seen in his eyes some sort of nostalgic sentiment, a weakness maybe.

“Hey,
no toque!
” the curator of the museum said, joking. Nazario quickly turned around. The two men embraced as if they had known each other for years. The owner was a kind man in his fifties. When Nazario introduced me, he proudly declared, “See, Chino, there’s two museums in Spanish Harlem.”

“Your daughter,” Nazario asked him out of the blue, “did she get in?”

“Sí, sí.”
They embraced again. They kept talking about the man’s daughter, who would soon start med school. The man was thanking Nazario and telling him to thank Bodega for him. Nazario said he would do just that and then told the man he had to go. I shook the man’s hand again and followed Nazario. The salsa museum was free, but upon exiting, Nazario put a twenty in the donation box. I had only three dollars and wished I could give more.

“I’ll walk you home now,” Nazario said, looking straight ahead.

“Sounds good,” I said. Somehow that experience had made me like him. A little bit. I still wanted Nazario to go away but I knew he wouldn’t, not just yet. I knew he hadn’t taken me to the museum just because he’d wanted to show it to me. He’d wanted me to see something else. For me to understand something that escaped me. I tried to think, but I couldn’t see what it was. The music of our people? No. Bygone times? Then it hit me. It was the man’s daughter.

“The girl who got into med school,” I asked Nazario, “she’s in Bodega’s program?”

“That’s right. I was hoping she was around. I wanted her to talk to you.”

“About what?” I asked, because I was just catching on that with
Nazario and Bodega you had to see the big picture. Their minds were not nineteen-inch screens but those of the big drive-in movies. They were so ahead in their visions and dreams that they left you behind, with your mouth open, trying to piece it all together.

“Don’t you see what we’re trying to do?” he said, and this time it was me who stopped walking. I wanted to hear it. “Willie likes financing Latinos who are going to college to study law, medicine, education, business, political science, anything useful. He plans on building a professional class, slated to become his movers and shakers of the future.”

I wanted to tell him it was crazy. But then I thought, why not? Why not us? Others have dreams, why not us? It was from that moment on that I realized all these hopes were bigger than me, more important than any one person. If these dreams of theirs would take off, El Barrio would burn like a roman candle, bright and proud for decades. If Spanish Harlem moved up, we would all move up with it.

“Willie plans on building a professional class. One born and bred in Spanish Harlem.” So now I knew why he was renovating all those buildings. He planned on housing his people there. “But it goes deeper than that, Julio. It’s about upward mobility. It’s about education and making yourself better. It’s about sacrifice.” We started to walk again. He would lecture like he always did, steely but committed. “If someone is a janitor, that’s noble, it’s a respectable job. But they should make sure their kids grow up to own a cleaning business.” It was really an old idea, but never before had I thought that it was possible. With Nazario leading the fight for political, social, and economic power, anything was possible. It was going to be fought by intellect and cunning. Bodega and Nazario had seen what guns could do. They knew you could not attack the Anglo like that. You had to play by his rules and, like him, steal by signing the right papers. Nazario would lead, leaving Bodega to take all the hits, absorb the stigma, because of what he was. It would be Bodega and the likes of Sapo who would have the skeletons in the closet, all so Nazario could help create new hope for the neighborhood.

“This neighborhood will be lost unless we make it ours. Look at Loisaida, that’s gone,” Nazario said. “All those white yuppies want to live
in Manhattan, and they think Spanish Harlem is next for the taking. When they start moving in, we won’t be able to compete when it comes to rents, and we’ll be left out in the cold. But if we build a strong professional class and accumulate property, we can counter that effect.” We were two blocks away from my building. I could see what Nazario was really after. “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.” Then he smiled at me as if he had just seen the sunrise for the first time in his life. “And we’ll free our island, without bloodshed.”

I
WAS
happy when Nazario and I reached my building and even happier when he shook my hand, indicating he was ready to leave.

“Put on your best suit and wait for Willie, okay, Julio?” Nazario said as we stood in front of the entrance. “And I still want to talk. Maybe even meet you in the library.” He shook my hand again and crossed the street. I stared at his back as he walked away. A tall gray suit, walking with pride and confidence all around El Barrio. A suit that could stand out and yet blend in with the neighborhood. He was like no one I had ever met. Even Bodega with his street smarts and cunning lacked what Nazario had. The presence that tells the people this man can lead. 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. This was not some docile Latino you could push around. You knew he held aces up his sleeve. The neighborhood might not have trusted Nazario completely, maybe even been a bit afraid of him, but people were more than grateful that he was on their side.

I went inside the building and was a bit nervous about the whole Vera-meeting-Bodega thing, but then again I was also glad it would finally be over. Besides, it beat working, any day.

When the elevator reached my floor and I stepped out, there was Bodega in the hallway. He was dressed in a white suit, looking as
immaculate and pure as if he had made an offering to Santa Clara to wear white for her, just for her. But his eyes were bloodshot and he was pacing like a man whose wife is in labor.

“Man, I’m glad yo’r here. Where you been?” He rushed toward me, his face a knot of worry. “You don’t think I look too, you know, like I’m tryin’ too hard to look fine?” he asked.

“Nah, you look good.” We walked inside. Then he looked at me and began to curse.

“
Coño! Coño
, I should have brought a suit for you.”

“Hey, I have suits, all right?” I said, a bit insulted. “I came here to change. Your lawyer hit man, Nazario, sprung me out of work and gave me no choice.”

“But you do have a good suit? Man, I should’ve had Nazario get you one.” He kept sucking his teeth and saying,
coño, coño.

“I told you I have good suits, cotton ones,” I said, but he began to complain.

“No, no, no, you’ll throw her off. See, feel this, feel this.” It felt like silk; it was silk.

“Nice.” I shrugged.

“See, how’s that gonna look, you in cotton and me in silk? She’ll think I’m cheap. That I can’t buy you, her niece’s husband, a suit like mine or worse, that I don’t have enough—”

“Relax! Look, you say Vera loves you, right? Not me, right? I can go in shorts and it won’t matter.” He calmed down a bit, and I went to the bedroom to change. He asked if he could get a drink of water.

“You own the building,” I called out. But as I heard the water faucet I had an image, clear as day, of Sapo killing Salazar. I figured that now was a bad time to ask about it. I figured that if Bodega was right and Vera was still in love with him, nothing could ruin his day, so today would be a good time to ask him anything—but if he was wrong about Vera I was going to save the asking for another day. Then I smelled something.

“Wan’ a toke?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, bro. You’re gonna go see someone you haven’t seen in more than twenty years and you’re gonna smoke a joint before you see her?”

“I’m nervous, what the fuck you want me to do?”

“Relax, all right? And you should put that out because the smell stays in your clothes.” Bodega promptly threw the joint on the floor and killed it with his shiny shoe.

I went to the bathroom and combed my hair. When I came out Bodega was looking out the window. He was staring absently, as if he was seeing beyond what was there, as if he was back in some other place and time.

I shook him a little bit. He smiled, a bit embarrassed, as if he had been thinking about something sentimental, something weak. Something your friends might make fun of at your expense.

“Ready to go?” He cleared his throat and wiped his eye.

“Yeah, let’s go,” I said, making believe I had no idea what was in his head.

Outside it was a clear and warm day, one of those days that makes you happy you woke up early and hadn’t wasted the morning with sleep and weren’t going to kill the day with work. Walking with Bodega toward P.S. 72 on 104th and Lexington was like walking with a ghost that only I could see. Unlike walking with Nazario, when everyone came up and greeted you, saw you in a different light because of the company, with Bodega it was as casual as if you were walking with groceries. Only one man stopped us, and it wasn’t because of Bodega.

“
Qué pasa.
My name is Ebarito, I saw you with Mr. Nazario this morning,” he said to me. “
Si me haces el favor de decirle gracias por el seguro que me dió.
I want you to know that you are welcome at my social club anytime.”

I thanked him.

“And tell Mr. Nazario I owe Willie Bodega.” Bodega quickly motioned to me not to say a word. Not to introduce him as Willie Bodega. Ebarito shook my hand, then Bodega’s. I gave Ebarito my name and introduced Bodega as Jose Tapia. Ebarito said that my friend Jose was also welcome to drop by his social club. Then he complimented us on our suits, told us we looked like
la aristocracia puertorriqueña.
Bodega found this funny and asked Ebarito for his name again. Bodega made a mental note of it. He was going to reward Ebarito in the near future, I could tell. We kept walking.