Chango's Fire (29 page)

“All of us. He saved all of us.” Pops is shaken, with tears in his voice, he is making an effort to explain what's happened. “We were passing out from the smoke, and he appeared from a wall of fire, like he could control it and feel nothing, just like that.”

“He saved my life,” Mom cries,
“Cristo lo bendiga.”

We stand there, and soon the smoke in the air brings out our neighbors. Women console my mother as their husbands place their hands on my father's shoulders. Most of our neighbors look stunned. My parents' friends hug each other and some cry, because the time when fires ran rampant is still vivid in everyone's memory. Some eye-witnesses who had been at the
Asiento,
tell me that Papelito had run out of the ceremony he was conducting that very minute, as if he had been tipped off by some spirit. That some spirit whispered in his ear to immediately rush everyone out of the botanica. That something evil was about to happen. How Papelito then rushed upstairs to my house and saved my parents and the cat. How a wall of fire got between him and the outside world, engulfing him until Papelito became a flame himself.

I look at the crowd, a circus of colorful gowns, dancers, drummers, maracas, bells and shakers, and the sacrificial animals. All outside, not having had a chance to continue their ceremony, they all begin to pray for
ifa padrino.
Then, all of a sudden, they begin drumming and dancing, as if they want to give Papelito a funeral right there on the street. They invoke many Orisha gods in their songs, and they dance in his name.
Belen, Belen, es el ultimo Belen.
But I can't get into it. I look across the street at my building and at San Lazaro y Las Siete Vueltas, scorched, its glass window shattered into black pieces on the sidewalk. I feel as fractured as those pieces of glass. I didn't get a chance to thank him after all he'd done for me. To thank him and say I was sorry for disappointing him.

Many are celebrating his memory, but others are still wailing. I don't fall too far behind those who are crying. Papelito was my friend, and his saving my parents seems to have been his last gift to me.

 

For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here and will again—

J
AMES
B
ALDWIN
,
T
HE
F
IRE
N
EXT
T
IME

My
father has disability, and so, we're back in the projects. The deed was in Papelito's name, and now that he is no more, I have no records, no proof that the place had ever been mine. It didn't take that long, less than a year, for something else to be built at the site where we used to live. One day I was walking by that street. I saw these white guys walk out of the new building that used to be my home. I stopped and looked up at the windows. There was this anger that someone else was occupying my space. And later, when a Starbucks opened right in the space where the People's Church used to meet, I avoided the block altogether.

Helen now lives in a brownstone on 120th and First. Every time she sees me she crosses the street before I can get near her.

So I let her be.

…

I
never stopped hearing about Maritza. Or thinking about her. I wasn't there, but I knew it was fact. Not long after the fire, Maritza and Antonio had climbed to the roof of a tenement on 116th Street and Second Avenue. The boulevard is named after a Puerto Rican governor, Luis Munoz Marin, responsible for the depopulation of the island; but now so many Mexicans live on that avenue, there are so many
taquerias,
that it's being labeled Little Puebla. It was during a Mexican festival, I don't know which one, when everyone is out in the street, when the Mexican flag fluttered, its green, white, and red taking over the avenue, when those documents that Mario was after began raining on the people like confetti. Most knew what they were and quickly snatched them up from midair, like they were wishes, and swiftly left for their homes. Others stepped on them and continued partying, enjoying their newfound neighborhood.

And then Maritza disappeared.

Regardless, El Barrio remains a place where rumors grow wild, like trees do on the roofs of old, burned-out and abandoned buildings. Some say they have seen Maritza in Latin America, in some orphanage. Other rumors grew even wilder. In Mexico they mention her name along with some saints. She had helped a whole bunch of people's relatives when they had arrived, undocumented, here in the States. They spoke about how if you could find “La Santa,” she would make you an American and you'd no longer live in fear. Like a slave. Some say they have seen her in the Amazons. That she ate a sacred mushroom and became enlightened and now lives in caves, where she preaches to jaguars on the nobility of eating grass and plants. But I don't believe that one bit. I don't believe any of them. My guess is she's somewhere in the United States, lying low and helping out in some women's shelter or something like that. I do know she'll eventually show up. Whether Mario catches up with her or not. She'll be back, and when she does turn up at my door, she'll have no glamorous stories. No tales of heroism. Most likely she'll be cold and hungry and hit me up for money and demand favors, just like old times.

Maritza made her share of mistakes. She was an edgy, unpredictable creature who challenged American imperialism in a way in which no Puerto Rican or anyone could ever have imagined. That she failed is not surprising. That she even tried, that's the true miracle. The impact she created was enough to keep people dreaming. So, immigrants keep coming to Spanish Harlem. So do people like Greg. Maybe they'll balance each other in the future, who knows?

Maritza was always rude and mean to me, and I forget why, but I did love her. It was a long time ago, but I did.

I
got a job at a pizzeria. Pay is not so good but I can take some food home. One day a white man walked into the pizzeria and I knew he wasn't a yuppie prospector looking for cheap rent. I knew what he was. He asked me how much I made working at the pizza place and I told him. He then asked if I wanted to work in demolition. No experience necessary and that all I had to do was knock down walls and gut out tenements. He said he was going to do me a favor, I could work under his name, under his social security number, and when payday arrived we would swap checks for cash. I told him I was about to graduate and no thank you. School was the only bright spot in this whole mess. How I made all my classes and wrote all my papers during all this turmoil, I'll never know. I will have that degree by the end of the semester. The guy then said, nice talking to you, gave me a phone number, and said to “send your friends my way.” I told him I was on parole, I had to fly straight. He said so was he.

O
ne day I opened the mailbox to find an envelope with no return address. But by the smell of almonds I knew who it was from. The letter was short, more like a note. But it was a beginning, an opening of channels.

She didn't address it “Dear Julio” or sign it. Still, it was that last line that brought sunshine to my face. There are things that can't be written, said, or painted. I really think hope is one of those original things, like air or God, hope can't be successfully metaphored. And so, I hope Helen will eventually talk to me. And when she does, I will not explain anything, except shake hands with her and start from the beginning, again. Maybe I'll get it right this time.

M
y mother's anger toward me for not telling her everything has subsided. But she still holds me accountable for losing Helen.

Losing Helen? I was just getting to know her. But my mother already had us married. One night, as she watched her soaps on Telemundo, starring all these blond and blue-eyed Latin Americans crowding the screen, so many of them one would think there are no black or Indian people in Latin America, my mother kept sucking her teeth, “You could have married someone that looks like they do.” My father, who was at her side, tightening a conga drum, just laughed.

“I didn't,” he said, “I married you.”

“Hey que sangrón,
” my mother laughed back

The phone rang and I went to pick it up. Trompo Loco was being let out of the mental ward at Lincoln Hospital. We had counted the days for him to get out. I left to go pick him up. When I reached the hospital, I spoke with the doctor and collected his medicine. Then I went to the waiting room to see him. Trompo Loco was there, all ready and packed to come home. Seeing him anxiously awaiting my arrival made me feel ashamed that I never called him by his real name, Eduardo. So, I asked him if it was all right if I called him by his real name. He nodded and said that he likes both names and that he'd like to be called Eduardo only on weekends, because they are shorter, and Trompo Loco on weekdays, because there are more days there and he likes that name better. I said that was a great idea. I told him I was going to introduce him to his father by his real name.

E
ddie?” I interrupted his reading. As soon as he saw me, he knew what I was there for.

“Your son Eduardo is here.”

I hadn't dropped by since the fire. Eddie didn't get paid, because everything of mine was in Papelito's name. None of us got any money. But it was his son who lit that fire, and he was held accountable. His inside people had cut him off. The site was being investigated, so even that was also on hold. He was ruined, and so was his secret that he tried so hard to protect. A secret everybody knew.

“He's not my son,” Eddie said as if he was tired of saying it, like he had almost given up. Eddie must have denied the existence of Trompo to his friends at the insurance company left and right. Trying hard to make them believe Trompo was not his and therefore it was not his responsibility for the blunder. But it must have been no use. By now, Eddie had said it so many times that it only came out as a croak.

Eduardo was behind me.

“Hello, sir,” Eduardo said, crouching, scared as if he was about to see God's face.

“Hello,” Eddie said, uninterested.

“I did it for you,” Eduardo said, licking his lips.

“I didn't ask you to,” Eddie said, looking deeply in Eduardo's eyes, as if he was searching for traces of himself. But then he gave up, as if he had seen enough, and turned his face away.

“But I followed Julio that night and you wanted a fire, sir?” Eduardo had started to make fists with his hands, and his feet were shuffling.

“Well you screwed it all up.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“For what?” Eddie snapped a bit. “You screwed it all up.”

“For talking, sir.” Eduardo bowed, and he was so nervous at that point that he was ready to spin, so I held his hand.

“Eduardo,” I almost whispered, “we gotta go.”

“Okay Julio,” he said and looked back at his father before walking out with me. And though Trompo was happy that his father had finally talked to him, it was Eddie's silence that spoke volumes to me. I was never one to judge anybody, not after the things I've done, but here was Eddie's last chance at finding some redemption. To finally acknowledge a part of his life that he was responsible for creating. Mistake or not, Eduardo was his son, and all he wanted was for Eddie to look him in the eye and tell him the truth. I could have said things. I could have said to Eddie that I knew he burned his own mistress's that house. That Trompo Loco's mother became homeless because of him, and went crazy. How he could pray all he wanted, go to Rome and kiss the pope's ring, yet he could never take that back. But I saw how broken Eddie was, and it took all my strength not to say those things. To hold back and resist in not kicking him while he was down. Instead, we walked out on him. Leaving the old man to decay in that coffee shop.

There
was talk about this botanica out in Brooklyn run by a
babalawo
who was humble, good and real. So I went to check it out for myself. The botanica was very lively, and I did like it. Though it was nothing like San Lazaro y Las Siete Vueltas, the place did shine with its own resplendence. When I met the
santero,
I told him I wanted to walk in the “ways of the saints” and that I was sincere.