Drown (12 page)

I find her in her room. He likes clothes, she says.

A habit of money, I say but I can’t translate it right; I end up agreeing with her. Are you going to pack?

She holds up her purse. I have everything I need. He can keep the rest of it.

You should take some of your things.

I don’t care about that vaina. I just want to go.

Don’t be stupid, I say. I open her dresser and pull out the shorts on top and a handful of soft bright panties fall out and roll down the front of my jeans. There are more in the drawer. I try to catch them but as soon as I touch their fabric I let everything go.

Leave it. Go on, she says and begins to put them back in the dresser, her square back to me, the movement of her hands smooth and easy.

Look, I say.

Don’t worry. She doesn’t look up.

I go downstairs. Wayne is sinking the bolts into the slate with the Makita. You can’t do it, he says.

Why not?

Kid. We have to finish this.

I’ll be back before you know it. A quick trip, in out.

Kid. He stands up slowly; he’s nearly twice as old as me.

I go to the window and look out. New gingkoes stand in rows beside the driveway. A thousand years ago when I was still in college I learned something about them. Living fossils. Unchanged since their inception millions of years ago. You tagged Charlene, didn’t you?

Sure did, he answers easily.

I take the truck keys out of the toolbox. I’ll be right back, I promise.

My mother still has pictures of the girlfriend in her apartment. The girlfriend’s the sort of person who never looks bad. There’s a picture of us at the bar where I taught her to play pool. She’s leaning on the Schmelke I stole for her, nearly a grand worth of cue, frowning at the shot I left her, a shot she’d go on to miss.

The picture of us in Florida is the biggest—shiny, framed, nearly a foot tall. We’re in our bathing suits and the legs of some stranger frame the right. She has her butt in the sand, knees folded up in front of her because she knew I was sending the picture home to my moms; she didn’t want my mother to see her bikini, didn’t want my mother to think her a whore. I’m crouching next to her, smiling, one hand on her thin shoulder, one of her moles showing between my fingers.

My mother won’t look at the pictures or talk about her when I’m around but my sister says she still cries over the breakup. Around me my mother’s polite, sits quietly on the couch while I tell her about what I’m reading and how work has been. Do you have anyone? she asks me sometimes.

Yes, I say.

She talks to my sister on the side, says, In my dreams they’re still together.

We reach the Washington Bridge without saying a word. She’s emptied his cupboards and refrigerator; the bags are at her feet. She’s eating corn chips but I’m too nervous to join in.

Is this the best way? she asks. The bridge doesn’t seem to impress her.

It’s the shortest way.

She folds the bag shut. That’s what he said when I arrived last year. I wanted to see the countryside. There was too much rain to see anything anyway.

I want to ask her if she loves her boss, but I ask instead, How do you like the States?

She swings her head across at the billboards. I’m not surprised by any of it, she says.

Traffic on the bridge is bad and she has to give me an oily fiver for the toll. Are you from the Capital? I ask.

No.

I was born there. In Villa Juana. Moved here when I was a little boy.

She nods, staring out at the traffic. As we cross over the bridge I drop my hand into her lap. I leave it there, palm up, fingers slightly curled. Sometimes you just have to try, even if you know it won’t work. She turns her head away slowly, facing out beyond the bridge cables, out to Manhattan and the Hudson.

Everything in Washington Heights is Dominican. You can’t go a block without passing a Quisqueya Bakery or a Quisqueya Supermercado or a Hotel Quisqueya. If I were to park the truck and get out nobody would take me for a deliveryman; I could be the guy who’s on the street corner selling Dominican flags. I could be on my way home to my girl. Everybody’s on the streets and the merengue’s falling out of windows like TVs. When we reach her block I ask a kid with the sag for the building and he points out the stoop with his pinkie. She gets out of the truck and straightens the front of her sweatshirt before following the line that the kid’s finger has cut across the street. Cuídate, I say.

Wayne works on the boss and a week later I’m back, on probation, painting the warehouse. Wayne brings me meatball sandwiches from out on the road, skinny things with a seam of cheese gumming the bread.

Was it worth it? he asks me.

He’s watching me close. I tell him it wasn’t.

Did you at least get some?

Hell yeah, I say.

Are you sure?

Why would I lie about something like that? Homegirl was an animal. I still have the teeth marks.

Damn, he says.

I punch him in the arm. And how’s it going with you and Charlene?

I don’t know, man. He shakes his head and in that motion I see him out on his lawn with all his things. I just don’t know about this one.

We’re back on the road a week later. Buckinghams, Imperials, Gold Crowns and dozens of card tables. I keep a copy of Pruitt’s paperwork and when the curiosity finally gets to me I call. The first time I get the machine. We’re delivering at a house in Long Island with a view of the Sound that would break you. Wayne and I smoke a joint on the beach and I pick up a dead horseshoe crab by the tail and heave it in the customer’s garage. The next two times I’m in the Bedminster area Pruitt picks up and says, Yes? But on the fourth time she answers and the sink is running on her side of the phone and she shuts it off when I don’t say anything.

Was she there? Wayne asks in the truck.

Of course she was.

He runs a thumb over the front of his teeth. Pretty predictable. She’s probably in love with the guy. You know how it is.

I sure do.

Don’t get angry.

I’m tired, that’s all.

Tired’s the best way to be, he says. It really is.

He hands me the map and my fingers trace our deliveries, stitching city to city. Looks like we’ve gotten everything, I say.

Finally. He yawns. What’s first tomorrow?

We won’t really know until the morning, when I’ve gotten the paperwork in order but I take guesses anyway. One of our games. It passes the time, gives us something to look forward to. I close my eyes and put my hand on the map. So many towns, so many cities to choose from. Some places are sure bets but more than once I’ve gone with the long shot and been right.

You can’t imagine how many times I’ve been right.

Usually the name will come to me fast, the way the numbered balls pop out during the lottery drawings, but this time nothing comes: no magic, no nothing. It could be anywhere. I open my eyes and see that Wayne is still waiting. Edison, I say, pressing my thumb down. Edison, New Jersey.

HOW TO DATE A BROWNGIRL, BLACKGIRL, WHITEGIRL,

Wait for
your brother and your mother to leave the apartment. You’ve already told them that you’re feeling too sick to go to Union City to visit that tía who likes to squeeze your nuts. (He’s gotten big, she’ll say.) And even though your moms knows you ain’t sick you stuck to your story until finally she said, Go ahead and stay, malcriado.

Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. If the girl’s from the Terrace stack the boxes behind the milk. If she’s from the Park or Society Hill hide the cheese in the cabinet above the oven, way up where she’ll never see. Leave yourself a reminder to get it out before morning or your moms will kick your ass. Take down any embarrassing photos of your family in the campo, especially the one with the half-naked kids dragging a goat on a rope leash. The kids are your cousins and by now they’re old enough to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Hide the pictures of yourself with an Afro. Make sure the bathroom is presentable. Put the basket with all the crapped-on toilet paper under the sink. Spray the bucket with Lysol, then close the cabinet.

Shower, comb, dress. Sit on the couch and watch TV. If she’s an outsider her father will be bringing her, maybe her mother. Neither of them want her seeing any boys from the Terrace—people get stabbed in the Terrace—but she’s strong-headed and this time will get her way. If she’s a whitegirl you know you’ll at least get a hand job.

The directions were in your best handwriting, so her parents won’t think you’re an idiot. Get up from the couch and check the parking lot. Nothing. If the girl’s local, don’t sweat it. She’ll flow over when she’s good and ready. Sometimes she’ll run into her other friends and a whole crowd will show up at your apartment and even though that means you ain’t getting shit it will be fun anyway and you’ll wish these people would come over more often. Sometimes the girl won’t flow over at all and the next day in school she’ll say sorry, smile and you’ll be stupid enough to believe her and ask her out again.

Wait and after an hour go out to your corner. The neighborhood is full of traffic. Give one of your boys a shout and when he says, Are you still waiting on that bitch? say, Hell yeah.

Get back inside. Call her house and when her father picks up ask if she’s there. He’ll ask, Who is this? Hang up. He sounds like a principal or a police chief, the sort of dude with a big neck, who never has to watch his back. Sit and wait. By the time your stomach’s ready to give out on you, a Honda or maybe a Jeep pulls in and out she comes.

Hey, you’ll say.

Look, she’ll say. My mom wants to meet you. She’s got herself all worried about nothing.

Don’t panic. Say, Hey, no problem. Run a hand through your hair like the whiteboys do even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa. She will look good. The white ones are the ones you want the most, aren’t they, but usually the out-of-towners are black, blackgirls who grew up with ballet and Girl Scouts, who have three cars in their driveways. If she’s a halfie don’t be surprised that her mother is white. Say, Hi. Her moms will say hi and you’ll see that you don’t scare her, not really. She will say that she needs easier directions to get out and even though she has the best directions in her lap give her new ones. Make her happy.

You have choices. If the girl’s from around the way, take her to El Cibao for dinner. Order everything in your busted-up Spanish. Let her correct you if she’s Latina and amaze her if she’s black. If she’s not from around the way, Wendy’s will do. As you walk to the restaurant talk about school. A local girl won’t need stories about the neighborhood but the other ones might. Supply the story about the loco who’d been storing canisters of tear gas in his basement for years, how one day the canisters cracked and the whole neighborhood got a dose of the military-strength stuff. Don’t tell her that your moms knew right away what it was, that she recognized its smell from the year the United States invaded your island.

Hope that you don’t run into your nemesis, Howie, the Puerto Rican kid with the two killer mutts. He walks them all over the neighborhood and every now and then the mutts corner themselves a cat and tear it to shreds, Howie laughing as the cat flips up in the air, its neck twisted around like an owl, red meat showing through the soft fur. If his dogs haven’t cornered a cat, he will walk behind you and ask, Hey, Yunior, is that your new fuckbuddy?

Let him talk. Howie weighs about two hundred pounds and could eat you if he wanted. At the field he will turn away. He has new sneakers, and doesn’t want them muddy. If the girl’s an outsider she will hiss now and say, What a fucking asshole. A homegirl would have been yelling back at him the whole time, unless she was shy. Either way don’t feel bad that you didn’t do anything. Never lose a fight on a first date or that will be the end of it.

Dinner will be tense. You are not good at talking to people you don’t know. A halfie will tell you that her parents met in the Movement, will say, Back then people thought it a radical thing to do. It will sound like something her parents made her memorize. Your brother once heard that one and said, Man, that sounds like a whole lot of Uncle Tomming to me. Don’t repeat this.

Put down your hamburger and say, It must have been hard.

She will appreciate your interest. She will tell you more. Black people, she will say, treat me real bad. That’s why I don’t like them. You’ll wonder how she feels about Dominicans. Don’t ask. Let her speak on it and when you’re both finished eating walk back into the neighborhood. The skies will be magnificent. Pollutants have made Jersey sunsets one of the wonders of the world. Point it out. Touch her shoulder and say, That’s nice, right?

Get serious. Watch TV but stay alert. Sip some of the Bermúdez your father left in the cabinet, which nobody touches. A local girl may have hips and a thick ass but she won’t be quick about letting you touch. She has to live in the same neighborhood you do, has to deal with you being all up in her business. She might just chill with you and then go home. She might kiss you and then go, or she might, if she’s reckless, give it up, but that’s rare. Kissing will suffice. A whitegirl might just give it up right then. Don’t stop her. She’ll take her gum out of her mouth, stick it to the plastic sofa covers and then will move close to you. You have nice eyes, she might say.

Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.

She’ll say, I like Spanish guys, and even though you’ve never been to Spain, say, I like you. You’ll sound smooth.

You’ll be with her until about eight-thirty and then she will want to wash up. In the bathroom she will hum a song from the radio and her waist will keep the beat against the lip of the sink. Imagine her old lady coming to get her, what she would say if she knew her daughter had just lain under you and blown your name, pronounced with her eighth-grade Spanish, into your ear. While she’s in the bathroom call one of your boys and say, Lo hice, loco. Or just sit back on the couch and smile.