The Empanada Brotherhood (2 page)

Luigi remained silent, steaming in his own juices.

“What do
you
think, blondie?” Alfonso asked me, wiping his horn-rimmed glasses clean. He was a mathematics genius getting a doctorate at NYU.

I smiled. But what could I say to my new friends about this topic? At twenty-one and just out of college, I was very shy and still a virgin. It was the early 1960s, with no sexual revolution yet. Women to me were half demons, half angels, pitiless and exquisite, utterly mysterious and unapproachable.

Popeye double-parked a diaper truck nearby and came over to the kiosk accompanied by another guy I hadn't met before. The sliding window facing the sidewalk was open and Popeye put a dollar on the ledge. Inside the kiosk, in the cramped alley, Alfonso, Carlos the Artist, and I were watching a movie starring Jane Russell and Clark Gable on Roldán's portable TV lodged on a shelf above the coffee machine. Carlos had straggly hair and a handlebar mustache. He fancied himself an existential Dadaist and worshiped Jean Cocteau.

Popeye ordered a yerba mate for himself and a hot chocolate for his sidekick.

“I have a new job,” he proclaimed. “Who wants to buy my nylons?” The boys pronounced his name “Po-PAY-shea.” Popeye pronounced his own name with a lisp because he lacked his four most prominent front teeth. He had once been a sailor in Argentina's merchant marine.

Alfonso pointed out, “The sign on that truck says ‘Diapers.'”

“I sell nylons very cheaply, that's why I drive a diaper truck. This is my friend Chuy.”

Chuy greeted everyone and immediately began to talk about himself. He had an effeminate face, and his blond hair was cut in a pageboy. He had arrived stateside to have surgery done on his arm after losing his hand in a car accident. His own true love had been killed in the crash that robbed him of his hand, so naturally he was a sad man. When he felt really morose he took it out on other ladies. Chuy had a quality the pibas adored, he couldn't explain exactly. But
they fell hopelessly in love with him at first sight. To relieve his personal sorrow Chuy fucked these women until he felt happier again. If the minas were plentiful he only remained sad for short periods. Right now he had a half dozen girls on a weekly rotation taking care of his blues. The reason so many miserable men lived on this planet was that very few of them had balls the caliber of Chuy's. “Tanto cojo las minas que tengo orquitis.”

Alfonso said, “Che, get out of here, you're stinking up the kiosk with your ego.”

Chuy bristled. “Wait a minute, profe. You're stinking up the kiosk with your envidia.”

Carlos the Artist said, “Leave us alone you miserable buffoon. We're watching television.”

“I can see that,” Chuy said. “Jane Russell? This must be a circle jerk.”

At that moment a pretty girl wearing Bermuda shorts strutted by walking a miniature poodle. Chuy whistled and dashed from the stand, following her.

“Carajo,” Alfonso grumbled to Popeye. “Where did you pick up that bag of manure?”

“He's very rich,” Popeye said. “He has millions. He doesn't even have to work. And what he says about his success with women is true. He has a book filled with their photographs. He can get you introductions for free. They're all good girls and friends of his. I think we should be nice to him even if he's a creep and that missing hand gives us the willies.”

Just then a person the size of a mouse arrived at the sidewalk window wearing a black leather jacket, baggy jeans with rolled-up cuffs, and red Converse All-Stars. Eddie Ortega was
an errand boy for some local shady characters. He had a crew cut and a little mustache. Roldán punched the
NO SALE
key on his register, removed a few bills from the drawer, and gave them to the Puerto Rican gofer who made a cryptic entry in his pocket notebook.

After Eddie slithered off Alfonso said, “I think all the Chuys in the world should be locked in iron cages and hung from gibbets. I have no tolerance for that type of parasite.”

Roldán immediately poured us free coffee refills in honor of gibbeting those bad Chuys.

The muchachos disliked Chuy for poking his book of girls in front of their noses, but nobody could refuse to look. Chuy commented salaciously about this piba or that chica—girls, girls, and more girls. How could a man as oily as Chuy be that successful with them?

According to Alfonso, “It's his filthy money. Also they feel sorry for him because of that hand.”

Carlos the Artist agreed. “You always see beautiful women with cripples.”

Luigi said, “The more you're a louse the more they spread their legs.”

Carlos said, “With your face, Luigi, you should have a dozen muchachas crawling all over you.”

“My burned skin is too much for them.” Luigi took a small bottle from his pocket and squeezed drops into his eyes. “It strikes fear instead of sympathy.”

Speak of the devil. Chuy arrived at the kiosk with a statuesque snob on his arm who acted like Greta Garbo. She wore a black pants suit, sunglasses despite the night darkness, and was smoking an English cigarette. They stayed at the sidewalk window because the rest of us had filled up the narrow alley for patrons inside the cubicle. It would have been polite to move out of the alley for Greta Garbo, and normally Alfonso would have initiated the gesture. But the snob had put him in a petulant mood so he didn't budge.

Roldán said, “Caballeros, there is a lady outside on cold pavement in the wind.”

The lady was from Venezuela. She barked at the cocinero: “I can handle it, tubby. Give me a chicken empanada.”

“Make that two,” Chuy said, taking out his wallet and filtering through a bunch of twenties before he procured a ten and slapped it down expansively. We couldn't take our eyes off this crisp bill which had emerged from such a fat stack of cash.

“Wait a minute,” Alfonso said. “Your money's no good here. Take it back. I'm buying.”

Chuy said, “Don't patronize me, profe. You're always broke.”

From his own billfold Alfonso removed the only piece of foliage, a ten-dollar bill. He set it on the counter between the alley and the grease bin.

“I insist,” he announced grandly. “Nothing is too good for my friend Chuy and his novia.”

“I'm not his fiancée,” said Greta Garbo. “I'm his accountant.”

“Order two empanadas apiece,” Alfonso said derisively. “Live it up while you're still young.”

The cook wrapped the empanadas in napkins, put them on paper plates, and placed the plates before Chuy and the accountant.

Chuy caught Alfonso by surprise by saying, “Thank you, we accept your gift with pleasure.”

Now there was nothing for Roldán to do but scoop in Alfonso's sawbuck. He rang it up on the till and delivered the change, carefully counting pennies into the professor's palm. You could tell he was sorry to see a man as broke as Alfonso being one-upped by a braggart like Chuy.

The rich gigolo said, “You think you can insult me but you can't.” He bit off the top of his empanada, shook in Tabasco, and took a hefty bite. “Mmm, this is
good.
”

Then he fetched the book of photographs from his briefcase and leaned through the window, extending the album over the grease bin toward Alfonso.

“Anybody you want, profe. Just tell me. I'll make the introductions.”

In English, Alfonso said, “When snowballs melt in hell, you punk.”

Carlos the Artist eagerly grabbed the book and opened it. Luigi and I also gave it our undivided attention. Carlos turned a page and my heart stopped. There was a girl wearing a flamenco dress with a ruffled hem and poufy shoulders; a flower decorated her dark hair. She was young and pretty and insolent. The hands raised over her head were twisted dramatically and she glared at the camera with sexy anger.

Chuy noticed my expression. “That's Cathy Escudero, blondie. Do you like her?”

Luigi wondered, “How can such a precious kid wind up in a book like this?”

Chuy said, “She's a foul-mouthed guttersnipe but one heck of a dancer. If you want to meet her just say the word. She's only nineteen.”

He devoured his empanada with exaggerated gusto, licking his manicured fingers, and promptly ordered another for himself and also for the accountant. That was too much for the professor who demanded to be let free of the alley. When we emptied onto the sidewalk he stormed off in a huff, completely humiliated.

Chuy wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Mirá, che, that was a good empanada!” he called after Alfonso. “Gracias!”

“Mine was great also!” yelled Greta Garbo.

Eduardo worked on documentary films and commercials for a local Spanish-language television station. He wore a Brooks Brothers suit and a gold stickpin in his tie. The shirt was button-down and striped, very elegant. Shiny patent-leather shoes completed the uptown outfit. But tonight he seemed loaded and his eyes were red from smoking marijuana. He stood on the sidewalk at the window sipping hot coffee as he complained angrily: “I think my wife, Adriana, is seeing another guy. If she is I'll kill her.”

Roldán said, “Excuse me, but aren't you two divorced?”

“Of course. I couldn't stand her. I'm glad to be rid of her. But that doesn't mean the slut can go around making me look bad by dating other guys. I'm not going to wear the horns because of that bitch.”

“They aren't horns if you're not married,” Popeye pointed out from the alley. “Relax, nene. Babes are a dime a dozen.”

“If it feels like horns to me it's horns,” Eduardo insisted. “And it feels like horns. So I am going to kill her.”

Luigi said, “They'll put you in jail. This is America. You can't erase your ex-wife for a crime of passion and get away with it.”

“I don't care. All of New York City is laughing at me. I saw them enter her apartment building yesterday. He's fat and ugly, a real pimp. Her bad taste is a personal insult to me.”

Alfonso said, “You're wasting your time, man. You divorced her so forget her.”

“I can't forget her,” Eduardo groaned. “Before we got divorced she bored me to tears. I couldn't stand the sight of
her. All I wanted to do was be with other women. But the minute that judge signed our divorce decree Adriana became like a cancer in my heart. It's eating me alive. I'm going to strangle her with my own hands.”

Roldán laughed. “If you do, blondie here will write a book about it. And you'll become a famous buffoon in the United States.”

Eduardo glowered in my direction. “If blondie writes a book about me I'll strangle
him
with my own hands.”

Hastily, I said, “I'm not going to write a book about you, I promise.”

Luigi said, “She isn't worth it. You're lucky to be free.”

Eduardo sneered, “What the hell would a burnt face like you know about women?”

Luigi eyed Eduardo thoughtfully for a moment but decided not to hit him. Instead, he told Roldán, “Give this moron another cup of black coffee.” He clacked a quarter onto the counter:

“I'm paying for it.”

On Halloween night I arrived at the empanada stand around eleven
P.M.
after my stint washing dishes at the Night Owl Café. Half a dozen customers were eating pies while leaning against parked cars nearby. Werewolves, hobgoblins, and Frankensteins still crowded the Village sidewalks. The air smelled like Neapolitan pizza and Italian sausages. Taxicabs honked impatiently in the traffic jams on Bleecker and Mac-Dougal. Roldán wore a Lone Ranger mask and a cowboy hat. He had taped black cardboard bats and orange jack-o'-lanterns to the walls inside the kiosk. A record was playing on the portable Victrola he often brought down from his apartment, which was three floors above the kiosk in the same building. The cook owned a vast collection of tangos on old 78s featuring Argentina's legendary crooner, Carlos Gardel.

I opened the door to the stand and slipped into the alley beside Luigi. He had on a beautiful face mask that he must have made himself. His cheeks were unblemished and rosy, his forehead white as snow, his chin sweet and clean. I ordered a coffee and splurged on a pastelito. Roldán gave me a lollipop skull from Mexico for free. Luigi was already sucking on one.

Carlos the Artist came by wearing an atomic bomb costume fashioned from painted cardboard. Beside him Alfonso looked nutty in a beret, oversized vertigo spectacles, and a pair of plastic buckteeth. They carried shopping bags full of goodies obtained from trick-or-treating in Times Square.

“Eduardo was with us,” Carlos said. He took off his nose cone, ordered a mate and a beef empanada, and snatched
a lollipop skull from the box which was almost empty. His handlebar mustache was dyed bright red.

Alfonso removed his teeth and zany eyewear. He fetched his real glasses from a pocket and fitted them on carefully, blinking at us, focusing. Then he jumped back, startled, but only in jest. “Yikes, Luigi, you
scared
me.”

“Eduardo can't stop bitching about Adriana,” Carlos said. “He's going nuts over a woman he hates and isn't even married to anymore.”

“Have a little sympathy, man.” Alfonso quoted Pascal: “‘The heart has its reasons which even reason does not understand.'”

Carlos said, “It's not his heart, it's the ego attached to his penis.”

Alfonso said, “So what? I myself have a comparable dilemma. I'm torn between two women in Argentina who wish to be hitched to me. Renata is glamorous, passionate, and very unstable. I love her but she's crazy. Sofía is an even-keeled lady, a longtime friend whom I like but do not love. Yet I think it's her I will wind up with, much to my personal dismay.”

Carlos scoffed, “That makes about as much sense as Eduardo's attitude toward Adriana.”