The Empanada Brotherhood (3 page)

“Not so fast, amigo.” Alfonso dipped a wooden ice cream spoon into his little dulce de leche cup and licked off the caramel paste. “If I marry beautiful, tempestuous Renata, I am doomed. We'll end up in a loony bin together. But if I marry Sofía, I'll have a comfortable house and somebody to bring me my pipe and slippers. I'll eat well, live longer, and be a better mathematician. And eventually I'll forget Renata and learn to love Sofía.”

I drummed up the courage to venture this opinion: “I think passion is more important than security.”

Alfonso laughed and threw an arm around my shoulders. “Blondie, what could you possibly know about passion or security?”

Suddenly those boys had things to do and they disappeared, leaving me alone with Roldán. But before we could start a conversation a white limousine double-parked nearby and Chuy hopped out dressed in a red velvet devil suit. He ran to the kiosk, shouting, “Four chicken pies, chubby, and make it snappy! I've got three pibas in that meat wagon and we're late for a fiesta.” He put a twenty on the window ledge. “Throw in four Cokes and straws and keep the change.”

Chuy yanked a bunch of napkins from the aluminum dispenser and grabbed one of the Cokes Roldán had slapped onto the window ledge. “Help me, Hemingway, I've only got one hand,” Chuy ordered. I picked up the other sodas and followed him to the limo.

Two of the girls wore full costumes; one was a tiger outfit, the other a black panther. The third girl was Cathy Escudero. She had on a flowery blue flamenco dress and no face mask. One hand held an open pink fan and she was smoking a cigarette.

“Apurate, manco,” Cathy snapped at Chuy. “We can't be late. I do my number at midnight.”

“Hold your water, kid, we'll get there.”

I went back to the kiosk, wrapped three empanadas carefully in napkins, and carried them to the girls.

“Gracias,” said the tiger, “muy amable.”

“Te agradezco, Yankee,” said the panther.

Cathy growled, “If this drips grease on my dress I'll strangle somebody.”

Chuy hopped into the limo, shouted “Vámonos!” to the chauffeur, and they took off.

Roldán wiped his pudgy fingers on his apron and said, “That guy puts me in a black mood.” He was huffing from exertion.

“Did you see the flamenco dancer?” I asked.

“How could I see her?” he grumbled. “I was cooking.”

During the second week of November, Gino showed up for his night of work at the kiosk accompanied by a girl he introduced as his girlfriend, a half-pint ebullient chatterbox with dimples who wore slacks and a green Swiss hat with a badger brush in the band. Because she was small everyone called her La Petisa—which means “shorty.”

“I'm a wanderer,” she said. “I speak Spanish, French, English, and Italian, so you can see I have been around the block. My favorite, however, is French. I love Gino, of course, but his home is a pigsty.”

Paying no attention to her, Gino prepared some empanadas for three elderly Italians smoking cigars while standing at the window: each of them wore a gray fedora.

“I do not understand how one who is as handsome as Gino could let his apartment become such a quilombo,” La Petisa continued. “Look how well he dresses. Yet at home his clothes are lying everywhere, hanging over the radiators, slung under the bed, fallen off hangers onto the closet floor. The only furniture in his dump is a single mattress, no sheets, and the sink is always full of dirty dishes. The first thing I did when I arrived last week was buy a broom. I am going to whip that hellhole into shape.”

“I'm going to whip
you
into shape if you don't shut up.” Gino dropped three more beef and quince empanadas into the sizzling bin of fat.

“Hah.” La Petisa jutted her tiny chin at him. “He who cannot even speak English is telling
moi
to
ferme ma gueule
?
Tu peux bien te taire toi-même,
Gino,
gros oeuf.
”

Alfonso said, “Hey, that's impolite.”

“Relax, the fool doesn't mind,” she replied in English. “He can't understand French. Or English. He is completely vacant between the ears. But he's pretty,
n'est-ce pas
?”

Alfonso said, “What does it accomplish to speak one language or ten if you remain a barbarian in every lingo?”

“I'm not a barbarian, profe, I'm a lover.”

“Then why do you talk crap to Gino in a foreign language when you know he only speaks Spanish?”

“It's a joke and he's a grown-up,” La Petisa answered.

“No, it's not such a joke. To a kid it would be funny and he might understand. But adults are really sub-children and much too sensitive to absorb the mocking you give Gino.”

“Oh hush, you're way too serious.” La Petisa kissed Alfonso's cheek. “Truce, profe, I can't bear enemies. Please shake my hand.”

They shook hands. Gino gave her a glower so she wouldn't kiss me, too. La Petisa said, “As soon as I get our crib cleaned up we'll have a big party with mate, empanadas, vino, and a parrilla. I'm a great chef. I can cook in five languages, you know.”

“She can do something else in five languages, too.” Gino winked at us as he set the dripping empanadas onto a paper towel on the window ledge for the Italians. They paid, bit off the pie tops, shook in Tabasco sauce, tipped their fedoras politely, and wandered north on MacDougal weaving calmly through the tourists.

Alfonso and I trailed after them. We ambled past shabby trinket shops and Johnny's Italian Newsstand. In front of us a guy with a guitar entered the Gaslight to play for tips.
Standing under the Washington Square arch we gazed at the stormy sky for a minute. Leaves had fallen off all the trees.

“Dammit, friend, I'm horny,” Alfonso admitted. “I envy Gino. I can't stand it that Renata and Sofía are so far away in Argentina. I wish I had a woman.”

“Me too,” I said bravely, thinking about Cathy Escudero.

A cold rain began to fall and pedestrians ran by shielding their heads with folded newspapers.

Alfonso groaned: “Qué soledad sin descanso!”

What a loneliness without end.

Luigi couldn't bear it that Gino was screwing La Petisa.

Alfonso did not understand. “What's it to you?”

“She should be with me because I like her. I can't help it. If only she could see beyond my burnt face, I know that she'd love my soul.”

“Gino's good-looking,” Alfonso pointed out realistically. “He's big and strong. A natural magnet for women.”

“I was more handsome than that dumb ox. He's a papiermâché human being who is empty inside. I am the real thing. I read books, I go to movies, I can talk about Sartre and Miguel Ángel Asturias. I am a passionate and relevant man. Gino is a putz.”

Alfonso draped an arm around Luigi's shoulders. “But you're short and you have a scary face. One day you'll land your woman, but she will be a rare specimen, and you'll have to watch out she doesn't bore you to death with compassion.”

“No,” Luigi said. “I want
this
one. Right
now.
”

“You can't have her,” Alfonso said. “God doesn't hate you enough.”

Popeye was growing bored with Luigi's rant. “Che, calm down, boludo. There's not a máquina on the globe that's worth blowing a gasket over.”

Luigi spit at him.

Popeye looked down at the front of his shirt, horrified. Then he looked up at Luigi, who was looking at Popeye, appalled by what he'd done. Popeye looked over at Roldán, who shrugged and rolled his eyes. So the sailor man looked at me.

“Did you see
that,
blondie?”

Paralyzed, I did not know what to say.

Popeye appealed to Alfonso: “What did he do that for?”

“I don't know,” the professor said. “Ask Luigi.”

Popeye said, “Why did you do that, Luigi?”

“Because I'm an asshole,” Luigi replied, thoroughly contrite. “I'll buy you a new shirt, marinero. I'm sorry. I apologize.”

“It's okay,” Popeye said. “I didn't mean to be so obnoxious, quemado. It was really my fault.”

Luigi said, “No, no,
I'm
the guy who is ashamed and needs to make amends. I lost control. There's no excuse …”

Alfonso hoisted an imaginary violin and began to play it.

I typed all morning and half the afternoon on Thanksgiving, then went for a walk up West Broadway. It was a cold, windy day beneath an overcast sky. On Bleecker Street I turned left and headed past the Village Gate and the Greenwich Hotel, a flophouse. The empanada stand was closed and Roldán had taped an announcement in Spanish to the plywood window shutter:

DAY OF THANKS
Come upstairs if you are hungry.
There is safety in numbers.

I climbed three flights to his door and knocked loudly. Presently the fat man opened up, saying, “Bienvenido, blondie. Mi casa es tu casa.”

He wore a filthy T-shirt, baggy boxer shorts, old blue flip-flops. The apartment was very hot; I began perspiring like an empanada in the grease bin. I followed him to the kitchen where an enormous turkey sat on a platter on the table. He indicated a chair for me and settled down on the other side with the bird between us. There was an open bottle of wine and he poured me some.

“Take whatever meat you need, muchacho. It's a big bird. Want me to cut a chunk for you?”

“No. I can handle it.” Being alone with Roldán made me uncomfortable. His TV was tuned to a football game.

“Have any of the patota been by?” I asked.

“No, nobody from the gang. They're all out eating with Pilgrims who intend to shoot them later on.” He chuckled.

I felt tongue-tied. Roldán was vaguely soused and had a slight lisp. His clothes were soaked through with sweat. Huge droplets of salty moisture had gathered across his forehead, creating rivulets down to his cheeks. I filled my plate with turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, a sweet potato. Then I raised my glass in a toast:

“Salud, amor, dinero—”

“—y muchisimo tiempo para gastarlos.”

Health, love, money … and all the time in the world to spend them.

The cook proffered his own glass with awkward gusto, slopping out a few drops. Then we consumed food quietly until he asked me, “Why aren't you eating with your family?”

“They live far away in California.”

I asked him about his own family.

“My mother died when I was three. My father shot himself with an antique firearm. I lived with my grandmother until she tossed me out. They are all dead and buried, rest in peace.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Eleven. We split up early. Seven of us survived, but I lost track when I was still very young. You know, during the Depression.”

When I inquired, “Have you ever been married?” Roldán laughed, saying, “Good God, no.” Yet he dug into a back pocket for his wallet, removing from it a tattered arcade photograph rubbed almost illegible. He handed it over to me. I could barely make out a youngster with an angelic face framed by curly blonde hair.

“A long time ago I fell in love with that girl. We lived in my room at a boardinghouse for six months. Then she left and never returned.”

He reached for the picture and I gave it back to him. “If she had stuck around I would have married her.”

“Why did she leave?”

“I don't know.” He studied the picture thoughtfully. “We screwed each other like babies and she cuddled every night in my arms. She could fall asleep in ten seconds, and I watched her snooze for hours completely relaxed like a puppy.”

“After she left did you receive any letters?”

He shook his head. “She was illiterate. I remember that her hands were smaller than mice and very quick. She could pinch flies off the windowpane between her thumb and forefinger.”

“What was her name?” I asked.

“Teresa Mono.” He made a small gesture of dismissal and put away her photograph. He had trouble stuffing the chunky wallet back into his rear pocket. Then he said, “When she left me my heart was broken and I ran away from Argentina for consolation.”

Roldán had worked in Bolivian coal mines. He started a restaurant in Lima, Peru, that was successful until he offended the gangsters who made his liquor deliveries. In Nicaragua he repaired tractors and other large machinery on a finca near the ocean. Then came Guatemala. There he owned a street cart from which he sold popcorn, potato chips, peanuts, and soda pop. The refrain he cried out all day long, every day for three years, was: “Poporopo, papalina, maní y agua!”

The cocinero opened his first empanada stand in Mexico
City. It kept him afloat for two years until he grew bored and purchased a bus ticket to New York.

I said, “You've been to a lot of countries. You've witnessed many things, Roldán.”

“Yes, I've seen a lot of shit, blondie.” He hefted another sweet potato, devouring it like an empanada. “Our planet is a truly remarkable pigpen. I have seen children with their throats slit in the gutter, and a man with a machine gun preparing to kill a woman. On a Nicaragua beach I saw a dead shark twice the size of a car. The Lima homeless sleep on cold streets in beds of piss, but there is a library more fabulous than a cathedral. More turkey?”

“No, gracias.” I looked at my watch and got up to leave. I had to wash dishes at the Night Owl. Roldán shook my hand, telling me to go with God. I thanked him for the meal and for the stories. At the door he said, “Maybe I'll see you tomorrow night at the empanada stand?”

“Maybe,” I said, and then I blurted, “Listen, I'd like to meet one of the girls in Chuy's book but I don't know how to arrange it.”

He said, “It's simple. Ask Chuy when next you see him.”