Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue

by Mark Kurlansky

  Sarah nodded her head yes, and Nathan smiled and held her close to him and felt her small arms hold him with surprising strength. Then she went off to see her grandfather.

  Ruth, finding Nathan alone in the dark, said to him, "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, I'm fine. I was at Uncle Nusan's."

  "Yes, I know"

  "Let me ask you something." Nathan hesitated. "Do you think I am passive-aggressive?"

  "What? What does that mean?"

  "It means that I don't confront people when I am angry with them but then find little ways, maybe subconscious ways, to get back."

  "Oh boy! Who have you been talking to?"

  "No one, I just wondered."

  "I'll have to think about it." Ruth announced that everyone should eat up because she was bringing up a special dessert before the fireworks. The family braced themselves for apple strudel. Nathan took Soma's hand and smiled at her sadly. Sonia looked down at her hand in his and then studied his sad face and said, "You lost your bracelet."

  "My bracelet?"

  "The beads."

  Suddenly, panic—not at all the kind of panic the beads were designed to protect against, but the panic of having stepped into a fatal trap—overtook him. Had he left them at Karoline's?

  Ruth went down the stairs to her apartment on the top floor. But when she opened the door to her apartment and turned on the lights, she saw Mordy with his pants to his ankles and his hands far up Rosita's purple dress. Ruth shrieked involuntarily.

  "Well," said Mordy, "better a Jew with no pants than pants with no Jew."

  Back on the roof, Nathan, who had already explained to Sonia how the string had broken and he had lost his beads, reached into his pocket and felt the bracelet and in his surprise pulled it out to examine.

  Sonia looked at him with a worried face, but before she could decide what to say, Ruth had come back to the roof and was coming toward him with the special dessert.

  "Look, Daddy," said Sarah, who was dragging Nathan toward his mother. "I picked it."

  As Nathan got closer, he recognized the tilted wedges of caramel, the violet brown chocolate buttercream. "Why did you get a dobos tortal" he shouted at Ruth.

  "Sarah picked it out," Ruth argued. "At Edelweiss. It's Hungarian."

  And although Nathan could feel many eyes, including Soma's, pressing into him, he could not help crying, had lost the will to stop the tears. It was as though something had burst and it was a tremendous relief to have the built-up pressure give way. His shoulders heaved and water poured out of his eyes as he tried uselessly to cover his face.

  "Hungarians are among the worst anti-Semites," said Harry

  Sarah, too, was staring at her father. Nathan picked her up and held her tightly, which made him sob all the more.

  "The Hungarian record during the war," said Harry, "was one of the worst in Europe."

  At that moment, a white rocket whistled through the sky and Brooklyn was lit up. The fireworks had begun.

  "You know, Sonia," Harry said as he settled into his chair, "next year let's do Mexican. Can you get us some enchiladas and Jimmy Chongas and those things?"

  "I don't know, Harry," said Sonia.

  "A little guacamole," said Harry, saying the word in three syllables.

  Ruth stared at her husband, and it made him uncomfortable. He whistled.

  "Everyone is acting a little strange tonight," Ruth asserted with her eyes still fixed on Harry, as though he might try some sleight of hand if she looked away. He continued to whistle, trying to look innocent. He went for his favorite slide. "On the bumpy road to—love."

  "Why are you singing Gershwin?" Ruth demanded. "You never sing Gershwin."

  "It's Berlin."

  "No, it's Gershwin."

  Harry remembered his bet. "That's what Chucho Vega says. He bet me. Do you believe it?"

  "He's right," Ruth muttered. Then she sighed. "How much?"

  "How much what?"

  "What did you bet?"

  "Bacdao."

  "What?"

  A rocket exploded and shards of green light stretched across the sky Harry remembered that he hated bacalao. It was like bad lox, he thought—either too salty or no taste at all. Herring was better. That was another reason he was in no hurry to look up the song's author.

  Nathan put Sarah to bed.

  "Daddy?"

  "What? Go to bed."

  "What's a midwife?"

  "What?"

  "A midwife. Mom says you are having trouble with your midwife. That's why you wear the bracelet."

  "Never mind. Go to bed."

  She knows, Nathan thought as he examined his thinning body in the mirror. She knew. That's why she got the dobos torta. She went with Sarah and let her pretend she picked it. That's a standard game. Passive-aggressive. She picked it because she knew. But how? Women know how to figure these things out. It's their genius.

  "Nathan," came a soft voice.

  "Yes?"

  "Can we talk?"

  "Okay." It was extraordinary. He could eat all the pastry he wanted and still lose weight.

  Sonia sat up in bed. "Who gave you the beads? Was it a woman?"

  Nathan could not help but smile. "Yes." He waited a moment. "It was Cristofina."

  "The bruja!"

  Nathan shook his head.

  "You believe in those things?"

  "I don't know. I am having a problem. I didn't want to talk about it. I thought I could make it go away. I went to Cristofina and also to a psychiatrist."

  "Why?"

  "I think it's claustrophobia. Sometimes I just can't breathe."

  Sonia smiled.

  "Why are you so happy?"

  "That stupid thing. I didn't know what it was. It looked like you were going steady or something."

  "Going steady?"

  "What do you call it?"

  "Sonia, do you think tattoos are sexy?"

  The smile was gone from Sonia's face. Why was he asking that?

  As Nathan fell asleep, he decided that Karoline was right. Women are not that clever. It is just that men panic and they tell them everything. Then they wonder how the woman found them out. Psychiatrists and fortune-tellers play the same game.

  Before Harry and Ruth went to sleep, Ruth said, "I think our son is acting very strange."

  "You don't have to worry about Mordy," said Harry.

  "No, I mean Nathan," said Ruth.

  "I'm sorry I was so late. It took a long time clearing things up at Avenue D," said Harry.

  "I know, you said that," Ruth answered.

  Sonia thought of something Emma Goldman once said: "The scriptures tells us, God created man in His own image, which has by no means proven a success."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  God-like Sparks

  AT 4:00 A.M., Nathan woke up from a dream. Dr. Kucher had said he should remember his dreams, and by morning it would be gone. He stumbled in the dark for a pen and paper but could find nothing until he went in the room where Sonia worked on Emma and Margarita. There at the refinished oak desk they had bought on Houston Street he wrote down his dream.

  It was a meeting. A meeting about the neighborhood. It was run by Moellen, who was wearing his SS uniform, which neither surprised nor upset anyone. And Karoline was there, naked and covered in butter. And this did not draw anyone's interest, either. Felix, the drug dealer with the grocery store, was there. Joey Parma was serving wine. Mordy was lecturing on the Jewish dietary laws. But the odd thing was that every one of them had a large, evenly cut wedge of Swiss cheese on his or her head. No matter how the people shook or turned their heads while speaking, the wedges always remained perfectly balanced on their heads. After Mordy's lecture and Joey Parma's description of the wine and Moellen's call for driving Dominicans from the neighborhood, they all turned to Nathan and said, "And what do you think, Nathan?"

  And Nathan replied, "I think there is merit in your arguments, but it is hard for me to take this seriously because you all ha
ve cheese on your heads."

  Cabezucha awoke in center stage. Golden early morning summer light was on the East River, his front yard, making the bridges glisten. He stretched and stood and scratched the animal tattooed on his belly. He looked around the abandoned amphitheater, ruins like ancient catacombs with dark concrete passages below curving ledges where space was once sold. Someone on one of the top rows was looking for a vein, finally found one in his upper calf and stuck the syringe in, and was at peace. Scraps of paper, a beer can, squashed and burned checkered tubes of spent firecrackers—the detritus of the national holiday were strewn around the lawns of the park.

  Fourth of July was over and Dukakis still had a comfortable lead in all the polls and the Mets were still in first place in the Eastern Division. Neither of these landmark reasons for hope in the world meant anything to Cabezucha as he rubbed his big black tufts of wild hair and looked at the path along the water. Beyond, across the pea green river, were the sugar docks where freighters landed from his native island.

  Back on the Manhattan side, the new tenant was rounding the curve toward the Manhattan Bridge. He was not wearing his customary seersucker, but the low morning sun gave the white of his virgin running shoes from the new store on Avenue A an electric glow. A woman all in white with the same new shoes glowed next to him.

  Cabezucha scratched himself as he studied these two like a bear studies movement in the bushes once hibernation is done and he is ready to forage for food. The new shoes made him smile. And the woman. He liked the way women were starting to run in his park, the way their breasts swayed rhythmically as they loped past his overgrown amphitheater. He checked his pocket. The thick bundle of dollars was still there. He tucked in his shirt and walked through the park up the steel footbridge over the FDR Drive already choked with traffic. The new tenant and his girl were right behind, deep in conversation, not the least out of breath.

  "But I am a little worried," he was saying nervously to her. "I hope you don't resent my success." There was a moment of silence. "Should I have it."

  She answered softly, "Why don't you just get there first."

  "But I want to know how you will react."

  So engrossed were they in this debate about the future that they passed the huge, disheveled, and staggering Cabezucha without noticing him. Still walking like a bear that had not entirely shaken off the winter, Cabezucha stumbled through Alphabet City—Avenue D, Avenue C. He stopped off at the casita. The gate was open, but no one was in the yard. He could hear the steady, determined, arrhythmic clicking of a typewriter inside the casita. He read the sign on the outside wall, "No Hispanics Here!" and thought it meant that everyone was away, which seemed odd, because he could hear the typing. It was probably Chow Mein and he did not want to be bothered. Seeing a box with a sign, "The Ruben Garcia Defense Fund," Cabezucha peeled two twenties from the wad in his pocket and, after rolling them carefully into a tube, placed them into the box.

  He used another $20 bill to pay his entry to the baths in the brown-stone on Tenth Street. Here he was perplexed again, because the entire outside of the brownstone had been painted pink. When he entered, he found the pink hallway decorated with photos of actresses he could not quite identify. They were Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Bette Midler, and Molly Picon. Jasha acknowledged that gays would not be particularly drawn to Molly Picon, but neither would she do any harm. He liked her. In any event, the new look did not seem to be working. This dark and menacing giant—Jasha did not think he was even gay—was the only customer this morning.

  The shower and towel made Cabezucha's hair even wilder than usual. He examined the card in his pocket for the address of the masseuse on Avenue A—"Sonia." A nice name.

  Nathan pulled up the iron gate and unlocked the door to the Meshugaloo Copy Center. "A beautiful day today," Carmela asserted.

  "I think so," said Nathan, looking up both at her on the fire escape and at the slit of sky that the six-floor buildings on Tenth Street allowed. It was a good omen that Carmela had no dire predictions. But then he heard her say, "I hope no one gets shot today in the neighborhood." Nathan, unable to conjure up a reply to this, did not attempt one. He put on his recording of Herbert Von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic playing Beethoven's Ninth. Beethoven was the best workout. Especially the Ninth. Beethoven never stopped building, no cooldown, no letup, just squeezed more, even when you thought there was nothing left. Some mornings Nathan needed that.

  It began with agitated strings, like something exciting about to happen. Pepe Le Moko strolled to the doorway and lay in the sun. How sad it must be, Nathan thought, to be German. Without meaning to, he was addressing his thoughts to Oggún. A muscular black arm holding a hammer and a black face with no particular expression were all that was showing. The rest was still covered in newspaper, swathed in El Vocero like a plush evening wrap.

  Karoline, Nathan reasoned to the half-wrapped orisha, was born in New York—wasn't she? She did not even have an accent. She was raised here, and her father is someone I have known....

  The music was getting very insistent, full orchestra with kettledrums, then strings, then woodwind, soft but driving, becoming more melodious.

  Jackie, the performance artist, short for either John or Jacqueline, came into the shop. His—or her—flowing black hair was clearly a wig, and the heavy makeup could not have been intended to be convincing. He or she had the large square hands and feet of a man, but in his flimsy sundress it was clear that she had breasts and hips. In the summer, Jackie always carried a Chinese fan that he or she waved impatiently while complaining about the heat. She was preparing flyers for a new one-man—or one-woman—show. She had photos of her in both genders and worked with Nathan placing them on the page, adding the print, designing the flyer, and running off three hundred copies—forty minutes' work for which Nathan charged $5.

  It was a good day—seven obituaries, all older than him.

  Speaking Spanish, Cabezucha explained that he was Serrano Badigo and Chucho Vega had recommended her. It meant something that he said Chucho and not Chow Mein. "He said you were Spanish. I didn't want an Anglo masseuse."

  She told him to take off his clothes. "You can leave your underwear or take it off, whatever you want." And she left the room. In the living room, where Ruth was keeping Sarah amused learning a Yiddish song about a little bird that she had been teaching her for months, Sonia called the casita to ask Chucho what he knew of Serrano Badigo. He seemed polite, but she had to be careful. But no one answered at the casita.

  Upstairs, Harry was searching frantically through his files for a certain magazine he had lost. He realized that if he died, someone would go through his papers and it would be found. He didn't find it but instead found a big black water bug—like a cockroach, but five times the size—crawling from behind a cabinet. He grabbed a folder of his 1985 income tax records and smashed it on the water bug so hard that he heard it crunch. He hated water bugs. They came from the water.

  At the casita, Chow Mein Vega had heard the phone, but he often didn't answer. He had turned from his typewriter and was plucking an old acoustic guitar, picking out the mountain ballads that his father had liked. Felix was in the garden, caressing his tomato crop, trying to think of something to say to Rosita, who was sitting at a table inside, slapping down domino tiles.

  "Is it too much to ask—a man who is not dealing drugs?" she said to Chow Mein.

  "Ah, I am yours, Quericita," he answered.

  "I'm thinking about it. I thought Ruben was cute. Then look what he did to himself."

  "Ruben is innocent."

  "Maybe he killed nobody, Chucho, but he's not innocent. Como Felix over there."

  "Felix has gotten out. He is trying to have a store."

  "With que dinero? Where does he get the money? You know, I thought I'd go with a Jew, an older Jew. Everybody says they don't deal. They make money, but they don't deal. That's perfect, right?"

  "Which Jew?"

  "Seltzer."
<
br />   "Harry?"

  "No, Mordy."

  "Well, at least you found a single one. But I have to tell you, the Seltzers don't make money. None of them. Wrong Jews. It happens sometimes. It's like Puerto Ricans that can't dance."

  "Well, Mordy can't dance tampoco."

  "That's not surprising. He's probably too stoned."

  "That family is weird. Do you know what his mother called him? A piece of meat."

  "With eyes?"

  "What's up with that? She is a really tough woman. She didn't like me. And the father acts like he's having some kind of affair."

  "Harry?"

  "Yes. You can always tell a man with something to hide. That sort of nervous way I can tell. He came home late and nervous. But the worst part is that Mordy was the biggest pothead I've ever seen. And I think he got busted today"

  "Mordy Seltzer was busted?"

  "I think so. The cops are really active this morning. They have all these weird baseball sombreros with initials. DEA, FBI, NYPD, JERK. They searched his edificio y found all kinds of shit. I didn't think Jews were like that."

  Felix was in the garden, trying to look as though he were not listening.

  When Sonia went back in the room, her client was stretched out on the table, a huge, powerful body. This would be work. From the next room she could hear Ruth singing about the little bird. "Feygele,feygele," and Sarah responded, "pi-pi-pi."

  "Vu is der tate?" sang Ruth.

  "Nisht ahie," Sarah shouted. Daddy is away on a trip.

  Sonia smiled as her long fingers stretched toward the large back.

  A theme began as a low murmur of cello, and then lyrical violins sweetened it to a melodious song with brass and woodwind. Suddenly there was a deep voice: "Freude."

  Joy.

  "Freude, schöner Götterfunken," beautiful, God-like sparks, which sounds better in German. Then there was a moment of silence and a single note and then another and the theme came back. A pleasant, upbeat little melody "like the heavenly bodies that he set on their courses." But now something started going wrong. The beat got harsher. A rhythmic, metallic clanging intruded. It became martial music. A strong, harsh beat almost like—like goose-stepping.