Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue

by Mark Kurlansky

  "It happened again. It wasn't clear if it was him or another Gypsy violinist. One of them ran off with an Englishwoman. She was not married and did not have two beautiful children and she married him and they made spectacular children with dark skin and blue eyes and they were very happy That's a better story, but when it got to Hungary they invented another cake, a Jancsi kiss torta, which is not a very good cake and no one makes it anymore. Happy stories do not inspire great cakes."

  Nathan, with improving skills, folded the whites into the chocolate and dusted flour on the top, folded that slowly into the batter, and then spread the batter on a baking sheet. Then he turned to have his storyteller, but she pushed him away. "No, that only bakes about eighteen minutes and we have to start the filling.

  "There are only four things in the filling, so they must be in perfect balance. There are always these things that have to be balanced. The flavor, the texture, the sweetness, the richness. This filling is chocolate, which is the flavor. Chocolate is so strong that you cannot bear it by itself—strong and dark and almost overwhelming. So you add sugar to weaken it to the point where we can taste it. But just enough to taste the chocolate, not the sugar. Then you melt this with the cream. The cream gives richness, smoothness. And also it holds the air. If you have too much cream, it dilutes the chocolate. It becomes boring."

  She poured the syrup of melted chocolate and cream into a mixing bowl and put the mixer on a medium speed. Steam rose from the bowl as the chocolate was cooled and beaten. "It takes some time. But not too much time. The air gives lightness, but if it is too light, it has no character. It is just fluff"

  She watched the filling getting beaten by the machine, and Nathan watched her, longing to open her apron and touch her skin. Finally, she nodded her approval and reached up to shut off the mixer. Dipping her arm so that it disappeared up to the elbow in the mixing bowl, she scooped up a small amount of thick, light-colored chocolate on her finger and tasted it. "The cake's done. Take it out."

  And he obeyed.

  "This is perfect. It's everything we lack. It has balance. You and I, we are all chocolate. Maybe a little sugar. No cream. No air. It's inedible. That is what this relationship is. Out of balance and inedible." She reached behind and untied the top of her apron, exposing her breasts. Then she dipped into the bowl with both hands and rubbed the mousse on her breasts. Her body heat immediately started to melt the composition, and chocolate rivulets ran slowly down. "Come here. Try to eat it."

  Kneeling in front of her, Nathan tried to lick her breasts.

  "No. No," said Karoline, holding out her long fingers. "Fingers first."

  Nathan carefully, systematically, licked her fingers, index to pinky and then thumb, same order on both hands. Then she grabbed him by the hair with her freshly cleaned fingers and pulled him to her breasts, where the chocolate was indeed a perfect balance, the bittersweet chocolate coming alive with the salty, buttery taste of Karoline's skin. But when he was finished, she gently shoved him away. "We have to finish the Rigó Jancsi."

  With a rubber spatula, she lavishly spread the thick filling on half the cake, then covered it with the other half and spread melted chocolate on the top, stroking the chocolate with the spatula until it lay perfectly flat, like polished wood.

  While he felt this way, wanting her, thirsting for her, was the perfect moment for his experiment. He told her about his claustrophobia, about his airless panic at being trapped, about Dr. Kucher's idea of experimenting with a friend, someone he trusted, little by little....

  "You want me to take you to the subway?"

  Nathan shook his head no with a slightly anxious smile.

  "What?"

  "I want you to tie me up."

  Confusion melted into a wicked grin on Karoline's face. "This may open whole new worlds for us."

  "But you have to do it slowly. Step by step. And if I start to panic, you have to untie me right away. You have to promise me that."

  She promised nothing, yet he proceeded. If he trusted her, why did she have to promise? This he thought was in itself a good sign. He was not afraid. She told him to sit in the straight-backed chair by the table. Then she produced some clothesline and tied his ankles to the chair legs.

  "Are you all right?"

  "Yes. Fine."

  "You are sure?"

  Just as Nathan was thinking that Karoline was curiously well prepared, as though she had done this before with other men, just then— she dangled in her hands a shiny pair of handcuffs.

  "Are you ready?"

  Nathan shook his head uncertainly. Gently, she snapped a cuff on his left wrist and pulled it behind the chair and brought his other arm around and attached the other cuff.

  "But you will stop if I say so?"

  She smiled enigmatically as she, magicianlike, presented a long green silk scarf and tied his neck to the back of the chair. Nathan could not move at all. And he had no idea what she might do next.

  And yet... he felt no panic, no anxiety whatsoever about his situation.

  "Are you okay?" Karoline asked.

  "Yes," said Nathan with a hint of surprise in his voice.

  Karoline lightly slapped his cheek. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  She slapped him harder. His cheek stung. "You still sure?"

  "Yes," Nathan said incredulously.

  Karoline touched him between his legs to see if he was aroused. He was.

  "Well, I am in control, and you don't get what you want. You know what you get?"

  Nathan shook his head from side to side as she felt him becoming more excited.

  "You get more pastry lecture."

  "What!?"

  "Quiet."

  She walked to the refrigerator and took out a tall cake, long, spongy ladyfingers forming a circular wall. Dark red raspberries, like a setting of garnets, studded the top. After placing a slender slice on a plate, Karoline walked over to her prisoner and started feeding him forkfuls. "You see the contrast of textures and balance? The cake is spongy, the filling is thick and creamy. The filling has five parts—raspberries for flavor, custard for richness, gelatin for stiffness, and cream to hold air and give lightness. Too much of any one of these will ruin it. It's the tension between them that makes it. And that is what I want in my life. You just offer me the raspberries. Pure flavor without texture or richness or lightness or stiffness is worthless. But I have a man who wants to marry me. He keeps saying he is in love with me."

  "What's the matter, no raspberries?"

  She held out her hand as though she were about to slap him. "Unfortunately, you are right. He is everything that you are not. He has the right touch of gelatin. You have a bit too much. He has a nice custard, of which you have none. And he has the whipped cream you lack. Maybe too much. But you don't have any. And he also doesn't have a wife." Karoline slapped him playfully on the cheek. "What would you say if your wife walked in right now?"

  "I'd say, Thank God you've come. This woman has kidnapped me."

  "And suppose we were naked on the bed?"

  "And stolen my clothes."

  "And forced you to eat raspberry cream."

  "What would you say if the boyfriend showed up?"

  "Come back later, dear, I'm busy."

  "What's his name?"

  "Dickie. It's a silly name. He's a silly man. All cream. No flavor. But he has money, and he wants to save me. And I need to be saved. I have to know that he could save me. You couldn't save me."

  "From what?" Nathan said, though he understood exactly.

  She took the key and opened the handcuffs. "From this place, this neighborhood, and you." But as though there were not a contradiction, she untied him and led him to the bed, where they made love in the weighty, sticky air of a New York July afternoon.

  When it was time for him to leave—past time, he realized—he opened the door cautiously. "I have to be careful. I ran into your mother the other day."

  Her cobalt eyes turned the color of steel. "Sh
e saw you leaving here?"

  "She was in the stairway."

  "You let her see you? What did you say?"

  "I think I said, 'Excuse me.' "

  "Oh, 'Excuse me.' That's very good! Someday I am going to go to your apartment while your family is eating dinner and knock on the door, and when they answer, I'll just say, 'Excuse me'!"

  There was her temper. There was her body and making love and the way she baked and used her hands. The way she told a story. The way she could pronounce any word in any language. But then there was her terrible temper, which was how it always seemed to end. Yet he had let himself get tied up by a bad-tempered woman. He was not doing that badly. He was still in control, he reasoned.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Ratlike Cunning

  NATHAN HAD NOT CALLED Sonia all day, and now he was coming home late and carrying the scent of chocolate and butter and Karoline. Had she left any marks on him? He examined his wrists.

  In the summer, when it was warm at night but felt cool in contrast to the day, the streets were full of people and the bounce of Dominican merengues and the throb of Puerto "Ricanplenas and the beat of rhythm and blues. On evenings like this, most people in the neighborhood were irresistibly drawn to the summer air, compelled to wander the streets purposelessly, like freewheeling sleepwalkers. In spite of himself, Nathan could not bring himself to hurry home.

  Someone had put flyers on the walls and streetlamp posts. There were more of them along Avenue A than DUKAKIS FOR PRESIDENT signs:

  DEPRESSED?

  Homeless?

  Worthless?

  Medication treatment is available

  AT NO COST as a part of a research study.

  To see if you qualify, call

  555-1848

  An easy number to remember, Nathan thought almost subconsciously, assuming as he turned onto Tenth Street that almost everyone would recall the European revolutions of 1848.

  There was a time when the drug trade operated at night on Tenth Street in discreet darkness. In the summers, buyers would wait until late evening for it to be dark enough to buy drugs there. Then, in the 1970s, every street in Manhattan got ultrabright streetlights that gave the night an unworldly orange tint. Still, you could feel anonymous in the orange sodium light of night: Everyone was orange. Tenth Street was a relatively dark street because there were few stores or restaurants; most of the storefronts had closed steel gates like the Meshugaloo Copy Center. But now, with a new Japanese restaurant and the new grocery store, which suspiciously remained open after dark, and a few other lit windows, the street had become bright at night. Instead of that driving the drug trade later into the night, it was starting earlier, since it was no longer dark after nightfall anyway

  During his drug-dealing days, Felix had liked standing on the street on these warm and active summer nights. It almost felt like Santiago or Santo Domingo or San Juan. He always thought of them in that order—the progression of cities that had led him to the Loisaida. Now he was a shop owner. He had changed the name of the store to East Village Gourmet. The owner of a gourmet shop did not stand on the street and did not have his shop open in the evening. Gourmet shops were for people who were free to do their shopping during daytime hours.

  He knew staying open made him suspicious—more suspicious. But he did not want to stand there with the store closed. That would be worse. It was his store that showed that he was a shopkeeper and not a drug dealer. So he sat in front of his lit and nearly empty shop, massaging an egg with one hand, until it was late enough to go to the casita and play congas.

  This was a hot summer, and in such summers the rats, like the tomatoes, grew to enormous size. They scurried up the trash cans and sifted through the contents, making slight rubbing sounds. Passersby could hear the rubbing sounds and, if they were local, would look for a tail. It was not unusual to see a slightly curved pink tail sticking out on top. Felix thought the rats were smarter than the cops, because the rats always found the grass.

  Felix hated rats. Most people could barely hear the rubbing sound. But Felix could hear it from his shop with the door closed. Sometimes one of the Jews going to the deli would run over a rat while trying to park a long, black Cadillac. Felix admired the Jews, the way they would drive into the neighborhood, looking rich, looking as if their pockets were stuffed with cash, but secure in the understanding that the dealers would protect them. There was more money in dealing than mugging, so the dealers wouldn't allow anyone to be robbed on their block. Even these Jews from the suburbs knew they didn't have to be afraid here. Felix liked Jews. He felt bad about giving Seltzer's name to Joey Parma. But he shouldn't have been taking out Rosita. He had no pride anyway... the way he wore no socks. Felix congratulated himself on the Puerto Ricanness of this judgment. Besides, Felix was being squeezed, and no one would care about giving up Seltzer. Why was someone always squeezing him?

  In fairness, the cops were as smart as the rats. They knew where the drugs were kept just as well as the rats did. But if they arrested a pusher and the drugs were not on him, he could not be charged with possession. Some of the dealers, preferring to face possession charges rather than rats, would not use the trash cans. Some put their stash under a corner of loose sidewalk concrete by a tree. But in time, the rats would find that, too. These rats were crazy for marijuana.

  The amount of metal on some of the people he was seeing in the neighborhood this summer, including the drug dealers, horrified Nathan. Little silver rings were piercing their ears and eyebrows and belly buttons and nipples. To Nathan, the nipples were the most disturbing. You were out there on the street like that. Suppose you got into a fight? Dealers got into fights. Wouldn't someone tear those things right out of your nipples?

  Nathan wondered if the girls who coyly displayed silver rings through their navels had rings in their nipples, too. He would see dark circles pressing the thin cotton of their tight sleeveless shirts and hope there was not a silver ring underneath. They had them in their noses and their eyebrows and sometimes tongues. And tattoos had made their bodies resemble the graffiti-covered walls.

  Nathan saw a white delivery truck and he smiled. Everyone smiled at these delivery trucks. It was almost seven o'clock in the evening, a time when no one made deliveries. The truck was completely white with a hand-painted sign saying "Tom's Grocery Delivery Service." It was the FBI or DEA or, as the dealers like to say the DUM, the local police. If they had the budget for the trucks, why didn't they have the money to hire real sign painters? This was one of the mysteries of East Village law enforcement.

  Two men were inside, dressed in white aprons. One was Joey Parma.

  "Joey," Nathan called out.

  "Can't talk to you now."

  "But this is silly. Everybody knows you."

  "Get away from the truck. Better check up on your brother."

  "Mordy? What's wrong with Mordy?"

  "Get away from the truck. I'm not going to tell you again."

  Nathan at last started to hurry—almost run. He was worried about Mordy, but also he realized that Sonia must have been trying to call him all afternoon to tell him whatever it was about Mordy

  Did the chocolate leave traces? Did Karoline? He tried to examine himself as he ran and almost stumbled on top of Arnie's pallet. He had forgotten about its new location.

  "Hey, Nathan. Where you going?"

  Arnie's usual weathered skin had an odd matte finish. "Are you all right?" Nathan asked him.

  "I'm fine. I'm a little bit cold."

  "It's ninety-five degrees."

  "I know, but it gets cold for sleeping at night. The other block was warmer."

  To people who didn't know the neighborhood, this might have seemed strange. But Nathan understood. The temperature in the neighborhood varied from block to block—something about alignment with the rivers or the angle of the sea breezes. New Yorkers never think about sea breezes, but they live by them. The coolest spot was the corner of Tenth and Second Avenue. A summer vege
table market set up in the Atlantic gusts of that intersection, but in the wintertime that was the intersection to avoid because of its bone-stabbing cold wind. Arnie's new block probably was a lot cooler than his old location. It would be bad in the winter.

  "Do you need any blankets?"

  Arnie pointed at the pile of wool that was his home.

  "Okay Take care." Nathan handed him $2 or $3, not exactly sure which.

  "Viva la huelga, man."

  "Viva."

  Three prospective tomato customers came to Felix's store. A quick glance at them made Felix regret he had stayed at the shop. They were uptowners and didn't fit in. Puerto Ricans recognized them as Dominicanos. Dominicans recognized them as trouble. It was a curious thing about uptown street criminals: Like undercover cops, they wore uniforms that made them easily identifiable. They had calf-length baggy shorts and tank tops and wore gold chains and gold rings, and in case anyone missed all this, they walked with the ghetto saunter. Chow Mein Vega once said it was a Jamaican drop beat, a reggae beat.

  Everyone in the neighborhood watched the three reggae down First Avenue—dup-beep, beep—and across Tenth Street, to no one's surprise, straight to Felix's tomato store, the East Village Gourmet. Felix knew the smallest one, the one with the most gold, a man named Limon from a village near his. Limon used to operate in the neighborhood out of Bob's Greasy Hands. But the police had closed down the ribs store—no one saw them do it—and Bob was in prison, which made taking over his arrangement particularly unappealing.

  "Es acabado, finished for this neighborhood, Limon," Felix argued while rolling a hard-boiled egg in his right hand.

  "It doesn't look that way to me," Limon answered in Spanish, looking out the shop window at the commerce on Tenth Street.