Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection

by Daniel José Older

  After you nodded and we both thought for a while and the music trailed off and then started up again and people on the lawn below us mingled and fussed and then finally you said: “So you’re both and neither.”

  Not a question; an agreement.

  I nodded.

  “Cool.”

  That was the first time you saved my life.

  * * *

  Now, here on this bridge over the Charles, dark thoughts overtake me, but I don’t cry. I drift to sleep, and when I wake I know something foul is coming: The night is serene but the music is sinister, creeping, uncouth. I wait for it. Doze again and when I wake there’s a boy sitting next to me. I don’t know how he got there; even though I was nodding I’m sure he didn’t just walk up. I’m a light sleeper and I’m terrified – a passing rat woke me earlier. This boy is almost as tall as me. He’s pale pallid pale and his straight light brown hair hangs down half-mooning his face. He’s looking at me, not smiling. It’s not threatening, his presence, but when I close my eyes real quick to check? There’s no music. None.

  We just stare at each other for a few solid seconds, and it’s pleasant in that we don’t have to speak. There’s no stupid small talk to fill in the gaps. The silence is our friend. But then the boy vanishes. He’s just gone. I hold my breath, thinking maybe I’m dreaming but I know I’m not. I wait, breath still held. When he reappears he’s in the same spot, same position, staring at me.

  And still no music.

  “Are you a ghost?” I say.

  “No.”

  His mouth only tilts upwards at the far edge, a hint of a smile, smug yet somehow defeated. I break his glare and look back at the river. He keeps looking at me.

  “My name is Niles.”

  “Ok.”

  “Finney.”

  “That’s supposed to mean something to me?”

  “No. It’s just my name.” He reaches a pale hand towards me and I flinch a little before I realize he means for me to shake it. “You don’t have to,” he says, frowning.

  “It’s fine.” I take his hand in mine and it’s really there.

  “You can call me Wes.”

  “That your name?”

  “It’s what you can call me.”

  “Ok.”

  He doesn’t ask if I’m a boy or a girl, doesn’t probe ‘bout why I’m on the streets, doesn’t want to know where I’m from. It’s refreshing. So I ask the questions.

  “Why did you just disappear?”

  He shrugs. “’Cuz I can. It’s what I do.” A moment passes, then he turns to me and smiles with his whole mouth, shows his teeth even and if he wasn’t such a wisp of a boy it might be threatening. But maybe in a cute way, if I was into that kind of thing. “You can do it too. Wanna learn?”

  I do want to disappear. It’s all I’ve wanted to do since…since forever maybe. Just not be: unravel myself from everyone else’s consciousness and be gone. But without dying. Sounds delicious. And Niles Finney can do it whenever he wants. It hardly seems fair.

  “I guess,” I say.

  “Oh, it’s cool. I don’t have to teach you. I’m not even sure if you could anyway, not everyone can do it. It’s pretty hard. Which is cool cuz otherwise any idiot could do it and then it’d be no fun.”

  “I said yes!” Comes out shriller than I’d meant it too, but what are you gonna do?

  “No, you said you guessed.”

  “I know, fine, but I meant yes. I just…I’ve never seen anyone disappear before.”

  “Exactly!” Then, as if to prove his point, Niles is gone again and it’s only the night sky where he’d been before and the scattered lights of Cambridge crowding the edge of the Charles.

  “Come back,” I say quietly.

  He’s smiling broadly when he reappears. “I never left.”

  “Alright, hot shot, what’s the big secret?”

  Niles inches closer to me and I realize he has no smell. “You’re already most of the way there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. That’s why I sat beside you.” His voice has an antiquated lilt to it. Almost sounds British but no – it’s paperthin though, and crisp. “Because I saw it in you.”

  “Saw what?” Am I flattered? I am. Something special inside of me, someone who sees it. Yes.

  “It.” A whisper. “It’s like an emptiness. A nothing. But it’s beautiful. It carries you; it’s a power. They tell you it’s weakness but it’s strength. It’s how I do what I do.”

  I just stare at him for a minute. It’s a minute that hangs in the balance. He may be batshit. But then, I’m the one seeing disappearing boys. I may be batshit. Something about what he says is true though. It’s unavoidable. There is something different inside of me. Something besides being a boy and a girl and neither. Maybe that something is what kept me alive all this time, kept me from shattering. An emptiness that sustains. “What’s the other part?”

  “What?”

  “The other part. You said I’m most of the way there. What’s the last piece?”

  “Oh.” He rests his head against my shoulder. He’s breathing softly against me. Night birds circle over the Charles, their dark bodies against the darker sky. “It’s a word.”

  “What word?”

  “A magic one. But I can’t tell you until you’re sure you want the power.” I almost say I am, right then and there but I hold off. “Because once I say it, you can’t unknow it. It’s part of you. There’s no turning back.” He’s fading again, fading and falling asleep. “It’s up to you,” he mumbles into my shoulder.

  I can tell something about Niles Finney: He wants me to say yes. He doesn’t want to show it, can’t, but he wants it. And that makes me want it more. I could solve two problems: End my loneliness and his with one simple move. And I’d be powerful. I slide down a little on the bench and rest the back of my neck against it, my long legs splayed out in front of me.

  Maybe I fall asleep too.

  Surely this is when you arrive. You hover around me like some beautiful Casper, your Mohawk bouncing and translucent in the night, your smile wide. When I wake up again the first flutters of dawn streak the edge of the sky and the river’s still a dark nothingness beneath us and Niles Finny is still on my shoulder. I feel his body rise and fall with each breath. But when I look down, it’s just me. He’s still vanished. I close my eyes. I ask you for help.

  And I’m not ready for the image that comes to me: it’s my dad. It’s not his hardened face, the creased eyebrows and forced frown; this is my dad at the bottom of his well of sorrow. It was just a moment he showed it to me, when we were arguing that last time. It was when he wiped what may or may not have been a tear from his eye. His face is wide open, his sadness right at the surface and it’s because he knew he was about to never see me again. Mom was crying openly by this time. I only saw her heaving up and down out of the corner of my eye because if I looked her dead on, I would’ve broke. Then she looks at me and I expect rage or disappointment but there’s only love in her face. Only love and then it’s the twins; they’re watching me go, crying and now, finally, thoroughly, I’m crying, sobbing actually – not the restrained hiccups of someone trying not to cry but honest, low, wails, and I’m not mad and I don’t feel guilty, I’m just sad sad sad for the loss of my family – maybe it’s for now and maybe it’s forever, but I miss them and I still can’t go back and I know they miss me too. So I let it surge out of me, finally, that sadness, and when my sobbing slows and I open my eyes, I hear the beat drop.

  The music is tentative at first, a low and steady drum, a few cautious clacks and cymbal flourishes. Then it becomes brave: the bass kicks in, bursts of horns shouting and disappearing. I’ve made my decision, so I look down at where Niles was to tell him and he’s gone. I mean, gone-gone not just disappeared-gone. Must’ve skulked off during my emotional deluge, seen that there was something else there that carries me, even more powerful than the emptiness.

  I’m not going home and I won’t disappear. A steady
organ spins beneath it all and then the cool, static-laced laughter of an electric guitar. It’s the music of victory again, Krys, but it’s not yours this time, it’s something brand new. It’s me. My music: timid at first and then ferocious, brave. It is the rest of my life.

  Love is a Fucking River

  I'm crying when the call comes in that changes my life. Crying on the inside, of course, because I am, after all, a man. I suppose this little surge of emotion is a good thing, because I'd been pretty sure my heart was dead for the past couple days. On Monday, Vanessa packed up the last of her dainty girl things from my place – not that she lived there but you know, practically – and the apartment just felt really totally fucking empty without her panties and makeup scattered around. Felt like I was living inside the heart of the loneliest person in the world, and that was me. Then I just felt nothing, and that was even worse. So I picked up an extra driving shift and there I am, sitting outside my own building actually, and sniffling slightly, when they call me for a pickup around the corner.

  I wipe my eyes, because sometimes when you cry on the inside a little bit gets out, and start heading over. There's this song on the radio, the reason I was feeling extra upset actually. It's a bachata track that's pretty hot these days – some fucking crybaby love story, whatever – but there's a part where he tells his guitar to cry for him, llora guitarra, llora, he says. Every time they play it on la mega, which is like every ten seconds of course, it reminds me of this time when Vanessa came over all upset because this piece of shit named Devin she used to deal with finally offed himself. She just bawled in my arms for what seemed like hours and that little frail body of hers kept shuddering and heaving and I thought she might just crumble like a little crispy leaf at any second, but she seemed so strong to me in that very moment, too, because what man, for all our strength and awesomeness, can really be that vulnerable? You know? What man can really be strong enough to fall apart? It touched me, it really did. When she was done crying she fell asleep, which is probably just as well because otherwise I might've tried to get some and that probably would've tipped off a fight and it really wasn't the time for all that.

  Anyway, that song's playing, but I turn it off as I roll up on the pickup spot and there's this fine, fine black lady standing next to a fat old guy. When I say fine, I mean truly a sudden and unflinching gift to a man's eyes. This man, anyway. She's wearing a short trench coat and has a cap on, like a slick little cap tilted to the side, and it's inconceivable that she put any thought whatsoever into angling it right, because her whole way of being is just too smooth for all of that. The fat guy, on the other hand, is kind of a rumbling disaster and when he gets in I actually worry that my car will need some realignment work. I'm not trying to be offensive or nothing, but the guy is immense. Very the fuck like a whale.

  I put an arm across the top of the seat and crane my head back to them, trying not to swallow the girl whole with my hungry eyes, and I ask 'em where they're going. I say it in English, because I don't like to assume anyone speaks Spanish. They turn to each other and seem to have a whole conversation just in the tiniest creases of their faces, which gives me a second to take in the ol' girl in her entirety and let me tell you: Yes.

  Then she looks at me. I meet her eyes and she says, "Te necesitamos la noche entera," which, if the large dude wasn't sitting there I might've taken to be a come on. She doesn't smile when she says it. Her face reveals nothing, in fact, but any time someone tells you they need you for the entirety of the night, well... I wrestle down all the snarky, flirtatious things I want to say back and just nod as smoothly as I can. Hecho.

  Then the big guy gives me an address in the Stuy and says it's stop number one; they have to pick up someone before they go where they're going. They confer quietly in the back the whole way and I do everything in my power not to keep looking in the rearview to see if maybe, maybe she's looking at me. She's not though; she's either fully concentrating on whatever secretness she's got with the big guy or she's looking out the window with an expression of either sorrow, dread or longing. Who can really tell? She's not happy. I want to ask what's wrong but I don't. I want to tell her about my dogs; I have five, and they're all small and they do drive me crazy with their bullshit, but I love the little motherfuckers. It's a cold-hearted chick that isn't impressed by a muscular man like myself who also loves his dogs. Not that that's why I have them, I really do love them, except possibly Albertino, who really can be a fucking asshole sometimes with his whining.

  Turns out to be a dude we picking up, tall and oddly colored, almost gray, but he's not a white dude. Puerto Rican if I had to guess. He slides in beside the lady, nods at me and then the fat guy says, "Carlos, this is Janey, my son's fiancé." And I almost curse out loud but don't. "Janey, this is my good friend and associate, Carlos." Carlos looks like he has to work extra hard to dig up a smile for her, but when he does it's a real one and he offers his hand. When they shake, a certain chill passes over her; not like she's afraid or disdainful, just that she understands something. Her eyes look into his with a question and he nods eversoslightly in response.

  Maybe I should be scared. Probably. You hear stories, of course: Taxi drivers disappearing. Found naked by the side of the road, covered in bitemarks or dressed only in tires and babbling boberias like some asshole in a nursing home. But anyway, I'm not scared. Janey's fine, of course, but that's neither here nor there. Plus, she's already hooked up with Baby Fat. It might be because, for all their weirdness, this strange trio still seems oddly... How do I say it? Simpático. There's a warmth to them that emanates out more powerfully than their sad gazes and hushed conspiring. Also, I realize that this is the first time I've gone more than ten minutes without thinking about Vanessa since she left.

  When I ask where to next, Carlos looks me dead in the eye and gives me my own address. I try not to flinch or make it obvious that I'm flummoxed but it seems like the guy can see through whatever bullshit mask I put up. He doesn't smile or grimace, just stays dead neutral and holds my gaze for a few seconds, apparently delving into my most fucked up childhood memories, maybe figuring out all my dogs' names, I don't know. I finally turn around slowly and start driving back toward Bushwick.

  They're conspiring again, but Carlos doesn't seem to give a fuck if I hear or not. "It's confirmed, Gordo?" Not a very creative nickname, but oh well. The big guy nods, frowning. "And she's the source?" He indicates Janey.

  "My great aunt," Janey says without disguising her irritation at being talked about as if she's not there.

  "Right," Carlos says. "What'd she say?"

  "Ah, you have a great-aunt," Gordo cuts in. "I hadn't realized that's who came to you about this." This seems to carry untold realms of fascination for him, I can only imagine why. I guess if I was his age I'd get gagigidy about a girl like Janey having a great-aunt too.

  "I told you that when I first called, Gordo." And then to Carlos. "She said it's this viejito on the floor above her."

  That would be Juan-José I'm guessing. And CiCi must be Janey's great aunt. Interesting. Carlos doesn't look convinced though. "And she's sure? Does she know what she's talking about?"

  "Listen, cowboy," Janey's eyes roll all the way back in her head. It's sexy as fuck. "You don't know a damn thing 'bout this lady, so I'll just let that skeptical smirk of your slide for this very moment." Janey pauses and takes a deep breath. I hope she's not flirting with him. "Yes," calmer now. "CiCi knows what she's talking about. Very much so. You don't have to believe me, but trust that when you see this viejito, he will be what you are looking for."

  "Okay." Carlos sits back in the seat, apparently satisfied.

  Janey directs her sad face out the window and the window shines it back to her, dark and beautiful and barely there against the Brooklyn night. I just drive.

  * * *

  When Vanessa left me this last time, it was because I could never measure up to a dead man. I'm okay with that. Devin sounded like a passive-aggressive disaster of a hum
an being anyway and, he was, after all, dead. But when she was leaving, she actually said "Fuck you and fuck your dogs too" like that crazy heffa from the Wizard of Oz. Anyway, I don't know how someone's heart can be so shriveled and demented that they could wish malice on five dogs as wonderful as mine, but then again, the world is full of Saddam Husseins and George Bushes, so who's to say?

  Can't imagine a woman like Janey ever harboring such pointless aggression. Anger, yes. Rage even. That stunning, justified rage. But that kind of hatred? I think not. But what do I know?

  "Aquí," Gordo mutters as we pull up to my building.

  I nod.

  "Listen," Carlos says, sounding like he's striving for reasonableness. "I believe what you say about your tía, Janey. I didn't mean to come across like that. It's just that..." He has her attention. Even big Gordo tunes into the gravity in Carlos's voice. "This thing, this...entity: It's not like most. I don't know how familiar you are with," he shoots a weary glance in my direction, "this topic, but this particular one is...more powerful. Especially when combined with a living form."

  Okay, I don't care if you're Cuban, Dominican, Boricua or straight Southern Black – dig deep enough, we all got brujos in the family tree somewhere. It's a fact of life. I’ma not even get into mine; I tended not to pay her much mind to be honest, but I know enough to know the difference between a charlatan, someone who is just batshit crazy, and someone that knows what the fuck they're dealing in. I'm not even saying I believe in ghosts or nothin'. I'm just saying, Carlos is not playing around. None of 'em are. And whatever entity shit he's talking about? It's real. On some level. I know because when he speaks on it I feel all the hairs on my arm stand at attention and all my insides seem to cringe at the same time.

  Janey's got a determined face on, but when she says "Okay," there's a shiver in her voice. Gordo just nods.