by Carol Coffey
A wide grin slowly spread across Rafael’s face and he laughed loudly. He lifted the old newspaper photo of Jonathan at Marcus Garvey Park.
“How did you meet him?” Martinez asked.
“Let’s just say our paths crossed,” Brendan replied as he sat down again.
“Well, isn’t that a coincidence!” his father replied sarcastically. He looked at the photo again and shook his head. “Thought that little bastard was dead. I really did.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Martinez glanced at the guard who was still standing close by.
“Some privacy, please! Can I have some time with my boy?” he yelled.
The guard backed off but kept his eyes fixed on the troublesome prisoner.
Martinez turned back to Brendan. “My sister used to mind the kid on some apple farm in Pennsylvania and –”
“Not Virginia?” Brendan interrupted.
“Who is telling the story here?” Rafael snapped. “She’d worked for the family there since he was a few weeks old – mother died giving birth to him. After a while the kid’s father began to hit on her and the whore started sleeping with him.”
Brendan cringed at his father’s coarse language. “Was she Melibea?”
“Melibea? That was a false name from a passport I got. My sister was illegal. Her real name was Mariana. She wanted him to marry her but that wasn’t going to happen. No white guy was going to marry no Latina. Thing was, he knocked her up and she had to marry and had to do it quickly.”
Rafael Martinez licked his lips as though he was savouring the good part of the sorry story.
“It was my idea to take him. I convinced her to run away with the kid to New York – you know, frighten the bastard and scare him into marrying her. The kid was about four and a right little handful. Little fucker spoke perfect Spanish.Mariana’s English wasn’t too good so she’d always spoken to him in Spanish. It wasn’t long before he’d figured out my real name. I kept him at my mama’s apartment and arranged for Mariana to hole up with a friend of mine in the Village. I kept telling her not to call me Rafael in front of him. He’d already heard business associates calling me Martinez. Little fucker was always listening from his box. Had to be careful what you said around him.”
“But you lied. You lied to Melibea – or Mariana. You had other ideas.”
Martinez laughed. “My sister was an idiot to have believed me anyway. What man was going to marry her after she stole his kid? The kid’s father was a penniless writer on a goddamn apple farm that he ran to bring in some cash but his father-in-law, the kid’s grandfather, was a senator or something. Wilson, yeah, I think that was his name, or Williams, something like that. No, it was definitely Wilson. He had his hopes set on Washington. I knew they’d pay big money to get the kid back, or at least I thought they would. Once she took him, I had it arranged that I would contact them and demand a ransom.”
“So you double-crossed your sister?”
“Like I said – she should have known better – too much thinking with the heart, not enough with the head. My mother was the same. Where did it get either of them?”
Brendan wanted to ask Rafael where his actions had got him but didn’t want to distract him from the story. “What happened?”
Martinez blew out and peered at the picture.“When I phoned, the old guy, the grandfather, was waiting in the kid’s house. He took over and made the kid’s father back off. He yelled that there would be no ransom, said he didn’t believe that we would hurt the kid.”
“Were the police involved?” Brendan asked.
Rafael smiled.“That was the beauty of it. There was this big election on and Wilson couldn’t afford the publicity. He got a lot of sympathy when his daughter died. Do you think he wanted it going public that his son-in-law was sleeping with a wetback? He didn’t need that but he still wasn’t giving in. He said he’d get Mariana and me deported. Course he didn’t know my real name or hers.”
“Then what happened?”
Rafael’s expression turned more serious. He placed the photo of Jonathan on the other side of the table. “She chickened out, phoned the kid’s father behind my back and tried to smooth things over, said she was sorry and that she just wanted to bring the kid back home to safety. That she was afraid for him.”
“Afraid for him?”
Rafael pulled a face. “Yeah, so I had to give the kid a few slaps, okay? The little bastard kept trying to get out of the front door. When he got older, he even managed to find his way to the park a few times. Smart little fucker he was.”
Brendan lowered his face to hide the emotion he was feeling. He tried to banish the image of a four-year-old child being beaten by the man in front of him.
“He told her that it was over, that whatever feelings he had for her were gone. He begged her to do the right thing and bring the child home.”
“And?” Brendan asked as his father’s eyes misted over.
“She went to Mama’s apartment in Harlem and took the kid. I . . . I caught up with her and . . .” Martinez lowered his head, “I got him back.”
The tone of Rafael’s voice was final. Brendan knew his father did not want him to push any further but he had to know. He had to know everything.
“How?”
“I took him from her!” he spat angrily.
Brendan flinched and the guard moved forward again, ensuring that Rafael could see him in the corner of his eye.
“What happened to Melibea? I mean, Mariana?” Brendan asked.
“I told her to go back to my friend’s place in the Village, that I’d handle it. You should have seen the look in her eye. I think she knew then, she knew Wilson wasn’t going to cave in. She also knew that I wasn’t going to give him back, that I couldn’t. She knew it was over.”
Rafael looked away and fixed his eyes on a brilliant section of the wall mural.
Brendan waited.
“She never made it back to the house. I thought the kid’s grandfather had taken her and that he was playing games with me. I phoned him from a pay phone and he said he knew nothing about her but I didn’t believe him. I said, you bring Melibea back and I give you back the kid and he . . . he hung up on me!”
“And?” Brendan asked.
“We had what you call stalemate. I stayed in the house but anytime I went out on business, the kid would try to run away. I told Mama not to let him out of the box but she was dumb – felt sorry for him.”
Brendan tensed. “So you beat him?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Rafael studied his son for a moment.
“You think I wanted to hurt a kid? If he got out, I was going down and Mariana too.I couldn’t understand what the old man was waiting for. I had his grandson! Don’t you think he’d want to get the kid back?A few days later I phoned him again and I said I was going to the newspapers with the story and that if he didn’t let her go, I’d kill the kid. The bastard still denied having anything to do with Mariana’s disappearance.”
Brendan watched as his father’s eyes glazed over.
“My mother was frantic. She’d gone through a lot of danger to get us out of Mexico. She worked her fingers to the bone to paypeople to get us across the border. I told her that the family were playing hardball and that we had to keep the kid until we got Mariana back. She hated us keeping the kid, felt sorry for him. Each day she’d scream at me, she’d say she was going to leave him outside a police station and I had to remind her ‘no kid – no Mariana’ so she shut up and kept an eye on him while I saw to business.”
“Business?”
“Yeah, business!” he sneered. “Two weeks later I got arrested for supplying.”
“Drugs?” Brendan asked innocently.
“No, teddy bears! What do you think, stupid?I got sent down for eighteen months. I was only in prison three weeks when I heard that a Latina’s body was found floating in the harbour. Friend of mine told me but he didn’t know for sure if it was Mariana but the newspapers said she
had a kid’s yellow jacket in her coat pocket. Sounded the same as the one the kid was wearing when she took him so I knew it was her. They searched the area for a kid but, of course, I knew they wouldn’t find one.”
Brendan shook his head, appalled at the end his aunt had come to.
“You . . . did you . . . arrange it?” Brendan stammered.
Rafael banged his fist onto the table. “No!” he yelled.
The CO started forward but Rafael held up an appeasing hand. The CO slowly stepped back.
Rafael leant towards Brendan. “You think I am some kind of animal to kill my own sister!” he hissed. “Mariana took her own life and the life of her unborn child with her. That old bastard was telling the truth about not knowing where she was. All the time I was waiting, she was at the bottom of the harbour.”
He slumped down in the chair and stared at the table.“We couldn’t even claim her body, couldn’t give her a Christian funeral. There was no identification on her so the city police recorded her as a Jane Doe and buried her in an unmarked grave.”
Brendan pondered on the irony of the story. His aunt’s actions condemned her to eternity in an unmarked grave and Jonathan to a life with no identity.
Martinez sighed and glanced sideways to ensure that the guard could not hear him. “I don’t know why Mariana put that kid’s jacket in her pocket. It was a pretty stupid thing to do. I suspected that the kid’s grandfather had friends in all sorts of places discreetly checking on things. I’d say he got to hear about an unknown Latina being washed up under Brooklyn Bridge and that he assumed that the kid was dead.”
“Then what?”
“I sent a letter to Mama using a box number. I told her to get rid of the package.”
Brendan mouth’s dropped open at the callousness of his father’s statement and hoped he misunderstood its meaning.“By get rid of . . . you mean?”
Rafael sneered and leant forward. “What use had I for him? My sister was dead.”
“Your sister was dead because you tricked her into doing something she regretted!” Brendan spat.
Rafael stood and reached for Brendan again, pulling him roughly by the T-shirt until their faces were inches apart. The CO, who had not taken his eyes of Martinez rushed over and shouted for the guard to open the door.
“Visiting time is over for you, Martinez!”
Brendan looked at the CO and pushed his father’s hands away. He had yet to find out what happened to Jonathan for all those years or where he had been taken from.
“Please!” hebegged the guard. “Just another few minutes! It’s important!”
The CO hesitated, then signalled for the guard on the outside of the door to lock it again and Rafael Martinez returned to his chair.
“But your mother didn’t do as you said,” Brendan said.
Rafael looked away and focused once again on the mural beside him.“I should have known she would not do it. You cannot trust women to do what has to be done. Like I told you, too much feeling, not enough thinking. She came to see me. When I saw her in the visiting room I . . . stupid bitch!”He frowned and shook his head. “I had told her, never come here. No one knew we were connected. All three of us used different names. Only I could use my real name. Thanks to your mother, I was an American citizen.”
“What name did you use before then?” Brendan asked.
Martinez sneered.“None of your business.”
“Was your mother using the name Rosa Soto?” Brendan asked, remembering the name of the old woman who had died in the basement apartment Jonathan had led the police to all those years ago.
Rafael nodded. “She begged me to tell her where the kid was from, said she was going to take a bus there and leave him outside. Luckily the kid had forgotten the name of the place – if he ever knew.”He shook his head at the stupidity of the old woman.“I had to sit real close to her so the guards wouldn’t hear. I told her that the kid could lead the police to her door which, now that she had shown up in the prison, would lead to my door.”
Brendan could feel his breathing quickening as he listened to the danger Jonathan had been in.
“She said she wouldn’t do it. She said that the Lord would never forgive her and that a mother could never kill a child. She blessed herself and stood in the middle of the visitor’s room looking at me as if I was . . . crazy.”
Rafael smoothed his hands over the table. His mouth moved silently as though he was reliving the conversation with his mother.
“She was a good person. Stupid though,” he said wistfully. He sighed and returned his gaze to Brendan.“I told her I didn’t know where exactly he was from. She didn’t believe me but it was true. Like I said – all I knew was it was some dirt farm in Pennsylvania.
“You must have organised for Mariana to be picked up from the house. She would have been noticed travelling a long distance with a white kid.”
“Mariana organised that end of things herself. I had nothing to do with the kid until he got to New York.”
“I don’t believe you!” Brendan spat.
Well , neither did Mama,” Rafael sneered. “She also didn’t believe that I didn’t know the kid’s name.”
Brendan smiled wryly at Martinez. “You don’t know his last name?You’re lying.”
“I don’t care what you believe, boy! I knew the kid’s name was Jonathan but I didn’t know his last name. It didn’t come up. Mariana gave me the number on a piece of paper with the kid’sfather’s first name on it which was also Jonathan. That’s what Mariana called him so that’s who I asked for.”
“What year was it?” Brendan asked.
“Well . . . now . . . let me see,” Martinez said slowly.
Brendan slammed his fist down on the table impatiently.“You’re enjoying this, you sick bastard!”
Martinez looked toward the guard. “I could call him over, tell him I’m tired of our little tête-à-tête,” he teased.
Brendan flinched and raised his hands up in surrender.
“It was nineteen . . . sixty . . . nine,” Martinez replied, excruciatingly slowly.
“Forty-three years ago,” said Brendan. “ So that would make Jonathan – em – forty-seven?”
Martinez nodded. “See you got my brains as well as my good looks.”
“The phone number Mariana gave you. What was it?” Brendan asked.
“You think I remember that number after more than four decades?” Martinez snapped.
“So you can’t or you won’t tell me what I need to know to get him home? You’re sick. You’d think you’d try to do some good to pay for all the wrong you’ve done.”
Rafael looked down and studied the wooden table underneath his wrinkled hands.
“You could look up Wilson, the grandfather. He’d be dead by now but his name might lead you somewhere,” he said as he slowly raised his eyes to his son.
Brendan nodded. “Did you know anything about his older sister Cassie? She was blind.”
Rafael shook his head.“I don’t know anything about no blind chick.”
“So your mother didn’t – get rid – of Jonathan,” Brendan said, skimming over the awful words as fast as he could.
“When I got out, I wasn’t surprised to find she still had him there. She was sick by then, some lung disease, and the fucking kid was actually looking after her, calling her grandma and forgetting that he could even speak English. I got back into business and anytime anyone came to the house, I had to lock the little bastard in the box which he didn’t take too well to. Seemed likeMama had let him free most of the time.”
Brendan tensed again and looked down at the table.“Then what?”
“She understood by then that we could never take him home. She knew I’d go back to prison and that I’d rot there but she wouldn’t let me get rid of him, said that if she had to make a choice, she’d rather see me back behind bars than let me hurt the child. She said she’d tell the police. She said the price she would have to pay for seeing me back in jail would b
e worth protecting an innocent child. She said . . .” His lip began to tremble.
Brendan looked away, embarrassed. Apart from anger, it was the first real sign of emotion his father had shown.
“She said that . . . that I was lost . . . that she couldn’t save me from the evil life I chose to live . . . but that she could still save the boy.”
He looked away and kept his eyes focused on the wall while he composed himself. Another prisoner glanced over at him.
“What the fuck you looking at?” he screamed.
Brendan flinched at the sudden noise and glanced at the guard to ensure he was still near enough to help if his father became aggressive again.
“So I let her keep him. By then, the only time Ihad to beat him was when I tried to get him into the box. That’s when he was more likely to try to run away. Man, he hated that box but I couldn’t risk him seeing the faces of my business associates when they’d call. A few times he got to the water tower in the park. I was lucky there were no cops around. Had to stick him with a needle to drug him and carry him back to the apartment. By then, he wasn’t too dangerous for me ’cause he no longer knew who he was anyway.”
Rafael began to laugh loudly. He slapped his hands on the table as he reminisced.
“Mama . . . she was so worried about him not speaking English anymore that she sat him in front of the TV all day watching soaps. There was this one show – the stupid kid actually began to think it was his family. I mean, he wasn’t dumb enough to think Mama was really his grandma and I think he knew that he’d come from somewhere else but . . . you should have heard him speaking English with that southern accent on the show and thinking those stories were things he had actually done!”
Brendan stared hard at his father, astonished at how cruel the man was.
“Anyway, a few years later, I was arrested again and I’ve been here ever since.”
“For double murder,” Brendan said angrily.
Rafael gave his son another one of his icy glares.“I did not intend to kill those people,” he said curtly.“They got caught in crossfire.” He said it as if this made his actions acceptable.
“Those people were a mother and her young child!”
