Maximo took her into the building and down a lightless basement corridor, at the end of which a red votive candle played across the heavy-boned ebony face of Mama.
“Entra en la casa para que los santos te ayuden,” Mama said.
When she saw Maximo, her religious demeanor dropped and she gave a toothy smile and a howl. She placed the candle on a small table inside the door and held out her arms, demanding that Maximo allow himself to be hugged.
“I asked your saint to see that you pass all your subjects in school,” she said. “This I do for you.”
“I didn’t take the exams yet,” Maximo said.
“Then when you take the exams, your saint will see that you pass them.”
“We will pray to Changó and bring Teenager home to his house,” Mama said, waving Lydia into the darkened basement apartment. Lydia wore a skirt and blouse and carried jeans and another blouse; she thought it would be simpler for the skirt, rather than the jeans, to be cut off her during the ceremony. In the darkness, somebody took the jeans and blouse and Lydia stood uneasily, arms folded. As she grew accustomed to the darkness, she noticed two women in white dresses and three young men in white suits. Mama was in an old print blouse and dark pants. She padded about in gray socks. There was a noise at the door and a tall young man in a white suit pulled a goat on a rope. Mama waved him away and followed him out into the hallway, giving orders. Then she came back and stood in the kitchen and watched Maximo peer into the refrigerator.
“Orange juice, grapefruit juice, something like that,” Maximo said.
“When the boy comes back, I’ll send him to the store,” Mama said.
“Maybe I’ll go out myself,” Maximo said.
“You do not stay?” Mama said.
“No, I’ll just go for a walk,” Maximo said.
“Changó helps you in the school, too,” Mama said.
Maximo smiled. Mama had such great sense in this big old body of hers, yet she persisted in identifying any thoughts of her own as being messages from her saints; in his first year at Harvard, with his insides crying for something familiar, Maximo had called Mama simply to talk to someone, and she listened to him for a few sentences and then told him to regard himself as a prisoner and move immediately into the Spic group. “When you go into the yard, you stand only with them,” she said. By yard, she meant any area similar to the one at Attica; she had no idea that Harvard had a Yard. When Maximo told her there were no Puerto Ricans at the school, Mama then insisted that he move out of his dormitory and into a Hispanic neighborhood. Maximo took a room in Roxbury and regained his ability to breathe.
“Maybe you helped me by yourself,” Maximo now suggested to her.
“But you did what I told you to do.”
“I guess I did.”
“And you are still doing the workout?”
“I am.” Mama had told him that to defeat the effect of Harvard whites, he must use pushups, just as Puerto Ricans in Attica, their loins screaming, try to exercise the sex out of their systems. Maximo would come to Constitutional Law with aching biceps.
“If you did what I told to you on the phone, then you did what Changó said,” Mama said.
“Whatever it was, it helped.”
“The saints now will help Teenager.”
“I don’t know who’ll help him,” Maximo said.
“You still let them fool you,” Mama said. “It is not an American religion, so you think something is bad. If some Puerto Rican people believe in this religion, why cannot it be good? You are as bad as the people who go to the market and they say, ‘Don’t give me that little tomato. That’s a Spic tomato. Give me the big one over there, the American one.’ That is what they have done to the minds of the Puerto Rican people. If it is Puerto Rican it is no good. Only American is good. You do not believe Santeria even it helps you. Prove to me that Mama cannot do more for you than the priest in the church.”
“I guess I can’t.”
“You see? Tonight, I will have the saints help Teenager.”
At this, Maximo decided to go for his walk. He wanted to do it casually, for he couldn’t insult her. She had been part of his life since childhood. When he was ten, three blacks with baseball bats walked up to him in front of the projects on 137th Street and began swinging. One of Maximo’s ankles broke and he pitched onto a patch of dirt and crab grass in front of the projects and began screaming, his hands ripping at the crab grass. He heard Mama’s voice call out that she would help. His hands kept ripping at the crab grass, and Mama went into the street and stopped an ambulance. In later years, Maximo understood that the ambulance had happened onto the street at that time, but on that day Mama had claimed that the saints had sent it, and no one, particularly Maximo, disputed her. Since then, whenever he felt like displaying cynicism toward her belief, he remembered the time he was ripping at the crab grass. For that day alone, he never could hurt her.
“I have to go out for something anyway,” Maximo told Mama. “You take care of your ceremony.”
As he walked out of the kitchen, he heard a fluttering; in the doorway, the young guy now stood with a bird of some kind. “Gallina?” Mama asked. The young guy assured her that it was a hen. Maximo went by them and into the hallway.
“When do I see you?” Mama said.
“Soon,” Maximo said.
“I will pray to the saint for you,” Mama said.
Case of: Ramon Solivan 73C748
Date: 6/15/76
The subject is to be conditionally released on the marginal date (9/1/76) from the Albion Correctional Facility. On the day following the marginal date, the subject is to make his Arrival Report to the New York area office. He is assigned to report to the Bronx Parole unit, Bronx County Courthouse, 161st Street and Grand Concourse.
3
MAXIMO HAD JUST WALKED out of his house and was looking at the headlines on the newsstand when the arm came under his chin and pulled him back. The moment Maximo felt the size of the arm, he knew who it was.
“I feel the presence of an evil personage,” he called out.
“I am saving you again,” Teenager said. “I am pulling you up from a deep hole.”
Teenager released his arm and spun Maximo around. “Let me see you. You look smart. The school has made you look very smart.”
“You look terrific,” Maximo said.
“Of course. I have been away to school too.”
“I think you were with nicer people,” Maximo said.
“I was with lice. Never have I had to be with such people. All bums and lice who get caught. Never will I be there again. Mama said this time she will watch for me every day and save me.”
“This time you ought to try watching yourself,” Maximo said.
“Mama will do it for me. You helped me get out, Maximo. For taking my wife to Mama, I will buy you something. Here, we’ll go down the block to Eddie Hernandez and I will buy you all new shirts. Yes, I will do that for you right now, I will buy you something.”
“I don’t want to go there,” Maximo said. “Not today. I’ve got things to do.”
“What have you got to do? You’re finished with school?”
“I still have to take the test, the bar exam.”
“After this, you will become an abogado.”
“If I pass.”
“You will pass everything. Then when you pass, I will hook you up and you will make millions. You will keep Teenager out of jail.”
Teenager held out his hand. Maximo, laughing, slapped it.
“You are so brilliant that the judges will see you come into the courtroom and they will say, ‘Oh, we cannot go any more with this case against Teenager. Here he is bringing Maximo with him and Maximo is too smart for all of us.’ ”
“I don’t think your business will be my business,” Maximo said.
“Anything you do I will make sure that you earn millions,” Teenager said. He saw something out of the corner of his eye and he turned around and gazed at the other si
de of the street. “Is that Pat?”
“Where?”
“That one.” Teenager pointed to a young woman, growing heavy in the waist, pushing a baby carriage.
“That’s Pat,” Maximo said.
Teenager roared. “Pat!” he called out.
Across the street, the young woman with the baby carriage stopped, focused, and then gave a whoop as she saw Teenager.
“You are very beautiful,” Teenager called.
Pat waved her hand.
“Is that Maximo’s baby?” he called out to Pat.
Pat put a hand to her mouth and shook her head no.
“That is too bad. Maximo is going to make millions. You and your child would be very rich.”
Pat seemed uninterested in Maximo.
“Your next baby will be with Maximo,” Teenager shouted. Pat turned the corner quickly.
Teenager said to Maximo, “I am going for a drive.”
“I’m going to sit down someplace and read,” Maximo said. He carried a thick law book.
“Come on, you can read in my car,” Teenager said.
“Where are you going?” Maximo asked.
“To New Jersey,” Teenager said.
“What for?”
“What difference does it make? Wherever I go, you just stay in the car and I promise you it’ll be all right. It’s nothing. Just a ride.”
The Mercedes was parked around the corner. Maximo slid into the car, put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes as Teenager drove up toward the George Washington Bridge.
“Who are you going to see?” he said.
“Mariani,” Teenager said.
“Some wop,” Maximo said.
“You could call him that,” Teenager said.
Maximo was uneasy now. Maybe you better make this the last, he told himself.
Teenager drove onto the George Washington Bridge, a structure meant for splendor, but now, loaded with Sunday afternoon traffic, just another crowded federal highway. Beneath the bridge, people furiously enjoyed themselves on small boats. The traffic moved into New Jersey, where somewhere children ran through grass. To find this place, one had to know the proper muffler shop or fried chicken stand to use as a turning point.
Louis Mariani lived in Swiftbrook, and Teenager had been given his phone number by a son-in-law of Mariani’s named Ronald Schiavone, the inmate at Albion who lived in continual trouble with the blacks and Hispanics. Usually, Teenager was the only object between Schiavone and the hereafter. When Teenager called, Mariani first said he would meet him the next day at the bar next to the funeral parlor on Pleasant Avenue in East Harlem. When Teenager said he wanted to see Mariani right away, Mariani said he was home cooking Sunday dinner for his family, but he could spare a few moments from the gravy to welcome a returning veteran, particularly one who had done so much for him. If Teenager had not assisted Schiavone, Mariani would have placed land mines on his front walk before allowing a Hispanic into his house.
Mariani was the boss-in-fact of the Mafia family running the Bronx. News and law-enforcement people call it the Lucchese family: Lucchese had been dead for years, but cops and reporters have decreed that the Mafia, like prestigious Protestant law firms, goes under the names of founders even though those heroes have been dead for decades. The man with the actual title of boss in this particular family was a man named Albert who was in prison. The family, run by Mariani, had no name other than its newspaper and police file name, and its members operated in “crews” whose lives revolved around finding the right black to sell dope to; the wrong black being an undercover agent. Little else mattered, for importing and selling dope always has been the only serious occupation of the Mafia.
Teenager stopped at Burger King on Route 4 in New Jersey and asked directions to Mariani’s house, which was difficult to locate because a golf course cut off many of the streets. Teenager and Maximo had a hamburger and onion rings, each tasting like cardboard, and then turned off the highway at a transmission repair shop and several minutes later wound up at Mariani’s, a large yellow brick home on a corner lot in a neighborhood of houses set far back from the street. Teenager put his Mercedes 300 directly in front of Mariani’s house, got out of the car and stretched. If you came to a neighborhood like this, there is no reason not to let everybody inspect you, Teenager said to himself. The windows of the houses of the street were covered, but Teenager could feel people: suburban eyes can look through velvet and still make out a Puerto Rican or black.
Teenager had on a red silk shirt from Eddie Hernandez’ store. His great upper torso, which seemed to carry half his hundred and ninety pounds, was outlined sharply against the shirt. Light tan gabardine pants without a wrinkle sat on his thirty-one-inch hips smoothly.
His hair was a thick black mane, shaggy and striking, that, through mustache, sideburns and full beard, allowed the hairless part of his tan-yellow face to be covered by the palm of a hand. Hooded eyes seemed sleepy. He grinned as he looked at Mariani’s house, the high cheekbones rising even more.
Teenager knew that his hair was part of the reason why Mariani changed his mind and invited him to the house. Teenager had pelo lacio, which is straight hair. If he had pelo malo, Mariani undoubtedly would have made it plain that he did not want Teenager in his house. Pelo malo means bad hair: wiry hair, kinky hair, African hair. There is a crazed regard for pelo lacio, while pelo malo causes people to withdraw.
Teenager did not have to ring the doorbell. Louis Mariani appeared with his arms spread. He threw them about Teenager’s shoulders. His capped teeth gleamed.
“I love you like a son,” Mariani said, “for what you done for that kid.”
“It is good to see you,” Teenager said.
“Where’d you leave the car, in front of this house?”
“Yes. It’s all right. Parole officers don’t work on the weekend,” Teenager said.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant that you can’t put the car in front of anybody else’s house. Some of these neighbors, they’re citizens. They beef when they got cars from this house in front of their house. You one of my babies.” He pinched Teenager’s left cheek and blew kisses with his mean mouth.
The pinching annoyed Teenager. Who is this little man to touch me when I could snap his arm off?
Mariani suddenly withdrew and waved his hand. “Look at her, will you?”
Walking across the lawn from the driveway was a young woman with a long cheerful body.
“My daughter Nicki,” Mariani said. “She’s my baby doll.”
In the car at the curb Maximo raised his head and looked out the window at Nicki. Immediately, Nicki noticed that Maximo was looking at her. With a glance, she saw that Maximo’s hair was combed straight back; it definitely was not nigger hair. His close-cropped beard was almost exciting. Whoever he was, he was taller than most Puerto Ricans, and he sat erect in the car, not slouched down like some common Spic. He might even like my nose, she thought. Hers was prominent, although not as prominent as she had once thought, and its ridge was delightful, and important, to gray-green eyes that rested above strong cheekbones. At thirteen, she had been embarrassed by her nose, and when an uncle had his nose flattened by a baling hook at the Fulton Market, she dreamed of going down to the market and having hers, too, flattened by a hook. As she grew up, she realized that the nose was far less obtrusive than she imagined, and most people even liked it. As a carryover from youth, however, she still thought of it each time a man looked at her, as this one now was.
“Nicki,” her father said.
“Yes.”
“Say hello to Teenager.”
Nicki had a catalogued greeting for this sort of person: she smiled, nodded, said pleasure to meet you and walked away from them. “A pleasure,” she said to Teenager and then, walking away, she concentrated on her step and how she held her head in the presence of the steady gaze that she felt coming from the car window.
“Nicki,” her father said.
“Yes, Daddy.”
>
“What’s the matter with you? This is Teenager.”
“Oh, you’re the one,” she said.
“Que paso, Nicki?” Teenager said.
Oh, I hate this dirty Spic and I have to be nice to him. For a moment, she saw her husband, so much smaller, standing in a cellblock with Teenager in front of him. She was suddenly furious with her husband for being caught and having to place everybody in the debt of this Puerto Rican. Look at this, now I have to reach out and touch his hand.
“Have some coffee with us?” Nicki said.
“Why not?” Teenager said.
Nicki walked into the house ahead of him, sorry that she was no longer in the eyes of the one in the car. She wanted to get a good look at him.
Mariani swaggered down the hall and into a kitchen paneled with wood and aluminum oven doors. A kitchen towel tucked into his belt flapped on his pot belly as he moved. The sleeves of an initialed white-on-white shirt were rolled up. His bald head glistened in the kitchen lights.
The wife cut onions and the daughter moved swiftly from cabinet to coffee pot, her long hair swinging across her shoulder blades.
Nicki pulled out two fresh dishtowels and draped them over the trays of food she was taking up to her husband at prison the next morning, thus removing, she hoped, the husband from as much of the kitchen conversation as possible. Her long cheerful body, the legs beginning at the hips, moved inside Bloomingdale’s jeans and a ninety-dollar gold silk shirt from Saks Fifth Avenue. As she waited for the coffee, her wide mouth was set in a young matron’s smile that was an attempt at protective coloration, a very good attempt, too, except there was bleakness at the core of her eyes. Her husband had to live with people like this Puerto Rican in the kitchen with her, and then tomorrow, when she visited him in prison, where he ate and slept among these Spics and niggers, he would touch her.
“Want fruit?” Mariani’s wife said.
Forsaking All Others Page 3
