Bucky F*cking Dent (21 page)

Ted hung on his favorite phrase, really his only phrase, “
Café
con leche
.”

“
¿Vas a comer tu café?
”

“
Café
con leche
.” Ted rolled his eyes at Mariana like “get a load of this guy.”

“
¿Algo mas a comer?
”

“Don't do that.”

The counterman glared at Ted.

Mariana jumped in and asked Ted, “Do you like plátanos?” Ted wasn't sure what plátanos were, but they sounded fine, so of course he said, “Love the plats.”

“Plátanos, please.”

The counterman backed away, muttering under his breath.

“Does your father know you're doing this? Trying to find this mystery woman?”

“No.”

Mariana inhaled audibly, swallowed, and shook her head just slightly.

“This is all twenty, thirty years ago. Life goes on.”

“I know life goes on. I just wanna know what's real and what's not.”

“Uh-huh. For his sake or for yours?”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, maybe this is the way you need the story to go, not him.”

“Well, yeah, I would like to see why, I mean meet the reason, of why my father, why he checked out. Why he left my mother.”

“And you.”

“And me what?”

“He left you, too.”

“Okay. So?”

“And you think this woman, if she's still alive, if she actually exists, if she still lives here, and if she even remembers Marty, you think this woman will clear up the mystery? Of? The mystery of…?”

“I dunno. Why he was such a shit.”

“He's not a shit, he's a man. And life is hard. I'm sure there were many reasons, too many to ever be happy with one.”

“And me, why I'm not happy.”

“You're not happy?”

“No, I'm not happy. I don't write like I can. Or should. Why I'm getting old and am still so nowhere.” Ted was walking far out on a limb. He didn't speak to women like this, this honestly and vulnerably, especially a woman he liked. He didn't know why he was giving her so much. Because she was a nurse, a professional? Because this coffee was so strong? Or just because she was who she was, how she appeared to him as a receptive, accepting being, a receptacle poured out into this amazing shape.

“Are you trying to turn me on?” she deadpanned.

That made Ted laugh and he appreciated it. She had received him without judgment. Then she added, “I don't think there are answers for that. To why you're so nowhere, or feel you're so nowhere. Clearly you have a lot inside you that you want to get out, on a page maybe, but then what?”

“I dunno. Don't you have things you want to get out and honor?”

“We're not talking about me.”

“Why not? Can we?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Some mysteries you have to learn to accept. When you grow up.”

“When you grow up,” Ted repeated. She turned her palms up like, “This is a hard truth, but what the hell.” Ted checked for the five hundredth time—no wedding ring.

“C'mon, what's the worst that can happen? I could get arrested for harassing an old Puerto Rican lady?”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Not you, not calling you ‘old.'”

“I'm half Dominican. Uh-huh. There are worse things than harassing old Puerto Rican ladies.”

“Are you doing anything today? Again, not calling you ‘old.'”

“No, I have a day off.”

“And you don't need to spend it with your boyfriend?”

“Subtle. You're like a detective. A regular Nancy Drew.”

She was funny, and her insults had no sting, not like Marty; her insults felt nice, like acupuncture. How did she do that? Ted wondered. What was her mojo? He liked everything about her. This was bad. Joyce was right when he said, First you feel, and then you fall. Mr. James Joyce, that is, not Dr. Joyce Brothers. He wanted to spend the day with this Mariana Blades just goofing off. She made things seem possible. Was that her gift in general or just her gift with Ted? Was she giving this in particular to Ted or did she just give this to the world, and Ted happened to be sitting across from her today?

“Well, you could always hang around and officiate, I mean, not officiate, and not coach, it's not a game, or referee, more like oversee, or…” The coffee was running away with his tongue. He sounded like an idiot. He feared an imminent malapropism.

“Babysit?” she offered. An insult? Kind of, but no, not coming from her.

“Bingo. Babysit. And, you know, make sure I don't do anything stupid? Anything too stupid.”

The counterman arrived with more coffee, exactly what Ted did not need, and put the coffee and the order of plátanos on the table. Ted looked skeptically at the plate and sniffed.

“Ach, what are these, fried bananas?” He pushed them around his plate with his finger. “They are! These are fucking fried bananas! Very funny. This guy's fucking with me. Doesn't like the white guy with the Latin girl, right? I get the message, amigo, loud and clear. It's 1978, okay?”

The counterman just stared impassively and repeated, “It's 1978.”

“Oh, you're gonna act like you don't understand now.”

“Ted…” Mariana tried to cut him off.

“Mariana, please tell this gentleman that this is not
West Side Story
. This plate is gross.”

Mariana looked pained, looked up at the counterman, and said, “
Mi amigo es un poco lento mentalmente en su cabeza asi que por favor perdona lo. Es inofensivo.
”

“Yeah, what she said,” Ted seconded.

The counterman nodded and smiled somewhat forgivingly at Ted, apologizing. “
Lo siento
.”

“Hey, watch it with that
lo siento
, buddy, I can do this all day.”

Mariana said, “
Lo siento
is ‘I'm sorry.'”

“What?”

“He said he's sorry.”

“Okay, cool, cool, tell him it's okay. I accept. Yo accept,
lo siento
.”

Mariana said something to the counterman that seemed to go on a lot longer than “I accept your apology.” Then she turned back to Ted and said, “You guys are good now.”

Ted was magnanimous. “Good.
Bueno
.”

The counterman excused himself and walked away. Ted brought a small piece of plátano to his lips and tasted warily. It was very good.

“These aren't fried bananas, are they?”

Mariana shook her head no. Then she couldn't help herself and laughed so hard she almost spit some coffee on Ted. Ted started to shove more and more plátanos into his mouth.

He said, “Oh my God. I don't care what they are. They're fucking great.”

 

47.

The rain cascaded down Marty's windows. The panthers had gotten better as rainmakers. They were now pouring water down all three of Marty's windows that faced the street while working hard on their tans. Marty was awake but hadn't gotten out of bed yet. He was reading Walter Benjamin's “On Hashish.” He looked at the windows across the room and muttered to himself, “Another fucking rainout.”

 

48.

It was not raining. It was a beautiful late summer day that felt more like the beginning of the season. Ted and Mariana were hanging out near the apartment building they'd staked out. Sitting on the Corolla's fender, drinking more café con leche.

“What was your mom like?” Mariana asked. “Marty never really talks about her.”

“Wonderful. Supportive. Maybe a little overprotective.”

“That makes sense.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Where is she now?”

“Dead. Dead at forty-two from cerebral hemorrhage.”

“May I…” Mariana stopped herself. “No.”

“No, go ahead, may you what?”

“It's just a thought occurred to me that maybe with your mother gone, you have felt the responsibility to tell her story in opposition to your father, you know, keep up her fight in her absence? And maybe that inauthenticity is blocking you, getting in your way like you said earlier.”

Ted felt his cheeks flush with more anger than seemed appropriate. He clamped down on it. “I'm not telling her story.”

“Okay,” Mariana said, “it was just a thought.”

Mariana grew silent in respect for the dead and for Ted. She could see how love tore him apart. Love for his mother, for his father—there was no common ground there in the way he told it, no place for him to rest. She wouldn't push. Nothing good ever came of pushing. They sipped their coffee. It was almost lunchtime. They'd been there for hours. They'd taken a walk around the neighborhood. Mariana showed him where she was born and where she grew up and the places she remembered and the places she still liked to go. Even if he never found the old woman, Ted was already thankful for this day.

“Why is this coffee so good?”

A woman of a certain age, who had made no concessions to time and still wore the form-fitting polyester bell-bottoms and plunging V-neck top that displayed more than ample bosom, glided by on platform heels and gave Ted the serious up-and-down once-over.

“Wow,” Mariana said. “You still got it.”

“Yeah, I'm a hit with the grandmas.”

“Maybe she looked at you that way 'cause you remind her of someone.”

“You don't think maybe she just liked me for me?”

“Go on, Ted, talk to her.”

“She does seem like she could be Dad's type.”

He followed her for a few moments before tapping the lady on the shoulder. “Excuse me, ma'am, my name is Ted Fullilove. Marty Fullilove is my dad. Maybe you know him? Marty? Marty Fullilove? Softball?”

The woman took a step back and scrutinized Ted intently. She reapplied her lipstick, which seemed to Ted an unreadable response to the situation. She got right up in Ted's face and smiled wide. She nodded. “
Mira
…” she sighed, and then laughed. “Señor Peanut.”

Ted extended his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said, “have a nice day,” and turned back to Mariana.

Over the next few hours, Ted struck out with five or six more elderly Latinas.

“Maybe we should be more subtle,” Mariana said.

“More subtle?”

“Well, if it is this woman, she might not want to be found. Maybe she's married, was married, whatever, so we may want to just observe and not just smack her in the face with it. If we find this woman, it's no doubt a big deal for her.”

“You mean I should be a little more Nancy Drew?”

“Exactly.”

They went back to relax on the hood of Ted's car.

“I guess they had a deal about this other woman. Your mom and dad. And you.”

“What? No. There was no deal. She didn't know. I didn't know.”

“Maybe you both knew.”

“No, we did not.”

“Maybe you both knew enough to not want to know more, which is totally human, but the problem with getting into the habit of not knowing what you know is that eventually you lose touch with what you do know and then you no longer know what you know, which is how the majority of people walk around, and when you remember what you know, or rather what you knew, it can be an unpleasant surprise.”

The air between them stalled heavy and jangly with her words. Ted opened his mouth to reply, but it just hung unhinged. A man walked by and gave Ted a double-take.

“Was that Spanish? 'Cause I didn't understand a word of it. I wanna argue with you, but I have no idea what you're talking about. I can see why you and my father get along.”

“I think you do know.”

The double-take guy had now doubled back to them and was peering very closely at Ted, pointing his finger at him as if trying to remember something. He started to smile and nod emphatically. “Señor Peanut!”

Ted was mortified all over again. “No, no, oh no.” But the guy wouldn't take no for an answer, he started calling out loudly to whoever's around, “
¡Hola! ¡Señor Cacahuete aqui!
Señor Peanut from Jankee!”

A couple of people smiled and walked over, a little crowd started to gather, bigger than you'd think. Ted was a character at the stadium, beloved in his own special way. Something he never quite knew till this awkward moment. He was actually surprised to feel a little swell of brotherhood and love in his chest, even pride, mixed with the sharp-edged feeling of being known for something utterly insignificant in front of a woman you'd like to impress. Ted covered all that in humor, as was his wont, and stage-whispered to Mariana, “My public. What are you gonna do? The hazards of celebrity. Goes with the territory for me, but you never asked for this.
Lo siento
. Anybody have a pen?”

Nobody was asking for his autograph, which made Mariana laugh even harder. Mariana had one of those heartbreaking laughs of someone to whom life has dealt many unfunny blows. It looked like it was painful for her to laugh, like the laughter itself had to navigate a maze of knives to get out alive, which made Ted fall all the more for her on the spot. Some laughs were contagious, and some were moving. She laughed sincerely, but in her eyes there was the sense that she felt in danger when laughing, that she knew life likes to kick you in the ass just when you let your guard down. There was a lot of backslapping going on between Ted and his “adoring” public, but Ted was wondering what hurt this beautiful woman to make her laugh so heartrending and uneasy and pure.

As if she heard Ted's thoughts, Mariana stopped laughing abruptly. Walking down the street near the staked-out tenement came a Spanish woman in her sixties. This was easily the best lead they'd had. Mariana elbowed Ted and pointed her out. “I don't know her,” Mariana said, “never seen her.”