Roachkiller and Other Stories (6 page)

Pedro head-butted me in the stomach and, as I bent over, in the chin.

I fell back on the sand. The wild surf curled in large foamy waves onto the shore, only a few feet away. The sky over the sea was dark, but there was something black and gigantic on the horizon, moving closer. I had a moment to think I should’ve gone after the guy with the satchel. Stupid.

I jumped up and reached for Pedro, but he ducked and kicked me twice in the ribs. His sandals or his toes must have been made of steel. I went down, spitting up, almost vomiting. He came at me, and we wrestled, moving closer to the waves, getting soaked with seawater. Pedro was about to hit me again when I grabbed his arm and pivoted, using his momentum to throw him to the ground. He spun right back and leaped at me. I turned on my left foot and threw him down again. He got right back up again, came in low. I smacked my flat palm into his nose, hard, and he fell back. I went to kick him, but he kicked my feet out from under me. I fell on the hot, wet sand—it felt like hitting concrete. That really hurt. I felt the ocean spraying on my face. I’d had enough. Someone get me a drink.

Suddenly, Pedro was picking me up—I was too limp to do anything—getting my head and neck in a chokehold.

Then there was a shot. In a haze, I turned, looked up, and saw a small hole in Pedro’s flat forehead. He fell back onto the dark sand.

Itaba stood there with the gun. The gift bag lay on the wet sand between us, closer to me. She ran toward it, and with my last bit of energy I leaped like a frog. Our fingers closed on the bag at the same time. I yanked and the wet bag split open. The plastic-wrapped cemi fell on the sand between us.

She aimed the gun at me.

“Itaba. Wait,” I said, standing, the torn, wet bag in my hand.

“Lo siento, negrito.
But I need this,” she said and fired.

The bullet whizzed past my face. I could feel it even in the wild wind. I stumbled back, and a monster clawed at me and pulled me away.

*  *  *

I don’t believe in magic. I pray at night but don’t expect any answers. But I do it just in case—like making a side bet.

As I fell into the ocean, I went deep. I swallowed water. There was darkness and cold and, then, maybe even small glowing lights. I could’ve imagined that part. But somehow I survived. I can’t explain it. If I had to give an answer, I’d just say it was dumb luck.

This time there was barking. When I lifted my face from the sand, there was a small hairy dog barking at me, stepping forward, moving back, stepping forward. Sand in its fur. I looked up and saw dull sunshine. All around me—seaweed, dark wood, things tossed out by the storm, just like me.

I turned my head to one side and saw, like another dead dog, Pedro’s seaweed-covered body on the drying sand. Moving toward us were police and paramedics. A gurney. Some tourists.

It began to make sense. Pedro wasn’t the one who wanted to start a drug empire. It was Itaba. She’d wanted Pedro out of the way, maybe because he didn’t approve, maybe to keep the money for herself. He could’ve killed the doctor for her. But I’d put my money on little miss archaeologist—she’d had plenty of time to do it, then come back and pick me up to be her patsy.

Now she had her stone, and I still somehow had in my hand a torn gift bag with the little coqui on it.
Bienvenidos a la Isla del Encanto.

The dog was licking me. It was still there. It really existed. It looked like a stray. I thought about what was probably going to happen to him, what with all these crazy drivers on the island. “It’s my dog,” I told the cop who handcuffed me.
“Eso mi perrrro.”

The cop must’ve thought I was crazy. I was more worried that my hair was a mess. 

Roachkiller

Roachkiller’s heading to the subway, not two feet off the bus from Attica and minding my own, see what I’m saying. Wanting to leave that shit behind. But Joselito, he don’t shut up. Boy talked the whole way down.

He said, “So, Roachkiller, bro. Anything you need, give me a call, bro. You got my number.”

“Straight up,” Roachkiller told him. “Roachkiller’s got your number.”

Two-faced, backstabbing, cocksucking motherfucker. You gotta make friends in prison, a lot of times with people you don’t want to know. But Roachkiller was free now. Joselito was bad on the inside, and tied up with worse shit on the outside. Trouble
puro
. Roachkiller done did his ten-year bit. Roachkiller was not going back, not for no one.

“I owe you my life, bro. I owe you,” Joselito said and gave Roachkiller a big handshake and hug.

“Forget about it.”

“Let me give you a ride, bro,” he said. “I got a ride outside.” He pointed to a big-ass truck parked at the curb. Bigger than my old cell.

“Nah, man. Roachkiller’s got places to go, things to do.”

Joselito went to his big-ass truck, and Roachkiller just strolled down to the A train. It was hot down them stairs, sticky sidewalk hot. Bet that truck had a sweet-ass air conditioner.

Roachkiller got on the A, switched to the J, and when we pulled out over the Williamsburg Bridge, Roachkiller could see the City, the Empire State Building way up, shiny and silver and shit, and then Brooklyn, Williamsburg, spread out like a brown and gray rug. But Roachkiller was home. Roachkiller was free.

*  *  *

Roachkiller had nowhere to go but Abuelita’s. She was still in the same dump two blocks from the highway. The same three rooms Roachkiller grew up in. This is the room we ate dinner and watched cartoons. This is the room my bro gave me my first, second, and third black eye. This is the room where Mami died.

Abuelita must be like eighty. She got thick glasses, shaded and shit, which is good because she got one mean-as-hell-looking dead eye. But that lady is a tiger, and sharp as steel. She give Roachkiller a hug like Roachkiller never did nothing wrong, like I came back from a week at camp and shit. She started cooking right away. Roachkiller saw she was moving a little slower now, taking baby steps. But she didn’t want no help, screamed if Roachkiller moved.

It was cool and dark in there. Roachkiller went to the window, to check outside. Old habit, see what I’m saying.

“Cierra las cortinas,”
Abuelita said. She got this phobia, thinking somebody’s gonna shoot through the window. It’s not funny because it happened once. So Roachkiller closed the curtains, walked away.

“Adónde vas!?”

“I gotta wash my hands, Abuela. I got prison dirt.”

“Dios te bendiga.
Go wash your hands!”

She fed me
chicharrones
,
arroz con gandules
,
and more
platanos
than an army of Dominicans could eat. After Roachkiller ate, Roachkiller knew he was gonna fall asleep. So Roachkiller went to the couch, before Abuelita yelled at Roachkiller to take the good bed.

It was a couple days later, after another one of Abuelita’s giant meals, when Roachkiller was outside busting myself down with an ace on the stoop. Abuelita didn’t let Roachkiller smoke inside. I mean, Roachkiller killed him some seventeen guys, eye to eye sometimes, but Abuelita, she just smacked that shit out of my face. So Roachkiller went out to the stoop.

It was hot as hell outside, lots of people out, walking up and down. The garbage cans smelled bad, but better than Riker’s. That’s when the kid came up to me. He was carrying a bag.

“Roachkiller,” he said.

Not just anyone calls Roachkiller “Roachkiller.” This kid was about to get his ass kicked.

 “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said.

“Whatchoo want?”

 “They said, they told me, well . . . I wanted to hire you.”

“What the fuck?”

Roachkiller stared at him, not mean or nothing, just “What the fuck?” The kid looked like he was about to cry.

“My sister is in trouble,” he said. “There’s this bad man. Juan de la Cruz. He stays drunk on the stoop all the time. She’s going out with him. She’s smart, really. But he’s going to bring her down.”

Again—“What the fuck?”

“She was supposed to finish high school. But he stopped her. And she was going to join the army. But he made her quit. Now she keeps saying she’s going to get a job, but she don’t do nothing.”

Old story. Same shit happened to my moms. People like that are like addicts. Can’t save them for shit.

“Fuck.”

Kid’s eyes got all wet. “It’s not just her. She steals money from my mother. She takes things. My mother can’t take it. She’s too old. I don’t want Mami to die.”

“Damn, kid. Whatchoo want me to do about it?”

“The old men on the street, they said you would kill a man for almost nothing, that you would do it for a six-pack.”

Then the kid held out the bag. Damn.

“Please,” he said. “I don’t have any money.”

“Then how’d you get the beer, little man. And now I think of it—how’d you get the beer? You’re fucking twelve.”

“I saved up. Then I got a man to buy it. I had to give him money to get himself a beer.”

“Shit,” Roachkiller said. “Get the fuck outta here, kid. Go home. Watch cartoons.”

“My sister—”

“Fuck your sister. Leave Roachkiller alone.”

Boy look like he was going to cry again, then he turned around and started walking. But not before putting the bag with the six-pack into the trash. Then he walked to the building across the way and went inside. Never looked back.

Roachkiller knows what you’re thinking. But there was a time Roachkiller would have killed a man for a six-pack. Even just one beer, if it was cold.

*  *  *

It was only a matter of time before Don Moncho came calling. Roachkiller had been looking for a bar, but all the old ones was closed. Too many dark places with rock music and shit. Roachkiller found this old social club called El Piterre on South 2nd. Woulda been nice to meet a mamita, you know what I’m saying. Good salsa music, some classics, on the jukebox. But nothing but old men in there. They wouldn’t even let you smoke in there. Roachkiller was outside busting an ace when this guy came up.

He said, “Let me get a cigarette.”

Roachkiller gave him a bone.

“Let me get a light.”

Roachkiller got out his silver lighter. But then the motherfucker kicked Roachkiller in the balls, grabbed the lighter, and ran.

“Motherfuck,” Roachkiller said and started running after the guy.

But a building stopped Roachkiller. It was Quique, Don Moncho’s man. He put his hand on Roachkiller’s shoulder and Roachkiller might as well have tried to move a mountain.

“Let him go,” he said.

“You know that guy?”

“Juan de la Cruz. Steals little shit. A waste of your time.”

“Don Moncho wants to see Roachkiller,” Roachkiller said.

“Don Moncho wants to see you.”

*  *  *

Back in the day Don Moncho had his own club. He had a pool table in the back, and he played morning, noon, night. He coulda been a famous pool player, if he wanted to. If he asked you to play, you had to, even though you knew he would beat you every time.

But there was no pool table this time. This time Quique went to an apartment on Roebling, above a laundromat. Each time you took a step it got hotter and hotter. Quique opened the door and it was like a fucking steam bath.

Don Moncho was a great man in his day. But now he was on a couch, in sweatpants and a blanket. Little TV set on. Smelled like old pee in there.

“Roberto,” Don Moncho said. Roachkiller could barely hear him.

We caught up, about the old times and shit. But Roachkiller doesn’t want to waste his time or the time of a man like Don Moncho.

“Listen, Don Moncho, no disrespect, but before we get into what I think you want to get into, I gotta say, Roachkiller ain’t doing time, again. Never.”

“Fuck you,” he said. He was old but his balls still had hair. “I invited you here to give you something.”

“My apologies, Don Moncho,” Roachkiller said. Roachkiller was trying to keep cool, but Don Moncho don’t give shit to nobody for nothing.

“When you was away something very bad happen,” he said. “Your abuelita, she probably didn’t tell you. She was living all alone, and a man, he came in to take her money. You were not there to protect her. He broke in, she was there, and, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, he violated her.”

“Madre de dios.”
Roachkiller was crying like that stupid boy, crying, crazy, busting mad. I was gonna explode.

“I have his name,” Don Moncho said. “I know where he lives.”

“Tell me that motherfucker’s name,” I said. “Tell me that motherfucker’s name now!”

I felt Quique’s big stone hand on my shoulder. Roachkiller had to calm down.

“I will tell you all you need,” Don Moncho said. “But first I need a favor.”

*  *  *

Roachkiller went to his Abuelita’s house, just sat down at the kitchen and didn’t say shit. She was watching some game show and shit. She got right up, made
café con leche
and a buttered roll, put them right in front of me. We just sat there. Not talking. I looked at her. She looked at me.

“Quieres jugar domino?”
she said.

“Muerto, quieres misa?”
Roachkiller said. Of course. Roachkiller don’t back down from a dominoes game. See, that lady loves her dominoes. She kills in that game. Swear to god, that dead eye must give her X-ray vision.

She got the dominoes out, the nice ivory ones with the PR flag on the back. She mixed them up on the table, and we each took our seven.
Bam!
Right away she started with the double six. It was on.

“So, Abuelita,” Roachkiller said, after a while. “You told me all about the family. But what you been up to? You never said nothing about you.”

“You got the double five,” she said.
“Lo veo todo.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Embustero,”
she said.

“So how you been?” Roachkiller said.

“My fingers hurt me a lot,
nene,”
she said. “And my leg pinch me.”