The Empanada Brotherhood (10 page)

“I'm not a large man, kid, but I used to be in shape. Before the accident I had an okay mug. I come from a middle-income family, we had money. I loved the university. I had minas galore but they were not important to me. What's the expression in English? Profe told me: ‘Find 'em, feel 'em, fuck 'em, forget 'em.' Las muchachas were a great diversion, nothing more.”

We crossed Sixth Avenue to the Shamrock Bar which had a cigarette machine. Luigi thumbed in a quarter, pulled a lever, and scooped up the pack. He lit two cigarettes and gave one to El Coco. We departed the bar and headed south toward the empanada stand. Some teenagers were playing basketball under the lights at the Fourth Street playground.

Luigi said, “Then one night I lost my face in an explosion and, obviously, life changed.”

“What kind of explosion?”

“I was putting gas in my father's car while also smoking a cigarette. Something happened, but I don't remember. I woke up at the hospital. Months later they sent me to this country.”

“But you never had any operations?”

“I'm not stupid, blondie. They couldn't do beans with my face, even in America. They take skin off your ass and put it on your ‘cheeks.' They transplant hair for your eyebrows. They shoot your lips full of plastic foam. You just exchange one type of gargoyle for another. But I like better this one, I'm used to it. The mask is inoperable and I'd go crazy if I nurtured illusions.”

He stopped, tilted his head back, and squeezed out the eyedrops.

I said, “You're not a gargoyle.”

El Coco said, “Man, that was a good cigarette. Can I have another?”

Luigi tapped one from the pack and lit it for him. El Coco said, “Gracias,” turned around, and walked west.

At the kiosk Roldán was trying to close up but Eduardo's ex-wife, Adriana, was bending his ear, sober tonight yet pissed
off. Yesterday she'd learned that Eduardo had been seen eating a pastrami sandwich beside one of his co-workers, a female with a bouffant hairdo, in Bryant Park behind the library.

“What do you care?” Luigi reasoned. “You're seeing another guy.”

“I was married to Eduardo for six years. He's like a cyst in my heart. No matter who I date, the ache is always Eduardo. However, an elemental dinosaur like you would never understand.”

Then she handed Luigi the bail money he'd put up for her two weeks ago and stalked away from us.

Suddenly another guy showed up at the dance studio on Fourteenth Street. He was older and wore sharp clothes, shiny boots, a tailored overcoat. Long curly hair bounced against his shoulders. His name was Aurelio Porta, and I soon learned he came from Montevideo, Uruguay. He was connected to the Manhattan consulate. Taking a seat on the floor beside me, he smoked black tobacco cigarettes while Cathy Escudero practiced.

At each session Jorge was better on the guitar. The minute he struck his first chord he came alive. His concentration stayed total. The second he quit playing he regressed into a chain-smoking zombie at a complete loss for words. During the practice he and Cathy talked only about problems of choreography in a curt, professional Spanish. They paid no attention to me and Aurelio Porta.

Aurelio nodded his head and did palmas to the beat, softly, always in compás. He sang under his breath in a hoarse gypsy manner. Cathy and Jorge practiced until both of them were so exhausted they could barely walk outside. Cathy complained that her feet hurt and her back was killing her and she had a headache.

Aurelio told her that she ought to slow it down a trifle during the display part of alegrías. Also, she had missed a llamada important to solear. Her arms should have extended higher and been bent more at the wrist during a certain passage of the tango. And it was too cute and showy when she clapped her hands and slapped her thighs at a particular moment of siguiriyas.

Cathy listened to him politely and never mouthed off or protested or defended herself. Carelessly, Aurelio reached for the back of her neck and massaged it a little.

We stopped at the Downtown Café where Cathy talked about her life and the rest of us listened. Our waitress brought over three coffees and a mocha java for Aurelio Porta, with whipped cream on top and cinnamon powder. “We had this one flown in special from Disneyland,” the waitress said.

Cathy said, “As soon as I have money I'll buy my dad a Cadillac convertible. I want a swimsuit from Saks and a wedding ring from Tiffany's. I plan to be married six times. Do you guys like this eye shadow? It's from Italy.” She turned her head. “Do you think my profile is elegant?”

“I think you are very elegant,” Aurelio said. “But you shouldn't put quite as much rouge on your cheeks—it's tacky. As for the eye shadow from Italy, it looks like mud. Brown isn't your color. You'd be better off with something green or gray, not as dark, and more misty.”

Cathy laughed and flicked her finger coyly against his chin. “Will you buy me some new eye shadow, Mr. Know-it-all?”

“Of course.”

“He's rich,” Cathy said to me, nodding at the distinguished Señor Porta. “He could walk into Tiffany's and buy out the entire ground floor. With enough change left over to purchase a palace in Madrid.”

When the rich man smiled he seemed like a clever snake about to swallow a sparrow's egg.

Cathy bummed a cigarette from Aurelio and said, “I'm having trouble with solear. It's too moody for me. I hate that transition to bulerías halfway through. It feels wrong. I'm
good at the speedy complex stuff, but when it's too slow I get nervous. I want to be energetic like a pistol shot.”

Aurelio said, “Work on what you hate, and then for that dance alone you will become famous.”

Cathy pouted and reiterated her previous complaint. “Flamenco is killing me. My feet ache, my ankles hurt, I have shin splints. My back is a disaster case. I wish I was dead.”

“The greatest dancers end every night in the arms of death,” Aurelio said. “And they wake up every morning afire like the sun.”

Cathy grinned. “I'm like a hot little sunflower,” she boasted. “Don't fly too close to me or I'll burn your wings and you'll fall into the ocean.”

When we were ready to leave the café Aurelio Porta was first on his feet and he pulled back Cathy's chair. “Gracias,” she said, plunging her hands deep into the pockets of her shabby overcoat and walking ahead of us.

“That girl has a strut,” Aurelio commented approvingly.

Neither Jorge nor I answered him.

A blast of wind swept away Aurelio's hat. It bounced into the damp street and was immediately squashed by a car tire. I started after the hat, but Aurelio called me back.

“Let it go,” he said, laughing. “I can easily buy another one.”

Then El Coco died. That was a shock. Luigi came home and found his body in the bathtub half underwater. The medical examiner concluded it was a heart attack. El Coco had no bank account, no possessions except for the barbells, and only eleven dollars when his pockets were emptied.

“No tengo ni un mango,” Luigi told us at the empanada stand. “What am I going to do?”

“Let the city consign him to a pauper's grave at Potter's Field,” Alfonso said.

Even with such a charred face, Luigi blanched. “Are you crazy? He was a pal of mine.”

“Also an Argentine,” Roldán reminded us. “We should take care of our own.”

Alfonso said, “He never talked to us. He hated women. What was his real name?”

“Dagoberto Hoffman,” Luigi said.

“Does he have family down south?”

“No. When he left the patria he wiped the slate clean. He was never going back.”

“How did you come to be friends?”

Embarrassed, Luigi stiffened a little. “I met him at a bar. The Page One.”

“That place is Sodom and Gomorrah,” Alfonso noted.

“Nevertheless, that's where we met. He was homeless at the time.”

The fat man asked, “Was El Coco religious? If not, we should take up a collection to have him cremated.”

Alfonso dug deep and placed a bill on the counter. “Here's ten bucks. That's all I have right now.”

I also contributed a ten even though it hurt.

Roldán removed a twenty from the cash register, adding to the pile. Luigi stared at the money. The burnt face made it impossible for him to shed tears, but we could tell he was moved.

Alfonso said, “Dale, go ahead, take it.”

That night Roldán put a jar on the counter for donations to El Coco's cremation fund. The rest of us began to spread the word.

La Petisa was upset about the cremation. “He wore a cross around his neck. He should have a proper burial. You're sending him straight to hell.”

“
Tais toi,
” Alfonso said, “and give us some money. Pretend you have a conscience.”

She forked over twenty bucks, still protesting. “He should be buried at a Christian site with his barbells. He was a sweet and considerate man who never spoke ill of anyone. He was a gentle creature, timid and shy, not at all blasphemous like the rest of you infidels. He never tried to hump me and he was always polite.”

“I don't want your fucking money,” Luigi said. “Take it back. Go buy some panties and lipstick for Popeye.”

Alfonso clapped his palm atop La Petisa's hand as she reached for her cash. “Don't be a nincompoop, Luigi.”

La Petisa removed her hand. Luigi picked up the twenty and ripped it to shreds.

Gino said, “I never liked that guy. I think he was a puto.”

According to Alfonso, “That's immaterial now. Hand over some loot.”

Gino balked. “El Coco hated women, you know.”

“I do, too,” Alfonso said. “Now, open your wallet.”

Gino said, “Screw you,” and parted with five bucks.

Alfonso said, “That's not enough. Blondie gave ten and he's not even from Argentina.”

“Try and take a penny more from me, profe.”

“I don't want his fucking money,” Luigi said.

“This isn't about you,” Alfonso said, “it's about El Coco. Grow up.”

Luigi tore Gino's five-spot into little pieces.

Popeye said, “I'd contribute ten dollars but that jealous asshole would just tear it up.”

“No he won't,” Alfonso promised. “I've had a talk with him.”

Popeye was adamant. “I don't trust him. He's crazy.”

“No I'm not,” Luigi said. “I learned my lesson. Now, give me the ten bucks.”

“Fuck you.”

Carlos the Artist gave fourteen dollars. He remembered, “I had a conversation with El Coco once.”

“What about?”

“He asked me to buy a dress for him at S. Klein's.”

“What did you do?” Gino was horrified.

“I bought the dress. What's wrong with that?”

Eduardo wrote a check for four hundred dollars. Luigi almost fell over backward. “I don't need four hundred dollars. Are you crazy?”

“I don't
have
four hundred dollars,” Eduardo said. “The check will bounce because there's only twenty-nine bucks in my account. Good. Then I'll be arrested and deported and I'll be rid of Adriana. This city is too small for both of us.”

“Quit drinking,” Alfonso suggested. “Pull yourself together, nene. Stop smoking marijuana.”

Chuy surprised us all. “How much more do you need to light the fire?”

“Eighty-seven dollars.”

The rich gigolo pulled a roll from his pocket, and, pressing it against his hip with the stump of his left wrist, he peeled off five twenties.

“I liked that guy,” Chuy said.

Gino asked, “Why?”

“Because he had a lot more guts than you do.”

After Luigi took care of the cremation details he returned to the kiosk asking, “What shall we do with the ashes?”

Alfonso said, “El Coco loved America. Let's take him to the Statue of Liberty.”

“Are we allowed to do that?”

“Only in America.”

Everybody agreed to carry the ashes on a ferryboat over to the Statue of Liberty where we would scatter them.

“I will bring an Argentine flag,” Carlos the Artist vowed. “And some Rimbaud for the eulogy.”

“I'll steal some holy water,” La Petisa said.

“I don't want your holy water,” Luigi said.

Gino's job was to locate a Bible.

“Fuck your Bible,” Luigi said.

Chuy would supply the flowers.

And Eduardo planned to attend the obsequies so he could gather ideas for his own funeral.

But at the appointed hour only Alfonso, Roldán, Luigi,
and I showed up at the Battery and boarded the Staten Island Ferry with El Coco's ashes. Luigi was relieved. “If La Petisa or Gino or the marinero had showed up, I wouldn't have got on the boat.”

A bright sun was shining on this first day of spring which still felt like winter. A pretty mist was lifting off the cold water. Seagulls made a racket around us. Roldán was bundled up like an enormous walrus wearing galoshes and wool-lined leather mittens in addition to his raccoon coat. Luigi had on two ratty sweaters, gloves, and a funny ski cap. But Alfonso had donned only his silly thin serape and the purple scarf. Not only had he lost Renata's obnoxious hat, but he had misplaced Sofía's gloves as well. His teeth chattered all the way over and back.

Afterward, stepping off the ferryboat onto Manhattan, Roldán slipped and crashed to the pavement. Grimacing, he clutched his wrist. “
Ouch!
”

We grappled him onto his feet and a taxi rushed us up to St. Vincent's Hospital where X-rays revealed that the wrist had been fractured. Two hours later we hit the sidewalk as darkness fell and it began to snow once more in the winter without end. Roldán was wearing a cast.

We aimed east along Greenwich, crossed Sixth Avenue onto Eighth Street, and stopped at the Orange Julius stand. Invited by the fat man, each of us ordered a Julius with an egg and a hot dog that we gobbled hungrily as we moseyed south past the Jungle Tap Room and crossed to Washington Square. Streetlamps in the empty park cast circles of harsh light interrupted by falling snowflakes.