A Boy, a Brick Mason, and an Abuela
David and the Lion’s Den, Interlude 2
The boy shouldered through the crowd into the musty room,
kicking aside old fast-food wrappers without really seeing them. His eyes stayed glued to the stained envelope clutched in his sweaty fist.
He didn’t recognize the handwriting, but the return address tightened his throat.
His abuela’s house, that’s where it came from! The letter had found him in New York all the way from the house he’d shared with her after his parents died, before she sent him away with forty dollars and a backpack full of handmade tortillas.
He imagined her writing to him on the same kitchen table where she rolled out her famous corn cakes.
He stumbled over one of the men, mumbled an apology, then lifted his eyes so he could hurry over to his corner. He tucked the letter into his jeans and looked around while he bundled his sleeping bag up and cinched it down into a tight roll. He grunted as he pulled on the cords, just like he’d seen Roberto do when the older man showed him how to convert his bedroll into a seat.
It was the only chair he’d get. Twelve men shared this two-room apartment. He was the youngest and not entitled to the use of any of the battered furniture — limited as it was to some splintered chairs and a wobbly table.
He sank into his improvised cushion and moaned in relief.
A corner of the sharp envelope poked at his belly, so he shifted it in his waistband as he stretched his body out. He was saving the letter, stretching out the pleasure.
He was angry with his grandmother in any case. He winced at the loud voices grumbling above him, wrinkled his nose at the sweat and grease that poured off exhausted bodies, and he blamed her.
All of his life, all of the 15 years he could remember, he had worked hard. He wasn’t angry with her because of the work. He wasn’t angry with her because his muscles ached and burned. He’d been up since before dawn, pushing wheelbarrows full of shin-scraping bricks and slopping loads of corrosive mortar. He’d slogged until the dying sun made further work impossible.
He rubbed sore muscles, inspected a smashed finger, and dreamed of Colombia — of home. He wasn’t angry at his abuela because he had to work. All men worked. Work made him proud. He was angry because she sent him away.
He wanted to to go home.
He wanted to work for HER. He wanted to bring his pesos home for her to spend on cornmeal and lentils at the outdoor market. He wanted to suffer burning muscles and mangled fingernails for someone who loved him.
He was angry because she had been wrong about his tio. So wrong. He felt the letter poke at him again. He thought of her hands stuffing the envelope and he sniffled.
Stop it! he chided himself. Be angry at Tio. You know it’s not her fault.
A sharp voice interrupted his thoughts. “Eh, Cabron!”
The boy looked up to find Roberto towering over him, thrusting a red and white can at him with a huge hairy paw. “Cerveza,” the old brick mason prodded. “Vamanos! Before it gets warm.”
The boy half stood, grabbed the icy can and ripped the metal tab off the top with a shy grin. He liked Roberto, and the man seemed to appreciate how the boy hustled to keep bricks and mortar right at his elbow so that he never had to stop slapping with his lightening-fast trowel.
Roberto sank to his own bedroll, held up his beer to clink the boy’s can lightly, then chugged. The boy marvelled at the huge swallows, astonished as always when Roberto finished off the beer in one go and crushed the steel can with one hand.
The skinny kid flexed his fingers and wondered if he’d ever be strong enough for such a feat. He lifted the can to his lips and let bitter fizz wash hot grime from his throat. The cold gulp almost gave him a headache. Too fast! He needed to slow down.
Roberto popped another beer but spoke before drinking. “Didn’t I see Maria give you a letter, amigo? You’re not going to read it?”
The boy sucked down another mouthful, patting the envelope so Roberto could hear it. “In a minute.” If he read her letter now, he’d have nothing to look forward to. Plus, he was afraid to read it in front of Roberto, afraid his friend might see him cry.
So he sat and drank, leaning against the paint-chipped wall until the man handed him another can. The room’s funk of unwashed bodies slowly gave way to homier smells. Tendrils of steam redolent of cooking rice drifted out of the kitchen to curl around wisps of soapy air escaping from the bathroom. Music boomed from a radio by the window, and the boy closed his eyes, dreaming of the plaza back home.
He was with Domingo and Mario, his friends, Mario’s transistor radio sitting on the edge of the fountain and pumping out tinny salsa. The boy splashed his face with cold water and jumped up to dance. Mario nudged him, and he squinted across the square to spot Estrellita smiling straight at him.
He danced a little faster, blushing, throwing quick glances over his shoulder to make sure she was still watching. Domingo laughed and pushed him, and soon the three of them were mock fighting, rolling around on the cobblestones showing off.
Soon, he heard his name floating across the square. He started to pick himself up, but Mario tackled him and threw him in a tight headlock. “Time to eat,” his friend teased, “Hurry up before it all disappears!”
“I know! I know! Let me me go!” He struggled against Mario’s hold as his grandmother’s voice drifted on the breeze. He gathered himself up and surged with all his strength, desperate to break free and run home.
His eyes popped open, and he found himself staring at Roberto’s grizzled face, not Mario’s. “Wake up, boy,” said the man in a tense but kind voice. “You know how fast the food disappears.”
He gulped his rice and beans automatically, still lost in his dreams. He realized with some degree of surprise that he’d made up his mind while he was dozing. He was going home.
He already knew how.
Roberto had whispered the details to him weeks ago. His tio would be angry — angry enough to cause trouble back home, but the boy had it all figured out. He would keep his mouth shut, refuse to say anything to the police. He would turn himself in but say nothing about his tio, say nothing about where he was living or how he got to New York.
They would send him home, Roberto had promised, deport him, especially if he told them he had family to go back to. He didn’t understand Roberto’s insistence. The man had been urging him to run, warning him to hurry and make up his mind before …
Before what, he never said.
His mind was made up. He’d go. Tomorrow. He just had to walk off the job site and find a policeman. Shivers of fear ran through his body, but he knew he’d do it. He smiled through his excitement and tried to lose himself again in dreams of his village.
His turn in the bathroom finally came. The water would be ice cold since he was the last to use the shower for the night, but at least he could wash. Throwing a towel and clean shirt over his shoulders, he stepped in to the only privacy he could ever expect.
He stripped off his filthy shirt and saw the envelope poking up out of his waistband. Now he could read the letter without being afraid. He wouldn’t cry, knowing for sure he was going home. He snatched it up and ripped it open, pausing first at the unfamiliar handwriting.
His grimy hands painted smudged whorls as he unfolded two crinkly, onion-skin sheets. His mind refused the news at first. The strange hand that had penned the address should have acted as a warning for him, but the very idea was too big to take in.
He couldn’t accept it. It couldn’t be true.
He sat on the floor sobbing, back pushed up against the door for so long that angry voices shouted and fists pounded.
When he realized the men were shouting at him, he stood and opened the door, retreating to his corner with the letter shaking in one hand. He handed the smudged paper to Roberto silently.
“She’s dead,” were not words he felt able to choke out. He wanted to say, “Now I have no place to go home to,” but he knew he could never force that sentence out of his constricted throat.
Let Roberto read and understand that his dreams of home died with his abuela.
You just read part of a character-driven mystery set in Greenwich Village during the worst of the HIV Plague Years. This interlude leaves David, Jill, Hilda, Richard, and Howie to peek once more into the life of a young immigrant boy just arriving in New York from Colombia. Life in the big city is nothing like what his grandmother told him it would be.
