Free Bodega Dreams by Ernesto B. Quinonez Page A

loyalty was to Bodega but Sapo was still my friend.
    “Tell him I know where she is and I can reach her. All I want from him is a two-bedroom apartment in one of his buildings. Tell him I got a kid coming and I need the extra room.”
    “Fucken shit, Chino.” Sapo was mad. He flung his lit cigarette on the pavement with so much force, it made a stream of sparks. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this before I put the fucken chicken in my car!”

ROUND 7

For Being a Cabrón
    I F there was one person who was going to know where I could find this Vera, it was Blanca’s sister, Negra. Although I didn’t know yet if Bodega would agree to my deal, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to pay Negra a visit. We weren’t really friends but we were family.
    Negra and her husband lived in the Metro North projects on 100th and First. These projects face the East River and have million-dollar views. On the Upper East Side an apartment facing the East River would be priceless, but this is Spanish Harlem, where most rents are subsidized by Section Eight. Regardless, the panoramic scenes are the same from any neighborhood: red-orange sunrises, blue-black moonlit nights. In the wintertime, when the East River freezes, the views are staggering. The ice acts like a mirror and the world seems to have two sunrises and at night two moons, one in the sky and one on the ice. During storms, you can see huge waves pound the FDR Drive, sometimes reaching all the way to the highway itself and washing up against the cars. Above the East River the cloud formations are ever-changing, and when a dying hurricane is about to hit the city you can see how the waves and the clouds synchronize their gyrating motions, like Jupiter’s red eye.
    Negra was lucky. She lived on the twelfth floor facing the East River. I took the elevator, punched 12, and tried not to step in a puddle of pisswhere vials were floating. As soon as the elevator door opened, I could hear Negra yelling. I reached her door and knocked hard. Soon she peered through the peephole and opened the door.
    “
Que me lleven.
I don’t give a shit!” she yelled. She was smoking a cigarette, taking long, angry drags.
    “What happened, Negy?” I asked, as she sank into the sofa and continued to smoke.
    “Ayy … ayy … You’re crazy, Negy.” I heard a faint moaning coming from the kitchen, where I found Negra’s husband, Victor, sitting on a chair and holding his stomach with one hand. There was blood on his shirt and on the floor.
    “That bitch is crazy, man. That bitch is crazy.”
    “Victor, let me look at that shit.” I knelt down and gently moved his hand away.
    It was a small but deep gash. “That shit is nasty, bro. How’d that happen?”
    Negra rushed into the kitchen and began to yell. “That’s good for him, Chino! For being a
cabrón
!”
    “She’s crazy, she’s … fucken crazy … Chino,” Victor responded weakly. He was leaking blood slowly but steadily.
    “Look, Negra, we have to get him to Metropolitan.”
    “He doesn’t want to go!” she yelled, and then lit another cigarette.
    “Ayy … ayy … ayy … coño.”
His moaning made Negra angrier and she erupted.
    “Chino, I’m doing the laundry, right!”—she took a violent drag—“and I find in his pocket a movie ticket stub for
Donnie Brasco
”—she blows smoke—“I know, I know what he’s been up to. But to make sure I ask him while I’m cooking, does he want to go to the movies tonight after dinner?”
    “Thass a lie, Chino, she’s lying,
ayy … ayy … Dios Mío.
”
    Negra yells at Victor to shut the fuck up and then continues. “So I asked him, ‘
Papi
, you want to go to the movies?’ He says, ‘Sure, why not.’ I say, ‘I want to see
Donnie Brasco.
’ He tells me, ‘All right, let’s see that.’ I say, ‘Unless you’ve seen it already with your buddies Mike and Nando.’ He says, ‘No, I haven’t.’ I say, ‘Are you sure you haven’t seen it?’ He