Free Boogaloo On 2nd Avenue by Mark Kurlansky

pepper sauce that immediately produced intense pain. When Joey was able to speak again, he looked at Chow Mein through the tears in his own eyes, shook his head, and said, "Good, huh?" And Chow Mein laughed.
    "It's the endorms," Joey opined.
    "No, it's Consuela. She makes it like that. It's murder. Forget it."
    "But we like it because of the endorms. It causes pain and makes your brain send out endorms to kill the pain."
    "Why is that good?"
    "Makes you feel good."
    Chow Mein pulled on his ponytail. "Couldn't you just stub your toe or hit your thumb with a hammer or something?"
    "Wouldn't be the same. So, were you up late last night?"
    Chow Mein shrugged. "You know, the Meshugaloo never sleeps."
    Joey did know. Chow Mein Vega did not sleep at night. He spent his nights at the casita, his Buddha-like body by the cable spool table, working on an autobiography in which he had not yet reached the age of fifteen. While Chow Mein Vega sat at this makeshift table, in his fake farmhouse, with his fake name, pondering the myths and minutiae of his life, he often heard a lot. But he heard nothing the night Eli Rab-binowitz was killed.
    Consuela had given huge quantities to please Officer Parma, but she knew the pepper sauce would assure that most of the food went to the Meshugaloo. If she had to give a free meal, she would rather give it to Chow Mein. The Puerto Ricans in the neighborhood knew that the Meshugaloo was not getting many concert bookings anymore and, ignoring the compelling visual evidence, worried that he was not getting enough to eat.
    Finally, Joey's endorms getting the best of him, he went to the washroom to put cold water on paper towels and wipe his face, his reddened eyes—he even tried to soothe his burning lips and tongue by patting them with the cool wet paper.
    "Chucho," Consuela called out to Chow Mein in a low, conspiratorial voice, using the name only a few in the neighborhood knew him by.
    "Si, amor," Chow Mein said with his show business smile.
    "Chucho, we have probletnas for the fiesta." She was talking about the Avenue D street fair, which was far enough east to be purely for the Puerto Ricans and was in two weeks.
    "Por qué, what's wrong?"
    The problem was that they had no one to play "El Dominicano." Every year Jimmy Colon, who ran the food market on Avenue C, took on El Dominicano in a wrestling match. Jimmy had blond curly hair, blue eyes, and a friendly manner. El Dominicano was large and dark and wore a cape that was the checkered Dominican flag. Always, the good-humored Jimmy Colon appeared to be no match for the ferocious Dominican, El Dominicano. But in the end, El Dominicano found himself pinned to the blue canvas by the friendly and agile Puerto Rican. The problem was that the large and dark El Dominicano, whose name was Joaquin Morel, had perhaps gone too far in playing his national stereotype and was now on what was known on Avenue D as "an island vacation." El Dominicano had sold a little vial of crack cocaine, small and easy to palm with its little red cap with the rose on it, to a fleshy, falsely blond, dark-skinned woman. Not only the hair color was false: She was an undercover agent, and when it was time for the summer street fair, El Dominicano was locked up on Rikers Island prison—an island vacation.
    So the neighborhood needed someone else to play El Dominicano. Chow Mein Vega immediately suggested Ruben, the son of his former conga player.
    "Ruben is Puerto Rican," argued Consuela.
    Chow Mein did not want to point this out with Joey Parma about to come out of the washroom with reconstituted endorms, but Ruben had been spending a lot of time around certain Dominicans, and with what he had been doing, a lot of people in the neighborhood were starting to think he was Dominican. Chow Mein was worried about him and looking for ways to get him involved in the casita. But all he said was, "Ruben has dark skin."
    "That boy has such a sweet face. Nobody will believe he is a Dominican,"