A BRAVE NEW WORLD
So after I snap up my new ensemble, my new world, and all the love from Three Guys, I head out proudly, gift in hand to make my presentation to Esperanza!
I stride down the blocks, checking my look in every shop and car window I pass, like I’m a Greek god, or something. Like I’m Zeus. Just before I arrive at the beauty salon, I slip the gold earring on again, digging the way it shines against my gold ensemble. Yeah, I am bad. There she is, her butt facing me again. Wearing tight white pants, a snug pink top, and those amazing stiletto heels. Daamn! How could anyone look that good?! I almost spontaneously burst into tears, that’s how incredibly beautiful she is. My only focus at this moment, is exactly what’s going on there in the Tijeras de Oro. Nothing else matters. Not even air. Not even breathing, which I have to remind myself to do now. I also have to remind myself again, that everything I’ve done in the last few weeks was to get close to her. Snapping out of my lovesick trance, I manage to step into the shop. I’m immediately blown away by the contrast in energy and style, between here and Three Guys. It’s as if I’m stepping into a glam rock concert, with all the flashing lights, riotously loud music, and high-pitched gossip. I stealthily take a seat behind where Esperanza’s cutting hair, and am almost immediately recognized by Lydia, the beautician next to Esperanza.
“Esperaaaanza (she draws out her name teasingly), su Romeo está aquí, mami!”
Instantly, it’s like the place goes wild with whistles. Esperanza looks up – surprised - and I am greatly relieved to see that dead look is gone. She is back to her old self, thank God. She turns to me, grins, shakes her head, and goes back to cutting. The razzing continues.
“Por cuando es la boda, mami?”
“Dime la fecha? Necesito vestido nuevo!”
It goes on like this for a while, as Esperanza laughs.
“Callanse- putas!” she retorts.
The kissing sounds grew louder.
A permanent smile spreads over my face. Even though I don’t know exactly what they’re saying, I got a pretty good idea of what’s going on.
Esperanza looks very amused.
“Hi papi, how you doing?”
I love her voice, her intonations. I love everything about her.
“H-hi, Esperanza.”
“You look cute today, that’s a cute outfit. You look nice in gold, baby.”
“Thanks.” I clear my throat.
“You didn’t forget me yet, heh papi?”
“No…I…was…I got something for you, Esperanza.”
“What? Another gift, papi? Oh Dios mio! Ok, just wait till I finish up with my customer here, and I’ll take a cigarette break, ok?”
I nod hopefully.
“Don’t worry, I promise I’ll talk to you this time.” She laughs.
“Speak with your heart, my brother, speak with your heart.” Bakir's words of advice reverberate through my head. God, I hope she likes my drawing. Keep cool. Keep positive.
In a few minutes, she’s done with her customer, and is grabbing her pocketbook from the counter.
“C’mon, baby, let’s go out on our cigarette…break.”
Again the room echoes with good-matured teasing.
“Oooh, buena suerte, Esperanza - cuidado!”
Esperanza laughs as she flips them the finger and sticks out her tongue, and we waltz out that door. Once we reach the alley on the side of the shop, she grabs a pack of Virginia Slims from her pocketbook, and expertly lights up the cigarette in one graceful motion.
Jeez- she even smokes sexy.
She points the pack at me and gestures.
“Um…no…I…I-uh-don’t smoke… Virginia Slims”
She smiles knowingly.
“Yeah, they be like girly cigarettes, right?” She makes a kind of mocking face.
I smile.
“O.k., ok, you busted me! I don’t smoke - at all.”
“You’re smart! They so bad for you. Mi tia, I mean, my Aunt Ruthie - she got throat cancer from that shit…she died.”
“How come you still smoke, then?”
“Honey, I do a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing.”
She winked. My knees almost buckle.
I can’t help but just fawn at her. Now I could finally understand why girls scream and cry when they see a big rock star at a concert. Especially like when girls would swoon and faint at the sight of The Beatles. Crazy. I remember John Lennon once said that The Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ. That is what I feel about her.
She is bigger than Jesus Christ! But I mean, I can’t just scream or faint. That would be way too queer.
“Daammn, papi (she laughs) don’t just stand there and stare at me and shit!” she reaches out and touches my hand.
“What did you want to tell me?”
“Um...uh…I stammer.
I couldn’t get my tongue to work. C’mon asshole, say something. This is your last chance. She’s waiting. I look at my envelope, and quickly hand it to her.
“What’s this?”
“It’s for you.”
“Oh, I love presents.”
She opens it and takes the drawing out. I ravenously scour her face for any reaction, while simultaneously praying to St. Peter and Saint Francis. She scans and scans it. C’mon, say something! Anything.
“Oh, papi! You drew this!?”
I nod hesitantly.
Oh, Dios mio- it is so beautiful! I can’t believe it. Oh, my God - I didn’t know you was an artist!
She comes over and kisses me right on the lips, and she lingers there for a brief moment!
“You be so sweet! How did you do this without no picture of me? You don’t got no pictures of me, right?”
“Um- no! I- I just kept picturing you in my mind… and I- just drew it.”
“Oh, you be so cute. This is the bestest present anybody ever gave to me. I gotta show this to the girls- c’mon.”
She grabs me by the arm and rushes me through the door. She excitedly goes up to Lydia.
“Lydia- mira - look at what my little honey made for me! Ain’t that so beautiful?!”
“Oh, Dios mio! Oooh - el es tan dulce.” she gushes.
In a second, all the other ladies, and even their customers, are crowding around the drawing, and the cackling in Spanish reaches a crazy crescendo. It must go on for, like, five minutes. One of the ladies turns and points at me.
“Mira- Mira- cara roja!”
"Oh pobrecito!" comes the chorus. Esperanza comes over and hugs me.
“Oh, he’s embarrassed - he’s so cute, right?”
They’re all making such a fuss over me. I secretly love it. Then Esperanza kisses me again - on the lips! I just hope I’m not going to faint. She puts the drawing back tenderly in the envelope.
“I’m gonna get a frame for this, papi, and hang it right up in my bedroom.”
After the madness dies down a little, I want to make sure that I ask her what I came to ask her. I feel strong and proud.
“Esperanza? Could we go back outside again - just for a minute?” She smiles.
“Ok.”
As soon as we hit outside, before I have a chance to freeze up again, I just blurt it out.
“Esperanza - do you think we could go out sometime? To a movie or dinner?”
She touches my face, plays with my curls for a second, and clucks her tongue.
Oh, papi, you be so sweet… but I think maybe you a little bit too young for me, you know? How old are you anyway? Like sixteen?”
“Seventeen!” I quickly reply. But I’m pretty sure she knows I’m lying.
“How old are you? Oops! I shouldn’t have asked that…so…”
“That’s all right, baby, but you know, a woman never tells her age.”
“Yeah…I’m sorry.”
“But I’m gonna let you know anyway, just ‘cuz you so cute. I’m twenty.”
That’s pretty much what I had thought.
“I-I don’t care if you're older than me, Esperanza! I got a good job now! I’m making good money. I’m working in an Italian restaurant. Real classy”.
She crinkles her nose again just like Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched, and giggles.
She keeps smiling - and looks at me for a few seconds right in the eye. I almost can’t take it, that way she looks at me. But I can’t look away either. Is this what it’s like to be in love?
THE MAN
Joey is at Three Guys, and has bought a pair of the most “happenin’” pants around - a pair of gold Swedish Knits - he wants to make a BIG impression on Esperanza when he sees her.
As I stand on the platform in front of the full-length mirror while he’s measuring my pants to be hemmed, the guy who had been playing the horn before, ambles over. Bakir asks me my name and introduces me to “The Professor”. They called him Professor, because as Bakir explains, “he has much knowledge. About jazz, about music, philosophy, religion, fashion, and especially-women”. The Professor chuckles, and lets out a slight laugh. He’s older, with some grey speckled in his beard, and wears this small - what I guess is an African hat. Kind of like a pillbox. He sports a long, white sort of Indian shirt, and exhibits gentle eyes, with an easy smile. He looks almost Chinese to me. Like a black Chinese guy. I had never met black guys who dressed, talked, or acted like this before. They seemed so different. Exotic in some kind of mystical way - I am thoroughly intrigued.
I feel easy with these guys, I’m curious, and instinctively, feel like I could talk to them. I hesitate, but then ask them about the music. I tell them it’s different from anything I’ve ever heard. I don’t know anything about it, but I’m digging it, man. Bakir’s eyes light up. He is totally and immediately impassioned, as he speaks about jazz.
“My brother, jazz is life. It is like the heartbeat of the soul; you can just feel it.”
He excuses himself for a minute as he finishes the measurements, and brings the pants in the back room for the tailor to hem them. When he returns, he carries with him a large book. The History of Jazz.
“My brother, Joe, let me lay some knowledge on you about the music of my people.”
He opens up the book, and starts explaining to me the roots of jazz, as he turns the pages crammed with pictures of some of the legends of the art. Joe ‘King’ Oliver, Louie Armstrong, Jellyroll Morton, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane…the list goes on and on. After about ten minutes, The Professor comes over, and in his calm and even tone, further “schools me” about the artists and their music, as Bakir defers to him. He eloquently speaks of their struggles and hardships, of being black musicians in the white man’s world in the earlier part of this century. It is fascinating. The colorful characters and slang just totally floors me. It goes on for about half an hour or so, until my pants are ready. I had no idea what black people had done in the history of this country. There were black heroes that we had never heard or read about in history books, except for maybe Crispus Attucks, or George Washington Carver, who had done something or other with peanuts. I ask The Professor why none of these people were ever mentioned in our history books. He just shakes his head sadly and laments.
“They don’t want you to know, youngblood. The Man wants to keep that knowledge from you.”
I nod my head knowingly, even though now I’m not exactly sure who ‘The Man’ is. I had always thought that ‘The Man,’ was only the cops. But, as the conversation rolls on, it becomes quite apparent that he’s more. Much more. Perhaps even an evil conglomerate. A powerful organization, even more treacherous than the Mafia. One thing’s also for sure, without them coming right out and saying it, it’s obvious that ‘The Man,’ is always white. I’m absorbing this information like a Bounty paper towel, actually becoming dismayed when the tailor finishes up with my pants. I want this seminar to go on forever.
THREE GUYS
I had already decided I am going to see Esperanza today. No doubt. I’m going to bring my portrait of her, too, make a present for her. But maybe even equally as important, I am finally going to the mythical Three Guys clothing store in Elizabeth. The ultimate place for the baddest collection of ‘rags’ on the planet. At least according to what I can ascertain in snippets of the black kid’s conversations. I knew enough that if you don’t shop there for your clothes, you were ‘raggedy,’ man! You were corny. You gotta be ‘clean,’ or you would be severely snapped on. I knew this place was somewhere around Broad Street, probably not too far from the PAL and Esperanza’s beauty shop. So I’m ready for the g-h-e-t-t-o. In fact, I’m really starting to dig the buzz that I’m receiving from journeying to these exotic locales. I had just completed my first adventure-filled week of work as a dishwasher at The Fox Hole, and the resulting wad of cash that is my reward is bulging proudly in my pocket. It’s amazing how closely manhood and money are tied together, I muse. It inspires me to dreams of lofty possibilities.
I bop purposefully down Broad Street, moving in the direction of where I believe Three Guys to be, all the while, visions of SuperFly, and pink and purple suited pimps wearing large Fedoras with plumes, roaming through my mind. I wonder if I would have to dodge machine gun fire to get into the store.
When I eventually do arrive at my destination, my anticipation takes a steep nosedive. Instead of stepping over dead bodies, and being accosted by ferocious drug dealers, the entrance to Three Guys turns out to be a shoddy, little brick face storefront! Tucked inside downstairs from Papa Bo’s Soul Food restaurant. I turn up my collar, and make my way down the rusty stairway, gliding into the small, cramped store, as yet another shock greets me. The atmosphere. What an atmosphere! It is downright mellow- even peaceful. Immediately, my shoulders involuntarily relax. Subdued, multi-colored lighting. A quixotic, sweet and sour type aroma permeates the air, reminding me of the ritual at High Mass, when a procession moved solemnly down the aisle. The Monsignor reciting prayers in some deep undecipherable Latin tongue, while swinging these golden decanters spewing a scented vapor. That’s what this smell reminds me of.
The soft, yet catchy music purring from the stereo, a music that is foreign to my ears, inspires a kind of calming hypnosis. All horns and clarinets it seems, as I subconsciously tap my feet to it. Ancient photos and posters, maybe from like the 40s or 50s, of black musicians blowing horns, adorn the wall. Others appear to be African musicians in their native dress, beating different types of drums. The name, Baba Olatunji, is written on a number of them.
In the back of the store, I see three dudes standing together, two of them bopping their heads skywards and snapping their fingers softly, as the other plays a clarinet, or some type of horn. It seems like they’re floating along in some kind of mellow musical bliss. More so as the horn player hits certain notes, until gradually coming out of it, when he finishes playing.
"Sweet, my brother, sweet".
"My man, you play a truly tight horn. Nice."
It seems really magical, the state they’re in. Finally, one of them notices me standing there, and they all stare at me for a few seconds. The youngest one of the group approaches me. A dude with a big Afro, and small, rectangular tinted glasses perched on his nose. He wears a long multi-color type of shirt that I later learn is called a ‘dashiki’, which was traditional African dress. To my surprise, he smiles warmly, extending his hand to shake.
"My brother, welcome to Three Guys. How can I be of service to you today?”
I try to emulate his relaxed cool.
"What's up? Yeah, man, I'm looking to maybe buy me a pair of, like, some happenin' Swedish knits…and a silk screen shirt too, man."
I feel a little awkward using the slang, but I push myself through it. He smiles again and turns, as he waves his hand to follow him.
"Come my brother, let me hip you to a world of happenin.”
THE NA-NA SURPRISE!
So, this is the day after my sad realization with my cousin Skinny, when I am totally shocked by my meeting with Na-Na, who had rescued me from certain death at the hands of David White and the Orange Face brothers - because I had a mustache.
That next morning in school, I’m wandering down the hallways, all pumped up. I’m ten minutes late for Mr. Knapp’s English class, but I couldn’t care less. I’m giddy, my heart’s crammed with visions of Esperanza, and how I’m going to go up to the beauty salon, right after I get my first paycheck, or cash, or whatever, from The Fox Hole. I’m gonna buy some new black clothes, bring Esperanza my picture I drew of her, and I’m just going to impress the hell out of her. Man, I feel like literally anything is possible now! I am so ready! I’m just walking around like this, totally wrapped up in my ambitions and fantasies, when all of a sudden a hard slap on my shoulder that almost bowls me over, blows me out of my daze.
My first impulse is to swing, but immediately, I hear a voice behind my ear.
“Yo, Strong!”
”Hey, Na-Na, man, what’s up?”
I totally play off the pain, even though my shoulder is throbbing like hell.
“Yo Strong, come wit’ me, man,” he says slowly, still wearing that same menacing scowl, and his sharpened umbrella. He looks straight ahead, makes no eye contact, and keeps his hand clamped tightly on my shoulder, as he steers me down the hallway. The deranged look on his face offers me no clue as to if this is a friendly gesture, or if he wants to mutilate me. We continue down the hall. Now, a single stomach-tightening thought explodes into my head.
Oh shit! Maybe…what if – what if - he found out somehow, that all my stories about going down on my babysitter when I was 12, and the ménage a tois, and all the other sordid sex stories…what if he found out they were all bullshit?! That my mustache had nothing to do with being strong?! Busted!
Oh my God! He knew I had made a fool out of him, and in front of Warbush, too! I’m sure he had murdered other people for far less. Frantically, I go through thousands of excuses and scenarios I might use to extricate myself from this horror. I feel the sweat pouring down my forehead and chest. The halls are empty as we walk down them. We descend a flight of stairs, past Mr. Delroy’s print shop class, further down past Mr. Barche’s wood shop class, all the way till we arrive downstairs to the basement. Somehow, I have to get myself together; I can’t let him see me sweating and scared, even though I feel my legs start to buckle.
“Whassup, Na-Na - where we going?”
"Nothing, man,"
Past the janitor’s room, past even the boiler room - where nobody ever goes. The florescent lights flicker on and off, generating a constant eerie humming sound. It’s like some dank, evil laboratory. He turns me left into the darkest and most silent side of the basement, and we stop in front of a locker. His locker. How the hell does he get a locker down here? What did he do - strangle one of the janitors for it? He looks around for a minute or so, sniffing and rubbing his nose with his sleeve. Then his eyes focus on me. He looks me over real hard. My mind goes blank; I’m way past being able to think. It’s just overload. He opens his locker up, and reaching deep inside it, pulls out a manila envelope. I’m done. I’m sure it’s a gun, and he’s going to execute me right here, without even saying anything. Somehow, I kind of just let go. Just kind of leave my body, and resign myself to a brutal death. But as he unfolds it, I see there is no way it could be a gun, it isn’t bulky enough. Maybe it’s drugs? Maybe he wants me to run drugs? He very carefully unfolds it the rest of the way, and looks at me again. But this time it is different. There is a certain softening in his eyes, a bizarre mixture of a kind of vulnerability, anger, and suspicion. He hesitates a second, then he takes some papers out of the envelope, slowly handing them to me.
They’re drawings! Really intricate drawings - done in black and red ink. Things aren’t connecting in my mind yet. I’m somewhere between being numb, and throbbing. Why is he showing me these drawings? What the fuck is going on? Wasn’t he going to murder me for lying to him? It takes like half a minute to realize that no - he isn’t going to kill me. An unbelievable wave of relief washes over me as I look at these drawings, and do another complete emotional turn around. I become hooked in, fascinated, totally into them. Amazing drawings. The first one shows a black woman and man in a dilapidated bedroom, both half-naked, on a broken down bed. The guy is rangy and muscular, and has his hand raised like he had just hit her, or is about to hit her. The woman cringing, her arm in front of her face in self- defense, blood running from her mouth. There’s a little boy at the doorway, standing there in a raggedy T-shirt and pants, which are way too big for him. Tears running down his cheeks. He holds a sharp piece of wood in his hand. But it’s the expressions on the faces of the people that are so life-like, so heart breaking. Full of expression. The rage and fear - but beautiful in its sheer savagery. Almost like it’s in 3D. Whoever had done this had totally captured it! Nailed the souls of these people, even though the style - the technique - is pretty rough.
Another one shows an older black woman, maybe a grandmother, big and chunky, with grey hair, on her knees on the street, rocking a dying teenager, his shirt covered with blood. She was screaming and crying, as two white policemen stand in the foreground, one with a drawn gun. The anguish on the grandmother’s face…man, it is so real. You could actually feel it. It goes on like this, drawing after drawing, street scenes, cops, pimps, and prostitutes. All so starkly brutal, yet so intricate, and detailed in their vividness. Then it hits me. He had drawn these! Holy shit! This guy - this maniac - is a freaking artist! This seems so impossible, but it’s right there in front of me. I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say to him.
"Na-Na…these are- fucking- great man - I –"
He doesn’t look at me, as I hand him back the drawings. I believe I see a sense of pride though. Seriousness, as he carefully and meticulously folds them back in the envelope.