I left Libertyville who had much to offer but died senselessly and tragically long before they should have. He never told me he was dying, and I didn’t learn about his cancer until after he was dead.
In the apartment next to my sister’s lived a woman named Estrelita Rosa Maria Consuelo Cruz. I called her Luke. She was Colombian and ten or fifteen years older than me; she was olive-skinned, fetching, extremely artistic and a great cook. Her husband was overseas with the marines, and one night she invited me for dinner; there was a fireplace, candlelight and wine, and I lost my virginity.
Luke was extremely passionate and sexually unconventional. She never wore underpants, and we’d often walk down a street in New York, duck in an alley and have at it. At the ballet one night, she put her hand on my prick and I put my hand up her dress. We both came, and she yipped and tittered so loudly that others in the audience must have wondered about her. After her husband came back from overseas, he learned about our affair and divorced her. Our friendship lasted for many years. She was very important to me then, but after her there were many other women in my life.
10
THE BEST BANDS in the world were constantly coming in and out of Manhattan and making wonderful music in Harlem and behind the neon lights and red awnings of jazz clubs along West Fifty-second Street. I thrived on this feast. In Libertyville my idols in the jazz world had been Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, but one night I went to the Palladium, a ballroom on Broadway, to dance and almost lost my mind with excitement when I discovered Afro-Cuban music. Every Wednesday night there was a mambo contest, and it seemed as if every Puerto Rican in New York got out on the dance floor and released a week of frustration after working as a waiter or pushing a cart in the garment district. People moved their bodies in ways that were unimaginable; it was the most beautiful dancing I’d ever seen and I was mesmerized by it. Every Wednesday night was a festival, and I looked forward to it each week. The place exploded with joy, excitement and enthusiasm. Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez, the very best of the Afro-Cuban bands, played there, and when one finished a set, another took over. I had always been stimulated by rhythm, even by the ticking of a clock, and the rhythms they played were irresistible. Each band usually had two or three conga drummers, and I couldn’t sitstill because of their extraordinary, complicated syncopations. I had been a pretty good stick drummer—I’d taken lessons—but had never played the congas. After going to the Palladium, I gave up stick drumming, bought my own conga drums and signed up for a class with Katherine Dunham, a wonderful black dancer, and for a while thought of trying to make my living as a modern dancer. She had been all over the world learning what was then called “primitive dancing,” and I was hypnotized by it, although in class whenever I was given the choice of either playing the drums or dancing, I much preferred to play.
There were only two white people in my class at Dunham’s; the rest were black, including a nurse from Jamaica named Floretta who had a very distinctive look in her eyes. Her eyelids fell deep over her eyes, which make them look almost closed. For some reason, I found this very sensual. After we made love, I realized that she had never been with a white man and that I had never slept with a black woman before, so we shared the kind of curiosity that people of different races have for each other. I don’t know why it surprised me, but I found it interesting that there was no difference in making love to a woman of color than to a woman who was white. The
only
difference was her color, a symphony in sepia. When I pressed my thumb on her skin, it became luminous around the edges; it was like skin I had never touched before. We had great times together, but eventually we went our separate ways. She
In the apartment next to my sister’s lived a woman named Estrelita Rosa Maria Consuelo Cruz. I called her Luke. She was Colombian and ten or fifteen years older than me; she was olive-skinned, fetching, extremely artistic and a great cook. Her husband was overseas with the marines, and one night she invited me for dinner; there was a fireplace, candlelight and wine, and I lost my virginity.
Luke was extremely passionate and sexually unconventional. She never wore underpants, and we’d often walk down a street in New York, duck in an alley and have at it. At the ballet one night, she put her hand on my prick and I put my hand up her dress. We both came, and she yipped and tittered so loudly that others in the audience must have wondered about her. After her husband came back from overseas, he learned about our affair and divorced her. Our friendship lasted for many years. She was very important to me then, but after her there were many other women in my life.
10
THE BEST BANDS in the world were constantly coming in and out of Manhattan and making wonderful music in Harlem and behind the neon lights and red awnings of jazz clubs along West Fifty-second Street. I thrived on this feast. In Libertyville my idols in the jazz world had been Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, but one night I went to the Palladium, a ballroom on Broadway, to dance and almost lost my mind with excitement when I discovered Afro-Cuban music. Every Wednesday night there was a mambo contest, and it seemed as if every Puerto Rican in New York got out on the dance floor and released a week of frustration after working as a waiter or pushing a cart in the garment district. People moved their bodies in ways that were unimaginable; it was the most beautiful dancing I’d ever seen and I was mesmerized by it. Every Wednesday night was a festival, and I looked forward to it each week. The place exploded with joy, excitement and enthusiasm. Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez, the very best of the Afro-Cuban bands, played there, and when one finished a set, another took over. I had always been stimulated by rhythm, even by the ticking of a clock, and the rhythms they played were irresistible. Each band usually had two or three conga drummers, and I couldn’t sitstill because of their extraordinary, complicated syncopations. I had been a pretty good stick drummer—I’d taken lessons—but had never played the congas. After going to the Palladium, I gave up stick drumming, bought my own conga drums and signed up for a class with Katherine Dunham, a wonderful black dancer, and for a while thought of trying to make my living as a modern dancer. She had been all over the world learning what was then called “primitive dancing,” and I was hypnotized by it, although in class whenever I was given the choice of either playing the drums or dancing, I much preferred to play.
There were only two white people in my class at Dunham’s; the rest were black, including a nurse from Jamaica named Floretta who had a very distinctive look in her eyes. Her eyelids fell deep over her eyes, which make them look almost closed. For some reason, I found this very sensual. After we made love, I realized that she had never been with a white man and that I had never slept with a black woman before, so we shared the kind of curiosity that people of different races have for each other. I don’t know why it surprised me, but I found it interesting that there was no difference in making love to a woman of color than to a woman who was white. The
only
difference was her color, a symphony in sepia. When I pressed my thumb on her skin, it became luminous around the edges; it was like skin I had never touched before. We had great times together, but eventually we went our separate ways. She
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