Read Online Cubop City Blues by Pablo Medina - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Pablo Medina
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came back to the living room to sit on the sofa. She let out a long breath, closed her eyes, and let her head rest on the back cushion.
Heâs an actor, she said finally.
He lowered the newspaper he was reading and made a question with his face.
I knew there was something familiar about his face, she said. I thought I had seen it in a dream. Then, as he was getting off the subway on Fifty-ninth Street, he turned toward me and I got a frontal view. It was the guy on the Electrolux commercial on the television. We got the wrong man.
There was nothing Angel could say, nothing at all. Maybe now they could put this whole thing to rest and resume their lives as normal people. They did for a time. Two weeks later as they were having supper at their favorite neighborhood diner, she said in a barely audible register, as if she were trying to keep him from hearing it, We have to start over.
He stopped chewing and looked at her. He could feel his eyes squinting.
Your mother has been appearing to me every night. Sheâs very insistent, you know. The only way to quiet her is to find the man with the handlebar mustache.
He grew it back? Angel asked.
He never shaved it. I misinterpreted some symbols.
He took another bite of his turkey club sandwich and at that moment an important question occurred to him. His mother could barely speak English when she was alive and Amandaâs Spanish was rudimentary at best. What language were they communicating in? How do you say handlebar in Spanish? Or is that not a relevant question in the spirit world? He kept these matters to himself and continued eating. A few minutes later he felt a kick to his shin, which he ignored. He felt it again. Amanda was pointing behind him and raising her eyebrows. He turned around, trying his best to be discreet, and a few tables away was a man with a handlebar mustache. He was dark haired and muscular. His face was long and bony and his cheeks were covered with acne scars. There was something hard about him, something criminal.
Angel couldnât finish his sandwich. Suddenly he wanted to be out of the diner, safe at home watching baseball, his favorite pastime in those days. Amanda was scrunched in her seat, hiding behind him as she spied the man, who had by now noticed he was being watched.
Slowly the man with the handlebar mustache stood and walked over to their table, all six and a half feet of him. He loomed over them and squinted amorally like Lee Van Cleef looking into a western vastness. A cold liquid ran through Angelâs veins, and he readied himself to protect Amanda, perform the ultimate sacrifice for honorâs sake, and be torn asunder by this Chelsea desperado.
Amanda smiled up at him. She had a knowing, innocent smile that would disarm the most determined killerâyes, even Lee himself at his meanest.
Are you Rollie Fingers? she asked him.
Bless her, Angel thought. Bless women who know baseball.
The Chelsea desperadoâs meanness dissolved and he showed them a set of nicotine-stained teeth. Sweetheart, you got the wrong jockey.
For quite a while Amanda busied herself with other things and dropped the matter. He was liberated and was able to concentrate on his work, which heâd neglected in order to pursue the handlebar chimera. It was around this time that he began to feel a twinge in his belly, not pain exactly, but what Spanish speakers call una penita, a small sorrow. He ignored it, as one does with such things, hoping it would go away by itself, but one night the pain was piercing enough that it woke him. He sat upright in bed sweating and still in the thrall of a dream in which it was not a knife that was thrust into him but a hot poker that twisted itself around his intestines. He shook Amanda awake and told her about the pain but not the dream. She called the surgeon who took care of him the first time, and he urged them to go to the emergency room.
While they waited for the surgeon Amanda said the
Heâs an actor, she said finally.
He lowered the newspaper he was reading and made a question with his face.
I knew there was something familiar about his face, she said. I thought I had seen it in a dream. Then, as he was getting off the subway on Fifty-ninth Street, he turned toward me and I got a frontal view. It was the guy on the Electrolux commercial on the television. We got the wrong man.
There was nothing Angel could say, nothing at all. Maybe now they could put this whole thing to rest and resume their lives as normal people. They did for a time. Two weeks later as they were having supper at their favorite neighborhood diner, she said in a barely audible register, as if she were trying to keep him from hearing it, We have to start over.
He stopped chewing and looked at her. He could feel his eyes squinting.
Your mother has been appearing to me every night. Sheâs very insistent, you know. The only way to quiet her is to find the man with the handlebar mustache.
He grew it back? Angel asked.
He never shaved it. I misinterpreted some symbols.
He took another bite of his turkey club sandwich and at that moment an important question occurred to him. His mother could barely speak English when she was alive and Amandaâs Spanish was rudimentary at best. What language were they communicating in? How do you say handlebar in Spanish? Or is that not a relevant question in the spirit world? He kept these matters to himself and continued eating. A few minutes later he felt a kick to his shin, which he ignored. He felt it again. Amanda was pointing behind him and raising her eyebrows. He turned around, trying his best to be discreet, and a few tables away was a man with a handlebar mustache. He was dark haired and muscular. His face was long and bony and his cheeks were covered with acne scars. There was something hard about him, something criminal.
Angel couldnât finish his sandwich. Suddenly he wanted to be out of the diner, safe at home watching baseball, his favorite pastime in those days. Amanda was scrunched in her seat, hiding behind him as she spied the man, who had by now noticed he was being watched.
Slowly the man with the handlebar mustache stood and walked over to their table, all six and a half feet of him. He loomed over them and squinted amorally like Lee Van Cleef looking into a western vastness. A cold liquid ran through Angelâs veins, and he readied himself to protect Amanda, perform the ultimate sacrifice for honorâs sake, and be torn asunder by this Chelsea desperado.
Amanda smiled up at him. She had a knowing, innocent smile that would disarm the most determined killerâyes, even Lee himself at his meanest.
Are you Rollie Fingers? she asked him.
Bless her, Angel thought. Bless women who know baseball.
The Chelsea desperadoâs meanness dissolved and he showed them a set of nicotine-stained teeth. Sweetheart, you got the wrong jockey.
For quite a while Amanda busied herself with other things and dropped the matter. He was liberated and was able to concentrate on his work, which heâd neglected in order to pursue the handlebar chimera. It was around this time that he began to feel a twinge in his belly, not pain exactly, but what Spanish speakers call una penita, a small sorrow. He ignored it, as one does with such things, hoping it would go away by itself, but one night the pain was piercing enough that it woke him. He sat upright in bed sweating and still in the thrall of a dream in which it was not a knife that was thrust into him but a hot poker that twisted itself around his intestines. He shook Amanda awake and told her about the pain but not the dream. She called the surgeon who took care of him the first time, and he urged them to go to the emergency room.
While they waited for the surgeon Amanda said the
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