Bodega Dreams Read Online Free PDF

That true?”
    “What kinda question is that?” I said laughing, playing it off because I was a little nervous. I would have been scared, but Sapo was there with me and I knew nothing would happen to me.
    “Yeah, man, I go to a public college, nothing big and fancy—”
    “Yo, college is college and thass all that maras.” Bodega then eyed me again up and down, then nodded his head, snapped his fingers, and pointed at me all in the same motion.
    “You all right,” he said, as if he finally approved. “So, check it out, Chino, right? It was Chino?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So, check it out, Chino, you evah heard of Edwin Nazario?”
    “Edwin Nazario? Is he related to the boxer who was going to fight Rosario, el Chapo?”
    “Nah, same last name, no relation.”
    “Don’t know him. Who is he?”
    “He’s a lawyer.”
    “I don’t like lawyers, they’re prostitutes in suits,” I said, trying to be cool.
    “Not my man Nazario. He’s my brothuh, we share the same vision.” Bodega pointed at his eyes as if he could see whatever it was he was going to tell me. As if it were there in front of him.
    “I hear you,” I said. I always say “I hear you” when I don’t understand things or have nothing to add.
    “Nazario, he’s amazin’. Chino, he knows the law inside out, like a reversible coat. And thass just the beginnin’. With Nazario I intend toown this neighborhood and turn El Barrio into my sandbox.” His cellular phone rang and he picked it up.
    “I can’t talk right now,” he hissed, his droopy eyes flashing. “I’m in the middle of something yeah … yeah, no no, at the botanica,
que pendejos son
, yeah … yeah … at the botanica.” He put the phone down on the desk and looked at me.
    “Like I was tellin’ you, Chino, check it out, Nazario and I know that we are livin’ in the most privileged of times since the nineteen-twenties, since Prohibition.” I saw that Bodega was in no rush to get to where he was going. That night when I met him I didn’t like him. It wasn’t because he was some drug lord. Nah, to me that was no different than some Wall Street executive who makes a million dollars by destroying some part of the world. I didn’t like him because he was a loudmouth who couldn’t cut to the chase. Bodega was the type of guy who, if he was going to show you how to make paper airplanes, would first tell you how trees had to be cut down in order to make paper.
    “B’cause men that made this country, men that built this country were men from the street. Men like me, men like you, men like Sapito there.” He pointed at Sapo, who had his nose in the
Playboy.
“Men that used whatever moneymakin’ scheme they could, and made enough money to clean their names by sending their kids to Harvard. Did you see that special on the Kennedys, on channel thirteen, Chino?”
    “You watch channel thirteen?” I was surprised.
    “Yeah, I watch channel thirteen. What you think, only kids and white people watch public television?”
    “Nah, I ain’t saying that. It’s just that
eso está
heavy duty, thass all.”
    “Not only do I watch it but I’m even a member. So did you see that special on the Kennedys, Chino?”
    “Nah, must have missed it.”
    “Yeah, well, that shit told the truth. Yo,
ese tipo era un raquetero.
Joe Kennedy was no different from me. He already had enough money in the twenties but he still became a rumrunner. Alcohol is a drug, right? Kennedy sold enough booze to kill a herd of rhinos. Made enough money from that to launch other, legal schemes. Years later he fuckenbought his kids the White House. Bought it. Yeah, he broke the law. Like I’m breaking the law, but I get no recognition because I am no Joe Kennedy.”
    I wanted to ask Bodega what he was talking about but I just nodded my head and let him talk.
    “Because, Chino, this country is ours as much as it is theirs. Puerto Rican limbs were lost in the sands of Iwo Jima, in Korea, in Nam. You go to D.C. and you