Bodega Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

read that wall and you’ll also see our names: Rivera, Ortega, Martinez, Castillo. Those are our names there along with Jones and Johnson and Smith. But when you go fill out a job application you get no respect. You see a box for Afro-American, Italian-American, Irish-American but you don’t see Puerto Rican–American, you just see one box, Hispanic. Now, you don’t want to consider me an American, I got no beef with that. You want to keep me a bastard child, I got no beef with that, either. But when the spoils of the father are being divided, I better get some or I’ll have to take the booty by force. East Harlem, East L.A., South Bronx, South Central, South Chicago, Overtown down in Miami, they’re all the same bastard ghetto.”
    He paused for about a second and looked at me. For the first time I saw his eyes were a strange shade of pale brown, as if they had been dulled by some deep sadness that the years had turned into anger.
    “I hear you,” I said again. I was ready to excuse myself. At the first opportunity I was going to tell Bodega that I had to go home to Blanca because she was pregnant. That I hoped he would understand. That I would love to hang with him but I couldn’t. But right that minute, Bodega slid open a drawer and pulled out a Ziploc bag the size of a Bible and said the magic words that kept me there that night.
    “Yo, smoke with me, Chino.”
    I settled myself down and looked at the weed. That shit must be real good, I thought. When he opened the plastic bag, the aroma was like coffee and the seeds were as big as
quenepas.
Bodega then zipped the bag back up and flung it to Sapo.
    “Sapito, roll us some.”
    Sapo smiled his huge smile and brought out his own
bambú.
He opened the bag, grabbed a handful of pot, and spilled it all over the
Playboy
on his lap. He closed the bag and began to unseed the handful he had spilled on the magazine. “Ho, shit, I just realized,” Sapo said, laughing, “I spilled all this pot on Bo Derek’s face. Man, that bitch is still fine, she like forty and shit.”
    “Nah, she’s wack. She was hot once, not anymore,” I said, happy that the conversation with Bodega was stalled. As I watched Sapo, I hoped that Bodega would get down to the point. I wanted Bodega to just tell me what this had to do with me. But right then, it didn’t matter as much because a nice joint was coming my way and since the day I had married Blanca, I hadn’t had a good smoke.
    “Nah, Bo Derek is still usable,” Sapo said.
    “Not like when she had those little
trensitas.
You know, when she had those little braids like Stevie Wonder. Back then she was fine. That shit should come back. White girls look fine with their hair like that,” I said.
    Sapo continued to smile. “You know, Iris Chacón in huh prime never posed for
Playboy.
Thass a fucken shame,” he said.
    “Now that,” I agreed, “would have been worth paying for.” Iris Chacón was my wet dream, as she was for many. When she danced, she prostituted your blood, masturbated your soul. She was a gift from the mother island to remind us of the women that were left behind, the girls that were not brought over to Nueva York and were left waving goodbye near
las olas del mar, en mi viejo San Juan.
    “But I don’t care,” Sapo said. “Iris Chacón or not,
yo las cojo a to’a’.
I take ’em all, from eight to eighty. Blind, crippled, and crazy.” I laughed with him. Sapo hammed it up. “If they know how to crawl, they’re in the right position.”
    I laughed. “Nigga, you’re crazy.”
    “If they can play with Fisher-Price”—Sapo was on a roll, grabbed his crotch—“they can play with this device.”
    “Dude, shut up, get help,” I said, laughing.
    Just when Sapo was about to crack another snap—“If they watch
Sesame Street
they can”—Bodega came back to life. “So, Chino, like I was telling you …”
    Sapo quieted down and I let out a deep sigh because I wanted totalk about something else. Even