South by South Bronx Read Online Free PDF Page A

bed complete with headboard and box spring. Mink took the love seat. It was cushy and retro, a sad bronze color.
    A week after that, Alex was walking down 149th Street with a Dominican trigueña named Sandra, talkative about past lives and her penchant for Santería . Three days later it was Alicia, who dressed like Shakira but sounded like Cher. On the fourth day, Tina. (Monk kept up with his notepad.) Alex talked less and drank more. He withdrew, but the less he spoke the more women were drawn to him. He frequently forgot things. Sometimes a vague medicinal smell about him, as if his pores sweated 100 proof. What happened when, he didn’t want to talk about. He could just stay quiet a long time until that moment of insight, muttered words after cigarette puff. Mink thought he was disappearing, a little unconscious, unable to add the parts, or unwilling. He seemed to be wherever he was by chance, adrift and waiting to adapt to the next swing, the down pitch of the boat. Was it the liquor? Only his cousin Benny could bring up questions like that. Most times Alex would just smile vague, eyes misted over like the addict fighting sleep. He had that look this very morning. There was nothing unwelcoming about it. Mink walked with him like it was all part of the plan.
    The liquor store was air-conditioned. There was already a line inside. Three scruffies waiting for their fix. Smell of moldy cardboard. A thick glass that separated the rows of bottles from customers. The guy lurking behind the glass looked as shady as any drug dealer. The bells on the door tinkled shrill.
    â€œWell, Sir Alex Rodriguez,” Mink said. “Up at noon on a Sunday? I don’t believe it.”
    Alex squinted. His T-shirt was inside out.
    â€œMink Ravel Presario Melendez.” He said it slow, like he was memorizing. “How fun, seeing you without a Monk attached.”
    â€œWe’re fighting,” Mink said.
    â€œWhat’s new about that?”
    â€œWhat do you want?” the guy behind the glass yelled to the first scruff.
    â€œHey, speaking of, have you seen Monk? He didn’t show last night. I’m a little worried about the guy. You know, on account of, he’s been a little bit of a mess lately.”
    The first scruff stuck his dollar bills in a hole in the glass. He walked out with his crumpled plastic bag.
    â€œI haven’t seen him, no. I stopped by his door on the way down.”
    â€œWhat do you want?” the guy behind the glass yelled.
    â€œI knocked but he wouldn’t open.”
    â€œAhh, man, you see what I mean? The guy’s in bad shape. Did you call the cops or anything? Maybe we should call the cops.”
    Alex grinned. The third scruff turned and left with his goods.
    â€œCops?”
    â€œYeah, man. Fucking guy could be hanging from the ceiling already.”
    â€œWhat did you do to him?”
    â€œNah, don’t you know more writers kill themselves annually than painters? It’s a fact.”
    â€œWhat?” the guy behind the glass yelled.
    Alex counted out the bills. He thrust them through the hole in the glass. “He’s not dead,” he said. “He’s typing.”
    Mink felt a deep shudder. Turbulence rocked the plane.
    â€œHe’s what ?”
    â€œHe’s hitting those keys hard and fast. You ever been on the island during one of those aguaceros , bro? Raindrops blasting hell on a tin roof. You can feel that shit in your chest.”
    â€œThe typing?”
    â€œThe rain, man. The rain.” Alex collected his bag of clinking bottles at the hole in the glass. “Do you always tune out when I talk about Puerto Rico?”
    If Monk was typing, he was writing. He had six typewriters and he only used them for writing. The computer was for other stuff, like e-mails and scripts. Prose was what came out of the typewriters at Monk’s house, and if the typewriters were going, there was prose. This feeling inside of Mink was