South by South Bronx Read Online Free PDF Page B

took a calm sip.
    â€œNah, just one. A blonde.”
    â€œThat creep Monk. Now he owes me fifty bucks.”
    The typing started again.
    Mink thought about how strange it was, how mystical, to be right outside while Monk typed, like they were sharing the experience, like he was somehow part of it. Passing the bottle, celebrating the moment. A strange “being there.”
    â€œA white girl,” Alex said.
    â€œA white girl.” Mink now dizzy swirl from his earlymorning empty-stomach drunk, the vodka setting off fireworks behind his eyeballs. The typewriter clack clack. Like being on a train. “A white girl. Where did you pick that up?”
    Alex shook his head. Tired laugh. “I don’t know.”
    Mink chuckled through spinning fiery vodka burst. He had thrown some crazy parties over the years but could only remember one time he woke up with someone he didn’t know. The tequila smokes and those heavy doses of Pernod. He left her alone for an hour and she stole three of his paintings.
    â€œHey, man, you mean you left some strange woman alone in your house? Suppose she steals your stuff?”
    â€œWhat stuff?”
    Mink shrugged, recalling the empty Alex hut. God knows how he ever got all that stuff downstairs. Here today, gone tomorrow. He never asked them for help.
    â€œHey, you like blondes, right?” Alex was looking at him. Something insistent. A pimp baiting a john. “I’m thinking maybe you know her. She looks just like one of those model types that come to your parties.” Alex was already moving down the stairs. He capped the bottle and slipped it back into the bag that clinked with his other bottle friends. He was going down the stairs and Mink was following him. The sound of typing followed, lost in the stairwell. Replaced by pots and pans door slams and that lilting slow bachata creeping from old man Confesor’s apartment.
    â€œCome on up and see her,” Alex said.
    Mink felt a blast of melancholy. He couldn’t hear the typing anymore but knew it was still going on. The sense of momentum stayed with him, made him hate the narrow stairwell, the fragrance of coffee and, somehow, burned toast. He didn’t want to be alone now. He followed Alex, thinking about the last time the guy had invited him to come up and “look” at a woman. It was just weeks after Belinda left. Her touch had been everywhere. The colorful curtains in the living room, the tasteful doilies under lamps, and fresh flowers. She adored daisies, their bright chatter killing any semblance of bleak. What a difference after she had gone, so much tunnel and blank. Alex had taken him straight to the bedroom to meet the woman. There was a fat spliff, some laughs, too much tequila. It was their first threesome, a sudden falling in. The thought of it gave Mink a stomach burn.
    â€œMaybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he said.
    â€œJust come and look at her.”
    â€œBut you know what happened last time.”
    â€œLast time what?”
    Mink sighed. A definite advantage to blackouts. Alex moved fast, there was no hesitation to him. They had to go down to the lobby to cross to the stairwell on the other side. It was a big lobby, kept immaculate by Iris, the skinny beanpole daughter of the super. She had single-handedly found a way to restore the glittery old chandelier which had hung toothless for so many years until the day she found just the right crystal pieces to replace the missing. Now a return to the glory days of old, and how she shined up those big mirrors, frosted archaic and flowing up to the ceiling. Mink always paused to glance up at, to see himself faintly in the smoked glass. Up another stairwell to the top, the floors slick from a fresh mopping. Mink fought off thoughts. Liquor sometimes depressed him, robbed him of energy. He couldn’t get that typewriter clack clack out of his head.
    The apartment felt warmer than he would have expected for a