Outerborough Blues by Andrew Cotto

Author:Andrew Cotto [Cotto, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781935439523
Publisher: IG Publishing

Thursday

I woke up in the early morning and lifted Colette into bed. She snored gently as I lay by her side, listening to the music playing out back. A trio—sax, bass and drums—practiced in the yard across from mine most mornings. Layers of sound filtered in from outside, mingling together, but somehow separate. I thought of the melody of morning prayers that rose from the nearby mosque. And then I thought of cooking, of building layers of flavor that the tongue picks out, layers that work better together than alone.

My mind traveled back to Carmen, and her family’s road-house in Louisiana. Each night was like a revival there as the Bayou folks whooped it up at long wooden tables, their animated conservations humming through from the kitchen where I worked.

After the sun plunged into the lake, leaving a hot pink sky behind, the breeze would pick up and a band would take the stage. With the first accordion notes, people would swarm to the worn floor, where they’d dance until closing—cowboy hats and rhinestone buttons, swinging skirts and earrings, hair lifted off the neck, twirling and bouncing of tireless bodies. Every few minutes someone would shout “De trois!”

I’d hurry through clean-up to meet Carmen out by the bar. I’d never danced before, but she had taught me to Waltz and Cajun Jitterbug. We moved our feet and hips together, like bass and drums, and sometimes we’d solo on top of that with twists and turns, spins and jumps. Through the trance and rhythm, I’d sometimes see her lips move, and it seemed like she was mouthing a prayer.

Lying in my bed in Brooklyn, listening to the music out back float through my window, I thought about food and music and people, and how well they all went together. An idea came to me, of opening my own place someday, a place where people could eat and dance and be with one another. But before I could do anything so romantic, my plan would have to work out right. I got up, and made for the door.

**

It was another glistening morning. I sat on my stoop and sipped coffee, watching the MTA man move out of the house up the street. He hadn’t bothered to pack, just piled his belongings into the back of a rental van. Next door to him, Pimples and High Fade went through their weightlifting routine, glancing over on occasion to stare me down.

A pretty young girl passed by my house. “Hi, mister,” she said. She used to greet me like this every day, but I hadn’t seen her in a while. She still had her sweet sway, but her gait had slowed and she’d grown quite a bit around the middle. She crossed the street and went up to the fence in her too tight clothes, chatting with High Fade, who looked back at her with disdain. He walked off towards the house, then jerked around on the porch.

“Un-uh!” he yelled. “That ain’t on me. That ain’t on me.

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