The Ordinary Seaman by Francisco Goldman

Author:Francisco Goldman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781555846404
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 1998-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

3

HE’S CROSSED UNDER THE EXPRESSWAY, CLIMBED INTO BROOKLYN. IN THIS neighborhood, there are many signs in Spanish. Paco Naco’s Tacos. A place that arranges money transfers and telephone calls to Mexico and the Caribbean and all the Central American countries. There are people out on the streets, lots of men, many mestizo looking, wearing baseball hats, bulky, plastic-looking jackets of different colors, who seem to be in a hurry to get wherever they’re going, to work probably. Many descend stairs that lead beneath the sidewalk to the underground trains—he can feel and hear the pavement thundering under his feet. Nobody looks at him in a friendly way. It’s nearly dawn, but he finds a little corner restaurant that is open, drab blue walls, steam tables in the window, some of the dishes he recognizes—arroz con polio, looking like it’s been sitting there all night—and others he doesn’t. He wishes he had some money so he could go in, order a cup of coffee, get out of the cold. The greasy smell of food, a smell of sauce-saturated chicken, fish, and overripe fruit, makes his stomach rumble; mixing with bus exhaust and the chilly, faintly briny breeze channeling up the long street from the harbor.

He’s never stayed out this long. By now, they must be waking up on the ship, wondering where he is. On a side street he finds a puzzling sign, a white sheet of paper covered with photocopied handwriting taped to the glass behind the bars of a lowered shutter: someone has lost a cat named Dolores and is offering a fifty-dollar reward. There is a photocopied picture of Dolores, too smudgy and gray to help you distinguish this cat from most others. But here is the rare thing: the cat’s color is listed as “aceituna.” But olives can be black or green. If black olive, why list the cat’s color as olive and not black? And who’s ever heard of an olive green cat?

“Tu, güey!”

He turns and sees this golden-curly-haired muchacha glaring at him, slight and pretty, holding keys to the lock in the door to this place that has lost its cat. She has a soft, almost nougat-hued face, her eyes big, stormy pools framed by blue eyeliner and long, black lashes. Small, puffy nose. Pert, lipsticked mouth, pouting angrily at him. “You’re the güey that’s been urinating in this doorway, no? Pinche asqueroso!” And now her affronted brown eyes are pulsing at him.

“No!” exclaims Esteban. “I’ve never been here before!”

“Ah no?” accusingly.

“No!”

He can smell her perfume. How old is she? Young. About his own age, no? She’s wearing a long, blue wool coat with a collar that looks made of coarse lamb’s wool, skinny ankles in whitish tights descending from the coat, into glossy black, sturdy high heels. Now she’s looking him up and down.

“Qué triste, güey,” she says, with impassioned mockery. “Letting yourself go around looking like that. Güey, you’re too young to be homeless. Any güey can find some type of job. Bueno. What can you do? Otro desgraciado sinvergüenza.

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