Marty had insisted on bringing a six-pack of beer for the occasion. Ted had suggested wine or champagne; Marty was sure that beer was the right call. Marty also refused to bring his cane. Kinda broke Ted’s heart a little that Marty wouldn’t bring the cane, struggling to appear vigorous and healthy. Marty caught sight of himself in the car-window reflection, and was unable to hide his disappointment. “Whenever I catch my reflection,” he said, “I expect to see a sixteen-year-old kid and I point at it, and think, Who is that old man?”
When necessary, he leaned on Mariana for support. In solidarity with Marty, Ted and Mariana had both dressed nicely for the occasion.
As they sat in the lurching subway car, Marty saw an abandoned New York Post on the seat next to him, and he reached for it idly. Ted, the secret weapon, pounced and grabbed the paper from his father. Marty looked irritated. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t wanna get that newsprint ink all over your hands. You’ll look like a bum. Let me see your cravat now, Captain.”
Ted reached over and fiddled with Marty’s tie the same way Marty would have knotted Ted’s tie so many Thanksgivings ago. It seemed each action tonight was fraught with symbolism and import. It made Ted feel like he was inhabiting two worlds, the real and the symbolic. He felt a slightly pleasant vertigo from this. Mariana reached over to straighten Ted’s tie. Ted looked at Mariana and wished there were something out of place on her that he could touch or correct. But there wasn’t. She was perfect.
51.
When they exited the subway in Spanish Harlem, they could hear the Yankee game broadcast in Spanish on many transistor radios. Men sat outside bodegas, on stoops, on their cars, radios by their ear or at their feet. Ted could see his father was curious for a score, so he kept up a constant stream of obfuscating chatter as he hustled Marty forward as quickly as the sick and tired old man could. Onward to Maria’s address.
They stopped outside the building. Marty looked up at the windows, lost somewhere deep within himself. “You recognize the place?” Mariana asked him. Marty didn’t answer, just kept staring up at the windows or the sky, it was impossible to tell which.
To get up the stairs to the third floor was slow going. At every landing they stopped for breath. “I’m fucking ridiculous,” Marty gasped. “I hate this. I’m breathing like a fucking fish. I look like a goddamm grouper.” They finally made it to Maria’s door and Ted, the stage manager, pushed Marty to the front so Maria would see Marty, and only Marty, when she opened the door. Ted waited for Marty to catch his breath. He knocked and then stepped back again behind his father. The knob turned, and Ted saw Marty straighten his back as best he could, trying to iron out the effect of decades of gravity and illness. Ted pulled at the tail of Marty’s jacket to make the fit work best and take the hunch from the fabric at his shoulders.
The door opened and there was Maria. She had transformed herself from the somewhat dowdy older woman of that afternoon into a beautiful relic. She was not trying to look young, she was just trying to look like her best self, and she had succeeded. Marty and Maria stood there speechless, looking at each other over the expanse of years, taking in all the damage, sensing all the experience in the other that they had not been part of and would never ever really know.
Maria’s eyes were wet and shining. She had no doubt who stood before her, and she said in her heavily accented English, “You look like a man I once knew.”
“I feel like half the man you once knew.”
They fell into eloquent silence again. Ted felt like they might stay here at the threshold all night, and that would be okay. The aroma of home-cooked Latin food seemed to draw them forward, however. Marty pulled the six-pack from behind his back, and said with a maître d’ flourish in a thick, put-on Nuyorican accent, “Ice-col’ Buh-whyssser.”
Maria laughed and wistfully repeated, “Buh-whyssser.”
Then she stepped away from the door, extending her arm as an invitation to enter, opening up her world and the past to Marty, Mariana, and Ted.
52.
Maria’s apartment was modest and simple, and Ted could tell immediately that she lived alone and had for some time. This observation pleased him. Ted looked around at photos and such to see if there were hints of Marty’s existence, but he couldn’t find anything. There was a photo of John Kennedy. There were plenty of framed photos of children and a few of a man Ted assumed was their father, but he saw no clues that this man was still around. The Yankee game was on, so Ted quietly went over and turned the TV off, and Marty didn’t seem to care at all. The secret weapon getting open, being deployed. Marty and Maria sat in two chairs by the window, speaking quietly to each other. Marty had a posture and affect that Ted had never seen before-soft, receptive, attentive. He couldn’t remember ever seeing him like that with his mother, but that was a long time ago. It seemed that Marty and Maria had seen each other yesterday, not twenty years ago. Mariana came up behind Ted and said softly in his ear, “Stop staring at them.” Ted felt her breath on his skin, and that made him want to keep staring just so she would have to whisper in his ear again.
They sat at the small dining room table, and ate chicken and pork and beans and rice; they drank beer and wine and sangria. Mariana pointed and informed Ted of the exotica-“Empanadas, arroz con gandules, arroz con frijoles, mofongo, pernil…” All new and scary to Ted. He was afraid to eat. He looked at his food warily, like a wildebeest at the watering hole afraid of submerged crocodiles.
He could see Mariana watching Marty’s beer-and-wine intake. He shrugged as if to say Well, what the fuck-this one time. A new dish caught Ted’s eye-fried plátanos, or fried bananas as Ted knew them. He looked at the dish, and then looked at Mariana, who shrugged.
“Excuse me, Maria, what are these?” Ted asked.
“Plátanos.”
Thought so. He ate a piece. It was one of the best things he’d ever tasted in his life, even better than what he’d had in the diner. “I’m an idiot.”
“Not an idiot,” Mariana said.
“Thanks.”
“Maybe just a little slow. Here, I’ll help you. Now, don’t be scared.” She began to feed Ted a forkful of each dish as she named them for him.
“Empanadas.”
“Mmmmmmm…”
“Arroz con gandules.”
“Mmmmmmm…”
“Arroz con frijoles.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmm…”
“Mofongo.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…”
“Pernil.”
“Mmmm… give me that.” Ted took the fork from Mariana and began stuffing his own face. Even though Maria had trouble understanding him with his mouth so full, she got the gist when Ted said to her, “These are the best things I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
Maria got up from the table and disappeared into the bedroom for a minute. She came back with an old manila folder. Ted was a little tipsy himself. “The thrilla in the manila,” he said.
She emptied the contents on the table-photographs. In that distinctive Kodacolor that made everything look immediately like a memory, and made memories seem even farther back in time and more sacred than they ever were.
One photo jumped out at Ted immediately. It was apparently taken at a city ballfield eons ago. It was unposed, of the whole softball team, the Nine Crowns. In one corner, you could see Marty and Maria laughing at a private joke. There was a glow from the setting sun about it, giving it a sense of timelessness. You can’t believe that this time ever passed, and you can’t believe that this time ever really was. Maria and Marty started pointing out people and players that they remembered and telling stories about long-forgotten characters. “This guy from the neighborhood, Carlos Crocchetti, half Italian, half Puerto Rican, could never really make the team, pinch runner maybe, more of a batboy, always a smile on his face. One day, I asked him, ‘Carlos, why’re you so happy? What’s the secret?’ and he goes, ‘I look like I’m happy, but truth is I’m miserable and I hate everything and everybody. Including you.’ He was totally serious, the funniest fucking thing I ever heard in my life.”