“I don’t even know your name,” he said.
“There are things I’m supposed to tell you this time.” She had both his hands. “My name isn’t one of them.”
“This time?”
“Yeah.” She was squeezing his hands. “The Doctor looks for people, special people. Like you, Jose.”
“Oh yeah? And what makes me so special?”
“You’re Puerto Rican,” she said.
“Look, man, I know how it feels to be picked on because I’m Puerto Rican, or picked OUT because I’m Puerto Rican, but this being chosen thing …”
“You don’t understand. You’re Puerto Rican,” she said, “from a time when there were Puerto Ricans.”
“What does that fucking mean, man? You tellin’ me there ain’t no Puerto Ricans where you come from?”
She held his hands, didn’t say anything. Her face glowed with something grown-up and painful.
“Hey, you’re scaring me …”
“I wish I could promise you a future, but I can’t.” Her eyes glistened wetly.
“But what happened to the Puerto Ricans?”
“Every person we bring in has a chance to change everything for the better. It might be your destiny. To change destiny.”
Crash was feeling a weird heat burning his face.
“Are you saying something bad is gonna happen to my people?”
“I’m not supposed to.” Why were her eyes wet? “You may fade soon, so …” Pretty eyes, quick blinking.
“What does that mean?”
She laughed, then spotted something over his shoulder.
“Fuck,” she said, “fuck fuck fuck! Adrian!” she yelled over the music to the Doctor. “Arriverderci, Roma!”
“What’s going on?” Crash asked, turning to look.
She was gripping him frantic. “It’s the fuzz, jack!”
Crash glanced around, frantic. He wished the music would stop. The Jockey, the Princess, and the Doctor were nowhere in sight. When he turned again it seemed the Jester had vanished with a clink of bells.
Alice touched his face, her eyes determined and strange.
“I’ll find you again,” she said. A peck on the lips. Then she shoved him. He fell against an empty table, chair crashing to floor, people scurrying. He didn’t see where she went. Someone grabbed his arm as he was getting up.
“Well, well,” a voice said. “If it isn’t 1973.”
It was a tall thin man holding his arm, a man peculiarly dressed in a bowler hat and pinstripe suit.
“Who the fuck are you?” Crash shook his arm loose.
“They portal’d out,” explained another one, who was larger but dressed the same. Partners.
“Time cops?” Crash said it like he was spitting out soap. “Are you serious?”
“You should be grateful we’re not time cops,” Killy said, “because you don’t want to know what they do to accidental time trippers like you. No, you don’t.”
“Get your hands off me,” Crash snapped, giving Killy a shove that sent him reeling backward. Then he felt a burning heat strike him like a blow.
4.
FLASH … to wake up heavy with a dream he couldn’t remember, just bits of image and face … He woke up, rethinking it over and over as he sat in his bed … Crash felt like he couldn’t breathe. He opened the window, all the way up with a jarring noise that blurred the street below for a moment. It was Fox Street, looking east toward Prospect Avenue. It was rows of rows of grungy tenements, of people in the windows and kids on fire escapes and people on stoops. And the crack of a stickball bat and the rush and squeak of sneaks on asphalt. And that sound, it was in the air. Not just laughter and pots and pans … it was trombones it was timbales it was Puerto Rican salsa music. It was Héctor Lavoe singing and every Puerto Rican household saying, “Oh yes, come on in.” The sound was everywhere, in the walls and upstairs and out in the alley. Crash couldn’t say why his eyes filled with tears. Something here, and not forever.
Walking out into the living room, the usual picture. Mike was sprawled on the couch, sucking on a Honey Bear and watching the TV. Pachuco was playing the O’Jays on the stereo. Wage was sitting out on the fire escape doing his “post” routine. Crash went over to the corner, where there were some garbage bags on a table. He checked through them, the baggies of buds, packed product, ready to move.
“Hey,” Daniel said. He had just come out of the kitchen. “You sure were out for a long time.”
“Some kind of dream,” he said. “I can’t remember, but …”
Crash was trying to process all the bits of image and picture and face, sparks from a twitching live wire. The general commotion of the guys collecting their stuff and heading out, splitting up and meeting up, all prearranged and flawlessly perfected, little sidesteps to keep the man guessing. Crash fell into the routine and it was good, doing something calmed the jittery confusion in his head. And then there was a flow, and he hardly noticed time going by at all. They had cleared the bushes twice already and Crash had just sent Mike back to pick up some more product. No cops in sight so they were feeling pretty loose, just smoking cigarettes and talking with some dudes over by the benches, when this little white girl appeared out of nowhere. She was young, blond, a sort of hippie in flared, patched-up jeans. She didn’t seem uptight about being in the ghetto, and the guys were all lighting on her. Pachuco even cranked his portable cassette player to increase the vibe and maybe get her to dance, but slim hips only had eyes for Crash. The way she looked at him. Somehow, the promise of an eternal fuck. The music went from Hendrix to Cream, from Cream to the Rolling Stones, as Pachuco searched the tape for the proper soundtrack for the white girl. How was it Santana all of a sudden, doing “Samba Pa Ti”? The lilting congas and that crooning guitar. Her tongue twirling redly around that Charms Blow Pop.
“I have an offer to make you,” she said, opening her purse. A beaded thing. Crash peeked inside. Saw the weed all glittery sparkling.
Now Crash was open to this …
D
EAN
H
ASPIEL
is an Emmy Award winner and Eisner Award nominee. He created
BILLY DOGMA
, illustrated for HBO’s
Bored to Death
, received a residency at Yaddo, and was a master artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Haspiel has written and drawn many superhero and semi-autobiographical comix, including collaborations with Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, Inverna Lockpez, and Jonathan Lethem. He also curates and creates for TripCity.net.
M
AGGIE
E
STEP
is the author of seven books. Her work has been translated into four languages, optioned for film, and frequently stolen from libraries. She lives in Hudson, New York.
zombie hookers of hudson
by maggie estep