The Halfway House (New Directions Paperbook) Page 6

  I was afraid since the hospital nurses went in and out of the rooms constantly. But the pull of sex was stronger. I fell on her. I entered her slowly, sweetly. She had a beautiful whore’s mouth.

  I wake up. It’s daytime already. The heat is suffocating, but the crazy guy who works at the pizza place sleeps under a thick blanket that reeks like a dead animal. I look at him with hate. I entertain myself imagining for a few seconds wielding a sharp axe over his square head. When the hate starts gnawing at me, I stand up, look for my filthy towel and a sliver of soap and go to the bathroom. The bathroom is flooded. Somebody put a leather jacket in the toilet. The floor is covered in feces, paper and other filth. I head for the second bathroom in the other hallway of the halfway house. Everyone is waiting in front of it: René, Pepe, Hilda, Ida, Pedro and Eddy. Louie, the American, has been inside the bathroom for an hour and doesn’t want to come out. Eddy beats on the door loudly. But Louie won’t open.

  “Fuck you! Go fuck yourself!” He yells from inside.

  Then Pepe, the older of the two mental retards, lets out a terrifying scream, lowers his pants, and defecates right there, in the hallway, in plain view of everyone.

  Eddy, the nut who is well-versed in international politics, kicks on the bathroom door again.

  “Leave me alone, you fucking chicken!” Louie screams from inside.

  I leave. I go to the garden and urinate behind an areca palm. Then I wash my hands and my face in a gush of water coming out of a spigot. I go back in the halfway house and hear the ruckus in front of the bathroom still going on. I go over there and arrive just as Eddy, the nut who is well-versed in politics, throws his entire body against the bathroom door and busts the lock. Louie, the American, is sitting on the toilet, wiping his behind with a raincoat.

  “It’s him!” Eddy yells. “He’s the one who sticks clothes and cardboard in the toilets!”

  Louie howls like a trapped animal. He puts on his pants quickly and hurls himself at Eddy, punching him in the mouth. Eddy falls to the floor with bloody lips. Louie shoves his way through the locos and leaves the crowd for the living room. He howls like a mad wolf.

  “Go eat your chicken feed, chickens!” he shouts from the living room. He opens the front door forcefully, yells more curses and goes outside slamming the door so hard that three or four glass panes fall to the floor in pieces.

  “Son of a bitch!” Eddy screams, his mouth bloody. “Now they’ll finally kick you out!”

  Ida, the grande dame come to ruin, comes over to me with an angry expression and takes on a confidential tone of voice:

  “Curbelo won’t kick him out. Don’t you see that Louie receives a check for six-hundred dollars every month? He’s the best customer here. He could be a crazy murderer and he’d never get kicked out.”

  Arsenio goes over to the bathroom. The nuts’ screams have woken him up. His eyes are glassy, and his long, wiry hair is standing straight up and looks like a huge metal helmet. He looks at the blood on the floor, at Pepe’s huge pile of shit, at Eddy’s broken mouth, at the rain coat stuffed in the toilet, all with indifference. It’s nothing new. It’s all part of everyday life at the halfway house. He scratches his robust chest. He spits on the floor. He burps. He shrugs his shoulders and declares,

  “You really are animals!”

  He turns around and walks slowly to the living room.

  “Breakfast!” he screams from there at the top of his lungs and the nuts fall over each other to follow him to the dining room. I don’t feel like drinking cold milk. I need coffee. I search my pockets. All I have is a dime. I go to my room and stop in front of the bed belonging to the crazy guy who works at the pizza place. I take his shirt from the top of the wardrobe and search the pockets. Then I grab his pants and do the same. I find a quarter and half a pack of cigarettes. I put it all in my pocket and go out to the corner coffee shop. On the way, I run into Louie, the American, who is avidly going through a garbage can. A little further on, Hilda, the decrepit old hag, lifts up her dress right in the middle of the street and urinates next to a bus stop. On the bus stop’s bench, a young vagrant is sleeping with his head propped up on a dirty backpack. Two huge dogs cross the road toward Flagler Street. Cars race by toward downtown. I get to the coffee shop and ask for coffee. They give it to me cold since they know I live in the halfway house and I won’t complain. I could protest, but I don’t. I drink the coffee in one gulp. I pay and return to the boarding home. It’s time to listen to my preacher, so I turn on the TV and slump into the tattered armchair. The preacher comes on the screen. He’s talking about a rock ‘n’ roll star who threw his guitar down in the middle of a concert and proclaimed, “Save me, Lord!”

  “He’s a well-known star,” the preacher says. “I don’t have to name names. But that guy … still young, sick of acting, up to here with living a lie, threw his guitar to the ground and proclaimed ‘Save me!’ And I said, ‘Satan, squalor of darkness … you can’t fool a man who has called for Him. Hallelujah!’”

  The preacher is crying. His audience is also crying.

  “There’s still time,” the preacher says. “There’s still time to come to the Lord.”

  Just then, a strong whiff of cologne water reaches me. I turn around and see Frances, the new little loca, sitting in a chair behind me. She has made up her face carefully and is wearing a thin blue dress that makes her look younger. Her hair is all done up. And her skin looks clean and fresh. I look at her legs. They’re still pretty. I get up from my seat and go over to her. I take her hands and examine them carefully. They’re clean and elegant, although her nails are too long and unkempt. Then, I open her mouth with my fingers. She’s just missing a few molars. I look around and don’t see anyone. I kneel on the floor and lift her skirt. I sink my head in between her legs. She smells good. I sit her back in the chair again. I take off her shoes and examine her feet. They’re small and pink and also smell clean. Then I stand. I hug her. I kiss her neck, her ears, her mouth.

  “Frances!” I say. “Oh, Frances!”

  “Yes, my angel,” she says.

  “Oh, Frances!”

  “Yes, my angel, yes …”

  I take her by the hand and take her to her room. It’s the women’s room and it has a lock on the inside. We go in. I lock the door. I take her gently over to the bed and remove her shoes.

  “Oh, Frances!” I say, kissing her feet.

  “Yes, my angel.”

  Hastily, I remove her panties. I spread her legs.

  She has pretty brown fuzz. I kiss it anxiously. While I kiss her, I take out my throbbing sex. I know that the minute I enter her, I’ll ejaculate. But I don’t care.

  “Frances,” I say. “Frances.”

  I start to penetrate her slowly. While I do so, I kiss her frantically on the mouth. Then I shudder to the very marrow of my bones and a wave of lava comes from deep inside of me and floods her inside.

  “Yes, my angel.” Frances says.

  And I lie there, as if I were dead, with my ear to her chest. I feel her delicate hand beating softly on my back, as if I were a newborn who had hiccupped at the breast.

  “Yes, my angel, yes …”

  I pull out. I sit on the edge of the bed. I take my hand to her very thin neck and squeeze slowly.

  “Yes, my angel, yes …”

  I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. I squeeze a little more.

  “Yes … yes …”

  I squeeze tighter. Until she gets red in the face and her eyes fill up with tears. Then I stop squeezing.

  “Oh, Frances!” I say, kissing her sweetly on the mouth.

  I get up from the bed and straighten my pants. She straightens her clothes and also jumps up from the bed, searching for her shoes with her feet. I leave the room and go back to the tattered armchair to watch my favorite preacher again. It’s the end of the show. The preacher, seated at a piano, sings the blues with a splen-did black man’s voice:

  There’s just one way

  And it’s no
t easy to get there

  Oh Lord!

  I know.

  I know.

  I know it’s not easy to reach You.

  Mr. Curbelo arrived at ten. He goes directly to the kitchen where Caridad, Josefina and another employee named Tía, who occasionally cleans up the retards Pepe and René, are waiting for him. They meet. From the porch, I see Curbelo talking to his employees with gusto. Then he claps his hands and they disperse. All of a sudden, everything’s a rush of frantic activity. Arsenio runs around the rooms placing large rolls of toilet paper at the foot of every bed. Caridad the mulata sends Pino, the peon, to bring, as a matter of urgency, a piece of ham for the stew from the bodega. Josefina runs from room to room armed with a broom to clear the cobwebs from the corners and ceilings. Tía, loaded down with sheets and clean towels, runs quickly through the halls changing dirty, pissed-on bed sheets. Curbelo himself breezes easily through the living room and lays new rugs, brought hastily from his own house, down over the dirty, peeling floor.

  “Inspection!” Tía says as she walks by me. “Today government inspectors are coming!”

  And so tablecloths are laid over the tables, a water fountain is installed, clean clothes are given out to the more terrifying cases, such as Reyes, Castaño and Hilda. Perfume is sprayed on the old, sweat-stained furniture and new silverware, wrapped in fine cloth napkins, is placed on the dining room table in front of every chair.

  “The old fox!” says Ida, the grande dame come to ruin, who stands next to me and eyes Curbelo with hatred as he straightens up, cleans and disguises everything. “He’s the most repulsive thing here.”

  I believe it. I also watch that old sleazebag, hating his bourgeois face and voice, and how he sponges up what little blood is left in our veins. I also think that you have to be made of the same stuff as hyenas or vultures to own this halfway house.

  I stand up. I don’t know what to do. I go toward my room slowly in search of the book of English poets. I want to reread poems by John Clare, the crazy poet from Northampton. As I turn down the hall that leads to my room, I see old one-eyed Reyes urinating in a corner like a frightened dog. As I walk by him, I raise my hand and bring it down forcefully on his frail shoulder. He shudders, terrified.

  “Mercy … ,” he says. “Have mercy on me.”

  I look at him, disgusted. His glass eye swims in yellow pus. His whole body reeks of urine.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  “Sixty-five,” he says.

  “What did you used to do in Cuba?”

  “I sold clothes, in a store.”

  “Did you live well?”

  “Yes.”

  “How so?”

  “I had my own house, a wife, a car …”

  “What else?”

  “On Sundays, I played tennis at the Havana Yacht Club. I used to dance. I went to parties.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “Yes, I believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  “Will you go to heaven?”

  “I think so.”

  “Will you also urinate up there?”

  He is silent. Then he looks at me with a pained smile.

  “I won’t be able to avoid it,” he says.

  I bring my fist up again and let it fall on his dirty, unkempt head forcefully. I’d like to kill him.

  “Have mercy, man,” he says to me, exaggerating his anguish. “Have mercy on me.”

  “What was your favorite song when you were young?”

  “Blue Moon,” he replies without hesitation.

  I don’t say anything more. I turn my back on him and continue on to my room. I get to my bed and look for the book of English Romantic poets under my pillow. I stick it in my pocket and head back out to the porch. As I pass the women’s room, I see Frances sitting on her bed, drawing something on a piece of paper. I get closer. She stops drawing and looks at me, smiling sadly.

  “Worthless things,” she says, showing me her work.

  I take it in my hands. It’s a portrait of Mr. Curbelo. It’s done in the style of primitive artists. It’s very good, and it admirably reflects the stinginess and smallness of the subject. She hasn’t left out the desk, the telephone and the pack of Pall Malls that Curbelo always has out in front of him. Everything is exact. It also breathes its own life, that childish, captivating life that only a primitive’s drawings can transmit.

  “I have more,” she says, opening a folder. I take them all and leaf though them.

  “They’re quite good!” I say.

  There they (we) all are, the halfway house’s inhabitants. Caridad, the mulata whose hardened face still retains a distant flicker of goodness. There’s one-eyed Reyes, with his glass eye and his fox’s smile. There’s Eddy, the nut who is well-versed in international politics, with his ever-present expression of impotence and bottled rage. There’s Tato, with his groggy boxer’s face and his lost look. And there’s Arsenio, with his devilish eyes. And there I am, with a face that is both hardened and sad at the same time. She’s really good! She has captured all of our souls.

  “Do you know that you’re a good painter?”

  “No,” says Frances. “I have no technique.”

  No,” I say to her. “You’re already a painter. Your technique is primitive, but it’s very good.”

  She takes her drawings out of my hands and puts them back in the folder.

  “They’re worthless,” she says with a sad smile.

  “Listen,” I say, sitting down next to her. “I swear that … pay attention. Let me say this to you and believe me, please. You are a tremendous artist. You are. I’m telling you. I’m here, in this disgusting house, and I’m practically a phantom of myself. But I’m telling you that I know something about art. You are amazing. Do you know who Rousseau was?”

  “No,” she says.

  “Well you don’t need to,” I say. “Your technique is similar. Have you ever painted oils?”

  “No.”

  “Learn to paint with oils,” I say. “Give some color to these drawings. Listen!” I say, taking her strongly by the neck. “You are a good artist. Goooood.”

  She smiles. I squeeze my hand a little tighter and her eyes fill with tears. But she keeps smiling. I feel a wave of desire washing over me again. I let go of her. I go over to the room’s door and lock it again. I go over to her gently and start to kiss her arms, her armpits, the nape of her neck. She smiles. I kiss her slowly on the mouth. Once again, I throw her down on the bed and take out my penis. Pulling aside her small panties with my fingers, I penetrate her slowly.

  “Kill me,” she says.

  “You really want me to kill you?” I ask, sinking into her completely.

  “Yes, kill me,” she says.

  I get a hand on her neck and start to squeeze forcefully again.

  “Bitch!” I say, suffocating her and penetrating her at the same time. “You’re a good artist. You draw well. But you need to learn about color. Colooor.”

  “Ay!” she says.

  “Die!” I say, feeling myself dissolve between her legs again.

  We remain that way for a while, totally undone. I’m kissing her cold hand. She’s playing with my hair. I stand up. I straighten my shirt. She lowers her dress and sits on the edge of the bed.

  “Listen,” I say to her. “Do you want to go for a spin with me?”

  “Where to, my angel?”

  “Around!”

  “Okay.”

  We leave. When we get to the street, Frances presses against me and grabs my arm.

  “Where are we going?” she says.

  “I don’t know.”

  I look up and down the street. Then I point vaguely at a place they call Little Havana. We start to walk. This might be the poorest ghetto of the Cuban section. Here live the great majority of the 50,000 who arrived on Miami’s shores in that last spectacular exodus of 1980. They haven’t been able to get a leg up yet, and you can see them any time of day sitting in the doorways of their homes, sport
ing shorts, brightly colored t-shirts and baseball hats. They flaunt thick gold chains on their necks with medallions of saints, Indians and stars. They drink canned beer. They fix their rundown cars and listen, for hours on end, to loud rock or exasperating drum solos on their portable radios.

  We walk. When we get to 8th Street, we turn to the right and head toward the heart of the ghetto. Bodegas, clothing stores, opticians, barber shops, restaurants, coffee shops, pawn shops, furniture stores. All of it small, square, simple, made without any architectural artifice or aesthetic concerns. Created to make a few cents and thus cobble together that petit bourgeois life-style to which the average Cuban aspires.

  We walk on. We walk on. When we reach the big, gray arcade of a Baptist church, we sit at the foot of one of the pillars. A protest march of old people passes on the street, toward downtown. I don’t know what they’re marching for. They raise signs that say, “Enough already!” and they’re waving Cuban and American flags. Somebody comes over to us and gives us both typewritten pieces of paper. I read:

  It’s time. The “Cuban Avengers” group has been started in Miami. From today on, take heed all the indifferent, the mean-spirited, the closet communists and all those who enjoy life in this hedonistic and bucolic city while an unhappy Cuba moans in chains. “Cuban Avengers” will show all Cubans the path to follow.

  I crumple up the piece of paper and throw it out. I start laughing. I lean against the pillar and look at Frances. She gets closer to me and sinks her shoulder into my ribs. She takes one of my arms and places it over her shoulder. I squeeze her a little more and kiss her head.

  “My angel,” she says. “Were you ever a communist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me too.”

  We’re silent. Then she says,

  “At the beginning.”

  I lean my head back against the pillar and sing an old anthem from the early years of the Revolution in a low voice:

  Somos las brigadas Conrado Benítez

  Somos la vanguardia de la revolución

  She continues:

  Con el libro en alto, cumplimos una meta

  Llevar a toda Cuba la alfabetización

  We burst out laughing.