Where the boracho used to sleep

Damn its hot, Ezra mutters to himself, and starts walking towards the bodega, rolling his travel bag behind him. When he was a kid, he used to walk to school this way, pretending to be an astronaut, riding solo in an invisible rocket ship. Sometimes he would leave the ship and go for a space walk, bounding from square to square, with just enough oxygen in his backpack to make it to school.

Ezra stops in front of the doorway where the boracho used to sleep. The doorway is clean and freshly painted, with a thick glass door and a long, brightly-lit hallway behind it. On his spacewalks, this was a vacant building, except for the musty drunk who slept in the covered space between the the cinder block door and the sidewalk.

Yellowed Wifebeater

The cabbie drops Ezra off on Hicks Street, right in front of what used to be Pizza Royale. Now its a laundromat, where a skinny old man in a yellowed wifebeater yells something in Italian to a redhead standing, eyes closed, arms spread like an eagle, in front of a fan.

The heat or the music

It's bumper to bumper on the BQE. Ezra sits in a cab, sweating in his dark wool suit. The a/c is busted and the windows are rolled down. Nothing but hot air coming in, and salsa music blaring from a Honda three cars back. Ezra stares at the purplish birthmark on the driver's bald head. Maybe its the heat or the music, but the mark looks like a Caribbean island to him, surrounded by a dirty, rusty ocean; the few hairs that grow from it, barren trees.

"Get off at this next exit," Ezra tells the cabbie.

The cabbie turns his head, wants to make sure that he heard correctly. "You want me to get off here? But the airport is this way," he says, somewhat annoyed and pointing straight ahead, where the backup has no end.

"Yes, get off here," Ezra tells him, dialing his cell phone. "Forget about the airport, I want you to take me somewhere else."

Beeney Made Me Do It

Hello?


Is this working?


Here I go...



Climb my family tree and at the very top you'll find a supermarket. A bodega, actually. If you stand across the street, the first thing you notice is the large green awning flapping in the wind. Across it, in faded white letters, you read "Aguada Supermarket" and "Fre Delivery." Was the 'e' always missing, you wonder, or did it fade away? You also notice the large rectangular windows, but you can't see inside. Cans and boxes are stacked against the windows, along with white cardboard posters announcing, in scribbled blue magic marker, that Goya beans are 3 cans for $1.00 this week.

Inside is my father, squeezing an avocado, gently, with his fingertips. This one is good, he says to the woman in the flowered sundress, but eat it tonight, don't wait. She thanks him and walks away, hips swaying, avocado in the basket.