“Sounds like a lawsuit,” Bridge said as the waiter arrived. “I’ll have a glass of chardonnay, please. Anyone else?”
“I’m OK,” Sebastian said, Santa nodded agreement.
“I’ll have another,” Edward said.
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said, glancing at Gideon, who glanced back. Sebastian noticed, as did Edward, and they both burst out laughing. Gideon smiled knowingly, adding, “Edward, please continue with your story.”
“Exactly, Gideon, Edward was getting to the interesting part of how he came to see people as less beautiful,” Ball added with a dig.
“Don’t go there, Sebastian.”
“I’m confused, sweetie,” Santa said, “Why are we still talking about them?”
“You want to talk ugly, how about Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO over at Goldman Sachs. Did you hear what Blankfein said at a congressional hearing the other day, that he was doing God’s work. Now that’s ugly.”
“Gideon, you’re an idiot,” Parker said laughing.
“It is true; he did say it,” said Edward. “That’s part of the arrogance. They get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and they make statements like that. That’s part of what my father shared with me. A few years ago we sat down in the library one night after dinner. He needed to talk, to get it out. We had a few drinks, and it came pouring out. My father played by the rules. He knew what they were, why they existed, and he knew what exceptions could be made. But these guys he worked with at the bank—so arrogant. To make statements like that.”
“And?” Gideon chirped in.
Edward leaned forward, “Dad said that what started to push him over the edge was the abuse of shareholders. These guys are taking too much money for themselves. One of the guys at Blackrock made over a billion dollars last year.
Ball, the billionaire’s son, roared at that. “You are wacked, Eddie. You’re part of that crowd with Obama that wants to play Robin Hood.” Gideon was giggling, and Santa even managed a smile.
Edward looked irritated that he was the cause of this unintended merriment.
“I think it’s OK to make as much as you can,” Santa added.
“I like the way you think,” Ball added, as if noticing Santa Alba for the first time.
With understanding sinking in, Edward leaned back, put his arm around Santa and said, “How did we get from some ugly people at the theater to crooks all over New York?” He laughed.
“Well, you are right when they make statements like Blankfein made and then take that much money for pay. They should just shut up and keep a low profile,” Sebastian added.
“You’re right. Everyone outside of the New York community sees that.” Wheelwright paused as the waiter came by. They all passed, with the waiter and Gideon again exchanging glances.
“Gideon, you are hopeless,” Santa said, gently slapping him on the arm.
“By the way,” Gideon began, “I don’t suppose any of you saw Obama’s State of the Union tonight?”
“No,” Sebastian said, looking at Edward and Santa, who shook their heads.
“What did we miss?” Santa said.
“Well to start with it looked like he was addressing the College of Cardinals with all that white hair and a bunch of black women in yellow dresses,” Gideon smiled as the others laughed at the imagery.
The five friends drank and laughed until midnight when Sebastian saw his driver enter.
“OK boys and girl, let’s pack it in. I’ve got carfare to the west side and back to Greenwich,” Ball said, “and by the way, particularly you Gideon, it’s all set. Winston’s bachelor party is the ninth of next month, Intercontinental, San Juan. We’re going down on the seventh and coming back on the eleventh or maybe the twelfth if we haven’t found everyone by the eleventh. Tray said he’ll be there. And you better be there,” he concluded pointing a mocking finger at Gideon.
“I’m ready,” Gideon said. “How long is Tray back for. “
Rising and putting an arm around Gideon, Ball said, “the whole month. And everyone can make the wedding in Greenwich on the sixteenth. So let’s get this show on the road.”
“Umm, I’ll be staying in the city tonight,” Gideon said, glancing in the direction of the waiter.
Gideon grabbed Edward’s arm, “Give us a minute,” he said to the others, and guided Wheelwright to a quiet corner. “Eddie, I went along with you there, but you have to stop this stuff with the hate you have and the contempt for the bankers. You’re talking about it all the time lately.”
“What have you become, the champion of the money lender?” Wheelwright shot back.
“What the hell’s wrong with you? They have a pass. They take all the risks in that business and sometimes things don’t work out right.”
“You mean like the great fucking recession?” Wheelwright snapped.
“Yes, but you more than anyone understand that world. I know what you’re saying—but you say it to more and more people. There is a distinction between some banker in Podunk, Idaho, and the financial capital of the world. They take more risks, open up more new markets—for the whole country.”
“Damn Gideon, I’m not talking about all bankers, just the crooks.”
“Well you just put them all in the same pot. I know what your father went through. You’ve told us that. I can see it eating at you. Get above it. Got it asshole,” he finished with a smile.
“Got it, Gid. I understand. Go see your boyfriend,” Wheelwright nodded in the direction of the waiter. And they laughed.
“One last thing, Eddie. Something wrong with Parker?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“He didn’t say a word while we were here,” Gideon, always the observant one, said.
“Probably just a long day.”
“Probably.”
Sebastian, Parker, Eddie, and Santa tried one last time to get Gideon to come with them, but he resisted. They paid up, said their goodnights, and left. They settled comfortably in the back of the Ball family Bentley. The wealth, the privileged life, the close association with an almost sacred group of friends who had known each other since pre-school made Santa tingle. The outsider, the beauty queen of Coamo, longed to be part of this, longed to be Mrs. Edward March Wheelwright. Mr. Edward March Wheelwright had one thought on his mind—Miss Santa Alba and what was to come when they arrived at their apartment on the upper west side.
Chapter 20
The Second Baptist Church sits on one of four corners at the intersection of faith and hopelessness. Pacific and Henry Streets in Stamford display the south end in all its glory and horror. The Baptist Church, a playground basketball court, a demolished lock making factory, and a bodega with a large flat roof and a pit bull patrolling atop it complete the four corners. The basketball court is a refuge for scores of young black men, although across the street in front of the bodega on three benches sit an older generation of black men, talking all day, brown paper bags in hand concealing whatever bottle they can afford. These bench men talk with their friends who did not escape the neighborhood. Trapped here now that the path to middle class jobs that once existed in the lock factory have moved, gone to China. And on Sunday all the black women of the neighborhood in their finest dresses, with delicate, beautiful hats, come to the Baptist Church to pray to God, to ask Jesus not to let their sons and grandsons who are playing on the basketball court suffer the same fate as their husbands and brothers who sit in front of the bodega sipping from their brown bags as the pit bull keeps a watchful eye.
It is on these Sundays that Louise Strong comes to church with her sister, Jackie Stevens. The sisters pray and sing. Louise asked for God to welcome her husband, Curtis, into heaven and to protect her son, Curtis Jr., with His grace while he is in Auburn Prison. She asks that Christ place a protective shield over CJ to keep him safe from the fear she knows that exists there. Jackie Stevens asks God to
protect her son Billy, to put him on a straighter road that he is on now. Jackie knows that Billy is a criminal; she sees how her boy has changed, almost slithering in and out when he does come home. She sees it in his face, the fear of being caught, of being questioned, of ending up where Curtis is. In all the five years Curtis has been in prison, the two sisters have not talked about anything to do with the crime that CJ is imprisoned for. Louise will tell Jackie about Curtis and how he is doing well. She even took Jackie to see him two times. But they never talk about the crime. Jackie is afraid to ask; Louise is afraid to question.
So the sisters sing and pray. On a particular Sunday, a particularly glorious sunny day, the sisters linger outside talking with other members of their choir. A young woman approached Louise and asked, “Are you Mrs. Strong, Curtis Strong’s mother?” Louise and Jackie shot each other glances that said neither recognized the young, well dressed woman.
Louise smiled broadly. No one other than her family had asked about Curtis in more than four years. “Yes, I am.” Sensing something personal, Jackie edged away and into a conversation with another member of the choir.
“I’m Kathy Jackson, Mrs. Strong,” she began with a beautiful smile that flashed bright white teeth against a complexion of perfect skin like that of the black night sky. “You don’t remember me?”
“Should I,” Louise hesitated, “Miss Jackson?”
“It’s been a long time. Curtis took me to the junior prom at Westhill High.”
“Oh, my God,” Louise lit up. “Kathy, I’m sorry for not recognizing you. You’ve gotten even more beautiful than I remember.”
And the bright smile of the young woman’s face reappeared.
************
Freedom. It was a luxury Curtis Strong had not allowed himself; it was a hope that did not exist. The judge’s gavel was final. Auburn’s walls were too high, and the human spirit trapped itself in a Pavlonian jar that it could not jump out of.
Now with this picture, once Billy Stevens returned and identified who killed Augustos Santos and testified that he saw him kill Augustos Santos, CJ would know freedom.
CJ reached for his Bible, the one book he kept close. He opened it and placed the picture in it. He lay back on his mattress, placed his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. Visions of freedom, of his past freedom flooded forward, rushing to the surface of consciousness as he faded from it: the joy of his father coaching him in baseball, the smile of his mother while cooking dinner, shooting hoops with the boys on court at Henry and Pacific Streets, and a prom date with a quiet young girl.
Chapter 21
The moneyed class and rich Europeans, namely older French widows, live along Boa Viagem. Their glistening white condominium buildings face east overlooking the beaches of Recife.
The poor live four streets back from the beach in the squalor of windowless public housing. When breezes die down the flies come, attracted to the garbage flung out of the open ports where windows normally fit. A poor woman leans on one of the ports looking toward the ocean for a breeze, looking at where the rich lived, wondering if it is possible for her to move four blocks closer.
Then this woman glances down from her fifth-story port to the houses in the space between the rich and her; that is the next step up the ladder, middle class housing. In the second and third streets from the beach are smaller apartment houses, even a few private homes.
It is five thirty in the morning as she swats a fly away from her face, and she notices a man emerge from one of the private houses below. He is short and powerfully built. He stretches outside of his home and begins an easy jog to the intersection, and he turns left towards the ocean. She loses sight of him and turns to begin her work day.
The man running takes less than a minute to reach the beach on his run. Chunk DeLuna begins every day this way. He knows he must remain strong. He knows his verbal ferocity must be backed up occasionally by physical violence. It is his way of life. What elevated him from homeless loneliness was his brute strength. It enabled him to become leader of his gang, and it enabled him to stay as leader. What came naturally to him was not the brute he had become, but his loyalty to those in his gang and those who helped him. While he was tough on his gang’s members, they knew he would defend them at any cost. He took a good share of proceeds from the gang’s work for himself, but he was generous to his boys. They would say he was firm but fair.
On this day like so many others just under the equator, the sun will heat the earth’s air to one hundred degrees. It is the reason he runs early; already it is eighty degrees. This is also the reason the beach is full of tanned, healthy Recifians walking and swimming before 6 a.m.
There is no wind, only a gentle breeze right on the water at this hour. The water is flat, and as waves move toward shore, they do not so much break as they rise, then just fall. There is no energy in the water, just calm, and perfect for the hundreds of swimmers in early before the work day begins.
Chunk sees the girl playing paddle ball with a young man as she does three or four days every week. The first thing he notices is her bare ass. There is a thong running through it, and her ass is round and firm and glistens on the left cheek as the sun, just coming over the edge of the water, hits it. And as he does every time he passes by he says, “Hola.” The boy and the girl call back to him.
This day Chunk does something different—he stops. He finds this girl alluring. Her hair is pulled back tightly. She is several inches taller than Chunk, and the young man with her is several inches taller than her. She is pretty, not beautiful. She has a strong face that shows the mixed race of so many Brazilians. Her body is taut, tight as a drum, abdominal muscles with skin stretched across them, calves with muscles, thighs with a slightly bulging main muscle on the outside of each leg. Her arms are firm but not thin.
She stops playing and looks at the short stranger who always says hello but has never stopped before.
“Do we know you?” she asks with attitude but with a smile.
“I’m Chunk, and I’d like to have a date with you,” DeLuna says, now looking at the young man, daring him to speak.
“Why are you looking at him,” she says. “Do you want to date him?” and she laughs, a mocking laugh and her brother laughs with her.
Chunk smiles and says, “No,” and he looks at her and adds, “I mean no offence to him.”
The young man smiles. “There is no offence. Lupe is my sister. But who are you to just ask her for a date? We don’t know you.”
“Well I say hola to you every morning. I see you out here, and I feel like I know you.”
At that Lupe finds herself thinking, I have seen this man in the neighborhood, heard of this man’s reputation. She is correct; he is known in the area as the leader of a tough gang of thieves and drug dealers. She thinks he seems friendly enough even though he is hard to look at.
“Just because you say hola does not mean I know you,” Lupe says. “The only way you can get to know me better is on a date, so yes, I will go on a date with you. When?”
Lupe Montserrat’s brother Jorge is shocked. He also knows of Chunk DeLuna and does not think he is a good choice for Lupe. But he says nothing. He knows more of DeLuna’s reputation than Lupe, and DeLuna is the type of man you do not anger.
Chunk smiles broadly, two gold teeth visible where once the canines had been.
Chunk DeLuna does not so much make love as ravishes a girl. This was among his earliest acts of violence. Whatever he wanted he took, usually at night, usually under the piers where girls would come around. That was where the boys of Chunk’s gang were; a perfect lure for unsuspecting girls searching for love and finding horror in the form of Chunk DeLuna. If a girl resisted once Chunk began making his form of love, she could easily be punched into submission.
It was a different Chunk who took Lupe to Olinda Churrascaria, a restaurant at the water’s edge in the ancient town of Olinda just north of Recife. As waiters carved slices of beef at the table and brought skew
ers of shrimp, Lupe was aglow. She had never been to a restaurant like this.
Later Chunk took Lupe to his home. She liked what she saw there; DeLuna had so much. Lupe’s family was just out of the projects but had not moved into the middle class streets. They began back further, seven streets from the ocean with a small apartment. The Montserrat’s had four rooms, with windows, that housed her parents, her older and younger brothers. Chunk had seven rooms all to himself.
“This is nice,” she said to DeLuna, looking around at the furniture, large leafed plants and colorful posters on the walls.
“Thanks. Let me show you something else that’s nice,” as he unzipped his fly and approached her.
“Is this the way you want me to think of you? As a crude pig?” she asked.
DeLuna froze, rage rose up quickly.
“Do you want to make love to me?” Lupe asked the volcano.
“Yes,” he said, his hand emerging from inside his fly, relatively disarmed by Lupe’s frankness.
“Show me your bedroom,” she said with authority. “I am not some tramp for you to screw with. If we are going to make love, we will do it right or not at all.”
Chunk nodded. No girl or woman had ever talked to him this way. He walked to the bedroom, and Lupe followed. And Lupe showed Chunk how to make love. She taught him to gently run his hand over her body. She put her arms around his back. It was wide and had no softness to it. She let him hold her round firm ass as he kissed her neck. When he started to suck on her neck she pulled back and slapped him in the face.
DeLuna sat up, enraged, and he raised his arm back to fracture her teeth.
“You touch me,” she yelled in his face, “and you’ll never touch this body again and you’ll never know what heaven is like.”
That night she broke him. He became tame, but only for her. And that same week she moved in with him. Chunk DeLuna was twenty-two and had found a soft side to himself. Lupe Montserrat was two months past her sixteenth birthday.