Inner City Paradise
Across the park's square, a little to the stairs of Vermont that ends onto the sidewalk, the bar of the Hawaiian Joe gave anyone the impression that one of those days it's going to fall flatly into the Sunset Boulevard below. The facade decorated with Western woods and Hawaiian rocks with exotic passages seemed to describe the story of a brawny man who owned it. The people of the LA loved to go there. The drinks were cheating; there were extra beers and dried shrimps and pork's skin. The environment also was good and familiar. One could see Echo Park and the long avenue like a tropical snake disappeared into the noisy streets of downtown. Also one could see the old roots, the families in the backyards and the homes and the building apartments with their mixed feelings and cultures and the new and old cars slipping noisily on the streets below. For the past ten years a new crowd of people had emerged and there were the so-called streets artists who had begun to dirt the walls and the playgrounds as the parents and single moms in full fear had withdrawn from it. There were also the street poets and the local writers made their story personal but not so aggressive enough of being noticed. During the year that followed there was no doubt Brown Joe was a good man. Everyone liked Brown Joe the Hawaiian. Everyone liked the way he smiled down at you and the genuine warm of his brown eyes. They liked the way he treated people. Beyond Brown Joe's smile and likeness, he made everyone comfortable and gave you the best time in his bar.
Andrew Palkos had come in this place since 1970s when the bar was a whorehouse and it was belonged to the old day’s queen of Los Angeles, Rosemarie Fantroy, a Chicana of remarkable beauty. Andrew had arrived to this place when he was a rebel in the big inner city and when Hollywood was Hollywood back then in 1940s and where the golden stars met every Friday in Blue Salon and there were the jazzmen and bluemen infused into a time of friendship and love. It was a good day, I tell ya. He used to say in the private saloon of Daniel Acosta (a puro Mejicano) where his inner circle was able to listen to Barbarita Mendoza singing a wide range of Mexican genres such as La Cucaracha, Cielito Lindo or Mini’lakiano Lama’ta closed in with Aloha Oe. Yes! It made him to cry and to drink for it. Now, a married man, a stable job working for Orange County, he passed minutes there.
It was the same crowd every Tuesday. There were Frankie Jones, a truck driver; Robert "Je" Jessup, a contractor for GE Co.; Anthony Contreras, a mechanic for Sears; Adrian Chia, a Japanese American veteran, an old timer teacher; Norman Collins, a bus driver, and Armando Cuervo, a "doctor" of killing rats. There were the other people, the other faces, which they seemed part of LA.
"What should we drink?" Brown Joe asked Andrew as he was stepping into the private but seniority circle of friends. He put down the plate filled with peanuts, shrimps, and pork's skin dried.
"Hey, everyone!"
"How d’you feel, Andrew?"
"Great!"
"You look happy, Andrew."
"I am!"
"Really happy?" Norman Collins said as he fished several peanuts. “Let’s sing some Mexican canciones or danzones.”
"Yes, Really happy," he said suddenly ignoring Norman’s suggestions. "It's a boy."
Everyone in the inner circle halted their breath. They turned their head and paid all their attention to Andrew.
"How gone? You have said you couldn't."
"A boy?"
"What did you mean?"
"Well, I just forgot. You’ve said."
"Impotent?"
"It's a secret, isn't?"
"It's just right. I fear, you know."
"I always longed to think you'll make it."
"Well, Andrew, do you still have your rubber?"
Laughing.
"Hell! It's good news."
"I remembered mine."
"Me too."
Everyone remembered the last boy or girl; Andrew said it was his first. "It's blessed."
"Well, Andrew, you can have all you want," Brown Joe said. "This is my bar."
"No, Joe," Frankie said, putting a sandwich of greens on the table. "Let's divide it, should we?"
"Why! That'll be unfair," Anthony said, deposing a roll of dollars on the table. "Timbales!" he said with Hispanic words that say my balls. "This is my show, too."
"Enough for me," Adrian said, put some monies on the table. "It's boy. I'm afraid I haven't any. They’re just three girls and hell of noises!"
"Let's go, Joe," Je cried. "All for that, eh?"
"To the boy," Armando said as he retrieved a dozen of hundreds and tried put them on Andrew's chest. He couldn't. "Who have pins?"
From the second group Myra stood up and walked over to them.
"Congratulations!"
"Thanks, Myra."
They started to put monies on Andrew's chest a traditional gesture that went back to 19th century.
"Joe, bring in."
"Tequila, beers, and more dries," Adrian Chia said.
"Tequila, beers and more dries are coming right away."
"How it goes?"
"I did not plan it," Andrew said awkwardly. "It just happened when I start swallowing these green pills. My wife told me. And you guys know how God works!"
"Sometimes onrushing beats, but He does His job," Je said as he drank.
Brown Joe brought thirty-six beers and twelve bottles of tequila and a basket of peanut and shrimps. To their surprise, there is Russian caviar's plate.
"Hell God! Is this Russian?"
"No, from Hawaii, dude!" Brown Joe passed the drinks.
Andrew took his beer.
Frankie poured tequila in the tiny small glasses. He took of his, salted his palm, and with a ready half lemon, he drank. He sucked the salt from the palm and then squeezed the lemon all the way into his mouth. "Goddamn! It's good!" he said. "Who will be the next on line?"
"In bringin' baby?"
Laughing.
"Who follow me?"
Adrian drank from his bottle of beer and when he slid down the bottle onto the surface of the table it was half. Then he lifted the tiny small glass and swallowed it.
"Baby!"
Someone began to sing to John Lee Hooker’s I’m in the Mood.
Robert "Je" Jessup picked up the small glass and drank. It was by Armando Cuervo, then Norman Collins, then Anthony Contreras, then Frankie, and finally Chia. The rotation started now from Adrian Chia, etc.
Andrew felt the heat and began to talk. Not happy talk, but drunkard talks. Painful talk; as the drunkard people did when a dozen of beers had begun to make them to do funny things.
"She tried hard this time, ya 'know?" he said as he looked at Brown Joe, who was drinking milk. He smiled at him as a father of five. "It's an angel."
"To the Angel Boy!"
More drinks.
"Who have the cigar?"
"The cigar?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Somebody has forgotten the cigar?"
"It's my culture," Andrew said. "But we can have cigarette."
"It's not the same. It's a cigar!"
"To the cigar then!"
More drinks.
Armando Cuervo got up, balanced himself, turned, and moved to the door. He came out of the bar and walked to an Iranian shop on the pathway and brought three boxes of cigars, which he had said they came from Cuba. They knew the Iranian was lying. They were made up in Ohio and labelled it as Cuban Import.
The Iranian Harom looked at him.
"Boy or girl?"
"Hell a boy!"
"Good live then!" he said. "This will be my gift." He put extra box of Ohio-Cuban Import Cigars.
"I will tell it to Andrew."
"Yes, please!"
Armando waved and moved out of the shop and walked to Brown Joe's bar and moved to the private table.
"Got them?"
"Hell I do." He put the boxes on the table. "Iranian gave you one free."
"He did?"
"Yeah!"
"Don't say it?"
"But they still no Cuban cigars."
"Cuban cigars?"
"No, Iranian cigars."
"Iranian?"
"Yeah!"
"I thought they were coming from Ohio?"
"Me too."
"What is the difference?"
"The Cuban name!"
"What the hell!"
"How they are?"
"Don't ask. Lit it. Smoke it."
More drinks.
Andrew felt to talk more. He felt now to cry. And then he began crying.
They looked straight past him and sighed to Brown Joe.
"More tequila."
Then they stared at him, their tears were coming too.
"Oh. I'm damned weak," Je said.
"It's not difficult to be a father."
"Hell not!"
"Mamma yes."
Andrew spoke now very angrily and bitterly. They looked at each other. They looked at him.
"She gave him her life,” he said as he began to sing Etta James’ At Last. Then he stopped. “Her life for him. Damn it!"
A silence fell. It was like a drop of lava in full steam had fallen from their head and cascaded it over their shoulders and chests as it burned them slowly.
They stared at him. Now they were kind of confused beings, a little aback.
"What did you mean?"
"I told her I couldn't let her to do that," he said and shocked. "I told her I love her. That there would be another way for us, you know. She mentioned some conversation we have long time ago. It's a stupid conversation. Those conversations between husband and wife that always silly ended. I told her why she could not have babies. She could but it will be fatal. I was still pushing her and pushing her. I am looking at me only, and here I am about to call myself a coward." And he was crying and he was drinking and he was talking a little more, in rush. "I didn't know she has given her life for him...for my own egoism."
"You meant she gave her life for what?"
“Cuevo, please!” Brown said.
"I cannot figure that."
There was more silence. And there were more tears.
Brown Joe swallowed his saliva. He was utterly unable to control himself. He took a medium glass and filled it with tequila. He drank it in one sip.
"Hey, Andrew, let's forget it, uh?"
"I can't," Andrew said. He got up and looked at them. His face was bathing with tears now. "I can't."
They saw them walking to the exit. They saw Myra getting up and saying something to Andrew that they could not hear. They saw Andrew nodding as Myra close to him.
"Bye, Andrew," Brown Joe said.
He didn't reply.
"Andrew! Andrew!"
They saw him as he was raising his arm and it fell on Myra's shoulder. A few minutes later Andrew and Myra were gone.
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