(this is a chapter from The Way of the Rat, a novel I've been writing)

< 1 >

            A large Mexican flag sprawls like a horizon. The top left corner of the flag, the red, connects to the top right corner, the yellow, of a large Ecuadorian one. That's the first thing I see as I come out to the street. If this is not a sign, I don't know what is. The flags are hanging on the window of a 50's diner-looking Restaurant. "El Caminante" it says above the door. I just got off the train, the L to DeKalb like Flavio told me to. I take in the stumpy buildings around me – the breadth of the night sky. After a minute or so I call up Flavio. It rings one too many times, but he picks up.

            "Hello"

            "Hi. It's Doon-khan," I say. "I'm here."

            "Oh, Doon-khan," he says. "Como esta? Ya llego?"  Man, Ecuadorians speak Spanish funny; more formal. He doesn't talk to me of tu, he talks to me of usted. "Where did you get off? The back or the front of the train?"

            "The back ...I think." I look up at the street sign. "I'm on Wyckoff and Dekalb."

            "Ah," he says. "So just walk straight on Wyckoff, two blocks, past the hospital and wait for me on the corner of Stanhope. There's another subway exit there, you'll see. I'll come get you."

            "Cool," I say. "See you in a bit."

            "Ciao," he says.

            "Bye."

< 2 >

            I walk straight on Wyckoff, east I believe, deeper into Brooklyn. There are two guys, Mexican I'm pretty sure, closing up a tiny store. They pull down the rolling steel door. On the awning it says, "Frutas y Verduras La Guadalupana" and next to it there is a drawing of the Virgen de Guadalupe, a brown skinned Virgin Mary, mother of all Mexicans. I kinda like it here already.

            I cross the street. It's nippy out. To my right there is a hunky hospital with bright fluorescent lights. It looks quiet though. A senora pushing a stroller and two small girls, one on each side holding her jacket, are walking towards me. They're all bundled up. I pay attention to the features below the senora's beige wrinkled cap as she walks by. She looks tired – her skin thin and stretched like a worn drum. She's from Latin America, that's for sure; but she is not Mexican. Central American? Or from Ecuador? Peru? I don't know, but something about the angularity of her face and especially of her nose is just different.

            I reach Stanhope. There is a little music store in the corner. "Musica en tu idioma," it says. There is a strip of green fluorescent lights on the display window and underneath them there are posters of Paulina Rubio and of other Latino pop stars I don't even know. Well, this has to be it. The subway exit is right here; smelling like piss just a little. There is a payphone around the corner and some young guy is laughing Spanish into it.

There is no Flavio to be found. To kill time I look towards the barbershop; it's just past the subway exit. The window is full of Dominican stickers. From here I can see the customer askew, reflected on the mirror. I can't see the barber though, just his hands. I watch him lather the man's stubble with a stocky brush. The shaving cream spreads like frosting on a cake. The customer leans his head back on the chair. I can see a blade being sharpened on a strip of leather. When it's sharp it approaches the man's throat. The barber carves.  The shaving cream starts getting red, soaked red, a dark blackish red.

Wouldn't that be something?

The barber appears on the mirror. He is a little man with a white short-sleeved shirt and a dingy clump of hair glued to his head. And just as he starts to talc the customer, "Doon-khan," I hear.

I turn around. It's Flavio. Those blocky eyeglasses with the leopard pattern rim are unmistakable. His hair is not gooed up like yesterday, though. It's in a misshapen bristly bowl shape with plenty of Alfalfa hairs in the back. He is wearing his brown leather jacket, a checkered shirt, black dress pants that are starting to balloon and his loafers with tassels.

"Como esta?" he says. There is a squeak in his voice. "Lo encontro." 

"Si," I say and shake his hand. "Estoy bien. Y tu?"

"Bien," he says and then goes, "es aca."

We walk – north, is my guess — on Stanhope. "It seems good, over here," I say. "Mucho Latino, no?"

"Yeah," he says. "A lot of Latino. Puro Latino. Sometimes you hear a little Russian or something like that, but it's puro Latino over here. And it's bien tranquilo too. Real quiet. The hospital is right here, you know? So there's always policeman around." And indeed to our left, on the other side of the street, there's a hospital dock. An ambulance is parked there and next to it there's a police car. "You better be careful over there in Harlem, Doon-khan," he says. "Those morenos you know, are never up to any good."

I don't know what to answer and so I just nod my head. After a small silence, just as we're reaching the corner I say, "So what did you end up doing last night?"

            We turn right. "Oh, hombre," he says and rocks his head. "I got so drunk. Bien borracho.  It's because the people from my job called me. Oh you know, you were there when they called. I met them at the Karaoke bar in St Marks. I like to go there sometimes and sing my rock and roles. The new intern, a guerita from the office was there sitting next to me. I kept on buying her drinks. 'Toma, toma,' I said..."

I only half listen to him because I'm taking in the topography. Across the Avenue, St Nicholas it's called –another St Nick—it looks residential, a trimmed neighborhood of row houses, each with a front and back yard of their own. But on this strip the houses are all mutts. They're two stories tall, not quite buildings, not quite houses, just their own confused breed.

"...next thing you know," says Flavio, "it's five a.m. I miss my stop and I feel like puking on the train. The guerita is nowhere to be found, of course. I think she left with that other cabron. Una mierda!" he says.

He pushes open a small door to a waist-high iron gate. "It's here," he says. There is a little yard with a trash and a recycling can put to the side. A wad of cardboards stringed together is jammed between them. We go up a few small cement steps and he opens the door. The space is dark and smells humid. He turns the switch. A puny light bulb dangling above comes on and a wooden stairway with red carpet glued to it appears in front of us. Flavio pushes to the side a clunky red and yellow plastic tricycle that's in the way. "It's from the other family. They live downstairs," he says and walks up. I follow.

The stairs elbow to the right onto a landing. There is a door to the left but we turn right onto a slim hallway that runs on the outside of the apartment. The only thing preventing us from stepping off like Wile E. Coyotes is an old wooden rail missing some balusters and looking all wonky; a recipe for disaster with my friend Don I-got-so-drunk-last-night, if you ask me. There is a panel door on the left, half way down the hallway, and at the end another door, a flush one made out of plywood. We reach it and Flavio swings it open. "This is the room," he says and turns on the light.

I peek in. The place is narrow. I mean narrow. It's the width of the door, the width of the hallway. And it's not long or tall either. It has a window on the opposite end that looks out to the street. The side walls are all wood panel stained Minwax oak. The same red synthetic carpet that's on the stairs and hallway covers the floor.

"The senor that lived here just got married," says Flavio. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "He had to get a bigger room for him and his wife, you know? That's why he left."

I nod.

"So what do you think?" he says and puts his glasses back on.

I feel like shrugging my shoulders, but instead I say, "not bad."

Flavio closes the door slowly. I give the room another good glance as he does. "Nobody will bother you here," he says. "Your own private room, you know?" It's narrow. Narrow like half-bathrooms underneath stairs, narrow like a closet, but he's right about that. And it beats a couch that's for sure.   

"You can lock it. All you need is a padlock," he says and tinkers with a clasp that's screwed on the door and a ring that's screwed on the trim.

I nod again and we become silent for a small bit after that. An ambulance wooes in the distance. "And that's my room," says Flavio after the wooing washes away.

We walk over to the panel door and he pushes it open. The room is about four times the size of the other one, but with the clutter it doesn't look like it. There's a boat of a bed moored in the middle of the room. There are two oversized dressers, both fake wood laminate, one on right of the bed and one in front of it, next to the door. They have hunky drawers with striped shirts and jeans spilling out of them. There is a massive TV on top of the dresser by the door, and a Robocop looking stereo on a table to the left of the bed. There are shoes, sweaters, sweatshirts, pants and just about everything sprawling all over the floor. Somebody needs to give this man a book on Feng Shui for Christmas. 

"I can't find my charger anywhere," says Flavio and walks over to the bed. He pushes some maroon nylon dress socks and some cotton boxers –the spongy, frizzy kind, I don't want to know in what state—to the floor. He straightens the bed sheets a little and says, "but sit down, hombre. Why are you looking like that, all uncomfortable?"

I take my backpack off and put it next to the dresser. I'm about to go sit on the bed –screw it, embrace the acrid—when I notice a photograph on a small frame standing next to the TV. "Is that you," I say.

"Yeah," he says.

The photo is overexposed and washed out. It's somewhere in the Village or Soho. He is front of an empty lot, the kind were they have flea markets. He's rocking long hair, black and stubborn Andean hair past his shoulders. A red bandana keeps it off his face. He's not wearing glasses. It makes his myopic eyes look small, like two buttons. He's wearing a black T and ripped jeans. There is a Dona Karan billboard –the kind with the City's skyline inside the DKNY—hanging on the building behind him. The photo is oddly cropped, but it's cool. You can't really make out the brand, just the skyline inside.

"That's when I first got to New York," he says. "Hombre" and rocks his head, "it was such a different place. I miss those rock and roles." I notice as he speaks a poster of The Ramones on the wall behind the TV. I notice also, next to his photograph, in a gold frame, the picture of a woman.

"And who's that?" I say.

"That's the one."

"The one that dumped a bucket of water on you?"

"No. That's a different one. That was la Lindsey, the one that lives in Van Cortland. That's Christy. She's an elementary school teacher out in Ohio."

The photograph is glossy. There is a light blue to a fading gray gradient in the background and a plumpy woman in the foreground. She has a round, kind face and a shiny Colgate smile. She is white, blue eyed and blonde –her hair is Bart Simpson yellow. She is a corn flakes and pop-tarts fed piece of Americana.      

"I met her in Washington Square too," says Flavio, "I was sitting on the steps of the fountain. She was sitting next to me, talking with her friends, two ugly gordas. They were on a weeklong trip, they were all from the same church or organization or something. I overheard her tell one of the gordas that she loved to dance salsa, that she wanted to go dancing so badly."

"I gathered some courage. 'Sorry to interrupt,' I said. 'But there's a really good salsa club around here. I'm about to head out there if you want to come.' I wasn't planning on going, but I had to jump on the opportunity."

"'I'd love to,' she said."

"Hombre! I couldn't believe it. She convinced the two gordas to come and next thing you know we were in Gonzalez y Gonzalez –on Broadway you know? But sit down, sit down," he says. "Don't think I'm a gay or anything."

I go over to the bed and sit on one of its edges. I sink into it just a little.

"We sat on a table, right next to the conga player," he says. "We all ordered cuba libres. When the first song came on Christy and I got up. I couldn't believe it. The guerita could dance! We sipped on our cubas and danced every other song. By midnight the gordas were ready to leave, but Christy wanted to stay and stayed with me. Her hands felt so soft when we danced and having my hand on her lower back felt so good. So bonito."

"We were pretty much the last ones there. When we walked out I stopped a cab and went back with her to her Hotel. She was staying on the one that's right in front of Penn Station. I got off with her and it just came out. I told her I really liked her and that I wanted to kiss her. We both had a few drinks on us, but I wasn't trying to be a cabron like that. I just wanted to say it. It felt good telling her that I liked her. She said that I was a really nice man, but that I'd have to wait, that she wasn't ready yet. I nodded and took the train home. I thought about her and about our night the entire ride. When I got out of the station it was morning out. It was nice and warm and I felt so good inside, man."

"We kept on seeing each other that week. Sometimes the gordas would tag along, but not too much. We went to the movies, to Time Square –to a musical, you know? She wanted to see the Lion King—we went to dinner in Chinatown, to the Brooklyn Bridge, to the Empire State Building. It's bien bonito up there; beautiful, man. You can see all the lights of City spreading across like stars, like galaxies. You can see Lexington, Broadway, the Bowery and all of Manhattan's Avenues from up there. The lights from the cabs and cars zooming by make them look like rivers of gold."

"On the last day of her trip I went to her Hotel to say bye. I'd given up. There were people with backpacks and pillows boarding the bus. It was parked on the side street. She said, 'there's something I need to tell you.' I was trying to say 'I really like you, you know? I really love you,' but before I had the chance she said, "wait.'" 

"We walked in silence towards 6^th Avenue. Before we reached the corner she turned around, like she was making sure no one was following us. When she was sure, she put her hands on the sides of my face and kissed me. I kissed her back and it felt so good, so delicious, so bonito. After that, she turned around and we walked back to her bus –in silence again. She got on, and then she was gone."

"We'd call each other, and at first we talked every other night and on the weekend. I told her that I loved her and kept on telling her to come, to come see me even if it was just for a few days. I almost went out there too, to Ohio. I should've, but she said no, that it was not a good time. I'd tell her to come, to come see me. But she'd say, 'just wait, just wait a little.' And it was like that, and it stayed like that and the months went by."

"That was two summers ago when we met. I finally saw her this last August. We met up in Washington Square, on the steps of the fountain. You know what she said? That she was flying out to the Bahamas the day after the next. She was staying at a Hotel near Central Park with her husband. She'd just gotten married and they were on their honeymoon. She showed me a picture of him, a guerito of course. A shit. Una mierda, man," he says. "Una mierda."

Una mierda is right, my Latin lover, una mierda. I look at him, at his small eyes behind the glasses. He looks sad, not like he's going to cry or anything, but I can feel it, I can feel the sadness. It's like radiation coming off his body, swamping the room. I kinda shrug, "that's the way it goes sometimes," I say just to say something.  

< 3 >

It's all quiet for a little bit, until I say, "Where is your bathroom?" Just out of the blue I feel like someone kicked me in the gut.

"Ah, so that's why you looked all uncomfortable. Hombre," he says. "You should've asked. It's out that door, past the living room on a little hallway right there."

I stand up. The door connects to the apartment. The lights in the living room are off. I hear Flavio's voice, "the switch is right there," but I just don't see it. Screw it. I walk carefully in the darkness. I don't want to hit my shins or step on anything. I reach a door and I turn the light on. A rowdy fan goes on too. The bathroom is small but it's tidy and clean. It smells like bleach. A bright colored fish mat, laying in front of the shower next to the toilet smiles at me.

What the hell is wrong with my stomach, man? When I'm finally done I wash my hands. I notice a green plastic cup with a Spiderman and a Barbie toothbrush on the sink and on the medicine cabinet's mirror there are Spongebob and other Nickelodeon stickers. I open the door and, not paying attention, nearly step on a kid. Where the hell did he come from? He looks up at me like I'm a ghost. He has Latino features. "Perdon," I say. Nothing. He just stares at me. "Soy amigo de Flavio."

I hear a voice in the living room, "Brian!" It's a young girl, eight or nine, Latina too. "He's Flavio's friend. Come here!" The kid stands up and runs to the girl, making sure he takes the WWF plastic chunk of a wrestler that he was playing with, with him.

The living room lights are still off and the ominous blue light of the TV shining on the children and on the fruity colored milk they're drinking make them look like they're the ghosts. I walk past the living room and into Flavio's room quickly.        

            "Quien quiere mil dolares!" I hear as I go into the room. The TV is on and everyone in the audience raises their hand. Who doesn't want a thousand dollars? Flavio is watching Sabado Gigante. I swear that thing has been on every Saturday ever since I can remember. I'm surprised that that Don Francisco doesn't fall asleep and start to drool halfway through the show. The makeup lady must cake him up like crazy, because that man hasn't changed one bit.

"Sientate hombre," says Flavio.

As I sit on the bed I say, "and those kids?"

"What kids?"

"I don't know, some kids in the living room."

"Ah, those kids. They're my nephews. My sister's children."

"And their mom is not around?"

"She is," he says. "She's probably just in the room."

"I see," I say.

< 4 >

El chacal de la trompeta section goes on, a jackal that blows his horn on the amateur singers that don't make the cut. Man, there must be less painful ways of killing my brain cells, and I'm getting hungry. I should just head out. There are still some burgers and pasta at Martha's. The ones we brought back from the boarding house for the cleaning service she runs out in Fire Island. Man, I'm going to help myself to that stuff.  That's the least I can do. Martha was like, "come with me, help me out. I'll pay you well, chico," and when we got back she was like, "Ay Duncan. Be for real, OK? You expect me to pay you? You think I'd be going out there, that far, to bring back this food if I had the money to pay somebody?"

But, damn. By the time I get to Harlem, cook and eat it'll be like two hours. I guess I can get two of those fifty cent custard pies and give my guts something to chew on while I get there. Maybe I can get a snackie from Flavio, though.

"Is there a kitchen?" I say to him. It's a real concern, I'd forgotten about that. But it's also that I want to get him on the subject of food.

"Yeah," he says. He's glued to the television. "It's at the end of the little hallway by the bathroom."

"And would it be cool if I used it? Not now. If I rent the room, I mean."

He turns his head and looks at me like I'm an alien.

"You know, I'd buy my own groceries, wash all my dishes."

He just stares. It takes him a second to react. "...I guess," he says. "You'd have to ask my sister. The senor always ate out or brought food back. I do to," and he motions his head to a Styrofoam container on top of the dresser, behind some clothes.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to ask your sister."

"Yeah, just ask her. I don't see why not," he says and it's back to Don Francisco, he's talking to some woman in the audience now who hasn't seen her daughter for more than fifteen years.

I'm about to say, "I should get going now," but before a sound comes from my mouth Flavio goes, "if you're hungry you can have the rest of that, you know? I can't eat right now. My head and my stomach still hurt from last night."

Score. Thank you Saint Rat-oncio, patron Saint and benefactor of starving art students. I try to be civilized about it. "Are you sure?" I say.

"Yes. Hombre," he says. "Coma, coma. I can't have anymore."

The styrofoam container exercises its magnetic pull on me. I walk over slowly.

"It's chicken with mole and rice," he says. "It's mostly Mexican Restaurants over here. There should be a clean plastic fork somewhere around there. And there's a bottle of Pepsi on the floor too. Finish it all, Doon-khan."

Your wish is my command. I consolidate the booty and bring it back to my edge of the bed. I try to be careful, the container is a little smeared with orangey grease. Oily chicken, a quarter gallon of flat Pepsi –I heard you can clean truck motors with that stuff—and dumb TV. Not quite the way of the Buddha; more like the way of the rat, but my belly appreciates it; go with the flow.

I'm quiet. I focus on eating. But as I'm nibbling the last strings of meat off the chicken bones I say to Flavio, "that show's been going forever, huh?"

"How can it not?" he says. "Just look at that guera with those round melones."

And it's true that blond Cubana that co-hosts the show has a rack that's about to pop out the TV screen. She's to wet the bed sheets for.    

I put the Styrofoam container to the side when I'm done. I should leave now so that I can get up early tomorrow, but I'm gonna let the food sit down for a bit first. Yankee Daddy goes on the show. Everyone in the audience screams. He's performing La Gasolina. He's a goofball and I'm not crazy about Reggaeton, but all those Puerto Riquenas, Colombianas, and other airbrushed Miami Latinas with cheerleader skirts and bouncy cleavages shaking it behind him are exercising their magnetic powers on my eyes. 

The song ends, and unfortunately so does the shaking. Sabado Gigante Interancional will be right back after a message from our sponsors. "All right," I say to Flavio and stand up. "I think I'm gonna get going now."

"Back to Harlem?"

"Yeah. I want to get up early and go to the school's computer lab tomorrow."

"You know," he says, "you can stay here if you want. Just stay in the other room. I've got sheets and blankets. They're thick so you can make a cushion with them. And I have an extra pillow you can borrow too."

"That'd be cool," I say. "It saves me a trip. I'm going all way up there just to sleep. I'm coming right back down to school in the morning."

"So relax, hombre," he says. "Sit down. Just let me know when you want to go to sleep and I'll get you everything."

< 5 >

I sit down and we watch the rest of Sabado Gigante. When the show is over Rambo II comes on. It's dubbed in Spanish. Stallone's voice sounds like a jock on whippets. The evil Lieutenant's voice is half Donald Duck, half drunk Russian, and it all comes out of them when their mouths are closed.

I really appreciate that Flavio has been looking out for me so much. I can use all the help that comes my way. I barely know the guy, but it feels like he's an uncle or something. And it's cool that he opened up to me about the girl, but by the third commercial break I get antsy. This movie is just too goofy. "I'm feeling kinda sleepy," I say. "I think I'm a go to bed."

"This early?" says Flavio and looks at his watch. "Well, it's already midnight. I guess it's not that early."

I nod.

He gets up and pulls out a sheet and a blanket with a navy blue and white tiger pattern from one of the dresser's bottom drawers. "This should be fine right?" he says. "Just roll yourself up like a taco."

"That'll do," I say.

He hands me a pillow, I grab my backpack and we take it all to the other room.

"OK. Pues buenas noches," he says when we put everything down. "Let me know if you need anything else." 

            "I should be fine. Gracias," I say, "Buenas noches."

            I make a little bed when Flavio leaves and pull out my readings. Just looking at the Urban Studies piece makes me tired. So I pull out the reading for my Fiction class, Gryphon by Charles Baxter. I find myself reading the first paragraph and the title over and over –Gryphon, Gryphon— and I'm just not catching on. I get up and turn the lights off.  I lie down and nest my head on the pillow. Before I close my eyes and fall asleep in this small, little room, which is starting to feel like mine I notice past the window one single star, perhaps a planet, shining in the City's muffled sky.  

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