In the Air Tonight

BETO WOKE UP on the Nido pow­dered milk ware­house-sized box pieces where he slept, hav­ing a large rag bunched up for a pil­low. The sun would peek through a hole on their zinc wall and go straight over Beto’s eyes. At 28, he ran shop in the tiny zinc box, patch­ing and fill­ing tires with air. The cement floor was a con­tin­u­a­tion of the street’s side­walk, except it was tarred from the shops con­stant flow of petro­chem­i­cals and their fumes.

He ris­es from his back and sits along two oil bar­rels, one is a tall table and the oth­er one is two-thirds full of water. After light­ing the rusty one-burn­er elec­tric range Beto puts a small pot of water, and emp­ties a pouch of instant cof­fee for one, in a neon green plas­tic glass and anoth­er in an emp­ty plas­tic Café Presto jar.

Agustin, the grand­fa­ther, had some tin propped up as a room in a cor­ner of the pre­car­i­ous met­al cube; the oth­er back cor­ner was behind a makeshift cur­tain that hung from a nylon rope tensed between two nails. His leg had been ampu­tat­ed as one of his many loss­es to dia­betes; he bare­ly ever spoke and spent his evenings watch­ing some Chuck Nor­ris flick on TV, in the com­pa­ny of Beto’s life­long peers; bad-ass Man­agua reggeaton gang-bangers.

“Viejooo.” Says, Beto: “ya está tu café.”

It was any day; Man­agua was cer­tain­ly dif­fer­ent than what my moth­er would tell me. “Beau­ti­ful par­ties with the Gen­er­al and thieves were pun­ished severe­ly.” Fresh off the plane, when I spoke not one word of Span­ish, the mys­te­ri­ous for­bid­den coun­try was for the first time real. My par­ents nev­er came back, when they talked about return­ing to Nicaragua, it seemed to be all they ever wanted.

“How’s your head from last night?”

Sat­ur­day evening at the Saras; veg­e­tar­i­an pas­ta, beer, and attrac­tive women to read off the menu. I sat with Ura­nia and Yel­ba, and the Saras would go back and forth, play­ing dif­fer­ent pirat­ed CD’s and talk­ing to boys who vis­it­ed the girls as a group, each guy mak­ing progress or not, with the girl (arranged, for each friend). They’d crowd near a red hatch­back that brought the boys.

Beto showed up wear­ing some intense­ly blue jeans, a Dacron Fubu shirt and his spe­cial occa­sion sil­ver-plat­ed chain. Lat­er, the girls went to watch a movie in our room, under a large blan­ket in the AC. We drank some liters of beer and knocked back fiery shots of rum. I told a few sto­ries about back in the day when I sold cars in LA and par­tied week-ends in Vegas. He told me sto­ries that he’d heard all his life about the war, and gang fights in our bar­rio. A qui­et kid, but he has tossed a stone or two for the hood.

“Thank God I stashed enough for a joint. Coke’s still got me jumpy.”

“I’ll take you your María at around one; let’s see right now it’s almost ten.”

A glit­tery Tweety stick­er on beto’s phone sparkled from the shad­ows, in Carla’s house where he talked his busi­ness. I’d scratched some cords togeth­er and bought five slot machines to put in lit­tle gro­cery stands around our prox­im­i­ty in Man­agua. Beto would go on a bor­rowed Chi­nese motor­cy­cle in exchange for some gas (that I would have to buy), check on the machines, pay the shop own­ers, and bring any avail­able mon­ey. He intro­duced me to a guy from the Ori­en­tal Mar­ket, who either makes the machines or refur­bished them. A bald­ing guy, gray­ing on the sides wear­ing a belt, a tucked-in beige shirt with rolled sleeves, loafers and gold around a front right tooth. About the same age as me, but small­er and thin.

Carla’s daugh­ter had a baby with Beto, the 37 year-old grand­moth­er sold weed with her man El Cabal­lo. The lit­tle broth­er Nehemías, watch­es a drug bust on Chan­nel 8’s Cróni­ca. Beto’s phone rings, Yamil: “Estoy en el Chalecito”. A Lit­tle beer place, half a block away from El Gato Volador, in old down­town. Plas­tic tables on the side­walk, a long walk­way that ends on a pink din­ing room; inside there are two arch­es almost cov­ered by fake ros­es and popped pink and white bal­loons, and most impor­tant­ly an excel­lent beans cazuela. Yamil would wait there for Beto instead of at his place.

“Urcuyo, what’s up man? …where’s Bev­er­ly?”. “Hey DEA, where’s AMW, baby? Is he still going back next week to North Car­oli­na?” snick­ers Urcuyo in his styl­ish Ricky Ricar­do Eng­lish. Urcuyo is Urcuyo Maliaño’s boy. He was just in to buy some cig­a­rettes he left his girl­friend, a 15 year-old crack addict­ed child he brought back from Great Corn Island, tied to the bed with his tube sock. Yamil’s remem­bers the day Urcuyo told the sto­ry of when Somoza stabbed his old man. A lot of the peo­ple who knew about the inci­dent, said that the stab­bing was the real rea­son of why Somoza made Urcuyo Mali­año the only 48-hour Pres­i­dent in Nicaraguan History.

They were at a par­ty all the Min­is­ters and sev­er­al high rank­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials were min­gling hav­ing cham­pagne and h’orderves. All of the sud­den some­one gave Somoza some bad news about a ter­ror­ist attack from the guer­ril­las. Somoza was infu­ri­at­ed; he got up and stabbed Urcuyo Mali­año. At the time Urcuyo was in his twen­ties and attend­ing West Point, a lit­tle after the inci­dent he got boot­ed out because he was lazy and par­tied too much. Of the more men­ac­ing mem­bers of the fam­i­ly; Urcuyo get’s his fun mon­ey from a broth­er who lives in Connecticut.

A down­town house from a mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship era: a red and weath­ered 60’s car­pet a ruined small court­yard, the back wall has a bat­tered cement Man­neken Pis rip-off with twist­ed iron rods stick­ing out. The walls have large frac­tures from the earth­quake in ‘72 and the stairs a pre­car­i­ous­ly shaky. It’s half a block away from the crack sell­ers. On the street, a cou­ple of near­by Phar­ma­cies don’t mind sell­ing Urcuyo his roofies and rital­ins. Urcuyo’s pad is also con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed near El Chalecito.

Urcuyo likes to call Yamil, DEA and America’s Most Want­ed (AMW) is an Amer­i­can who also lives in the neigh­bor­hood. He start­ed that joke when he noticed that Bar­ry kept chang­ing the day he was going back home. Bar­ry real­ly was always less than hap­py to hear that joke, but it nev­er pre­vent­ed him from being around for the last cou­ple of years with no plau­si­ble excuse. Yamil would see Bar­ry from time to time, and Yamil was also aware that Barry’s sto­ry makes no sense and that Bar­ry is not real­ly going to tell any­thing to anybody.

Accord­ing to Urcuyo, Yamil is a for­mer DEA agent, sim­ply because he knows, he can smell bacon.

Urcuyo sits at Yamil’s table and lights a Wind­sor, “that shit in Haiti is because Chavez wants to con­trol drug routes for FARC. Fidel start­ed that shit before, with Nicaragua and Cuba, he killed Ochoa for bull­shit. Pablo Esco­bar was work­ing with Fidel too. The San­din­istas still traf­fic through the Miski­to Cays and Lit­tle Corn. Even Hum­ber­to Orte­ga made his mil­lions doing that busi­ness and sell­ing weapons all the way to 1995.” Says Urcuyo as he makes eye con­tact with a weath­ered pic­ture of Chayanne on the pink wall.

“Look at all the peo­ple with Daniel posters on their hous­es and the lib­er­als fight­ing each oth­er. Good luck tak­ing Daniel down again, Nicaragua is nev­er going to have a decent sit­u­a­tion, all peo­ple care about is today’s gal­lop­in­to. They get more shit beat­ing pro­tes­tors up for Daniel than hold­ing down a 2,000-cord job. Old Man Bolaños real­ly fucked up putting Arnol­do in jail.”

Wendy Yahaira walks to their table, a dark girl, who descends from uproot­ed Chorote­gas. Lives in a shack she rents for C$ 300 a month, with her three kids. Her broth­er, a trans­ves­tite hook­er, watch­es them dur­ing the day and the eldest, 7‑year old watch­es her lit­tle broth­er and sis­ter at night. She has an order of tostones for Yamil. He sig­nals for anoth­er Vic­to­ria Frost and Urcuyo asks for a half liter of Flor de Caña Grand Reserve with a Coca-Cola, a tub of ice and some limes.

Beto, walks into El Chalecito with Yamil’s smoke. Light from a sky­light gen­tly gleams as dust par­ti­cles dance around float­ing in a diag­o­nal long sal­low cube. Just behind are Urcuyo and Yamil; fat, old and loung­ing on their plas­tic chairs. Beto steps around an orange cat that naps in the door­way, he catch­es a glimpse of his sneaker’s gold­en tint as he inten­tion­al­ly steps exact­ly where the skylight’s ray reach­es the ground. At home he would often gaze stoned, at some pud­dle of petro­chem­i­cal, into its tran­scen­dent kalei­do­scope rain­bow, sens­ing an ethe­re­al and lumi­nous state.

Beto locks fists with Yamil: “It’s scarce at El Caballo’s. I could only get you a half ounce for 200. The butch­ers didn’t have any, at ENABAS they’re only sell­ing crack, the Pop Bel­lies are only sell­ing 16^ths at 20; man that’s like two joints”. Yamil rais­es an arm in the air and loud­ly whis­tles to the kitchen. Wendy Yahaira peeks out the door. Yamil holds up his beer and sig­nals “two” with his oth­er hand. Beto hints at the rum. Yamil nods and pours a shot. Urcuyo rais­es his glass. “To my love, a mi amor…” and gig­gled like a moron.

The old­er men took a sip of their drinks while Beto downed his shot. “Yo lo que quiero sí, es un harén como el de Yamil.” Said Urcuyo, as he held his laugh­ter back and tried to act out a less than believ­able sigh: “Man!” Yamil, vis­i­bly pissed, answered with his funky accent in Span­ish: “Es su her­mana, se que­da con nosotros porque está estu­dian­do.” Beto watched his friend try­ing to explain him­self. But secret­ly, Beto wasn’t at all sure what to believe either. “Esas car­ni­tas de monte, son más nat­u­rales mi her­mano. Cuan­do les brotan el capul­li­to nadie les dice nada. Si aca­so, les rec­etan su rien­da o les ponen un señor de mari­do.” Added Urcuyo.

Beto and Yamil, both knew beyond a shad­ow of a doubt that any joke about Urcuyo would pale in com­par­i­son to that man’s deranged life of vice. Yamil found it point­less to argue with a mad­man. And Beto enjoyed hav­ing Yamil too busy to push his fat ass around and pon­tif­i­cate about expe­ri­ence vs. youth. Yamil’s old age and all the friends he keeps los­ing to death; seem to con­jure up a fright­ened facet of his per­son­al­i­ty: a chick­en-shit Foghorn Leghorn who by all means refus­es to give up fronting restlessly.

Usu­al­ly with Yamil, it was orbit­ing around either when he was young he made a ton of mon­ey and didn’t care about any­thing, that the oth­er Nicas are good for noth­ing retards (his girl’s favorite), for­mal edu­ca­tion is bull­shit and that he’s supe­ri­or to all the new gen­er­a­tions. Beto’s grand­pa in con­trast, was in a more serene stage of his senil­i­ty. Agustin had come to terms with his own mor­tal­i­ty and felt for­tu­nate to have Beto tak­ing care of him.

Bev­er­ly, is real­ly Shau­na, but Urcuyo calls her Bev­er­ly; like Bev­er­ly D’Angelo: “I want­ed to fuck her” as ges­tures it with his arms, he told Shau­na about the fan­ta­sy dur­ing a show­er togeth­er at the beach­front Mor­gan Hotel. Shau­na had man­aged to release her­self from Urcuyo’s tube sock and was look­ing for some mon­ey or a gold chain. There was a crag­gy round wood­en table with a fun land; of plas­tic jars and blis­ter packs, cig­a­rette butts, spliff roach­es and crack pipes. The world had end­ed she was sure of it, she had been float­ing peace­ful­ly when an earth­quake of insane pro­por­tions had the earth’s core spit­ting fire into the heav­ens and com­plete­ly anni­hi­lat­ed Man­agua and the world.

The win­dows were gar­goyle-proofed by a neigh­bor­hood welder, and the door was locked in; she start­ed kick­ing it, hard. Shauna’s long nap­py blonde hair was tossed up like Don King’s; she had a ter­ri­ble headache and had been sleep­ing-off a two day crack binge for the last 18 hours. On the end of the room there was a long counter top made from bad 70’s Formi­ca in the mid­dle of it: a sink. A pair of 2x4’s propped the whole thing up. In front of that there was a TV. On the oth­er side: a queen size bed with some raggedy red blan­kets over a nude mat­tress. “Cho! bom­bo-cloth!” she hissed and start­ed pack­ing her dirt cheap per­fumes, some clothes and the crack pipes in a kid­die back­pack, except for the best one (she puts that one in her bra). When that old man gets back and opens the door she is get­ting the hell away from that room and him: “enough foolishness!”

That after­noon was the last time Yamil ever saw Beto alive. He went home with his bag of herb watched Amer­i­can Glad­i­a­tors on one of the San­din­istas’ TV chan­nels. Had a ter­ri­bly al-dente chick­en, ketchup and salty Nicaraguan dry-cheese casse­role. Yamil and the girls fell asleep; his ass had to be on the floor and tak­ing calls at 7:00 AM. He packed half an ounce of bud he’s sell­ing to some UAM stu­dents at work. “Hey old man, your head is extra-shiny today!” ‑Moth­er­fuck­ers.

Mrs. Sponge was packed and Harley Rodriguez had too many beers, he fig­ures he real­ly needs to get some coke and a dude called Mis­sis­sip­pi; who deliv­ers 200’s to the club is not answer­ing his phone. Harley hops into his Hyundai, and heads towards old down­town pass­ing through the earth­quake ruins. A cou­ple of cabal­li­to con­sue­tu­di­nar­ies watch Harley fly-by with his shit­ty-ass rear wing slash­ing the 2:00 AM breeze. He makes a turn at the Mon­toya stat­ue and heads towards Beto’s place.

When he got there, Shau­na was sit­ting on the curb; she was now 17 and hus­tling. Agustin and she had an arrange­ment. After one day escap­ing from Urcuyo’s room she starred in a week-long orgy with Beto’s boys in the crack house. They decid­ed she should stay around and kick it with Agustin. The arrange­ment worked for a few months that the old man was able to sur­vive. “You is Amer­i­can?” Shau­na asks Harley. “Naw baby, I’m a Nicoya. Where’s Beto?” he says as he notices her beau­ti­ful body in the scum “Him no here, what you want? I buy for you, no?” he unlocks the door and decides to let her deal with the coke peo­ple and any poten­tial nin­jas from the barrio.

He steers towards the pup­le­ria and asks her: “What hap­pened with Beto?” “Him dead, I nev­er get for know him. Them say him liv­er mess-up”. At that moment Harley hears some­thing accel­er­ate and hit the brakes with vio­lence; it’s a Police Hilux, two crack­head cops jump out of the truck-bed with guns and head towards Harley and Shau­na. Harley was com­plete­ly sober; all the beer seemed to van­ish from him. They found weed in a match­box stick­ing out of the ash tray, and pre­tend­ed to call on their radio. Harley says: “No hay prob­le­ma ofi­cial, yo le ayu­do y ust­ed me ayu­da” and reached for his wal­let, he gave each cop a $20.

Shau­na runs towards the pas­sen­ger seat of Harley’s car and gets in. She hadn’t seen dol­lars since her Bev­er­ly days with Urcuyo. Harley sud­den­ly remem­bers he has kids and a girl­friend he does not want to call from the police sta­tion; he decides to first ditch the cops and then Shau­na. A cou­ple of blocks away, he pulls over and says “please get out, I want to leave now”. She looks at him “What you going give me? Twen­ty dol­lar, no?” “They took every­thing, please let me go home”. She looks around for any­thing she can use to stab him “noth­ing” she mum­bles; “noth­ing” he confirms.