He kept his money-listen to this, Isidro told his wife-in a money belt made of blue cloth beneath his shirt. He would take money out of it only in the taxi, next to me, Isidro said. He goes in a shop and buys something for his mother in New Jersey, he returns to the taxi before he puts the change in his money belt. He trusts me, Isidro said. Isidro had lived in New York City nine years in a basement and was relieved to be back. His wife, who had never left Puerto Rico, didn’t say anything.
Every morning pick him up on Ashford Avenue by the DuPont Plaza, he’s ready to go. Ask him how he slept. Oh, he slept like a baby with the breeze that comes from the ocean.
This ocean was different, the tourist believed, than the ocean up in New Jersey. Though it must be the same water because the oceans were all connected and the water would get to different places.
“You know what?” the tourist said. “I might’ve pissed in that same water when it was up in New Jersey a long time ago, ‘ey? I mean back when I was a teenager. I liked to piss on things then. Or be pissing in an alley when a girl comes along? Pretend you don’t see her and give her a flash?… You go up in the mountains there and take a piss in a stream, where does it go? It goes out’n the ocean. People have been doing it, they been taking leaks, millions and millions of people for thousands of years they been doing it, but it don’t change the ocean any, does it? You ever thought of that?”
What Isidro thought was, maybe this guy was a little strange. Innocent, but abnormal in his interests. He’s still a prize though, Isidro told his wife. His wife didn’t say anything.
The third day at the beach the tourist went swimming. It was easy to find him in the ocean, the sun reflecting on the dark glasses he always wore. He splashed out there, cupping his hands and hitting the water. Man, he was white-holding his arms as though to protect himself or trying to hide his body as he came out of the water in his red trunks. It was interesting to see a body this white, to see veins clearly and the shape of bones. Isidro, originally from Loíza, a town where they made West African masks, was Negro and showed no trace of Taino or Hispanic blood.
“It was when he came for his towel,” Isidro told his wife, “I saw the name on his arm, here.” Isidro touched the curve of his arm below his right shoulder. “You know what name is on there? MR MAGIC. It’s black, black letters with a faint outline that I think was red at one time but now is pink and almost not there. My Mr. Magic.”
His wife said, “Be careful of him.”
Isidro said, “He’s my prize. Look what he gives me,” and showed his wife several twenty-dollar bills. He didn’t tell her everything; it was difficult to talk with the washing machine and the television in the same room and she didn’t seem interested. But that night his wife said again, “Be careful of him.”
There were whores on Calle de la Tranca in Old San Juan, different places for anyone to notice. In Condado the whores stood in front of La Concha, another empty hotel that had closed. But none had approached Teddy because Isidro was with him, taking care of him, and the whores knew Isidro in his black Chevrolet taxi. He believed, from the way Teddy looked at the whores displaying themselves, his tourist desired one but was timid about saying it. So Isidro didn’t roll his eyes and ask how would you like some of that, ‘ey? He wanted to offer him the pleasure of a woman without presenting it as a business transaction. He cared for his tourist.
On that third day at the beach he began to see a way he might do it.
With his tourist wandering about taking pictures, Isidro had time to look at the girls and study them. They seemed to him girls who were lazy and yet restless, moving idly even as they moved to the music of their radios. They seemed to be looking not for something to do but for something to happen, to entertain them.
One in particular he believed he recognized and searched his mind for a name. A girl who had come out of the Caribe Hilton late one night, tired, going home to Calle del Parque. She had given him her name and telephone number saying, “But only men who stay at the Hilton, the Condado Beach, the DuPont Plaza and the Holiday Inn.”
Light brown hair with that dark gold skin, and what a body. It was her hair that helped him recognize her, the way it hung down and nearly covered one of her eyes. She held the hair back with the tips of her fingers, like peeking out of a curtain, when she looked at somebody closely. As she did talking to the man with the cane.
Iris Ruiz.
That was her name. He had phoned several times with customers but never reached her. Iris Ruiz.
Talking to the man with the cane.
He remembered now she had been with him yesterday and the day before. The man in the same aluminum chair, reading a book, the cane hooked to the back of the chair. The girl, Iris, kneeling in the sand to talk to him, earnest in what she was saying. The man looking up from his book to nod, to say something, a few words, though most of the time he seemed to read his book as he listened.
His skin was dark from the sun. His hair and his beard, not cared for though not unattractive, were dark enough for him to be Puerto Rican. An artist perhaps, an actor, someone from the Institute of Culture, a member of the party for independence. But this was only his look, his type. Isidro knew, without having to hear him speak, the man was from the States.
The man pushed up on the arms of his chair to rise. He was slender, a lean body in tan trousers that had been cut off to make shorts. No, he wasn’t Puerto Rican. The girl Iris took his arm, to be close rather than to support him. He limped somewhat, using the cane, favoring his right leg, but seemed near the end of his injury, whatever it was. He wasn’t a cripple. Something in the hip, Isidro believed. Sure, he was okay, he played with the cane more than he used it. He liked that cane. They approached a vendor who was selling pineapples.
Isidro waited a few moments, enjoying the sight of the girl’s buttocks as they walked past him, before following them to the cart where the vendor was trimming a pineapple with quick strokes, handing them slices. Isidro saw the girl’s eyes as she glanced at him and away, indifferent, without a sign of recognition. He heard the man who wasn’t Puerto Rican, it was proved now, say quietly:
“People up there, you know what they do?”
The girl, Iris, said, “Here we go again.”
“They work their ass off all year.” The guy with the beard ate pineapple as he spoke, in no hurry. “Save their money so they can come down here for a week, take their clothes off. Now they have to hurry to get tan, so they can go back home and look healthy for a few days.”
Iris said, “Vincent, I was born with a tan, I got a tan wherever I go. Wha’s that? I want to be where people are, where they doing things, not where they go to for a week.” They were walking away now, Iris saying, “Miami Beach is okay, tha’s where you work. I think I like Miami Beach fine.”
Isidro followed them to the edge of the sand.
“But you never tell me nothing, what you think. Listen, I got an offer right now, Vincent. A man I know owns a hotel, two hotels, wants me to go to the States and work for him. Wear nice clothes, be with people in business-”
“Doing what?”
“Oh, now you want to know things.”
The tourist was coming back with his camera. Isidro walked over to the taxi to wait, ready to smile.
Before returning to the DuPont Plaza they stopped at the Fast Foto place on Ashford Avenue-perfect-where the tourist left his rolls of film overnight. Perfect because now they drove past La Concha where a couple of afternoon whores who could be college girls in shiny pants, blond hair like gringas, stood by the street.