Papa Lorenzo went out to meet them in shorts and a T-shirt, and Mama Pepita ran to the bathroom to quickly get herself ready.
“One day they’ll take me for the maid,” she complained. “A rag is what I am, a rag!”
Agar watched the Rotarians get out of the vehicle with Carnival whistles and shakers.
“The terrible bunch!” Papa Lorenzo greeted them, trying on his best smile.
So they got out: old Mutt Martinez, shortstop for the Santa Fe Club softball team. The very fat Jeff de la Vega, pitcher. Ambrosio Choraliza, owner of the “La Principal” ball field and supplementary member of the club’s board of consultants. Mingo, the barber, “the man who, on the whole beach, knew the most about the Big Leagues,” in Papa Lorenzo’s words. Ciriaco Sardinas, the Club’s Honorary President, who was carrying the Rotarians’ bell and banging on it with a hammer, requesting: “Keep this party orderly.”
“So what says the old man?” Ambrosio Choraliza greeted him, giving Papa Lorenzo a big hug.
“We’ve come to take whatever we can get from you, you old joker,” Mingo confessed, rubbing his hands with a mischievous expression.
“Order!” Ciriaco Sardinas demanded, hitting the bell. “I won’t accept that bit about being a joker. As the club’s president, I forbid any such references.”
“Damn, people!” Papa Lorenzo said amid the group’s laughter. “It looks like you’re here to really come down on me.”
“Come on, Lorenzo, one day a year, old man.!”
Laughter.
Papa Lorenzo entered the house for a minute and went over to Agar.
“Go to Núñez’s house and get him to give you a dozen beers. Get them over here and bring them through the back.”
Mama Pepita came out of the bathroom. She had left her tragic air in the mirror and was now smiling broadly.
“Madame!” Mutt greeted her, bowing like a medieval knight.
“Man, it looks like time stands still around here!” Jeff de la Vega commented, looking at Mama Pepita mischievously.
“Oh!” She pretended to be embarrassed, going along with his joke. “You really are a joker, Jeff, such a flatterer. ”
“Madame, Jeff de la Vega does not flatter, but rather recognizes virtue. That is my motto.”
Another flattering phrase.
“Don’t bend over too much, old man!” Choraliza warns. “Mind your hinges don’t break.”
Laughter.
“I’m in great shape!” Jeff shouted amid the guffaws.
“You think?” Mutt said. “The other day, playing softball, you almost ended up hunchbacked forever. We’re going to have to drag you along on roller skates, old man!”
Renewed laughter.
“What’s wrong, Jeff?” Papa Lorenzo asked, pretending to be serious. “Are you going to let them shoot you down like that?”
“Just ignore them, old man.” Jeff said, with an air of resignation. “Today’s Sunday.”
Agar arrived with the bottles. Papa Lorenzo saw him come in the back door out of the corner of his eye and told Mama Pepita, “Lady, put some music on for us.”
“I knew it was worth coming to this house!” Ciriaco Sardinas exclaimed, euphoric.
“Your credit is good here,” Papa Lorenzo said.
They drank. Agar watched them through the blinds, exploring their faces and figures and entertaining himself looking for similarities with the characters from all the stories.
“Listen, old man,” Ciriaco said. “Yesterday, I was offered a 1954 Studebaker. A gem. A real gem! You know how much?”
“How much?” Papa Lorenzo wanted to know, feigning interest.
Agar watched him pretend and asked himself if the old Rotarians also noticed that his show of interest was all a lie.
“Two and a half!” Ciriaco Sardinas said. “Two and a half, old man.”
“I don’t believe it,” the very fat Jeff de la Vega opined. “Gentlemen, a 1954 Studebaker is, here and in the Belgian Congo, a 1954 Studebaker!”
“Well. well.,” Ambrosio Choraliza interrupted. “Here comes the sentimental part of the matter.” And he pointed at Mama Pepita who was arriving with the tray full of new glasses.
“Ahhh!”
“The anchovies are eavesdropping!” Mingo, the barber, pointed out. “Gentlemen, there’s nothing like having a very cold beer and a lot of anchovies to see Warren Span pitch. Gentlemen, it’s quite something!”
Agar threw himself down on the bed. He knew that the conversation would now be about baseball for half an hour. And afterwards, Ambrosio Choraliza would talk about something like “the future repairs of the Santa Fe beach gutters.” And then things would move on to Ciriaco Sardinas’ agenda, who would take that under consideration for the following Monday, at the weekly meeting. He closed his eyes. He knew what would happen afterward. The Rotarians would leave. And Papa Lorenzo and Mama Pepita would go all the way to the gate with them to say goodbye, sending regards to their respective families and kisses to all.
And afterward, Mama Pepita would pick up the bottles, load the tray and take everything to the kitchen. And Papa Lorenzo would stay at the gate for a little while longer, until the Rotarians’ truck turned down 12th Street and got lost forever. Then his smile would disappear and he wouldn’t let his shoulders slump in defeat.
“Cretins.,” he would later say. With an old, deep exhaustion.
And Agar would listen from his room to Mama Pepita going through the Trunk of Photos of her Youth, and would hear her say: “this picture was taken when I was fifteen. was I fifteen or sixteen? Well, in any event, it’s all the same.”
At Fourteen, an Old Man Is Clean
The Rotarians had left.
From his room, Agar saw Papa Lorenzo come in and drop down on the sofa, in defeat.
The afternoon was clear and suffocating and a dusty drowsiness hung in the air. Papa Lorenzo flipped through the stories in the National Daily News and after a while, gave a moribund smile.
Papa Lorenzo is full of mystery. He has two faces, like the bicephalous man from Finstown. Ha, ha, he laughs, and with his other face, he’s saying: May a thunderbolt strike you all dead!
Mama Pepita passes on the way to her room.
“Get that look off your face,” she said, when she passed by her husband.
He looked at her and said sharply, “I’m very happy! Surely, I have reason to be. ”
“In this house,” Mama Pepita said, “it always feels like a funeral.”
And she went to her room and Agar heard her shuffling the old photos around.
Silence.
Papa Lorenzo dropped the newspapers and sat staring at a point on the wall. Stunned.
“I know I’m a beast,” he admitted then, without addressing anyone. “I can’t be any other way. I can’t.”
He smelled himself under his arms and fell backward on the sofa.
Agar knew what would come now. He knew that Papa Lorenzo would collapse across the sofa, looking vacantly at a point on the wall. Now Papa Lorenzo would write in the air with the tip of his finger. He wrote:
STALIN
“The Man of Steel.,” Papa Lorenzo then murmured. He seemed extremely worn out.
His face, marked with lines, was bitter when he said, “Comrades! Everyone already knows the story of productive forces and the social relations of production. Everyone knows the law of quantitative and qualitative changes. And everyone knows about the insoluble alliance between the peasants and the proletariat.”
His voice was dramatic. Theatrical. Agar heard him echoing in the stillness of the living room and thought that if he were Papa Lorenzo’s audience, he wouldn’t have liked his style of delivering speeches.