Mrs. Gonzalez, the woman who lived in the downstairs apartment, was running up the narrow gangway, yelling that the Virgin had flown away. She turned the corner onto the sidewalk and the three of us shuffled around the end of the bed to the front window. When we arrived, Mrs. Gonzalez’s blue shawl was fluttering out of range. We turned for the living room, where two more windows looked upon the street. Sergio flung his Penthouse onto the bed. Carlos, Joseph, and Tony stayed with the tube.
As we rushed through the bedroom door, Sergio suddenly stopped in his tracks. We stacked up behind each other, my chin jabbing into Sergio’s shoulder and Jorge’s chin into mine. Standing in the sun, at the living room windows, were Sergio and Jorge’s parents. For the first time ever, I saw them up close. At our confirmation, and the time their building had been set on fire, their father had worn a baseball cap. Now he wore no hat at all, and I could see that he was not only bald down the center of his head but that his scalp glowed a bright scarlet like he had some kind of infection. His belly bulged within an old cowboy shirt and his arms seemed longer than they should’ve been: his wrists were visible beyond his shirt cuffs. Their mother stepped closer to us, taking tiny steps, and it occurred to me suddenly that the mother and father were complete opposites. While the father was lanky and bulbous around the waist, the mother was short and compact, muscular looking in the thick brown sweater she wore. She had a full head of gray hair pulled back in a tight braid, like something you might see on a young girl.
“Que estan haciendo?” she asked. When she opened her mouth, silver crowns on her bottom row of teeth caught light. She looked past us through the doorway and into the bedroom. Tony and Joseph still had their ears to the tube. Carlos had his eyes on the watch. Sergio’s magazine was strewn across the bed, its wrinkled and worn centerfold opened up and in clear view.
Her backhand rose like a reflex. It was so fast I felt its breeze as it whizzed past my nose and cracked Sergio square across the left side of his face. Sergio reeled back, bringing up his hands to shield himself. I stepped aside and his mother landed two more smacks, more dense-sounding, to the back of Sergio’s head.
She whirled around, her stiff braid unmoving. “Salganse de mí casa!” she screamed at the three on the bed. Carlos, Joseph, and Tony rose like soldiers, abandoning the tube still wedged in the ceiling, leaving the silver watch lying on the bed. As they passed through the bedroom door they brushed up against the doorjamb, eying the trigger hand of Sergio’s mother.
She turned to me and Marcitos and pointed her short, wrinkled finger in our faces. She told us she was going to have a long talk with our mothers, then stared at us with her flared-up eyes like miniature Revelations. “Sacanse de aquí,” she said to us, and we followed her finger as it turned toward the front door. “Largense a la escuela!” As I stepped into the hallway I saw, through the corner of my eye, Sergio’s father, his scarlet patch boiling, closing in on Sergio and Jorge.
A small crowd had assembled on the front stoop. Mrs. Gonzalez’s daughters, Vilma and Louísa, who already looked like their mother, old and bowlegged, though they were our age, were out there telling Carlos, Joseph, and Tony that during the night the Virgin had disappeared. That they had had it for the past week, trying to sober up their father, and that when they had awoken, the Virgin was gone, the window she had been placed by opened. Their mother, they said, had gone to get Ms. Ramirez up the block.
“She’s upstairs with that guy,” Tony said.
“Who?” said Vilma, stepping closer to Tony.
“Ms. Ramirez, that lady who leads the processions, she’s upstairs with that old Racine-Boy.”
“Ms. Ramirez is up there, Jesse?” Louísa asked me. She grabbed my arm and pulled me close, mashing her thick, immature chest against my arm.
“I don’t know,” I said. I worked my arm free.
“Is it Ms. Ramirez?” Louísa asked, and she stepped close to me again. “Is Sergio up there listening?”
“Not anymore,” I said. She latched onto my arm. Tony and the others laughed. I looked up the street for Rogelio and Mrs. Gonzalez.
Neighbors were out by this time: Pedro, who lived in the other downstairs apartment, just home from his third shift at Ryerson steel, his brown skin coated with a white powder that made you wonder exactly what he did. Bernardo Ruiz, in a metallic-blue housecoat, who lived the next building over and danced evocatively during all the block parties, who everyone knew was gay but who never found trouble for it because he was ours, a member of our block, our gang, was there as well. And some of the more astute procession ladies had arrived also, their pink and green hair curlers seeming to have picked up the potential for controversy like radar. The Gonzalez daughters began calling up the stairwell to Rowdy.
“Rowdy,” Vilma said. “Is Ms. Ramirez up there?”
“Tenemos un emergency,” Louísa added.
I looked for Rogelio again. I figured he would be able to calm everybody down, convince Mrs. Gonzalez that the Virgin hadn’t actually flown away, that someone had simply stolen her, and that, besides, the Virgin was only a statue anyway, and another could be bought at Opal’s Ocultos on Eighteenth Street. But I also knew Rogelio’s mother would be coming down the stairs any minute, that Rogelio would see her and realize we had been up there spying.
By now Sergio, Jorge, and their parents were downstairs, their father with his cap on. Sergio’s face was flush, his eyes glazed over. Jorge, on the other hand, seemed content, as if things, at least for him, could’ve gone worse.
“What’s going on?” Sergio asked softly.
I told him about the Virgin. I told him how Mrs. Gonzalez was trying to find Rogelio’s mother. He looked up the stairs and whispered, “El trutho comes outo.” He rubbed his hands together and smiled. For Rogelio, I nearly punched him.
Mrs. Gonzalez finally came waddling back up Throop Street. The procession regulars from Rogelio’s building followed. She came to us, her lips trembling. She held her fingers to her mouth. Just as she took a breath to speak, a step sounded, and we all turned to look up the apartment building’s stairs, to where Ms. Ramirez in her red pumps had appeared.
She came down slowly, each step accompanied by the sharp clap of a heel on the hollow wood stairs. She held onto the doorjamb as she stepped over the threshold. She stood on the building’s concrete stoop and scanned the small crowd.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said to everyone. Her voice was crisp and sharp. She had no makeup on. Her skin was darker than usual, her lips pale. She was pretty. She turned to the procession ladies. “I’m sorry, all right,” she said, leaning forward. “But I’m not like you. I don’t want to be lonely.” On the first-floor landing Rowdy was standing, only his hairy legs and white boxers visible.
Ms. Ramirez stepped from the stoop and walked through the crowd. She looked to me. I could tell she was upset but I knew she wasn’t upset with me. I looked into her eyes and knew she had no idea I’d been up there listening to her make love to Rowdy.
“Where’s Rogelio?” I asked her.
“Rogelio?” she said. “He left. He didn’t tell you?”
“No,” I said.
“He went to stay with his aunt, yesterday. He didn’t tell you?”
“No,” I said.
“Sorry,” his mother answered. “I’ll tell him you asked.” She turned up Throop Street and began walking toward Eighteenth Street. The seam of her tan skirt was just off-center, making it seem like there was a limp in her step. The crowd turned to look up the stairs, but Rowdy was gone. Within the building a door slammed. The sound echoed through the halls and exited the open windows. The old ladies started in.