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“Whatta they call ya” He catches his breath.
“Buff.”
“Roberto,” he smiles. “Where’ya from, Buff”
“Gravesend,” I say.
“Oh, yeah” His eyes grow big. “I’m from Coney Island.
Surf Avenue. We damn-near neighbors.”
“And here we are.”
“Tell ya what,” he takes another careful look around.
“Why don’t you come in here a minute while I see what’s what.”
I follow him into the lobby and wait while he rings upstairs.
It’s big, bright, and spotless and smells like vanilla with a
lemon twist.
“No answer,” he hangs up the phone and steps back from
his desk. “They must be out or asleep. You can wait here if you
want. I’ll try them again, but it might be a while.”
I sit in one of the chairs in the lobby and Roberto and I
talk awhile. Turns out we went to the same high school, but never
met because he was ahead of me by a few years. He tells me he
is Cuban and came to America in 1959 with his father when he
was just a kid. Says his father was running away from Castro and
Batista and how they still can’t figure out which one of the two
was worse. He lucked out with this job, he tells me, like I did with
mine, and has been working the door a few years now. Still, he
says, they won’t let him into the union. I tell him about my own
old man and his time in Korea and how much better off I’d be
myself if my bad eye didn’t keep me from going to Vietnam. He
tells me he’s got a couple of boys and a girl of his own, and when
he asks about Grace I tell him she is pregnant and we’ve been
fighting about the money, and how if you live in this city nothing
is ever good enough.
Every now and then the people who live in the building or
have some business inside pass between us and I wonder if one
of them is a Swanson. Roberto and I talk and laugh, and even
though I look like a hobo and reek of garbage and sweat, they
never stop or say anything—just smile to themselves and clack
across the lobby, making my eyes heavy with sleep. I watch them
February 2014 29