Seems impossible, but I participated in the annual NaNoWriMo.org writing frenzy in November and actually crossed the 50,000-word finish line. It's not the best thing I ever wrote, but it's actually finished. Below, a sample of Guayabera, which is set in my fantasy of 1957 NYC: ----------------------------
Nadia sat back on her stool, satisfied, her broad face with their hard eyes now trained on him. “So you come with me, eh?”
This is what Ray had feared. She was a streetwalker, a little old and hard and stocky, but it took all kinds. He chuckled a little and waved his hand. “Oh, no. No, I’m sorry.”
Nadia never took her eyes from his face. “Yes, yes, you come. What have you got to do?” Her eyes moved over his uniform, correctly assessing his status as a sailor on leave. “You come and see, you’ll have a good time. Come, Billy Reyes.” She was sliding off the stool, and her sharp patent leather shoes hit the floor with a clunk. She was now pulling at his arm. Ray was surprised by her strength and was bound to resist. His long arms were always being pulled on by others, convinced of how easy he was to lead. And often they had been right.
Rivas approached just in time. “Say, what do you have going on here already?” he winked. “You going to introduce me to your friend?”
Relieved, Ray intoned, “This is Nadia. She insists that I come with her, but I believe we have other plans, eh Rivas?” He tried to catch the smaller man’s eye.
But Rivas’ bespectacled peepers were filled with the overabundance of Nadia’s figure. Ray could see the fibers in the Filipino’s very masculine being impacted pleasurably by the prospect of so much rippling female flesh in close proximity. “Oh no, no, we have no immediate plans,” Rivas chirped. “We have accommodations for the night, but that’s much later. Why it’s still early, isn’t it, Miss Nadia? I am Manuel Rivas. Where would we be going? A little feminine companionship for two old sailors?”
Nadia turned to confront Rivas’ leering, gap-toothed countenance and her mouth twisted. “You got the wrong idea,” she said. “Nothing dirty. Just the dancing. And the show. It’s down the street, you come. Come.”
Curiosity compelled them down 48th Street toward Eighth Avenue, following the surprisingly fast-moving Nadia down a steep flight of stairs from the street to a basement-level bar and ballroom that reeked of whisky, beer, and cheap perfume. The band was reassembling on a tiny bandstand in the far left corner, and a number of gentlemen of various ages and backgrounds were lined up at the bar, nursing drinks. With a friendly wave that urged Ray and Rivas to take their seats in a flimsy booth, Nadia left them and took her place, again surprisingly, at the piano.
There was a rusty rimshot from the portly drummer who was squeezed behind a bare bones drum kit, and the people in the room turned their attention to the dance floor. With a downbeat lunge that seemed to strain the piano stool, Nadia launched into a jazzy vamp that made Ray think momentarily of the Latin orchestras he’d seen in some San Juan casino lounges. A weak spotlight clanked on, and a middle-aged man in a bad toupee took the mike. Ray lost what he said amid the music and the arrival of a barmaid at their booth, who took down Rivas’ lusty order of beers with whisky shots.
The man had apparently been introducing a parade of young ladies, dressed in theatrical yet scanty costumes. A group of about 12, in bra tops, tap pants, and fishnet hose, with spangles in their hair and professional smiles affixed to their faces, broke into a dance routine that to Ray’s eyes seemed less than artistic. The men at the bar and at scattered booths around the back of the place erupted into whoops and applause. Even Rivas seemed impressed.
“Carajo!” he cried. “It’s the middle of the day in New York City, and we get to feast our eyes and whet our whistles! This is something, eh?”
Ray threw back his whisky shot and picked up his beer glass. He tried to smile. He didn’t want to be here. He was always going along to get along, always trying to do what people expected. He had always gone along with the program and tried to be as pleasant and unobtrusive as possible. His life had followed a simple trajectory of schooling, then the marine service, marriage—it was what a young man of breeding was supposed to do. Long, tall, studious, and quiet, Ray had never caused a ruckus, never been any trouble to anyone, never robbed or cheated, never fought or harassed anyone. He had never been arrested, cited, accused, or complained against. And yet people found ways to use and abuse him, to inveigle him into their schemes, to set him up as a prop in their real-life theatricals. And he went along, like a stooge.
For in hindsight it now seemed to him that Annalisa might have plotted her escape from him even from the moment that they said their vows. There was no way to know for sure, but he certainly hadn’t seen it coming. He hadn’t foreseen that her treachery would leave him just another poor lonely old fellow with limited means, without the carefully saved and nurtured nest egg that he’d hoped would see him into a comfortable retirement. It wasn’t in his initial plan to sign back on to the merchant marine service and spend another two years at back-breaking work designed for a man 15 years his junior just so he could get enough scratch to maintain himself. And now as he was taking his first steps into a new life here in New York, he had allowed himself to be shanghaied by this chatty little man and into this cheap big city dive where the cheap chippies now hoofing it onstage would later be hustling the customers for tips and drinks. All of this was beneath him. All Ray had ever wanted was to be left alone to go his own way in peace. A peaceful life, an uneventful life, a righteous life—por Dios, why couldn’t he attain it?
He was actually angry.
Anger had long been an emotion that Ray avoided if he could. He had prided himself for most of his regimented life on maintaining his composure. He had seen the destructive effects of anger and rage among the men he’d grown up with in the slums outside Wllemstad, in the alleyways and bars of San Juan and the shacks of Loiza Aldea, among his comrades in the bowels of the ship. They shouted hurtful words, brandished knives or their bare knuckles, spilled blood onto the ground. Or they devised dangerous, intricate and hate-filled schemes to ensnare others in massive misfortunes, or plotted for the fatal downfall of their fellows in the name of revenge. Up to now, Ray could not see how anger proved a useful social function. It seemed to hurt the one who was angry as much, if not more, than the ones they directed their anger toward.
But now as he looked around this dimly lit booze hall, full of out of work bums, sailors, office workers on a downward slide, and these sad little girls tricked out in satin and sequins, Ray felt full-fledged anger well up inside him, right at the spot underneath his breastbone where earlier he had felt a pang of empty confusion.
He gulped down his beer and pushed his lean frame up to his feet, shouting over the music, “Basta! I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.” He threw down some American greenbacks onto the table to cover the cost of their drinks.
Rivas, already showing signs of inebriation, slid out of the booth to stop his friend. “Oh no, Alarcon, the show has just begun! Come now, have another drink. And later we’ll go up to the boardinghouse…”
“Oh no,” said Ray curtly. “You go on. I’m sorry, but I have changed my mind about it. Good luck to you.” But as Ray turned to cross the barroom floor, Rivas was upon him, his hand on Ray’s arm.
“Oh, ho, you cannot leave me alone in this place! That’s not very friendly,” Rivas wheedled. “We’ll have another drink and then we’ll find someplace that meets your high standards…”
“Sit down!” hollered an angry voice further back in the hall.
“Yeah, down in front!” shouted another distinctly New York-sounding voice.
One of the girls in the show flickered a pair of concerned hazel eyes in their direction as she performed her pedestrian brush ball shuffle in the pool of light beyond the two merchant marines.
Ray had no wish to make a scene. He just wanted to go. Sweat had broken out on his forehead. “Rivas, you stay. Enjoy yourself. But I have to go. I have to go,” he tried to mollify the Filipino. As he took another two strides toward the illuminated exit sign, Rivas again pounced.
“OK! OK! So angry!” Rivas giggled a little desperately as he clung to Ray’s arm. “So we’ll go. There are other places.”
Ray took a deep breath. “Rivas, I am done with drinking, I am done with talking, I am done with your uptown boarding house, I am done with this stinking place. Amigo, forgive me for saying so, but I am done with you. I am sorry,” he couldn’t help apologizing, after all, “but I have to go now. Release me, please.”
“Sit down, you yokels!” came shouts from around them. “Say fellas, get out the way!”
“So now you insult me!” Rivas, offended, still hung onto Ray’s arm.
Ray was amazed at the man’s tenaciousness. He was like a bulldog. In his frustration to be free of the whole ridiculous situation, and to loosen Rivas’ grip, Ray gave the smaller man a shove to the shoulder. To the amazement of both men, Rivas stumbled backward, lost his footing and fell, his broad rear hitting the floor. Some of the patrons around them applauded.
Ray instantly regretted that he had put Rivas down amid the cigarette butts, dirty cocktail napkins, and spilled drinks but there was nothing for it. Again, he was determined to reach the stairs that would bring him back up to 48th street, a breath of fresh air, and a few moments of sanity, away from Rivas forever. But then he heard a kind of guttural cry over the music, which hadn’t stopped its bluesy flow, and now Rivas leaped onto his back and began boxing his ears. “Ungrateful black bastard!” Rivas screamed in Spanish. “Stupid mute lout! Dickless moocher!”
Ray whirled, reaching behind him wildly to snatch at anything to get the drunken Filipino off his back. His ears rang, and with each turning step he felt the whisky coursing through his bloodstream, dizzying his head and muddling up his balance. The nerve of this fellow to call him black, when he himself was darker than a coconut husk. True, the mother of Ray’s mother had been an African slave, but he himself was not black—he was Venezuelan! To call him black in front of these people was the lowest of the low. He came up with a handful of the Filipino’s uniform shirt while his other hand closed on the smaller man’s forearm. With an awkward yet swift bend at the waist, a move he had learned in secondary school wrestling matches, Ray managed to flip Manuel Rivas over his head and back onto the floor.
“Stop!” Ray cautioned as he saw that instead of being beaten, Rivas was now scrambling on his hands and knees to grab at Ray’s leg.
“Pansy! Dimwit! Simpleton!” screamed Rivas, wildly. “You’re an idiot without an original idea in your monster head! A moron! You bored everyone on the ship to death with your bullshit! No wonder your wife left you!”
Ray’s brain sizzled with the insults heaped upon him. He was tired of this, again and again. So many time he had succumbed to others’ whims, tolerated and humored their flaws and foibles, only to be ridiculed and insulted by their intolerance of his own humanity. But furthermore, he would not stomach talk of Annalisa. He now wished he had never shared any single word of a personal nature with this insensitive prig.
“Don’t you dare to mention my wife again, ever,” said Ray. In a fury now, and without thinking about the consequences, he lifted his foot with its size 13 marine-issued boot and delivered a mighty kick that caught Rivas right in the chin. The man’s lip split, blood spurted, his glasses flew sideways, and Rivas himself slid backwards, seemingly senseless, across the littered barroom floor, coming to a stop with his head slightly propped against the leg of an empty table.
For a quick instant Ray caught his breath in fear that he had killed the man. After all, Rivas had really done nothing heinous to him, only tried his patience to the breaking point and called him foul names, and he had repaid him with violence. Ray shook his head. Violence was never the answer, Ray admonished himself. In the dim light, Ray was able to see Rivas stir slowly and put a hand to his jaw. So he was alive. And now Ray would leave.
He heard screams from the chorines behind him and the heavily accented tones of Nadia’s husky voice from the bandstand as the music stopped, but there was nothing he could do for Rivas now.
Willem Rafael Alarcon Reyes turned back toward the exit sign of the Dandy Drop In Bar & Lounge and caught a right hook to his left cheekbone. As he whirled in pain that seemed only a justifiable answer for the pain he’d just inflicted, with lightning flashes exploding behind his closed and tear-filled eyes, he felt the presence of other men around him, grunting and jostling. The men in this awful place had only been looking for an excuse to vent their familiar frustrations and daily rage in a fight, and he wondered at the fact that something as simple as a disagreement between two men could infect others with such bloodlust so quickly.
As he put out a hand to steady himself, someone else delivered a punch to his stomach. When he raised himself again after doubling from absorbing the blow, he opened his eyes. There was an angry white face in front of him, and Ray could sense rather than see another balled up fist headed his way. So he jabbed the man in his Adam’s apple and watched him double over. And then another man took his place before him with a beer bottle in his hand and now Ray ducked and knocked the man’s knees out from under him, causing him to fall forward with an ugly grunt. But Ray was drunk and tired and 41 years old and his knees crackled and his head throbbed and his stomach burned and he had never been in a brawl in his life. He didn’t think he could take another blow until one abruptly came, knuckles connecting with his ribs and knocking him sideways against one of the fake leather booths. All the air in his lungs came out of him in a whoosh, and he gasped for oxygen. Then he heard more shouts and scuffling, a kind of keening moan that could only belong to Rivas, squeals from the women, and the sound of wooden furniture being broken. Then there was the shrill sound of a whistle being blown, the harsh bright overhead lights came on, and then things seemed to calm down.
The whistle trilled again, loudly. “Get out, all of you, before the police come,” shouted one of the bartenders. “Get out.”
Feet clattered across the wooden planked flooring as both the innocent and the guilty headed for the exit in varying degrees of haste. Ray righted himself and ran a hand through his thick dark hair before moving with the crowd toward the stairs. It was a struggle to climb, as parts of his body throbbed with pain and creaked with middle age and his head swam with two whiskeys and two Rheingolds. His shirt was torn at the elbow, there was dirt on his knees, and when he dabbed at his face with his handkerchief it came away streaked with blood.
He ascended slowly and painfully to the street with some of the other patrons, who made a berth for him on the pavement as he limped by. The sun had sunk low in the sky, it was well after 5 p.m. and once again the streets were filled with busy commuters heading home after a day’s work. Ray leaned on the hood of a parked Ford for a few moments to gather his thoughts.
Yes it was true that violence only bred more violence. Yes it was true that anger, the righteous emotion he’d just allowed himself to indulge in, had only rebounded on him bringing him more pain. And further, the loss of Annalisa was still reverberating painfully through his life, through his mind and heart, as fresh and anguishably sharp as if the event had just occurred this very day. Ray plunged his scraped hand into the pocket of his gabardines to check for the locker key and bus schedules he’d collected from Port Authority that morning. He paused to pore over the brochure marked Atlantic City.
Yes, Rivas was right. He was a dimwitted fool. He had trusted the wrong people, he had chosen the wrong wife, he had relied on things never changing. No matter what transpired in his life, no matter how he had tried to wise up, somehow he always ended up in the dark. Now it was two years later and he was still tied to the dream that Annalisa represented to him. He needed to see her again, to find out what had happened, to find out, moreover, if she was well and happy. If she was indeed satisfied in life, then he would worry no more about her. After all, he had truly loved her, and her happiness was what mattered. Perhaps that was foolish, after all, she had committed a crime against him. Further, he was taking a chance on a two-year-old postcard, and that was foolish. But again, he admitted to being a fool. If nothing else, they could formalize their break with a legal divorce. That had to be something that she would want too.
“Alarcon! Alarcon! Forgive me! Please!” came the voice of Manuel Rivas from the entryway to the Dandy Drop In several feet away from where Ray stood. “Alarcon, help me, I’m bleeding. Help me. We can get a taxi to La Mercedes on 113th Street, La Mercedes…”
Ray saw his fellow merchant marine staggering onto the pavement, blood across his mouth and on his shirtfront, glasses clutched in one hand, his tie askew. Pedestrians shrank back from the man in dismay and horror.
With every ounce of strength left in his body, Ray turned and walked as rapidly as he could back down 48th Street towards the anonymity of Times Square, weaving his way with miserable speed through the throngs crowding the streets of New York City.
