"What in Hell was that?"
Something banged on the ceiling above. The noise woke Sonny up. He thought, "Who's the nut job banging on our ceiling at this hour?" It was 1:30 in the morning, a good four or more hours before the sun would show its shining face. What the hell was happening?
Papi was at it again. This time, he was poking a broom up at the dining room ceiling, handle first. As he did this, little holes started to appear where the point of the broom had been. It was if the ceiling had come down with a bad case of acne, leaving pockmarks from one side to the other. Why the hell was he doing that, and at that ungodly hour? Sonny heard Papi yelling at somebody.
"Stop that noise! Stop that, you bitch!"
"What are you yelling about?" Sonny shouted from his bedroom.
"It's the bitch upstairs! She got her kids playing bowling! Over my head! Mierda! "
Startled awake by the banging noise and by Papi's nonsensical explanation, Sonny paused to listen. He heard nothing, not a sound. Not even a bellow. But Papi had sonar for ears. He could hear a fly buzz past the dining room table from twelve feet away.
In minutes, the ceiling was full of little holes. Sonny counted ten holes at a minimum, possibly more. Enough to house a swarm of swallows, no doubt. Without warning, Papi sprang into action. He grabbed the rotary phone from the wall and started dialing. What the heck?
"Hello? Hello? Dis da police? Lemme talk to da desk sergeant... Dat's you? Yeah, so, dis is Mr. Delacruz, on East 183 Street. I da block watcher. Yeah. There's a crazy freaking bitch upstairs, she got her kids playing bowling over my head. You gotta get somebody over here now, an' make her stop."
"Sorry, pal," came the bored voice on the other line, "we got our hands full with a couple of murders at the moment. No can do."
This abrupt change in tone did not sit well with Papi.
"Oh, yeah? You better get here quick, officer, 'cause they're gonna be couple more murders if you guys don't come over!"
"What's the address?"
"2320 East 183 Street, near the Grand Concourse."
Papi fell silent. Then, as abruptly as he dialed the police station's number, he slammed the phone on the receiver with all his might. THWAP went the receiver. "Fucking cops! They here when you don' need 'em, an' they not here when you need 'em."
"Papi, what the hell happened?" Sonny asked. "Why'd you hang up?"
"I didn' hang up! The cop on the line, he hang up!"
"Huh? How come?" Sonny added.
"Who the hell knows? He didn' want to come over. Said they got too many murders on their hands."
"Yeah, I heard you..."
"Yeah, well, the fucker say they too busy, they'd get there when they can. Our tough luck!"
"Did he say that? It's our tough luck?"
"No, I say that. What are you, a lawyer or something?"
"You woke up the whole damn building, Papi. You expect people to be quiet? They're gonna bust your chops for this."
"Nobody gonna bust nobody's chops 'cept me!"
This line of dialogue went nowhere. Sonny shut the door to his room and went back to sleep. Or he tried to, anyway. The next day, Papi went to the super's apartment and complained like hell about the upstairs neighbor's night maneuvers with her little "bastard kids." Complaining did little good. The super, a sullen Puerto Rican gent, had heard it all before.
"As long as they pay the rent, we can't do nothin'," Mr. Super said. This business went on for a few more nights, until Papi got fed up enough to rollover with an extra pillow over his head. Night maneuvers can drive people to do strange things.
Coincidentally, about a month later, one of those makeshift landlord-tenant meetings was being held in the lobby, near the building's entrance. The landlord, a tall, gray-haired, perfectly coiffed Jewish fellow in his early sixties (wearing a hearing aid and wire-framed reading glasses) listened to the neighbors' beefs - and there were plenty of them.
The organizer, Mrs. Steinman, a kindly well-spoken woman of about middle age, talked politely and softly for the tenants. She was part of a tenants' committee (Sonny had no idea that one even existed) that had come together recently for the sole purpose of raising awareness and resolving troublesome issues that needed to be addressed. So far, things were going well. Everyone was nice and polite.
But then, it was Papi's turn. His presence gave Sonny butterflies in the pit of his stomach. Sonny was intimately aware of Papi's hair-trigger temper, especially in these types of neighborhood surroundings. All Sonny could think of was a tired old phrase Mami was fond of repeating: "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Oh, well, what the hell!
"Dang, what's Papi got up his sleeve now?" Sonny wailed to himself. Nothing good, that's what.
Papi finally spoke up.
"My son," Papi said, clearing his throat. "He got somethin' to say." " Vamanos, Santiago." A chill went down Sonny's back. Papi did it again: he had pulled the old "switcheroo," a move that blindsided his son before the entire assemblage. Papi told Sonny beforehand he needed his presence for "moral support," that he was going to air his grievances along with giving them "a piece of my mind." Whatever.
That was typical of the old man: say one thing, do another.
(To be continued...)
Copyright © 2023 by Josmar F. Lopes
