"This was the burglar?"
"No. No, that's funny part of it. He was the super of the building. He'd heard her screams, and came running upstairs because he thought it was the burglar returning. The hallway was dark and when he saw me he jumped me. And he cut me. I didn't know he was the super, either. I got mad as hell, and I just kept hitting him until he went hip. But he'd already put the gash in my head."
"So what happened?"
"So they shaved the hair off to get at the cut.
And when it grew back, it was white. End of story."
"Did the super go to jail?"
"No. He honestly thought I was the burglar."
There was a pause.
"Will I go to jail?"
"Yes. Probably."
There was another pause. He wondered if he should leave now, but Virginia was still watching him. Angelic~ Gomez sat with her hands folded in her lap. There waj sadness on her face, mingled with a hardness that made her seem older than she actually was.
In a thrust at further conversation, Hawes said, "Wha brought you to the mainland?"
Without hesitation, she answered, Pan American Air lines."
"No, no, I meant ..
"Oh. You meant …" and she burst out laughing, an~ suddenly there was no hardness to her face.
She threw back her head, and the bleached blond hair seemed, for a moment, as natural as her laughter. She was carefrei for an instant, all thought of spontaneous mayhem and violent gang retaliation washed from her mind. Her face relaxed, leaving only the natural beauty which was her birthright and which the city could never rob from her The laughter trailed off. The relaxation dropped from he~ face like a gossamer veil drifting to the dust. There was only the hardness again, covering the beauty with the glitter of shellac.
"I come here because I am hungry," she said.
"Ve poor in Puerto Rico." She pronounced the name of t island with Spanish grandeur, rhyming "Puer" with "prayer," discarding the harsh "Porto" of the native m amp; lander. And, never having been to the island, Haw listened to her pronunciation of the words and visualiz it immediately as a place of rare beauty.
Angelica shrugged.
"I get letters from my cousin Come the city, come the city. So I come.
Very easy. The plane fare is loan you, there are people who loan y dinero. Later on, you pay them back. With in'ress. So I come. I get here January. Very cold here, I don' ex thees. I knew would be winter here, but not so cold I don't expec'."
"Where'd you go, Angelica?"
"I go first what they call a hot bed place.
You know what thees minns?"
d "No. What?"
"It sounds dirtee, but hot bed is not thees.
Hot bed is where people come to sleep in shifts, comprende? Like e they renn the apartment to three diff'ren' people. You come sleep, you leave. Nex' one comes sleep, he leaves. Then nex' one comes sleep, he leaves. One apartment, three renns. Very smart, much dinero in this. For the landlord. Not for the sleeper." She smiled grimly. Hawes smiled with her.
"So," Angelica said, "I stay there awhile 'til all my money is gone, an' then I go live with my cousins for a while. An' then I figure I am become-how you say-~ burn. Burn. When is too much for someone to carry?"
"Burden," Hawes supplied.
"Si. Burd'n. So I find a man an' go live with him."
"Who?"
"Oh, jus' a man. Pretty good man, no police trouble. But I don' live with him now because he beat me once, an' thees I don' like. So I leave. An' sometimes I sleep around now, but only when I need bad the money." She paused.
"I tell you something."
"What?"
"In Puerto Rico," and again the "Puer" was a prayer, "I am pretty girl. Here, too, I am also pretty-but I am also cheap. You know? I am look at here, an' men think, "I sleep with her." In Puerto Rico, there is respect. Very diff'ren'" "How do you mean?"
"In Puerto Rico, a girl walks don the stritt, men look an' watch, it is a pretty thing to see. I minn, iss all right a girl could wiggle a little, is nice to see, appreciated. An' also a little comical. I minn, good-natured. Here … no. here, always there is the thinking.
"Cheap. Slut.
Puta." I hate thees city."
"Well, you ..
"Iss not my fault I don' speak such good English. I learn Spanish. I know real Spanish, very high Spanish, very good school Spanish. But Spanish iss no good here. You speak Spanish here, you are a foreigner. But thees is my country, too, no?
I am American also, no? Puerto Rico is American, noes ver dad But Spanish no good. Spanish here minns puta. I hate thees city."
"Angelica ..
"You know something? I warm to go back the islan'. I warm to go back there an' never leave. Because I tell you. There I am poor, but there I am me. Angelica Gomez. Me.
An' there is nobody else the whole worl' who iss also Angelica Gomez. Only me.
An' here, I am not me, I am only dirtee Spanish Puerto Rican spic!"
"To some people," Hawes said.
Angelica shook her head.
"I am in big trouble now, no?" she said.
"Yes. You're in very big trouble."
