Adrian Del Valle - Diego's Brooklyn Read Free Page B

cobble stones beneath the street had long ago been paved over with asphalt. Here and there, where blacktop is missing, the stones show through.
    This is also the Bergen Street trolley route. The bus was a hybrid cross on wheels and runs on power from electric lines overhead. Kids liked to hitch free rides on the back bumper. Diego even did that himself. Once in a while, a kid would hold onto the pole ropes that connect the bus to the guide wires overhead, the source of the vehicle’s power. Nothing but electric current held the connection together, and if too much weight was applied on the pole ropes, the connection separated and the bus lost power.
    The driver, interupted from his hypnotic trance on the double line, now had to exit the bus to reconnect the power. This was done by maneuvering the pole ropes to guide the shoes back onto the electric lines
    “That’s Mommas place right there. It’s the building next to that hallelujah church. Just listen to them a sangin’ insod.”
    Nothing but a store front, the Pentecostal church door stood wide open and alive with song. Tambourines shook in energetic hands, with Spanish lyrics shouted loudly in unison. A few overzealous patrons had fallen to the floor and were either passed out or begging for salvation and exoneration for their sins.
    “Come on in, son, meet old Momma. Say, Momma, I got here a frien’ o’ mine.”
    Diego stepped down the three steps and passed through the outside door into a long hallway. It creaked closed behind him with the help of a rusty attached spring and barely hung on to the wooden door like an afterthought. He followed Bill to the back end of the house and into the musty air of the Jackson’s furnished room.
    “Well now, who all we got here?” said a deeply wrinkled, kind faced Beulah. Her eyes smiled as she tried to focus through her cataracts, her head, turned to the side for a better view.
    “This here be Diego…ma frien’ from Dean Street.”
    Beulah laid a washed dish on a towel, wiped her worn hands on her plaid apron, and in a high pitched voice, said, “Dean Street? Well, I is pleased at meeting yawl, Diega.”
    “Me too, ma‘am. I mean…I’m pleased to meet you, too, Mrs. Beulah.”
    “Oh, shesh! Just Beulah, that’s all. So, what’re you doing hangin’ ‘roun’ with this ol’ troublemaka here?”
    “Bill wanted me to meet you, ma‘am.”
    “We come to see you, that‘s all, Mamma.”
    “Want some corn braid, Diega?”
    “Sure ma’am.”
    “I’ll puts some butter on it for ya. Well sit on down and set a spell,” Beulah added, impatience in her voice.
    Looking around himself, Diego picked the corner of a well-used couch and sank into it. Springs popped somewhere below him, frightening a couple of roaches that fell from the bottom and then scurried across the floor.
    “Comftable ain’ it?” Beulah said. Papa found it right outsod. I bet you it belonged to that church next doe, ain’t that so, Mista Jackson?”
    “Sho ‘nough is, Missus Jackson.”
    Beulah crossed the multi flowered linoleum, though much of the pattern had long ago worn through. In places all that showed was the dull, reddish-brown base from the underside, and the imprint of the floor’s wooden boards.
    In the corner of the room, a bed, consisting solely of a mattress and box spring, lay neatly made up.
    She handed Diego the corn bread on the only saucer that wasn’t chipped.
    “How come you ain’t in school these days?”
    “We’re on vacation.”
    “Vacation? Wale ah’ll be! I guess that’s proper. Can’t be all work and no play.”
    Bill interrupted. “We is a goin’ into a partnership on er, a…a, a business ventcha.”
    “What kind a business ventcha you talkin’ ‘bout, Papa Jackson?”
    “Work ventcha! We’s is a goin’ to have a root. Goin’ to cover all of thems bus stops what’s got them thare grating thangs peoples be standing on and dropping they change. Ain’t that so, son?”
    “That’s right, Mr.