Fran Ross - Oreo

A short man of about sixty came out of the back room wiping his hands on a towel, which he tucked into his pants against his stove-bellied pot. He peered at Oreo over his bifocals.

“Mr. Minotti?”

He nodded. Oreo handed him the envelope. He opened it, looked inside. “Bovina!” he called to the closed swing door of the back room. There was no answer. He walked to the door, pushed it open, and called out again. With the door open, Oreo could hear the faint sound of a guitar.

“What are you yelling?” a woman’s voice said impatiently.

Minotti stepped into the back room. “Put this away,” Oreo heard him say. “And see if Adriana is ready.” He came back into the shop.

Neither Oreo nor Minotti said anything while they waited. Oreo monkeyed with the monkey, waggling her fingers at him and making human faces. Minotti continued to peer at her over his glasses and wipe his hands on the towel. While Oreo was considering a reply to the myna’s sly “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” she heard something metallic roll past her foot and go under the monkey cage.

“ Stupido ! I dropped my ring!” Minotti exclaimed.

While he was trying to see under his pot, Oreo passed the crook of her cane under the monkey cage and hooked out three things: a dust mouse, the ring, and a Danish krone. She shoved the dust mouse back under the cage, where, she fancied, it could nibble dust cheese. She gave the ring and the coin to Minotti.

“ Ecco ! My lucky piece. She’s lost now three weeks.” He closed his fingers on a kiss, then released the bacio with a quick opening and extension of his fingers, a trap unsprung. “ Grazie, signorina, grazie .

“ Prego .”

They went back to monkeying and peering. Oreo wondered where the puppy was. Surely Dominic could not have mistaken a Dalmatian for a bulldog? She did not wonder long. A woman she assumed to be Mrs. Minotti came through the swing door nuzzling and cooing at a sturdy bulldog pup.

“Stop spoiling the dog,” Minotti said. “You act foolish sometimes, Bovina.”

The woman shrugged to Oreo and put the dog on the floor. He frolicked around her a few times, playfully minatory, then jumped against her leg to show he wanted to be picked up again. Bulldogs had always reminded Oreo of grumpy cowboys because of their horseshoe jaws and bowlegs. This one was more like an awkward child, anxious to please. He was the first knock-kneed, smiling bulldog she had ever seen. His coat showed signs of inordinate fondling — it looked as if it came from a thrift shop. “What’s his name?” she asked.

“Toro — what else?” Mrs. Minotti said proudly. She picked the dog up again. “He’s my precious bambino , eh?” The dog shoved his muzzle against her ear.

Minotti made a derisive comment about his wife and the dog with an expressive twist of the wrist.

“La gelosia ,” said Mrs. Minotti.

Minotti shook his head in exasperation. “Go see if Adriana is ready.”

“I’m ready.”

The voice was that of a young woman a few years older than Oreo. She had a black shawl of hair and wore a faded blue shirt and jeans. A guitar was slung over one shoulder, and in her right hand she was holding a dog collar studded with rhinestones. She took the dog from Mrs. Minotti and put the collar around his neck.

“ Il mio bambino, il mio bambino, ” murmured Mrs. Minotti.

“Oh, Mother, for God’s sake, Toro will be back as soon as this is delivered.”

Her mother and father both gasped and put their fingers to their lips as if to seal hers.

The young woman laughed. “Yeah, I know. It’s supposed to be a deep, dark secret,” she teased. “How silly.” She turned to Oreo. “I’m Adriana, by the way.”

“Christine,” said Oreo.

“How are you going back?”

“Subway. I got a little turned around coming down here. Lost my maps. I’m new in town,” Oreo explained.

“I’m going that way — to the corner, anyway. I’ll show you how to get where you’re going.”

“Thanks,” said Oreo.

“You’ll need a carrier. This is an active little bugger.”

“Adriana,” her father protested, with a pleading look.

“Okay, okay,” she said. “I’ll watch my language. Be right back.” She left and came back in a few minutes with a black carrying case for the dog.

Mrs. Minotti gave Toro one more kiss and put him into the case. He whined for a few moments, then was quiet.

“Can you manage this and your cane too?” Adriana asked Oreo.

“I think so.” Oreo picked up the case. “It’s not heavy.”

“Okay, we’re off.” Adriana kissed her mother and father. “See you in a few hours — right after the concert.”

“‘Concert,’ she calls it,” Minotti said.

“Don’t knock it, babbo . It pays the rent.”

Oreo and Adriana on a traffic island

The light seemed to be in the running for longest in the embarrassed history of red. Oreo saw an opening between a beetling Volkswagen and a bounding Jaguar. She timed her move and darted to the other side of the street.

Adriana was stranded on the island. She waved to Oreo.

“Change at Forty-second Street!” she shouted. “Follow the arrows for the IRT!”

“Forty-second Street. Arrows,” Oreo said, nodding her head. She waved her walking stick to Adriana. The last glimpse Oreo had of her was when a woman who looked like a Minerva flew onto the island, a racking Pinto narrowly missing her heels. The woman turned the smooth button eyes of an owl now toward Adriana, now away, her small hooked nose beaking this way and that as she gazed, unblinking, at the traffic.

Oreo underground at Forty-second Street

A horizontal rectangle with black letters told her:

PORT AUTHORITY BUS TERMINAL

←8 THAVE SUBWAY←

A red sign said:

TRACK 3

SHUTTLE TO GRAND CENTRAL

↑BMT LINES STRAIGHT AHEAD

said another red sign. A fairer sign gave one line each to complementary green and red:

GREEN ← FOR BWAY 7 THAVE LINE

& MEZZANINE FOR BMT

UPTOWN & DOWNTOWN BMT & IRT →

offered another. Under this, a graffito made a cross-cultural admission:

OH, BOY, AM I FARBLONDJET! — DAEDALUS

Oreo finally found the right train. She sat down and wiggled her perfect toes in anticipation of the about-to-be-revealed secret of her birth. As she moved Toro’s carrying case a little to one side, she noticed the socks of the man opposite her. She started looking at sock patterns. Was there a pattern to the patterns on this car? Lisle of Manhattan offers so many diversions, she thought as she knitted her brow.

Oreo on her father’s street again

She switched the carrier from her left to her right hand and her walking stick from her right to her left. As she looked down the street, she saw two things: a black girl in a white dress carrying what looked like a large lunchbox. Her father was waving at the girl. He turned his head and saw Oreo. He started to wave again and stopped in mid-wave. Oreo flashed on what was about to happen. She started to run. The other girl started to run. Their two black headbands sailed on oceans of air as they rushed toward each other. Samuel’s double takes took up less and less lateral space as they got faster and faster. Oreo stopped short under his window, fearing that she would collide with the onrushing girl — who also stopped short. Oreo looked up in time to see Samuel falling toward her. His body brushed her right hand as he smashed onto the carrier, driving it to the ground. Oreo ran over to her father. She looked up open-mouthed at an openmouthed girl who looked just like her.