Guillermo Rosales - The Halfway House

“Go to Homestead!” he then says. “They need people there to pick avocadoes and tomatoes.”

“Thank you,” I say again. “Maybe we’ll do that.”

We leave. We walk toward First Street. While we walk, a great idea pops into my head.

“Frances,” I say, stopping at Sixth Avenue. “Tell me, my angel."

"Frances … Frances …,” I say, leaning up against a wall and bringing her gently to me. “I’ve just had a magnificent idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Let’s leave the halfway house!” I say, bringing her to my chest. “With what we both receive from social security, we could live in a small house, and we could even earn a little more if we did some menial work here and there.”

She looks at me, surprised by my idea. Her mouth and chin start trembling slightly.

“My angel!” she says, moved. “And can I bring my little boy from New Jersey?”

“Of course!”

“And you would help me raise him?”

“Yes!”

She squeezes my hands tightly. She looks at me with her trembling smile. She’s so moved that for a few seconds, she doesn’t know what to say. Then all the color drains from her face. Her eyes roll back and she faints in my arms.

“Frances… Frances!” I say, helping her up from the sidewalk. “What’s wrong?”

I pat her face a few times. Slowly, she comes to. “It’s hope, my angel …,” she says. “Hope!” She hugs me tightly. I look at her. Her lips, her cheeks, her face, all of it is trembling intensely. She starts to cry.

“It’s not going to work out,” she says. “It’s not going to work out.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m crazy. I need to take four pills of strong Etrafon daily.”

“I’ll give them to you.”

“I hear voices,” she says. “It seems like everyone is talking about me.”

“Me too,” I say. “But to hell with the voices!”

I grab her by the waist. Slowly, we begin to walk back to the halfway house. A new car passes next to us. A guy with a thin beard and tinted glasses sticks his head out the window and yells at me, “Dump that bitch!”

We walk on. While we walk, I’m planning the steps we’ll take. Tomorrow, the first of the month, our social security checks arrive. I’ll talk to Curbelo and ask him for mine and Frances’. Then we’ll pack our bags, I’ll call a taxi and we’ll go house hunting. For the first time in years, a small ray of hope shines into the deep dark well of my empty chest. Without realizing it, I smile.

We enter the halfway house through the back porch, cocooned by dark metallic fabric. The nuts have finished eating and are digesting there, sitting on the wooden chairs. Upon entering the house, Frances and I separate. She goes to her room; I go on to mine. I’m singing an old Beatles song:

He’s a real nowhere man

Sitting in his nowhere land

Hilda, the decrepit old hag, steps in front of me and asks for a cigarette. I give it to her. Then I grab her head and give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you!” she says, surprised. “That’s the first kiss I’ve gotten in mannnnny years.”

“Do you want another one?”

“Okay.”

I kiss her again, on the other cheek.

“Why, thank you,” she says to me.

I continue on my way, singing Nowhere Man . I get to my room. The crazy guy who works at the pizza place is on his bed, counting his money.

“Hey,” I say to him: “I need you to give me a dollar.”

“A dollar, Mister William? You’re crazy!”

I pry his wallet from his hands. I look for a dollar. I take it.

“Give me my wallet,” the crazy guy groans.

I give it to him, then throw my arm around him affectionately.

“A dollar, man. Just a lousy dollar.” I say to him.

He looks at me. I smile at him. I kiss his face. He ends up laughing himself.

“Okay, Mister William,” he says.

“I’ll pay you back tomorrow,” I say.

I go outside, toward the corner. I’m going to buy today’s paper to look through the ads for a good apartment for Frances and me. A simple apartment, no more than two hundred dollars. I’m happy. Oh, damn it! I think I’m happy. Let me say “think.” Let me not tempt the devil and bring fury and fatality onto myself. I get to the corner bodega. I grab a paper from the rack. I pay with the dollar.

“You have a pending debt,” the bodega owner says. “Fifty cents.”

“Me? From when?”

“A month ago. Don’t you remember? A Coca-Cola.”

“Oh, please! A woman as pretty as you is going to tell me that? Surely it’s a mistake.”

When I call her pretty, she smiles.

“I must be confused,” she then says.

“That’s alright.”

I smile at her. I can still play a woman. It’s easy. You just have to spend some time on it.

“Why don’t you dye your hair blond?” I ask, still keeping up the act. “If you dyed your hair blond, you’d look so much better.”

“You think so?” she says, running her fingers through her hair.

“Sure.”

She opens the cash register. She puts the dollar in. She gives me back seventy-five cents.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Thank you ,” she says. “The thing about the Coca-Cola must have been a mistake.”

“That’s alright.”

I leave with the newspaper under my arm, singing Nowhere Man softly. A black man looks at me from the doorway of his house with sinister eyes. As I walk past, I say, “Hi, paisano!”

He smiles. “Damn, Slim. How are you? Who are you?”

“Slim,” I reply. “Just Slim.”

“Damn, well I’m glad to have one more friend. I’m Clean Dough . I arrived on a boat five years ago. I’m here for you. You’ve got a home here.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you, Clean Dough .”

“Now you know!” Clean Dough says, waving his fist in the air good-bye.

I continue toward the home. As I pass a house surrounded by a tall fence, an enormous black dog jumps up and starts to bark angrily. I stop. Carefully, I reach my hand over the fence and stroke his head. The dog barks one more time, confused. He sits on his hind legs and starts to lick my hand. In command of the situation, I lean over the fence and give him a kiss on the snout. I continue on my way. Upon arriving at the boarding home, I see Pedro, the silent Indian who never talks to anyone. He’s sitting in the doorway of the house.

“Pedro,” I say to him. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes,” he says.

I give him a quarter.

“Thank you,” he says, smiling. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Pedro smile.

“I’m Peruvian,” he says. “From the country of the condor.”

I go in. I go to the women’s room and gently push the door. Frances is on her bed, drawing. I sit next to her and kiss her face. She stops drawing and takes me by the arm.

“Let’s look for a house,” I say.

I glance at the front page of the paper.

PEKING REJECTS MARX’S IDEAS AS ANTIQUATED.

AIR PIRATES ARE GOING TO KILL MORE HOSTAGES.

WOMAN WHO KILLED HER HUSBAND EXONERATED.

That’s enough for me. I quickly search for the classifieds and read: “Furnished apartment. Two bedrooms. Terrace. Carpeted. Pool. Free hot water. Four hundred dollars.”

“That one, my angel!” says Frances.

“No. It’s very expensive.”

I keep searching. I read the whole list of rentals, and, finally, point at one with my finger. “This one.”

It’s on Flagler and 16th Avenue. It costs two hundred dollars. You have to go and speak with the owner in person. A woman named Haidee will see people from nine to six. It’s three in the afternoon.

“I’m going there right now,” I tell Frances.