I turned on the lights and opened the windows, then I made a large drink and stretched out on the cot to read my magazine. There was a faint breeze, but the noise from the street was so terrible that I gave up trying to read and turned out the lights. People kept passing on the sidewalk and looking in, and now that they couldn’t see me I expected looters to come crawling through the window at any moment I lay back on the cot with a bottle of rum resting on my navel and plotted how to defend myself.
If I had a Luger, I thought, I could drill the bastards. I leaned on one elbow and pointed a finger at the window, seeing what kind of a shot I would get. Perfect. There was just enough light in the street for a good silhouette. I knew it would happen quickly, I’d have no choice: just pull the trigger and go deaf from the terrible noise, a frenzy of screaming and scratching followed by the ghastly thump of a body knocked back and down to the sidewalk. There would be a mob, of course, and I’d probably have to shoot a few in self-defense. Then the cops would arrive and that would be it. They’d recognize me and probably kill me right there in the apartment.
Jesus, I thought, I’m doomed. I’ll never get out of here alive.
I thought I saw things moving on the ceiling and voices in the alley were calling my name. I began to tremble and sweat, and then I fell into a twisted delirium.
Eleven
That night finished me with Sala’s tomb. The next morning I got up early and went out to Condado to seek an apartment I wanted sunlight and clean sheets and a refrigerator where I could keep beer and orange juice, food in the pantry and books on the shelves so I could stay home once in a while, a breeze coming in through the window and a peaceful street outside, an address that sounded human-instead of c/o or Gen. Del. or Please Forward or Hold for Arrival.
A ten-year accumulation of these vagrant addresses can weigh on a man like a hex. He begins to feel like the Wandering Jew. That’s the way I felt. After one night too many sleeping on some stinking cot in a foul grotto where I didn’t want to be anyway and had no reason to be except that it was foreign and cheap, I decided to hell with it. If that was absolute freedom then I’d had a bellyful of it, and from here on in I would try something a little less pure and one hell of a lot more comfortable. I was not only going to have an address, but I was going to have a car, and if there was anything else to be had in the way of large and stabilizing influences, I would have those too.
There were several apartments advertised in the paper, but the first few I looked at were too expensive. Finally I found one over somebody’s garage. It was just what I wanted — plenty of air, a big flamboyan tree for shade, bamboo furniture and a new refrigerator.
The woman wanted a hundred, but when I said seventy-five she quickly agreed. I had seen a big 51 sticker on a car in front of her house and she told me that she and her husband were going all out for statehood. They owned La Bomba Cafe in San Juan. Did I know it? Indeed I did — knew it well, ate there often, incomparable food for the price. I told her I worked for the New York Times and would be in San Juan for a year, writing a series of stories about statehood for Puerto Rico. For this, I would need absolute privacy.
We grinned at each other and I gave her a month’s rent in advance. When she asked for another seventy-five on deposit I told her I’d get my expense check next week and would pay her then. She smiled graciously and I left before she could dun me for anything else.