By Linda Zamora Lucero
Under the rush of the steaming shower, Javi sensed Mami pacing in the hallway, rattling the doorknob, shoulder pushing against the bathroom door. He imagined his mother’s mouth at the narrow gap between the frame and the jamb, screaming, “I want my rings! ¡Carajo! Javi! You have two days to clear out if I don’t get those rings back today! Javier!” Lately, Mami sounded like she meant business. But Javi had a plan. He had begged off from his morning shift as a short-order cook at Al’s Café because today was Mami’s eightieth birthday. He would get the damned wedding rings back for her this afternoon, cook her a delectable dinner later this evening, and tomorrow he would pack his duffle bag and be on his merry way, maybe head to Las Vegas where he had a distant cousin. He’d used up his welcome in the City. Even his sister Rita was turning against him. As for Mami, Mami was Mami, bless her heart. He’d given up any hopes of pleasing her a long time ago.
The shampoo bloomed under Javi’s fingers and he silently thanked his lucky stars for the abundant head of hair he sported, blue-black and barely gray at the temples. When he opened his eyes two opalescent bubbles oozed down the glass door and he made a wager as to which would hit the bottom first. As Javi happily scrubbed his belly, the bubble that was slightly smaller and surely faster than the other, burst. Jez-zus! He knew his mother’s bad vibes had jinxed his luck.
#
It had been just a little over two weeks since the incident that had sparked Mami’s latest unhappiness. Javi had bet his last check on Yoko Oh No, a sure-thing pony in the third race at Saratoga, winnings he had counted on to surprise Mami with a UHD TV for her upcoming birthday. Dejected by the loss, he rode the Muni to Golden Gate Park, a green oasis that comforted him whenever he was melancholy, which was more often than he cared to admit. A boy hurtled past on a skateboard and he wondered gloomily how Junior was. He missed his sweet nine-year-old who lived in Arizona with his mother. The gods – whoever they might be – had smiled on him the day Junior had arrived into this crazy world.
Javi claimed a vacant park bench near the Dutch Windmill, crossed his legs and inhaled fresh mown grass and mud. A portly man settled on an adjacent bench and began pitching cheese puffs from a bag onto the grass, creating a wide orange arc. Three bushy-tailed squirrels promptly materialized, then another five. Javi slipped on a pair of sunglasses and leaned back to observe the double-chinned stranger who appeared to be in his late-forties. With his flamboyant scarlet Hawaiian shirt and self-satisfied air, Javi was sure the man was probably a successful salesman on an all-expenses-paid vacation.
“Bee–you–tee–full day,” the stranger sang out. He popped a cheese puff into his mouth. On his wrist, a Rolex gleamed in the sun with a dazzle of dials, the smallest whirring around non-stop. Javi had once owned a Rolex for about five exhilarating minutes – a virtual lifetime in a game of Texas Hold’Em.
The man half-turned and held the bag out to Javi. “Care for a puff?”
Intrigued, Javi gave him a wide smile.
“So many squirrels,” the man said.
Javi cupped his ear. “What’s that?”
“The squirrels!” the man said louder.
Sensing something brewing, Javi lowered his sunglasses and viewed the man eye-to-eye, “What about them?”
“I wonder which of these tree rats will be the last to gather up dinner.”
“I was just now wondering the same exact thing.” More than a dozen squirrels had darted on to the grass, snatching cheese puffs before disappearing one by one into the brush.
“I’d put money on that gray one there,” the man said, thrusting his chin.
Javi’s blood quickened. A new TV for Mami was a distinct possibility after all. He kept his voice casual, his body relaxed, his focus sharpened. “They’re all gray,” he chuckled, quickly sizing up the remaining squirrels. “How much you talking?”
A half hour and many squirrels later the stranger drove Javi to Prospect Avenue and waited in his blue Mercedes while Javi borrowed Mami’s wedding rings that she hid in her undie drawer whenever she went shopping. Ernie’s Pawn Shop had been the next stop.
#
Javi stepped out of the shower and put his good ear against the bathroom door. Mami was gone. He danced a little mambo, invigorated. He was looking forward to cooking this evening. He wiped the steam from the mirror and inspected the laugh lines around his eyes. His chest looked out of focus like a person who never exercised, yet he liked the way he looked, devilish yet kindly, a man who enjoyed life, no matter what hand he’d been dealt.
Pulling on his customary black turtleneck and trousers, he resembled a cat, or better yet, a cat burglar, a suave ex-cat burglar, like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. Cary Grant was Mami’s favorite Hollywood actor. Whenever he appeared on TCM, she’d make the sign of the cross and sigh, “¡Válgame Díos! Javi, elkarrrygrrrran and tu Papi looked like brothers, may they both rest in peace. They don’t make men like that anymore.”
When Javi and Rita were kids, Mami had taken them to see To Catch a Thief, showing in a Hitchcock retrospective at the New Mission Theater. In the theater, Mami couldn’t stop talking, pointing out Grace Kelly, tan bella, and elkarrygrran, un principe, and those spectacular fireworks – blue and yellow and red Technicolor explosions over Monte Carlo. While Mami gushed, seven-year-old Javi was speeding along the edge of a rocky precipice overlooking the blue Mediterranean with Grace Kelly at the wheel of her sportscar, Cary Grant sweating and clutching his knees beside her. Pink high heels flooring the gas pedal, Grace serenely flirted with flying them all into oblivion, taking hairpin turns at maximum velocity, narrowly missing guardrails, angry pedestrians, protesting chickens. The scene gave Javi delicious shivers. Afterward, walking home with Mami and Rita on Mission Street, he found a silver dollar in a gutter, the silver glinting in the moonlight. From that night forward, he would always be anticipating the unexpected just around the corner.
Take his father Miguel, a man who looked like Gary Grant only in Mami’s dreams. He was thick of chest and thick of thighs, with dark hair all over his body. A merchant seaman away from home for months at a time, Miguel had died unexpectedly from a spider bite in one of Macau’s famous casinos when Javi was nine. Miguel had been the ship’s cook, and by family accounts Javi had inherited his father’s genius in the kitchen. Javi remembered little of Pops except that he had taught Javi how to make the best damn chimichurrí in the world. “En esta vida, todos necesitamos un poco de buena suerte,” he would whisper as he whisked and whisked. Miguel had made Javi promise not to reveal that luck was the secret ingredient. Crossing his heart, Javi was surprised and yet not at all surprised at his father’s revelation.
Smiling at the memory, Javi slapped on cologne and was ready to greet the day. Mami was stretched out on the Louis XIV-style pink sofa watching Wheel of Fortune in a cerise satin robe, her dyed auburn hair in rollers. Barefoot, swollen ankles propped on a blue and gold Warriors cushion, she had the thermostat cranked to 80 degrees and the shades drawn. On the flickering TV, a perky blonde in gold spangles yanked on a giant wheel, sending it spinning. The camera closed in on the agitated contestants, who shrieked and clapped as the wheel whirled through random digits that could answer their wildest dreams. Recognizing the fever in their eyes, Javi watched, mesmerized.
Mami clicked the mute and turned to glare up at her son.
“I want my wedding rings back today. Javier! ¿M’oyes?” she said tersely.
Javi tore his gaze from the wheel. “Have a little faith, Ma.” He leaned down to kiss the air near her cheek. “That’s exactly where I’m heading. I’ll be back in time to make your birthday dinner. Rita and Tania and the kids are coming.”
“While you’re out there, St. Kevin’s is looking for a full-time cook. God helps people who help themselves.” Momentarily soothed, she pressed the remote.
“Every day is a new day, Mami,” he said. “Every day, new possibilities.” Javi spoke from experience. The incident that changed his life took place in the school’s test kitchen the day before he graduated from the Culinary Academy many years ago. It had been an unlucky break, his lighting a match one second, a blast from the malfunctioning oven blowing out his left eardrum the next. He’d received a generous insurance settlement, but the long recuperation had cost him a promised position at a Michelin-starred restaurant. His prospects had evaporated. He eventually took a job making pancakes at Red’s Café, filling in for the regular cook who was arrested after her mug appeared on America’s Most Wanted for bank robbery, twenty-three years after the deed. Javi recognized that life was a crapshoot, and that was just the way it was. Too vain to wear a hearing aid on his right ear, he managed by reading lips and body language, skills that served him well at the card table, if not in sporadic stints as a fry cook in greasy spoon diners. Javi was a gifted cook but the loud noises and the flaming grills in big kitchens made him antsy.
#
Javi headed to the pawnshop to get the rings. As he danced down the front steps, Rita was exiting the passenger side of a black and white squad car double-parked in front of the house. He loved his sister, but Rita in uniform wasn’t a pleasant sight. Rita treated him like a kid, despite the fact that he was older by three years. She waited at the bottom step, legs planted wide, hands on belt, metal badge gleaming on her jacket. Her SFPD cap was set straight on her short black hair. No jaunty hat angles for no-nonsense Rita.
“Officer Krupke,” Javi said with a crisp little salute, pushing past her. “You’re early. Dinner’s not til seven.”
Rita caught Javi by the jacket sleeve, spinning him to a stop. “Big joker. What’s that under your arm?”
Javi reared back and spoke loudly, holding his arms high in the air, the canvas bag dangling from one hand. “You wanna frisk me again?”
The day before yesterday, Javi had been trudging up Prospect with a pocketful of Lotto tickets and a bag of groceries when he spotted the new neighbor kid Maxie on his hands and knees next to his dad’s yellow Land Rover parked on the street.
Maxie was shouting at tabby cat crouched underneath the vehicle. “Cumah, come here, girl!” Every time a car hurled by, the boy would shout louder, “Cumah! You’re gonna get run over!”
The distressed boy reminded Javi of his own son. He joined Maxie by squatting and cooing, “Cumah, Cumah, heeere, girl,” going from tire to tire and back again. “Don’t worry, sonny,” he said. He opened his grocery bag and bribed the cat with a generous slice of the expensive Italian guanciale he had bought from Avedano’s to make bucatini all’Amatriciana. To Maxie’s delight, Cumah emerged. The cat was cleaning her whiskers just as Maxie’s father, Doctor Dave, rushed to the sidewalk, shouting “Hey! Hey you!” adding that he was tired of people stealing his roses. This to Javi, who for decades, had snipped red roses from that bush for Mami’s kitchen table. The doctor went into tedious detail about private property rights and whointhehelldoyouthinkyouare-anyway? Javi took offense, mumbling whointhehelldoyouthinkYOUare-anyway? to Doctor Dave. He pulled out his Swiss Army pocket knife and began trimming his fingernails, deliberately shaving each nail, the steel blade catching the sun. Maxie, cradling the squirming Cumah, began to tear up.
“You’re scaring my kid, asshole,” Dave growled, knocking the pocketknife to the sidewalk. Javi was shoving Dave with both hands just as Rita had rolled by in the squad car, checking in on Mami during her lunch time. When Javi thought of how Rita had snapped the handcuffs on his wrists in front of the Doctor, Maxie, and the nosy neighbors peeking from behind blinds, his blood boiled. Only two days ago, Rita, his own sister, had cuffed, frisked, and stuffed him like a sardine into the back seat of the cruiser, only to release him at Mission Station after a totally unwarranted lecture.
Two days ago and his blood still boiled. Rita was wrong.
“You wanna frisk me again?” Javi repeated now, still holding his arms high.
“Put your arms down, Javi.” Rita raised her voice. “Watch my lips. I witnessed an assault while on duty.”
“Taking a gentrifier’s side against family. I see how it is.”
Rita’s partner leaned out of the driver’s window of the patrol car and Rita made a slight toss with her head to indicate the situation was under control.
“Who do you think convinced Dave to not press charges!” she said.
“I’m no criminal. I don’t do drugs, not even grass, which is more that I can say for you, Miss High-and-Mighty, or maybe I should just call you Miss High, because don’t think I can’t smell the pot on you whenever you come by to so-call ‘check on Mom.’ ”. Javi used air quotes. “I could drop a dime on you, too, if I thought that anyone would give a damn. If Mami knew . . . but like I always say, family is family.”
“She’s not asking for any of the money you borrowed, Javi, just the wedding rings – you never should have taken them. They’re all that she has left of Pops.”
“Like I don’t know that? Don’t give up on me, Rita, I have a foolproof plan.”
“Just bring back the rings, bro,” Rita said and stepped aside.
“Don’t forget – dinner at seven,” Javi said. “I’m cooking something real special.” The canvas bag tucked under his arm, Javi ambled down Prospect Avenue, which wasn’t at all an avenue, just an ordinary residential street. He whistled “Lovely Rita,” a Beatles song his sister always detested, and more so after joining the force. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, a bird on a telephone pole was warbling a springtime tune.
#
“Hey Javier – it’s a great day for the race!” Ernie said. He meant the human race. It was his standard greeting to all who found their way into Ernie’s Pawnshop, a quiet retreat from the tumult of Mission Street. An affable man, Ernie was witness to the highs and lows of his customers’ fortunes. With his round body and bald head, he reminded Javi of a kindly friar, offering acceptance and financial succor to those who came bearing collateral at times of desperation.
A lanky young man with blond dreadlocks and a frayed backpack was leaning on the counter touting the virtues of his Fender guitar to no avail.
“It’s a set rate,” Ernie explained. “No reflection on this specific instrument, which I can see is a beauty as Fenders go.”
Javi hung back, eyeing the familiar shelves stocked with forlorn saxophones and forgotten violins.
“Let I think upon it,” the young man said with a Jamaican lilt. He motioned for Javi to go ahead.
Javi pulled a folded blue receipt from his wallet and handed it to Ernie, who keyed the receipt number into a computer.
“Five-one-two-three-seven. Diamond wedding set. Seven-hundred-fifty, plus nineteen days storage and handling, comes to eight-hundred and thirty-seven dollars. Make it an even eight-hundred,” Ernie said with a flourish.
“Here’s the situation,” Javi said. He hoisted the canvas bag on the counter. “I’m willing to trade my top-of-the-line set of professional kitchen knives – worth seven-hundred, probably more – plus one-hundred-sixty-seven cash – for the rings.”
Ernie blinked at Javi as if baffled, then turned to the young man, who was listening to this exchange with open curiosity. “Made up your mind?” Ernie asked the young man.
“Ernie, I’m talking to you,” Javi said, his voice deepening, “The knives are all I have. Today is Mami’s eightieth birthday. I’m here to pick up her wedding rings.”
Ernie matched Javi’s voice. “Javi, it doesn’t work that way.”
The young man said, “I’m ready . . .”
“I’m talking now, kid,” Javi said, eyes steady on Ernie. “Ernie, how long have we known each other?”
“It’s business, Javier.”
“I need those rings.”
“I’ll give you ninety bucks for the knives, in all generosity.”
“They’re Wusthof Tridents.”
Ernie nodded to the young man, “Ready?”
The young man nodded and shot Javi a wan smile. Ernie strung a tag around the neck of the Fender while Javi wrapped up his knives.
“I wish you all good fortune, mon,” the young man said to Javi.
“Didn’t ask you,” Javi muttered. He knew a phony when he saw one. He opened the door to Mission Street and the sour screech of a car horn sounded in his good ear.
#
Mami was snoring fitfully in front of the blaring television. Javi closed the kitchen door, wrapped a white apron around his waist and filled a tumbler with ice and Flor de Caña. Dropping a wedge of lime into the glass, he took a princely swig, turned the radio to top volume, and swayed to Talking Head’s “This Must Be the Place,” while stripping the papery skins from cloves of garlic. “Hoooomme . . . ,” he sang and recalled his time at the Culinary Academy when he had been blissfully immersed in a world of creamy risottos and succulent sou vide quail. With another swallow of rum, he began mincing the garlic, shimming his shoulders, moving his hips, feeling the pounding rhythm inside his body. Time was all he needed to get those rings back, time plus un poquito de suerte which was definitely due him. None of them – Mami, Rita, his ex-wife – would ever understand the gambling wasn’t about the payoff. Never was. It was all in the throw, the dice in transit, the brief singular beat when time stood still, the moment when nothing was decided and anything was possible. He knew all too well that the odds were with the house, but that spine-tingling feeling that enveloped his body and mind? He would never get enough.
Javi twirled to the vibrations, wiped his hands on a dishtowel and parted the curtains at the window overlooking the backyard. Where was the sun? Gusts of wind stirred the broad green leaves of the fig tree. Leaden clouds swarmed the sky. He predicted rain by five-thirty-five, give or take fifteen minutes. Javi laughed. He was in a groove, rinsing, chopping, and squeezing. He was singing to “Loco de Amor” and measuring olive oil when the pulsations in his bones abruptly stopped. Turning, he saw that Mami had hobbled into the kitchen and yanked the cord of the radio from the wall. “Now what are you up to?” she said in a voice that grated on his good ear like metal against metal.
He paused and took a leisurely sip of rum before answering her. “Making chimichurrí, Mami,” he said patiently. “I’m making some nice juicy t-bones and buttermilk mashed potatoes, topped off with a Meyer lemon tart for dessert. For your birthday.”
She pulled the sash of her robe tighter as if girding herself for battle. “My birthday? What about my rings?” His mother never did have a sense of humor.
“How many times do I need to tell you? I’m working on the rings. You’ll have them back tomorrow.”
Mami scowled and tottered through the kitchen, gathering up tumblers, plates, and utensils and began thrusting them back into random drawers and cabinets. In her rising fury, she tossed his drink into the sink and the sweet smell of fermented sugar filled the kitchen. Even with bloated feet, she moved swiftly, and her voice pitched higher and higher, as she mouthed the words, “My rings, my rings,” over and over again. The sound waves battered Javi’s ear. He stood clutching a small bowl of olive oil and waited for his mother to settle down. Suddenly she seized the bowl from his hands and Javi yanked it back. Pale green liquid splattered the table and streamed onto the floor.
“Ma, por favor! Vas a tener un infarto. ¡Cálmate!” Sometimes he wished she would have a heart attack, she made him so goddamned furious. Jez-zus. He hated a messy kitchen. He swiped at the dark blotches on his pristine apron. “¡Mira lo que hiciste!” he shouted.
“You want to give me a present?” Mami grabbed a wooden spoon and slammed it on the table. Garlic cloves rolled from the cutting board and careened across the floor. “The best present you can give me is to move out and stop ruining my life. ¿Me entiendes?” She screwed up her face and raised the wooden spoon as emphasis. “Esta es mi casa, you good for nothing! Your father, que en paz descanse, he would be ashamed of you!” She stepped back as if to swing the spoon at him and Javi instinctively put his hands up and pushed her.
He pushed her – not hard – and Mami lost her balance – maybe she slipped on the oil or the garlic, or both – and she went down like a prize fighter, hitting the back of her head on the counter. The pounding in his ear finally stopped.
Silence.
Javi bent down on one knee and scrutinized Mami’s face.
“Mami?”
No movement. “Mami?”
Dammit all to hell. Mami just never knew when to let up, and this on her birthday. She was quiet, flushed cheeks fading, eyes closed like she was fast asleep, dreaming. Up close she smelled like lavender, pink mouth slightly ajar.
She was too quiet. “Mami?” Come on.
Javi’s heart thumped inside his rib cage, shaking his insides, every beat like a sledge hammer. Oh god. What had he done? He glanced at the clock on the wall – it was getting late. He would bet that Mami’s eyes would fly open and before too long her tongue would start working again. He gave her one, two minutes at the most.
Oh god. Javi rose up, kneeled again, stood up. Was that sound coming from the phone on the kitchen wall? He was having a hard time drawing breath. Where to focus? There was a lot to do before dinner. The steaks were marinating but now he had to mince more garlic for the chimichurrí and he shouldn’t forget the bitter arugula and purple basil for the salad, one of his glories, with green garlic chives, crumbled Roquefort and toasted walnuts, which thankfully he’d prepared yesterday, plus two or three just-picked orange nasturtiums from Mami’s garden for color. He had to take the puff pastry from the freezer. Mami loved his lemon tart. He’d never forgotten the baking tips he’d learned from that pastry chef who liked to play blackjack – was Jacqueline her name? – keep the butter below fifty degrees and use a marble rolling pin. He would juice the Meyers just as soon as he cleaned up the shattered glass in the sink and wiped the oil from the floor.
The floor. Oh god. What had he done? “Mami?”
He couldn’t think straight. Breathe slower. And focus. Focus. Should he call an ambulance?
Raindrops began to stain the windowpane. The ringing stopped. Javi dampened a dishtowel with cold water at the sink and was back on one knee at Mami’s side. He gently moistened her pale face.
Javi squeezed his eyes to keep from crying and opened them. “Mami?” Mami hadn’t moved. He was shivering and dripping sweat. He half rose to his feet, legs wobbly, his vision yellowed. He reached his hand out to find something solid to steady himself. Failing, he sat down hard on the floor. He drew his knees up and hugged them to stop trembling. Mami was his moon, always there for him, even though they argued all the time he loved her. He filled his lungs with oxygen and let it out slowly. It sounded like a moan. He got on all fours and brushed a wisp of hair from her forehead and caressed her cheek.
“Mami?” he whispered into her ear. He willed her to come to. “Ma?”
A flicker of Mami’s eyelashes.
“Ma?” Another flicker. Javi’s heart sputtered.
“¡Carajo!” Mami whispered weakly, getting up on one elbow. “Javier, help me up!”
A shudder of relief came over Javi. He wiped the happy tears swelling from his eyes and embraced Mami. Gripping her hands, he struggled to help her to her feet and to sit securely on a kitchen chair.
“How are you feeling?” he said softly. “Let me get you some water.”
He watched as she slowly drank the water. His mother was a fierce tiger, she would be fine, her rosy color was already returning to her cheeks. Her eyes glowered at him, as if silently asking “What about my rings?”
The telephone was ringing again. Javi glanced at the clock on the wall. “Rita and her family will be here soon,” he said. “Stay here and watch me cook so I can keep an eye on you.”
“Maybe,” Mami said.
He fervently hoped Mami wouldn’t mention her fall to Rita but asking her not to would guarantee she would.
Javi plugged in the radio and found a salsa show on KPOO. He began dancing about the kitchen. He poured a good amount of olive oil into a bowl and found a whisk in a kitchen drawer. “Did Pops ever tell you his secret to making chimichurri?” he asked Mami. The world was alive with possibilities. He felt a buzzing in the air, a tingle down his spine.
-End –
* “On Prospect Avenue” was previously published by The Ocotillo Review (Vol. 8.1, Feb 2024). www.kallistogaiapress.org/the-ocotillo-review/. It is republished in Latin@ Literatures with the author’s and publisher’s permission.
Linda Zamora Lucero was born and raised in San Francisco’s multicultural Mission District. Her work has appeared in The Ocotillo Review, The Hyacinth Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Somos en escrito, LatineLit Magazine, Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, and The Bilingual Review, among other publications. Her story, “Speak to Me of Love,” won first prize in the DeMarinis Short Story Contest in 2021; “When It Rains,” was a 2020 Pushcart nominee. Lucero is the Executive/Artistic Director of the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, an admission-free outdoor performing arts series in San Francisco.