Monkey Hunting by Cristina Garcia Read Free Book Online

repairing the ceiling and the Gothic turrets. Domingo dipped three fingers in the marble basin of holy water and crossed himself twice. It was confusing inside, the light distorted by the vast expanses of stained glass.
    Near the front of the cathedral, to the right of the altar, was an alcove for the Virgin Mary. Long-stemmed roses were wilting on a bed of ferns at her feet. Domingo sat in the third pew and brought his hands together. He wanted to pray, but he wasn’t sure what to ask. Mamá had told him once that the Virgin was partial to ascetics, outcasts, and forgotten men but that she would take on lesser cases if pressed.
    Domingo stared at the Virgin and wondered whether she ever longed to join the everyday fray of the ordinary. Were transcendent beings even capable of envy? Maybe on earth she would go bad—hold up convenience stores, steal packets of sugar-powdered doughnuts for the road. Or gang up with her sisters and form a posse of murderous virgins from Guadalupe, Lourdes, Regla (La Virgen de Regla was certainly a looker in black and blue). ¿Y por qué
no?
Domingo imagined them in leather jackets and wraparound shades, boots to there, crows on their shoulders instead of the Holy Ghost.
    He lowered his head guiltily, half expecting to see a cadre of outraged saints marching over to show him the door. Then he stole another glance at the Virgin. He noticed her left foot crushing the head of a hideous snake, presumably Satan. Her toes were plump and painted red. He wanted to suck them.
    Domingo thought of the time his older stepsister had fondled him on a visit to Guantánamo. Mariana Quiñones still played the harp for the Municipal Orchestra of Oriente. With her plink-plinky voice and her calloused fingertips, she’d expertly coaxed Domingo’s
pinguita
from his short pants. He was only eight, but he’d sworn to Mariana that he knew how to keep a secret.
    Domingo’s building was only a few blocks away. He climbed the four flights to his and his father’s apartment. The walls of the stairwell were painted a dirty internal pink. There was a stench of meat in the hallway. No doubt that vet down the hall was pan-frying his weekly supply of beef. The vet said he’d eaten nothing but hamburgers since he’d returned from Vietnam, 100 percent USDA.
    There were other vets in the neighborhood. Thin howls of men who spooked anyone who looked their way. Críspulo “Crispy” Morán came back from Danang missing both legs and a chunk of his skull that he tried to hide with an old bebop hat. Domingo wondered whether Crispy still had his balls, but he didn’t have the nerve to ask him. Crispy liked to shoot pigeons in Morningside Park, then stuff them with his
mami
’s yellow rice. Sometimes he snorted cocaine off the edge of his wheelchair until his brains were fried and all he could say was,
The sky there is fuckin’
bigger than here.
    Papi had left early for his job at the ice factory in the Bronx. He would be angry with Domingo for making him worry. But Domingo was tired of having to take care of his father. Papi refused to buy groceries or wash his clothes, and he needed constant reminding to take his pills.
    Domingo showered with the almond soap Mamá had given him before he’d left Cuba. The hot steam concentrated its scent. He remembered the boleros she’d listened to while delivering babies, the rum she’d drunk in the same green tumbler night after night. In the mornings, Mamá would be in a sour mood and she would reach for a shoe or the stout black umbrella to teach Domingo a lesson. He’d never understood for what.
    Domingo changed into his uniform for his early shift at the Havana Dragon. He liked how his name was embroidered on his shirt in red script, clean and raised as a fresh scrape (just another affectation, Papi had sniffed). Domingo combed his hair straight back, no part, and clipped his fingernails. Then he wrote his father a note and left it on the kitchen table. He double-locked the front