The Halfway House (New Directions Paperbook) by Guillermo Rosales Read Free Book Online Page B

“You won’t get me out of here!” He yelled hoarsely. “You’ll never get me out!” It was Fidel’s last refuge. And even though I spent the whole dream shooting at him, I couldn’t flush him out of those ruins. I wake up. It’s already morning. I go to the bathroom. I urinate. Then I wash my face with cold water. I leave like that, dripping water, to go have breakfast. There’s cold milk, cornflakes and sugar. I only drink milk. I go back to the TV and turn it on. I settle into the armchair again. The American preacher who talks about Jesus comes on the screen.
    “You, sitting there in front of the TV,” the preacher says. “Come now into the arms of the Lord.”
    My mouth becomes dry. I close my eyes. I try to imagine that yes, everything he says is true.
    “Oh God!” I say, “Oh God, save me!”
    I remain that way for ten or twelve seconds, with my eyes closed, waiting for the miracle of salvation. Then Hilda, the decrepit old hag, taps my shoulder.
    “Do you have a cigarette?”
    I give her one.
    “You have very, very pretty eyes!” she says sweetly.
    “Thank you.”
    “Don’t mention it.”
    I get up. I don’t know what to do. Go outside? Shut myself in my room? Sit on the porch? I go outside again. Go north? Go south? Who cares? I walk toward Flagler Street and then I turn to the left, going west, where the Cubans live. I walk on, I walk on, I walk on. I pass by dozens of bodegas, coffee shops, restaurants, barber shops, clothing stores, stores selling religious articles, tobacco shops, pharmacies, pawn shops. All of them are owned by Cuban petit bourgeois who arrived fifteen or twenty years ago, fleeing the communist regime. I stop in front of a shop mirror and comb my messy, straw-colored hair with my fingers. Then, it seems like someone is yelling “son of a bitch” at me. I turn around, furious. There’s only an old blind man walking with a cane on the sidewalk. I walk on a little more along Flagler Street. I spend my last bit of change on a sip of coffee. I see a cigarette on the floor. I pick it up and bring it to my lips. Three women working in the coffee shop start laughing. I think they’ve seen me pick up the cigarette and I’m infuriated. It seems like one of them says, “There he goes! The wandering Jew!” I leave.
    The sun beats down strongly on my head. Thick beads of sweat run like lizards down my chest and armpits. I walk on, I walk on, I walk on. Without looking anywhere in particular. Without searching for anything. Without going anywhere. I go into a church called San Juan Bosco. There’s silence and air conditioning. I look around. Three believers are praying at the foot of the altar. An old woman stops before a statue of Jesus and touches his feet. Then she takes out a dollar and sticks it in an offering box. She lights a candle. She whispers her prayer. I walk along the aisle and sit in a pew at the back of the church. I take out the book of Romantic English poets and open it at random. It’s a poem by John Clare, born in 1793, died in 1864 in the asylum of Northampton.
    I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death’s oblivion lost
    I get up. I leave the church through the back. I walk along Flagler Street again. I pass by new barber shops, new restaurants, new clothing stores, pharmacies and drug stores. I walk on, I walk on, I walk on. My bones hurt, but I keep going. Until I stop at 23rd Avenue. I spread my arms. I look at the sun. It’s time to go back to the halfway house.
    * * *
    I wake up. I’ve been here a month in the halfway house. My sheet is the same, my pillowcase, too. The towel that Mr. Curbelo gave me the first day is now filthy and damp and smells strongly of sweat. I take it and throw it around my neck. I go to the bathroom to wash up and urinate. I urinate on a checked shirt that some nut stuck in the