Carmela, the EZ Clean’s manager, was an older Puerto Rican woman with a body like a water balloon and hair dyed the color of a new penny. She lifted her gaze from her magazine, greeted Torres as “El doctor,” and directed Vega to a bathroom at the back of the store. Silver Speed Queen washers and dryers rumbled along the floors and walls as Vega made his way down the aisles, dodging small children who were playing hide-and-seek and mothers chatting in Spanish on cell phones. The air was humid and detergent scented. The light had a truck-stop café brightness to it.
It had been decades since Vega had been inside a laundromat. He considered it one of the hallmarks of becoming middle class that he owned his own Sears washer and dryer and no longer had to waste time in a place like this. And yet being here filled him with such an unexpected sense of nostalgia. He could still see himself as that small boy enveloped in a warm, sweet-smelling cocoon of maternal embraces and children’s chatter. If he closed his eyes, he could hear the chirp of the two parakeets that used to sit in a cage behind the front desk. He could still feel the static from the fresh-washed blankets as his mother removed them from the dryer.
Vega washed his hands and face in the bathroom and took a wet paper towel to the surface of his insulated jacket.
“Heads up,” said Torres when Vega stepped out. Torres tossed a can of Coke from the vending machine in his direction. Vega caught it.
“Still got the old baseball reflexes, I see,” said Torres. “I’d buy you a beer, but I figure you don’t need to add a DUI to your troubles.”
“You got that right. Salud.” Vega popped the tab and took a long pull. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I never thanked you properly for today,” said Vega.
“You don’t have to thank me.” Torres clinked his own soda can against Vega’s. “Like I said out there, you’re old school. There aren’t too many of us dinosaurs left anymore.”
Vega threw out half a dozen names of kids they both knew growing up. Two had gone into the army and left—the preferred exit route. Freddy’s older sister, Jackie, had done the same herself. Two others had died—one in a shooting, the other from drugs. Another still lived in the neighborhood but was managing on disability after working construction and injuring his back. The last had moved to Atlantic City with a daughter to work in the casinos. There weren’t a whole lot of escape routes.
“Hardest thing I have to do at my school,” said Torres, “is convince my students there are worlds beyond this one.”
“You did pretty well staying put,” Vega noted. “Full scholarship to Columbia . . . a Ph.D . . . head of a prominent charter school.... My mom referred to you as Doctor Torres all the time. I’m not sure she ever figured out you weren’t an M.D.”
Torres laughed. “No wonder you were never all that jacked about coming back to the ’hood and seeing me.”
Vega felt suddenly embarrassed. Did he sound envious? His mother never overtly compared him to Torres. Nevertheless, it was there. Torres got better grades than Vega. He attended an Ivy League school whereas Vega did four years at a commuter college. He was certainly a more involved son, taking care of both his mother and his sister after his father’s death.
“I didn’t mind,” Vega lied. “Besides, it gave her a lot of joy. She’d watched you grow up. You were like a second son.”
“And she was like a second mother. Hell knows, we needed second mothers. It’s not like we had fathers to count on.” Even though Torres’s father was a presence in his children’s lives (unlike Vega’s father), he’d been a drunk and a brute. Torres and his sisters spent more time hiding from the man than bonding with him.
“Speaking of mothers,” said Vega. “Is your mom—?” He didn’t know how to ask. Fortunately Torres rescued him.
“She’s over at Sunnycrest Manor.”
“The nursing home on Webster Avenue?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t keep her at home anymore. She went downhill fast after Donna died.”
“Would she”—Vega hesitated—“know me?”
“She has good days and bad. But yeah, I think she would. You should go see her—when this blows over, I mean.” Torres frowned at Vega. “Not to pry, Jimmy, but I’m kind of surprised that of all times to get nostalgic, you picked today.”
“It’s my mother’s birthday.”
“Ah. Hope you’re not planning to go to her building. Hector Ponce was . . .” Torres’s voice trailed off.
“My mother’s building super, I know,” said Vega. Clothes thumped in the dryers like a samba rhythm. Vega played with the tab on his soda can. “Did you know him at all?”
Torres shrugged. “After so many years here, I sort of know everybody.”
“What was he like?”
“Like a lot of building supers. Sort of a tigre.”
“You mean a hustler?” The Spanish word for tiger could be used as a compliment or an insult in the neighborhood, depending on context.
“You know the way it is down here. Things haven’t changed. Everybody’s got a hustle going on on the side. Especially the supers. Weed. Numbers. Women.”
“So what was Ponce’s?”
“I heard he liked to gamble.”
“You don’t mean Lotto tickets, I’m assuming.” Vega recalled Dolan saying that they’d found expired Lotto tickets in Ponce’s wallet.
“Everybody down here does that,” said Torres. “That’s financial planning in the ’hood. No. I mean like horses, numbers, sporting events.”