La Vida Real
1986; Duke University Press; Issue: 15 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/466489
ISSN1527-1951
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American and Latino Studies
ResumoI arrived in New York almost totally soused. I had polished off a bottle of rum before leaving, and then on the Greyhound bus I had another eight beers. By the time the bus got to the station I was drunk as a skunk. Manhattan glowed like a city of fireflies. In those days the boardinghouse on 50th and 7th was already crammed like an ant colony. The cold penetrated to the bones. My coat was no thicker than an onion skin, my face got tomato red, and my fingertips were numb. Everything was covered over by mist and the snow had hardened black, making it dangerous to walk. With my suitcase in hand and a couple of dollars in my pocket I trekked all the way to 20th Street where I had a contact. He was supposed to rent me a furnished room. The cold was sobering me up. I only realized that I was in New York when I saw the top of the Empire State Building on the way downtown. I wasn't sure that this was the Empire State Building so I asked a Latino kid since I didn't speak any English. He answered: Yes, that's the Empire State Building. In this city people can ask the stupidest questions, even dress like an ape and no one gives a shit. I went by unnoticed among the freezing crowds. I got to 6th Avenue and turned towards 20th Street. I bought a pair of wool gloves at one of those Chinese stands and I kept going in and out of Deli's and leather shops to warm up a bit. As you walk down 6th Avenue you leave behind the tall buildings. I kept setting the suitcase on the sidewalk and turning around to look at them; I couldn't believe that I was going to live in a city with buildings like that. Some of them put a scare in me; they looked like dragons; others, like the Flatiron building, gave the impression of a chocolate stepladder. They still hadn't put up the taller steel and smoked glass buildings on 6th Avenue: widows, that's what people call them.
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