Bodega Dreams

“To have a name other than the one your parents had given you meant you had status in school, had status on your block.”

As a junior high student in a tough neighborhood, Julio wants acceptance more than anything else. A new name would give him that status, the way “Sapo” did for Enrique. In order to get a nickname, Julio has to draw attention to himself, which he does by fighting. Eventually, this earns him the nickname Chino.

“It was easy to be big and bad when you hated your life and felt meaningless. You lived in projects with pissed-up elevators, junkies on the stairs, posters of the rapist of the month, and whores you never knew were whores until you saw men go in and out of their apartments like through revolving doors. You lived in a place where vacant lots grew like wild grass does in Kansas. Kansas? What does a kid from Spanish Harlem know about Kansas?”

Chino describes the defeated feeling that he had as a teenager, when he was beginning to understand his own place in a world that wouldn’t acknowledge him beyond the boundaries of his own brutal neighborhood.

“He was street nobility incarnated in someone who still believed in dreams… triggered by a romantic ideal found only in those poor bastards who really wanted to be poets but got drafted and sent to the front lines.”

Chino makes this observation about Bodega, whose plans for a better Spanish Harlem seem inherently doomed. Bodega’s dreams and sensitivity make him as unsuited for street life as poets on the front lines of battle. 

“The eternal hustle, Chino. The decision to either be a pimp or a whore, thass all you can be in this world. You work for someone or you work for yourself”

This remark from Sapo to Chino illustrates the difference between them at this point in their lives. Sapo is working for Bodega, selling drugs and collecting debts, but he sees himself as more of a pimp than a whore. Chino works in a grocery store and attends college at night, but this plan is dependent on a governmental and economic system that acts as a “pimp” while everyone who plays by its rules is a “whore.”

“Just remember, bro, that no matter how much you learn, no matter how many books you read, how many degrees you get, in the end, you are from East Harlem.”

Sapo says this to Chino to remind him of their mutual roots and to inspire loyalty. Chino has already learned this lesson. Although he’s in college and working with Blanca to make better lives for themselves, he’s willing to drop everything when Sapo needs him.

“Spanish Harlem needed a change and fast…. The neighborhood was ready to boil. You couldn’t see the bubbles yet, but they were there, simmering below the surface, just waiting for someone to turn up the heat and all hell would break loose. The fire next time would be the fire this time.”

Chino reflects on his neighborhood, el barrio, in this quote. With so many people living in such close proximity amidst poverty and hopelessness, there’s bound to be a breaking point. The “fire next time” is an allusion to African American author James Baldwin’s collection of essays about race in America, but Chino says that the fire (or the boiling point) is even closer at hand.

“The taller the building the more people you place on top of one another, the higher the crime rate. They’re mammoth filing cabinets of human lies, like bees in a honeycomb, crowded and angry at paying rent for boxes that resemble prison cells.”

As a resident of Manhattan, Chino has lived all his life in various apartments, which allows him little space and privacy. The problems of the city and its residents are compounded by overcrowding. The comparison to bees in a honeycomb shows how residents of el barrio are at a tipping point, ready to riot and primed for change.

“Bodega had an unforgettable blend of nobility and street, as if God never made up his mind whether to have Bodega be born a leader or a hood.”

Chino makes this observation about Bodega, who is both a saint and a sinner at once. In other situations and other neighborhoods, or with other opportunities in life, Bodega might have been a rival to the great leaders of his time. 

“It was something about knowing who the important little people were, the forgotten ones who don’t wear suits, the mailroom clerk, the secretaries, the custodial staffs.”

Chino makes this observation about Nazario as the two of them walk through the streets of el barrio. People continually stop Nazario to shake his hand, bring him a gift or thank him. Nazario has done favors for these “little people” who help him by smoothing out various aspects of his criminal enterprise.

“A single lawyer,” Nazario continued, “can steal more money than a hundred men with guns.”

“I’m not a thief.”

“Everyone’s a thief. Crime is a matter of access. The only reason the mugger robs you is because he doesn’t have access to the books. If he did, he’d be a lawyer.”

Nazario tells this to Chino, and it becomes a common thread in their conversations. Although Chino protests that he’s not a thief, he’s willing to accept that dishonest and unlawful things can be done in the name of the greater good. Nazario points out that he’s simply stealing in a more civilized way—as a lawyer who handles paperwork rather than a criminal with a gun. 

“He was what we all wanted to be like, the Latin professional whom the Anglos feared because he was just as treacherous, just as devious, and he understood power. This was not some docile Latino you could push around.”

This is another observation Chino makes about Nazario, which is especially poignant because Chino is trying to succeed in an “Anglo” world through continuing his education. Nazario constantly preaches about the new professional class in Spanish Harlem, and he is an example of someone who can move seamlessly between the world of el barrio and the rest of Manhattan.

“It was as if Bodega had hit rewind on an ugly romantic scene that should have been shot differently, a scene that, after all these years, after he had played it in his head every day, he was now going to shoot with the ending he had always wanted.”

Chino makes this observation about Bodega when they see Vera at school auditorium. Bodega hasn’t seen Vera (formerly Veronica) in twenty years, but he’s clearly still smitten with her. Rather than see her as the woman she is now, he sees her as the girl he knew twenty years earlier, through the viewpoint of the young man he used to be. Like a filmmaker, Bodega wants to go back to that moment and reshoot the scene to get the ending he wants—a life with Veronica.

“If you’ve studied your history, you would know that the most powerful men have turned to garbage, basura, when they have fallen in love. All of them.”

Bodega says this to Chino, comparing himself to Napoleon who would do anything for his Josephine. Bodega has built up an empire for himself but seems willing to risk it for Vera. This is proven true later, when he takes his eye off the Alberto Salazar situation and focuses solely on Vera. Essentially, he is so blinded by his affection for her that he misses what is happening in plain sight.

“I’m not a person who likes to judge why people fall madly in love with some types of people because I don’t believe such things can be explained. It’s like chemistry, some elements are attracted to each other and it doesn’t matter that they can explode.”

Chino makes this observation about Bodega and Vera. At this point, he has developed a great deal of admiration for Bodega, thanks to Bodega’s plans to revitalize and reinvent Spanish Harlem. Vera doesn’t seem to fit in with these plans, since she’s taken great pains to remove herself from el barrio and has turned her back on everything but her golden life in Miami. 

“Bodega was still the same, believing he could recapture what had been lost, stolen, or denied to him and his people. As if the past was recyclable and all he had to do was collect enough cans to make a fortune and make another start.”

Chino makes this observation about Bodega, who is trying to make up for lost time with Vera. When they arrive at Chino’s apartment, they are drunk, disheveled and acting like teenagers. Wanting to recapture that former happiness, Bodega offers to take Vera to Central Park and the Palladium. Chino tells them that the Palladium has been torn down, which can symbolically represent the fact that Bodega and Vera will not be able to recapture the past.

“Stupidly, I was hoping for the best. As if things left alone can fix themselves. I hoped things would bury themselves, like reverse evolution, creation going backward.”

Chino makes this observation after he has been caught in a lie =by Blanca. Throughout his association with Bodega and Nazario, Chino hid information from Blanca, knowing it would upset her. When she catches him in a lie, Chino realizes that when she learns the full truth of his involvement with Bodega, she will leave him. Chino had been thinking that after he introduced Vera to Bodega, he could walk away and his involvement would simply be forgotten. He now realizes he’s in too deep for such a simple resolution.

“[Nazario] compared the fire to a tragedy like the ones that occurred in the Mother Island or our other Latin countries, where the most important form of help you got was from your neighbor, not the government.”

After the fire that destroyed their apartment building and displaced Blanca, Chino and their neighbors, the tenants gather on the sidewalk to hear Nazario’s words of encouragement. He promises that each of them would have new housing within a month, courtesy of Willie Bodega. The empire Bodega had built himself is dependent on favors done and loyalty returned, and since Bodega is known to come through when needed, the people have more reason to trust them than a government that had turned a blind eye to Spanish Harlem. 

“Every time someone makes a million dollars, he kills some part of the world.”

Nazario makes this statement to Chino after their visit to Cavarelli in Queens. Nazario compares their operation to the concept of Manifest Destiny, a policy that allowed a young nation to expand without being particularly concerned with the resulting casualties. As Nazario points out, Manifest Destiny was just another word for “genocide” (159), and yet, when people think about the western United States now, the ends justify the means.

“East Harlem had no business being in this rich city but there it was, filled with broken promises of a better life, dating decades back to the day when many Puerto Ricans and Latinos gathered their bags and carried their dreams on their backs and arrived in America, God’s country. But they would never see God’s face. Like all slumlords, God lived in the suburbs.”

Chino makes this observation when he is riding back into Manhattan from his visit to Cavarelli in Queens. In front of them were skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings, home to some of the most expensive and coveted real estate in the world. Spanish Harlem, just a few blocks north, might as well have been a world away. Many of the people who lived in Spanish Harlem never ventured beyond its boundaries, like Vera, who had lived all her life in the city but had never been to the Met until her husband took her there. Chino is implying that God had abandoned el barrio—much like the government had. If the neighborhood was going to rise, that boost would come from within, from people like Bodega.

“I stand for myself. One man. Above God. With liberty and just enough patience with your fucken social conscience shit to kick yo’ ass out of my car.”

Sapo says this to Chino when Chino mentions that the pizza Sapo is eating comes from Domino’s, a company that supports attacks on abortion clinics. Still, to Sapo, the pizza is good, and he doesn’t need a social conscience, because he acts as his own conscience. Sapo has never played by anyone’s rules, not even when he was in junior high and refused to complete homework or, memorably, took a bite out of his teacher’s neck. The higher power Sapo answers to is himself. 

“Hey Wilie,” I said as I was about to walk out the door, “I think you’re worth all the souls in hell. That’s thousands of more souls than there are in heaven. So you’re worth a lot, pana.”

These are Chino’s final words to Bodega, said while John Vidal lies dead on the ground in the back room of a restaurant. At the time, Bodega has his arms around Vera, who has just killed her husband, and comforts her by agreeing to take the blame for the killing. In the midst of his own tragedy, Bodega tells Chino that he’s sorry about Blanca, who has left Chino and is staying with her mother. This is the first—and only—compliment Chino pays to Bodega, as Bodega will be dead by morning. His use of the word pana (friend) is also significant.

“Bodega’s dreams were dead. They died quickly, ‘the way a hero sandwich dies in the garment district at twelve o’clock in the afternoon,’ as the poet Piñero put it.”

Chino makes this observation after learning about Bodega’s death and the resulting fallout. Bodega was blamed for the deaths of Alberto Salazar and John Vidal, and the police were only too happy to accept this version of events. With Bodega died, his dreams were left in the hands of Nazario and others. This was the last thing he could do to help those he loved—take the blame. 

“It’s a new language being born out of the ashes of two cultures clashing with each other…. Our people are evolving into something completely new.”

This is said by Bodega to Chino in Chino’s dream the night after Bodega’s funeral. The idea of two cultures merging relates to the book’s overall theme of reinvention. What will come after Bodega’s death is not a reversion to the past, since the lesson of Bodega’s life is that the past cannot be recaptured. For Chino and other Puerto Ricans living in New York, the way forward must be completely new.