Taína Page 10
The shoot was to be at Orchestra Records in Harlem, 1210 Lenox Avenue, at one p.m. That’s all the information Lavoe had given the Girls, nothing about what to wear, what to bring, what to sign. Nothing. When they arrived and checked their names at the security desk, the recording studio was empty. They waited. The first person to show up was the lighting guy. A long-haired kid from Long Island with two first names: Frank Christopher. All Frank did was talk about opening a jazz club on 103rd and Broadway. He set the lights and took tons of Polaroid pictures of Mom from all angles and sides of her face. “Jazz is missing on the West Side these days.” And he’d take a picture. “I’m going to call it Smoke. You girls should drop by, give you free drinks.” But jazz was not in the hearts of these girls, they loved the heat of salsa, and now one of them was going to be on an album cover belonging to one of their gods. They waited. Then the photographer arrived. A middle-aged woman with white hair, yellow teeth, and butchy-looking shoes and jeans. She took from Frank the Polaroids of Mom and studied them, looking for Mom’s best angles. She asked the Girls if they wanted anything. It was now six p.m. and they were hungry and she told them to go out and eat, nothing was going to happen until Héctor got here. And then she said in Spanish, “Héctor se está pullando, y viene cuando le dé la gana.” They were taken aback because they had never heard a white woman talk in such clear, precise Spanish, and she had told them what they as seasoned salseras already knew: Lavoe was getting high. His band knew it; that’s why they were not there. Everyone knew it. Nothing was going to happen until at least midnight. That’s why the studio was empty. My mother asked what she was going to be wearing, what she was going to be doing in the picture. The photographer laid out the shoot. Told Mom that she would be lying in her underwear on an ironing board as Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón’s band surrounded her, mimicking ironing movements and holding hot irons in their hands. Oh, and that depending on what underwear she had on, if Lavoe liked it, she could be in the picture wearing it, otherwise she would have to be nude on the ironing board. The album title was La Plancha.
They continued to have fun and be the Girls and never crossed lines that would hurt them or their families religiously. Soon, eighteen became twenty-eight, and for motherless, single Latinas this was the kiss of death. Both their respected parents kept bugging them, expecting the Girls to get married and have kids, keep a home, “se van a quedar jamonas,” they’d say to them, “con sólo gatos.” But they continued to work hard and dance even harder. Soon, my mother passed a civic test and was now a city clerk for the MTA, and Inelda was now a receptionist for a chic facial surgery doctor in midtown, and they continued to party. Most of their checks belonged to their families, but the weekends were for las Chicas.
My mother’s crazy recording studio photo shoot experience never left Inelda. Or better said, she never forgot the recording studio. Inelda always sang. Back at Julia Richman High School she sang in plays, assemblies, and fashion shows. You could hear Inelda’s soulful Latin voice at block parties, weddings, bridal showers, parades. Never in church, though, as Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t really get down the way Pentecostals do on street corners, which would have made Inelda a star at her church. Karaoke was just getting introduced in America, but it had not reached New York City, let alone Spanish Harlem. Inelda wanted to sing. She loved Lisa Lisa, Prince, Stacy Lattisaw, worshipped Irene Cara, Alison Moyet solo or with YAZ, Teena Marie, especially “Lovergirl,” the Latin Rascals, Brenda K. Starr, Olga Tañon, the Cover Girls, Expose, Luther Vandross, and for a while she couldn’t get enough of Jon Secada; but her soul belonged to anything or anyone related to salsa. Inelda had seen flyers at Orchestra Records advertising auditions for backup singers. It seemed they were always calling for backup singers. And so the Girls returned ten years later, only this time it was so Inelda could sing.
The Girls arrived together, always together, along with other hopeful singers, and cleared security and then went up the narrow stairs that led to the recording studios of Orchestra Records, where everything was produced on the cheap. They made a lot of 78s that broke as easily as eggshells, by mostly unknown singers and bands that Orchestra Records hoped would take off. But many would sell only a few hundred copies, and the rest would end up in milk crates on the floors of botanicas such as San Lázaro y Las Siete Vueltas, Otto Chicas, and El Congo Real or in barbershops of Latino neighborhoods in American cities. Outside of a red door marked STUDIO was a small waiting room where the Girls sat on folding chairs and lingered along with others to be called. On the wall were taped pictures of the labels’ stars. There was a glass window into the studio, and the Girls could see the musicians setting up their brass instruments, their liquor bottles on the floor next to them. The studio was about the size of a big kitchen, with corked walls to keep the sound in and two large RCA microphones in the center and another four mics for the studio musicians. The horn players would sit on one side of the room, and the rhythm section of drummers, conga players, timbales, bass, and piano would be on the other side of the room, some standing, as it was crowded and many had to improvise their spaces. The center was reserved for the singer. Inelda’s name was called. It was her time to shine. But family lore has it that what happened in this fairy tale was that when Inelda was about to audition, a frog showed up disguised as a prince and swept Mom away.
I know what happened next only because as a little kid I loved it when my parents invited friends over for drinks. They’d play old music, drink too much, and talk about things that should have stayed caged. They’d tell me to go to bed, but I would stay up in my room, my ear glued to the door, and listen to the adults talk. I’d hear my half-drunk parents tell stories about their youth. It was during one of these small parties, when I was about twelve, that I heard about Bobby “el Pollo con la Voz” Arroyo. He was a salsero whom Orchestra Records was betting high on. They had spent a good amount of money on him and his Mercedes-Benz was proof. He had the swagger of a Latin lover’s walk as if he were the last Coca-Cola in the desert. I heard that Bobby had a good voice, not great but good. He was, though, a great lyricist and could compose on the fly, the second coming of Lavoe, who had just died. His arrangements needed help, though, and he wasn’t that great of a songwriter either. Orchestra Records was going to surround him with the best talent they had, as the cosmos was trembling for his debut. His looks were devastating. But what made him so marketable wasn’t so much his good looks but rather that Bobby could boast being the American-born son of four Latino nationalities, and not just four, the Big Four. His mother was Puerto Rican and Cuban. His father was Dominican and Mexican. Orchestra Records heard cashiers ringing all over the Americas and especially in U.S. cities such as New York, Chicago, Miami, Boston, D.C., and LA. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Chicanos, and Cubans could all claim Bobby “el Pollo con la Voz” Arroyo as theirs.
In my family, like most families, they led us kids to believe that our mother had only ever been in love with our father and vice versa. Not true. I know about Bobby only because of the gossip that gets spread around at parties by friends, neighbors, and at church, or as I just recently was told by Salvador of other things of which I was clueless. It’s these secrets that birth more secrets when a family tries to cover them. I heard my mother fell madly in love with Bobby. They were always together, whether on the beach or at La Marqueta, she’d always place her arm around him as if she had known him all her life. In summer they’d go to Coney Island. In winter ice skating at Lasker Rink or bowling—yes, bowling—at the 42nd Street Port Authority. But the nights were for his salsa gigs, which if in New York City my mother never failed to attend, and then the party afterward, which my mother, who still lived with her parents, could not attend. Each time he would say to Mom, “Sólo un chin, un chin, mami, just a few minutes.” But this meant he’d stay all night. Mom would have to leave all by herself, but it mattered little to her. My mom was willing to marry this guy—it would be a bad thing to marry a non–Jehovah’s Wit
ness, but at least she’d be leaving her father’s house by the Book. But this was impossible, because, you see, Bobby “el Pollo con la Voz” Arroyo was already married with kids.
But soon, Bobby’s career soured as fast as it had been sweet, as there was, and always will be, only one Héctor Lavoe. Bobby’s debut sales were laughable. Super KQ or La Mega wouldn’t play his single “Apriétame La Cintura”; same for other Spanish stations. His manager bullied Orchestra Records to release what he felt was a more danceable single, “Tirando a Pelota,” to the same results. Soon, gigs became hard to book. His manager convinced Orchestra Records to take a gamble and foot the bill for a big free summer concert in Central Park. It rained for three days, and when the sun showed its face, there were more mosquitoes on the grass than people. His manager had Orchestra Records pair him with other established acts on the bill, but he had so little draw that these acts didn’t want him. They lost money carrying “el Pollo con la Voz” on their bill. They mutinied. Threatened to leave when their contracts were up and go to Fania.
But my mother still loved Bobby. After work she would make the easy trek of taking a crosstown bus from Spanish Harlem to the Upper West Side and to Yogi’s, a country-western bar where Bobby drank all day. She would sit with Bobby “el Pollo con la Voz” Arroyo in a bar where no sounds that escaped the country music jukebox could drift him back to a failed past. She’d make excuses for him. That he had been under too much pressure. The fault lay with Orchestra Records. The fault lay with his manager. They had chosen the wrong singles to release. They had overlooked the good numbers, the ones that showcased his voice and had a great tin-tirin-tin-tin salsa beat that was irresistible. My mother would blame everyone but Bobby, and I think this made him more like a saint in her eyes. Most nights my mother had to put a drunken Bobby in a cab and take him back to his wife. Leave him at the door, hoping that his wife would find him outside their apartment. She never met his kids, never met his wife, but they both knew about each other. And one night as my mother brought a drunk Bobby home, his wife had left her a note outside the door: “I put up with him because he pays my rent. But you?”
Then one night at Yogi’s, as David Allan Coe sang about picking up his mother from prison, the public phone on the wall next to this big wooden bear rang. The barmaid answered it. She didn’t know how, but he knew Bobby “el Pollo con la Voz” Arroyo drank there. She covered the mouthpiece and yelled toward Bobby, who sat next to my mother, “Your manager!”
I’m sure Bobby and my mom must have felt a surge of hope. A belief in a God that doesn’t let you hit rock bottom.
“They want me to make a record?” Bobby said over the phone.
“No, Bobby, that’s the last thing they want.”
At Orchestra Records was this fresh, great-looking kid, a genius reggaetón singer, Puerto Rican Colombian Nicaraguan Honduran, and like his background, his music was a signature of everything. It had licks of salsa, merengue, hip-hop, even Latin jazz, all tied up by his reggaetón kicks. His sales were projected to be astronomical, and since his last name was also Arroyo, he wanted to be the one and only “Pollo.” He bullied Orchestra Records to get that name back. The record company had no choice. They thought of a promo to be shown all over Telemundo, where they would re-create the kitchen where they had shot Bobby “el Pollo con la Voz” Arroyo’s only and last video, get some dancers dressed the same exact way, and then have Bobby come on-screen to utter, “Yo ya estoy cocinaó.” And the kid would come on-screen, push Bobby aside, and start singing in a breakneck-speed reggaetón, “Yo soy el nuevo pollo, el único con orgullo, Jessie Arroyo. Tú tienes un hoyo, cuidado con mi pollo.” It was a hit. Bobby was paid two hundred bucks and then went back to his slow flickering.
Inelda?
The “Stay together” mantra?
My mother had wrapped herself around this guy like a recurring melody and had forgotten all about her best friend. At the Orchestra Records’ audition, Mom had left Inelda flat the second Bobby showed up and said, “Mami, ¿cual es tu nombre?” I would love to say that I was told in detail how beautifully Doña Flores sang that day, years ago. I would love to say that in my family we have talked about the day when Inelda’s voice put Mercedes Sosa to shame. From family friends and church gossip, all I have about that day are bits and pieces on how Inelda sang a bolero a cappella. And how the people in that room were changed. Inelda’s voice told everyone that Latinas can sing sad songs like no other people because they are not really singing. They are telling the story of our suffering and how this suffering is a bridge to one another and how all of us must cross this bridge or we will die. I have heard that when Inelda finished her number, you could hear a mouse piss on cotton. But afterward, Inelda never showed up to Orchestra Records again. She was afraid of going alone. Her best friend dumped her, and later, she hid further into herself. I don’t know more about Doña Flores than this. All I know is that that must be the voice Taína inherited.
What happened to Mom later is where things get foggy like shower curtains, images become opaque and blurry. It started with a black eye. That Bobby was so drunk, one night “El mejor sonero del mundo, sí, señor,” after taking another swig of whiskey, bashed my mother’s eye. Told her to shut up. He’d heard enough and that all those excuses she was making for him didn’t matter. He was the best. He was still great no matter what anybody said, better than all of them. “Lavoe,” he yelled before they were both thrown out of that bar, “era un canario en heroína. Pero yo, yo soy el pollo con la voz.”
That night, my mother arrived at her parents’ disheveled, scared, and crying. I have been told neighbors saw her. Family and friends saw her. Everyone saw her. Everyone heard what had happened or had his or her own version. Some say that it was something worse than a black eye. Why would her parents be so ashamed that they’d take my mother on a “vacation” to Panama? Why would they leave town, like Mary did when she got pregnant? I don’t know. When I was twelve and secretly listening to the adults talk from my room, what stands out is not what my mom went through or what happened to Inelda. What stands out is never, ever, hearing my father say a word. All her other friends would cut Mom off, laugh a little, or ask something, but never did I hear my father. I can only picture him silent, staring straight ahead, a beer in hand, letting Mom tell a story he could do nothing about. A story that maybe my mother should have never told. Or at least not in front of him.
* * *
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YOU KNOW WHO loves you by the gifts they bring you. The gifts don’t have to cost a lot, they just need to reflect a part of you and of the other person. There is this colorful bookstore on 103rd between Park and Lexington called La Casa Azul. It has a blue canopy and a sidewall mural featuring both Mexican icons such as Frida Kahlo and Nuyorican poets such as Pedro Pietri, along with a lot of skeletons. I asked the great-looking Chicana lady, Aurora Anaya, who owned the place, if she could suggest books that a girl of fifteen would like. She gave me some titles. I bought them along with a book on the origin of the universe. I then took the 6 downtown. I bought an iPod and magazines for Taína, an alligator shirt for BD, a camera for Sal, linen sheets for Doña Flores’s new bed, and cooking utensils for my father. For my mother, flowers, earrings, and a José Luis Perales Exitos CD. I was happy with all my purchases because I felt in my gifts they’d see what I saw in them. And in my gifts they could read how much they cared for me.
* * *
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“ARE YOU SURE these aren’t hot?” Mom said when I gave her the earrings.
“Ma,” I said, “I bring you a gift and you accuse me of stealing?”
“Está bien, Julio. Pero…” She bit her lower lip because she liked them. “You washed my feet the other day, now you bring me jewelry? Huh? I don’t know—”
“My job is going great, Ma.” I saw my father in the kitchen excitedly opening the fridge to see what he could cook up with his new uten
sils.
“Did you read the Watchtower magazine I left you?” Mom asked me.
“Yes,” I lied to make her happy.
“And you know you have a doctor’s appointment,” she said, holding her earrings tight. “Do you still believe that Taína got pregnant by herself?”
“Again?” I sighed. “Again?”
“Do you?”
“You do,” I said jokingly. “You go to church every Sunday to say hi to her Son.” But I could not tease her much. Sometimes I could, but now things were different.
“You know what I mean,” she said, a bit annoyed. “You just better go to your doctor’s appointment.”
“Of course,” I said, because after what I knew Mom had gone through she could do no wrong.
“Yo voy contigo.”
“Ma, no,” I protested, only because going to the doctor with your mother is embarrassing. “I’m seventeen, I can go by myself—”