Cuban Chinese
There was a cool
Cuban Chinese restaurant next door, El Chino Sabroso, and sometimes we would go there for lunch. They’re a combination
Cuban, which is close to Puerto Rican cuisine, and Chinese. The owner being
Cuban too was a great pal of Manny’s and sometime after the dog affair, as I
like to call it, I went there for lunch.
“So Chan, has ya hoid
from Manuel?”
He sat down with me
and frowned as he took out a pack of Camels. He offered me a smoke, lit up, and took a really deep drag. Then as he took
my order, he said,
“He go Lang Island,
buy cah dealer da, he selling cahs, na.”
“Really!”
“Si, he say no easy
stealing cahs from lot, an he no selling clothes…too much pwoblemas.”
That was the last I
heard of him, but that sure is a hell of a loss of quality of life. Can you imagine that, the freaking burglars won a case
against their victim. I needed, wanted or perhaps the urge was so strong for a smoke,
I bummed one of Chan’s.
Junkies have ruined
so many nabes, and lives, it’s one of the ugliest things to have happened to us. Truly whatever we’re doing to deal with
drugs isn’t working. It’s time do something different.
Not long after that I
was up on Columbus Avenue in the city. The
nabe looked cool, but there were a lot of drugs in the area, and it was
getting dangerous. I had a real good customer with a cool boutique there, she was tired
of the drugs, but she had an established clientele.
“I hea da
shootings all da time, I’m scared sometimes ya na,” she confided to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment