Danny

"Hi, Clari!" Linda shouted without stopping her mad dash down the busy path. Kids and adults alike scampered out to safety, and then raised their fists yelling obscenities at the "crazy little bitch" who respected no one.

"Hi!" Clarissa yelled back, but Linda could not hear the reply to her greeting. Pedaling like mad, she disappeared around the corner before Clarissa had time to react.

Linda rode her bike around the project buildings using the paths meant for pedestrians as racing tracks. She had a well-deserved reputation throughout the projects as being bitchy and a troublemaker. Nevertheless, Clarissa secretly admired Linda’s carefree approach to life.

The neighbors referred to Linda as "the pain in the ass", but Clarissa secretly called her the “projects’ princess". It seemed to her that Linda had the best of everything—the best bike, the best clothes, her own computer and soon enough even her own car. She had all the things that Clarissa would like to have—a functional home being the most important one.

Clarissa wanted to think that she was not the jealous type, but she could not help wondering what it would be like being Linda. Linda always looked so bubbly, so glad to be alive.

Clarissa and Linda had been friends for years. Exactly how many years, Clarissa could not recall. Linda was fond of calling Clarissa her best friend and never wasted any opportunity to spend time with her; but Clarissa had never given her any reasons to believe that she felt the same way about her. Clarissa was aware that more than one girl in the projects would give her right arm to be best friends with Linda; and although, Clarissa was sure that she sincerely liked the popular girl, she was not quite so sure that she wanted her for best friend.

Clarissa sat on her books in the front steps of building twenty-nine. Sometimes she sat there for hours before going upstairs upon returning home from school. She wished she did not have to go upstairs at all. She would seriously like to stay sitting on the stairs until it was time to go back to school, if that were possible.

Her friends wondered and asked her why she liked school so much, being that she was never absent. She hoped they would never find out that it was not school that she liked so much. Actually, what she liked an awful lot was being away from the projects, her apartment, and everything in it—especially Danny.

Pulgas, her cat, who always seemed to be overjoyed—at least as overjoyed as a cat could get—at seeing her step off the school bus, came over purring a welcome home to the girl. The cat, a sinuous boneless-like creature of many moods, black as tar, and with eyes as green as new grass, spent the day wandering about the projects. However, as soon as the school bus arrived, he came trotting to meet Clarissa.

He rubbed his face against Clarissa’s legs, meowing what sounded like an invitation to go on upstairs. The cat walked part of the way to the front door as if beckoning Clarissa to follow, but when she ignored his proposition, the cat returned, climbed on her lap, and gave her what appeared to be a reproachful look. The cat could go upstairs by himself, the doors being always wide open, but he seemed unable to detach himself from his master.

Every morning, Pulgas came down the two flights of stairs with the girl to meet the school bus. Sometimes a neighbor had to hold him back, so he did not get in the bus with her. He had been that close to Clarissa ever since she had found him—a tiny, pitiful, rag-like thing, dying in front of Don Daniel’s bodega—almost two years to the day.

The poor kitten had been a breeding ground for fleas, so the name Pulgas had immediately come to mind, pulgas being Spanish for fleas and, to Clarissa, a pleasant sounding word.

Nursing Pulgas back to health had been a labor of love that had brought pure pleasure and a sense of accomplishment to her lackluster existence. And it had also helped Clarissa take her mind off of her seemingly eternal domestic crisis.

"What’s up, girl?" Linda yelled, emerging from behind the building and screeching to a halt in front of the steps.

"You’re going to kill someone one of these days, girl. That bike of yours, in your hands, is a weapon—a lethal one,” Clarissa replied shaking her head in disapproval of her friend’s careless bike riding ways.

"How’s the dummy doing today? Still giving you a hard time?"

"I wish you didn’t call him that!" Clarissa said sharply. She thought that Danny’s condition was nobody’s business, especially Linda’s; after all, Linda was almost as retarded as he was, in Clarissa’s opinion.

"Get away from me, cat!" Linda said to Pulgas, cowering away from him in mock fear. "That cat is bad news. Black cats bring bad luck, girl. If you’re smart, you get rid of it."

"You’ve been saying that for two years. There’s nothing wrong with black cats." Almost every day Clarissa found herself defending the big Tom from not only Linda and her insults, but also from Miguel. He had proposed more than once to get rid of him, saying that the cat was too expensive to care for.

"Will you girls get out of my way?" a gruff voice behind them yelled. Clarissa turned just as the old man brought his cane down and tapped her on the forehead.

"Stop that, Don Luis! You hit me with that stupid stick every day. What’s wrong with you?" Clarissa shouted.

"He’s nuts! That’s what’s wrong with him,” Linda said.

"Eh?" the old man exclaimed, turning what might be his good ear to the girls. "Why you kids insist in blocking the doorway?" he then asked in as loud a voice as he could muster, which actually was not very loud. Then in a softer tone of voice, he asked Clarissa, "Is your brother sick again, child? I heard him crying last night. It must’ve been three in the morning."

"Yeah, well, he cries..."

"When’s Monica coming back?"

"She... she..."

"Her sister any better?"

"Well, she..."

"Awful how people get sick these days. Dropping like flies. Here today, gone tomorrow," Don Luis said in a staccato speech, giving the impression that he could not speak in long fluid sentences. It made Clarissa edgy just to hear him talk. It seemed to her that everything he said he shouted, as if he thought that everyone around him was deaf. Thank God, his shouts were not very loud.

"Shut up!" she said quietly, almost to herself, counting on the fact that Don Luis was half-deaf.

"Eh?" the old man yelled. He must have had his good ear turned just in the right direction—he almost heard that one. Clarissa had to be more careful. If Miguel found out that she was being disrespectful to her elders, she would never hear the end of it.

"No. Nothing," she said.

"Old fool, why don’t you mind your own business?" Linda said in a loud whisper, hoping to be heard.

"Eh?" Don Luis yelled, cupping a hand to his supposed good ear, his dark, wrinkled face frowning, slowly morphing into a Clingon-like thing.

"Deaf as a log," Linda said, making a wry face.

"Nothing, Don Luis," Clarissa said almost over Linda’s words, giving her girlfriend a look that seemed to spray venom at her. Linda shrugged her shoulders touching a finger to her lips, signaling that she would behave.

"About that Lopez boy..."

"I don’t want to hear it, Don Luis. Not again! Jesus! He's twenty-seven. Why does everyone insist on calling him boy?" Clarissa said, interrupting the old man’s prospective lecture. Her eyes spat daggers, apparently no longer worried about the consequences of disrespecting the elderly. She started to descend the stairs, pushing Linda ahead of her.

"I tell you, he’s up to no good," Don Luis shouted as the girls walked away.

Linda giggled, turning her head to look at Don Luis, her lips forming a silent "go to hell", which she dared not say aloud for Clarissa’s sake.

Clarissa fumed, not only because of Don Luis’ meddlesome ways, but also because of Linda’s antics. Clarissa was so angry and eager to get away that she left her books on the steps.

Linda seemed to be having so much fun that her bike was also left unattended on the sidewalk.

"Is he talking about Hector?" Linda asked as they went around the building to give Don Luis time to go away.

"Yeah. He thinks Hector is the plague."

"Well, he ain’t no monk."

"Linda, if I wanted a monk, I’d go to a monastery," Clarissa said, the sarcasm so blunt that even Linda could not fail to see it.

"Gad! You’re touchy today!"

"Look out!" Clarissa shouted, pulling Linda back.

Mouth agape, they watched the bike that almost ran them over turn the corner of building twenty-seven.

"Hey, asshole, why don’t you look where you’re going?" Linda yelled, shaking a fist at a pair of shirttails waving in the air as the bike and its rider got lost behind the brick structure.

"Wasn’t that your bike, Linda?" Clarissa asked. She watched Linda’s expression change from amusement to unbelieving shock.

"Hey!" Linda yelled. Then not seeing any immediate recourse she let out a litany of swears, "Damn! Damn! Damn!"

"My books!" Clarissa exclaimed, bolting down the path and up the steps. She found them scattered all over the entranceway, but they were all there. She exhaled relief, looked up to the sky, and a quiet "thank you, God" escaped her lips.

"Oooo, wait till my father finds out about this. He’ll skin him alive. Oh, he’ll find him all right. This guy’s gonna wish he was never born!" Linda rambled from the foot of the stairs, while Clarissa gathered her books, still murmuring thanks to the gods in heaven.

"I’ve had enough excitement for one day, Linda, I’m going upstairs," Clarissa declared, the bundle of books safely cradled in the crook of her left arm.

"What about my bike?" Linda said, starting to climb the few steps between her and the half-open door where Clarissa stood holding the knob.

"You should’ve been more careful."

"What about you?" Linda said accusingly. "You left your books and nobody took them."

"Linda, one can’t ride books," Clarissa answered. "I’ve got to go. Sorry about your bike."

She entered the dark hallway, and her thoughts turned just as dark.

(This story will be continued in a later post.)