50 pages • 1 hour read
Ernesto QuiñonezA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Before returning home to Blanca, Chino takes a walk down Fifth Avenue to 96thStreet, remembering how he and Sapo used to skip school to sneak into museums. El Museo del Barrio was the only museum where they could walk around freely, without being followed by a guard. When they wandered past some of the fancy apartments on Fifth Avenue, noting the doormen and the air conditioning units in every window, Chino saw the “difference between those that had and those that didn’t” (44).
Back in their apartment, he and Blanca talk about naming the baby—either Julio for a boy or Deborah for a girl, after Blanca’s sister. Remembering what Sapo said to him, Chino suggests the name Vera, after Blanca’s aunt. Blanca is against the idea, informing Chino that Veronica (who now calls herself Vera), lives in Miami, is married to a rich Cuban man, and has basically severed all ties with Spanish Harlem. When Blanca says, “Supposedly she was going to marry this guy she was in love with, some street activist or something, but her mother made her marry the Cuban” (46), Chino makes the connection. He realizes that Bodega is renovating the neighborhood not just because he believes in the community, but because he wants to impress Vera and win her back.
Blanca also informs Chino about a special service at her church in two weeks, where a seventeen-year-old “anointed”—a boy who the church believes will rule with Christ in heaven for one thousand years after his death—will be the guest speaker.
Before he falls asleep, Chino takes an assessment of his life—the small apartment, the high rent, the increased cost of tuition and their baby on the way. He comes back to the idea of “basic, simple street politics” (47); if he does Bodega a favor, he will be able to ask for something from Bodega in return.
After work at the market the next day, Chino spots Sapo at La Reyna Bakery and Sapo offers him a ride to school. Chino asks Sapo about Bodega’s intentions—did Bodega really want Chino to work with Nazario, or did he merely want Chino to track down Vera for him? Both, Sapo tells him.
Sapo makes a few stops on the way to Hunter College, which makes Chino nervous about missing class. They pick up Nene, then stop at a poultry house to get a live goose. Finally, they drive to a botanica, a shop that sells religious articles and folk medicine and also doubles as a pawnshop. Chino describes it as “a place that knew hunger and desperation. A place you could find things hocked out of a deep need for something good or bad” (52). Sapo gives the goose to Doña Ramonita, so she can make an offering to Changó on Bodega’s behalf. She gives Sapo some jars of liquid and instructions that Bodega should follow, but cautions him about the outcome, saying, “I have seen the woman he is after…the woman he is after is coming with a lot of trouble. As if she is the daughter of Changó himself” (53). In a momentary flash-forward, Chino reflects that the warning is accurate. “Vera would arrive, fading in and fading out of the neighborhood as if in a film,” he recalls. “It didn’t matter that the show was over and everyone was going home disappointed, only that you felt responsible for the movie going bad…. With Vera it would be the whole neighborhood that got cheated. Many were at fault, and I was among them” (53).
Later, Chino tells Sapo that he wants to see Bodega again. He plans to deliver Vera in exchange for a two-bedroom apartment. Sapo is only angry that Chino told him this after they’d gone to the trouble of delivering the goose to Doña Ramonita, stinking up his car in the process.
To find out information about Vera, Chino decides to visit Blanca’s sister Negra (Deborah), who lives in the projects facing the East River. When he arrives, he finds that Negra has stabbed Victor in the stomach after he lied to her about seeing the movie Donnie Brasco. Victor, clutching his stomach in pain, denies that he has been seeing another woman. When Negra is out of the room, Chino convinces Victor that he needs medical attention, but Victor whispers to him that they can’t to go Metropolitan Hospital, only two blocks away, because his girlfriend works in the emergency room. He doesn’t want Negra to see the girl and doesn’t want the girl to see Negra, since Victor hasn’t told her he is married. Chino takes Victor in a cab to Mount Sinai Hospital. At the hospital, Victor reports that he fell on a knife.
Chino calls Negra from the hospital to report on Victor’s situation and asks her to find Vera, since he’s just done a favor for her. Negra is skeptical but agrees to make some inquiries.
When he returns home, Blanca is furious because a lease for a two-bedroom apartment from the Harry Goldstein Real Estate Agency was slipped under their door. The new apartment, twice as large, would cost half the rent of their current apartment, but Blanca is upset that Chino has made arrangements without consulting her. She is also suspicious about the connections that made this possible. Without mentioning anything about Bodega, Chino assures her that he will be honest with her in the future.
She then asks Chino if he knows anyone who would want to get married to a “sister” from church, an illegal from Colombia named Claudia. Chino only half-listens to her request, reflecting that Blanca doesn’t have community connections outside of her church “because the street was never her playground. Her only source was the church, and if that community lacked what she needed, she had no other options” (63). Blanca even considers asking help from Negra, since Negra has a reputation for getting information. For example, when a gay man from the neighborhood was found stabbed to death, Negra knew who had killed him. Rather than going to the police, she spread the word through the neighborhood, and eventually the information got to the police.
When Negra calls later that night, she reports to Chino that she’s located Vera and that Vera is on her way back to the city, where she will be recognized for a donation made to her old elementary school. Chino asks Negro not to tell Blanca anything about this request, and the tables are quickly turned. In exchange for not Negra saying anything to Blanca, Chino is now in Negra’s debt.
The next night, Chino and Blanca arrive home from class and see Sapo’s car outside their building. Sapo asks Chino for two favors—to hold a “nice fat eight-by-eleven envelope, all taped up” (69) for him, and to go visit Bodega.
Bodega is in the Taino Towers with his business partner, Edwin Nazario, a “tall, confident man in his forties who walked the streets wearing expensive suits and alligator shoes but was never mugged” (70). Nazario seems thrilled to meet Chino, whom he regards as part of a new rising class of professionals in East Harlem. Privately, Chino informs Bodega that Vera will be in New York next week. Bodega is thrilled, making “triumphant fists in the air as if he had won some showdown fight” (72).
Then Chino is dismissed, as the men have urgent business to discuss. Chino overhears part of their conversation, which concerns a man named Alberto Salazar, described as a “good man” who is “just doing his job” (71).
As Chino makes his way home, the streets of Spanish Harlem are teeming with life—hydrants opened, women dancing, teenage girls flirting with guys and old men playing dominoes. Chino is excited that he and Blanca will soon be living in a better place and that he will soon be able to talk to Blanca “without hiding anything between parentheses” (73).
In the morning, Sapo shows up for Chino again. This time, he educates Chino on how Bodega came to his position of power and influence. According to Sapo, an Italian named Tony Salerno had run most of the underground operations in East Harlem, but he sold some of his tenements to pay millions in legal fees. Bodega and Nazario, jostling for power, bought Salerno’s tenements.
Sapo takes Chino to El Museo del Barrio, where Bodega is waiting. Chino finds Bodega studying a painting of Adam and Eve by Jorge Soto. Bodega points to Adam, noting that he had it all, even the ability to talk with God, “‘but it meant nothing to him without her’” (78). Bodega informs Chino that he plans to marry Vera, insisting that she never loved her husband but was forced into the marriage by her mother. At the time, Bodega was involved with the Young Lords, a group that wanted emancipation and “self-determination” (79) for Puerto Rico and all Latin countries. To achieve better housing and health care, the group took over a church in the barrio, held rallies, and offered classes on “Marxist education” and “urban military tactics” (80). Bodega says that what Vera really wanted was for Bodega to marry her, and when that didn’t happen, she agreed to the marriage with the Cuban.
When Chino suggests that Vera might simply have wanted the Cuban’s money, Bodega is offended on her behalf and cuts off the conversation.
The next day, Chino and Blanca move to their new apartment, courtesy of Bodega. Alone that night, Chino eats dinner in front of the television and hears the name “Alberto Salazar.” He learns that Salazar was a reporter for a local paper, El Diario/La Prensa “working on an investigation of a drug lord in East Harlem” (82). It is reported that in addition to a gunshot wound, “Salazar had suffered a serious bite to the shoulder” (82).
The “knockout” at the end of Book I is Chino’s realization that he knows who killed Salazar.
These chapters introduce one of the main themes of the book, the complicated system of debts and repayments that run the characters’ lives. In all of Chino’s relationships outside of the one with his wife, favors come at a cost. Every time Sapo approaches Chino, it’s always to remind him about an old debt from junior high, a time when Sapo came to Chino’s aid.
This causes Chino to think about what he might get out of a connection with Willie Bodega. As a relative by marriage to Vera, Chino has what Bodega wants, and Bodega has what Chino wants—a two-bedroom apartment for his growing family. Yet, it seems clear that the transaction is not so simple. Despite passing on information about Vera’s whereabouts and impending trip to the city, Chino’s involvement is not yet done.
Chino enters into a similarly uneasy agreement with the unstable Negra. When he asks Negra not to tell Blanca about his inquiries regarding Vera, Chino becomes indebted to Negra, and this is a debt that will not easily be repaid.
Chino is becoming increasingly distant from Blanca. He hopes that when Vera visits and his involvement with Bodega comes to an end, he’ll be able to be honest with Blanca again. Therefore, he hides everything to do with Bodega, Nazario, Vera and Sapo from her. Meanwhile, Blanca is involved in a situation involving a woman from her church, a Colombian illegal who is looking to marry to receive citizenship. Chino has been looking out for his young family and entering into some risky situations to ultimately better their situation, but Blanca always seems to be concerned with helping others and expecting nothing in return.
Through his association with Sapo and Bodega, Chino is drawn further into the world that Blanca wants him to avoid. It was one thing to do some minor favors for Sapo, including holding envelopes of drugs and helping him collect money, but Chino had basically been clean himself—he was merely helping out an old friend out of a loyalty dating back to their junior high days. When he learns of the death of Alberto Salazar, the man who was being discussed by Bodega and Salazar, Chino realizes he has gotten into some serious business. The bite mark in particular is significant, as the second sentence of the book mentions Sapo’s reputation for biting.