No Matter How Much You Promise Page 79
She thought again of being small and wanting to be a little drummer boy in the Revolutionary War. And then she recalled little Fawn in Tompkins Square Park with her drum harness strapped on her shoulders, insisting she was a drummer girl. Vidamía didn’t like the image of war. Instead she thought of struggles and knew that whatever threatened her dreams and those of others had to be resisted. One way or the other, she’d have to stand up against injustice without resorting to violence. Whether it was with her spoken or her written words, with her emotion or her intellect, her body or her soul, she would always fight injustice. Until there was no longer strength in her being or breath in her life, she would do battle and win against the things that prevented human beings from realizing their dreams. Not just the talented and gifted, but everyone. The greatness of the country could not be measured by those who were the best, but by how the weakest thrived.
Through the excitement of the music and the deafening applause Vidamía Farrell, daughter of Elsa and Lurleen, granddaughter of Maud and Ursula, saw herself returning with her log and knew that she had to get busy and make her drum.
The book also honors all the women ancestors of our family, but particularly our most recent:
Patricia Schumacher Vega (b. 1940) Abigail Yunqué de Vega (b. 1916) Harriet Turner Schumacher (b. 1920) Laura Vega Lebrón (1890–1909) Asunción Martínez de Yunqué (1886–1990) Hattie Tuchtenhagen Schumacher (1892–1982) Mary Magnussen Borg (1888–1978)
And the others before them and the ones to come, each one teacher, nurturer, and defender of our bloodline, extending to the East and West, to the North and South, across oceans and deserts, mountains and forests, jungles and savannahs, across ice floes and tundra, into all parts of the world and into time past, present, and future.
Also by Edgardo Vega Yunqué
The Comeback
Mendoza’s Dreams
Casualty Report
Author’s Note
The writing of this book began in 1987. It is now sixteen years since the initial idea occurred to me and I began writing about it. I composed the novel out of concern and affection for the variety of people I’ve known during my life, in my family and out. Their color or ethnicity never mattered in our relationships. My intent in the novelistic structure of the work has been to pay homage to two original art forms from this hemisphere: the Mexican mural and United States jazz. As such, the novel may be viewed as a mural or heard as a symphonic work.
My love of jazz began when I was a teenager. I am not a jazz musician so my knowledge of the music is that of a fan and a student. I arrived in this country at the age of thirteen, with little knowledge of the United States. At that impressionable age, I was tossed into an Irish neighborhood in the south Bronx, specifically 141st Street between Cypress and St. Ann’s Avenues. I played football and other sports for the Shamrocks. My presence eventually caused the team name to be changed to the Rebels. The neighborhood accepted me with curiosity and warmth. My introduction to the United States was through Irish eyes. My inspiration comes mainly from my heritage. However, in understanding the United States, I also look to the Irish for inspiration since in many respects their pride in their ancestry is similar to ours as Puerto Ricans. There are other similarities. As is the case with us, their ancestral home has been subjected to invasion by a more powerful political entity. Our mutual love of language has impelled us to adopt the use of English as a way of combating the aggression. I have attempted to emulate this linguistic stand since English is not my first language.
My siblings married Irish. Last year, my daughter, to whom this book is dedicated, married a young man from Dublin. In that regard the circle has been completed.
Before I understood the English language, I was fascinated by its rhythms through the music on the radio. Popular music held a minor allure for me. Jazz, however, captivated my imagination. Back then, in the mid-fifties, there were two radio programs that I listened to after everyone else in our house had gone to sleep. One was “The Milkman’s Matinee.” The other was Symphony Sid’s broadcast. They both played jazz. I was enraptured by the music and for a time, in high school, I attempted to play the tenor saxophone, with disastrous results and much disapproval from teachers, fellow band members, and, more significant, my parents and siblings, who had to endure my efforts at imitating the people I heard on the radio.
Over the years Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington and his orchestra, Billie Holiday, and other musicians transported me to a world of mystery from which, fortunately, I have never returned. To all who form this pantheon of great jazz musicians, my undying love and appreciation. If I was introduced to the United States and its complexities by the Irish, I was introduced to its soul by jazz, and by the hundreds of jazz musicians who created this great and life-giving music. If there are errors in the technical aspects of this novel, or if I’ve created misconceptions regarding the music, please know that no one is to blame except me. Whatever the errors may be, they are unintentional.
Acknowledgments
Many people are responsible for the publication of this book. None deserve my thanks more than these three: My agent Thomas Colchie deserves the most credit for believing in the novel after it had been buried in obscurity for nearly a decade. For his friendship, good humor, strategies, and stewardship, my thanks. I will be forever grateful to his wife, Elaine Jabbour Colchie, who opened her heart to the book and her home to me. Her insightful suggestions have improved the work. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Robert Wyatt, whose words of encouragement and belief in my work helped to sustain me through some difficult times. To all three, my respect and affection.
My appreciation goes, as well, to the team at Farrar, Straus and Giroux for their support and the production of the book. Jonathan Galassi, John Glusman, Jeff Seroy, Susan Mitchell, and Ayesha Pande worked diligently to bring about the publication of the book. I thank them and their staff.
My children’s mother, Patricia, deserves credit for suggesting I write a novel that would affect the United States. I hope I have accomplished her wish. To her, my eternal gratitude for help and encouragement with the first draft of the novel.
Two friends who are prominent members of the jazz community agreed to appear as themselves in the book. To Buster Williams and Larry Coryell, my special thanks. You are both an inspiration to me as artists and as human beings.
I have known Jayne Cortez, a great American poet and jazz lover, for more than thirty years. With enormous generosity she has permitted the inclusion of her poem “If the Drum Is a Woman” in the novel. My thanks to her.
Over the years, friends have commented on the novel and made suggestions. My special thanks to: Carmen Barnes, Jordan Elgrably, Dan Evans, Sherry Winston, and Kat Kavanagh. A special thanks to Angela Carter, of the Irish Book Store, for help with research. My thanks to Nando Alvericci of WBAI for his help with the musical origins of “She’s a Latin from Manhattan.” My thanks also to Victor Escobar for the long talks we had regarding his life as a Marine. Earl Horton deserves my sincerest thanks for sharing his Vietnam combat experiences in the Marine Corps. My acknowledgment as well to my Vietnam-veteran students at Hostos Community College during the early seventies when they took my courses, “Vietnam” and “Six Twentieth Century Revolutions.” Their experiences on the battlefield, and our long talks about their lost innocence, their regrets, and the nightmares they still endured, helped to give form to this book. As then, I honor your sacrifices.
During the period of time that I have worked on the novel since 1987, my companions during long days and lonely nights were the disk jockeys at WBGO Jazz 88. For their company, enthusiasm, good humor, and erudition concerning this great American art form that is jazz, my appreciation. Along the same lines, I owe a special debt of gratitude to the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University for permitting me access to their archives and to their wide selection of recordings.
My
thanks to Kurt Hollander, editor of the Portable Lower East Side for first publishing part of the novel in 1989 as a work in progress, and to Bomb magazine’s Betsy Sussler for publishing a chapter in 1992. My thanks to Tamara Straus, the editor-in-chief at Zoetrope magazine, for excerpting the first two chapters prior to publication.
The writing of this book was made possible in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1989 and the New York Foundation for the Arts in 1990.
Ultimately, this work is my offering to the United States for sheltering me and mine.
The country and I have issues pending, but I hope we can continue our dialogue.
Copyright © 2003 by Edgardo Vega Yunqué
All rights reserved
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West, New York 10003
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers and holders of copyright for permission to quote from and/or reprint copyrighted material: “Just One of Those Things” by Cole Porter, “She’s a Latin from Manhattan” by Al Dubin and Harry Warren, and “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” by James F. Hanley, copyright 1935 (renewed) by Warner Bros. Inc., used by permission of Warner Bros. Publication U.S. Inc.; diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition, © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association; Atlas of the North American Indian, revised edition, by Carl Waldman, © 1985, 2000 by Carl Waldman. Reprinted by permission of Facts on File, Inc.; “If the Drum Is a Woman” by Jayne Cortez, © 2003 by Jane Cortez; “Loveliest of the trees, the cherry now” from “A Shropshire Lad,” from The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman, authorized edition, copyright 1939, 1940, © 1965 by Henry Holt and Co., © 1967, 1968 by Robert E. Symons.
www.fsgbooks.com
Designed by Jonathan D. Lippincott
eISBN 9781429994217
First eBook Edition : May 2011
First edition, 2003
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vega Yunqué, Edgardo, 1936—
No matter how much you promise to cook or pay the rent you blew it cauze Bill Bailey ain’t never coming home again / Edgardo Vega Yunqué.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Lower East Side (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 2. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975—Veterans—Fiction. 3. Irish Americans—Fiction. 4. Jazz musicians—Fiction. 5. Race relations—Fiction. 6. Puerto Ricans—Fiction. 7. Birthfathers—Fiction. 8. Stepfamilies—Fiction. 9. Young women—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3572.E34N6 2003
813’.54—dc21
2003044064
Table of Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
First Movement - The Quest
1. Here and There
2. Name That Girl
3. Creature Discomforts
4. Zing! Went the Strings
5. A Latin from Manhattan
6. Identity
7. From A to Z
8. Catharsis
9. Sanity and Insanity
10. Dear Diary
11. Jamming
12. An Ideal Scenario
13. Families
14. Research
15. A Diaphanous Curtain
16. Meeting Monk
17. Slumming
Second Movement - The Horizon
18. The Offering
19. A Road Less Traveled
20. Choices
21. Conjuring
22. African Antecedents
23. Banjo Blues
24. Going to School
25. Exiles
26. Philosophy
27. The Band
28. Of Promises and Leprechauns
29. Blind Walking
30. The Idea
31. Hanging Out
32. Just One of Those Things
33. Ruby Broadway
34. Consequences
35. Confrontation
36. Jazz
37. Going Home
38. Drums
39. Photo Album
40. The Music
41. The Piano
42. Faceless Shadows
Third Movement - The Journey
43. The Four Horsemen of Avenue B
44. Economics
45. Tumba Santiago
46. Clave
47. The Return
48. Memories
49. A Day in Harlem
50. First Date
51. Threats
52. Explorations
53. Group Therapy
54. Back from the Jungle
55. The Lie
56. Race
57. Passing
58. People of Color
59. An American Boy
60. Sermon
61. Combat Readiness
62. An Awful Kaleidoscope
63. Where Have All the Flowers Gone
64. Flashback
Fourth Movement - The Drum
65. Mourning
66. Never Coming Home Again
67. The Gig
68. Don’t Let a Little Black Stop You
69. Little Rootie Tootie
70. Santurce
Also by Edgardo Vega Yunqué
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Copyright Page