Joseph W. Montaperto, click
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Blogs by Joseph W. Montaperto
THE TRIBUTE 5/31/2022 9:29:06 PM
Me and Na-Na sit in the art room in the middle of the night. We have just broken in there and just finished smoking the Hawaiin joint. All is quiet. “Yo, Strong, what we was talking ‘bout? Les’ get to work, man.” With that, we break the tranquillity of the moment, and start busily setting up the two small ladders Silverstein’s got in the back of the room.
I climb up and perch myself on the top. Just me and that wall now. The wall is more wide than high; more so than I had figured it to be. Maybe Silverstein was right all along – maybe I don’t have a clear sense of perspective. No way can I do the portrait of Esperanza standing up, like I had imagined it. I close my eyes now; just letting go, thoughts and various images drifting in and out of my consciousness. No concrete focus yet though, it’s all fluid. I feel the weight of the pencils and charcoal in my hands as the minutes clock by.
The strike of a match redirects my thoughts. I hear Na-Na climb off down his ladder, the click of a cassette tape being inserted into the boom box’s tape player follows. The whir of the mechanism as it starts up, and the smoke from a Kool wafts through the air, circling my nostrils.
Igniting a new set of images, circulating through the screen of my memory. It transports me back to the smoke of Esperanza’s Virginia Slim, when we were standing outside in front of Tijeras de Oro. The day I finally had dragged up the courage to ask her out. She gave me her number. That was the last time I saw her. The Dentyne gum she was chewing, the roar of the motors and black smoke, exploding from the tailpipes of the buses as they sped by.
That carries me back to the first day I ever saw her - a nasty, sopping boiler of a day, in late August. Had to be at least 100 degrees. Relentless sun driving through the polluted haze. Even the flies buzzing you, from the nearby dog-shit on the curb, are dragging ass. I see this insanely breath-taking girl in this Puerto Rican beauty salon, and I halt mid-step, staring in incredulousness.
Daaaamn!
Their air conditioner must be broken, because all the beautician ladies are plopped down on the chairs, the ones who don’t have customers. Flushed, fanning themselves furiously with takeout menus from the Kim Wah, the Chinese restaurant across the street.
There she is. Esperanza. Stretched out on one of the small sofa-like waiting chairs. Legs curled up a bit behind her, right arm propping up her head in a way that totally accentuates every curve. Effortlessly exhaling that Virginia Slim, watching the rings of smoke dissipate into the heavy mugginess. The thing is, the girl is not even sweating! She is so ice. How could anyone look so hot on such a miserable day?
A shiver, like downing a frozen Slurpee, shakes me into another memory. A centrefold of Raquel Welch, in LOOK magazine last year. Lying in exactly the same position - except she’s wearing a full-length, white mink coat. Shit, I don’t know how many times I fawned devotedly over that picture. I still have it in my room, as a matter of fact.
BAM!
That’s what I would do! I would draw Esperanza in that same reclining position. Like a double tribute!
