The summer air was hot and thick, but Prieto rolled the windows down anyway, knowing that soon enough, he’d be driving fast, the velocity forcing the air to hit him in the face, again and again, the only thing that, after these meetings, he felt could cleanse his sense of shame. He removed his tie, unbuttoned his collar, rolled up his monogrammed shirt sleeves, started the engine and turned on the stereo, steadily raising the volume until, by the time he pulled out of the parking garage, the car vibrated from the bassline of his soundtrack, the aggressive hip-hop beat piercing the late night quiet of the Upper-East side and numbing his mind. He cut a left north onto Park Avenue, heading further uptown, hoping to extend his 30-minute drive into one of necessary length for him to compartmentalize and rationalize his latest act of cowardice so that he could get up tomorrow and attempt, in small ways, to atone for the sins he had set into motion so many years before. Sometimes, when he needed to settle his nerves this way, he would drive around the entirety of Manhattan, finding himself grounded by the water and the flickering lights of the outer-borough landscape. Tonight, he felt, the island might not be big enough to do job.
Prieto ran the treadmill every morning, lifted weights, even took the occasional yoga class, but nothing calmed him quite the way a drive did; his whip his fortress of solitude. Always music blasting, windows open, even in winter when the air bit, unless it was raining or snowing. It had been this way since he was first able to drive, and Abuelita got a call that his father needed to be bailed out of Rikers for some fucking crack head shit that his father was getting into then. It was spring of his senior year, a Friday, and he was watching TV with one of his homeboys when the phone rang and then a minute or so later, Abuelita called him into the kitchen and said “Bendito, your Papí got into a little trouble and we need to get him some help.” Prieto remembered the lump in his throat that formed when she told him what kind of help he needed, the feeling of heat that came with shame. Yo, son, I gotta bounce and go help my pops, he told his friend. He remembered thinking the ground would swallow him up before he let anyone know where he was going and why.
His sister Olga was out somewhere, being scandalous. She was never home in those days. So he told his abuela he could go by himself, so the house wouldn’t be empty if she came back. She gave him the keys to the hooptie she used and he drove. It was the very first drive that he’d ever taken alone. The car had a cassette player and before he left, he ran to his room to grab a tape- a Native Tongues mix tape he’d gotten at the Fulton Mall after school. He blasted it and by the time he was crossing the bridge and could see the prison in the distance, he felt placid. Far from happy, but calm. Able to manage the process of going through security, showing his newly minted drivers license as a form of I.D., extracting the exact bail amount from the envelope of cash- in mostly $10’s, $5’s and $1’s- that his grandmother had given him for this purpose. He was able to breathe as he sat in the plastic bucket seat in the waiting area behind the thick glass, waiting for them to bring his father out, gaunt, legs and hands cuffed together like he had done more than try to steal a TV. He was able to stay composed when the officer said, I don’t know much, but I know we’ll be seeing you back here, son. No, he said calmly, I don’t think that you will.
His father kissed his cheek, as he’d always done, when he greeted his son. Papi was tired. Prieto didn’t know if that was him coming off of a crack high or him having doped up in jail. It was hard to tell with his father sometimes, but he had hunted him down enough to know that, up or down, when Papi wanted to get high, he would find a way. Prieto let him lay out in the back and he changed the tape in the car to Joe Bataan, knowing it would please his father and it did; he sang along before he drifted into sleep. In this way, they drove home. Prieto pulled up to the little house on 37th street between 2nd and 3rd, where his Tio JoJo’s friend rented Papi a basement apartment on the condition that he didn’t smoke crack there. The rent was only $200 a month, but Prieto knew that JoJo, Lola and Richie had been taking turns covering it the past few months. (They didn’t complain, but you hear things.) His father was out like a light, so Prieto climbed into the back to shake him awake, and that was when he saw it, on his father’s neck- the KS legion. He didn’t even know that’s what it was called, but he knew what it was- the mark of the beast, really. The mark of death. His heart raced. He carried his father out of the backseat and into the tiny apartment, wondering to himself how the fuck this homey had ever even been able to carry a TV when he didn’t weigh more than a TV himself.
The room: a portrait of a tragedy. A Puerto Rican flag hung on the wall, and next to it Papi’s Lords’ beret, on the floor, a record player and on either side, what must have been a hundred records, a mattress was on the floor, a crate for a nightstand next to it, a top of which was a bare bulbed lamp, a copy of The General in His Labyrinth and, to Prieto’s quiet horror, his works, the needle in a cup of water, pink with blood. He set his father out on the bed and thought to himself, he’ll be high again before the sun came up. Prieto got back into the car, drove into Bay Ridge, East onto the Belt Parkway before he ultimately did what he had long wanted, and turned the beat-up sedan around to made his way over to the piers off Christopher Street by the West Side Highway.
If the needle was Papi’s release, this became his.
Prieto had thought himself street smart, but he’d been a simpleton when he arrived on the political scene nearly 17 years ago. A Pollyanna, was what the City Council Speaker had called him when he first assumed office and he’d asked him what his side business was going to be. Side business? Prieto asked, genuinely confused. I think my job representing Sunset Park isn’t going to leave me much room for a side business. The Speaker had laughed, clapped his hand on his back, and said ‘Turns out our political dynamo is a real Pollyanna.’ The nickname stuck, at least his first term, in part because he had, in those days, terrible poker face, and was genuinely shocked each time he discovered a new act of corruption or self-dealing going on with his colleagues.
They almost all had side businesses based in their districts. From pizzerias to laundromats to small accounting shops, always storefronts- that looked, to their constituents, like investments in their communities, but in reality, were vehicles to clean the money that passed into their hands to secure votes for policies and measures favorable to a class of people living far from the neighborhoods they were representing. So much of this was happening in the open, or the near open, that, when discussing upcoming votes or meetings people were taking with developers and financiers, they would sometimes look Prieto’s way and say, ‘Pollyanna doesn’t have a problem with this, right?’ This was their way of reminding him that if he wanted to play by the rules, that was fine with them, but not to fuck it up for the rest of them. It was his sister who pointed out to him that he could work this situation to his advantage, parlaying his silence into leverage over his colleagues for votes on matters that would benefit his small pocket of South Brooklyn, an area that, in those days, commanded very little attention in the city.
Sometimes, when he contemplated the direction of his life, he wondered if his wounds were self-inflicted. He ran for office because everyone ignored his neighborhood- the board of education and their overcrowded schools, the cops- except when they shot kids in the street with impunity-the sanitation department, elected officials. These days, all eyes were on Sunset Park, and it was he, Prieto, that put them there. For better or for worse.
Before his mom bounced, Prieto had planned on applying to colleges outside of New York. His aunt took him to D.C. to see American and Georgetown; he sat in on classes at Howard. But when his senior year rolled around, his mom was gone and his dad was in a bad way and Prieto’s brain hurt just thinking about filling out those financial aid forms. Whose income tax return did he use? The Exile or the Junkie? So, he applied to a bunch of SUNYs and wound up at Buffalo.
He joined a Latino Greek figuring that, with his own family in shambles, having some brothers might not be a bad thing. It turned into his lifeline. Being on line for the Frat- living with the other pledges, the public vow of silence, wearing the uniform for nearly eight weeks- provided him with structure and closeness at a time when he’d felt alone and flailing. His brothers held him up when no one in his own family could.
He started college wanting to become Brooklyn’s Johnny Cochrane: using law to fight police brutality, but an Environmental Justice class he took made him realize that the cops were just one small thread of a tightly woven system of discrimination. Somehow, this class- studying case after case of government and industry imperiling the health and lives of minority communities for their convenience and profit- affected him in a way that years of his parents’ Brown-Power movement rhetoric never did. By the middle of his Sophomore year, his father was in full-blown crisis. No one asked Prieto to come back, he wanted to be there for his family. With Tia Lola’s help he proved he was “legally emancipated” and transferred to NYU with a full ride, commuting to class from Abuelita’s. It was right around this time that the City was trying to erect a Waste Processing Plant in Sunset Park, just a few blocks from their home. He emailed his line brothers saying, “I’m not religious, but God brought me home to fight this.” He linked up with the Latino Youth League and the Community Board and made arguments so eloquent, he wanted to tape them and mail them to his Professor up at Buffalo, just to let him know he’d been listening. He got their fight covered in the Daily News, The New York Times, even The Post and The City buckled under the pressure. He’d found his calling.
Then, just a year later, despite public outcry, outside the light of day in a not quite legal move, the Waste Processing Plant seemed to have arisen overnight. By this time, Prieto was in law school. He was livid and scrappy- filing motions as a private citizen against the city, doing presentations on community health impact for the City Council. He was handsome and eloquent. The news cameras loved him; he was the perfect salve for White Guilt. He had been practicing law and running a campaign to block a prison expansion when the local Democrats came to suggest he might run for his City Council seat that was opening up. Prieto couldn’t think of a better way to protect his hood.
◆
He’d just begun his second term on the city-council when an envelope came through the mail slot of his office. It was hand printed, the card inside engraved, inviting him to dinner at a private address on the upper east side. It was strange in that it had no return address or contact information and Prieto’s assistant was about to throw it in the thrash when the phone rang. They hoped that Councilman Acevedo would not be skipping their dinner. The timing freaked the secretary the fuck out and she ran into his office saying that she had cancelled everything on his calendar before and after this dinner. He called one of his Frat Brothers that worked in real estate to see what he knew about the building.
“That address is nothing but money. I think they print it in the basement. The Selby’s have two units in there. Both of the brothers.”
In a city of real estate dynasties, The Selby’s were one of New York’s most prominent. The father had spearheaded the redevelopment of Bryant Park a generation before, and the sons had sunk a fortune on redeveloping the Lower East Side, to mixed results. But, in the aftermath of September 11th, when downtown businesses were desolate of people, filled with dust, and backlogged by slow insurance payouts, with landlords unable to collect rent, they headed downtown with literal car loads of cash, intuiting that the desire for immediate relief from misery would blind people to the shortsightedness of their deal. The people- the small business tenants, condo owners, the landlords- certain that nothing could be built on top of all this death, that nothing would ever be possible on this square of misery- thought them fools. In a highly public news conference, the Selby brothers unveiled a broad plan for the area, where, on a windy day, trapped ashes from the fallen buildings might still un-wedge themselves and flurry the air with death.
The City, for its part, thought the Selby’s Heroes of Hope- that’s what the mayor called them- and Prieto’s colleagues moved to reward them as such with tax breaks upon tax breaks. Who, in the wake of such disaster, wouldn’t support such entrepreneurial vision? For his part, Prieto was unsettled by any one family scooping up such concentrated plots of land, tax free, but sensed that public morale was too low for such cynicism. Besides, as his sister pointed out to him, with all of his colleagues from the Manhattan districts on Selby payroll of some form or another, to raise the issue would simply squander political capital for something else. Just quietly vote against it; why poke an urban bear?
Which is why, when he realized that it was this very bear summoning him to their ultra-luxurious, doorman-and-private-elevator-entry-actual-mother-fucking-picasso-in-the-foyer-and-a-maid-in-an-actual-mother-fucking-maid-outfit lair, he knew it could be nothing good. Prieto had never given much thought to “The Man”. He thought the notion one of mythical, monolithic, rich, powerful white man puppeteering the lives of people of color to keep them dancing in service of their larger plan far too simplistic to serve the complex issue of systemic oppression very well. But, on that spring night in 2003, after the maid took his briefcase and the butler escorted him to a dining room half a city block away, passing a museum’s worth of fine art en route, Prieto found himself thinking, if The Man existed, this would be certainly be his apartment. Although he had made it a point to arrive fifteen minutes early- no person of color serious about being taken seriously was ever late to meet white people- the two Selby brothers were already seated, napkins on their laps and wine poured. In that moment Prieto knew that he’d already lost whatever battle he was about to fight. No matter what he had mentally prepared for, they were already a step ahead. It was a set up.
A place was set for him, but where a plate would have been was an envelope. He sat and opened it, looking to their faces for a tell and found none. He pulled out the photos and inhaled deeply; the first him fellating a man in what was clearly his own apartment, the next his face visible during intercourse, his partner clad in leather. He exhaled and stood up.
“I have to be honest, gentleman, what have you got here? Some photos? Of me with a man? New York’s a very liberal city; this is hardly leverage.”
“New York is quite liberal, Councilman,” the elder brother, Arthur said, “but you are not the Councilman for Chelsea or the West Village. You represent, as you always so proudly say whenever a camera is near, Sunset Park, and I’m not so sure the Catholics and the macho Hispanic community you speak for would be quite as happy to be represented by- what’s the slang your people use?”
Nick, the younger, chimed in “It’s a maricón, Arthur.” He seemed pleased with his Spanish.
“We don’t think your district would want to be represented by a maricón, Councilman, and we’re prepared to put a lot of resources into making sure that they aren’t.”
When looking back on that night – the beginning of the collapse of who he had thought that he was- Prieto often wondered how things might have played out had he just been a bit more courageous. Would anyone have cared who he slept with? How might he might have responded if he found himself in that dining room a year, or even two, later? Once Ellen’s talk show got its footing, or after Jim McGreevy came out. What might his whole life have looked like? But he hadn’t. He was there at a time when the idea of what had been his most private life becoming public quite literally paralyzed him with fear.
“What is it that you need?” Prieto had asked.
“When the vote comes up,” the younger brother replied, “you’ll know.”
They were right. As soon as the proposal was put forward to clear the path for the Bush Terminal Warehouses to be re-developed by the Selby Brothers, he knew what he was expected to do. For more than a generation Bush Terminal housed industrial and garment factories that put food on many a table in the neighborhood. Abuelita had worked as a seamstress there, and of course, Papi worked there, until he wasn’t able to work. Then, little by little, they all closed. Moved to Jersey, or more commonly offshore, to places where people worked for even less money than the poor of Sunset Park. On its’ face, there was nothing wrong with encouraging some development in this dormant area, whose most robust commercial activity was brisk drug and sex trade. Yet, Prieto knew this would do nothing for the area but quicken the ascent of rents, with little by way of job opportunities, tax revenue, or even amenities for the working poor Latino and Chinese who made up his electorate. Prieto, the local hero, the straight man, would have fought for more. But, Prieto, the compromised, the closeted homosexual- which he wasn’t even sure that he was, it was just that when fucking men, he felt his most unbound- that guy folded like a fucking shirt and voted to move the project forward. He gave a press conference about how this would attract new people from all over Brooklyn for cuchifritos and the wonders of 8th Avenues’ Chinatown, knowing full well that this would never happen, that no one who went to the Selby Brothers’ waterfront Supermall would ever venture into the real neighborhood.
He tried to give himself cover, create some distance between the Selby’s secrets and his life, but the result- a marriage to a girl named Ada who taught at his old grammar school- only fortified his trap by raising the stakes on the lie he was maintaining. He’d known Ada liked him before he ever even asked her out. Every morning he would read the paper, take his morning coffee and pan dulce and meet with constituents at the Mexican bakery on 59th street. Ada came every day. Never with a problem, just wondering how he was. Hoping that he was taking care of himself. Bringing him a tubberware of arroz con gandules or guisada for him to have for lunch. He could tell that she would be the perfect politicians’ wife. He knew, empirically, that she was attractive. He knew she would want kids, something he pined for. He was eager to share the kind of love his father had given him with children of his own. Their courtship was quick and in a couple of years they had a girl. She was perfect. He was so happy when she was born, he almost felt grateful to the Selby’s for forcing him down this path. He’d asked that they name her Lourdes, both in a nod to his parents, and to the place of redemption that he’d hope she would be for him. She was not enough. Not Lourdes, and certainly not Ada. Not enough to keep him from what he longed for as long as the feeling of desire was familiar.
There were more votes. Yes, to a basketball stadium downtown whose rezoning enabled them to move forward with dozens of luxury condo projects. No on a ferry project which would have saved his constituents’ hours of commuting time into Manhattan but given an advantage to a Selby rival. And on and on. Yet, he still felt able to eke through enough pieces of good for his neighborhood and for Brooklyn to feel worth it. It was this reason that, when one of his mentors, his local Congressperson, announced his retirement, Prieto foolishly pursued it, naively believing the Selby brothers’ interests too local to have any use for his one little vote in the House of Representatives. He won election easily, and his strategy worked well. For a term or two he found some breathing room. Now divorced from Ada, he wondered if there might even be a way to be free; to step into who he fully was. Then Hurricane Sandy hit, ravaging the waterfront of not just his district, but all of New York City.
The call came through his district office; his chief of staff had Arthur Selby on the line. Terrible damage, they both agreed, awful for the people of New York, the businesses lost, the homes flooded. Wonderful that they had him as a champion in Washington. Just as Prieto relaxed into the conversation, talking the elder Selby through the environmental policy proposals he was planning to make, Arthur interrupted. This was all terrific, really, but he hoped that Prieto could see the wisdom in providing a tax incentive, or, better yet, find some federal matching funds for anyone entrepreneurial enough to undertake re-development along the flood zones. The dollars for disaster relief, Prieto reminded him, are very competitive, with their priority being recovery and shelter for the families displaced by the storm. Of course, they agreed. He hung up confident.
The next day someone named Derek came to the office to see him. Thinking it a constituent, Prieto gladly said to show him in, but when he recognized Derek as a john he used to see several years before, threw him out, cancelled his next slate of meetings and sat at his desk and sobbed. He felt he would never be free.
Now, Prieto found himself heading southbound on the West Side of Manhattan, pulling off the highway near the Highline, meandering his way down to the Village. It all had changed. Everything shiny or under construction. Gone were the street urchins and young hustlers who populated the pier that night when his teenage self had nothing to lose and found the courage to see what this world was really about. Of course, he wasn’t dumb enough to cruise someone, even if those kinds of boys were still there. But he still liked to come down here, look at the water and remember nights when he was allowed to be fully himself, nights before anyone knew who he was. He tried to calculate if his total good done was greater than the sum of harm facilitated during his time in public office, and he felt unsure of the equations’ sum. Tonight, when he arrived at Arthur Selby’s apartment, he was surprised to find they were not alone, as was custom. Around the table sat a bevy of men, some he recognized from the financial news, others he did not. Curiously, their agenda had nothing to do with upcoming legislation, his district, or even New York City. Instead, they were “deeply invested” in a hearing he had called for, as head of the Hispanic Caucus and member of the Natural Resource Committee, regarding the oversight of Puerto Rico’s budget crisis. Deeply invested in it not happening. Though he couldn’t pinpoint why blocking such a banal procedural hearing could be of such import to this group, he sadly knew that this many white men so laser focused on Puerto Rico could mean nothing good. His Papi had always told him that the U.S. made Puerto Ricos’ handcuffs, but to never forget it was other Puerto Ricans who helped to put them on.
He didn’t quite get what Papi meant until now.