Rudy Martinez, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, January 2019. This is the third book I’ve read by him. The first was a novella about a priest who taught Pinochet the ins and outs of Marxism and hid behind criticism and poetry, it reminded me of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, these pathetic old men, repenting.
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Last night, it rained oranges: a citrus circus of fruit knocked from branches, sent spinning into orbit, landing hard on the grass. The spindly dwarf citrus planted in the park by Walt himself hurled their burden of golden globes in the four directions: Toontown, Fantasyland, Adventureland, and Tomorrowland. And as the skies wrenched and rocked above, delivering wind—real wind, not something manufactured, some transparent trick of light and sensation—Tamaya was already winding into a state of anticipation of the windfall of sweetness.
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The students shuffle out of the building, grumbling over their still unfinished work as I organize my area, preparing it for the next worker just four hours later. The clock strikes three am but I wait to lock the doors. If students are still upstairs, possibly packing their things, they’ll be trapped inside until a sleep deprived student in a security guard uniform finds them.
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Done with bud, trying to become
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