The Stairs

Seventy stairs separated Front Street and Goodwill Square. Trey bounded up them, taking the stairs three at a time. The top six tile steps still had the red triangle pieces left over from before the war.
As he emerged from the tunneled staircase, Trey figured the angle of the sun. It had to be after siesta. The mission bells above the yellowing church in the middle of the square swung freely, creaking in the August wind.
As he crossed the open dirt, Trey pulled his chest in to catch his breath. His navy blue t-shirt was darker at the armpits, and the inside of his backwards cap was dewy. His deep mulatto skin was shiny with sweat. Ahead of him and to the left of the soothsayer, the Curry Club was wide open and breathing out men who had lost even the shirts on their backs. Some smiled at the small change that clinked in their pockets, but most took up a post near the church to beg. Trey slid his hat around to the front, at full attention. He ambled into the Curry Club, into the warm embrace of bourbon and Romeo and Juliettas.
The manager, Vendetta, immediately grabbed Trey by the belt loop. “Eyes too big for your stomach again, eh?” Vendetta asked. His grey beard was greasy and thinning, and his Sacred Heart tattoo was stretched between the wrinkles on his neck.
“Just looking for Pops.” Trey waited for Vendetta to release him.
“He’s down the stairs and in deep again.” Vendetta’s eyes rolled back as he cracked a gold-inlaid smile. His open shirt was creased at two places around his broad chest like it was fresh out of the package. Vendetta always dealt with customers in person and kept a drawer full of new shirts in his roll top desk for the times when things got messy. “He’s down and dirty kid. He’s gonna start crying any moment.”
Trey quietly moved off into the dim cocktail lounge. The bartender leaned easily on the cherry bar, sharing a drink with a curvy brunette that Trey did not recognize. Groups of six or seven bamboo chairs extended out from each corner of the bar, and in each group Trey counted at least two hired escorts. Most of the chairs were empty. The girls intently watched the door for possible new customers. But, most of the newcomers avoided the lounge and went straight downstairs instead.
As Trey strolled up to the bar to buy a drink, Charlmo gave him a wave from the opposite side of the lounge. A young woman, with waist-length red hair had her back turned towards Trey. Trey looked away from her curvy hips after a quick glance.
“Half-pint back for a full pint?” Charlmo laughed.
“You always know,” Trey responded. “Pops is downstairs again?”
“I saw him come in. Your momma send you?”
“Nah, she’s at home sewing. I figured maybe I’d help Pops out.” Trey moved across a group of chairs, closer to Charlmo’s thick Spanish accent. The green-shaded overhead lamps in the lounge left pools of light and dark on the uneven, carpeted floor. The Persian rugs that covered the wood floor had worn out places from salsa dancing in stilettos.
Trey caught his sneakered toe on the leg of an empty bamboo chair and grabbed a hold of Petra for balance. His soft hands caught the smooth point of her hip, and she giggled.
“Sorry, Petra,” he said, but left his hand cupped around her deep, russet hipbone. It peaked out between her halter top and cut-off shorts. “How far in is he?” Trey asked Charlmo.
“Let me buy you a drink,” Petra said. She spun around into Trey’s arms and kissed him on the forehead. Her eyes went as far back into the deep green ocean as Trey had ever sailed. “You don’t ever want to see your Pops sober.”
“He’s only a boy, Petra,” Charlmo said. He pulled Trey towards him. Charlmo’s face was smooth and moist. He smelled like sandalwood and mojitos. “Actually, go get the boy that drink.” Petra moved off to the bar, smoothing her hand as she turned. “What are you going to do this time?”
“I want to know how to play. Grams told me about it once and Momma won’t let me even see what Pops brings home.” Trey clenched his hands into small fists, with his thumbs sticking out.
“He owes Vendetta.” Charlmo licked the salt from the top of a blue crystal martini glass. Petra moved slowly back over to the table. The lounge was now teeming with men in dress shirts open to the waist and women in heels that laced up their calves like vines. The salsa band clambered in and began to set up.
“I’ll be back,” Trey said. Petra handed him a shot in an amber glass. He tipped it back nervously.
“Forty-five.”
Trey coughed. “Forty-five?” Petra handed him another shot. He took it. She bent down and put her head on his shoulder. Her red hair stuck to his sweaty temple below his hat. “Give me an hour.”
Trey’s hand shook as he put the glass down on the table. It tipped over and a small drop of the clear liquid ran out. Petra walked him to the door and tried to kiss him on the forehead as he bolted out into the dusty square.
Trey crossed the open plaza and was tripping down the stairs before he began to feel the vodka in his feet. He counted only the last sixteen steps as he slid out from the shaded stairwell onto Front Street. The crowds of market shoppers swarmed around him as he worked his way along the cracked sidewalk to the Sunflower House. Men hawking fresh meat that hung from bamboo poles surrounded him. As he ducked between them, dirty hands reached out at his bare calves. Two young girls and their mother sat in the corner of a crumbling building pulling lice out of one another’s hair. At the end of the block, in front of his building, two older Cuban men exchanged colorful shirts as Trey approached the stairs to his family’s apartment.
Two stories up, his mother, Lucia, was hanging out the window. He could spot her deep black skin from a block away. She lifted a paddle with her strong left arm and brought it down on a dirty carpet as she yelled at her own mother. “He’s good for one thing, that man. Disappointment. I can count on him coming home every day and making me miserable.”
Trey held his breath as he slid past two men leaning on the green wall of his building. Once inside the dark hallway, the smell of body odor wafted in on a strong sea breeze. The door to their second-story apartment was open, and Trey’s grandmother, Maria, bolted out as he trudged up the last bend of the spiral staircase to the seventh floor.
“You want to throw something at me? Try not to miss me next time,” Maria yelled. She spat on the floor. “Tell Lucia I will be back with the groceries,” she said to Trey as she picked up her long print skirt to slowly descend the tiny steps.
When Trey stepped into the apartment, he walked around an open pair of scissors at the doorway. He peeked into the kitchen. Three family photos that were labeled “Fidel Miestro” hung along the green wall of the kitchen. All the frames were cherry-stained bamboo and all the mats were brown. The only difference was that Trey’s picture had “III” written above it in red chalk, and he was not Cuban.
His mother sat at her old sewing table in the living room, bent over a red dress with a ruffle skirt and a neck strap. She was feverishly working to sew on a button that would attach the two tie pieces together. Her long brown hair was tied up in a ponytail with a black cord. Her young hands maneuvered the needle up and down with the same skill his father often used to maneuver cards out of his sleeve for magic tricks.
“Momma?” Trey said as he slowly walked up to her. He peered into the inner room where his father and mother slept behind a curtain. The window was open behind the bed and a pair of men’s pants hung over the windowsill. Trey could see out the window into the inner courtyard, where the whole apartment complex hung all of their dirty laundry and unclaimed pants.
“Momma?” he said again.
“Ay?” Lucia did not look up from her sewing.
“I need to borrow your broach.” Trey put his hand on her shoulder, and played with her ponytail. “That’s a nice button. What is it? Silver?” Her head was bent down, and he noticed that the button at the top of his mother’s dress was now fastened. It had been undone this morning after his father left, and Lucia could not possibly reach it herself.
“I am not letting you pawn off another family heirloom,” she said. Lucia pulled the last stitch of red thread through the round button and held up the dress. “What do you think?” Her navy blue eyes flashed at him.
“I think that you just want to sew new buttons on all day.” Trey walked into his parents’ bedroom and opened the top drawer of their dresser. Under his father’s undershirts and his mother’s box of buttons was a thin leather pouch with a string tied loosely at the end to close it. It looked deflated and empty.
Trey took his mother’s box of buttons out of the drawer instead. It was an old, inlaid lacquer box with images of dragons. He opened it an inch to make sure that she had not hidden all of their family’s wealth on her dresses. There were still enough gold, ivory, and jade buttons left.
“Your father took the last piece of Maria’s jewelry this morning,” his mother said.
Lucia began to cry at her sewing table. As she stood up to come into her bedroom, she tried to unfasten the back of her dress. “Trey, come unbutton Momma’s dress. I want to go back to bed.” He turned his face away from her back as he slid the button out of its loop. “Tell your father I am working on something just for him.” Lucia spread herself out over the covers and tucked her head under her elbow. Trey secured the old lacquer box under his arm and pulled the curtain closed.
As he skipped down the steps, his grandmother was coming up with a handful of onions and a bag of rice. “Uno, dos, tres...” she said quietly when she saw the box under his arm.
“Please wait dinner for us. We’ll be home soon,” Trey yelled as he reached the smelly corridor. He was already at a full run when he sprang out onto crowded Front Street. Trey dodged through a group of priests saying goodbye at the foot of the stairs to Goodwill Square.
He lost count of the stairs at sixty-three. When he reached the top, his shirt was drenched through, and a bead of sweat dripped from his nose. The sunset blazed orange at the base of the mission church. Trey let his hat blow off as he ran, exposing his curly black hair to the dimming sky. The doors of the Curry Club were closed, now, looking out onto the empty square like a pair of black pupils. The only thing remaining of the men who had begged for change all afternoon were empty cups and makeshift signs. No footprints were visible in the sand leaving the Curry Club.
Trey ran headlong into the door with his shoulder and bounced back. He dropped the box, scattering plastic, ivory, pearl, silver, gold, and jade buttons around his feet. An ivory flower bounced into his shoe and got lodged behind the tongue of his sneaker.
The black door of the Curry Club opened and a man was tossed out with a torn shirt and a bloody face. He skidded into the sand. Trey was too panicked picking up buttons to look at the man.
“Trey. Let’s go home,” his father said. His guayabera was torn down the side and his eye was swollen shut. He put a white hand around Trey’s ankle. Petra and Charlmo came out with Vendetta. Petra stared at the ground, Charlmo licked his lips, and Vendetta wiped his hands on a dirty cloth. Trey held up two handfuls of buttons covered in sand.
“Dad, you’re...Move!” Trey tried to push his father’s broad body off the lacquer box that was being crushed beneath him.
“Trey, please come inside,” Petra said quietly. She held the door open for him and let her red hair fall in front of her deep green eyes as she began to cry. The salsa band revved up for a trumpet solo.
Trey held up his hands again after sifting out more of the sand. Two jade buttons and a gold one rolled off his fingertips.
“Leave him out here. He’ll come in on his own,” Vendetta commanded. Petra glanced backwards as Charlmo guided her back inside. Trey’s father rolled over onto his back. Trey picked up the broken lacquer box and tried to realign the hinges.
His father pulled himself up, grabbing as many buttons as he could in one try. Only one of his pockets was full. He limped past the mission church towards the stairs that dropped off into black. Trey counted the first eight steps as his father stumbled down them, out of view.