From Carlos Radix found out that the building he occupied used to be one of a
row of six originally built on that side of the street. Carlos pointed to the vacant
lot where the three missing buildings once stood. What happened? Radix asked.
"Fire!" Carlos snapped his fingers and made match-igniting sounds. "Just like that
somebody set them on fire…building #1 Boom!…then a year later building # 2
went up Boom!..thenbuilding #3…Boom!
He made it sound very simple, both the task of setting the fires and the confla-
gration itself. The charred hulks had been demolished with similar swift ease and
the rubble cleared away. The remaining three buildings looked marooned and more
vulnerable now within the history of the fires.
"Check it," Carlos said,"you won't think they had fires there, right?"
Radix looked. He didn't know what to say. He tried to imagine buildings standing
there, identical to the one he occupied, grimy brick structures somehow spared
the graffiti squiggles at the base of the apartment buildings on the other side.
Noticing he had made quite an impression on Radix Carlos drew closer and
lowered his voice; he knew, he said, why the buildings had been torched; he was
privy to certain information.
Word in the streets linked it all to a guy visiting from the Dominican Republic who
after the first fire had looked down from the apartment buildings on the other side
and had this idea of turning the empty space into a car park. If somehow he could
get control of the lot, there was a fortune to be made offering secure parking to
baseball fans, in particular white baseball fans worried about their cars left at night
unattended along neighborhood streets.
Carlos shifted his body about after disclosing this. Suddenly restless, he punched
his fist in his palms as if more information, straight from the streets, was right at
his fingertips; but he wouldn't say more for now.
Radix with folded arms stared at the vacant lot, still waiting to be transformed
into a paved parking lot; at that moment it was filled with weeds, car tires, yellow
antifreeze containers; a baby stroller, a shiny white toilet bowl.
He looked up at the properties next in line for mysterious fires, building # 4
(Blackwelder's project) and building # 5 (the one he lived in). Had Blackwelder
known about all this before he'd invested in his buildings? Was the dreaming man from
the Dominican Republic satisfied with the space now available? What if the arsonists
with new grander designs decided to set fire to the remaining buildings, clearing
all in one huge final roof-leaping conflagration?
Carlos had his own ideas for developing the space. He declared, rubbing his eyes
as if to remove some foreign substance, that he'd held a long-cherished dream: he
would love to convert the vacant lot into a basketball court. It would make the world
of difference to the community.
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 