Neruda on the Park
Cleyvis Natera presents excerpts from her debut novel
Washington Heights, New York, 1990s. Photo: Winston Vargas
Cleyvis Natera’s debut novel Neruda on the Park (Ballantine Books, 2022) tells the story of The Guerreros, who have lived in Nothar Park, a predominantly Dominican part of New York City, for twenty years. When demolition begins on a neighboring tenement, Eusebia, an elder of the community, takes matters into her own hands by devising an increasingly dangerous series of schemes to stop construction of the luxury condos. Meanwhile, her daughter Luz, a rising associate at a top Manhattan law firm who strives to live the bougie lifestyle her parents worked hard to give her, becomes distracted by a romance with the white developer at the company her mother so vehemently opposes. As Luz’s father, Vladimir, secretly designs their retirement home in the Dominican Republic, mother and daughter collide, ramping up tensions in Nothar Park.
In the excerpt below, Luz attends a vigil that evokes the 1992 protests in Washington Heights, after 22-year-old José “Kiko” García was shot and killed by a New York police officer. Neruda on the Park weaves a rich and vivid tapestry of community as well as the sacrifices we make to protect what we love most.
From the book NERUDA ON THE PARK by Cleyvis Natera. Copyright © 2022 by Cleyvis Natera Tucker. Published by Ballantine Book, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
JOSÉ GARCÍA— AGAIN?
Today, on day three of demolition, the wrecking ball had largely been replaced by drilling. The loud voices of men yelling at each other outside got Luz out of bed. Cellphone in hand, she went into the hallway to find the apartment silent, cold. The heat still hadn’t come back on. No pungent smell of coffee or stinky lingering boiled eggs in the air. The kitchen was as it had been last night. Clean, cold, even the plates she’d used when she heated the leftovers for dinner last night still on the kitchen table where she’d left them. Mami hadn’t gotten up all night.
Luz went back in Mami’s room and found her face-up in bed. She’d kicked the blankets off her body, even though the apartment was so cold. Luz ventured closer. She quietly put the blanket back on Eusebia. Gently so as to not wake her. She obviously needed the rest.
In the living room, Luz turned the volume loud, surfed the channels. Maybe news of the whale would prompt Mami out of this deep sleep. But the whale was no longer on TV. A quick search on her phone answered why. The orca had let the baby go, and the world had immediately pivoted to something else. No one seemed interested in the remainder of her journey. Now it was the young boy on the news. His mother was on the screen, awkwardly answering questions about him, sounding robotic.
Luz’s phone was as quiet as the apartment. She knew it was absurd to think that the jobs she’d applied to would get back to her so quickly, but she had to admit she’d been expecting her phone to buzz as quickly as she’d hit submit on the first application.
Through the doorway, Mami remained in the same position.
She called Papi on her phone. He picked up right away.
“Mi Dulce Luz,” he said, the nickname that was only for her.
“Bendición,” she said, out of habit, listening for sounds on his side. He was in the car, outside.
She went on before he had a chance to respond. “Where are you?”
“Syracuse,” he said.
“Did you catch the bad guys?” Luz asked, the way she’d been ask-ing since she was nine years old.
“Not yet,” he said. “Been texting your mom since last night. No answer.”
“Mami’s been sleeping since yesterday. Woke up for a quick minute, said something about needing to go for a swim in the sea.”
Papi was quiet on the other end.
“The sea would be good for her right now,” he said. “I’m sure she’s going through…you know.”
He coughed uncomfortably, then cleared his throat.
“God, Papi,” she said, “it’s just menopause!”
“We’re on high alert,” he said, abruptly changing the conversation. They were on the phone for a long time. He talked about how they might have to head all the way to the Canadian border, following some leads on the driver of the truck. But everyone was worried about this boy, who had died overnight. José García, dead again. There was a vigil tonight and everyone was talking about how it would be nothing but trouble. Already there was noise online, people asking if it was the police this time, too. Some had started using a hashtag, #justiceforjosé. When he started talking about the incident from 1992, how a Dominican man had been killed by the police, Luz interrupted him. The last thing she wanted to spend time on was talking about the past.
“I got fired Monday,” she said, to her own surprise.
On the other end, a deep sigh. Then complete silence.
“Papi,” she said, “you there?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Should I come back?”
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “Not why I’m telling you.”
“How are you doing?” he asked. “You feel okay?”
“I don’t know,” Luz said. “I’m really sad. But then I feel like I’m going to be okay, maybe better than okay. But then I’m embarrassed, mad. And sorry I let you and Mami down.”
Her voice did a strange thing then, breaking down, but she recovered quick, pretended to be stronger. What she couldn’t tell him? About the worry, that feeling of dread back again, pressing hard on her. About the school loans, her savings depleted for the house in DR. She’d assured him there was a lot more where that came from.
“Your job is just a job,” he said. “We’re proud of who you are, fancy job or not. What did Mami say?”
Luz was silent, let him catch on.
“Do you want me to tell her?” he asked.
“No, I’m not that much chickenshit,” she said. Mami would be furious if she learned that Papi found out first.
“I won’t tell her you told me,” he said, reading her mind. “When I get back, we can talk about it more. I told you before, I have contacts at the DA’s. They’d love to have you.”
“I don’t need you getting me a job,” she said. “I already applied to a bunch. Bet you I’ll have an offer by next week.”
That part was a lie, too. She didn’t know how long it would take to find another job. On the other end, his partner’s voice. Papi said something she couldn’t hear. She realized she was keeping him from something important. He would never hang up first, it was one of her favorite things about him. No matter what, he always made her feel like she was the most important thing. “I gotta go,” she said.
“Okay. Sure. But listen to me. You’re not alone. We’re a family. We take care of each other.”
Luz reminded herself she was an adult, that she shouldn’t cry at the first sign of kindness.
“Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t go to the vigil. It’s probably going to be a hot mess.”
Luz smiled in spite of herself, through her tears, at Papi’s attempts to be cool, because no one said “hot mess” anymore. Luz promised him she’d stay put. She promised him she’d keep an eye on Mami and let him know right away if anything else happened. On the television, she stared at the image of that young boy, a strangeness stirring in her.
Washington Heights, New York, 1990s. Photo: Winston Vargas
HIS PALM ON HER PALM, WARM
Luz broke her promise, left the apartment to go to the vigil. She paused at the devastation on the north side. Three days and the old building was gone. Machines with huge arms lifted large chunks of concrete, depositing them directly into trucks that then drove away. The voices of the men echoed across the park as they yelled directions, cursed, laughed at each other. Luz was shocked at how quickly they’d done this work— would the replacement building go up as quickly?
When she arrived at the vigil, she stood on the lower level of Riverbank State Park on 145th Street, awed at how many people had gathered on a Wednesday afternoon. A stage had been set up over by the BBQ zone, across from a parking lot that was teeming with people. The plan was to start by the river and then make their way to Nothar Park, one of the organizers told the dense crowd. The Hudson River was their backdrop. It was a brilliant sunny day. The water perfectly still above a clear, cloudless sky.
Within moments, the crowd swelled as hundreds and hundreds of people converged by the river. She heard various languages spoken around her. The loss wasn’t singular, Dominican. Immigrants had come from every borough to say we’re all neighbors, this is our loss, too. Someone handed her a candle that blew out in the wind. Others carried posters of José’s blown- up second- grade picture, missing front tooth a promise of a future that would never come. The posters said “Our Lives Matter” and “This Was His Home” in both Spanish and English. “Home” was underlined many times. Off to the side, people were translating the signs into other languages, lips set in tight lines as their hands made the ink dance. “We’re done being treated like shit,” a woman said somewhere to her left. When Luz turned to find the voice, she couldn’t.
Standing a few feet from the boy’s mother, she paused to consider yesterday’s job search. She’d been manic. Illogical. She wasn’t going to take just any job. She hadn’t worked as hard as she had to jump at any old thing. She would take today as a day off from worrying about what to do next. She wasn’t going to check her email obsessively. She wasn’t going to keep applying for jobs she knew were beneath her experience level. She had to trust. Pretty soon, everything would fall into place. She was glad she hadn’t been able to talk herself into wearing anything cute, or punishing her feet by squeezing them into expensive shoes, just to impress Raenna, when she saw her later.
The microphone screeched, hurting everyone’s ears. José’s mother was ushered to the steps near the stage, and stood waiting as a politi-cal activist spoke into the microphone. Luz got as close as she could get to her. The woman looked stunned. Her ponytail at a weird angle, like someone else had tried to fix her hair in a rush. She was so much smaller than she appeared on TV. Her other kids, all younger than José García, pulled at her limp hands, begged to be picked up. She didn’t respond. She was surrounded by people who told her she had to be strong. Take comfort knowing he’s home, someone said.
Luz wondered where the woman’s real friends were, those charged with helping her cope. No one should be telling a grieving mother to be strong. There was no comfort to be had here. A young kid like that, murdered. Luz thought of José growing up; he could have been anything, gone anywhere. Now nothing. On the phone, Papi had said there were no suspects. Is it possible whoever did this would get away with it? Luz focused on the grieving mother, trying to comprehend her pain. No way, she thought. Impossible.
A woman with burgundy-colored hair offered her some gum. Luz shook her head.
“They’re trying to kill us,” she said directly to Luz. “They want to push us out of this country.”
Luz recognized that voice. She was the one who’d said we’re tired of being treated like shit moments before. People turned to look at her. With attention, she got louder.
“I say hell no,” she said. “This is our house.”
At first, only her voice could be heard, but within moments other voices joined— their cries an overpowering chant— arms out-stretched, fists pumping, feet stomping. “Our house,” they said. “Our house!” The guy onstage grew quiet at the commotion, then joined the shouting.
“This is our house,” he said. “No one is kicking us out.”
The chant echoed above them, over the river and into its reflection. Didn’t those words, carved into a boy’s flesh, command they all go home? That command amplified the chant.
Washington Heights, New York, 1992. Photo: Winston Vargas
A young guy wearing a Yankees baseball cap held a bat, walked toward some parked cars. He swung, struck the glass on the driver’s side, hardly a crack. But he would not be deterred. He swung again, again. On the third try, the glass shattered. Everyone around him stopped, watching him, approving. This was the pain everyone felt. Luz could see it in the tight fists of the crowd— pain to anger to hunger. For destruction? Luz yelled at the kid with the bat, at the adults who soundlessly urged him on.
“Stop that,” she said. The kid gave her a sideways middle finger. In a quick movement, he was atop the hood of the car, swinging harder on the front shield, looking right at her each time the bat struck. Was he threatening her?
The vigil was to show solidarity for the family, show community, not a rally to destroy some innocent person’s car. What about following the rules? There were other people wielding bats, who went toward other cars, started replicating the anger. She took a step toward the kid with the Yankees cap, to make him stop. Someone grabbed her arm, pulled her back. She turned, found a white man she hadn’t noticed. He was the tallest guy there. Maybe six foot five. His hair jet black, deep blue eyes. He wore a Harvard sweatshirt.
“You shouldn’t go over there,” he said. “They’re agitators.”
“Do I know you?” Luz stared at his hand, which moved from her forearm to her hand as he held it. His fingernails perfectly square, pristine. His palm on her palm, warm. Soft. Ready to slap his hand away, she was stilled by his eyes, unprepared for their transparency, their depth. How could those eyes appear heavy like liquid and at the same time light as air? It was a familiar color. The first time she’d seen it was back when she didn’t know how to swim. Mami held her, assured her it was okay to float on the calm waves of the Caribbean Sea, as long as she rested on her arms. Luz’s arms stretched out; she was awed at all the blue— above her, blue, around her, blue. She laughed as a swarm of birds made their way across the sky, dancing. She’d pushed Mami away, twisted to her belly, swallowed salt. She’d had an urge she couldn’t name then. An appetite for freedom, a hunger to fly.
“Sorry,” he said. He let go.
“It’s fine,” she said, recovering. “If we don’t stop them, this is going to get ugly fast.”
“It already is,” he said.
The other young guys who had bats were systematically moving from one set of cars to another, smashing glass. Luz searched for José’s mother, his siblings, but they were already gone.
Stage cleared. The police, who’d been standing watch on the other side of the park, moved toward the young kids holding bats.
“Harvard shirt,” one of the cops said in their direction, “get the hell out of here. Vigil’s over.”
Luz followed the crowd out of the park. Within moments, she lost him. A little disappointed, she stood on tiptoes, hoping for a last glimpse.
Neruda on the Park by Cleyvis Natera (Ballantine Books, 2022)
“Armed with wit and a warm sense of humor, Natera deftly scales questions as huge as the luxury building that looms over her characters’ lives…”
—Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
