‘Feel Frida Linger’

Editors Note:  Spanish Translation can be found after the YouTube video. Many are not aware of the Detroit connection to Frida. Diego Rivera’s most famous work was the Detroit Institute of Arts mural commissioned by Edsel Ford, the son of the most prominent Capitalist of his time, Henry Ford. Diego was a Communist as was Frida. That fact did no go unnoticed by Senor Ford.

By Pudge Kosloski

Editors Note: this is another in the Pudge Kosloski series. The ‘Pudge tales are set in the Cass Corridor, a quarter-mile wide swath that runs from Grand Blvd. (the Fisher Bldg. and GM’s former World Headquarters.) to the District and the Fabulous Fox.

Francisco was sitting in an area, cordoned off by yellow evidence tape, in front of Frisco’s Smoke Shop. Twelve feet by six feet. Passers-by had to detour off the sidewalk, out into Cass Avenue, There was so little traffic, it made no difference.

“So you’ve decided not to wear the mask.”

“I understand the social distancing thing but you can’t wear a mask and smoke a cigar. Besides, at this point, it makes no difference,”

Francisco looked my way.

“The doctor says I’ve got 2 months to live. I’ve got a tumor the size of a golf ball lodged against my larynx. It’s already hit the lymph. Inoperable.”

“Holy shit, Frisco. I don’t know what to say.”

“No need, Pudge. I made my choices. I made a good living, made a lot of friends.

I’m 82 years old. We’re all going to die eventually. Might as well die doing something that pleases you.

I’m closing Frisco’s come Monday. Angela isn’t interested in running the place alone. She’ll probably move to Tampa.

I talked to Delores Guzman last week. She’s closing up too. This pandemic has been brutal for small businesses.  ‘Feel Frida Linger’ was open since 1936? 84 years at the same location. There’s a story for you.”

Frida Kahlo at the DIA
DIA Archives

Delores Aguado paused to watch Senor Rivera line out figures on the stucco wall. A large man, in baggy canvas pants and a sleeveless t-shirt, he bore a  sharp contrast to the Arts Council stuffed suits, that passed through the gallery daily.

The suits never saw her. Her broom, mop, and dustpan functioned as an invisible cloak. They would step to the side of her bucket but they never caught her eye.

Delores looked up the wall of the gallery at the outlines of machinery, airplanes, and faces that were yet to bear features.

Then she saw her.

She was standing on the second-floor landing, overlooking the gallery, clutching a coffee mug in her hands. Her hair was parted and braided atop her hair, Danzo’n style, a shawl snug around her shoulders. Senora Frida was not interested in blending in.

Frida Kahlo was not well since her miscarriage. Her physician told her she would never bear children. Then her mother died at La Casa Azul.

Her husband Diego Rivera, worked 15 hours a day on the mural. He refused to listen to her pleas to travel back to Coyoacan.

Frida thought of Detroit as cold, sterile, and ostentatious. When Diego toured the Ford River Rouge plant, the company sent around a car with a driver. She winced at the memory. Two communists riding in a limousine.

This city represented everything she despised.

Delores stood gripping the handle of her mop and gazing up at Frida. The pain, the pride. All reflected in her eyes.

Frida glanced toward the woman in the gallery. She was not Mexican. More likely Caribe.

Delores, embarrassed that Senora Kahlo caught her gaze, shifted her eyes to the floor. She rolled her bucket to the far side of the gallery, away from the scaffolding, and began mopping.

“Hermana. Reinventan el mundo pero no pueden preparar una taza de café.”

Delores, startled, raised her head. Frida Kahlo was standing beside her, a coffee mug in her hand.

“Si. Si Senora. Compro mi café en la cafetería de la Habana. It is like home.”

“Where is home? You are Cubano?”

“Si Senora. Matanzas.”

The faintest of smiles.

“City of artists. It must be beautiful.

I am Frida Kahlo. The little wife that dabbles in works of art. Dime hermana, ¿cómo te llamas?”

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“Delores Aguado.”

Frida’s lip curled slightly. She raised her eyebrow.

“May I call you Lolo?”

The next morning Delores left home early. She hopped the Michigan Ave. trolley in Mexicantown and got off at Bagley. She rushed into The Havana Cafe and ordered two Cafe Cubano. When she told Jorge who it was for, he doubled the order and waved off her payment.

Diego Rivera was not pleased. His assistants threatened to strike over pay and the long hours. He was on a deadline.

Edsel Ford had politely requested a completion date. Prominent Detroit clergy were suggesting a boycott of the Arts Council if they were to allow the completion of the murals. Henry Ford refused to visit the DIA or to attend any social gathering that hosted Senor Rivera.

Henry’s son Edsel stood firm.

On the murals and on the completion date

A little bird,stood in the middle of the gallery, clutching a brown paper bag between the thumb and forefingers of both hands. She was trying to get his attention, yet fearful of his reaction.

Diego smiled. Frida told him about Lolo.

Lovely, tempestuous Frida was not happy. She hated the social isolation. Since her miscarriage and the death of her mother. Una hermana podría ser justo lo que necesitaba.

“What is in the bag Senora?”

“Cafe Cubano Senor Rivera. For Senora Frida. I can not find her. I am afraid it will be cold soon.”

Diego turned to a makeshift desk against the far wall of the gallery. He beckoned the student assistant and spoke to her briefly. The assistant rushed out the door of the museum.

“Senora Frida is at the Library today  Mi pequeño pájaro. I sent someone to retrieve her.”

Diego bowed slightly,

“Now, if I may be excused.”

DIA Archives

Fifteen minutes later, Frida Kahlo took Delores’s hand and led her to a small cafe on the lower level.

They sipped Cafe Cubano from paper cups and spoke of their homes and families. They talked about their dreams. They talked like hermanas de sangre.

Three days a week Delores took the Michigan Ave, trolley to Havana Cafe. Three days a week, Frida was able to escape. If Capitalism meant success, why was the palette so grey?

Three months later, the scaffolding came down. Senor Rivera took to wearing a tropical suit that now hung loosely on his frame.

Delores stood pigeon-toed in the center of the gallery.

Diego turned toward her holding his coat open.

“Nine months slaving in Detroit and I have lost 100 pounds.”

He laughed.

“This town works a man to the bone.’

He put his hand on Delores’s shoulder.

“She has not left  mi pequeño pájaro. She could not leave without saying goodby.”

The next day Delores was charged with cleaning the gallery floors. She kept her eye on the clock and the entrance in equal measure. At 4:00 p.m. a black Lincoln Model K pulled to a stop on Woodward Ave. in front of the main entrance. The driver stepped out to open the rear door just as it swung open. Frida Kahlo stepped out holding a rectangular package.

“I finished this painting yesterday. I wanted to give it to you before I left.”

Frida wrapped Delores in her arms and kissed both of her cheeks.

“Follow your dreams Lolo. A cafe is a good dream. Detroit needs a decent cup of coffee. I will write to you.

Goodby Lolo.”

For two years Delores received a letter every four weeks. The 26th letter arrived in a large manila envelope. Enclosed were the preliminary drawings of her painting and contact information for an art dealer in San Diego, California.

“Ahora es el momento de mi hermana. Vende la pintura y sigue tu sueño. Do not let your dreams fade away. Sell the painting and open a place where people can talk.  A place without clocks. A place with good food and good coffee. A place where people feel free to linger.”

Pudge was in a state of shock. Everything he knew about jazz came from Francisco.

He was walking past the DIA in hopes of catching Delores before she closed ‘Feel Frida’. He was keenly aware that in the 20 years he had been stopping at the cafe, he had never talked to Delores about her grandmother. He had never gotten her story. How could he look at himself in the mirror?

When Pudge looked through the window, she was taking pictures down from the walls. He knocked on the glass with his knuckles. Delores looked up and smiled, reached in her pocket and looped the isolation mask around her ears.

“The masks shield our identities. Had it not been for the Tiger cap and the gravy stains on the sweatshirt, I would have thought of you as a masked intruder.

How are you Pudge?”

“Can we talk Delores?”

“My Abuela Lolo opened the cafe in 1936 with the money that she got from selling the painting. $26,000 was a lot of money then. The Park Shelton had a space available fronting Woodward Ave. She went from janitor to entrepreneur overnight. She had many friends at the DIA. They would steer museum visitors to the cafe when they were looking for a cup of coffee or a bite to eat.

The cafe was very popular for many years. Lolo never cared about the dollars as long as she could pay the bills. During the ’60s and ’70s, it was a hotbed for the radical students at the university. Lolo would come in every day to sit and talk with the students. It was my Mother Magdalena that ran the business.

Lolo passed away in 1990.

It was never the same after that. The business slowed to a trickle after the DIA opened its cafeteria.

My mother stopped selling Cuban sandwiches after Havana Bakery closed. How can you make a Cuban sandwich without Cuban bread?

The world has changed Pudge. No one talks anymore. They bury the faces in laptops and smartphones. I offered free Wi-Fi for a while, but that made it worse. Now no one is talking or giving hugs. You can’t even smile at anyone anymore. No one would know if you did.

I know I won’t see Francisco again Pudge. Please say goodby to him for me.”

They laid Francisco out at the Perry on Trumbull. A beautiful mahogany casket with half doors. A  Montecristi with a black silk headband crowned a Cuban flag draped over the lower half. John Coltrane’s ‘Love Supreme’ played in the background.

Frisco was smiling. It was a whisper but nonetheless, it was a smile. There was a suspicious lump in his inside breast pocket. Pudge reached out and grasped the lapels and peeked in.

A slow grin crept across his face.

Angela was standing beside him. She slipped in her hand and pulled a Cohiba Splendido from Frisco’s pocket and handed it to Pudge.

“Best cigars in the world.

A good cup of coffee. A great cigar. Good conversation with friends. That’s a good life. Smoke it slowly, remember the good times. Francisco would have wanted it that way.”

One more cup of coffee?

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“Hermana. Reinventan el mundo pero no pueden preparar una taza de café.” – “Sister. They reinvent the world but they can’t make a cup of coffee.”

“Si. Si Senora. Compro mi café en la cafetería de la Habana.” – “Yes. Yes ma’am. I buy my coffee in the Havana café.”

“Dime hermana, ¿cómo te llamas?” – “Tell me, sister, what is your name?”

Una hermana podría ser justo lo que necesitaba. – A sister could be just what she needed

Mi pequeño pájaro – My little bird

Hermanas de sangre. – Blood sisters

“Ahora es el momento de mi hermana. Vende la pintura y sigue tu sueño.” – “Now is the time for my sister. Sell the painting and follow your dream.”