AMBI: (Entering Apartment)
Track: This is a new apartment you’re fixing for somebody?
Victor Caltajeno: Yeah Wednesday the person is gonna come on wensday.
Track: So nobody’s lived here before-
Victor Caltajeno: Yeah somebody’s lived here before
Track: In the first part of this two-part episode, you’ll be introduced to Victor, a handyman or super who works around where I live. He’ll talk about his early life and his job as a super, also, his family, among other things. This was a conversation with someone I never really talked with that much before. Especially when he was on the job. I knew very little to nothing about him. We always greeted each other and said a few words about how things are going in our lives but nothing in-depth like this. On this day, he had to paint and fix up an apartment for a tenant in one of the buildings he works in. We were on the move getting equipment, going up and down the building, and from room to room as he fixed up the apartment. Here’s how that day started.
Victor Caltajeno: By the way, my name is Victor Caltajeno
Track: Caltajeno?
Victor Caltajeno: Yeah Victor Caltajeno. That’s my name and you can call me super.
Track: Everything started pretty quiet as you would expect from two people who didn’t know each other that well. And before I could get the chance to ask, he goes on and starts telling me about his early life.
Victor Caltajeno: Yeah I was born in Puerto Rico came over here when I was sixteen first. No first I came here when I was like eight. Then went back and came back here when I was sixteen, then just… I been here since then.
Track: So you were born and raised in Puerto Rico?
Victor Caltajeno: I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. I went to school in Puerto Rico elementary school, middle school high school. I dropped out of high school in twelfth-grade cause I’m not gonna graduate with my friends. So I started working and it didn’t go as well as I want, Puerto Rico was hot a lot of people was getting killed. So I moved on over here. It’s hard to make money over there and not be killed. There’s a lot of jealousy a lot people growing up wanting to do the same thing as you. So my mom begged me to come over here and live with my father. So I won’t get- between the other streets and-
Track: So your dad was already living here?
Victor Caltajeno: My dad was already. He was a super. He was a super in the building and that’s why they saw me helping him out and it was basically that connection. When I first came over here my father was the one who basically was around me at that time so I learned a lot from him. Also I was working in construction in Puerto Rico. In a company called Caribbean Construction INC. They do pharmacies. It’s almost about the same thing you know. We work over here in Tremont, we work over here with stubs, tracks. But the super don’t really have to do much, we do it and when we know how to do more stuff they pay us extra. That’s what I like about this company other company management force you to do things that you’re not supposed to for the same pay.
Track: Ok you got here at sixteen and you became super at what age around?
Victor Caltajeno: Um exactly at the age twenty or twenty-one like at twenty or twenty-one. Yea because I was already a porter and then I became a super like three years after I became a super. I know I had my first son when I was twenty and my wife was eighteen. He came over here when he was two years old so twenty going to twenty-two years old and I’m about to be thirty-five next month.
Track: After mentioning his family I asked him about them, and how they met he met his wife and well it was interesting.
Victor Caltajeno: The love of my life you wanna know that. That’s what changed me from being a little kid to a responsible man. This created me, my wife, my wife’s name is Amari Gomez. I met her we went out a couple of times. I really kissed her the first time it was in January 12th. El anniversario de nosotro. So I met her. I had a friend his name was Jason he had a girlfriend. So I use to tell him listen winter is about to come, and I want a girlfriend to cause I got no girlfriend, so tell your girlfriend to bring to a friend, so it was around Christmas time. So my stepmother birthday is in the 25th on Christmas so they throw a party and she brings a friend her friend is Amari. So we dance some reggaeton. She didn’t want to dance at first. She was dancing salsa. I’m Puertorican I don’t know how to dance salsa, so they was dancing salsa she wanted me to dance I can’t dance that so I walk around the kitchen.
Track: You didn’t try?
Victor Caltajeno: I didn’t try, so it was a reggaeton song than I said I can dance this, so we danced I wanted to walk her home, but I ain’t had no job. This guy named champeon, they call him champion. He had a job. He had a chain, he had everything going on so he wanted to walk her home, so I said you know what I can go. So she said well you walk me. And since there you know we go the building she said she wanted to see me again and went to my father, my father was the super. So we start playing dominos one day, and she told me to kiss her that was January 12th. I kissed her and from their 15 years together.
Track: After that interesting story, it took a bit before we got back to talking about his job. He enjoyed just having conversations about something else for a change. So just for a moment, we talked about other things in his life, like his hobbies one of which we had in common. We started talking about boxing and his interest in boxing. He began to tell me about a scene he did for a movie where he got to play a boxer.
Victor Caltajeno: I like boxing, and when I was going to do more I had to leave when I was living there, and I move here to New York so I couldn’t follow my dream. But I still got the gym down downstairs, boxing equipment I train people, kids come to my house they come and box they call me super-agent. I train them with the mitts and stuff like that you know. That was my dream, but even though I didn’t follow my dream I still feel like I’m the people’s champ.
Track: Right, so you never even got to be an amateur boxer or?
Victor Caltajeno: Na but I fought people famous amateurs and stuff like that. I been in the ring I did a movie also called struggle. And it’s about a boxing guy you know. I wish you know I could have did more but it is what it is.
Track: Tell me about that because you mentioned it last time, but I forgot about that how did that come about?
Victor Caltajeno: I was helping this guy’s attic and he’s everywhere so he had an opportunity to make a movie with somebody else, and he said I’m not doing it I got somebody that knows how to box and fight so when he heard about the movie he got me. The person came to my house spoke to me would you like to be in a movie we’ll pay you. I said you don’t have to pay me that’s boxing I love it so we had the whole gym the whole day for us to be in there so I bring my kids in there. I had a good time it was the best day of my life, it was one of the best days of my life. Being in the whole gym for yourself alone. That’s what you’d like to do you know.
TRACK: As we finished that conversation we moved on to talking more in detail about his job as a super and future as a super. But that’ll have to wait till next time in part two. Until then, this is Christian Nazario signing off.