It Was a Saturday Afternoon on LaSalle Street

The first few pages of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love are narrated by Eugenio Castillo, who is the nephew of the book's main character, Cesar Castillo. He describes an afternoon in his childhood, sometime in the early 1960s, when the landlady called up to the apartment where his family lived to let Cesar know that they were rerunning the episode of I Love Lucy that he and his brother had appeared on, performing the song that Eugenio's father Nestor wrote, "Beautiful María of My Soul." When Eugenio goes to the kitchen to get him, Cesar has a difficult time rising from the table, having been out until four or five in the morning playing the trumpet. With Eugenio's help, Cesar makes it to the couch, and Eugenio brings him a drink of whisky as he watches...