~~~
New Gay Latino Fiction
~~~
Edited by
Charles Rice-González
& Charlie Vázquez
Published by Tincture, an imprint of Lethe Press, at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Charles Rice-González & Charlie Vázquez.
Individual stories copyright 2011 their authors.
~~~
all rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in 2011 by Tincture, an imprint of
Lethe Press, Inc. 118 Heritage Avenue • Maple Shade, NJ 08052-3018
www.lethepressbooks.com • lethepress@aol.com
isbn: 1-59021-241-x
isbn-13: 978-1-59021-241-7
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
Cover design: Alex Jeffers.
Cover image: Joan Crisol Guisado.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
From macho to mariposa : new gay Latino fiction / edited by Charles Rice-González & Charlie Vázquez.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59021-241-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59021-241-X (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. American fiction--Hispanic American authors. 2. Gays’ writings, American. 3. Hispanic American gays--Fiction. 4. Homosexuality--Fiction. I. Rice-González, Charles. II. Vázquez, Charlie, 1971-
PS647.H58F76 2011
813’.0108920664--dc22
2011012823
~~~
Charles Rice-González
Charlie Vázquez
David Andrew Talamantes
Benny Vásquez
Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes
That Chilly Night in Old San Juan
Bronco Castro
Charlie Vázquez
Rigoberto González
Alex G. Romero
Booh Edouardo
C. Adán Cabrera
Justin Torres
Chuy Sánchez
Edwin Sánchez
Johnathan Cedano
Danny Gonzáles
Ricardo Bracho
Miguel Ángel Ángeles
Ben Francisco
Anthony Haro
Jesus Suarez
David Caleb Acevedo
Miguel M. Morales
Rick J. Santos
Jimmy Lam
Alfonso Ramírez
W. Brandon Lacy Campos
Guillermo Reyes
Charles Rice-González
Bryan Pacheco
Robert Vázquez-Pacheco
~~~
Charles Rice-González
In 2007, I met with Jaime Manrique. I suggested that he do another queer, Latino anthology. He had edited Bésame Mucho: New Gay Latino Fiction with Jesse Dorris which came out in June 1999. That same year Jaime Cortez edited Virgins, Guerrillas, and Locas: Gay Latinos Writing about Love which came out in October, and Erasmo Guerra’s non-fiction anthology Latin Lovers: True Stories of Latin Men in Love came out in November (Guerra’s book included non-Latinos). Then, in 2008, Emanuel Xavier edited Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry, but no gay Latino fiction anthologies since 1999. I figured with Jaime Manrique’s reputation and connections he could land a publisher. “Jaime, it’s about time, don’t you think?” I was pushing him because I wanted to be in it.
“No!” His deep baritone voice boomed in his small West Village apartment. “I’m working on a book. I’m too busy, and besides who’s going to be in it? You, me and Rigoberto González?”
I pleaded that there were other queer Latino writers out there even though I had yet to meet Charlie Vázquez, Justin Torres and many other writers who are included in this anthology. I was in my MFA program at Goddard at the time and I had this vision of queer Latino writers, like me, in MFA programs all over the country and writers writing in their rooms and cafes. I had also been to a few writer conferences where I’d met other queer Latino writers.
Jaime didn’t relent.
In 2009, Steve Berman from Lethe Press called me. He liked my story that he published in Best Gay Stories 2008 and he had an idea to do a queer Latino anthology and wanted to know if I’d be interested in editing it for a new imprint that he was going to start called Tincture to publish work by queer writers of color.
Me? I thought. I had been trying to get someone else to edit one and I didn’t think that I could do it. We met in the Seven Bar and Grill near Penn Station in New York City on a snowy day in early 2009. I was still unsure, but he was confident that I could do it. Then, I thought, Who else? I had the passion and commitment to see this project through and I was interested in developing a community of queer writers. Then, I got excited at the thought of putting out a call and seeing who was out there. The anthology became an act of activism. I put out the call—drafted releases, set up a Facebook page, made flyers—and set out to find as many gay Latino writers as possible.
By the deadline for the call, which was in January 2010, I had received over 60 submissions from all across the country and even a couple from outside the United States. There were even a couple of submissions by women. I asked Steve about doing a queer Latina anthology and he said that he was open to it, but he wanted a woman to edit it.
In May 2010, I brought on Charlie Vázquez to co-edit the manuscript with me. I had met Charlie in June 2008 at the reading for Los otros cuerpos: Antología de temática gay, lésbica y queer desde Puerto Rico y su diáspora. He’d just started his PANIC! reading series at the Nowhere Bar. After he invited me to read at PANIC! in January 2009, we connected and I felt like I’d found a kindred spirit—a writer who took the development of his own work seriously and who was interested in creating a community of queer writers. When we started working on this anthology our one rule was that any story in the collection was one that we both agreed should be included. The first part was easy. I sent him all the stories that qualified in accordance with the call, then we ranked our choices with a yes or no. The ones where we agreed upon favorably or unfavorably were clear. That middle group we discussed.
It was a rough road getting to this final group because, I wish I could have published every single writer and secondly because although I asked for the stories to be ready for publication several really wonderful manuscripts had fallen into that middle group and some were a few drafts away from being ready. Charlie and I made a decision to connect with some of the writers, give feedback, so that they could do another draft. With some writers I worked on two, three, even four drafts of a story before Charlie and I accepted them or in some cases still didn’t.
Speaking to other editors, I learned that we went beyond the call of duty, but it was important to get as many voices into the collection.
What you have in your hand is a collection of 29 writers—all male and Latino identified, from 10 different states and Puerto Rico. The writers’ Latinidads are Chicano/Xiqan@ and Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Chilean and Brazilian. And for nearly half, this is the first time their fiction is published.
What I like to think about when I read these works is that these stories are what this group of writers is sharing with the world. From timeless issues like unrequited love to empowered youth for whom being queer is not a question, from tough, swaggering machos, owning their love of men to gentlemen with the emphasis on the gentle.
There are tales of revenge, modern day parables, and stories navigating relationships—having them, getting them, working them out. From border towns to the streets of L.A. and the Bronx, to the lush mountains of Puerto Rico, to metropolitan cities of the Dominican Republic, to a disco in Silver Lake and a panadería in Kansas, the stories, experiences and worlds are varied and connected.
Charles Rice-González
Bronx, New York
February 2011
Charlie Vázquez
Returning to my native New York City in 2006 from my seventeen-year “exile” in Portland, Oregon and Baja California Norte was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make—yet one that has rewarded me with an increased sense of community and belonging. Not only did I want to reconnect with my family in the Bronx where I grew up, I wanted to meet other queer Latino writers and get involved in (what I hoped to be) a necessary literary and political movement—as we queer hispanohablantes often encounter significant difficulties while navigating between our vibrant and passionate Latino cultures and the complex sphere of the LGBT/queer movement, which inherits much of the discriminations and opinions of mainstream American culture, desirable and otherwise.
The first angel I befriended on this rather spiritual journey was the groundbreaking New York poet and writer Emanuel Xavier, whom I met through our mutual writer friend Trebor Healey, who was in town for an event at The Center in the West Village in 2006. Emanuel’s kindness of spirit and generosity were clear from the onset of our friendship and it’s been a great fortune to get to know and work with him (we even launched our books together at a June 2010 Barnes and Noble dual book-signing on the Upper West Side, as we also share the same publisher, Rebel Satori Press).
The watershed moment for me, however, was the reading that took place at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center for a book of Puerto Rican letters called Los otros cuerpos: Antología de temática gay, lésbica, bisexual y queer desde Puerto Rico y su diáspora (Editorial Tiempo Nuevo, 2007) a volume edited and published on the island which featured Arnaldo Cruz-Malavé, Angel Antonio, David Caleb Acevedo, Larry La Fountain, Luzma Umpierre, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Robert Vázquez-Pacheco, and this book’s co-editor, dynamo Charles Rice-González, (whom I would meet for the first time), all in one handsome Spanish volume.
When Charles asked me to co-edit this collection with him in spring 2010 I thought, we’ve hit the jackpot! Much new tierra needed to be covered since the eminent Jaime Manrique edited Bésame Mucho in 1999 for Painted Leaf Press—an anthology which included now-established voices such as Rigoberto González and the aforementioned Emanuel Xavier. But a whole new generation of gay/queer Latino writers had surfaced since then and their stories and identities had yet to be exposed—this would be a way of making that happen. Furthermore, the outreach potential of the internet and social media would more easily put us in contact with people outside the stateside Latino “loop” of California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and New York.
In addition, this journey required a much more severe degree of temperance than I had foreseen; many of the stories you’re about to read tread into very intense psychological landscapes, many of which gave me sunny joy, many of which caused me profound sadness. But the spectrum of experiences and emotions that haunt our mortal days are what give life its dimension, and for us gay/queer Latinos, these experiences often embody striking similarities and common ground. One of these commonalities is the cellular longing for that ultimate loving, male energy; brother energy, father energy: los machos, los diositos de nuestros sueños—the men and boys of our never-ending fantasies. Add to that equality, intimacy, friendship, respect, freedom, justice, dreams, love…in other words, editing these stories with Charles was often haunting.
I’d had considerable experience with editing text as a writer, but the politics inherent to the crossroads of English and Spanish—or Spanglish/code-switching—would require absolute redefining of textual style. Like many young English-focused writers, I learned my basic editing skills through Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style handbook back in the mid-1990s, when I began composing my first novel, Buzz and Israel (Fireking, 2004). And if I recall correctly, this starchy and aging handbook urged to never use foreign language words when writing in English—and if you must include them to italicize them. This is what I had done and encountered for many years as a writer and literature addict.
While working on Karen Jaime’s piece for The Best of PANIC! (Fireking, 2010) reading series anthology (she’s a poet and Performance Studies major at New York University), I was pleased to discover that she didn’t italicize Spanish unless the need was the same as for English, such as with the names of books. Her explanation was that using italics “others” a language—distinguishes it from English—which doesn’t necessarily reduce it, but marginalizes it. Sets it apart. Well, this doesn’t work for bilingual Latinos, so I took Karen’s philosophy to heart and discussed this with Charles, who also agreed that our nation’s unofficial second language—which preceded English here by over a hundred years and is spoken by over 35 million people in the U.S. by 2009 Census Bureau estimates—deserved equality here.
Ahead of you is a miniature galaxy of queer Latino ecstasy, fantasy, tenderness, violence, desire, heartbreak, wonder, hope…a cross-section sampling of our wildly diverse and tempestuously passionate lives; the experiences that affect us so deeply that we put them to the page to share with others. I hope that this book will serve as a catalyst to connect individuals and groups, even if virtually (writers: connect with us/each other via social media!). I’m forever grateful to Charles Rice-González and Lethe Press for including me on this colorful odyssey and hope that you’ll enjoy reading it as much as we did organizándolo. ¡Wepa!
Charlie Vázquez
Brooklyn, New York
February, 2011
(Little Orphan Girl)
David Andrew Talamantes
Pablito’s seventh birthday fell on a Saturday that year, making it easier for Senaida to throw him a birthday party. The guests would be mostly family, perhaps a few girls from his class, but none of the boys would be interested—Pablo had asked for a pink party. He wanted his favorite color everywhere: the cake, plates, utensils, balloons, napkins, streamers, even the traditional seven-coned piñata. Though Senaida wanted to give Pablo his birthday party as he imagined it, a tormenting image loomed so strongly in her head that she returned the lively pink party décor to the shelves and replaced it with everyday white.
The piñata remained at the store as well.
She had awoken the night before with her neck drenched in sweat and her hands balled into fists. Beto, next to her, reeked of booze. A vile stench emanated from his glistening brown skin and drooling mouth as he snored hoarsely. In the dream she had seen Pablito in his pajamas, gripping a wooden stick. From the rooftop of the house, a larger-than-life-size Beto laughed while holding fiery flaming ropes and controlling a devil-shaped piñata.
Little Pablo swung at the animated demon (more an evil marionette than a party favor) that was filled with dulces. The devil effigy held machetes in each hand. When Pablito attempted an attack, it pulled back and countercharged like a maniacal ram, slicing a bloody wound into Pablito’s arm, knocking him to the ground.
“¡Huerfanita estúpida!” Beto taunted from above, throwing an empty beer bottle that shattered near his barefooted son.
The demonio swooped from above, his right machete flying like a matador’s banderilla into Pablo’s sternum. The boy collapsed and a choke of blood spewed from Pablito’s lips like the spray-flames of fireworks. Senaida pulled herself out of the dream, making the sign of the cross over her body before placing her head back down on the pillow.
Senaida had been offered to Beto by her father Ramón, a retired police chief who had remained an influential and silent leader in the Ciudad Juárez Police Department—they were not married. Beto had become Ramón’s mechanic earlier that year and worked on underground projects very few knew about. Ramón moved Senaida into Beto’s home two days after Filomena, Beto’s wife and Pablo’s biological mother, disappeared. Pretty young ladies often vanished in Juárez, and Filomena’s body was found in the Chihuahuan Desert three weeks later, her face barely identifiable.
Senaida feared her own death when Beto was drunk, or even around, because she knew the truth about Filomena in her soul; she knew her father and Beto were wicked and heartless men and she wanted to protect Pablo however she could.
As a child she had had a little brother named Mateo who met his death at the age of six after Ramón caught him wearing Senaida’s favorite pink bathing suit. She screamed but was unable to protect him, as her uniformed father shook and pummeled the tiny six-year-old senseless. Hearing Beto’s antagonism of Pablito reminded her too much of her little brother’s fate, and though she had witnessed Beto’s physical abuse upon his son, God had never sent her such a graphic and horrifying dream before.
The countless gashes, bruises, and black eyes Beto had given Pablo during the year she lived with them were like childhood war wounds that healed, leaving little scarring, but always a little less of the boy’s bright personality. She loved Pablo like a son, the way he was, whoever he’d become. She accepted the fact that neither a baseball player nor a fighter would he ever be.
Beto referred to his only child as “la huerfanita”—the little orphan girl. The name surfaced when Filomena disappeared. Beto claimed she was always whoring around and that Pablo couldn’t be his son because the boy was lighter-skinned and Beto’s seed could never have brought forth such a pansy flower of a child. Senaida hated this nickname but said nothing since her place in his home was not one of voice or opinion—just work and occasional sex.
Beto’s part-time mechanic job mainly supported his alcoholism, but he saw himself as the breadwinner, even though he never paid bills or bought groceries; that was left to Senaida, who sometimes took money from his wallet to pay for these things.
Senaida made and sold burritos from an insulated ice-chest she’d purchased at a dollar store in downtown El Paso. She’d often cook her guisados late, achieving a slow simmer overnight. She charged two dollars per burrito and three for the refried bean and chile relleno version, the most popular. She often returned home several times a day to restock her ice-chest, only to head back out and make ends meet. The week previous to Pablito’s birthday had been good and her sisters agreed to help potluck the event.
Pablo wanted to be a Madonna dancer. He first heard “Vogue” on the kitchen radio while eating his Choco Krispies before school one day. Senaida tapped her foot to the beat while dipping fat long green chiles in egg foam, frying them until they floated.
Pablo placed his spoon in the bowl and threw his arms toward the cracked ceiling. He stood on his chair, and in unison, his arms fell outward, drawing magical mariposa wings at his sides. As his hands landed on his hips, he began bobbing to the snap-beat of the song, stepping right and left in perfect rhythm.
Senaida turned around, surprised. She smiled at him as he cat-walked toward her like a runway model, vibrant and brighter than she had ever seen him before. They joined hands and danced for a few seconds, until several golden brown rellenos popped up to the surface of the grease like dead fish in a pond. The bus honked and Senaida kissed Pablito on the cheek, hugging him like she never had before—he deserved it and she needed it.
The mood on the day of the party was fairly relaxed; Senaida had huge pots of frijoles and arroz cooking, and her sister Lucia brought trays of salpicón and cold-cuts from Carlos’s Carnicería. Carlos, Lucia’s boyfriend, kept her happy, and as long as she did the same, Lucia had all the free meat she wanted.
Her youngest sister Yoya purchased a few dozen mini bolillos and a cake from the Pastelería Carmen at the Rincón de Cortéz Mercado. She had ordered a white cake with white frosting, and after a half-hour phone conversation with Senaida, decided that Pablito deserved pink roses adorning it.
“Maldito cabrón, Beto,” she always told Senaida.
The most wonderful part of Pablito’s birthday was receiving his birthday outfit—in a large white dress box. Senaida purchased a white linen sport-suit with a white t-shirt decorated with abstract splashes of pink and splotches of black, brushstrokes of silver sparkle and sporadic aqua dots.
Pablo tossed the multicolored tissue paper on the floor and his eyes widened as if he’d discovered a seaweed-covered treasure chest. The most beautiful and luxurious clothing he’d ever seen (or owned) awaited, folded before him. Speechless, he ran to his bedroom with an elongated grin and newfound vibrancy in his sprint.
He emerged a youthful pop star, throwing his arms around Senaida’s waist, squeezing her with surprising strength. Never had he owned such flashy clothes, the perfect outfit for his special day. His primas Anita, Ivonne, and Regina, danced to Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Michael Jackson for hours on the makeshift dance-floor. Pablo, feeling like his dream would one day come true, joined them with impeccable rhythm.
Beto stayed in the garage while the celebration unfolded, being kept company by a case of Tecate and a plastic jug of tequila. He peeked out on occasion, frowning in disgust, cursing Filomena, Senaida—all the women in general. “No es mi hijo,” he grumbled.
“¡Huerfanita, venga!” Beto yelled from the garage two hours later, propping himself up against the workbench. The guests had gone home. He had finished his case of beer and most of the tequila and had managed to stumble to the liquor store to purchase a few forties of Carta Blanca. Though he was two bucks short the clerk didn’t mind; there would be many opportunities to swindle back his cash—and more—in the upcoming weeks.
“¡Huerfanita!” he yelled again.
Pablo had been watching his favorite telenovela (Matar sin sentimiento); his body stiffened at the sound of Beto’s voice. He removed his white suit coat, placing it gently on his bed as he walked outside, nervous that perhaps his dancing had warranted a beating. He reached the garage and peered in.
“¡Rápidamente! I’m going to teach you how to be un hombre macho, not a pinche muchachita…”
“Okay,” Pablo complied, entering the garage and shrinking into his thin frame like a dwarf mouse in the presence of a barn cat.
“Answer me! ¡Con huevos!”
“Okay,” Pablo said louder, still sounding squeaky.
“¡Otra vez!” Beto raised his hand threateningly before Pablo’s face.
“Okay!”
Beto looked at his son and laughed; he grabbed his forehead with clawed-out fingers and pushed him backward into a stumble. “The tires need to be rotated.”
Beto brought the jug of tequila to his lips and swigged it; clear drops fell from his chin onto his stained tank-top. He chased it with the nearest bottle of warm Carta Blanca and drew his arm across his mouth, wiping the remains.
He stumbled to the car and dropped to his knees, further dirtying his unwashed jeans on the unpaved garage floor he had passed out on the night before (Senaida had left him there so she could rest before the party).
Beto removed the hubcaps with the dexterity of a man fifty years his junior. Pablo glanced nervously around the garage, a place he had never dared venture into. He noticed Beto’s tire-jack near the vehicle’s rear and several tires resting on one another a few feet from the car.
“Now we have to get it off the ground,” Beto grumbled. “You stay there. I don’t want you fucking anything up.”
Beto placed the contraption underneath the rear end of the vehicle, with more than half of the jack peering out. Pablo watched with strange fascination as his father inserted a metal rod into the jack and began pumping it, the vehicle ascending. When the car’s rear was sufficiently lifted, Beto stepped on a pedal and the car stayed in place.
Beto then pushed on the side of the El Camino; the car moved from side to side, but the jack held. He removed both rear tires, pausing to suck down a couple shots of tequila.
“Only men drink tequila…toma un pisto.” He passed the bottle to Pablo, raising a backhand near his face.
Pablo brought the bottle to his lips and tilted it, allowing several ounces of the acidic silver liquid to wash down his throat. The liquor opened his nasal passages and his face contorted into a wrinkled mess, as the heat burned his esophagus like drain cleaner.
Beto, shocked by Pablo’s huge swig, laughed heartily. “Maybe one day you’ll be a man—but probably not.”
Pablo tried his best to hold it down, swallowing mouthfuls of tainted saliva until his mouth felt dry and the vomiting sensation dissipated. He felt dizzy, unclear, like he was dreaming, like he was in the telenovela he had just been watching.
Beto sat on the ground at the tail end of the El Camino and pushed himself underneath. “I have to check the tailpipe first,” he mumbled. “Get the tires up…con fuerza.”
Pablo did as he was told, his head aching and feeling light. He wrapped his hands around the tire, disliking the dirty feeling the black rubber left on him. Then he looked down at his pants—the tire’s zigzag pattern was stamped on the inside of his knee and had ruined his beautiful birthday gift. He felt angry and stood the tire up so it could roll.
“Grab me a screwdriver.”
What’s a screwdriver, Pablo wondered.
“The flathead with the red handle. ¡Pinche huerfanita!” Beto added with venom, as if hearing Pablo’s unvoiced question.
Pablo studied his father’s legs as they peeked out from underneath the brown El Camino. While glancing at the jack’s lever and safety, he noticed that the vehicle bounced each time Beto shifted his weight.
“¿El rojo?” Pablo asked with a voice as masculine as he could muster. His small hands gripped each side of the tire’s walls and the rubber rested awkwardly between his legs, like an oversized bowling ball. “I got it,” he said, inching closer.
“¡Rápido maricón! I can‘t move.” Beto held his hand out, awaiting the tool.
And just like at the ring toss game at the San Ignacio Church bazaar, Pablito lifted the tire and released it from his grip. The donut hole of the tire landed on the jack’s pole rigging, loosening it from the grip of the jack’s holding mechanism. A running sound of clicks, as if a chain-link curtain was collapsing to the ground, filled the garage, followed by Beto’s muffled screaming.
Pablo watched his father’s legs dance a corrida, shaking and convulsing, as the weight of the vehicle crushed his skull and ribs, his shoulders and pelvis. He watched until Beto’s legs came to a lazy and tired halt.
Pablo swallowed a gulp of air and cocked an eyebrow; Beto’s legs were as still and stiff as those of the Wicked Witch of the East under Dorothy’s house. Life would be better. He waited another minute, just to be sure, and yelled out, “Senaida!”
Benny Vásquez
Want me to tell you a fantasy?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, lie down. Close your eyes and listen to my voice.”
I felt my skin tingle, my heart race, and my ears open. As my breath grew heavier, I waited on every word he had to say. Every syllable was like a kiss covering an inch of my body. He continued to tease me with his voice, having me imagine a girl (it was always a girl) kissing the tip of my dick. As the word dick flowed from his mouth, he rubbed his rough and slightly wet fingertip along the outline of my lips.
“Do you like it?”
My eyes closed, I nodded my head. With every word, my body came closer to an explosion of sorts. My husky-sized shorts were getting tighter as my hard-on grew. He laughed and knocked on my dick, as he jokingly said it had transformed into a wooden door.
“Wow, you’re almost ready, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Now imagine her pulling you there, waiting for you to put it in her pus—”
We heard footsteps and his words were cut short, interrupted by a loud scream.
“¡Oye, ven a comer—se va enfriar la comida!”
I opened my eyes. “Okay! Let me just finish this game…”
The footsteps soon became faint and I knew that my mother was on her way back to the kitchen. As the room became quiet again, Danny and I looked at each other and laughed. He put his head on my shoulder and I rubbed his soft, curly, blond hair as we got up.
“You better go ahead. No quiero que mami me vea así.”
He looked down at me, nodded, and laughed. I turned around and heard him run into the kitchen. As soon as he had left, I finished the fantasy and lingered till my husky shorts returned to their normal size. I ran into the kitchen and saw Danny laughing with my mom, who was telling one of her stories.
Mami was a home attendant and always came back with crazy stories about her viejos. This time she was talking about one of the viejos who always farted and blamed it on his talking parakeet. We listened to her story, giggled, and waited on her every funny word.
I looked at Danny. He was always good at distracting mami. Whenever we played the fantasy game he would make sure I couldn’t walk; he’d knock on my wooden door and leave me by myself. He was like a guard. Always protecting me and preventing my mother from walking in on me while I jerked off. Danny always had my back.
I met Danny when I was fifteen; he was sixteen.
“Hey Emilio, this is Danny—my new boyfriend,” Martha had said.
That bitch gets all the cuties I thought as I shook Danny’s hand and looked into his eyes. When I did, I saw reflections of my own.
As Martha left us to become acquainted, I caught myself staring at him. It felt just like the time I watched Alex P. Keaton running around in his sweater-vest.
We began talking and I became increasingly nervous, feeling as if every word I was saying was coming from somewhere else. Looking at his face and seeing his soft blond goatee and thick red lips made me feel lost. We talked for ten minutes or more; it was as though some homeboy had invaded my body—I tried acting as straight as possible.
We bonded on our Boricua connection, hip hop, and surprisingly, our love for “The Breakfast Club.” Danny would look at me and lick his lips ever so innocently as this was happening. Every sentence that escaped his mouth ended with his tongue slowly traveling the creases of his lips.
“Danny, come here!” Martha screamed from across the room.
He smiled and said, “Let’s hang out soon.”
I nodded and waited for him to walk away.
I noticed how his body moved in his clothes; his step had a swagger all its own. As each step brought him closer to Martha, I fixated on the space between his fitted Yankees cap and white hoodie. I stared at his curly hair, which was fighting to escape, falling ever so softly on his neck. It was at that moment that I wished I could become the pants that hugged his hips, the sweater that ran down his back, and the cap that caressed his hair.
I chatted with Danny the next day; there wasn’t a day that went by over the following year that we didn’t talk. Our conversations were always full of laughter, sexual innuendos, and the trials and tribulations of being teens. From the daily annoyances caused by our parents to his explicit sexual encounters with Martha, I hung on his every word.
“So, Lio?” he asked, using a name that only he called me.
“What’s up?”
“You don’t ever think about getting laid?” Danny quietly waited for my answer.
I breathed heavily on the other end of the line. “Yeah, but no girl really likes me. I still think about it, though.”
“What do you think about?”
I thought about what I would’ve wanted Danny to do to me had I been a girl. I held the phone tightly, tapping my fingers on the kitchen table—hoping it would lead me to an answer.
“I think about kissing a girl and letting her kiss me all over and touching my…”
“Dick?” he added.
“Yes.” I became warmer and my breath got heavier.
“Lio?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you hard?”
Nervously, I admitted, “Yeah.”
It was then that he asked the words he would continue to ask over and over again. “Want me to tell you a fantasy?”
“Yeah.”
Danny began to tell me his fantasy while I pleasured myself at the kitchen table. After I released quietly we laughed and said we’d talk the next day. I hung up, wondering whether Danny had been doing what I’d been doing on his end of the line. Or had I been on my own?
Every time I thought of Danny, I fell deeper and deeper in love with him. Whenever he slept over and was near me, I felt complete. Whether we stayed up talking or playing video games, I treasured each moment I had with him.
I would wish that he’d give me a good night kiss whenever we got ready for bed and that the fantasy we always talked about would somehow become a reality. Instead, we slept side by side so that our hands would touch. He would grab my hand, link his fingers with mine, and quietly fall asleep.
As he slept I would look at him and wish I could caress the soft hairs on his chest, touch the space between his thighs, and feel his beard against my lips. There were many times when he would catch me looking at him and he’d smile. Squeezing my hand tighter, he would release a flow of energy that would travel through every vein in my body. I would look at him, close my eyes, and fall asleep.
When I woke up in the morning to the smell of mami cooking eggs and bacon, I was surprised that our hands were still intertwined and that our bond hadn’t broken. Danny and I slept like this countless times.
Even after his breakup with Martha, I felt that he remained connected to me. I always looked forward to our Friday night hangouts, the occasional fantasies, and his hand in mine. He became like a second son to my parents and was always in our house. His admiration for my mother’s cooking always won her heart and his talk of the Yankees kept my dad interested. I had never watched a Yankee game with my father—that is—until Danny initiated it. For a minute it felt as though my life with Danny was never going to come to an end and that I would always sleep next to him.
Although my mother loved Danny, there came a time when I noticed she would stare at us for too long. I would catch her and she’d turn away and pretend she was looking at something else. She’d come into my room unannounced when Danny was over. Her funny stories turned into awkward questions. Questions like, when were we going to bring our girlfriends around? Asking why Martha and Danny broke up and condemning my “sick” gay cousin. Things she would never ask when I was alone.
“No quiero a Danny in this house,” she warned one day.
The words came so quickly that I felt them take the wind out of me. I looked at her with confusion, trying to hide the heat that was escaping my body. It was as if the room had grown silent and all that could be heard was my heartbeat.
“¿Me oístes?” Did you hear me?
Mami’s voice became serious and she came closer. I had seen that look on her face before; a mixture of anger and hurt that radiated from her eyes. I walked backwards to the door. I could still feel the breeze that entered through the crevices between the wooden door of the apartment and the wall. I wondered if Danny was still on the other side.
“Why?” I asked softly, like a child. It was as if my favorite toy had been snatched away without warning.
“Porque yo mando aquí. I don’t want you hanging out with him.” Her voice intensified and her hand went up.
Her hand, a weapon I was familiar with, was about to come near me when I heard my father ask, “¿Qué pasa?”
Mami told my father what she had warned me about. Papi looked at me, then at the floor, and walked away. No words, no reaction. He left me stranded.
Mami put her hand down and went back to cleaning the kitchen. She was breathing heavily and her eyes were focused on the blue liquid dripping from her soap-filled sponge. She wouldn’t look at me. Had she, she would’ve noticed that her only son had tears in his eyes.
I leaned on the door, wishing I could walk through it and run away. After standing there for what seemed like an eternity, my mother turned around and came toward me. She grabbed me tightly by the arm, took me to my room, and threw me on the bed.
“¡Suciera del diablo!” She ordered me to strip the sheets off my bed, standing over me like a predator attacking prey, until I stripped my bed clean. The pillows and mattress were raw and empty. My hands trembled as I handed her the sheets. She looked me straight in the eyes. With a bead of sweat falling past her brow, she shook her head violently—she wouldn’t even touch them.
She grabbed my arm again. I could see the indentation on my skin; it burned, it hurt. When we walked past my dad, I heard the sounds of fans screaming and someone yelling homerun. My dad, with his cerveza in hand, continued watching TV and ignored what was happening.
My mother dragged me to the kitchen and demanded I throw the sheets away. I had to restrain myself from crying and kicking the shit out of her. I had never experienced such a mixture of fear, sadness, and anger. I looked at the sheets that had known Danny’s warmth and tossed them in the garbage—in the mixture of dirty cans, paper, and wasted food. My mother was satisfied and demanded I go to my room. I ran and lay on my bare bed, which felt cold and dirty. I cried until I fell asleep, holding my own hands.