Yako did a pretty comfy military tour: He didn’t go to Angola, he wasn’t part of the Special Forces. We’re a fortunate generation, after all, except for the Special Period. Cuz he’s tall and handsome, Cachita’s lucky son got his fate as palace guard handed to him from heaven. A total breeze, every night spent partying; sometimes during the evening’s firing of the cannons, he’d be playing toy soldier next to Eusebio Leal and foreign girls in shorts who’d get their picture taken with him, pressing tight against him. Now that’s the life. That’s how he met Silvia, who went by La Cabaña with some Italians. Me, I had to wait a whole year before I could get into the CUJAE, with scarcities, hunger, marches, and guard duty even on holidays. And without a girlfriend other than Manita and her five little ones, guarding my ass like a fine rooster. Sometimes military units can be like prisons, but with different sentences.
Finally, Humbertico the Piranha spies his prey in the group and smashes a bottle against the wall. He advances and waves that glass flower like death’s hand. But Yako and everybody else in El Patio know the real danger’s in the other hand, which hangs practically down to his knee, as if it’s not doing anything. Humbertico’s a leftie, and no matter how drunk he may be, he knows the whole world knows that, though he tries to hide it to his advantage even if he knows it’s not gonna do him any good. In the end he’s gonna hafta use his left upfront to whack the fucking whitey who did his fourteen-year-old sister, even though he was trying to protect her like a dog with a bone.
To have females in the family is a trip in El Patio, where every male’s all over anybody who slips. The worst part is that there’s always something, then you’ve gotta sound off, have balls, and, if it comes down to it, kill. A man can’t let anybody step all over his word, especially if he just got outta the tank, where if you lift your legs once, it’s forever.
It was Yako who did Petra but it could have been anybody. What happened was gonna happen, and better sooner than later. A leopard never changes its spots and that half-breed girl was born with whoring in her hot blood, and with a body that even her mother Tomasa wished she’d had so she could have earned a few pennies with the guys instead of rotting her liver drinking bad rum. Maybe if she’d gotten outta El Patio, Petra could have been a model or a dancer at the Tropicana, who knows. But El Patio is a drain, a bloodsucker — whoever stays kicks out his or her future soaked in liters of ethyl; life is one long moment waiting for nothing, or everything, or Armageddon; no one knows or cares.
Ever since she was a kid, Petra liked to lean on her brother while he played dominoes, until she was a coupla feet off the floor and her ass started spilling from her shorts and her sweater started swelling from the push of her tits; by then she was already on a first-name basis with all the neighborhood thugs. So folks started taking bets that she’d wind up spending her nights hanging out in front of the Hotel Cohíba... It was a matter of time — and of getting her ass loose from her older brother and his menacing belt to discipline her with and his, If I ever catch you in any hanky panky I’ll kick your ass purple and kill the son of a bitch who’s burrowing into it. But somebody had to be first, and it only made sense that it be Yako, the pretty boy, the sexy white boy, the one who — to top it off — already had a superfuckingincredibly edible and hyperfuckable girl like Silvia. Women get into that shit too, so that before they get with hot guys, they actually prefer guys who get on with hot women. And that everybody know about it. Especially here in El Patio, where whoever’s not keeping an eye on her old man is busy doing somebody else’s lover.
Yako came outta military service drenched with an existential laziness: He didn’t wanna do anything, not studying or working, not even close to being bad or thinking big, robbing banks or lending dollars at twenty percent interest, or selling weed like we dreamed of doing as boys, living it up in Yepo’s little patch of dirt, smoking our first Populares and later our first joint, which is surely the most delightful ever. The boy came back defeated and philosophicaclass="underline" He just wanted to play basketball for hours and hours, to fuck Silvia and any other panties that passed by, and to talk about three things — the red bridge, Salieri, and the Theory of Shit. He didn’t wanna hear about getting a job, even in jest. Construction or hunting crocodiles? No way. Not that he had anything else happening. Yako, the neighborhood philosopher, lowering his lids over his crossed eyes from behind a bottle of firewater, laying it down for whomever wanted to hear, the days getting lost in the dribble of the basketballs with their NBA logos penned by hand, the basket on the corner zigzagged by ocuje roots; watching porno pictures with Alfredo, the ex — merchant marine who was the last to be with Tomasa, Petra’s old mama, and Silvia, though nobody got why she didn’t kick him out given that she knew all about his infidelities.
Humbertico the Piranha says he shits ever so sweetly on the midwife who washed the pubes on Yako the faggot’s motherfucking whore mother the day she was born, but knowing she’s dead, that faggot sure as hell isn’t gonna leap up to defend her. The stink of bad liquor adds fuel to his words. He should step up if he’s any kind of man, let’s see if he’s got the balls to take him — Humbertico — on, the way he had ’em taking advantage of an innocent girl. His little sister is innocent the same way El Patio is a wealthy suburb, but for a moment it sounds like truth on his tongue, what Yako did seems abusive and indecent. Fourteen years of age is fourteen years of age, even if she uses a 38 bra. Let’s see, let’s see how bad he is: Step up, let him try to take me, unless he’s just a cherry-buster, an ass-fucker. I’m gonna gut him like a fish, so he learns not to mess around with real men. Yako tries the thing with his back pocket again but the Piranha, fresh outta the tank, knows what’s up, doesn’t fall for it, sees the bluff, knows big guys never carry shit. He spits, his saliva thick with fear and shame spattering Yako’s new Nikes, Silvia’s most recent present. He’s just waiting now. The silence is so deep Babas’s gurgling sounds like a lion’s purr.
Then the crowd parts, opening up some space for whatever’s about to happen, cuz when things are fated and it’s not your turn, all that’s left is to watch. Yako — Caesar without too much desire to cross the Rubicon — bends and wipes the green phlegm from the tip of his shoe, but he’s already on the red bridge and he knows it and I know it and what nobody knows is which way he’s gonna go, if he’s gonna cross or run.
Yako’s Theory of Shit is very simple: If we come from shit, we are shit, and will return to shit, then it makes no sense to lift one shitty finger to get outta the great universal shit. Shit on Einstein and Newton and the whole fucking shitty world, and shit on the progress of mankind, and fighting for a cause and all that other shit. It may sound dumb, but after the shivers that come from the third shot of Tiger’s Bone, which scalds your throat like a lash from the inside, everybody in El Patio stops thinking, That’s not so original, or whatever, and then Yako’s just right on, and even floating debris like Babas suddenly remembers thinking something like that at some point. Then it’s, Damn, white boy, you got it, you’re the man, and they pass around a fourth shot. Even before we knew each other... we drank together. Now that we know each other, we drink together. So to shit with it all, and let’s drink until we can’t recognize each other.