“Ay, I don’t know, they picked all of us up sucking Condado cocks. The raid was bullshit, mamita. I just ran out of there, screaming, protecting myself. You know not even Pope Francis is going to get my hard-earned money, baby. I only found out what I told you about Alejandro because Felicia told me. Ramiro got out of there early and you’d gone off, I don’t know where,” the diva rattled off as the bus that would take him home pulled up.
After an over-the-top, marvelously vivid, but quick goodbye from Lutgardo, Ángel went about his business. He was starting to grow impatient, so he got ready to go down to Calle Manila to find Felicia, whatever it took. Drops of blood slipped down his sides and rippling lower back muscles that made his butt the ideal preamble — an ass so juicy and perfect it satisfied even the most depressed. He thought about how he’d been sucked off by more than a hundred men before becoming enthralled with Ramiro. Ángel took a breath and let his tongue — the ruin of so many — hang out, revealing a weariness that only a cold beer would alleviate, the pain from his wound making his hands and knees tremble. He had a moment to pause before going to pester Felicia with questions, but all he had in his pockets was a slippery, sticky grape condom, used and broken. “The truth is, I’m a major leaguer,” he muttered to himself while searching for the nearest trash can. In light of his empty pockets, he’d have to haggle for a drink to calm his thirst. He arrived at the bar La Solución and greeted his friends who, choking back tears, offered him everything, even the hand of the owner’s granddaughter. Ángel could still pick up any girl he wanted with his dashing looks and strapping body. If his friends ever found out how many men he’d blown and that the rumors were true, at the very least they’d revive the Holy Inquisition in America. Think how great it’d be to light the bonfire and witness the death of one of the most experienced cocksuckers in the metropolitan area. “Sentenced to death for being a faggot.” Really, they should sentence him to death for “having sucked more cock than twice the population of Puerto Rico.” But there he was, más macho que los machos, letting them tease and pamper him.
One, two, three, four, five, six bottles of beer coursed through his system and negated the presence of the acetaminophen. He no longer felt his wound — the alcohol was the perfect anesthesia for the difficult task of finding his assailant. When he knew that it was time to leave, he got up from the milk carton they’d given him to rest on and went out to meet his fate.
He knew that at first Felicia would be scared to death, and then she’d lose her shit when she picked up the holy stench of booze. He was never spared the sermon from his most conservative and Pentecostal of friends, even when she was overjoyed to find out that he was still alive.
“Prieta chula, what’re you dooooing? Please, c’mon, come out here. I’m fabulous, feeling tip-top,” he managed to slur drunkenly before a shriek of joy rang out from inside the house.
“Son of the Holy Mother, I can’t believe you’re here!” she said, crying with excitement. “Christ, forgive me, like a thief in the night you’ll come to punish me for this dirty mouth, but I’d already imagined the worst. Ivette came to me with the story of how Alejandro sucked you off when you were on your deathbed, and I couldn’t do anything, I was stuck here taking care of mami. But just wait till I see him — and Luis too, who supposedly you drove wild last night. I can’t help imagining Ramiro’s face.”
Apparently, there wouldn’t be a sermon that day. She invited him in and told him, in excessive detail, what’d been said. That everyone screamed and jumped, that what she knew about Ramiro was what was known about Rolandito (the little boy who was kidnapped in 1999, and never found), that the police enjoyed seeing all of them suffer. But unfortunately she didn’t have the slightest idea what had happened prior to whatever incident had left part of his body mutilated.
Both of them were very upset and looking for explanations, and after she’d gone to get him a cup of freshly brewed coffee, a rumbling from the bowels of the earth made every corner of every room and every glass in the house tremble. It was an earthquake! The night occupied itself with swallowing the goodwill of the world. It consumed them, slowly, as if envying the plenitude of optimistic souls. The night made itself owner and mistress of every street, every tectonic movement. Blackout. Ángel and Felicia took each other by the hands and ran outside to find fat Saturnino, of the vice police, lighting a cigarette.
“Maricón, what’re you doing here? I had you for dead. Alejandro’s blow job revive you? I imagine that little mouth would suck anyone out of eternal rest.”
“Ay, Saturnino, please, the last thing I need is your shit. What’re you doing here? Did you feel the earthquake?” Ángel said.
“Big deal, papito! I’ve felt so much shaking in these ass cheeks that Mother Earth’s fury disappears somewhere between balls, ass, tongue, and gut.”
“Do you know what happened to me yesterday? Coño, you have to know,” Ángel asked desperately, thinking that Saturnino, protector of the state, would be able to solve the mystery for him.
“Tres carajos. I wasn’t on duty and these raids come out of nowhere like that. I know Ivette was around there, squeezing information outta everybody. Call her and ask because I’ve got to continue my rounds to see how many bitter old ladies have shit themselves, or how many crazy putas got scared by the earthquake.”
Before Saturnino could escape, Ángel asked him, as a favor, to accompany him to the house of the boss woman from the barrio where they grew up. The moment had come to confront Ivette face-to-face, with her black flesh, soft and swollen tits, purplish mouth, and olive-green eyes. It was a moment to invoke the saints — the moment he would let himself be seduced by the great witch of Río Piedras.
Ivette had been a feared woman for multiple generations. Since the time of her great-great-grandparents, the smells of patchouli, cinnamon incense, and squash purchased in Plaza del Mercado were always present in the concrete space made of seashells. Ivette only spoke to three people: Felicia, Saturnino, and Ángel. The three pendejos were already assembled.
“You scared you’ll get your ass chewed out over there?” Saturnino responded immediately.
Just then they heard screeches of joy because the lights were coming back on.
“That’s not it. You know we can figure out what happened if we put together what the three of us know and heard. Coño, say yes and I promise to give you the blow job of your life. The greatest blow job in the universe... okay?”
“You promise to swallow?”
“No deal without that,” Ángel said with the sly wink he used to ensnare Ramiro — of whom he still had no news.
The three of them got into the police car and drove across Santa Rita along the back streets, through the center of the town, until they came to the community of Capetillo. A yellow house with a white door that had sticks of incense tied to it was waiting for them. The enviable mistress of the house observed them through the window in her small consultation room. With a sweet and cunning voice, she invited them in.
“Do you want anything, mis amores? Give me a hug, bello. I watched you go far and look now how the roads of life have brought you back here. Do you need help?”
“What happened, Ivette? You’re our last hope for figuring it out.”
“I just saw when Alejandro climbed on top of you to suck you off. It seemed like your dick was just the antidepressant he needed,” she explained calmly. “If you’d seen how precious the image was, you wouldn’t be mad at him. But other than that, I don’t know anything. Santurnino wasn’t there, Felicia had stopped reading to us from the Bible earlier, well before everything went down, and Ramiro took off the moment you were left lying on the pavement.”