Ángel had lost hope and wanted to give up. A faggot who got shot and was searching for the truth — it wasn’t even worthy of the front pages of the papers. This was the plight of sex workers. So much whoring that as a consolation prize a desperate diva sucked your cock while you were sprawled on the pavement, in a spot where gum-chewing twelve-year-old girls walked by, cackling with their little boyfriends. To top it off, the horrifying fellatio was the only thing he knew for sure. Nobody was even certain how many had been picked up in the raid. Life, like always, was shoving Ángel’s wounded face right into a shit-stained ass.
A few seconds later, a transformed yet still provocative Ivette took to her prized room of spirits. It was time to give him a reading.
“Mi vida, I see here that you are being stalked by a close love. I see that he’s sad, I see tears. Do you know who I’m talking about?” Ángel stayed silent. “Ay, papito, ay, ay, ay... they wanna see you dead.”
“Who? Please, tell me who!”
“Of that I cannot be sure — lemme see the cup. Nope. But you must protect yourself, you have to keep Saint Michael’s sword with you at all times.”
Ángel watched in silence as Ivette removed a little gold sword from a drawer, which she quickly proceeded to bathe in a red liquid.
“With Saint Michael before you, Saint Michael beside you, Saint Michael behind you. Free this being from his enemies, Lord, and through Your esteemed prince, grant him his request. Amen.” Ivette crossed herself.Still in a trance, she handed him the amulet.
As soon as the promiscuous vagabond held it, the mini-weapon shone even brighter. A terrible tightness in his wrists and a knot in every vertebra immobilized his body. The entire night he had longed to be rid of the darkness that’d inhabited his heart and the side of his body where the bullet passed through. For the first time since he had woken up on the pavement, he felt invincible.
“You’ve got to go to El Cajón de Madera, the answer is there,” Ivette said before coming back to earth.
The place she was referring to was the central gathering point for all the whores in Puerto Rico. It’d already become a famous international landmark for the sex trade community. El Cajón de Madera transformed, every night, into a space of freedom that for so long had only been a chimera; it reflected the acceptance of diversity: an ode to excess that didn’t judge any being on the earth. And there, every Thursday night, the same night that Ángel was shot, the disputes congealed along the age-old political lines. But at this time, Friday poking its head into the wee hours of Saturday morning, the den of sin transformed into a locus of desperation for those who hadn’t picked up a client to at least pay for their daily meal at the local fast-food joint. In a very strange way, Fridays were the Great Depression of lust, of wanting to unzip your fly to give or receive favors from horny caribeñas. Ángel would follow the instructions.
When he came out of the room, Saturnino was half-asleep and Felicia was praying and reading Bible verses on her cell phone. His announcement left them stunned.
“Why go to El Cajón? That woman is crazy. The Lord will settle the score!” Felicia yelled.
“Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got to finish my round either way. My shift is almost over,” said the fat cop, who’d drooled a little when he’d been dozing.
As he went down the stairs of Ivette’s house, Ángel looked back at his spiritual guide, whose skin had suddenly been transformed into a dark shade that would terrify anyone. But he continued on his way, following behind his gossiping, meddlesome companions. If something stuck in Saturnino’s and Felicia’s heads, the next day it became the big news that everyone, even the walls, would know. Morbid tidbits nourished the peace that they’d lost long ago. Saturnino had nothing to do but try to escape from his job and be unfaithful to his old wife, who had spiderwebs for a cunt. As for Felicia, praying for indomitable whores used up more energy than fifteen anal penetrations. Nothing would stop them now. The attempted murder had produced a fertile mystery to be solved.
And so, with the gossip streak activated, the three pendejos of the night from Río Piedras made their triumphal entrance into the brothel, which reeked of an iron-y menstrual odor and old rum.
The stench of whores, thought Ángel. Without warning, he threw himself onto the nearly naked body of Luis — who gasped at seeing him alive, wagging his tail, thirsty for vengeance, hungry with questions. “Where’s Ramiro? Tell me what happened last night,” he asked his victim irreverently.
Luis silently pulled Ángel by the arm to one of the seven dark rooms that set the place apart from the capital city’s other offerings. When the door closed behind them, they came together in a single mouth and began bumping into contours and walls varnished with remnants of beer and, who knows, possibly herpes. They held their heads up like they were swimming without knowing how to swim. They tried to look each other in the eye in the darkness and were left submerged in silence. They stroked each other’s chests, backs, necks, and faces, confining themselves to the exodus of their bodies, ignoring the question of who’d shot whom. Both of them gave without malice, licked without reason, sucked without restraint. In the background, salsa music exuded sweat, the call-and-response ensnared them. They had reached fullness, a kind of nirvana in the din of the tropics.
Then, slowly, the music stopped like an afternoon jealously bidding farewell as it confronted the night. That evening, Ángel was unfaithful to the code of vengeance. The final notes of salsa touched what was left of each body. Bitterness made of barley, cigarettes, and cocaine sharpened every taste bud. Ángel felt Saint Michel’s sword in his right pocket and he held back, just at the point of coming between Luis’s thighs.
“Before I finish... What happened last night? I can’t wait. Please tell me!” he yelled excitedly.
“Last night you ceased to exist.”
Angry with himself, regretful, Ángel pulled away from the arms of his lover and ran out of the darkness toward the bathroom. There, he turned on the light, splashed his face, and stood in front of the full-body mirror. He realized then that there was nothing left of him but bloody tatters of skin, sparse hair, and a skin tone reflecting an anguish that cannot be explained — even by comparing it to the darkness of the street that had made him who he was: Ángel, of whom not even a scrap remained.
Devastated, with tears tracing the contours of his gaunt face, and tightly gripping the sword that would rid his life of all evil, he went back to the main dance floor where he’d left Saturnino and Felicia, but nobody was there. The place had become the somber desert of his unrealized dreams. After searching everywhere, he came to the end of the hallway of dark rooms, where he found himself face-to-face with the silhouette of Ramiro, who was pointing an AK-47 at him.
All of a sudden, he remembered that there was an exit behind the bar where he had escaped before when he got in trouble. Then, with only three long strides separating him from escape, he was deafened by an explosion as he opened the door to salvation and stumbled into a coffin — three red candles, a bouquet of roses, a cross, and a crowd who wept in remembrance while praying over his dead body.
A Killer Among Us
by Manuel A. Meléndez
Hato Rey Norte
I was up when Papi arrived. It was late — I’m sure it was past midnight — and I was still wide awake from all the thunder and lightning that had ransacked the small town of Hato Rey Norte.