While we sat there, I got the next letter. So far, it had been six weeks since the first, and six letters. One a week. Each had gotten weirder. I asked Eduardo to look at them and tell me what this person could possibly be talking about. I found out the following things.
Thing number won: The letters espoused their love to the recipient. Me. Eww.
Thing number tu: The sender was obsessed with me-he somehow figured out which comics were mine and read every one.
Thing number fwee: “My” little porno comics made los noches solidades y tristes-those lonely nights-so much easier to bear.
Thing number kwatro: La Pencitenciaria de la Ciudad de Mexico was a men’s prison.
The following week was memorable for three reasons. The first was that my boss was on vacation in Caracas with his wife. I’m sure he had no earthly idea why his wife insisted on hiring a personal valet assistant for the trip. I just hoped Manuel was smarter than the guy who was signing his paychecks. The second reason was that because my boss was gone, I got to fuck off all I wanted. I drew small titties all week. The third reason was that I got another letter that really crossed the line. It’s not that I was ignoring the letters, it’s just that I decided to drop them into a drawer under some unfinished sketches under some crap, and then not think about them at all.
But when this week’s installment of Male Prison Pen Pals in Love arrived, I got a truly fucked-up little nugget. The mystery and revulsion was delivered in two parts.
Eduardo was sitting right there when I opened the letter. It was oddly colored, and once more written on paper that looked like it had been torn from a marble notebook. You know, one of those composition books? But the color was off and it smelled funny. Some of the paper was normal looking, but huge portions of it looked like something had been spilled on it. Like the guy who wrote it was eating or drinking something at the time. Eduardo’s theory was that it was tea or beer or something…
“Carnal, that shit looks like beer,” Eduardo espoused with certainty.
“How could this possibly be beer? He’s in fucking jail!”
“Oye, homes, don’t get all fuckin’ aggro with me.”
“Eduardo, please, cut the shit for five seconds…this is freaking me out.”
“All right, relax, let me think for a minute. So it’s no beer? Could be tea.”
The image of a hardened criminal sitting in his cell drinking tea, one pinkie finger extended and writing me love letters, was pretty terrifying.
“What about coffee?”
“Too dark.”
“Soda?”
“Same thing…and it doesn’t explain the smell.”
“Shit, I don’t know. Anyway, who fucking cares? He’s in jail.”
“Yeah,” I said, not comforted by the fact much. “Sure.”
“Just hope he doesn’t get out. You seem to have one hardcore faggot after you.”
“What makes you think he’s hardcore?”
“He’s a fag who writes letters covered in little hearts, maybe drinks tea, and he’s in a Mexican prison-and as long as you keep getting these, it means he’s staying alive. That’s one badass maricon.”
Point.
Later that night, I was home after a short visit to the bar and a tequila-pounding session. The nice thing here is that you can buy painkillers over the counter that you would need scrips for in the States, so lucky me, I had alcohol and painkillers.
I got home and was flipping through some of my drawings and some of the other magazines that the place puts out. Some of the more conventional ones. I started to get my own personal motors running and, as I have been wont to do, since being here and unable to meet women, I rubbed one out. As I was getting up to clean off, I noticed a smell that was really familiar. I walked around for a bit, smelling my hand, trying to figure out where it was familiar from. I mean, not like it’s the first time I’ve done the five-knuckle shuffle, but it was different. Closer somehow. Then I remembered the letter. I went to my bag and got it out. I brought it up to my face and caught a big whiff-way too similar to what I was smelling just moments ago. And vomited all over the letter and the kitchen floor.
“Eduardo, he fucking came on the letter!”
“You mean, the letter came, right?”
I forced a little more patience into my voice before answering. Eduardo was smart, and he was educated but this wasn’t his lengua primera we were speaking, out of respect for my blancito ass, no less.
“No, he ejaculated all over the letter,” I said, suppressing the gorge rising in my throat.
“Ewww.”
“Yeah.”
We both looked up at a voice that came from the entrance to my cubicle.
“E’cue me, can I talk to you for a momento?” my boss’s wife said, looking at me.
Eduardo looked at her, looked at me, pursed his lips, and got the fuck out of there. I toyed with the idea of calling out, “Take me with you.”
“Que tu hace, Gloria? Gonyo, you’re gonna get me fucking fired.”
“Que tu hace? Fuck joo, pendejo. Joo said joo was gonna call me.”
“What’s the matter, Gloria? Get bored with the valet?”
She pouted and sat down, going for hurt and vulnerable and just succeeding in looking cunty and swollen… Works for me.
I’d fucked my boss’s wife last month. Yeah, I know I didn’t mention this earlier. I don’t really remember it too well. A bunch of us went out to the bar after work, and my boss showed up with his wife and driver in tow, trying for a folksy “get to know you” with his employees. It worked like a solar-powered flashlight.
He started drinking immediately, got a cheer when he bought us all a round. I was thinking of making a statement and not drinking it, but fuck-a free drink’s a free drink. So we all got kinda sloshed, but then he started arguing with his wife and she ended up shrieking, throwing a drink into his face, and bursting into tears. I hear communication is key to a healthy relationship, so maybe that wasn’t such a big deal. But then he stood up, said, “Puta!” nice and loud, and stormed out, stopping long enough to grab his driver by the arm and split. Leaving wifey to find her own way home or not.
She continued to drink and we all tried to deal with it in our own way. Most everybody else ignored her, but I ended up talking to her-and then taking her home. I think. The next morning I woke on the floor next to the bed, with the pattern of the molding at the base of the wall embossed in my cheek. Further inspection revealed that my face stank and my dick hurt. I popped my first herpes sore a month later.
Puta.
By the pointed looks whenever she came by the office and by the way she was looking at me now, I guess I fucked her.
“You gave me herpes, Gloria.”
“No. I no ’ave, wha’ chou say, ’erpez.”
The only woman I’ve ever come across that could make the word herpes sound sexy.
“Well, maybe not, but you should get checked. Because I have it and you’re the only one I’ve fucked recently.”
“Chou lie. Chou ’ave beeng fauckinngg deez Tijuana whoooars.”
“No, I haven’t…” This was bullshit. I didn’t know whore had that many Rs.
“Chou dong care sheet forrr mee. Bastardo!” she said, and stormed sobbing from my cubicle. By the time she was three feet away, it was a full-on siren wail that didn’t seem to require breathing, since it never stopped all the way to the elevator. I followed her half of the way. I don’t know what I was thinking, just trying to get her to shut the fuck up before somebody got theories. But when she stormed into the elevators and gave me the finger as the door closed, I gave up and turned to go back to me desk. Only to see my boss staring at me from the open door of his office.