Once a King, Always a King: The Unmaking of a Latin King

by Reymundo Sanchez

  “That man may have been rich, educated, and living the American dream,” she said. “People don’t think about how it could feel to lose that dream until they lose it, and then that’s when you really find out what friends are, and what family is. There are so many people whose sole purpose in life is to destroy the lives of others. They live by the rule that, in order to have more, everyone else has to have less.” I had never seen the world in the light Marilyn was presenting it in. For the most part, I believed that as long as one worked hard and went to school, all would be well. Then Marilyn laid a comment on me that really sent me into a spin. “That’s why I admire you so much,” she said. “So many people worked so hard to destroy you and you still found a way to survive.”

  For the first time in my life, someone who wasn’t in the business of saying self-serving positive things was saying something good about me. Granted, I had no clue how she came to her conclusion. Still, I took a moment to bask in my glory.

  I watched Marilyn as she took her spoon, my spoon, the sugar container, the cream container, and the napkin holder and slowly positioned them in many different ways on the counter. She seemed hypnotized by the countless positions that these objects could be arranged in, but I knew that she was just waiting for me to respond to her remark. I just didn’t know how, and maybe I didn’t want to just yet. Finally I broke the silence, which had lasted several minutes.

  “I see you’re into modern art,” I joked. “Yeah, the meanings are endless,” Marilyn responded in laughter. “So what meaning does your present work of art have?” I asked. “Well, the cup represents how deep life is and the coffee shows how dark life can be,” Marilyn started. “The spoons represent the manner in which we dip into things we’re not supposed to, and the cream shows that we try to artificially lighten what should remain dark. Of course we end up making a big mess.” Marilyn pointed at the coffee trickling down the side of the cup and onto the saucer. “And then we try to cover it all up, knowing that messes always soak through.” She covered the coffee on the saucer with a napkin and watched it soak right through.

  It was at that moment that we realized that we had drawn the attention of the cops and the gentleman behind the counter. “You got all that from a cup of coffee?” one of the cops asked. “The meaning of life is implanted in everything around us,” Marilyn responded without looking their way. “Or you can do what I do and make it all up as you go along.” She finally looked up at the cops and let out a slight laugh.

  The cops and the guy behind the counter laughed. “That’s more like it,” one of the cops said. “For a minute there I thought I had gone through life missing something.”

  Marilyn went back to her objects, arranging them and encouraging me to help. We sat there giving ridiculous interpretations to the placement of the objects. The cops left, and we were all alone except for the attendant, who went about his business of wiping tables. By the time we realized it, it was two-thirty in the morning.

  We left Dunkin’ Donuts feeling intoxicated from all the laughter and headed toward Marilyn’s home. We seemed to arrive there much too quickly. Neither of us was ready for the night to end. We again parked nearby and talked all night. Only this time, deep, passionate kissing interrupted our conversations. It was one of the very few times in my life when I didn’t feel that I was initiating all the action. In fact, I consciously made sure not to get carried away and ruin what was becoming something wonderful.

  From that point on, Marilyn and I became almost inseparable. We saw each other almost every weekday and spent all of our weekends together. She finally began to open up to me completely. That in turn gave me the confidence to open up and talk about things I had never been able to talk about before.

  Marilyn told me about her ex-boyfriend and how deeply he had hurt her. Their relationship had lasted for a little over two years. From the moment he met her, she told me, he complimented her looks. She was the most beautiful woman he had laid eyes on, he told her. That guy was Marilyn’s very first boyfriend, and therefore she had never heard such sweet words coming from someone she was physically attracted to. Eventually they became sexual, and according to Marilyn that’s when everything between them began to change.

  For whatever reason, Marilyn wasn’t able to give her boyfriend the sexual pleasure he expected from her, and, because she was new to sex, she didn’t know how to stroke his ego by faking it. Instead of talking to Marilyn about how he felt, what he liked, and so on, he barraged her with insults. Because Marilyn was in love with this guy, and he had been her first, she concluded that there must be something wrong with her. As time passed they saw each other less and less. For reasons Marilyn couldn’t comprehend, when he did come around, it was only for sex. This was the same guy who had said he didn’t find her sexually satisfactory. After the sex, he would insult her in one way or another and then leave. Marilyn grew tired of this routine and finally put a stop to it. He responded by yelling obscenities at her and insulting her sexual ability in broad daylight in front of a lot of people. This incident left Marilyn emotionally and sexually traumatized. She questioned her womanhood and became afraid to have relationships with the opposite sex. She told me that she didn’t know why she was opening herself up again with me, only that she felt we were soul mates.

  I reached over and kissed Marilyn and held her for a while. I told her that many men base their sense of macho superiority on being able to please a woman sexually. I explained that men like that usually feel that, as long as they please a woman sexually, they have created a miracle and therefore should be worshipped. These men usually run around with many women who for the most part buy into the macho superiority with the sexual pleasure theory. Nothing more than sex can be expected from men who think this way, and not worshipping their sexual manner is the ultimate insult to them. I assured her that there was nothing wrong with her. I tried to make her understand that she just needed a lot more than the physical pleasure he was offering to be whole, and he couldn’t provide that and would probably never understand that. While I spoke, I wondered to myself if I was that same type of guy.

  Marilyn sat quietly as I spoke. When I was finished talking, she reached out to me and said, “you truly are my soul mate,” before she kissed me. This time her kiss felt much more passionate than it had before. It was as if Marilyn had been holding back the best of herself until she found out certain things about me. I in turn wondered whether or not she would still consider me her soul mate when she got to know more about me.

  “What about you?” Marilyn asked. “What kind of man are you when it comes to sex?” The question took me by surprise and left me speechless. There were so many ways I could answer this question. I could plead ignorance, giving the impression that I was as inexperienced as she was, or I could pound my chest like Tarzan and stake my claim as a sexual dynamo. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I didn’t know what type of man I was, sexually or otherwise. What I did was take that opportunity to let Marilyn know about the sexual traumas of my life. I told her about the thirty-five-year-old woman who thought she was doing me a favor my having sex with me at age thirteen while she told me and showed me what I should do to please a woman. I told her how I had had sex with prostitutes and how I had forced a Latin Queen to have sex with me. I decided, however, not to tell her about being raped by my cousin. I still wasn’t ready to share that with anyone. After I told her about my traumatic sexual past, I finally tried to answer her question.

  “My answer is I don’t know. All I can tell you is that you are the only woman I have ever met who I respected as a person before I became sexually attracted to you. I have a problem with seeing women as anything more than an instrument of sexual pleasure. With you it is different,” I told her. I suddenly realized that what I was saying could be construed as not finding her attractive and made sure to clarify what I meant. “Don’t get me wrong. I find you very attractive and thought you were gorgeous from the beginning, but it just never crossed my mind
that you could go for someone like me. I respect you so much for what you have accomplished in your life, in the same period of time that I have done nothing. And now, well, now not only do I respect you but also I feel so good when I’m with you. I don’t think I can say that about any other woman who has come into my life,” I concluded.

  “Why?” Marilyn asked. “Because you have a master’s degree, Marilyn, that’s why,” I responded. “Me? I’m just an ex-con!” I stared out the windshield into nowhere. “Silly goose, that’s not what I meant,” Marilyn said, “and besides a master’s degree is only a piece of paper that has no value in determining how a person is inside.” I was prepared to tell Marilyn how I felt about the importance of having a degree, but she was more interested in finding out my thoughts and what shaped them.

  “Why do you feel confused about who you are sexually?” she asked. “The first woman I had sex with,” I began, “or actually, who had sex with me was thirty-five years old and I was only thirteen. I was like the hero of the neighborhood, a stud. But then it freaked me out to find out that girls my age were not interested in the things I had learned from a thirty-five-year-old.” I told her about the night that Maria had taken it upon herself to take my virginity and teach me how to please a woman. I told her about how sexually hungry I became from that day forward. I told her how I would shoot drugs into a prostitute named Gina’s veins in exchange for sexual pleasure, and I told her about how I had used Jenny, my first girlfriend and high-school sweetheart, as a sex toy and became upset when she became just that. I then paused and waited for Marilyn’s reaction. I thought for sure I had lost her.

  “Maria molested you,” Marilyn said. “She took advantage of your ignorance and childhood curiosity and molested you.” This was the first time that anyone who knew what had happened between Maria and me had come to that conclusion. For the most part I had always been told how lucky I was, whether it was a man or woman hearing the story. Now here was someone I respected telling me that it was not normal, and that I had indeed been molested. I felt as if such a big burden had been lifted from me. It was as if I finally understood all my romantic failures. I suddenly understood why I felt about women the way I did. Marilyn now got that serious look where she talked without making eye contact. She continued to dig into my past.

  “You were thirteen and doing drugs—where was your mother?” she asked. My silence and blank expression must have alerted Marilyn that clearly she had hit a major artery as she had done once before. She didn’t pursue the topic as she normally would have. In fact, she brought our night of discovery to a conclusion by calling to my attention that it was six in the morning and that we should go home. I drove to the front of her house, walked her to the door, and gave her a deep, lasting kiss. “I’ll see you tonight,” Marilyn said as she opened the door. With that we both made our way home.

  My head was spinning from the night’s events. Had I not been so tired after being up all night I would have twisted and turned in bed with many thoughts running through my mind. I thought about Marilyn’s reaction to all of what I had said. I wondered if her words were sincere or just words that she thought would get her safely through the night. I wondered if she would continue to be that special woman in my life or if she would be yet another unsympathetic bitch who came into and out of my life. As soon as I woke up I called her. She was up and around and eager for me to go pick her up. I showered, got dressed, and headed her way.

  Marilyn was apparently looking out the window to see when I arrived, because she walked out to meet me before I got a chance to park my car. She got in and we drove off. We decided to go have dinner and then walk around Uptown.

  During dinner we talked about our jobs and during our walk we talked about the different things we saw in the shop windows lining the street. Finally we decided to go somewhere where we could sit and talk. We ended up parked by the lakefront and talking the night away again. On this night the topic was mostly our families.

  Marilyn was upset because, from the time she awoke, her mother had been bitching at her about her staying out all night. What upset her the most was that her mother seemed to be angry more about what her brother would say or think about such behavior than about Marilyn’s well-being. She told me that her mother routinely overlooked the fact that she was an adult and was paying most of the rent and household bills and, in fact, the only reason why Marilyn wasn’t living on her own was because her mother needed her financial assistance.

  Marilyn told me that her mother and father had been married in Puerto Rico and relocated to New York before they had children. She said her father had never been the romantic gentleman type. He had, however, always provided for the family even though he had a knack for getting drunk. She told me that on the first day of her parents’ honeymoon, her father got so drunk that he broke down the bathroom door to bring his new wife to bed for sex. Her mother was having her period at the time and was embarrassed to make love to her new husband under those circumstances. Marilyn’s father didn’t care and probably never even noticed.

  All four girls had been born in New York. Marilyn’s fondest memories of her youth were running around the streets of the Bronx. Her father moved the family to Miami due to a job change. In Miami the fighting and bickering that had always existed between her parents intensified. It reached its boiling point when her father started having an affair and was seen in public more with his mistress than with his wife. Ultimately he moved in with his mistress and abandoned his family. Marilyn’s mother had packed up and moved herself and the girls to Chicago where she had family.

  Marilyn never understood what went on in her father’s mind that led him to abandon them without an explanation. She didn’t care that he left her mother. She understood that was a personal relationship she had little to do with. But she felt as though he should have continued his relationship with his daughters regardless of what was going on between him and his wife. He brought even greater pain into his daughters’ lives when he left his inheritance to his stepchildren and made no mention of his blood children in his will. That, in Marilyn’s opinion, was an act that showed discontent toward his daughters, not his ex-wife.

  Marilyn obviously had been deeply hurt by her father’s actions. He died without ever seeing her again, and had been buried by the time she found out he had passed away. He never got to see his little girl graduate from college and earn her master’s degree. Because of that, Marilyn had decided to skip the graduation ceremonies altogether. She had so many questions for him that would go unanswered, so many things to share with him that she would now have to keep to herself. After Marilyn told me about her father, we held each other for a long, long time, but she never shed a tear.

  Marilyn’s not breaking down in tears during what was a very emotional moment did not surprise me. I understood full well how it felt not having a father to lead you, to talk to, and to protect you. I knew what it was like to have my emotions ignored by the very ones who brought me into this world. And I knew that a million tears would not change that. Up to this moment I had always associated all my pain with my mother. Now all of a sudden I was angry at my father as well.

  “My father didn’t even bother to think before he brought me into this world,” I told Marilyn as we separated from our embrace. “All he thought about was getting his dick wet. I’m certain he didn’t think he’d be around to be a grandfather to my kids. He was a seventy-something-year-old geezer already. Who the fuck did he think was going to take care of us until we were old enough to take care of ourselves? Because of his decision to fuck a nineteen-year-old when he should have been enjoying a flower garden some-fuckin’-where, we ended up with a life full of pain, suffering, and abuse. Thanks, daddy, thanks a lot, papi,” I said as I looked toward the sky. Our desire for both of us to have questions answered by our dead fathers bound Marilyn and me closer together. I hadn’t even known, before this conversation with Marilyn, that I had that desire.

  “What about your mother?” Marilyn as
ked. “What did she do?” I paused and thought about how I could answer that question without screaming at the top of my lungs. This was Marilyn’s third attempt to get me to open up about my mother. I really didn’t want to answer her question but felt that I had to, so that she would continue to open up with me. I felt a genuine trust for Marilyn and wanted her to feel the same way about me. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt as though those around me trusted me. Still, I hesitated to talk to her about how I felt toward my mother. But that night I felt the need to open up about the one who had hurt me so much. Marilyn gave me that opportunity.

  “Nothing, that’s what she did, nothing,” I told Marilyn. I told her about the physical, mental, and emotional abuse my mother had not only allowed but had also taken part in. I told her about the criminal element, how her successive lovers and husbands had been involved in all kinds of illegal activities that she ignored in order to be financially supported. I explained how I had gone from an honor roll student to a menace to society because of how my mother chose to provide for us. I told her how much I had loved to play baseball but stopped because of all the anger inside me. I explained that drugs and alcohol had replaced baseball because they masked and soothed that anger.

  Marilyn slumped in her seat as I told her how I had slept in the street, shoplifted for food, and drunk liquor with bums to keep warm. I closed my eyes and became a universe of tension as I told how how I had had sex with a man for food, money, and shelter. I told her how my addiction to cocaine and sex had finally led me to incarceration. And I told her about how I thought that being locked up was the thing that had saved my life. “Being locked up made me a loner,” I told her, “and that is exactly what I needed, considering those I kept company with.” I waited for her to react. I had just released the deepest secrets of my life, and I waited to see what Marilyn would do or say next.