by Plakcy, Neil
“Just be careful,” my father said. “You know what kind of men live over there on South Beach. Maricóns.”
My father suspected that half the politicians in Tallahassee and Washington DC were secret homosexuals, as were the corporate presidents and CEOs who weren’t Jewish. Some of them, of course, were both.
After we finished dinner, the front door popped open and a horde of cousins spilled in. My father had sponsored his younger brother to come to the US as soon as he was financially able to, and Tío Teodoro had promptly married and begun reproducing. He had six kids, all of them a year apart, and our house became a zoo whenever they showed up.
He and my father went out back to smoke cigars—Tío had a contact who got him the real Cuban ones, and Abuelo would have had heart failure to discover we were supporting the Castro regime in any way. Tía Luisa, my mother, and Abuela clustered in the living room to gossip, and Abuelo nodded off in his chair.
The kids, all of them named for saints, rampaged around from room to room like a herd of wild dogs. Beatriz disappeared to her room, and Del and Hernan scooped up Fabiola and made their excuses. I was stuck, though.
I went into the kitchen and started cleaning up. There was something very satisfying about working my way through the dirty dishes, glasses, and cutlery, stacking it all neatly in the dishwasher. “Why are you doing that?” my father demanded when he and Tío Teo walked in from the backyard. “That’s woman’s work.”
“You see any women around?” I asked. “You don’t want to live in a pigsty, do you?”
My father, the big exaggerator, proclaimed our house a pigsty when anything was out of place—if I left a jacket on the sofa, or Del left her makeup out, or Beatriz wasn’t quick enough to carry her dirty dishes to the kitchen sink.
“You may be grown up, but you’re still my son, and I can still put you over my lap and spank you!” My father raised his hand as if to smack me, but used it instead to pull me close and kiss the top of my head. “Mi pequeño niño,” he said into my hair. “Now he’s a big working man.”
“Where are you working?” Tío Teo asked.
“Loredo Construction. We’re building a warehouse complex out west of the airport.”
“Loredo? Walter Loredo?”
“You know him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not personally. But my boss, he and Loredo are pals. They go way back, to the Jesuit school.”
I knew Walter had graduated from a Jesuit high school in Miami, one that had originally been founded in Havana and had relocated to the US after Castro took over. Many of Miami’s most prominent Cuban Americans had gone to the same school.
“That’s where he gets his money,” Tío Teo said. He rubbed his fingers together. “All those boys, they stick together and they take care of each other.”
He leaned against the counter beside my father. Papi was five years older than Tío, but they looked enough alike to almost be twins. Bullheaded, ox-bodied, square jawed, handsome in their way. “How is working for him?” Tío Teo asked.
I turned from the sink and said, “Really cool. I’m learning so much every day. My boss is amazing. He always makes sure I understand what’s going on. He knows so much; it’s incredible.”
“Sounds like you are in love with him.” Tío Teo laughed. “Someday we will hear you talk like that about a girl, Manuelito.”
“Soon,” my father said. “Look at your tío. He was married with two kids by your age.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t get married until you were twenty-eight,” I said.
“I came here with nothing, mi hijo. I had to work for years before I could consider getting married. You don’t have that problem.”
“I’ve got other problems.” I wiped my hands on a dish towel. “I have to be at work at seven in the morning every day.”
“Ha! Seven!” my father said. “I used to have two jobs. Not one, but two. I worked from six in the morning until midnight sometimes.”
“Good-bye, Papi.” I kissed him again, and then Tío Teo, and then another half-dozen family members before I could escape. As I walked to my car, it felt like many pairs of eyes were watching me.
A Little Raw in the Morning
I slept through most of Memorial Day. By the time I woke on Tuesday morning, I felt ready to tackle another week at Loredo Construction.
Walter was often a little raw at the contractors’ meetings, but after a shot of café Cubano and a dose of vitamins from the pharmacy cabinet behind his desk, he was all there. That morning, I couldn’t help stealing glances at him. He’d gotten some sun over the weekend. The color looked good on him, complementing his dark hair and green eyes.
I wondered what beach he’d gone to, and for just a moment imagined running into him on the hot sand, seeing him in one of those skimpy suits we called weenie bikinis. I’d seen his generously proportioned penis only through his pants, lying in repose against his thigh, and thought it would probably swell against the nylon. If I was lucky, he’d be hard, and maybe the tip would peek out over the waistband…
I realized someone was saying my name, and snapped back to reality. “Doze on your own time, not on mine,” Walter said, but there was a twinkle in his eye. “How’s the schedule looking?”
“Everything’s green,” I said. “But if we don’t get the trenches dug around building three today, then the formwork there will slip into yellow.”
He turned to Camilo. “See that it gets done before the rain gets here.”
Camilo looked at me and scowled. “It’ll be done, jefe,” he said.
I forced myself to avoid looking at Walter for the rest of the meeting. “Take a walk with me, Manny,” he said as we all filed out. I was afraid he was going to yell at me for spacing out during the meeting, but instead he wanted to talk as we walked around the site.
“I’ve done every kind of construction job,” he said, pointing at the guys laying out the framing for the interior walls of building one. “Hung drywall, dug trenches, smoothed out concrete. Worst job I ever had. On your knees all day long, bending over with a goddamned trowel in your hand. I hated it.”
I tried not to imagine Walter on his knees, looking up at me, taking my dick in his mouth. “But you have a college degree,” I said, licking my lips and swallowing hard.
“There’s a big difference between studying construction management and practicing it,” he said.
“So I’m learning,” I said. I had begun to idolize Walter with a kind of puppy love I hadn’t felt since I had a crush on my third-grade teacher. Every time I came across a problem I couldn’t figure out, he was there with a solution. He praised my initiative and brushed off my inadequacies. There was never a day when I noticed something that Walter hadn’t seen first. I understood how he’d been so successful at such a young age: he was completely and totally focused on his job.
“You’ll learn, Manny, that all these guys—contractors, developers, you and me— we’ve all got this edifice complex.”
He smiled, like he knew the pun he was making and he knew I knew it, so he didn’t have to explain. “We get our rocks off on building, leaving our marks behind like a dog pees on every tree and fire hydrant. You come past this property once it’s open, you’re gonna know you and me were here, that we built it.” He shook his head. “It’s better than drugs, sometimes,” he said. “Even better than sex.”
As we continued on our walk, I couldn’t help imagining what sex would be like for him. What kind of woman would he prefer? A meek, submissive girl who’d let him take charge? A Spanish beauty who would be arm candy, but a tigress in bed?
There was no chance he was gay. He was too much a man’s man—larger than life, some kind of mythical figure from another world. But if there was a chance he swung my way—how amazing would that be? To have his thick, muscular arms wrapped around me. To kiss his chapped lips and inhale his breath, press his chest against mine, feel his stiff dick teasing its way up my ass…
I realized I was spacin
g out again and snapped back. Walter didn’t seem to have noticed. He was talking about the opening ceremony for the first building he’d ever worked on, the way he teared up to see it all new and clean and shimmering before him.
We walked back to the trailer, and I returned to work. By the end of that second week, I was getting accustomed to the hours and the go-go-go pace of work at Loredo Construction. I managed to keep going on café Cubano and the boundless energy of youth, but I wondered what I’d be like at Walter’s age. Would I be as knowledgeable as he was? Would I fill out my polo shirt the way he did? But it was useless to project myself ten years into the future without desperately hoping that future would still include Walter Loredo.
I spent the weekend sleeping, waking up only for Sunday dinner with my family, and I was ready to go again Monday morning. Because I was in charge of the schedule, I had to be on top of everything that was going on, which meant constantly shuttling between my computer and the site, talking to the different superintendents and monitoring their progress.
Tuesday morning, Walter came to our meeting fresh from an early run, sweat plastering his hair to his head. His T-shirt, which read Shut Up and Learn from the Master, had the sleeves ripped off to emphasize his biceps, and it was drenched. I was afraid I’d get caught staring at the way it clung to his chest and the way he filled out his electric-yellow nylon shorts.
“Somebody left the gate open last night,” he said, banging his hand against the table. We had a fence around the property, and a gate at the entrance with a chain and heavy-duty padlock. “That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. All I need is some kid to sneak in after dark and get hurt on-site, and this whole project goes down the tubes in liability litigation.”
I knew that the drywall contractor had been working late in warehouse one the day before, and figured it was that super who had forgotten to lock the gate behind him. But I didn’t want Walter to make me rat him out.
Walter kept yelling, waving his finger at the guys clustered around the table. “You understand what that means for you, don’t you? Every one of you out of a job. And if I find out you’re the one who left the gate open, I’m dragging you down with me. You all understand?”
I stole a glance at him. Between his attitude and his outfit, he looked even more mouthwateringly handsome, and I had to focus on my to-do list in order to will my dick into submission. Yikes. I’d never been with a man who’d bossed me around, and I wondered what that would be like. I knew I’d lick Walter’s shoes, walk around with a dog collar—whatever would get me into his pants. But then I remembered he was straight.
We all nodded soberly. Walter popped a handful of vitamins and drained a tumbler of water, and then we got on with the meeting. All week I noticed Walter was on edge, and I wondered if there was something more wrong than just a gate left unlocked overnight.
Thursday as I was walking back toward the trailer, a couple in a BMW convertible with the top down pulled up. The woman who got out of the driver’s seat wasn’t exactly pretty; her facial features were too sharp. But she had a killer body encased in a black scoop-neck T-shirt and pleated black skirt. She was very petite, with two-inch stilettos and big designer sunglasses that she pushed on top of her head.
“This is it,” I heard her say to the man. “Not much to brag about, but maybe you can get some work out of it.”
“I don’t know, mi amor,” the man said. He was about her age, early thirties, but I would never have thought they were together. He dressed like one of the workmen from the site—in khaki pants and a paint-spattered T-shirt.
I held the trailer door open for them, and the woman marched directly to Estefani’s desk.
“Hello, Dolores,” Estefani said. I lurked in the hallway, curious to see who this mismatched couple were and what they were doing at the site.
“Estefani. Is he in?” Dolores asked.
“He’s on the phone,” Estefani said. “If you want to wait…”
“I’ll just go in,” Dolores said, and she pushed the door to Walter’s office open and strode inside, the man behind her. Then the office door closed before I could hear anything more.
I stepped up to Estefani’s desk. “Who’s that?” I whispered.
“Walter’s wife. She’s a bitch.”
We both heard Walter’s voice rise, and I ducked into my office. A short time later I heard the trailer door slam. When I saw Walter a short time later, his face looked like thunder, and I avoided saying anything to him, but I was curious.
So that was what his wife looked like, I thought. That was the kind of woman Walter found attractive. Slim and athletic, without the big boobs or big booty Cuban women often sported. I wondered what kind of lover he was—did he take charge? Or let his wife call the shots? She looked pretty bossy, and I’d discovered that men who were dominant in the workplace were often pussycats in the bedroom. Was Walter one of those?
Friday morning when I got to work, I saw that a graffiti artist had managed to get onto the site and tagged the side of the trailer with an elaborate signature involving curls and loops. I hurried inside and began to prepare the coffee—I figured we’d all need it.
“Who the fuck is Taco22?” Walter stormed at us as the meeting began. That morning he was in his regular uniform of tight-fitting Loredo Construction polo shirt and khaki slacks, but I remembered how he had looked on Tuesday in his T-shirt and shorts. “And how did he get into this property?”
“I was first one here,” Camilo said. “Gate was locked.”
“Then what? He’s a monkey; he climbed over the fence?”
“I don’t know, jefe.” Camilo looked down at the table. “He got other places too.”
“What?” Walter demanded. “What else?”
“Some tags on retaining walls,” Camilo said. “Covered up once we backfill and paint.”
“Paint it now,” Walter said. “I don’t care if we have to paint it again and again. If you don’t show these gangsters you won’t tolerate them, they keep coming back.”
Walter had me research graffiti-proof paint, and order a dozen gallons. I found one we could apply to prevent future tagging—but with so many surfaces available on-site, I couldn’t see us painting every item that entered the property.
I walked out later to see what was going on. The graffiti artist hadn’t been content to stick to tagging; in a couple of places he had painted Spanish expressions, including¡Vete al carajo! which meant “go to hell.” By the end of the day, the surfaces had been covered. Walter asked our security company to make a couple of extra patrols at night over the next few weeks. But there was a dark energy floating around the site, an anger simmering somewhere below the surface, and I didn’t like it one bit.
Rendezvous with Roberto
Gavin and Larry got fed up with my lack of sociability. They dragged me out on Saturday night, and we made the rounds of the gay clubs, but I found myself yawning and sneaked back home.
“You punked out early last night,” Larry said the next morning. “You obviously need a course in remedial recreation. There’s an FU alumni thing on Thursday, and you’re going with us. No excuses.”
“A Thursday? But I have to work Friday.”
“You’re turning into an old fart, Manny. You can prop your eyelids open for an extra hour to hang out with us.”
“Where is this thing?”
“The Biltmore in Coral Gables.”
I did like the Biltmore—a magnificent old Spanish-style hotel surrounded by a golf course. I’d been there a couple of times for events, and marveled at the architectural detail—the coffered ceilings, the hand-painted frescoes, and the travertine marble floors. “All right. I’ll meet you there on my way home from work.”
Tuesday afternoon I was with Camilo down by the entrance to the property, looking at the swampy area that would become a small landscaped pond. The site fronted on a main street that led to the freeway, and there was a surprising amount of foot traffic past us every day: hotel workers in their un
iforms, waiting for the bus; tiny abuelas dressed in black, walking from one store to another; young black men with their pants hanging down their asses, showing off colorful boxers, on unspecified errands.
A sad-looking black man in his fifties walked by, dressed like Tina Turner—tottery high heels, fishnet stockings, and short shorts, topped with a frilly blouse and tits so fake even I could tell. He wore a curly blonde wig that cascaded over his shoulders, and lots of lipstick and mascara.
Camilo jumped into a small loader, a D-8, and gunned the engine toward the entrance, yelling curses at the drag queen. The guy clutched his purse and kept walking, though I could see he was scared. I felt like going after Camilo and telling him to lay off. But I couldn’t. I was only in my fourth week on the job, and I was in no position to go criticizing one of my superiors.
That incident added to my feeling that there was something dark and angry floating around the site. The next couple of days I was on edge, worrying about what else could happen, and I was glad when Thursday evening arrived, and the FU alumni cocktail reception for new graduates at the Biltmore.
I agreed to meet Gavin and Larry at the hotel at six, and got there a few minutes early. I stopped at a reception table under a leaded-glass light fixture to pick up my name tag. “I thought this was an event for new graduates,” I said, noticing that many of the tags had graduation years long before mine.
“It’s for the alumni association to welcome new grads,” the girl behind the desk said, handing me my tag and two tickets for beer or wine. “We invite the whole membership so that you can get a sense of how important it is to keep up your FU affiliation.”
I thanked her and plastered my tag on my shirt below the Loredo logo. I walked into the ballroom and exchanged one of my tickets for a bottle of beer. My phone vibrated in my pants with what Gavin called a texticle—the vibration from a text message that tickled your balls when your phone was in your pocket. I checked the screen and saw that he and Larry were stuck in traffic and running late.