Gunmetal Black

by Daniel Serrano

  “He was freaked out. Rambling in the hospital.”

  “That is some crazy shit. Did Pelón ever figure out what got into her?”

  “He says bilongo.”

  “Bilongo? You mean like the song?”

  “Witchcraft. A potion or something.”

  “Get the fuck out.”

  “Hey, I’m not telling you I believe it, Eddie. I’m telling you that’s what he told me. I mean, the guy was hallucinating from the medicine, I think, so I’m not even sure he knew it was me, you know? But he talked about a bruja. Said she used to read the cards for him and tell him everything. From what Pelón said, she burned in a fire. Wasn’t around to warn him away from the psycho jíbara.”

  I made a skeptical face. “You really think Pelón believes in all that?”

  “I don’t know. I will tell you this: the man was munching the saltiest, bitterest chicken wings and diggin’ them like they was T-bone. I could see if she was one of these bitches make a nigga wanna climb some walls and shit. But this bird? One eye bigger than the other, a pig nose—”

  “I get the point.”

  “You should’ve tasted them chicken wings. Miss America couldn’t get away with serving me that. I’d break her tiara and shove it up her ass.”

  “Was Pelón embarrassed?”

  “Heartbroken. He thought it was true love.”

  I nodded. After a minute I said, “How ’bout you, Tone? You fall for anybody since you been out?”

  “Every day. Today I was infatuated with a couple strippers up in Black Tail magazine.”

  “C’mon, Tony, I mean on the real.”

  “What, the way bitches are nowadays? They’re all frontin’. All of ’em. They’re always after somethin’. The only thing they give a fuck about is money. You can’t trust women, Eddie, don’t fall for it.”

  “Tony, you got the balls to say that? With all them females you knocked up and never paid a dime to?”

  Tony paused. “All right, some of them are more special than others, I’ll give you that. I remember this one bitch. I didn’t have a ride yet; this is when I first got out. So I waited on a bus stop in January in the middle of the fuckin’ night. Windchill was like a thousand below. I thought my dick would break off like an icicle. When I got there, the bitch was on her period and hadn’t even told me. I still fucked her.”

  “Not exactly throwing yourself on a grenade, Tone. Or even tolerating a salty chicken wing.”

  Tony smoked and thought about it. We crossed over the Chicago River and I noticed again the majestic skyline. Acres of new construction sparkled. Balconies had become standard in luxury apartments, and I guess because Tony and I were speaking of romance, I imagined myself sharing a glass of wine with a woman and watching the sunset from one of those balconies. In my mind I did not see the woman’s face. She was more like a presence, a vague form who was there for a second, then evaporated.

  Tony died his cigarette. He was ready to come clean. “Actually, about a year ago, Eddie, I saw this girl, a woman now, I guess. I knew her years ago.”

  “When?”

  “Before I dropped out of Clemente.” Tony said her name.

  “I don’t remember her.” I thought I knew all of Tony’s conquests from back then.

  He shook his head. “You never met her. I never mentioned her. That was that summer you were sent to juvie. There was nothing left to report by the time you got back.”

  “Short and sweet,” I said. “What happened?”

  Tony curled his lips. “Foster care sent me to this summer camp. There were kids from the city there, but also white kids from the suburbs, mixed. I think they were supposed to be a good influence on us.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  Tony ignored my joke. “This girl had red hair. Freckles. She didn’t look like nobody from back in the hood. Remember that honey from Sixteen Candles? Like that, bro. But prettier. Her father was an actual doctor.”

  “Did you hit it?”

  “Naw, man, we were kids. Sneaking away from the counselors to hold hands and talk. One time we saw all these lights going off in the sky and she told me it was a meteor shower. You never see those in the city because of all the lights and pollution.”

  I wondered about the sentimental pitch in Tony’s voice. When Tony was only twelve years old, he had a foster sister who was stacked, sixteen years old, and she sucked Tony’s dick every day after school because the foster mother was never around. A running joke for Tony then was that I could stop by for “sloppy seconds” any afternoon I wanted. By high school Tony had been getting blow jobs for at least two years straight. Now he was waxing poetic about talking and holding hands with some suburban cherry pie.

  I nodded. “So what was so special about this one chick you didn’t need to bang her?”

  Tony took a deep breath. “I’m not sure. She was, like, excited about life. Really looking forward to it. She talked about colleges she was thinking about. How she didn’t want to get married until she had a career. Her family traveled a lot. She was innocent. I remember she said she wanted to go to India by herself and just walk around taking pictures. Crazy, right?”

  “So what happened?”

  Tony squinted. “Bad luck. The first time I got the balls to kiss her, we got caught. Behind a tree. Her parents came down the next day and removed her from the program.”

  I smiled. “Real Romeo-and-Juliet shit, huh?”

  “If you wanted to exaggerate. Anyway, I never saw her again until just last year.”

  “Where?”

  “Downtown. I’m down there picking up a Garrett’s cheese and caramel corn. I walk out the store munchin’ and I see her pass right in front of me, like the girl that time forgot.”

  “How’d she look?”

  “Good. I mean, great. Older, heavier, but nice.”

  “You sure it was her, Tone?”

  “Oh yeah. It was her.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Naw, man. She was with her kids, two boys, redheads like her. They must have been about twelve or thirteen. The way they were dressed, you could tell they had money. Carrying all these bags from expensive stores. They could’ve been in a catalogue.”

  “Was her man around?”

  “No. Probably a doctor or something too, like her old man. Doing surgery and shit, saving some asshole’s life. Playing golf. Too busy making loot to be with his wife and kids.”

  “So what’d you do, Tony? Did you talk to her?”

  Tony lit another cigarette. “I followed her. They walked into an expensive-looking restaurant for lunch. I stood outside for a while, holding my popcorn like a fucking jerk-off.”

  “C’mon, Tone, you weren’t tempted to just walk over and ask whether she ever made it to India?”

  Tony’s mouth went flat. The light turned yellow and he didn’t speed up or stop and we ended up rolling through a red. Tony grabbed his shades from around the statue of Saint Judas on the dashboard and slipped them on, even though it was already dark out. Then he pushed a Guns N’ Roses CD into the player. He cued a long ballad and cranked it. It was a clear enough signal that the discussion was over.

  I thought about my own love life. Tony didn’t ask, but if he had, I would have told him that I once dug a girl who confessed that she played Purple Rain, the entire album, in her head, every time we made out. There was another, a smart one. We never kissed, but she smiled like she wanted me to. Then there was a third, one who Tony knew. She stuck around. She visited often during those early years at Stateville, and I thought of her almost as a wife. But even she eventually grew tired of waiting and married somebody else.

  And that was it, those three. They were the closest I had ever come to anything real. To this day I can’t say whether any qualified as true love.

  CHAPTER 08:

  TUMBANDO CAÑA

  The old man lived in a high-rise on Lake Shore Drive. The doorman announced us. Tony and I rode up in the elevator.

  “See?” s
aid Tony, warming up. “The man’s pimping. Wait’ll you see his crib.”

  Pelón answered the door in white boxers with red hearts all over. He wore a dago T and black nylon socks pulled up to his bony knees. A heavy gold medallion nestled in the gray forest of his chest: Christ crucified on a ship’s anchor rather than a cross.

  Pelón flashed his dentures. “Llegaron los invitados.” He wore no jewelry on his two-fingered claw-hand, but his other hand was adorned by a thick gold bracelet and a diamond pinky ring. Tufts of shaving cream behind his ears indicated that we’d interrupted him as he shaved his head. His pencil-thin silver mustache was gone.

  “I’m trying to look a little younger. But I no ready yet.” He waved us in with a big cigar. “Están en su casa.” He excused himself to the bathroom. “Make youself at home.”

  A female guard who I used to bang in Stateville used to bring me old copies of Architectural Digest, and that was the only place I ever saw cribs like Pelón’s. The ceiling was low, which gave it a cozy, if somewhat boxy, feeling, despite all the square footage. Virtually everything gleamed. Things like the coffee table and shelves were made of green glass and chrome. The carpet was plush white. The entire space was centered around a huge maroon leather couch.

  Tony pointed at the floor-to-ceiling windows that formed the eastern wall. “Yo, those face the Lake. Let’s peep the view.”

  I walked over. Navy Pier was right there, scrubbed up and renovated. The giant Ferris wheel turned at a subtle rate, like the hands of a clock. I remembered when the pier was abandoned. Tony and I and our crew once climbed through a hole in a fence and hiked out to the end, where it gets real windy. It felt like we were at the end of the city. We smoked weed and watched the passing boats and fantasized about owning them. Tony performed jokes that he memorized from Richard Pryor, Rodney Dangerfield, and Cheech and Chong tapes.

  He joined me at the window and we relived those moments. “Remember when we used to go to the platform at the other end there, over the water, and dive in?”

  I squinted to make out the spot. “You had to get the arc just right to land between the rocks. Beto broke his arm.”

  Tony scanned the panorama. “Imagine bringing a honey up here to watch fireworks over the water.”

  I smacked my lips. “Probably all Pelón does: imagine.”

  Right then, Pelón returned from the bathroom. His brown shaved head reflected the low light. He leaned on his cane.

  “You should see the thunderstorms.”

  Tony pointed at the entertainment center. “Pelón, how many inches is that plasma?”

  “No sé. Too many to count.”

  Tony inspected the old man’s collection of DVDs. “How many movies you got?”

  Pelón blew a breath, like he might have to count them all that very second. “Five hundred maybe? I collect classics.” Pelón smiled. In Spanish he said, “Nothing else for an old man to do but sit and watch TV.” He held up the cane. “Especially now that I can’t dance like I used to.”

  He pointed his cane at a black-and-white print on one wall. “See that?”

  I took a closer look. It was a print of a jíbaro bent over some sugarcane, his machete held high, about to deliver the lethal blow.

  I cocked my head. “¿Tufiño?”

  Pelón made a face. “How you know that?”

  “I worked in the prison library.”

  Tony said, “Nigga even had secret Internet.”

  Pelón twisted the cigar in his mouth.

  I pointed at the print. “Is that an original?”

  Pelón grinned. “Does it matter?”

  I dropped myself onto the plush maroon leather couch and sank in. “I guess not. This cow feels real. How much you drop for this?”

  Pelón sniffed. “I always like style, you know? Class? Price is not the issue.”

  He pointed at a strange-looking chair. “Por ejemplo, esa silla. Design by a famous architect for the World’s Fair. Ten years before I was born. The king of Spain sat in that same chair.”

  Tony lowered himself onto it. “You saying my culo is now in the same spot where the king once farted?”

  Pelón waved him out. “Zángano. In a copy of that chair.” He plopped in it. “Is not so comfortable, but it makes me feel, I don’t know—”

  “Like a royal ass?” I said.

  Pelón held his smile. “Something like that.” He opened the humidor on the end table and passed it to Tony. “¿Habanero?”

  Tony took one. I did too.

  I puffed until the ember glowed. “So, Pelón, who’s the famous architect?”

  “¿Cómo?”

  “The chair. Who designed it?”

  Pelón rolled the cigar over his tongue. “See? That’s why I no do so good in school.” He slapped his hands once and rubbed palms. “Bueno, Antonio. You have somesing for me?”

  Tony tossed the envelope on the coffee table. Pelón opened it, brought the cash close to his face like he needed thick glasses. He counted the ten thousand quick, with his two-fingered hand, then looked up like a cat with feathers in its mouth. He waved the money, rolled his R’s and softened his V to exaggerate and mock his own hick Puerto Rican accent: “I not a Rreepublican, but the Prresident is doing a behrry good job!”

  I laughed at Pelón’s caricature of himself, despite not wanting to encourage him.

  Pelón peeled off ten hundreds for Tony. He looked at me.

  “You friend got a easy life, no?”

  I aimed for a smug tone. “God bless America.”

  Pelón hobbled over to the bar, where he lined up three etched glasses. He cut a lime into wedges. “You know, I did not wear my first pair of shoes until I was eleven?” He looked up at us. “Is true. We lived up in the mountains. En el monte. My old man cut sugarcane. Like that man in the picture on the wall over there. Caña that was used to make this.” Pelón held up a bottle of Puerto Rican rum. “What you think about that? Swinging a machete all day in that hot Caribbean sun.”

  Our host dropped ice in each glass. He carefully poured Bacardi so that the ice cracked, then poured Coca-Cola. He squeezed and added wedges as he talked. “In that time nobody knew what it was like to have a luxury like meat. Eggs? Cheese? Sometimes. Almost never. We lived off things you pull from the ground. Yuca. Batata. Yame. De vez en cuándo un plátano.”

  Tony patted his stomach. “That’s the shit. My foster mother makes that on Christmas.”

  “Try eating it every day.”

  Pelón placed the three drinks on a tray and balanced it on his five-fingered hand. He hobbled with the cane in his claw, but didn’t spill a drop. We each took a drink.

  Pelón rubbed his nose. “Sometimes my father, when he got paid, he would come with a live chicken under his arm. My brothers and I, we would see him on the path and run down to escort him to the house.” Pelón laughed at the memory. “In those days we never heard of Thanksgiving. But every time we saw my father with a chicken, we make a parade.” Pelón laughed even harder. I didn’t see any tears, but he dabbed the corners of his eyes.

  “Bueno. One day my brothers and I, we play in the back of the house. I don’t say ‘yard.’ It wasn’t. It was just, how you say? Selva. Jungle? You been to Puerto Rico?”

  I shook my head.

  Tony said, “Once. When I was a kid. It rained a lot. And the roosters in the morning don’t let you sleep.”

  “There’s a lotta jungle. Pero muy moderno. They got highways now. Refrigerators. You go to parts of PR, you think you right here. Not in those days.”

  Pelón shook his head and sipped his drink. He paused so long, I thought he was finished.

  He continued in Spanish: “My brothers and I, we played outside. Francisco, my middle brother, we called him Chico. He fell. Nothing special. He just tripped, the way boys do. His head landed in a bush. When he got up, he made a face and held his head, but he looked OK. So we kept on with our game.”

  Pelón seemed for a moment to drift off into a private memory. He did
n’t really look at us.

  “That night Chico woke up crying. The three of us shared a room. We all slept on one blanket, on the floor. When Chico woke up, he woke me and my other brother. I told him, ‘Cállate, Papi’s asleep. He has to work in the morning. Don’t make him mad.’ Pobrecito. He cried to himself. Me and my other brother went back to sleep.”

  Tony and I sipped our drinks. Pelón stirred his with his pinky, the one with the huge diamond. He slowed his tempo.

  “The next day Chico didn’t wanna play. He kept complaining that he had a headache. We told him to sit and watch as we went about our games. Then I noticed that Chico was on his back. My other brother and I ran to him. Chico was passed out. My brother went to get Mami and she ran. She slapped Chico and said his name. He moved a little, like he wasn’t totally out. Looked like he was having a bad dream.”

  Pelón took a sip. His expression curdled a bit, but I couldn’t tell if it was his ancient memory or the over-whelming bite of alcohol. In Spanish he said: “My mother examined Chico all over. She dug through his hair and screamed, ‘What’s this?’ She found dried blood. And a thorn. Like the head of a nail. It stuck out the top of his head.”

  Pelón pressed his thumb against the one-inch mark of his index finger to dramatize the image of the thorn poking out of his little brother’s crown.

  “Mami screamed, ‘Mother of God! Help me!’ She leaned and took the thorn between her teeth and slowly pulled it out. Pus and blood bubbled out of the hole.”

  Tony winced. “Nasty.”

  “My mother carried Chico to the house. She made medicine out of rompe saragüey. You know this?”

  Tony shook his head.

  I said, “Is that a plant? I heard it in a song.”

  Pelón nodded. “She dipped a cloth in it and began to squeeze out pus and rub the wound. By the time my father came home, my brother was in a fever. My mother tried to convince him to take Chico to the hospital.” Pelón deepened his tone to imitate the boom of his father’s voice in Spanish. “ ‘Woman, you know how much that costs? It’s too far, I’ll never make it back by sunrise. Who’s going to cut the sugarcane? Boys get fevers all the time. In the morning he’ll be running around.’ ”