Chulito: A Novel

by Charles Rice-González

  “I know you did. I wish you were in a different place because right this minute I want you here with me.”

  “I’ll meet you at the pier, right now.”

  “Hold it.”

  “What?”

  “If you come, you gotta be ready to hold my hand or let me hug you or even kiss you without freaking out that someone is gonna see you. And if Damian or Lee or anybody you know does show up, you are not going to push me away.”

  Chulito paced the wide median under the Bruckner Expressway. “Carlos, I’m not ready for that, please.”

  “Then don’t come. Stay in the Bronx.”

  Chulito stopped pacing. “What? You breaking it off?”

  “I don’t want to go back into a closet to be with you, Chulito.”

  The words stung him. “Carlos, don’t do this.”

  Carlos hung up.

  A lump the size of a fist formed in Chulito’s throat. He could hear the cheers from his neighborhood rising up into the night like a crowd at a Yankees game. Chulito wanted to run, but he didn’t know to where. He hailed a cab to the Village.

  “You gotta take care of yourself.” Kenny wiped a tear from Carlos’ cheek.

  “I love him.” Carlos sat on the cool dry grass at the pier, brought his knees to his chest and rested his chin on his right knee. “It hurt so much when he pushed me today. It was like a wake-up call. I know he needs time, but it’s already been about a month and a half, I just don’t think that I have the time to give him.” As Kenny and the twins comforted Carlos, Kevin came over with Andrew and Alex.

  “You O.K., Carlos?” Alex asked.

  Kenny blurted out. “He broke up with Chulito.”

  “Damn, Kenny, just put my business all out there.”

  Kenny mouthed “sorry” to Carlos then kissed Kevin.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said sympathetically. “For real. You were having a good time at the party but I noticed that you got real quiet all of a sudden.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Andrew put his arm around Carlos and pulled him close.

  “Me too,” Carlos said through tears, then sobbed on Andrew’s chest.

  Alex took Carlos’ hand. “You’re gonna be alright?”

  Carlos pulled his hand away and nodded.

  “Do you want to go for a ride?” Andrew asked.

  “We could head out to City Island for some ice cream,” Alex offered.

  Carlos nodded.

  “Any room for some additional pier queens in your chariot, Sir Andrew?” Kenny asked.

  “Yes, but I’m not coming back into the city. So if you’re cool with being left at a subway in the Bronx, you’re welcome to come along.”

  “I’m staying at Kevin’s in Brooklyn tonight, so that won’t work for me.”

  Alex, Carlos and Andrew took off in the white Range Rover up the West Side Highway toward the Bronx.

  Chulito arrived at the pier, handing the cab driver a $50 bill and asking him to wait.

  He saw Pito and Sebastian leaving the pier. “Yo wassup, you seen Carlos?”

  “We saw him earlier with Kenny by the water.”

  Chulito ran over to the water and saw Kenny, who told him that Carlos left with Alex and Andrew to City Island.

  Chulito ran back to the cab and headed up to the Bronx. When he was alone in the cab, he covered his face with his bandanna and cried. He wanted to see Carlos, hold him. Beg him for more time. Maybe they could move far away from the neighborhood and start a life together. Chulito knew he was changing. Lately, he didn’t care so much about the fellas. He hardly spent time with them. And he’d decided to get out of the game with Kamikaze. He’d never felt happier than when he was with Carlos. He’d never felt love like when they were together. Then anger overtook him. How could Carlos just break things off like that? Maybe he didn’t love him. Chulito slammed his fist on his knee repeatedly, then a howl grew inside and shot out of him, which startled the cab driver. He quickly assured him “I’m cool, I’m cool,” but Chulito was far from cool. He felt his heart coming apart cell by cell, and the tears wouldn’t stop pouring out.

  When the cab pulled up to the block, all the tables and grills were gone, but the fellas were still on the corner.

  “Hey, Chulito, where you disappear to?” Davey called out from down the block.

  Chulito stood at the entrance to his building away from the corner. “Business guys, but I’m dead, yo. I’ll see you guys mañana.”

  “Kamikaze was looking for you. He’s up the block at Gil’s,” Davey said.

  Chulito checked his cell phone but he hadn’t missed a call from Kamikaze. “When you see him, tell him to call me.” “Yo, Chulito. You O.K.?” Davey asked walking toward Chulito.

  “Just tired.” Chulito leaned against the entrance to his building. He was glad he lived on the first floor because he had just enough energy to get to his door.

  Papo held out a bottle of Hennessey. “Come have one little palo before you turn in.”

  “C’mon, we missed you. Just when all the fireworks were shooting you bounced,” said Davey.

  Chulito took a deep breath and walked over to the corner, where the streetlight lit his red and swollen eyes.

  “Oh, shit, bro. What’s up?” Davey asked.

  “I’m tired. I gotta get some sleep.”

  “Yo,” Papo said, “if it’s none of our business just say so, but you don’t just look tired, you look hurt, bro.”

  “I’ll be alright. I just got some bad news is all, nothing too serious.”

  “Family?” Chin-Chin asked.

  “Nah, it’s just, whatever.”

  “Love?” Chin-Chin said. “Oh, shit, it’s love, right?”

  C"black">Chulito responded by not responding.

  Davey and Chin-Chin high-fived each other.

  “It’s that girl you cancelled with a week or two ago, right?” Davey said. “You were all moody after you cancelled to hang out with us.”

  “Did you two have a fight?” Chin-Chin asked.

  “Nah, sort of.”

  “Sort of?” Davey asked. “What happened? You look like you been crying.”

  The fellas laughed.

  Kamikaze came out of Gil’s Liquor Store and walked toward them.

  “She dumped you?” Davey asked.

  Chulito nodded.

  A chorus of “Ay, benditos” rose up from the fellas as Kamikaze reached them.

  “Wassup, knuckleheads?” Kamikaze asked then saw Chulito’s face. “What happened to you?”

  “That chick that Chulito has been seeing on the low just dumped him,” Davey said.

  “So that’s what’s up? It makes sense why I only get to see you when we’re working.”

  “I guess you gonna be seeing a lot more of Chulito.” Davey laughed.

  “Have some respect,” Kamikaze said. “Can’t you see that my boy’s heart is broken?” Kamikaze slipped his arm around Chulito’s neck, pulled him close and kissed his temple.

  “Ah, don’t baby him,” Papo said, taking a swig of Hennessey. “Know what I say? Fuck her. There’s plenty more.”

  “This is love, Papo,” Kamikaze said. “Look at his face. A dude only cries like that when he gets bit. You ain’t never been bit, Papo?”

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  “Of course.”

  “Then have a little heart, bro. Our little brother here fell in love, gave his heart away, and it got tossed in the trash. Right, Chulito?”

  Chuito nodded. “Something like that.”

  “What I want to know is why it was such a secret,” Kamikaze said. “I thought you and me were tight.”

  “Yeah, Chulito,” Davey said. “Was she a dog?”

  Chulito shook his head. “Nah, she’s beautiful. It just had to be that way.” Chulito thought for a second. “She was a church girl with a strict father and nobody could know about us. Anyway, I want to go to bed.” Chulito tried to pull away from Kamikaze’s embrace, but he held him tightly.

  “A church girl?”
Davey said.

  “The worse kind.” Papo shook his head. “They make you jump through hoops for a little taste, and then if they give anything up, you owe them your fucking life. Sorry, bro. If you didn’t keep it such a secret, we could have warned you and saved you all the heartache.”

  “She lives in the neighborhood?” Chin-Chin asked.

  “No, in Manhattan.” Chulito tried again to squirm away from Kamikaze.

  “You ain’t going to your room to cry.” Kamikaze pulled him over in a headlock. “You coming with me. When your heart’s broken, you should not be alone.”

  “Thanks, but I want to go to bed.”

  “Bye, fellas.” Kamikaze held Chulito in a headlock and brought him over to the car.

  Davey mock cried, “Bye, Chulito. You’re gonna live. You’re gonna live.”

  The fellas laughed.

  Kamikaze pulled off and made a U-turn on Hunts Point Avenue. “You hungry?”

  ign asked.<“No.”

  “I’m starving, bro. How about some Mickey D’s or seafood?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Let’s got to City Island.”

  “All the way over there? Can’t you get seafood someplace else?”

  “I want the best. Besides, Rey owns a restaurant out there and his top dawgs eat for free.”

  Chulito looked at his watch and figured that Carlos must be gone.

  “Let’s go,” Chulito said. Before Kamikaze even reached the entrance of the Bruckner Expressway, Chulito breathed heavily and fought to hold back tears. He looked away from Kamikaze out the window. He wondered where Carlos was. He thought of texting him, of saying he was sorry, but that wasn’t the issue. Carlos wanted what he wouldn’t give him. Carlos wanted to be open. The pain Chulito felt was unlike any other he’d experienced. It began in his chest, right in the center, and then it spread up to his throat and strangled him. It pulsed in his temples, like his brain was being squeezed. And the tears. They kept rising and spilling. He’d lost control of holding them back and sat sobbing. Kamikaze looked over to him and swiftly pulled the car over to the side of the street. Chulito put his hands on the dashboard to steady himself.

  “Wassup, Chulito?”

  Chulito was on the brink of hyperventilating. Kamikaze removed their seatbelts, placed a hand on Chulito’s neck and squeezed. Then he pulled Chulito over and embraced him. Chulito sobbed in Kamikaze’s arms. “This hurts, bro. I feel like I can’t breath, and there’s a knot in the middle of my chest. My head feels like it’s gonna pop, Kaz.”

  “I’m sorry to see you like this, bro.”

  Chulito pulled away from Kamikaze. “I feel so embarrassed crying like this in front of you.” He wiped away at his tears. Kamikaze flipped open the glove compartment and pulled out tissues.

  “It’s alright. Love can make you lose your cool.” Kamikaze lifted Chulito’s face and examined it. “And you have definitely lost it, little bro, but you don’t always gotta be cool, and definitely not with me.”

  "blol, “Thanks.” Chulito wiped his face. “I’m O.K. now.”

  “Let’s just go to my crib, I’ll order from the Chinos instead and we got weed and Hennessey and whatever else you want. This way, if you feel like you need to cry, let shit out or whatever, you can do what you need to do. It will be just me and you.” Kamikaze smiled.

  Chulito spent the rest of the night in Kamikaze’s apartment with its blue skies and fluffy clouds. They shared rib tips and fried rice from the Chinese joint, eating out of the same containers, drank Coronas and smoked blunts. Whenever Chulito had a crying fit, Kamikaze would hug him, place the flat of his palm on his back and move it around in soothing circles. He wished that he was hugging Carlos or that Carlos was holding him instead. They didn’t talk, except for Kamikaze cradling Chulito and periodically saying, “Let it out, little bro” or “It’s cool.” It was strange for Chulito to feel this close to Kamikaze. He’d had fantasies of being in Kamikaze’s arms, but they never played out like this. It was peaceful and easy. He liked being close. They were alone and private. Chulito knew that Kamikaze understood the deal and that they could never do this on the block. Why didn’t Carlos understand, too?

  Chulito fell asleep on the couch, and Kamikaze removed Chulito’s Timberland boots before going to sleep.

  Chulito woke up as the sky was starting to shed its darkness. He looked around the room. The air-conditioner was humming in the corner and the ceiling fan was spinning slowly above him. Kamikaze must have cleared the empty bottles of beer and Chinese food cartons. He walked over to Kamikaze’s room and saw him asleep on his bed. Kamikaze was lying on his stomach, hugging a pillow while one bare foot poked out from under the plain white sheet covering him. Chulito could see Kamikaze’s tattoo blazing on his back in the dim light. He taped a note to the bathroom door that read “Thanks.”

  It was a twenty-minute walk back to Hunts Point from Kamikaze’s apartment. An hour later, Chulito found himself sitting on a rock by the Bronx River. The water moved slowly and he watched leaves, plants and an occasional can float by.

  Watching the sun rise, Chulito felt angry at Carlos for asking for something he couldn’t give and cried because he didn’t want to think about not being with him. Chulito thought about Poe Cottage, he thought about Sebastian and Pito, he thought about the time they slow danced, how happy he felt when he and Carlos were alone. He considered telling Kamikaze the real deal, but not the fellas. Well, not all of them; maybe Chin-Chin and Davey, but not Papo. What would he say to them? “I lied about the church girl. It’s really Carlos who drives me crazy and I feel happy when I’m with him.” Would he tell his mother? After about his fourth cycle of being angry at Carlos, coming out to some of his friends, and deciding to just go on without Carlos, two guys showed up at the river with fishing rods. They nodded to Chulito who dusted off the seat of his pants and headed back toward his neighborhood. He looked ad. er and Cht his Fossil watch and saw that it was almost eight o’clock. He knew Carlos would be leaving for his internship in about an hour.

  Chulito walked through his neighborhood, but avoided Hunts Point and Garrison Avenues where he knew all of the auto glass guys were already lined up. He looked at his old elementary school, the NYC Parks Department gym that was being constructed and the new post office. He looked at the cracks in the sidewalk and wondered if the little blades of grass came up from some deep dark place in the earth and pushed their way through the cement, or if the seeds flew through the air and landed on the little bits of dirt. Either way that was some tough grass, he thought.

  He walked by the giant warehouse with the theatre and artists studios on Barretto Street, where a woman planted flowers in small patches of dirt around new trees. He thought it was strange to see her with her long light brown hair in her face, digging into the ground. What was the point? He thought about asking her whether the grass came from underground or from the air.

  The flowers were small and vibrant in shades of pink, magenta and purple. She had a bicycle with a basket in front of it that had lots of little plants and loose flowers. She wore a daisy pierced by a gold hoop as an earring. When Chulito passed her she smiled, got up and handed him a sunflower.

  “No thanks.” He kept walking.

  “C’mon, take it,” she said. “Give it to someone you love.”

  Chulito stopped and looked at her. She was still smiling and holding out the sunflower. He had seen her before, riding her bike. He knew that she was down with the two gay guys who ran the dance studio in the warehouse.

  “Or give it to someone you don’t love, but I want you to have it.”

  Chulito walked over to her and accepted the sunflower, “Thanks.”

  “Thank you for accepting it.”

  “Why are you planting flowers?”

  “Why not?”

  Chulito opened his shirt and stuck the flower inside. “Too much of a macho to walk around with a flower?” “Nah, I want it to be a surprise.”

  “Alright. But i
f there is some law that says a macho guy like you can’t walk down the street holding a flower, I think it should be broken.”

  Chulito nodded and continued to walk home with the flower hidden under his shirt.

  When he arrived at his building he sat inside at the bottom of the steps near his door. He knew that Carlos would be down shortly and would have to pass him. Soon he heard Carlos’ door open and keys locking the door. Carlos took two steps down and saw Chulito sitting at the bottom of the stairs. He continued down and Chulito looked up at him.

  “Good morning.” Chulito presented Carlos with the sunflower.

  Carlos stopped and accepted the flower. “Thanks. Do you have something to say to me or did you just want to give me this?”

  “I hardly slept, thinking about you.”

  “If you gotta whisper, then you haven’t heard what I had to say.”

  “I know what you want, and I been thinking all night, Carlos. I just need time. I’m not ready.” Chulito took Carlos’ hand then let it go.

  “I know you’re not. And I want to say, fuck it. And all night, every time I heard a car door slam or heard footsteps, I looked out the window to see if it was you, but I don’t like sneaking around.” Carlos realized he was whispering, too, and used his full voice. “I don’t like this double life thing. I came out to my mother, to everybody and it’s not easy, so I understand that. I even lost you as my friend for a while.” Carlos paused and looked away from Chulito. “Now I’m losing you again.” Carlos handed the flower back to Chulito and left the building.

  Chulito opened the door to his apartment and saw his mother standing in the hall.

  “Hey, papa, it’s good to see you, I was worried.”

  “I crashed at Kamikaze’s.” Avoiding further discussion he slipped into his room.

  Carmen knocked on his door. “¿Chulito, qué te pasa? I know something is bothering you.”

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  “I’ll be alright.” He wiped tears from his eyes.

  “Well, I don’t feel good about going to Puerto Rico and not knowing what’s going on.”

  Chulito opened his door a crack and gave her the sunflower. “I’ll be fine, ma. I just…I just have a broken heart, I guess.”