“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said to Pruden when I got back to the bar.
“Already. Was it all right?”
“Yes, very good. Thank you.”
“That guy was pretty good, wasn’t he? Are you going to see him again?”
“Certainly not!”
“Wow, so you weren’t satisfied! Well, if they say that ... .”
“Once was enough. Never again.”
“But ... what happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened? I already told you, I don’t like hustlers!”
It was December, an icy afternoon at the beginning of December. It had snowed in the morning and the remains of the snow still hung on the bare branches of the trees, on the marquees of the shops and on the windowsills. The whole city dripped. Icicles sharp as knives hung from the gargoyles, the slips, and the balconies, while the windows of neighborhood bars and shops became slowly veiled and covered with frost. It was not the usual picture of Madrid. And now, once night had fallen, a Sunday night, with hardly any vehicles in circulation or people walking along the streets, the whole city became muted, closed in on itself, frowning, like an animal ready to hibernate in its cave of snow. We wer at the stop for the number 27 bus, on the Paseo del Prado, where a crowd of people were waiting, most of them boys and girls who had just come out of some discotheque and were returning to their homes. All of them were screaming, laughing, joking, jumping ... in their insolent eagerness to snub the cold. Pruden and I, however, remained serious and quiet. We both knew each other well to know what the other could be thinking without the need to speak. And he was thinking: “Okay, fine, now I know that you’re passing through one of those crises. Maybe I made a mistake to take you to that hustler bar, but I do what I can for you and I don’t even ask you to thank me. That’s all right. I don’t mind. One day you will.” I, on the other hand, wasn’t thinking of anything, and least of all of him. Pain, when it burns in our hearts, makes us ungrateful and selfish. I only wanted to get home as soon as possible to have a cup of very hot coffee, get into bed, and sleep straight through until the next day. Although I was afraid to unveil myself at midnight, like so many times, and discover with dread that I was alone, completely alone in the house. The bus arrived suddenly and all those boys and girls climbed aboard it in an avalanche, laughing, shouting, playing ... . Pruden and I got on almost at the end and by then there were no two empty seats together, so we sat separately. The bus started up again and we crossed Neptune Plaza. I remember those details very well. I was seated next to a fat guy, somewhat older than I, who occupied not only his seat but also part of mine, requiring me to go half shrunken and with arms folded. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t help it. But even so, I felt very uncomfortable. Pruden and I were heading for the Plaza of Castile, which meant that, if the fat guy was also going that far, I would have to endure that position almost half an hour. I wasn’t sure I could stand it. I looked toward the front for an empty seat, but I didn’t find any. I checked that there were even several passengers standing, without being able to sit down. My eyes crossed Pruden’s and he made a sign of mocking commiseration. I was already starting to resign myself when I turned my sight to the back and I saw an empty seat next to a thin boy in a baseball cap. Without hesitating even a second, I got up from there and sat next to him. The boy was looking out the window at that moment at the Cibeles Fountain. I remember those details very well. I remember each one of the frames of that scene: Pruden then turned his head to look at me, I was looking at that boy, and he, in turn, was looking at the Cibeles Fountain. The boy’s skin was very dark, but not black, and I remember that I thought: “He’s a foreigner. But not Moroccan and not Guinean either ... .” He was not of a specific race, but rather the result of some mixture of races, with a certain Latin component. He wore jeans and a peach-colored sweater, which made a beautiful contrast with his dark face. Over his sweater he wore a brown leather jacket. The cap covered part of his face and I still hadn’t seen his eyes. “He could be Jamaican or Cuban ... ,” I thought. I detected a couple of pustules where his beard was starting to come in.“He has the body of a man, but really he’s almost a teenager,” I thought. I remember all those details. His hands, large and virile, rested sensuously over his groin, one of them almost rubbing his genitals outside his pants and the other grabbing a cell phone. Suddenly he turned his face towards me and, before I could avoid it, caught me in my indiscreet surveillance. His eyes met mine. A chill went through my body as soon as I saw his eyes, those dark impenetrable eyes, which, however, shot me such a sweet look, and I thought: “He must feel very alone, maybe more alone than I, so he’s wanting to talk to someone. Many people, perhaps, probably mistrust him or discriminate against him for being from another country and another race. I have to talk with him. I don’t think he’ll be bothered or reject me, but, if he does, nothing will happen.” I directed a friendly smile toward him, one of those smiles that only a stranger can give to another stranger in a similar situation, and I said:
“What’s up? Is everything okay?”
It was one of those phrases that don’t involve or obligate to anything, not even to respond. Even so, the dark boy with the baseball cap smiled at me with a certain effusiveness, which pleasantly surprised me.
“Okay!” he said. “Fine! Thanks!” It was obvious that he wanted to converse with me, since he continued, motioning toward the outside of the bus: “It’s fuckin’ cold tonight!”
“Yeah, that it is,” I agreed. I was quiet for a few seconds and then continued: “Maybe in your country ... you’ve never seen snow, have you?”
“No! Never! Like you said!” he exclaimed. “I never saw snow until I came here!”
“Well, it doesn’t happen often in Madrid,” I said. “In fact, it hasn’t snowed for several years.” I didn’t want to use up the conversation talking only about the weather, and I shifted to more personal subjects: “Let me guess,” I continued. “You’re ... Dominican ... Mexican?” He shook his head in the negative. “Caribbean, of course ... Cuban? No, you’re not Cuban. You don’t have a Cuban accent. Puerto Rican?”
“No.”
“Ecuadorian?”
“Venezuelan,” he said with a broad smile, and I couldn’t help being spellbound contemplating his mouth.
“Wow, so you’re Venezuelan!” I exclaimed. “Well, I suppose there must be a lot of Venezuelans in Spain but this is the first time I’ve ever talked to one. I’m delighted to meet you. My name is Ramón.”
“Mine is John Jairo,” he said, and we shook hands strongly.
I was fascinated by the facility with which I had managed to enter into conversation with that boy. I just couldn’t believe what was happening. I asked him how long he had been in Spain and he told me a year. Was he getting along all right? Well, he couldn’t complain. He didn’t have papers but he had never lacked work. Now he was unemployed, but he expected them to call him soon about a job in Torrelodones. He had been a bricklayer, a gardener, a waiter, he even stuck advertising flyers in people’s doors.
“I’ve been everything except a whore,” he said very matter-of-fact.
“A whore? Do you mean, perhaps, that they’ve offered you work as ... ?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like it and I don’t do what I don’t like.”
“Wow! You’re a very upstanding boy!”
“No, I’m not upstanding. I just don’t do what I don’t like.”
His cell phone rang at that moment and he turned his head toward the window to talk. I also turned toward the aisle and pretended not to pay attention to what he was saying. He spoke in a very low voice, but even so, I couldn’t help hearing some words: “Yeah, yeah,” “No,” “Of course,” “What?,” “Okay,” “Fine,” “Oh yeah!,” “Agreed,” “No problem ... .”
When he finished talking he let out a deep sigh and said:
“A friend ... he has problems with his girlfriend and he’s in a lot of shit.”
I couldn’t see his
eyes, now that the visor on his cap was covering them.
“Oh, yeah?” I said. “And do you have a girlfriend?”
“Yeah, sure, more than a girlfriend, a friend with benefits ... She’s only somebody I fuck.”
“This boy has things very carefully laid out,” I thought. “He doesn’t beat around the bush.” We were quiet for a few seconds and then I heard him say:
“And you, are you single or married?”
“Single,” I responded. “Single with no strings.”
I tried to smile, but I only managed a strange grimace on my lips. John Jairo seemed to be studying me. I thought: “He knows, he knows ... . Well, better, much better. Let him know. Besides, he’d have to be blind not to realize. Only by the way I look at him ... .”
“I lived a couple of years with a boy ...” I said, “a flat-mate ... but he moved out not long ago and ... well, what I mean to say is that he changed apartments and that ...” I soon realized I was saying things that I didn’t want to say. I felt stupid and clumsy and I didn’t know how to fix the situation.
“And now you live alone ...” said John Jairo. It was as if I had just revealed a jealously guarded secret. As if suddenly I was stripped naked and was showing in public a horrible scar.
“Yes, that’s it. I live alone.” I felt pitiful and ridiculous, but then again, what of it? “Pedro, the boy who lived with me, was a good companion, a good friend. I ... .”
But John Jairo was no longer listening to me. I saw that he was looking right and left on the avenue like he was seeking some sign among the buildings, trying to locate himself.
“I have to get off at the next stop,” he said. “I’m going to Cuatro Caminos and it’s around here, I think.”
I hadn’t thought about the possibility of losing him so soon and I felt terrified. I wanted to keep that boy with me longer, but it was already impossible, and besides, I didn’t know how. For some seconds I was unable to think. Then, without being very sure of the meaning of my words, I said:
“If you want ... we could get together, you and I ... some day ... to have a beer or two and chat ...”
John Jairo lifted the visor of his cap and looked at me with a spark of irony, as if to say: “What does this guy think I am?” I suddenly regretted my daring. I thought: “He’s going to reject my suggestion with some excuse to get out of the way.” So I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly when he said:
“Okay. That sounds like a good idea. Take my phone number. Got a pen?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m sorry,” I said. I was desolate.
These things always happen. Out of the foolishness of the fact of not having a pen you can miss the opportunity of your life.
“No matter,” he said. “Give me yours and I’ll put it in my cell phone.” I gave him the number and he noted it quickly, since the bus had just arrived at the stop. “Good,” he added, getting up from his seat. “This is my stop.”
I moved to one side to let him out and he made his way through the people without even turning his head back. He jumped off the bus a split second before the doors closed. I was still amazed and confused, not only by the way I had made friends with that stranger but also by the sudden separation.
I looked toward the bus shelter among the people but I didn’t see him. The bus started on its way and for a few seconds I hoped I might see him again. But we had already gone our separate ways and he had disappeared. Until, suddenly, I discovered a baseball cap in a hand waving goodbye to me. I also raised my hand. Then I had a complete vision of his face, his hair, his body, his person. I felt a stab of pain. I was hurt by so much beauty. Absolutely distressed, contemplating his figure from afar, I supplicated him in a whisper: “Please, please, call me!” although I knew very well how little good the friendship of that boy would do me.
CHAPTER II
Wanting so long to be alone to do all the things that appealed to me, such as listening to my recordings of Brahms or Tchaikovsky or watching my old movies on tape, and now that I could do those things freely without asking Pedro (who, of course, had other tastes and always imposed them on me) I was now incapable of putting on a single record or turning on the television. Therefore whole afternoons went by while I was shut up in the house in complete silence, looking out the window through the branches of the trees, now devoid of leaves and over the roofs of neighboring houses covered with antennas, at the progress of the clouds in the sky, perhaps reading (when I was capable of reading) or dozing on the sofa. It’s not that I liked silence. In fact, I hated it. Or rather, it terrified me. But I was so apathetic that I hadn’t the strength of will sufficient to walk over to the shelf of records and choose one of them, and I had even less strength of will to pick up the remote, push the button, and see any television program. Time passed, therefore, with an exasperating slowness and I was grateful when it got dark, even if it was six in the evening, so that I was convinced that the day was finally over. But the day was never over. It took for ever for morning to come. Again and again I would open my eyes to peer through the darkness at the digital clock on the nightstand. Three o’clock, three-fifteen, four o’clock, four-thirty, five o’clock ... Sometimes I would wake up at three or four o’clock in the morning and know that I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I would stay awake, eyes open in the darkness, waiting for dawn. Then I would tell myself, okay, I had to make a drastic decision about my life: find some vagrant from the street and bring him home to live with me, give up my work, and move away to a distant city. However, the next day I would fall back again into sloth, drown myself in the swampy waters of self-pity, and do nothing.
No. I’m not ready for this, I said to myself when I heard Pedro calling me from the window of his blue Ford Mondeo. No. Not yet. Besides, this is not a good time for me. I’ll make like I hadn’t seen him and keep walking. Not yet. It was three-thirty in the morning and there I was, looking in the byways and corners of the Chueca for the last bar open, stiff with cold and drunk. It was inevitable that I had started drinking. First at home and then, when I had exhausted my supply of alcohol, in the bars. I discovered that I slept much better drunk and that, moreover, I had a good time. In the bars I could always reconnect with old friends or find new ones. No. Not yet. This is not a good time. I’ll keep walking. Come on, get in the car. No way. No. Not yet. I’m not ready. I’ll take you home. Come on. Get in. No. Thanks. What makes you think I want to go home? Get in. Let’s go to our regular bar. I want to talk to you. I want to ... What regular bar? You and I don’t have any regular bar. Come on. Get in. Get out of here and leave me alone. Get in the car. What’s with you? I thought we were friends. Friends? Okay. If you insist, take me home.
I had just opened the street door when Pedro put his arms around me and started to cry. He was so sorry that he walked out on me, he said. He was sure he was never going to find a guy like me. And he loved me, he was certain that he loved me! But he didn’t desire me. That was the real reason that he left me. He never dared to tell me plainly because he didn’t want to hurt me. Feeling desire for your partner is indispensable in any relationship. I understood that, didn’t I? However, I was perfect in many other ways. I was the ideal guy, except that he didn’t desire me and you can’t force yourself to feel what you don’t feel, can you? He tried, but ... And he started to cry. He was now sobbing inconsolably, the jerk, the idiot, while he was telling me those painful truths. And on top of that I had to comfort him. On top of it I had to tell him not to worry about me, that he shouldn’t feel that he was to blame for anything. That’s the way life is. What can you do? All the same, his tears did not move me. I was becoming somewhat hardened. Easy, I told him, we can be friends. We’ll always be friends. Love fades, but friends remain. He was still crying. Without a doubt, he was worried about something. He had some problem about which he had not dared to speak. “He’s not crying for me,” I thought. “He’s crying about something else.” And I looked on him with coldness, almost with disdain. That was not the Pedro I had known
. It was not the Pedro I had loved. I don’t like guys who cry. At least I hadn’t cried. You and I will always be friends, so don’t worry, I insisted. It’s all right that you don’t desire me. I don’t desire you either. Oh!, You don’t? No. I don’t desire you any more. What did you expect? I can’t possibly desire somebody who doesn’t desire me. And if I had known that before you told me, if I had known that you left me for that reason ... I promise you that I would have left you. You’re resentful. That’s what’s wrong with you. But I get it. No, I’m not resentful. I simply don’t like you. I don’t like you any more. So don’t worry or suffer so much. But we can be friends. Besides, you have another lover, somebody who loves you and whom you love. You desire each other, don’t you? Or finally hasn’t that relationship worked out? Is that maybe why you’re crying? You’re not going to tell me that you broke up? Could that be ...? Fuck! So that’s why you’re crying ... Now I get it. Life is a little cruel at times! But stop crying already. The fact that you like men doesn’t mean that you don’t have to be a man. I still haven’t cried over you. I don’t ever intend to cry over anybody! You’re resentful. That’s what’s wrong with you. But it doesn’t matter. I get it. And I love you. You know that I love you. No, you don’t love me. And I’m not resentful! But I don’t like to see you cry. Come on, come on! And quit hugging me!
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