by Jaime Cortez
“What are you laughing at, bitch?” asked Mateo. The laughter enveloped Raymundo protectively, shutting out everything else.
“Fuckin’ faggot’s crazy,” muttered Joey. Raymundo laughed even more, his voice ascending into high-pitched hysteria. Mateo kicked him in the chest, and Raymundo fell back in the dirt. His head thumped against the dirt. He laughed again.
“If you ever look at me again,” hissed Mateo, “I’ll kill you, crazy bitch.” As they strode away, Raymundo’s laughter softened and passed into sobs. His tears blurred the world. He sat up and rubbed the back of his head. Raymundo could taste the ferrous tang of his own blood on his tongue. Mateo’s dirt footprint lay across his left pectoral like a badge. Underneath the shirt, the footprint throbbed painfully.
He heard the school buses pulling up to the bus stop and stood up to catch his but changed his mind.
“I’m not getting on that bus looking like this,” he proclaimed to himself. He dusted himself off and, to avoid being seen, climbed the cyclone fence and hoisted himself over the top. He headed toward the railroad tracks beyond the lettuce field that bordered the schoolyard. At the tracks, he began walking homeward. The school sounds began to fade. He pulled errant strands of hair from the clotted blood on his face. When his hips grew loose, he let them. When the breeze caught his hair, he savored it. When the song rose up in his throat, he sang it.
You can’t crack my heart
Cuz it’s made of stone
You could’ve loved me a little
Could’ve thrown me a bone
You could’ve loved me a little
Could’ve thrown me a bone
Guess I’ve gotta fly away
One more time, baby
This’ll be the last time
Till the next time, baby
Raymundo approached his home carefully, hoping to slink in and clean himself up before his mother saw him. Standing at the kitchen sink, Chelo saw him approaching at a distance and waved. He waved back limply and stood at the door for a moment before entering. He breathed in slowly and opened the door. From the sink, Chelo turned and saw her son.
“Oh Jesus! What happened to your face now, mijo?” she asked.
“Nothing, Mom.”
“What do you mean ‘nothing’? Your face is bloody.”
“Just a fight.”
“Otra fight? I thought we’d settled this. Why do you get into all these fights, Ray?”
“Don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough,” said Chelo. “This is the third time, and it looks like you got the worst of it.” Chelo wiped her hands on her apron and pulled back two chairs at the kitchen table.
“Sit with me, Ray,” she said. “Tell your old lady what’s happening.” She tore off a sheet of paper towel, folded it in half, and wet it under the tap.
“Hold your head up, so I can clean that nose,” she said. Chelo wiped his chin, his cheeks, his downy mustache. Rolling a corner of the paper towel into a point, she cleaned out his bloody nostril. His eyelashes were so beautiful she wanted to weep. She could smell him. Sweat. Tres Flores hair tonic. “Boy,” she whispered. “Ray, you gotta stop this fighting. You’re not good at it, and they’re going to ruin your movie star face.” He smiled a bit.
“Are you gonna tell me what happened, or will I have to torture you?”
Raymundo exhaled. “Okay. I called Mateo Valenzuela a name, he called me a name, and it turned into a fight.”
“Mateo. You need to avoid that one. I know that whole family. Bunch of thugs. Even the grandma is an old-school chola thug in that family.” They both laughed heartily, and Raymundo relaxed.
“It’s true,” said Raymundo. “Their grandma is scary with those painted-on eyebrows, y todo.”
“You never used to fight. What’s up, Ray?”
“Nothing. Jus’ people make me mad.”
“What do they do?”
“Stupid shit. It irritates me.”
“Like what? Are they picking on you because of your hair? Do they think you’re a sissy?” Raymundo paused. She was right, but he couldn’t have this discussion with her.
“No. Lots of people wear it long. All the stoners wear it long.”
“But they’re different. You’re not a stoner. Or at least you better not be. Maybe if you cut it a little shorter.”
“No. It’s my style. I gotta go to the bathroom, okay?”
“Doesn’t have to be a crew cut,” said Chelo. “Just something shorter.”
“Can I go, please?”
“Okay. But this is the last fight, Ray. Punto y final.”
* * *
He stretched out across his bed, hands crossed behind his head. His hand wandered under his shirt to the tender triangle left by Mateo’s shoe. He sighed, closed his eyes, and quickly factored in the variables necessary to forecast his future at San Benito Junior High. He tried to arrive at an encouraging scenario, but each time, his calculus failed. The whole school would soon know of him, and nothing could stop it. He had become a black hole. Everything in sight would hurtle through space in to collapse on him.
Raymundo heard a timid knock at his door.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Me,” said his little sister, Margie. She poked her round head in the doorway.
“Ray, wanna play Barbies with me?”
“Not today, Margie.”
“How about hopscotch? Candy Land?”
“Not today.”
“Please?”
“Margie, I’m thinking. Jus’ close the door.”
“How about if we play for only ten or seven minutes? Then you can think some more.”
“Jus’ gooooo. Go now. Go watch TV and close the door. I’m thinking.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking how I can go back to school” he said, sitting up. Margie stopped and studied his eye.
“You can go on the bus, like always,” offered Margie.
“Go now, Margie. I promise we’ll play Barbies tomorrow.”
* * *
Reluctantly, she left. Raymundo lay on his side, face to the wall, hugging his pillow, and immediately fell asleep. He never felt Chelo take off his shoes and cover him. When she woke him for school fourteen hours later, he protested.
“Mom, I don’t want to go on the school bus. Please let me sleep for a while more and start school late today. I don’t feel good.” Chelo patted his shoulder, nodded, and left him in bed. Almost three hours later, Raymundo rose and undressed, watching himself in the mirror. He had been appraising his classmates all semester and saw that some of them were becoming mannish. He wondered when he would graduate from this boyish androgyny that he rather liked but everyone else seemed to hate. Raymundo expertly picked himself apart: the skinny neck, uneven balls, narrow shoulders. He raked his fingers through his long hair and shook it out.
“At least I’m good from the neck up,” he announced to his reflection. After a long, hot shower, the bruise on his eye seemed even more vivid. Going back to school felt stressful, but he’d already told his mother he was going. He put on his favorite jeans: snug from the knees up and spreading into magnificent bells at the bottom. In his mother’s room, he sifted through her vanity for makeup and applied a bit to his bruise. It helped. He was ready to go. On his way out of his mother’s bedroom, he saw it hanging on the door.
“Wow.” He lifted it to the light.
“Beautiful.” He ran it through his hands.
“Perfect. It’s perfect.” He had never before seen a belt formed of golden chain links.
The simple genius of it thrilled him. A chain an’ a belt at the same time, he thought to himself. He wrapped it about his narrow waist twice, buckled it, and draped the ends down the front of his pants. “Time to go to school,” he said to himself in the mirror.
* * *
Walking to school, Raymundo counted railroad ties and took pleasure in the clinking sound of the ends of the belt. Periodically, he looked down to
admire the movement of it and shifted his hips wider with each step to increase the arc of the swing. The truck pulled up behind him so slowly he hardly noticed it.
“Hey, kid!” shouted someone.
Raymundo reined in his strut, tightened his body, and turned his head. It was a young guy, maybe twenty years old, in a blue Ford pickup with the words JV ROOFING on the door. Raymundo quickly assessed what he saw and did not recognize the man.
“You should get off those tracks, buddy,” he said to Ray. “It’s dangerous. I remember on Easter Sunday some guy got hit by a train on the tracks.”
“I think he was a hobo,” said Raymundo. “Probably drunk on the tracks.”
“Still. Gotta be careful, yeah?” His voice was friendly. Raymundo relaxed, moved off the tracks, and continued walking on the gravel that lined the railroad.
“Where you walking to?”
“School,” said Raymundo.
“You want a ride?” he asked.
“No thanks,” said Raymundo. “I’ll jus’ walk.” Raymundo noted his nice smile. He knew that he would save time if he accepted the ride, but he was not anxious to get to school. Still, the guy looked reassuring with his tidy mustache, blue button-up shirt, and baseball cap.
“I’m Lorenzo,” said the driver, holding out his hand through the open window of the truck. Raymundo automatically walked toward him with his own hand outstretched.
“I’m Raymundo.” They shook hands and Raymundo felt his hand swallowed up by Lorenzo’s thick fingers. Raymundo loosened his grip, but Lorenzo held his hand for a few extra beats before letting go. Raymundo’s heart began to pump harder.
“It looks like you’re heading to San Benito,” said Lorenzo. “You like that school?”
“It’s okay.”
“Looks like it’s pretty rough there,” he said, glancing at Raymundo’s bruised face. Raymundo said nothing.
“My nephew goes there,” said Lorenzo. “You know Joey Sandoval?”
“Yeah. I know him,” responded Raymundo.
“Small world. You guys friends?”
“Not really.”
“You want some Fritos?” asked Lorenzo, holding out an opened bag.
“No thanks. I just brushed my teeths.”
“You got a girlfriend, Ray?” Raymundo cast his eyes down and studied the painted lettering on the door.
“No.”
“C’mon, are you being shy? If you do, don’t hold back.”
“I’m not lucky with girls.”
“Me neither,” Lorenzo replied. Raymundo glanced at Lorenzo sideways and wondered how he could be unlucky.
“Well, you’re good-looking, Raymundo. Girls will start coming to you soon enough.” Lorenzo patted Raymundo’s shoulder, and there his hand stayed.
“Is this okay?” asked Lorenzo.
“Yes, it’s okay,” said Raymundo. Before he could stop himself, Raymundo reached up and brushed his hand over Lorenzo’s, grazing the fine hairs on his knuckles. Raymundo became self-conscious and quickly dropped his hand and shifted out of Lorenzo’s reach. The brief moment of silence that followed was awkward, punctuated by a gawky exchange of smiles. Raymundo felt his heart working hard and his erection began to press against his jeans. He wanted to both stay and run away from this overwhelming scenario.
“I gotta get to school,” said Raymundo in a quiet panic.
“Okay, no problem. I just thought you could use a ride.”
“I feel like walking,” said Raymundo. “I’ll see you later, Lorenzo.” Raymundo began to walk away when Lorenzo called out.
“Can I give you my number?”
“Is it the number painted on the door?”
“No, that’s my work number,” said Lorenzo, “I’ll give you my home number.” Lorenzo reached across the seat to the glove compartment. As he stretched, Lorenzo’s T-shirt rode up, and Raymundo glimpsed the dark hairs on Lorenzo’s pale belly. Lorenzo took out a business card and a pen, wrote his number on the back, and handed it to Raymundo.
“Ray, it was nice to meet you. You’ve got my number, so call if you feel like it. Any time.”
“See you later,” said Raymundo.
“I hope so,” said Lorenzo.
* * *
By the time Raymundo arrived, students were transitioning from fifth to sixth period. As he walked to his locker, he felt eyes on his bruised face. Mateo and Joey swooped over to Raymundo as he crouched down to open his locker. Raymundo pretended not to see them and proceeded to enter the padlock combination.
“What the fuck is that fruit wearing now?” asked Joey.
“He’s wearing his fuckin’ disco belt,” said Mateo.
“Move it in, move it out, shove it in, round and about, disco lady!” sang Joey.
“We should hang you by that lady belt, Raygay,” said Mateo. They laughed as Raymundo dug out his notebook, closed the locker, and stood.
“If you’re not saying nothing,” said Mateo, “that means you’re admitting that you’re a queer fag.”
“If I say I’m not a fag, you won’t believe me,” said Raymundo. “So I’ll say I am. Y que?”
“Hah, I knew it,” crowed Mateo. “A fag! You got a boyfriend and everything, puto?”
“Maybe,” responded Raymundo. The tart response caught them off guard.
“Excuse me,” Raymundo said, slipping between Mateo and Joey. “I gotta go to woodshop.” Raymundo tossed his hair, turned smartly on his heels, and crossed an unmarked border into a new country.
Raymundo the Fag
Raymundo the Fag’s great gift and burden was to look any woman in the face and envision the perfect hairdo for her. The route to maximum beauty always seemed clear to him, a luminous path that glowed as if marked in reflective highway paint. When asked, he told his clients the truth and pointed the way to the via bella, but not everyone was ready to walk that narrow path. Sadly, they could not imagine the glories of what he saw for them, the haircut that soared beyond fashion and even taste to hover in the rarified realm of eleganza. None of this could they see on their march toward the unholy mirage of their preferred haircut. Raymundo always gave his clients what they asked for, but each time they declined his offer of eleganza, they unknowingly pricked his heart. Like all prophets, he suffered horribly.
For consolation, he cast himself back to his childhood Sunday school classes, where he once asked Sister Sarah: “Have you always been a nun?” When she began her reply by uttering, “Way back when I was a child,” he was visibly shocked. It had not occurred to Raymundo that nuns were ever anything else. He had never seen a baby nun, of course, but like the proverbial baby pigeons that no one has ever seen, baby nuns had to exist somewhere, immaculately conceived and beatifically rolling Play-Doh nativity scenes at nun preschools. Sister Sarah smiled and said, “I felt my vocation early on.” She read his confusion and continued. “My vocation was God talking to me and telling me to commit myself to service in the church. It’s like a voice that helps me know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Vocation” seemed to Raymundo a word of magic, enfolding destiny, passion, and work. Vocation became the grail that shimmered just beyond Raymundo’s fingertips as he labored at Bebe’s Beauty Box, the grande dame of Watsonville’s beauty salons. As he went about his work, he wondered if mere haircutting could constitute so exalted a thing.
No one else doubted Raymundo’s talents. He was barely twenty-two years old and less than two years out of beauty college, but he already had the biggest client base in the salon. He initially had only random walk-ins and a handful of old friends as clients, but their numbers swelled quickly. His regulars were unflagging in their loyalty and fervent in their evangelizing on his behalf. Such was the case with Cookie, a regular who waved at him through the window as she approached. Even before she crossed the threshold of Bebe’s Beauty Box, he began appraising her. She was cute and plump in the way that captivated and wounded the migrant Mexican lettuce pickers who gathered about the Watsonville City Plaza to watch
the girls go by on Thursday evenings when the Main Street shops had weekly sidewalk sales. Cookie’s skin was a perfect, even brown, and she favored the severe chola makeup of the time, with dark lipstick, heavy eyeliner, and meticulously drawn eyebrows. Her face was forever girlish in its pleasant roundness. He could also see that she had been faithful with her regimen of brushing and conditioning. The silken shifting of hair that animated her every step started a tickle in his belly. He could see the optimal Cookie cut, but alas, she held up a copy of People magazine. The cover featured the three pretty stars of Charlie’s Angels, the wildly popular female detective show. The two brunette angels flanked the blonde angel. He braced himself, knowing what was coming next.
“Hey, Mundo,” asked Cookie, “can you do me a cut like hers in the picture?”
“You mean the Farrah Fawcett cut?”
“Yeah. The Farrah. All feathered on the sides like that, but bigger.”
“Hey, Cookie. This cut is nice, and it is so popular right now, but can I tell you about another cut that you might like?”
“No, homey. I don’t want a Dorothy Hamill or whatever you’re thinking.”
“Who said anything about a Dorothy Hamill?” asked Ray. “That’s too short for you. I want to recommend—”
“Don’t. My mind is made up, and I want the Farrah.”
“Okay, chica, the Farrah it is.”
* * *
Cookie’s scalp was marvelous, a dense forest of dark shafts. An amateur would have said she has straight black hair. But Raymundo perceived the deep brown and even auburn substrata of color. He could also see it was not completely straight. Instead it was weighted down by its own length. Two and a half inches off the ends would lessen the weight and activate the latent waves and volume critical to the Farrah cut. Raymundo’s days were often a succession of back-to-back appointments broken only by a rushed lunch break, so he worked on Cookie quickly. He pinned her up and trimmed section by section, gossiping a bit but mostly listening, to sweeten the tip. His hands and words were deft and light and soon she opened up.
