We Came All the Way from Cuba So You Could Dress Like This?

by Achy Obejas

  I stopped when I saw her, a woman in a business suit, her purse dangling from her shoulder by a thin, tasteful leather band. She was taller than me, more graceful, too blond to appeal to me under normal circumstances. She was leaning into her reflection, fixing her mascara. Then she measured me through the mirror with one of those dismissive, angry looks.

  I immediately turned, flushed red, faced the stalls, and pushed the first door open. Like a boy, I confronted the toilet, confused, then turned around, fumbled with my belt. I undid my buckle, took a deep breath. Then I saw her through the crack between the door and the hinges, coming, it seemed, toward the stalls. I panicked, convinced she was just outside the door. I looked down and saw her feet, then whack. Her hand pushed against the door. I double-checked the lock, clutched at my belt. Her dark blue shadow drifted past. I heard a stall door opening, shutting, a click. Fabric rustling, small pieces of metal clashing. My pulse was pumping.

  I continued to stand, wondering if I’d just imagined the whole thing—the way she’d glared at me through the mirror, the way she’d hit the door of my stall. In the background, I heard the steady stream of her pee into the toilet. I wanted to look to see which way her feet were pointing, but I couldn’t move. Flush.

  I had just dropped my pants, bent my knees, and started to piss, when—slam—she appeared again, popping the lock on the suddenly open door, then leaning down toward me, her hand reaching for the current between my legs. My mouth dropped. Her fingers penetrated me so hard and so effortlessly that for an instant she lifted me off my feet. I floundered, unable to protest, watching the piss run warm all over her hand, my thighs. I felt a wetness around my ankle. I grabbed at her, trying to regain my balance. Every time my buckle hit something it was like a bell ringing. Then I shuddered, and held her, tighter.

  “You forget l that you love me in spite of what you say.

  ”We carry scars in our hearts/impossible to erase.

  “You forgetlthat I can do you harm if I should choose to.

  ”Your love is mine/but not against your will.”

  From “La Mentira” (“The Lie”) by Alvaro Carrillo, 1965.

  Above All, A Family Man

  My name is Tommy Drake, and I’m dying. This is no delusion or attention-getting device; enough doctors have figured it out, and I believe them. I’ve got the cough, the nausea, the swollen glands—I even have a few of those splotches. Luckily, you can’t really see them, although there’s one on my neck that’s starting to spread. I don’t have much in the way of material possessions—an old Pioneer stereo, a few sticks of furniture, and a backpack full of clothes—but I did make out a will leaving it all to a not-for-profit group in Chicago, which is my hometown.

  Right now I’m speeding down Interstate 55, stretched flat on the passenger’s seat and rubbing my stomach, which is taut on the outside but queasy on the inside. I rub it in a circular motion, with my hand under my shirt, but it doesn’t help much. My hand just gets warm, and it feels as primitive and interminable as scratching flint for fire. Nothing happens, except that everything keeps turning inside me.

  “You okay?” asks Rogelio, who’s driving at rocket speed. I know he’s doing more than eighty miles an hour, but every time I say something he tells me he’s just a little bit above the speed limit. Even from my reclining position (I’m so low my headrest is bumping the back seat), I can see those big trucks blinking as we zoom past them, but he just tells me to relax.

  I try to explain that I’m nauseous and wish he’d slow down, especially around the curves, but my mouth is too dry. My tongue is a beached whale, swollen and sticky. What comes out is a pathetic peep that makes Rogelio laugh. He pats my thigh with rough affection, turns up the radio, and presses his foot on the gas pedal. My body pushes against the car seat from the acceleration.

  “Slow down,” I finally manage to say.

  “What?”

  “Goddamn it, slow down!” I’m screaming now, and my throat can’t take it; I start to cough, the force of it pitching me from side to side.

  “I can’t hear you,” he says, lowering the volume. He glances at me, then turns back to the road. “What did you say?”

  I want to hit him, but all I can do is wipe the drool from my chin. I have my cuffs undone, and my sleeve flaps up to my face, which is now sweaty and red. “Slow down,” I say. “Please.”

  “Okay, okay,” he says with exaggerated reassurance. “You take it easy, okay?”

  I nod and close my eyes, settling back on the seat and feeling the weight of the car as Rogelio slowly pumps the brake. He reaches across to open my window a little. As he turns the handle, his arm brushes against me, just at my stomach, and I lift my shirt. On its way back to the steering wheel, his hand pats my stomach, which is the wrong thing to do. My insides slosh around, and I swallow. Then I angrily force his hand flat on my abdomen and just hold it there against his will. I don’t want to get sick; I don’t want to die.

  “We’re almost in St. Louis,” he says, freeing his hand. “You ever been to St. Louis?”

  “No,” I say. “But I’ve driven past it.”

  “You seen the Arch?”

  “From the road.” I reach up and feel my head for fever, but I’m suddenly fine. “What’s in St. Louis besides the Arch?”

  “Nothing,” Rogelio says with a laugh.

  I think he must never stop when he gets behind the wheel. It’s just a straight line to him, point A to point B—no bathroom stops, no meals, nothing. “I want to stop in St. Louis,” I say.

  Rogelio laughs because he thinks I’m kidding. His laugh is almost a giggle, kind of high-pitched. There’s a girlishness to it, but if anybody ever pointed it out, he’d probably never laugh again.

  “I’m serious, I want to stop in St. Louis.”

  He’s still smiling. “Well, we’ll get gas there, okay?”

  “No, no, I want to stop, to get off the road.”

  He does a double-take, but I just grin up at him. “Why? Are you getting sick?” he asks.

  “No, actually, I’m feeling okay right now.”

  “Tommy, we can get to Tulsa tonight, but if we stop in St. Louis, we’ll waste time,” he says. “Besides, there’s nothing in St. Louis. If there was, I would have heard about it by now, don’t you think?”

  Rogelio is a dark, handsome motherfucker with Indian hair and cheekbones as sharp as a razor. Now he’s giving me this insinuating smile, this man-of-the-world macho look.

  “I want to get off the road,” I say, smiling back. “I want to see the Arch.”

  “The Arch?” He whines, his face all wrinkled up. “We’ll be late. What about your friends in Santa Fe?”

  “Rogelio, at the speed you’re driving, we’ll be in Santa Fe in an hour. Anyway, I can always call them.”

  My friends are Paul and Ron, these two guys who run a gallery in Santa Fe. It’s very Southwest but very gay at the same time. That means they have buffalo skulls like every other Santa Fe gallery, but they also show glossy Mapplethorpe prints of boys in leather. Ron and I were lovers about ten years ago, and we’ve remained friends. When I told him the news, he and Paul invited me to stay with them, a kindness I’ll never get to repay.

  Rogelio isn’t at all happy. He’s actually pouting because of my request. “You’d deny me my last chance to see the St. Louis Arch?” I ask. It’s a guilt trip, I know, but I do want to get off the road. And it’s true, too. If that Arch and I are ever going to get together—not that it would ever have occurred to me before—this is our last chance Texaco.

  “No, Tommy, I wouldn’t deny you,” Rogelio says, and it’s with genuine feeling. Because he thinks he’s treated me badly, he kind of sinks in the driver’s seat. The perk is that his foot lightens up on the gas pedal, and we begin to approach the speed limit.

  There is, however, an irony in his response. The fact is that Rogelio denies me pretty routinely. Not pleasures, mind you. He’s generous by nature, and he’ll do most anything, especially for me. And
frankly, it’s not because of what I do for him; I’m nothing special. I’m okay. I’m kind of cute, actually. But that has nothing to do with it.

  Rogelio picked me for no reason other than that I spoke a little Spanish to his kids. He’s got four of them, at least that I know of. Two boys, two girls, ages four to twelve. They’re little brown butterballs, all of them overweight. At the Montrose Street beach where I met them, they practically bounced around Rogelio. They were playing a loose game of soccer when the oldest boy kicked the ball right into my lap, knocking the newspaper out of my hands. I was pissed off, and ready to say something mean, but then I saw Daddy, and that changed things.

  Oh, it wasn’t lightning or love at first sight. It was simple fear. Rogelio is as sinewy as tire tread: every ligament is perfectly outlined. And there he was, this little bull ready to charge if I said the wrong thing. So I resurrected some high school Spanish and told his kid to be careful next time, that I’d been sitting in my beach chair all morning in the same spot, and I’d appreciate it if they’d play somewhere else. Rogelio and I never took our eyes off each other, but the look was as much an invitation to murder as to love.

  Montrose Beach is a small peninsula that juts out into Lake Michigan. It offers a pretty amazing view of the Loop, Lake Shore Drive snaking north, and the park along the water’s edge. But for me, the best part is that Montrose is not a gay beach. That is, it’s a respite. The folks there are mostly Latinos and Asians, usually in family groups. The kids play soccer or volleyball; the young men wear long pants and smoke a lot of cigarettes while the women keep an eye on things. For the most part, I’m left alone. I can read, think, just hang out, with very little chance of distraction. If I really want to cruise, all I have to do is walk down to the rocks on Belmont Avenue, and there are boys of all colors everywhere.

  So when Rogelio stared back hard, this was a surprise. His roly-poly wife was sitting on a beach towel not too far from us, and I could tell she wasn’t happy about any of this. She yelled something at him—I think it was to be careful—and he retreated, kicking the ball back to his kids. I’m sure she meant to say she just didn’t want him to get in trouble threatening a white man, but I’d bet her real reasons were different.

  “It’s okay,” I said in her direction, my eyes still fixed on Rogelio but softer now. He smiled shyly, which was so unexpected, I laughed. Then he puffed up, offended, his manhood on the line—it was as if I’d guessed about that high-pitched sound, and he was terrified.

  He stomped over. “What’s so funny?” he asked, surprising me again. Unlike most of the other people on Montrose Beach, Rogelio speaks English fairly well. He has an accent, but it’s slight, more endearing than anything else. “Are you laughing at my wife?”

  “No,” I said, “I’m laughing at you.”

  He stepped back. “What?”

  “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” I said. “Your kids were careless. I told them to be careful, and now your wife is trying to protect you from the big, bad gringo.”

  “I think you’re trying to embarrass me in front of my family,” he said quite seriously.

  “I think you’re crazy,” I told him. “I don’t even know you.”

  He winced in the hot sun, jets of black hair breezing around his face. “If you’re worried about that,” he said, “we can meet here tomorrow morning, at eight o’clock.”

  His eye contact made it clear this wasn’t a challenge to a duel, not in the usual sense. “The beach doesn’t open until nine.”

  “Exactly.” His face was stern.

  “All right,” I said, thinking the whole thing mighty amusing and that I’d never actually meet him.

  “Okay,” he said, his muscles finally loosening. Then he smiled. “How big are you?”

  I looked at him incredulously. I mean, you read about this kind of stuff, but does it ever really happen? “What kind of a question is that?” I asked him. “And in front of your wife.”

  “Well?”

  It was my turn to feel embarrassed. “How big are you?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Four inches.”

  I thought he had to be kidding. Who brags about a four-inch cock? I wanted to laugh, not at his size but at his style, until I realized it would devastate him.

  “And you?” he asked, now trying to be tough, his hands balled up on his hips.

  “You’ll see,” I managed.

  Needless to say, I stood him up. It wasn’t a terribly deliberate choice. I was tired, I wasn’t in the mood for the lake, and I thought he was kind of weird anyway. But a few days later, he found me in my favorite beach chair, reading. To my surprise, he casually settled on the sand next to me, crossing his legs as if to meditate.

  “Hello,” he said, a little embarrassed. “Have you got the sports section there?” He nodded at the Tribune folded on my lap.

  “The Cubs lost,” I said as I handed him the paper. I was expecting him to stretch out and start posing for me and everybody else, but he remained Buddha-like, turning the pages with a wet fingertip.

  “I don’t care about the Cubs,” he said, his eyes on the newspaper. “I like football better.”

  I thought he meant soccer, so I didn’t have much to say. “I don’t keep up with sports,” I told him. He seemed so different now, his face boyish and sweet. “What’s the name of our team—The Sting, The Stingers—?”

  He looked up at me, amused. “Not futbol,” he said. “I mean American football. You know, the contact sport.” He winked at me. I took note that his wife and kids were nowhere in sight.

  I can’t really explain how it happened after that, other than to say that suddenly Rogelio was in my orbit. He is no less married, no less a parent—in fact, he is, above all, a family man—and how he manages to juggle it all has always amazed me. Part of it is simple: The man does not consider himself even vaguely homosexual. Instead, he thinks of himself as sexual, as capable of sex with a cantaloupe as with a woman or a man. It’s a definition that deals in quantity and athleticism and has little, if any, relationship to love or pleasure.

  For all of his sexual posturing, however, it was I who taught him how to kiss—rather, that it’s okay to kiss another man. Before, Rogelio could make love all day without puckering up even once. He is sure, because there are certain things he will not do in bed with a man, and because of—quite literally—his favorite sexual positions, that he’s a man in the old fashioned sense of the word.

  We hadn’t been friends long when I got sick. It started simply enough—just a cough, a kind of constant fatigue. But Rogelio was astonishingly tender, stopping by with groceries, making thick Mexican bean soups, and actually tucking me in before leaving for the night shift on the South Side. He tried to be nonchalant about it. He said these were all parental skills and that my apartment was on the way to this or that errand.

  I’d already concluded that he needed to have these self-delusions, so I didn’t bother to point out that I was easily thirty minutes north of his family’s home. There are plenty of hardware stores and laundromats in his neighborhood, so all his errands could have been run locally. And his little pit stop at my place meant it took more than an hour for him to get to his factory job. But, hey, I loved his attentions. And as it turned out, he was a fountain of unexpected kindnesses, one after another. It wasn’t just the things he did. It was the way he did them. There was little mistaking his concern, or even—as strange as this may sound—his devotion. Against all odds, he’s always believed I’ll get better.

  Most of my friends think Rogelio’s cute, but pretty transient, too (he’s living in the U.S. thanks to a rather dubious green card). We’ve taken him to a couple of gay bars, but he just stands around, giggling incessantly. He’s too shy to dance and too scared to be comfortable. Once, we dragged him to a gay street fair, and even though there were plenty of straight people there—mostly whites—he did seem relaxed. I told him he looked great in the sunshine, with his dark brown skin and all, and a couple of the guy
s started ribbing me good-naturedly about being a Cha Cha Queen. Surprisingly, even Rogelio joined in.

  But for all his involvement with me and his socializing with my friends in New Town, Rogelio always deals with gays as “other.” Once, when my friend Stan was over, I put my arm around Rogelio’s shoulder, and he violently shook it off. “I’m the man here,” he told me. Stan snapped, “Honey, you know what they say...‘The butchier the boy, the higher his legs go.”’ At first I thought there might be blood on my walls, but Rogelio just giggled. That night, I put him out on the streets.

  I’ve tried to talk to him about this, not out of any particular political conviction, but because I think there’s an absurdity in pretending he’s so hyper-masculine while he’s scratching at my door. Personally, I think he knows better.

  Later, I asked him if he understood what Stan had meant, and he made it quite clear that he did. He also said his toes rarely left the sheets. I said that wasn’t true, but Rogelio thought the best way to prove his point was just to show me.

  When my diagnosis came through, I surprised myself by not being devastated. I think I already knew. Three of my former lovers had already died of AIDS, and I’ve been around the block too many times not to be at risk. But when the social worker at the clinic urged me to tell my sexual partners and encourage them to go for counseling, I did have a moment of panic. How the hell would I tell Rogelio? Not telling him was out of the question—I never doubted the boy’s sexual prowess; besides his wife, I was sure there were dozens of others, men and women.

  For the record, I’ve never been around Rogelio without a parachute. In spite of all his efforts to the contrary, we’ve never engaged in anything but the safest sex. Still, there are so many things that can happen, so there was little question about my responsibility to tell him.

  It wasn’t easy. I took him out for a beer at a neighborhood bar and explained it as best I could: that I’d had an HIV test which had come back positive, that I’d had the Western blot, and it was positive, too. I told him I was symptomatic, that my swollen glands and fatigue were typical.