The House of Impossible Beauties

by Joseph Cassara

  He woke up an hour later? A half hour later? He didn’t know. It was dark out and Juanito had a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “How long’ve you been here?” Juanito asked.

  Daniel hummed and mumbled something.

  “When’d you get home?” Juanito asked.

  “Not sure,” he said. “Feels like I’ve been here for a while, but I think I just got here.”

  * * *

  Maybe it would have been easier to bring it up. Just sit him down and tell him that he had found the pipe and he needed to know what the fuck was going on. But whenever Daniel entertained that thought, he turned straight to what he feared the most: that Juanito would deny it, turn his back, and walk out of their apartment for good. What could he say that could get Juanito to fess up? Would he have to use the ace of diamonds card and say: You wanna become just like Venus? Sucking dick just to get your next baggie of coke and then wind up strangled like a blow-up doll in some stank-ass hotel? Of course he didn’t want to read him that hard, but he knew he needed to do something.

  A couple of weeks passed. Then Juanito’s manager, Paul, called one evening when Juanito was supposed to be at work. Paul was looking for Juanito. “What do you mean he’s not there?” Daniel said.

  He closed his eyes and let his head rest against the kitchen cabinet. C’mon, Juanito, he thought, not now. Not after everything. Daniel was about to start up the frying pans to prepare some food for them to have ready for the week. He even had Tupperwares set out.

  “You don’t know already?” Paul said.

  “Know what?” Daniel said.

  “Maybe you should ask what’s going on,” Paul said. “I’m calling to make sure he’s okay.”

  Paul’s story went like this: Juanito had shown up to work last night so fucked-up—and not just drunk, but fucked-up—took off all his clothes and ran around the place completely, bare-assed naked. Since he was supposed to be in the deejay’s box, and no one was up there, the place went silent except for Juanito’s shrill little cries as he spun around in circles with the club kids, who were all giving him eyes like, what the fuck is happening over here.

  “Then he ran off to the bathroom,” Paul said.

  No, Juanito had not mentioned that earlier today. Sure, Daniel thought he looked hungover, but he thought that was just a result of working at a club until three in the morning.

  Juanito came home that night and didn’t say anything about it. Kissed him goodnight and as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out.

  The next night, Daniel ordered Chinese food just like they did every Friday because that’s when Juanito worked the earlier shift. Eleven o’clock, Juanito still wasn’t home. Twelve, still nothing. One, two. Fuck it, Daniel had to eat. The chicken lo mein was cold so he reheated it on the stove for a minute.

  He popped in the movie he rented for the night: It: Part One. That psycho Pennywise clown was on the TV creeping it up when Juanito finally walked in.

  “Where were you?” Daniel said. “Date night—remember? Your lo mein is on the table.”

  “Ay, mierda,” Juanito said, wiping his eyes with his hands rapidly. “Work called. Heidi couldn’t do the door shift so I had to stay a couple hours extra.”

  “Your food’s gonna be cold now.”

  Daniel looked at Juanito: he was still standing by the door, chewing his gum in a fever rush, looking like he had just seen a child get run over by a truck. “No tengo hambre, Dani.”

  “I asked them to throw in extra fortune cookies for you.” He watched as Juanito walked toward the bag and slipped his hand in. “Your hands are shaking,” he said. “You gotta eat, for real.”

  “I don’t want to,” Juanito snapped. “I really, really, really am not hungry.”

  Juanito checked the answering machine, went into the bedroom, came back out of the bedroom, into the bedroom again, and back out. Just watching Juanito go back and forth made Daniel dizzy.

  “¿Qué coño haces?” Daniel asked, finally, when Juanito was on his knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor around the refrigerator with a large pink sponge.

  “Everything is so sucio in here lately,” he said, scrubbing so hard, Daniel was worried he was going to unpeel the top layer of the linoleum.

  “I just cleaned the kitchen. Like two days ago.”

  “Ya sé, ya sé,” Juanito said. “But I want all of the floors to sparkle. I really need them to sparkle.”

  “Juanito, this is fucked-up. I’m not asking you. Come to the table and eat something.”

  “I told you. I’m. Not. Hungry,” he said, raising the blackened sponge so they could both see it. “Where did all of this grimy shit come from? Do you see it? How can you not see it?”

  Daniel got up from the table and kneeled down next to Juanito. “Yes, I see it. Look at me,” he said, but Juanito kept scrubbing. “Fucking look at me. Is everything okay?”

  “No, everything isn’t okay,” Juanito said. “Look at all this dirt.”

  “Just come to the table,” Daniel said.

  “I’m-not-fucking-hungry!”

  “Why are you yelling at me?” he said as Juanito threw the sponge down on the floor and slipped past him and out of the kitchen. “¿Qué haces? You already checked the answering machine. No one left you a message. Paul didn’t call you today to leave a message.”

  Juanito stopped in front of the tele as Pennywise the Clown said Aw, come on bucko. Don’t you want a balloon? and they stared at each other in the darkness. “I’m so sorry, Daniel.”

  “What’re you apologizing for?”

  “Because I don’t feel like eating and because I don’t understand why we let this apartment get so sucio.”

  “I cleaned the kitchen two days ago, Juanito. Did you want me to scrub the edges with a toothbrush?”

  “So you’re saying it’s all my fault?” Juanito said. He looked so damn skinny from where he stood.

  Daniel wanted to grab him by the wrist and bring him to a mirror. He wanted to scream, How do you not see what is happening? To your face? To your cheeks? You’ve got raccoon eyes, for fuck’s sake, you’re gonna die and then I’ll be all alone without you.

  He didn’t say nothing. He didn’t even grab his wrist.

  “All I want,” Juanito said, “is for the floors to sparkle.”

  Daniel held out his hand for Juanito to grab hold of. He guided Juanito back to the table while he chewed his gum and yapped on about the floor, how it should shine, how that Pine-Sol cleaner wasn’t worth shit, how you could hardly smell the lemony fresh.

  “Sí, you’re right,” Daniel said. “Pine-Sol ain’t worth shit at all, and now you should sit down and eat something.” He prepared a small plate of lo mein for Juanito with one of the small BBQ ribs with its bright red glaze. “Por favor, Juanito. When was the last time you ate?”

  He watched as Juanito stared at the rib, at the noodles, then at the chopsticks, which were still connected. “Nothing’s wrong,” Juanito said, but that wasn’t what the question was.

  Nothing was wrong? Bull to the shit, he thought, as he walked to the drawer where they put random stuff, the things that were not quite garbage, but not quite useful: the thumbtacks and take-out menus, the Scotch tape and nails and business cards. He grabbed what he needed, walked over to the dining room table, and placed the object on the table in front of them. It was covered in a clean gray rag. “Toma,” Daniel said. “Nothing’s wrong? Open that.”

  As soon as Juanito took the rag off, he didn’t seem to look at the thing as much as he looked through it. “What’s that for?” Daniel asked. “I don’t see you making no crème-fucking-brûlée around here.”

  Blowtorch in hand, Juanito’s head slumped down. “Where’d you get this?” Juanito whispered.

  “You know exactly where,” he said. “So, nothing’s wrong? I find this and then that pipe for god knows what. Crack? You smoking crack?”

  “It’s not crack—”

  “I don’t even want to know what it’s for,” he said,
even though he did want to know. He was worried that he was going to throw up semidigested noodles all over the kitchen. “You shiver in bed almost every night, you’re flaco as anything—skin and bones, really—and then every other day there is a message from some dude on the answering machine, and I have to listen to them telling you how many inches they’ve got, and how they’re going to destroy your ass with it.”

  Juanito put his forehead on the table and started to cry.

  “I know you haven’t been going to work,” Daniel said. “I spoke to Paul.”

  “No,” Juanito said. He kept repeating it: no, no. The look he gave Daniel could have bent all the spoons in their sink. “He called here? What’d he say?”

  “He’s been looking for you, wondering why you’re not showing up,” Daniel said.

  Juanito walked over to Daniel and edged in for a hug. He put his hands around Daniel’s waist and rested his head on Daniel’s right shoulder. Daniel could feel him sobbing ever so gently, but he just stood there with his arms to the sides, letting Juanito hold him. He hoped to dear god and all the saints that Juanito wasn’t putting on a show.

  “I’m sorry,” Juanito whimpered. He kept repeating it, speaking into Daniel’s neck as if it were Daniel’s own skin that he was apologizing to. “Please don’t leave me.”

  “And it’s not like we’ve been having any sex,” Daniel said.

  “So this is all about sex?”

  “Ay, Dios, Juanito. I didn’t say that at all,” he said. “I just want to know if everything is alright, and what the fuck am I supposed to think when all of this”—he waved his arm around, like this could be pointed to like a prize on The Price Is Right—“is going down?”

  Daniel picked up the paper plates and shoved them in the brown bag. If you don’t want to eat, don’t eat then. He ripped the stapled takeout menu off and put it in the drawer of loose objects. He slammed it shut harder than he wanted to. When he turned around, Juanito was standing in front of him completely naked. His clothes were thrown into a pile on the floor next to the table. “You want it,” Juanito said and Daniel could see the little groove of bone where his rib cage was meant to protect his heart. “You want to fuck? Then come, come and take it.”

  “Ya. Deja,” Daniel said, swatting his hand.

  “Come.”

  Daniel didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see Juanito when he was pulling some shit. “Damn, Juanito,” he said, crying now. “I’m not some trick. Why’re you playing me like this?”

  “Come on, I want you.” Juanito walked over to him and placed his hand on Daniel’s cheek. The inside of Juanito’s palm felt dry and bumpy and Daniel could barely hear the words as they came out of Juanito’s mouth. “Use my hole,” Juanito said. “Just fuck me already, if that’s what you want.”

  He felt Juanito’s hand pulling him to the living room. “Push me down,” Juanito told him. He could feel himself getting hard. His mind was telling him no, but his body was still capable of doing it. It terrified him, this lack of control, this drive to fuck Juanito as hard as all the johns who had fucked him in cars and in parks—had fucked the both of them when they were working on the streets. Juanito, who had helped train him to get into a car and suck a dick. Juanito, who had sobbed into his shoulder on some nights when the men were particularly mean. (“He told me he wanted to fuck me in half,” he remembered Juanito had cried one night, years ago.)

  “You’re too gentle with me,” Juanito said, now. “You think I’m just fragile. Like I’m one of those plates that you wash and wash and wash. Well push me down and just fucking take my ass already, if that’s what you want.”

  Daniel felt his hard-on pressing against his pants, but he didn’t want to fuck Juanito like that. He wiped the tears from his cheeks. He could never use, or take, or fuck, or not be gentle with him.

  “Take it already, Dani.”

  Daniel thought of how, when they had first met in the Bronx, Juanito had told him one night, drunk off his ass, that the summer when he was twelve, his mother sent him to PR to visit the father that he hardly knew, and that when his father had put the pieces together—how had he known? Did his hips sway, were his wrists limp, did he linger too long on S sounds?—his father had raped him repeatedly over the course of the entire summer. “Cógeme, Dani.” He remembered how Juanito had cried that night. Daniel had held him, Juanito’s back facing him so they could both look out the window instead of at each other.

  Now Juanito was rushing to unzip Daniel’s pants. Daniel pushed him away. He didn’t mean to push him as hard as he did, but Juanito fell backward onto the couch. For the first time that night, their eyes met and Daniel could see that sly twinkle in Juanito’s eyes that meant he was longing for something.

  “Push me again,” Juanito said.

  “Tell me something,” Daniel said. “Are you fucking high right now?” Daniel didn’t know if it would be better or worse if Juanito were loaded. He didn’t want to think about it. The way the orange light from the street came in through the window, Daniel could barely see Juanito’s face as he lay there on the sofa with his legs up, masturbating himself. Daniel barely recognized him.

  “Don’t be silly,” Juanito said. Daniel stood next to the sofa and watched as Juanito placed two fingers in his mouth and sucked. Then Juanito brought his fingers from his mouth to his hole and started to fingerfuck himself, at first gently, and then so rough, Daniel almost had to ask him to stop because it was difficult to watch.

  Juanito’s head snapped back as he moaned. His back arched back. Daniel was fully hard now and he spit on Juanito’s hole and thrust inside quickly. He wasn’t going to take this slow, he wanted Juanito to feel everything. He pounded until Juanito’s body jolted hard. Juanito winced. “Coño,” Juanito said. “Oh fuck, pulloutpullout.”

  Daniel guided Juanito up and put a pillow behind his head. “¿Qué pasó?” Daniel asked, pulling out. “What? What went wrong?”

  He didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. He flicked the lights on and Juanito covered his eyes with one hand and covered his ass with the other. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but there was still blood. Juanito stared at the stain on the couch—about the size of a handprint—and he just stood there.

  “You’re bleeding,” Daniel said. “You gotta take a shower or something, it’s gonna start dripping down your leg.”

  “No,” Juanito said, already halfway to the sink, reaching for a sponge. “I gotta clean the couch. It’s gonna stain.”

  “Fuck it,” Daniel said. “It’s not gonna come out.”

  When Juanito was in the shower, Daniel could hear him crying. Whatever drug he was on was probably wearing off. He squatted on the floor near the sofa with a sponge in his hand, trying his best to do damage control on the stain with cold water and soap.

  “I need you to be honest with me,” Daniel said when Juanito was finally clean, laying next to him in bed. “And don’t give me some bullshit, Juanito.”

  “I’m sorry, Dani.”

  “Coño, why’re you bleeding so bad? That’s not a normal amount of blood. Where’d you go tonight?” he asked. “Where’re you going to all these afternoons and nights?”

  “—”

  “You got fucked? Is that it?”

  “Promise you won’t get mad?”

  He looked at Juanito and then at the new couch. It looked bulky in the shadows of the streetlight, all alone in the middle of the empty room. Daniel covered his face with his hands and said, “Ay, Dios mío, Juanito. I can’t fucking believe you right now.”

  * * *

  The next morning, the crystal was worn off and Juanito sat dazed at the table. He held onto a glass of water as he explained the deal he had made with Paul. Daniel stood while he listened and watched Juanito take occasional sips, until there was only one ice cube left. Paul had paid for the sofa, Juanito explained. And in return, Juanito paid off his debt with sex. Things got out of control. He never meant to get hooked.

  Daniel winced. “I’m g
onna fuck that bastard up so bad,” he said. “He’s not gonna know right from left.”

  “No,” Juanito said, sliding the ice cube around the bottom of the glass. “We can’t do that.”

  “Like hell I can’t,” Daniel said.

  But Juanito explained why not. Paul had called earlier in the week, demanding for more, even though Juanito thought he was paid off. “He said, you still owe me two more fucks, don’t think I lost count. Pero I think he was just tweaked out,” Juanito said, “because I dunno where he got that math from.”

  Juanito said that when he had told Paul no, Paul got so pissed that he threatened to call Amex and claim that Juanito had stolen his charge card and bought the sofa with it.

  “So what do I do?” Juanito said. “I did buy it with his card. It was me. But he was there with me, te lo juro. He said it was okay to buy it.”

  “You’ve gotta quit,” Daniel said. “Are you kidding me? You can’t stay working for him.” He was walking in circles around the room. Juanito drank what was left of the melted ice cube. “Juanito? Tell me that you can’t.”

  Juanito said that he thought if they had sex one last time, it would be over. “I don’t wanna go to jail for fraud or whatever, like he was saying they’d do to me,” Juanito said. “Maybe he can have his fill and then we can all move on.”

  “Have his fill? I can’t believe this,” Daniel said. He stopped pacing and threw his hands into the air. “Are you fucking bugging right now?” He couldn’t stand it, so he walked out of the room.

  “Where’re you going?” Juanito’s voice cracked. “Daniel, por favor, don’t leave me.”

  Daniel walked into the bathroom and threw up into the toilet. The hurling was so strained, he felt the side of his abs burn. He could smell the vomit stuck in the back of his nose. He heard the door creak open, and when he turned his head to look, Juanito was standing in the doorway. Juanito told him that he was a mess and that Daniel should leave him and go find someone better, someone who didn’t have issues, who wasn’t an addict, who could love him.