“No pay, no exit.”
“Why should I pay? I don’t owe a peso, she didn’t do anything,” I protest.
“That’s your problem. Cough it up, kiddo.”
I pull out a few wrinkled bills, hand them over without counting them, and then I’m fleeing down the street when I see the hot dark bombshell in the nurse’s uniform running after me. Help, I pray to my mother, it’s me, your son, remember me. I speed up, but the hot nurse is behind me and has almost caught up.
“Listen, kid!” she shouts. “You left your socks.”
I glance down at my shoes, and it’s true. My feet look back at me, like beggars. In my effort to escape, I put my shoes on with complete disregard for socks, the same socks the girl from Eden holds up, fingers like pincers, as if carrying a couple of dead rats by the tail.
“Don’t worry about it, kid, it happens a lot the first time,” she says kindly. “Come back tomorrow, honey, and we can get to know each other.”
I never went back.
I can’t stand to be touched, I’ve been that way since I was little. I hated it when my mother’s friends kissed me, stamping their lipstick on my skin; those foreign mouths were a threat. I didn’t even like to be kissed by my own mother—or maybe it was she who didn’t want to kiss me. Who knows which came first.
I still fear touch. It’s some kind of phobia. Everything’s better with people nice and far, you there, me here, plenty of space in between. I’m practically autistic in this department, I admit it. Dancing is a serious challenge; I mean really, the torture of another person glued to your body and the swaying and rocking and all that. Though with dancing I’ve had to give in, because every Tutti Frutti has to be a mambo king. It would all be over if I didn’t act confident, hide my hang-ups, and get out there on the dance floor.
On that humiliating night at Eden, Píldora, neighboring client, witnessed my disgrace. He could have betrayed me to the others, but he didn’t. Something to keep in mind.
It’s not like I’m a virgin, things aren’t quite that extreme. But I’m not addicted to getting off either; I only feel the urge once in a while. And when it comes, if it comes, I want it done my way, just as I like it: quick and to the point, no movie clips, no porn shows. Better to keep it all hygienic, impersonal, not too much rubbing and stroking. I prefer it with a bit of conversation, after which I split. Waking up next to someone? Clearly impossible. To me, dawn is a private matter, a solitary time. And I wouldn’t ask anyone to share my bed, no way, no one gets to crumple my sheets, I’m a beast when it comes to this and I admit it, don’t even think about trying to take my pillow—back, Satan! It’s not my fault, it’s this aversion of mine, it just takes over, what am I supposed to do?
No smooches for me, and forget about secrets, they’re the worst, I can’t stand the bss-bss-bss of breath in my ear; the hot breeze people emit revolts me. Not to mention snores or any other subtle sounds mouths make, I’ve really got to fight the urge to kill someone. I’m probably alone in this, a real weirdo, a class all my own, and part of me is sorry for it, but in any case those Eden massages weren’t for me.
Strip bars are a different story. I’d go with the others to Cilantro Picado, the Royal, the Night Stars. All those sleazy joints where girls got naked onstage, where the cover was cheap enough for a bunch of high school boys. I’d be fine in those places as long as the girls didn’t try to perch on my table or dance on my lap, rubbing their glory in my face. As I’ve said, distance, always distance, no full-body contact for me. I don’t like the smell of other people. You there, over here, far enough to avoid your stink, no thank you, keep your breath to yourself, your smelly armpits and body fumes, and I’ll keep mine. I guess I’ve got unfriendly skin and a hypersensitive nose.
Sometimes, though, I think I’d like to do it with Malicia. Alicia, Alicia, savvy Malicia, beautiful, claimed. I mean, if I ever could. Or maybe I want to touch her precisely because I can’t, and since I can’t, I feel safe with her.
Without her, sleep is the orifice through which the creepsters slide to scratch me from the inside. I’m afraid to doze off. Or maybe it’s the opposite: sleep is a fortress, insomnia an open door to the unwanted. I’m afraid of staying awake. Watch out for my dimly lit nights: they lay bare hidden aggressions. Everything offends me and I have no defenses, and any moment the phone could ring and it’s Muñeco, with those creepsters of his sliding into my ear and piercing my shell, the one I’m constantly building outward from within like a mollusk. My lair. My haven, bristling with spikes on the outside, but smooth and silky on the inside. My shell is a hiding place that holds me like a lover. Into its pearly labyrinth I go, slippery, slick, as if with Vaseline, and I feel safe. But the creepsters keep at it.
Last night there were only two, or so Baby-Boy said from his cell phone. Many more of them—the first ones, innate—stalked my early childhood and filled me with a panic that’s revived today. But I haven’t always been so thin skinned. There was a time when I overcame my fears and learned to survive the streets.
I was nine years old then, far away from here, in the bleakest parts of Detroit, where I’d been sent after my parents’ divorce to live with my uncle and aunt in the USA while the spasms of their separation died down. Detroit was my path to Damascus, the lightning bolt that shook the terrified boy I’d been.
Who worked that miracle? The great Damián, the oldest son of my American relatives. Damián took pity on me, the intrusive cousin from Colombia who was always in the way, like a stuffed-animal present you never wanted. I was the dazed kid whose Avianca flight had just landed at the Detroit international airport, with a suitcase full of presents for my family abroad whom I only knew from what my parents had told me and maybe a few photos. And when I say presents, I obviously mean arequipe, guava jelly, cornmeal, and dried guascas for their stews.
Immediately my aunt started in on her son with the pressure: “Come on, honey, Damiansito, do it for me, take this kid out to the movies at least, please, buy him a burger, let the poor boy have a good time, get to know America, you know his parents just split up.”
And Damián: “But Mom—”
And she, a Colombian mother to the bone: “There’s no ‘but’ here, Damián, family is family, and this boy is your first cousin, blood of your blood, take him to the movies, pay for his hot dog and popcorn, do it for me, as a kindness.”
So began that memorable period of my life. My transformation. A shame it only lasted until my return to the homeland, when I had to part ways with Damián.
But what a time it was. Instead of taking me to the movies, my cousin dragged me through the streets late at night, to dark alleys where he painted graffiti on blackened walls and cement blocks in deserted industrial areas consumed by rust and neglect. That was my privilege, to accompany him on freezing 4:00 a.m. ventures along the tracks of nonexistent trains and the shores of phantom rivers.
What was his graffiti like? I don’t know, I can’t even recall his face, but my memory holds the timbre of his voice and his shadow dancing on asphalt lit by streetlamps, the quick, precise movements of his raised arm. The excitement of it, the fleeting, nameless wonder of his tag taking shape on a broken wall. I still carry, inside, the pulse of those strangely pale night skies. Dirty snow on pavement. My drenched sneakers.