Chulito (7 page)

She sat up and pushed her curly locks away from her face, “Ay, what the fuck are you talking about? Mira, get out of my way so I can clean up. That was good Chulito, but this don’t make you a man or nothin’. It takes a lot more to be a man than just fucking a woman.” Then she got up and went to the bathroom.

Kamikaze laughed and fell back on his bed. Chulito loved how Kamikaze was comfortable being naked. He started getting hard again, so he reached for a small towel by the side of the bed and wiped himself.

“You missed a spot.” Kaz pointed to the glob of cum that had landed on Chulito’s chest. “Sorry about that, bro, but having my bolas sucked drives me wild. You should have it done some time and see what I mean.” Chulito rolled the hair around the inside of his mouth and imagined rolling his tongue around Kamikaze’s balls.

Kamikaze wiped his hands with another towel, flipped Chulito with it, then tossed it on the floor. “Wanna smoke?”

“Sure.”

He lit a joint and danced around the room, “Chulito ain’t no virgin no more.”

Chulito smiled at the memory of his first time and heard Kamikaze in the shower. He watched steam escape out the door and dissipate as it hit the dry air in the room. The ceiling fan caused some of it to swirl around the apartment filling it with the sweet, fresh scent of the minty liquid soap Kamikaze loved. He imagined the light lather all over Kamikaze’s body, small bubbles sliding down his legs with the hair all matted down and sleek. With his eyes closed he could see Kamikaze soaping up his crotch and the foam mounting as he rubbed it in.

Chulito shook his head to clear it, then called his mom and assured her that everything was O.K. He apologized for not coming home and in order to calm her down, he made a list of promises to her like he would get his GED, would call her in the future no matter what, and he wouldn’t get any girls pregnant.

There was a mounting pressure growing in Chulito’s bladder. He tried to hold out until Kamikaze finished taking a shower because it was difficult peeing with a hard-on. He’d decided to go to the kitchen, stand a foot or two away from the sink and pee like an erect fountain boy when Kaz’s cell started ringing with Fabolous’s “Keepin’ it Gangsta.” The phone was clipped to the pants hanging on the bathroom door handle.

“Yo, Chuly-chu, get me my phone!”

Chulito scurried to the bathroom, unclipped the phone, entered the steamy room and handed the phone to Kamikaze. “Yo, I gotta take a leak.”

“Ain’t nobody stopping you.” Kamikaze kept his head out of the shower to keep the phone from getting wet.

Chulito pulled down his boxer briefs, sat on the bowl and pushed his erection down to pee into it. Chulito felt every muscle in his body relax as the urine flowed out of him, while Kamikaze talked with one of the suppliers who had a stash ready for disbursement.

“See you at three.” Kamikaze ended his conversation and handed the phone to Chulito. “Should I leave the water on?”

“O.K.,” Chulito responded. Kamikaze slid the curtain open, stepped out, grabbed a towel and dried himself.

Seeing Chulito sitting on the bowl he reacted. “Fo! You taking a shit? I thought you said you had to pee, nigga.”

“I am peeing, it’s just…”

“Oh, I see. I guess things are back in working order down there. Maybe you should give Veronica a call now.” Kamikaze pumped his hips. “We could do her like we did Yolanda back in the day.”

“Bet.” Chulito finished peeing, but sat pressing down on his erection waiting for Kamikaze to leave the bathroom.

“I gotta go see Hank at three for a pick up, you comin’?”

“Yeah.” Chulito stayed seated on the toilet. “But I gotta go home first, O.K? Show my face.”

Kamikaze dried his hair with a towel then wrapped it around his waist. He went over to the mirror, wiped off steam and put shaving cream on his face. Chulito realized that Kamikaze was not leaving the bathroom any time soon so he got into the shower quickly.

Seeing Chulito’s erection bounce, Kamikaze said, “Don’t be taking a long shower and shit. It’s already after eleven o’clock and if you want to come with me we gotta eat and stop by your house before heading up to Hank’s in Connecticut.”

Chulito tried to ignore his erection as he washed himself, but the memory of the Yolanda incident and seeing Kamikaze naked again had him horned out. He squeezed his cock and felt a rush through his body accompanied by guilt. Kamikaze continued to talk and shave.

Chulito washed his underarms, bolas, ass crack, and feet. Then he gave his dick a few strokes and jerked off as quietly as possible. It could be fast, he thought. The sink water went off. Good, Chulito thought, Kamikaze would leave the bathroom and he could just finish the job. Then the hair blower come on. Chulito continued to stroke himself and circle his nipple with his thumb sending waves of pleasure up and down his body. The intensity built quickly in his balls. He held his breath as the first stream of cum shot out of him. Kamikaze turned off the blower. For the second and a third squirt he was was silent, but by the fourth shot a short gasp escaped from him and he continued to tremble.

“Did you just come, nigga?” Kamikaze asked matter-of-factly. “You better make sure none of that shit sticks to the tub when you’re done, and hurry up ‘cause we gotta go, or I’m gonna leave ya ass.”

Chulito stood in the warm shower, his knees weak. He never thought that he would do something like that, and Kamikaze treated it like no big deal. Nothing was too weird for him. It was one of the things that made Kamikaze different from any of the guys in the neighborhood. Chulito loved that about him.

Chulito watched as a warm, powerful blast of wind shoved Carlos around the corner of Garrison and Hunts Point Avenues. Chulito’s heart shifted into high gear, as it always did, when he saw Carlos suddenly appear half a block away. Outwardly, Chulito stayed nonchalant, as if he had been leaning on the car in front of their building by chance, but he had been there hoping to run into Carlos.

A week had passed since the party posse, and Carlos was like a phantom walking by without making eye contact, as if Chulito, or anyone else on the block, didn’t exist.

Now, as Carlos came closer, Chulito’s pulse quickened. Carlos’ shopping bags swung out of control, his hair flew wildly obscuring his face, shorts flapped around his legs and his loose shirt ballooned all around him occasionally revealing a small line of smooth skin on his stomach. It was like Mother Nature wanted to see Carlos naked and was threatening to blow off his clothes.

Since the fellas weren’t on the corner and it was too early for many people to be around, Chulito decided to not let Carlos just walk past. He distracted him from his struggle with a loud, “Yo!”

Carlos looked at Chulito leaning on the car.

“Hey, Carlos, how you been?” Chulito braced himself for Carlos’ tirade.

Instead, Carlos ignored him and continued to walk into their building.

“Hol’ up, Carlos, please?” Chulito checked to see who was around then stood up. “I called and texted you a couple of times to apologize.”

“Hey, Chulito, they still call you that, right? They haven’t changed your name to Thug or Nigga?”

“Nah, it’s still Chulito.”

“What’s with the braids? Your curly hair is too soft? Looking for new ways to look gangsta?”

Chulito patted his head. “I had them done this morning. All the cool reggaetoneros are sportin’ them. You know I like to keep up. What do you think?” Chulito winked.

Carlos shrugged. “What do you want?”

Chulito looked away. He’d wanted to talk to Carlos, but now that he had his attention he didn’t know what to say. “Can we go talk privately?”

“No. If you have anything to say, say it now. Here.” Carlos stood still, but the wind continued to animate his clothes and hair. “Well?’

Chulito looked away from Carlos. “I’m sorry about not keeping our plans that—”

Carlos interrupted him. “You already apologized. I got your texts and your phone calls. Consider them sufficient.”

Chulito’s palm sweated. He wanted to say that he wished they could rewind and go back to the phone calls they were having. He wanted to say how excited he was anticipating Carlos’ return. He wanted to go up to Carlos, whose arms were weighed down by the two shopping bags and hug him tightly. Then help him carry the bags. “Gimme a second, Carlos, please?”

Carlos put down one shopping bag and pushed his hair out of his face. Chulito realized that this was the first time in over a year that he was seeing Carlos’ face up close and it was all eyes like Japanese animation characters. A lock of hair was caught on one of his eyelashes and it reminded him of the morning Carlos was leaving for college.

Carlos was outside, on the very spot where they both now stood, with his maletas, boxes and shopping bags. Clara, the marimacho who always wore plaid shirts and who worked at Borinquen cab service, was going to drive him out to Long Island. His mom stood there looking so proud of him. People kept stopping by to say “good luck.” Chulito’s mother brought Carlos a container with arroz con gandules and chuletas she’d cooked the night before. Chulito saw all this through a slit at the bottom of his shade. He felt as he did now, full of thoughts and feelings about Carlos but unable to express them. Earlier that summer the bottle incident had happened and they never spoke about it.

Just about everybody loved Carlos. He was so smart that he got skipped twice—once from the third to the fifth grade and again from the seventh to the ninth. Chulito admired that about him, especially since he hated school, but he liked hanging with Carlos, so Chulito did his best to keep up.

That morning was windy, too, and Chulito watched Carlos packing the back of Clara’s taxi. His loose stringy black hair kept falling in his face and he kept brushing it back. A few strands got caught on some of his long eyelashes and he blinked to try to get them out of his large copper colored eyes which looked brighter against his pale, creamy skin. And his smooth lips looked especially kissable. Chulito knew that he was not supposed to be noticing Carlos that way, but as he sat all pissed off in his room watching him pack the cab that day he thought Carlos was cute. Ever since he saw Carlos with that guy the day of the bottle incident, he was feeling an urgency to be real with what he was feeling. Sooner or later Carlos was going to fall in love with someone, then Chulito would have to keep his feelings on permanent lock down. He didn’t know how he could risk being as real as he needed to be with Carlos.

As Chulito watched Carlos hug everyone good-bye, he wished that he’d had a pause button so that the whole world would stop. Then he would go down and hug him without anyone seeing him and say, “Do your thing, Carlos.” But he couldn’t do that. People might think some shit. So instead, Chulito just peered through the slit in the shade. He watched Carlos give a final hug to his mother, climb into the cab and disappear down Garrison Avenue.

As he sat in his small room, Chulito couldn’t make up his mind whether he was more angry at Carlos for leaving or at the whole ’hood for thinking that it wouldn’t be cool for him to be friends and hug a nigga that everyone called a pato. Who made up those rules? Chulito wondered.

Talking to Carlos that first chance since he was back from school was bending those rules—breaking them.

Chulito looked into Carlos’ eyes. “You have every right to be pissed.”

Carlos shook his head and put down the other shopping bag. “I’m pissed at myself for expecting something different from you.”

Chulito took one step toward him then stopped. “I didn’t know about the plans the fellas made.”

“But you went along. You picked hanging with them over hanging with me.”

Chulito moved closer and whispered, “What was I supposed to do? I was hoping we could have gone out the next day.”

Tears began to pool in Carlos’ eyes, but he looked angry not hurt. “Talking to you every day for the last month made me feel connected, like we were friends again. But when we’re alone it’s different than when we’re here.” Carlos looked around the neighborhood as if in disgust.

Just then a car that pulled up in front of their building and Looney Tunes popped out. Carlos wiped his tears. Looney Tunes pushed back his tangle of hair he never combed, wiped his hands on his dusty denim shorts and pulled down his faded T-shirt with a Budweiser logo on the front and a rip in one of the sleeves. He tripped on the curb and one of the flip flops fell off his white socked foot. He winked at Chulito with his green eyes, which were his calling card, he thought, for all the chicks in the neighborhood. Chulito thought he looked like he had a hangover and got dressed in the dark.

“Hey Chu-li-to, my man, wassup?” He clapped/shook hands with Chulito and they gave each other a shoulder bump.

“Chillin’,” Chulito responded. Looney Tunes nodded to Carlos.

“Hey, Looney Tunes,” Carlos said indifferently.

As he stepped into the building, he looked back and wiggled a limp wrist behind Carlos. Then his burst of laughter echoed through the empty lobby.

“He’s a crazy nigga,” Chulito said.

Carlos bent down to pick up the shopping bags. “No, he’s a fucking asshole.”

Chulito moved in to pick up a bag. “I was really looking forward to hanging with you. I still want to.”

Carlos yanked the bag from him. “Why? It seems to cause problems. Chulito, on those calls we talked about how we’ve changed. Those changes just get in our way.”