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Early that morning, there
was a pink postcard sticking out of my mailbox, from Mark
Pawson in London. In big letters he had written, "June
5, 1993, some bastard stole the front wheel of my bicycle."
A year later, and that business was still bothering him. I
thought about the little club near Mark's apartment, where
every night Rodolfo would strip and do a sexy dance while
I banged out weird tropical-improvisational music on bongo
drums, shaking rattles, making guttural noises, trying anything
else I could think of. We had fun, drank free beer, and got
paid twenty-five pounds a night. Too bad it couldn't have
lasted longer. But black dancers were a hot commodity, and
Rodolfo left for Liverpool to teach modern dance. I was broke,
and I stayed at Mark's until I got bored and came back.
Now I was training myself
to take nothing seriously. A man's allowed to make lots of
small mistakes, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if
the mistakes are big ones and they weigh him down, his only
solution is to stop taking himself seriously. It's the only
way to avoid suffering—suffering, prolonged, can be
fatal.
I stuck the postcard
up behind the door, put on a tape of Armstrong's "Snake
Rag," felt much better, and stopped thinking. I don't
have to think while I'm listening to music. But jazz like
this cheers me up too and makes me feel like dancing. I had
a cup of tea for breakfast, took a shit, read some gay poems
by Allen Ginsberg, and was amazed by "Sphincter"
and "Personals ad." I hope my good old asshole holds
out. But I couldn't be amazed for long, because two very young
friends of mine showed up, wanting to know if I thought it
would be a good idea to launch a raft from Cabo San Antonio
heading for Cabo Catoche, or whether it would be better to
take off north directly for Miami. Those were the days of
the exodus, the summer of '94. The day before, a girlfriend
had called me to say, "What'll we do now that all the
men and kids are leaving? It's going to be hard." Things
weren't like that, exactly. Lots of people were staying, the
ones who couldn't live anywhere else.
Well, I've done a little
sailing on the Gulf and I know that way's a trap. Showing
them the map, I convinced them not to try for Mexico. And
I went down to see their big six-person raft. It was a flimsy
thing made of wood and rope lashed to three airplane tires.
They were planning to take a flashlight, compass, and flares.
I bought some slices of melon, went over to my ex-wife's house.
We're good friends now. We get along best that way. She wasn't
home. I ate some melon and left the rest. I like to leave
tracks. I put the leftover slices in the fridge and got out
fast. I was happy in that house for two years. It's not good
for me to be there by myself.
Margarita lives nearby.
We hadn't seen each other in a while. When I got there, she
was washing clothes and sweating. She was glad to see me and
she went to take a shower. We had been lovers on the sly—sorry,
I have to call it something—for almost twenty years,
and when we get together, first we fuck and then we have a
nice relaxed conversation. So I wouldn't let her shower. I
stripped her and ran my tongue all over her. She did the same:
she stripped me and ran her tongue all over me. I was covered
in sweat, too, from all the biking and the sun. She was getting
healthier, putting weight back on. She wasn't all skin and
bones the way she used to be. Her buttocks were firm, round,
and solid again, even though she was forty-six. Black women
are like that. All fiber and muscle, hardly any fat, clean
skin, no zits. I couldn't resist the temptation, and after
playing with her for a little while, after she had already
come three times, I eased myself into her ass, very slowly,
greasing myself well with cunt juice. Little by little. Pushing
in and pulling out and fondling her clit with my hand. She
was in agony, but she couldn't get enough. She was biting
the pillow, but she pushed her ass up, begging me to get all
the way in. She's fantastic, that woman. No one gets off the
way she does. We were linked like that for a long time. When
I pulled out, I was all smeared in shit, and it disgusted
her. Not me. I have a strong sense of the absurd, and it keeps
me on guard against that kind of thing. Sex isn't for the
squeamish. Sex is an exchange of fluids, saliva, breath and
smells, urine, semen, shit, sweat, microbes, bacteria. Or
there is no sex. If it's just tenderness and ethereal spirituality,
then it can never be more than a sterile parody of the real
act. Nothing. We took a shower, and then we were ready to
have coffee and talk. She wanted me to go with her to El Rincón.
She had to keep a vow she made to San Lázaro and she
asked me to go with her the next day. Really, she asked so
sweetly I said I would. That's what I love about Cuban women—there
must be other women like them too, in America, maybe, or Asia—they're
so sweet you can never say no when they ask you for something.
It's not that way with European women. European women are
so cold they give you a chance to say NO at every turn, and
you feel good about it too.
Later I came home. The
afternoon was already cooling off. I was hungry, which was
no surprise, since all I had in my stomach was tea, a slice
of melon, and some coffee. At home I ate a piece of bread
and washed it down with another cup of tea. I was getting
used to lots of new things in my life. Getting used to poverty,
to taking things in stride. I was training myself to be less
ambitious, because if I didn't, I'd never make it. In the
old days, I always used to need things. I was dissatisfied,
wanting everything at once, struggling for more. Now I was
learning how not to have everything at once, how to live on
almost nothing. If it were any other way, I'd still be stuck
with my tragic view of life. That's why poverty didn't bother
me anymore.
Then Luisa called.
She was coming for the weekend. And Luisa's a sweetheart.
Too young for me, maybe, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters.
It started to rain, thunder crashed, the wind came in gusts,
and the humidity was terrible. That's the way it is in the
Caribbean. It'll be sunny, then all of a sudden the wind picks
up and it starts to rain and you're in the middle of a hurricane.
I needed some rum, but there was no way to get it. I had money,
but there was nothing to buy. I lay down to sleep. I was sweaty
and the sheets were dirty, but I like the smell of my own
sweat and dirt. It turns me on to smell myself. And Luisa
was coming any minute. I think I fell asleep. If the wind
got stronger and ripped the tiles off the roof, I wouldn't
care. Nothing matters.
© Pedro Juan Gutiérrez
'New Things in
My Life' appears in Dirty
Havana Trilogy
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