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I LIKE to smell my armpits
while I masturbate. The smell of sweat turns me on. It's dependable,
sweet-smelling sex. Especially when I'm horny at night and
Luisa is out making money. Though it's not the same anymore.
Now that I'm forty-five, my libido isn't what it used to be.
I have less semen. Barely one little spurt a day. I'm getting
old: slackening of desire, less semen, slower glands. Still,
women keep fluttering around me. I guess I've got more soul
now. Ha, a more soulful me. I won't say I'm closer to God.
That's a silly thing to say, pedantic: "Oh, I'm closer
to God." No. Not at all. He gives me a nod every once
in a while. And I keep trying. That's all.
Well, it was time to get out. Solo masturbation
is the same as solo dancing: at first you like it and it works,
but then you realize you're an idiot. What was I doing standing
there naked jerking off in front of a mirror? I got dressed
and went out. I had put on dirty, sweaty clothes. Today I
was definitely repulsive. Going down the stairs, I ran into
the morons crying on the fifth floor. They're young, but they're
morons, mongoloids, or crazy, loony, I don't know, some kind
of retards, idiots. They've been together for years. They
stink of filth. They shit in hidden places on the stairs.
They pee every-where. Sometimes they walk around their room
naked and come right up to the door. They make a racket, they
slobber. Now she was sitting on a stair step wailing at the
top of her lungs. "I love you so much, but I can't. I
love you so much, but I can't do it that way. I love you so
much. Oh, darling! Ohhhh! I love you so much."
He lit a cigarette, moved to one side to
let me by, and said, "I know you love me, sweetie, I
know you love me, sweetie." And he started sobbing too.
At least today they hadn't crapped on the
stairs. What they needed was a good grooming with a stiff
brush, soap, and a cold shower. Coming out into the four o'clock
light, I stopped: what to do? Should I go to the gym and box
a little, or head for Paseo and Twenty-third? Last time I
won twenty dollars at Russian roulette. It was the right time
of day. Someone would surely be there. I went off to play
Russian roulette.
I like to walk slowly, but I can't. I always
walk fast. And it's silly. If I don't know where I'm going,
what's the hurry? Well, that's probably exactly it: I'm so
terrified, I can't stop running. I'm afraid to stop for even
a second and find out I don't know where the fuck I am.
I stopped in at Las Vegas. Las Vegas is
immortal. It will always be there, the place where she sang
boleros, the piano in the dark, the bottles of rum, the ice.
All of it just as it always has been. It's good to know some
things don't change. I gulped down two shots of rum. It was
very quiet and very cold and very dark. So much heat and humidity
and light outside, and so much noise. And all of a sudden,
everything is different when you come into the cabaret. It's
really a tomb, where time has stopped forever. Just sitting
there for a minute, it made me think.
Soul and flesh. That was it. One glass of
rum and already the two were in painful confrontation, the
soul on one side, flesh on the other. And me torn in between,
chopped into bits. I was trying to understand. But it was
difficult. Almost impossible to comprehend anything at all.
And the fear. Ever since I was a child, there was always the
fear. Now I had given myself the task of conquering it. I
was going to a gym to box and I was toughening up. I'd box
anyone, though I was always trembling inside. I tried to hit
hard. I tried to let myself be swept away, but it was impossible.
The fear was always there, going about its own business. And
I'd say to myself, "Oh, don't worry, everybody's afraid.
Fear springs up before anything else. You've just got to forget
it. Forget your fear. Pretend it doesn't exist, and live your
life."
I downed two more shots of rum. Delicious.
I was in a delicious state, I mean. The rum wasn't so delicious.
It tasted like diesel fuel. And I went off to play Russian
roulette. I had seven dollars and twenty-two pesos left. Not
bad. Things had been much worse and I had always managed to
stay afloat.
There were people at Paseo and Twenty-third.
And Formula One was there, with his bicycle. It was the right
time of day. Almost five o'clock. There's lots of traffic
at that intersection. Traffic in all directions. We settled
our bets. I played my seven dollars at five to one. If I won,
I'd have thirty-five. I always bet that the kid will make
it across. A black man, wearing silver and gold chains every-where,
even on his ankles, went by. That asshole always bets he won't
make it. "I bet on blood, man. Always blood. That's all
you need to know." Whenever we ran into each other he'd
take my bet at five to one. Even so,I never made much money.
A month ago, I set a record: I won thirty-five
dollars in one shot. I was lucky. Delfina was with me. I cashed
in, showed her the money, and she went crazy. I call her Delfi
because she has the most half-assed name in Havana. We went
to the beach, and we rented a room there and partied for two
days, with all the food, rum, and marijuana we wanted. Delfi
is a beautiful, sexy black woman, but I found out I couldn't
handle orgies like that anymore. All Delfi wanted was prick,
rum, and marijuana. In that order. But I couldn't always be
fucking. When I couldn't get it up, insatiable Delfi tried
to see what she could do by sticking her finger up my ass.
I slapped her a few times and said, "Get your finger
out of my ass, you black bitch." But still, we kept fucking
and fucking. Maybe out of inertia. When the rum and the marijuana
and the dollars ran out, I came back to my senses. I ached
everywhere: my head, my ass, my throat, my prick, my pockets,
my liver, my stomach. Not Delfi. She was twenty-eight years
old, and she was a black powerhouse, muscular and tough. She
was ready to keep going for two or three more days without
stopping. Tireless, that woman. Amazing. She's a marvel of
nature.
The kid who was going to play Russian roulette
picked up his bicycle. He had a red handkerchief tied around
his head. He was just a kid, mulatto, fifteen or sixteen years
old, and never separated from his bicycle. He wouldn't even
let go of it to take a shit. It was a small, sturdy bike,
shiny chrome with fat tires. He earned his living from it,
He got twenty dollars straight up each time he made it across.
He was good. Other times, he performed stunts, and he charged
for them, too: he'd make ten children lie down in a row in
the middle of the street, then he'd back up several feet,
cross himself, take off like a shot, and sail over the kids.
He'd do that on any street, wherever he was called. People
bet on him, but he wouldn't bet. He'd take his twenty dollars
and get out. He was vain, and he'd say to people, "Formula
One, that's me."
Now Formula One was riding up Paseo. He
did a few jumps on his bicycle between cars. He looped, leapt
into the air, twirled a few times, and landed on one wheel.
He was a master. People watched him, but they didn't know
what the kid was up to. There were seven of us, and we played
it cool on the corner by the convent under the trees. There
wasn't even one policeman around. Formula had to wait for
an order from one of us. Just as the light turned green on
Twenty-third, a guy next to me dropped his arm and Formula
took off like lightning down Paseo. On Twenty-third, heading
toward La Rampa, thirty cars accelerated when the light turned
green, rush hour traffic raring to go. And heading in the
opposite direction, up the street toward Almendares, came
thirty or forty more, growling and desperate. In total, Formula
had seventy chances to be crushed to death and just one to
live. My seven dollars were in the balance. If the kid was
killed, I'd have nothing. I needed Formula to cross safely
and earn his twenty dollars. And he made it! He was a flash
of light. I don't know how the fuck he did it. Just like a
bird. All of a sudden, he was sparkling on the other side
of Paseo, twisting in the air and laughing.
He came toward us laughing as hard as he
could. "I'm Formula One!" I collected my thirty-five
dollars. I gave five to Formula and called him aside. I shook
his hands. They were dry and steady.
I looked him in the eye and asked him, "Don't
you get scared?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, whitey,
don't make me laugh. I'm Formula One, man! Formula One!"
Before his time, four boys were killed in
the same spot. I don't want to think about it. Two others
didn't have the guts to go for it. That's life. Only a very
few survive: the biggest stars and the biggest losers.
©Pedro Juan Gutiérrez
Stars and Losers appears in Dirty
Havana Trilogy, published in United Kingdom and United States.
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