Rain wakes me at five in the morning. Tropical storms are the one thing I don't miss about D.R. when I'm in N.Y. I been in Puerto Plata since November. My house here is one to laugh at if you are not used to Caribbean ghetto architecture.
A tin roof is supposed to protect me from the drops which are bigger than my fist. It's the tropical winds blowing the rain through the wood slots making up the sides of my house. I'm wet. We got no electricity after sundown, and no running water inside the house. Dominican Republic's version of Jamaica's "Trench Town."
Rain is life. People come out in the rain to wash in God's tears. We pray for better years to come, and a TV set. The shower is in the back yard. You fill your bucket and attach it to the tree in the "shower" area. Grab your soap, and get busy. That's how it is around here. Chickens, turkeys and goats fill the yard. I wake up to milk the cow at dawn. It's in me. I been doin it for as long as I remember. A stressless life. Yeah, we don't got Genesis, or much of anything for that matter, If I wanted it better, I got rich uncles in Playa Dorada. Drug dealers from NY City's mean streets...
My uncles make my balance in life. They make sure I got the latest styles in sneakers and clothes and shit, which is all you really need on this island to feel like a NY Joe. Makes you a Dominican Joe. I like the easy life, but still enjoy the phat hiphop styles you can't get here. They bought me a Honda CR 125 so I can get around. An island with no stop signs or signal lights. My uncles got those "Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous" houses. Basketball court, pool, Jacuzzi, jet skis, the whole nine yards, but I got my pride and got to be me. They have their wives and families and don't need me around to fuck shit up, which I can do so well. Plus, they don't want me around their kids. Afraid of the bad influence I can be in an all-around fashion. Yet, they never turn their backs on me for the essentials. Something you live without on this tropical contradiction.
A place where you get beat up and fined for a faded haircut, or get a year for a joint, yet kids run free, naked on the beach in a paradisal way. Naked bronze skin of the gods. Where a kilo of coke costs less than a third of what it costs in New York. Where you get pulled over and the police beg, "'Please, give me something because it looks like you got!'' The place where kids in any part of the island want to ride your scooter or motorcycle so bad, they will do anything for a ride. Anything!
My mission for the day starts at dawn. I wake up with the sun. Do some chores for my grandmother. Slip on some Pepe shorts with a rasta belt, a Dominican flag T-shirt, and a pair of Nike cross-trainers with no socks. Pick out which hat to wear, usually a NY Yankees, put on my hoop-and-cross earring, and a pair of sunglasses. I take my Honda to Playa Dorada and park it in front of my uncle's house. Desayúname. I eat breakfast at his house almost every day. Mangú (mashed plaintains with onion and vinegar), queso frito (fried cheese), and goat's milk. When I'm done eating, I usually go check out his horses and smoke a blunt rolled in tobacco leaf. I like to smoke every day, but have to be very careful where to light up. After I catch a buzz I walk to the beach which is only some feet from the house.
We got a beach crew. Me, Jonny, Nelson, Rafi, Santo, Edwin, Guandule, and Carlito. We hang out from morning to night on the beach. We do what we can for money. Me and Jonny rack up 'cause we speak English, we bag all the tourists. We hustle just like in NY, only hustle anything. From coral to jet ski rentals. We act as middle men for all the beach transactions. Then come the sex tourists. We got shit sewn up. New York street experience in a new market. We are the kings of this beach. Well, I am the king and the other kids are my disciples.
We meet on the beach every day at exactly 10 am. Me and Jonny are the closest of the crew. We been together since he was nine and I was fourteen. When I used to go back and forth between New York, Chicago and D.R., Jonny, whose real name is Nicolas, would cry and carry on and call me in New York collect every day. He had no family and either slept with me at my granma's, with a trick, or on the beach. The cutest of our band of pirates. A turned-up nose, copper skin, curls flowing over his eyes making him even more of a puppy. My puppy. Big brown eyes and freckles. I never seen him with a shirt, and the rest of his little bit of clothes were mine at one point.
Jonny. A kid who stowed in a boat to Puerto Rico 'cause he wanted to see what it was like. The kid who calls me in New York and tells me, "Luis, you know where is New Orleans? I can get a boat ride there." Or, "Luis, do you know where is Brooklyn docks?" When I lived in the City, I almost always expected him just to knock on the door one day. Jonny. My angel of the beach.
Then there's Nelson, who used to live a block from me in Manhattan. He used to be with me 24/7. A real Taino Indian looking kid. He lived with his mother and brothers and was definitely falling between the cracks. He would be out in the winter in a T-shirt. When I was pumping weed for my uncle on 192nd, he would stand with me all day. He'd show up after school with toast and two coffees, and sit around eating candy cigarettes. His father found out about our relationship and threatened me, beat him and moved him to D.R. - a block from where I live! God's a practical joker, I tell ya. So now we together every day while his pops drives a cab in N.Y. Gracias a Dios. Nelson is the quiet but deadly type. He doesn't talk too much, but when he does he is real serious and sincere. A smile to light up the heavens.
I met Rafi when I lived in Santiago, which is like 45 minutes from where I stay now. He is a white Dominican kid who was from New York but he was fucking up in school and gettin in a lot of trouble and shit, so they cold deported him. Rafi and me was weed buddies. We smoked out together from the first time we met. We would get twisted with rum punches and blunts for breakfast. I would squeeze guava, mango, oranges, bananas, ice and Brugal into a delightful mindbending treat. Then once we was ripped, we would listen to the hardest of hardcore hip-hop like NWA, The DOC or Kool G Rap, and reminisce together about the "Big City of Dreams" NEW JORK.
Santo lives two houses from my granma's. He sports curls into a fade, big juicy brown eyes, and a perfect Black and Indian mix. He used to sneak out of his house when his ma and stepfather would be smashed and climb into my window and under the sheets. He always wanted to be my girl, and was, many nights. He'd cuddle into me backwards, ass to dick, and gently slide outta his shorts. I'd be doin that ass for an hour or more, no joke!
Edwin is younger than all of us by a lot of years. I think he's like eight or seven or just a midget. He wears nothing but underwear outside. He's the acrobat of the crew. The one doing flips and leading us to somersault down the beach. He's a blonde. Blonde curly hair, brown skin and green eyes. He is definitely perfection. God's masterpiece. He's also a C/J: Cum junkie. He takes a squirt in his mouth every morning for breakfast. How many times have I flooded those tonsils right on the beach at 10 am. I make fat cash sellin his fat little ass to hungry-for-ass tourists. We get 400 pesos for an hour. It works out to about 25 or 30 dollars. Not bad for a place where the average income is about 700 dollars a year.
Guandule is another kid I fell in love with at first sight. He got long, long curly black hair and a beautiful face. He is another knockout. When I was thirteen and he was ten, we peeked at this man fuckin this lady on our beach, then she was suckin his dick. When Guandule saw this, he got down and started to suck me off. Totally unexpected and unplanned. I just closed my eyes and fucked his mouth for as long as it took to nut, which was about five minutes. We been friends ever since.
Then there's Carlito. He is the crispy one of the crew. Black. So black he looks Haitian. Once he gets a little rum in him, he wants everyone to screw him. He always plays drunk like he don't know what he's doing. Everyone knows he knows just fine. He got a real black kid's bubble butt. When he's not drinking he always pretends to be clockin the naked women on our beach. Nice try.
Almost every day when we meet on the beach, we lay around and sort of play with ourselves while we loungin on the hotel's chaise lounges. Usually Santo is the first to pull his dick out and the last one to cum. It turns into a morning frantic wake-up contest of jism. To see who can cum the most, shoot the farthest or first. I usually win 'cause I'm the oldest and most sexual outta the crew.
It usually starts off when Santo or Edwin ask me to tell some stories about New York, and I always go into the hustling stories. How much some men pay to eat or fuck your ass. Next thing you know, a half-dozen Dominican kids from eight to seventeen are workin their works to the fullest of fullness. Mad times it turned into a beach orgy. Someone sucking, someone else gettin boned, someone else jerkin someone else, someone else gettin boned. Good way to start a day in paradise. "WELCOME TO FANTASY ISLAND." Watch how fast D.R. becomes the Thailand of the future. Watch. It's a lot closer and basically as cheap. A poor country with starving kids starving for love, affection, food, love, money. Mark my words. There's more than 700 homeless kids in the capital, Santo Domingo.
Look, if it does become a sex capital of the world, don't blame it on me, I'm only observing. Although I do my best to make your experiences a pleasant one, I'm only doin what I know best. Yeah I'm introducing the trade to anyone I can, but look, it's money and fun and my friends got a lot less than me and I ain't got shit.
When you live in New York, especially Manhattan, there's always a lot of pressure on you. Pressure to have what you never can. Things you would never dream of owning in the ever-so-humble place of Puerto Plata. Yet in New York, you fiend for these things. Gold chains, hundred-dollar sneakers and boots, seventy-dollar jeans, thirty-dollar shirts, leather jackets in the hunds. Shit, in D.R. you lucky if you got two sandals that match. Or worse yet, the average kid in D.R. don't own shit but underwear and maybe a pair of shorts, if you are fortunate. Meanwhile, kids in New York be in Jordans and shit. Just their sneakers be like a hundred dollars! Pressures you don't have to feel if you don't want to on the island. There's really no Joneses to keep up with. A life of humble nothingness.
When I feel sick, which has been more and more lately, I get crippled in a junk-sick way. I got no appetite 'cause I puke most of the time. I get chills, fevers, I even wake up outta bed hallucinating, sleepwalking, or tripping over something or someone. My family has a hard time dealing with me when I'm sick and probably hope I will die soon or go to a hospital. All I ever need is some good weed and I feel like fifty percent better. Like in a week or so I'm back on the beach playin with my posse who are afraid to ask where I've been. Afraid to deal with the truth, be it illness, or even that someone is more important to me than them.
I got a three-page letter from Kevin, my continental dad, today. It takes like a year and a day for a letter to get to me from Chicago. Today is the 2nd and he says he'll be in Puerto Plata on the 5th, giving me three days to get myself ready.
I live about a ten-minute car ride from the airport. Kevin's been here many times, but not while I been sick and gettin sicker. I always felt I was too skinny to begin with, so now I'm a fuckin twig. A mop, 'cause I'm all skinny, and now I got this head of curly mop-like hair, all frizzy and shit from the salt water and the sun. I know I look good and shit 'cause I be stuck in the mirror, but now, like I said, I'm too damn skinny. I'm kinda nervous 'cause last time he saw me I was feeling great and actually eating three full meals a day. It's that I'm a lost soul in Illinois, New York, anywhere but here. I was in Illinois for Christmas with a few of my little brothers. Kevin be the only Santa in the world with a Cause. He has helped make our world a little lighter. Lessening the burdens of existence. Although at times it's like the difference between 200,967 pounds and 200,965, but it's the fact that his heart is there a hundred percent of the time which brings a little inner smile to my heart of heartaches.
My brothers Fernando, Gaby, and Raymond love this guy as much or even more than I did at their age. I was an untrusting, suspicious little guy who barely let down his defenses. These guys know nothing of the world of men who search a child's eyes and soul only to see and fuck his ass. How many stolen promises in my life caused me to build a wall in front of my emotions? How many men swore up and down they wanted to suck you off and that's all? How many 200-pound frames came down on this 75-pound (at the time) body to pound a booty? Talked into an extra twenty-spot for unwelcomed services. How many tried to ram a rancid dick down a tight-toothed, closed mouth? Kevin is the only man in the world that recognized me as a person instead of a round ass and long dick attached to a wiseass mouth and cut-through-your-heart type eyes.
My brothers hold my hand when I cry to myself. They know I'm gonna die soon. They know I cry for my love of them. My love of Kevin. My love of those who loved me for me. A boy who thought his only asset was his ass. Tears for the boy who never had a chance and types feverishly at his manuscripts in hope to leave a memory for those who never knew him. For those who hurt him, for those who loved him. For those who need him. For his babies, for his brothers. A life dedicated to the memory of his father and his family. Secretly fantasizing that maybe he'll get a book advance of five, ten, twenty even fifty-thousand dollars and not worry how he's gonna eat. How he's gonna feed a slew of mouths sucking at his heart, draining and replacing love any chance they get. Maybe even be able to sleep at night for once. Lotto of the soul. I don't dream of driving a Mercedes or running around in thousand-dollar suits. I only dream of not having to give a hundred percent of my heart and soul and body to eat rice, fish and buy a new hat.
Maybe sometime after I die and someone discovers unpublished notebooks and journals of my life, a check will go to my baby brothers. Maybe I'll be studied and analyzed in universities across the world. "That Luis Miguel kid was really incredible, you know, pure genius. A literary monster type trendsetter." Maybe the house they shot my father in will be the Walt Whitman house of the future. A museum location for foreigners: "Yep, that's the bed right there where his uncle screwed his ass for the first time, and this is the bathroom where he took 25 aspirins and slit his wrist, and this is the closet his mother used to lock him in when he came home from two days turning tricks, broke!" NOT! I'll never be more than a memory to a few. Some souls cared, some shared and most ran scared. I represented temptation. I am the snake in the Garden of Eden. I shake hands with the Pope and hold my hand there just a second too long, and his dick is hard pushing a tented pole from the middle of his robe. He cums when I smile and wink, letting his hand brush against my ass as I turn to leave. I whisper a secret to him and slip my tongue in his ear...
I meet Kevin at the airport with Juan, my favorite cousin in the world at the moment. He helps Kevin to get his luggage off the slide and I grab a taxi and shuttle Kev to Dorado Naco hotel on Playa Dorada, about a fifteen-minute walk down the beach to my house. Playa Dorada is my beach anyway so what better location is there?
Dorada Naco is my favorite hotel 'cause they let me come and go as I please. I go to the bar all day for water or free Ron Ponche (rum punch). I can eat there if I really had to, and I know everyone and everyone knows Kevin is my dad in the United States. They know all he has done for me and my family so they treat him with utmost respect and admiration. Many women bring him pictures of their kids with stories of hardships, hoping Kevin will say, "Yeah, maybe you should bring him around." Which he has never done, probably outta respect for me. 'Cause I know Kev and, shit, one of these little monkeys would be able to take off where I left off. I know after I die, he'll probably be back to capture memories and one of these clean, barely-used boys as opposed to a possible HIV friend of Miguelito beach urchin type, which I know he finds more exciting than a pre-planned marriage, but the game is so dangerous in this day and age that it's not even worth the challenge. He knows I did like everyone out here, so chances of someone being infected is large.
I picture him standing on the beach with a drink in his hand, waving down the beach to a band of gypsies. My boys, only I'm dreaming. I'm lying in my bed. I float above Kevin and see him on the beach with two of the cutest honeycolored waifs. One draped over his shoulder, climbing on him. The other walking hand in hand. Their huge eyes, perfect curls, full lips, long legs, perfect stomachs are the epitome of perfection. Perfectly smooth, round ass cheeks fighting their way out of too small last-year bathing suits. Hard dicks push their way out the tops. Kevin takes them behind a rock, licks out their asses and sucks their dicks at the same time catching two mouthfuls of cinnamon-scented jism on his tongue at the exact same moment. He has them kneel side-by-side as he licks the perfect globes and keeps his spit there on purpose. He glides into one giving him exactly ten strokes, then the other for ten more. Stroking backs, thighs and ball sacks from behind. I can feel their perfection. I am groping them with my soul. I'm about to cum when I wake up and realize my cousin Pedro is sucking my dick. We sleep together. He is ten. We never really did nothing before. The only thing was I let him jerk me off like a million times. Now I wake up just in time to push away his head before I pump venom down his uninfected throat. I never cummed so much in my life. I almost passed out. As I hit the moment, pushed him away, I grabbed his ass with my other hand to cap off the cum shot. The cherry on the pie. Squeezed his tight cheeks and closed my eyes as I curmed up the asses of the two kids on the beach with Kevin. They were twins.
I got up to look for a shirt to wipe the cum offa my belly and had to rush to a window to throw out. I broke out into a cold sweat. Pedro ran scared to me. "Qué fue Luis, tu 'ta malo?"
"Si chi-chi, soy malo." In other words, Luis are you sick, yes I'm sick baby.
Juan woke up at 9 am and came to my room. Ready primo? I was almost passed out. Sweating, nauseous, shaking. Coño! He screamed as he ran out of the house. He came back in an hour with Kevin. When I saw Kevin's face in the door, I smiled. A smile that brought a tear to both of our eyes as we realized it was true, I wouldn't be around forever. Maybe not through the summer.
Kevin left with Juan to Sosua to buy things for me. Special things like pan de guava, and a batida de trigo: bread with guava jelly and a wheat shake. I sat up in bed when I heard the taxi rolling in. They walked in hand in hand, probably Kevin didn't even notice, but it hit me funny. I felt betrayal, yet I understood. Juan is beautiful. A picture of me at thirteen. Looking more like my brother than cousin. Who knows, maybe we got the same father.
Juan sat at the kitchen table listening to the radio. I spoke to Kevin in English 'cause it's more private. He kissed my cheek. "Yo te quiero, Luis," he whispers in my ear and I hug him way too tight. "I love you too popi!"
Kevin and Juan go back to the hotel together and I cry over my lost youth. My lost life. I picture them together in the kingsize bed. I get jealous for a second and then jerk off to the thought. Juan is a definite cutie. I'm sure my health has taken a toll on Kevin's emotions, spirit and attitude with life. Juan could bring new life to a man who has watched his boy die a slow death almost since they met. Dealing with health and mood swings. Which is harder to bear? Shattered dreams wash up on the shore. Tears of defeat left for the devil to drink. A glass of misery. Stolen chances. Robbed lives. Guilt-ridden lust for boys other than the one he vowed to love forever, which seems not quite as long as it should have been. He pretends Juan is me. He relives my youth, his youth. Juan is a new love burning in the fire of passion. Kevin used to hold me, just after my thirteenth birthday, and I would shake. Tremble. He hugged me with love, pure love, even while I would grind at him with my naughty self. Pushing up against his crotch with my crotch or turning around and grinding up against his crotch with my ass, trying to get him to prove to me it was only my ass that he wanted to get into instead of my soul. My desperate soul, aching to be stroked more than my ass or dick. He wouldn't object when I would scoot up on his chest, pull down my underpants and shove my dick past his lips. I'd fuck his mouth for fifteen minutes as he palmed my ass cheeks, pushing a fingertip up inside me trying to time my orgasm which I can control and can let go as fast or as long as I want. My hairless balls slapping his chin. He likes when I pull the head to just between his lips when I'm ready to cum so he can feel and taste the complete squirtage. He lets me drift to sleep. I dream of coconut ice cream smeared on my brown body making a contrast of sexy visions. I dream of homemade cookies and candy. I dream of a room of toys that are all mine to play with or smash if I want to. Boy dreams. Then there's my monsters. I dream of splintering wood and blood seeping from the floor. My blood mixed with my father's. I dream of being tied to the bed while a line of tricks I had in the past screw me against my will.
A tortured soul. Tormented by my ghosts. Hiding behind my sunglasses. My window to the world. Kevin, hold me until I die. I'm sad to picture my brothers living life without me. Who will they question, who will they look to, who will they search themselves with, who will they count on? They die when I die in a sense. They skip, laugh and play, left to face their own ghosts when they go to bed and come to me crying in the middle of the night, pleading with God to give me a second chance, and I explain to them I've already had nine lives. I've O.D.'d, tried suicide, been beaten, shot, stabbed, been hit by a car, had my head cracked open when I fell from the second story of my aunt's project house in Rockaway, drank ammonia by accident and contracted HIV. Fernando's face is red from tears and drool and I tell him even when I die, I will watch over him all the time. I will be there. He can talk to me and I will listen even if I can't talk. Light a candle for me popi, and I will always be with you. I will follow the light of the candle to your soul.
"Kevin, when I die, will you ever forget me, your Looie?" I want him to tell anyone else who enters his heart about pure love. About a man and a boy growing up together. What would I have done with my chanceless life if I never had him in my corner? My drive to be me. My constructor of dreams. Would I have at least been able to tell my tale? I doubt it. I read Streetboy Dreams and my life saw reason. We met and my heart had a direction. I am Gito and Gito is me. Has been and always will be me.
I'm not as sick as I was this past week and I apologize to Kevin. I can see it in his eyes that he knows it very well may be the last time he sees me. I kiss him mixing saliva with our tears. I make him promise to look after Juan 'cause he needs him. I make him promise to always look after Fernando, Gaby, and the rest of my people. To remind my brothers of me. To show them pictures and let them read my stories, and never, never let them go through what I have. I make him promise they will never know the distaste of being used by men. Never know the hunger for love. Help them find their dreams and make them know my pain from an observer's angle. Let them be all that I couldn't, all I was afraid to be. Never, I mean never let them travel down my roads of self-abuse. Explain to them how I died only trying to live life the best I could, that I never had a chance, that if you would have met me when I was their age, maybe, just maybe...
February 1995, Puerto Plata