Ernesto Quiñonez - San Juan Noir

Río Piedras

Ángel knew that as soon as he turned away from the light at the end of the tunnel, pain awaited him on the other side of Avenida Gándara. If it hadn’t been for the forceful whisper of his favorite song, floating to his ear from the cantina on the corner, he never would have awoken from what he thought was his voyage to eternity. Ramiro, to whom he’d sworn his love two months earlier, was the last image he remembered when he opened his eyes around noon on Friday. There was no clear indication as to how he got there, and he was almost bleeding out, his right side shot through with a bullet from an AK-47. Panicked, he hobbled toward the house of his sister Mariela, who was a nurse, to get fixed up and to find the culprit.

“Mari, open up, please. Open the fucking door,” he moaned from the depths of his intestines.

“I’m coming, let me change the baby,” she answered calmly.

“Hurry up, I’m dying!”

Mariela came outside, desperation spilling from her eyes. She knew Ramiro was involved.

“I told you to stop seeing that guy, that nothing good would come of it. Look how he just left you for dead. Wait till I get my hands on him,” she rambled furiously, unable to stop talking even to catch her breath.

Ángel just looked at her and attempted to stay alert, but he was very tired. Bleeding, he’d already walked halfway across Río Piedras to arrive at the García Ubarri housing project. Yet he was also full of anticipation. He knew he’d be able to get revenge for the attempted murder, but he needed to find the perpetrator and Ramiro — he had to know something. There was an unease hiding behind the cover of night that was settling over San Juan, producing a sinister halo from the streetlights over the pavement. It gave him peace knowing that the darkness would hide his next moves until he was able to settle the score. Ángel wanted to take justice into his own hands.

A few hours later, after resting and drinking a chamomile tea, he left, even as Mariela implored him to spend the night. He barely heard her, the tingling along his spine gnawing at his conscience. He wanted to silence the agonizing hum assaulting his ears. Evil voices whispered to him from distant depths. With rage in every pore and experiencing vengeful pangs of melancholy, he followed his instincts.

He crossed the street in front of his sister’s house and headed south down Calle Georgetti until he came to the corner of Avenida Ponce de León. There he ran into Lutgardo, the greatest diva ever born in the Caribbean. If it weren’t for his ten-dollar blow job specials, Lutgardo’s daughter Roberta would be eating dirt and water with chikungunya-carrying mosquitoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Thank God there was something in the school cafeterias for his offspring. Lutgardo, who had lost his wife at just the right time to freely and fiercely suck each and every cock that crossed his path, had been liberated, literally, by the death of the greatest dumbass in America. His wife had tolerated his nocturnal outings and taken the money for the girl they had procreated.

“Hija de puta, how the fuck are you even here? You’re gonna make me faint! Who gave you mouth-to-mouth? Did you know that Alejandro sucked you off while you were bleeding to death? It all happened so fast that the police just left you lying there, to see who’d feel bad for you!” Lutgardo yelled like a bitch in heat.

“Lower your voice, coño, you’re always such a loudmouth. I just left my sister’s house, she fixed me up. Do you know what happened last night? I wanna know who had the balls to do this to me. What’ve you heard from Ramiro?” Ángel was worried.

“Ay, I don’t know, they picked all of us up sucking Condado cocks. The raid was bullshit, mamita. I just ran out of there, screaming, protecting myself. You know not even Pope Francis is going to get my hard-earned money, baby. I only found out what I told you about Alejandro because Felicia told me. Ramiro got out of there early and you’d gone off, I don’t know where,” the diva rattled off as the bus that would take him home pulled up.

After an over-the-top, marvelously vivid, but quick goodbye from Lutgardo, Ángel went about his business. He was starting to grow impatient, so he got ready to go down to Calle Manila to find Felicia, whatever it took. Drops of blood slipped down his sides and rippling lower back muscles that made his butt the ideal preamble — an ass so juicy and perfect it satisfied even the most depressed. He thought about how he’d been sucked off by more than a hundred men before becoming enthralled with Ramiro. Ángel took a breath and let his tongue — the ruin of so many — hang out, revealing a weariness that only a cold beer would alleviate, the pain from his wound making his hands and knees tremble. He had a moment to pause before going to pester Felicia with questions, but all he had in his pockets was a slippery, sticky grape condom, used and broken. “The truth is, I’m a major leaguer,” he muttered to himself while searching for the nearest trash can. In light of his empty pockets, he’d have to haggle for a drink to calm his thirst. He arrived at the bar La Solución and greeted his friends who, choking back tears, offered him everything, even the hand of the owner’s granddaughter. Ángel could still pick up any girl he wanted with his dashing looks and strapping body. If his friends ever found out how many men he’d blown and that the rumors were true, at the very least they’d revive the Holy Inquisition in America. Think how great it’d be to light the bonfire and witness the death of one of the most experienced cocksuckers in the metropolitan area. “Sentenced to death for being a faggot.” Really, they should sentence him to death for “having sucked more cock than twice the population of Puerto Rico.” But there he was, más macho que los machos, letting them tease and pamper him.

One, two, three, four, five, six bottles of beer coursed through his system and negated the presence of the acetaminophen. He no longer felt his wound — the alcohol was the perfect anesthesia for the difficult task of finding his assailant. When he knew that it was time to leave, he got up from the milk carton they’d given him to rest on and went out to meet his fate.

He knew that at first Felicia would be scared to death, and then she’d lose her shit when she picked up the holy stench of booze. He was never spared the sermon from his most conservative and Pentecostal of friends, even when she was overjoyed to find out that he was still alive.

“Prieta chula, what’re you dooooing? Please, c’mon, come out here. I’m fabulous, feeling tip-top,” he managed to slur drunkenly before a shriek of joy rang out from inside the house.

“Son of the Holy Mother, I can’t believe you’re here!” she said, crying with excitement. “Christ, forgive me, like a thief in the night you’ll come to punish me for this dirty mouth, but I’d already imagined the worst. Ivette came to me with the story of how Alejandro sucked you off when you were on your deathbed, and I couldn’t do anything, I was stuck here taking care of mami. But just wait till I see him — and Luis too, who supposedly you drove wild last night. I can’t help imagining Ramiro’s face.”