Ernesto Quiñonez - San Juan Noir

Apparently, there wouldn’t be a sermon that day. She invited him in and told him, in excessive detail, what’d been said. That everyone screamed and jumped, that what she knew about Ramiro was what was known about Rolandito (the little boy who was kidnapped in 1999, and never found), that the police enjoyed seeing all of them suffer. But unfortunately she didn’t have the slightest idea what had happened prior to whatever incident had left part of his body mutilated.

Both of them were very upset and looking for explanations, and after she’d gone to get him a cup of freshly brewed coffee, a rumbling from the bowels of the earth made every corner of every room and every glass in the house tremble. It was an earthquake! The night occupied itself with swallowing the goodwill of the world. It consumed them, slowly, as if envying the plenitude of optimistic souls. The night made itself owner and mistress of every street, every tectonic movement. Blackout. Ángel and Felicia took each other by the hands and ran outside to find fat Saturnino, of the vice police, lighting a cigarette.

“Maricón, what’re you doing here? I had you for dead. Alejandro’s blow job revive you? I imagine that little mouth would suck anyone out of eternal rest.”

“Ay, Saturnino, please, the last thing I need is your shit. What’re you doing here? Did you feel the earthquake?” Ángel said.

“Big deal, papito! I’ve felt so much shaking in these ass cheeks that Mother Earth’s fury disappears somewhere between balls, ass, tongue, and gut.”

“Do you know what happened to me yesterday? Coño, you have to know,” Ángel asked desperately, thinking that Saturnino, protector of the state, would be able to solve the mystery for him.

“Tres carajos. I wasn’t on duty and these raids come out of nowhere like that. I know Ivette was around there, squeezing information outta everybody. Call her and ask because I’ve got to continue my rounds to see how many bitter old ladies have shit themselves, or how many crazy putas got scared by the earthquake.”

Before Saturnino could escape, Ángel asked him, as a favor, to accompany him to the house of the boss woman from the barrio where they grew up. The moment had come to confront Ivette face-to-face, with her black flesh, soft and swollen tits, purplish mouth, and olive-green eyes. It was a moment to invoke the saints — the moment he would let himself be seduced by the great witch of Río Piedras.

Ivette had been a feared woman for multiple generations. Since the time of her great-great-grandparents, the smells of patchouli, cinnamon incense, and squash purchased in Plaza del Mercado were always present in the concrete space made of seashells. Ivette only spoke to three people: Felicia, Saturnino, and Ángel. The three pendejos were already assembled.

“You scared you’ll get your ass chewed out over there?” Saturnino responded immediately.

Just then they heard screeches of joy because the lights were coming back on.

“That’s not it. You know we can figure out what happened if we put together what the three of us know and heard. Coño, say yes and I promise to give you the blow job of your life. The greatest blow job in the universe... okay?”

“You promise to swallow?”

“No deal without that,” Ángel said with the sly wink he used to ensnare Ramiro — of whom he still had no news.

The three of them got into the police car and drove across Santa Rita along the back streets, through the center of the town, until they came to the community of Capetillo. A yellow house with a white door that had sticks of incense tied to it was waiting for them. The enviable mistress of the house observed them through the window in her small consultation room. With a sweet and cunning voice, she invited them in.

“Do you want anything, mis amores? Give me a hug, bello. I watched you go far and look now how the roads of life have brought you back here. Do you need help?”

“What happened, Ivette? You’re our last hope for figuring it out.”

“I just saw when Alejandro climbed on top of you to suck you off. It seemed like your dick was just the antidepressant he needed,” she explained calmly. “If you’d seen how precious the image was, you wouldn’t be mad at him. But other than that, I don’t know anything. Santurnino wasn’t there, Felicia had stopped reading to us from the Bible earlier, well before everything went down, and Ramiro took off the moment you were left lying on the pavement.”

Ángel had lost hope and wanted to give up. A faggot who got shot and was searching for the truth — it wasn’t even worthy of the front pages of the papers. This was the plight of sex workers. So much whoring that as a consolation prize a desperate diva sucked your cock while you were sprawled on the pavement, in a spot where gum-chewing twelve-year-old girls walked by, cackling with their little boyfriends. To top it off, the horrifying fellatio was the only thing he knew for sure. Nobody was even certain how many had been picked up in the raid. Life, like always, was shoving Ángel’s wounded face right into a shit-stained ass.

A few seconds later, a transformed yet still provocative Ivette took to her prized room of spirits. It was time to give him a reading.

“Mi vida, I see here that you are being stalked by a close love. I see that he’s sad, I see tears. Do you know who I’m talking about?” Ángel stayed silent. “Ay, papito, ay, ay, ay... they wanna see you dead.”

“Who? Please, tell me who!”

“Of that I cannot be sure — lemme see the cup. Nope. But you must protect yourself, you have to keep Saint Michael’s sword with you at all times.”

Ángel watched in silence as Ivette removed a little gold sword from a drawer, which she quickly proceeded to bathe in a red liquid.

“With Saint Michael before you, Saint Michael beside you, Saint Michael behind you. Free this being from his enemies, Lord, and through Your esteemed prince, grant him his request. Amen.” Ivette crossed herself.Still in a trance, she handed him the amulet.

As soon as the promiscuous vagabond held it, the mini-weapon shone even brighter. A terrible tightness in his wrists and a knot in every vertebra immobilized his body. The entire night he had longed to be rid of the darkness that’d inhabited his heart and the side of his body where the bullet passed through. For the first time since he had woken up on the pavement, he felt invincible.

“You’ve got to go to El Cajón de Madera, the answer is there,” Ivette said before coming back to earth.

The place she was referring to was the central gathering point for all the whores in Puerto Rico. It’d already become a famous international landmark for the sex trade community. El Cajón de Madera transformed, every night, into a space of freedom that for so long had only been a chimera; it reflected the acceptance of diversity: an ode to excess that didn’t judge any being on the earth. And there, every Thursday night, the same night that Ángel was shot, the disputes congealed along the age-old political lines. But at this time, Friday poking its head into the wee hours of Saturday morning, the den of sin transformed into a locus of desperation for those who hadn’t picked up a client to at least pay for their daily meal at the local fast-food joint. In a very strange way, Fridays were the Great Depression of lust, of wanting to unzip your fly to give or receive favors from horny caribeñas. Ángel would follow the instructions.

When he came out of the room, Saturnino was half-asleep and Felicia was praying and reading Bible verses on her cell phone. His announcement left them stunned.

“Why go to El Cajón? That woman is crazy. The Lord will settle the score!” Felicia yelled.

“Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got to finish my round either way. My shift is almost over,” said the fat cop, who’d drooled a little when he’d been dozing.