Guillermo Rosales - The Halfway House

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;

I am the self-consumer of my woes,

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shades in love and death’s oblivion lost

I get up. I leave the church through the back. I walk along Flagler Street again. I pass by new barber shops, new restaurants, new clothing stores, pharmacies and drug stores. I walk on, I walk on, I walk on. My bones hurt, but I keep going. Until I stop at 23rd Avenue. I spread my arms. I look at the sun. It’s time to go back to the halfway house.

* * *

I wake up. I’ve been here a month in the halfway house. My sheet is the same, my pillowcase, too. The towel that Mr. Curbelo gave me the first day is now filthy and damp and smells strongly of sweat. I take it and throw it around my neck. I go to the bathroom to wash up and urinate. I urinate on a checked shirt that some nut stuck in the toilet. Then I go over to the sink and turn one of the faucets. I splash cold water on my face. I dry off with the filthy towel. I go back to my room and sit on the bed. The nut who sleeps next to me is still sleeping. He sleeps in the nude and his giant member has an erection. The door opens and Josefina, the cleaning lady, comes in. She starts laughing, looking at the nut’s member. “It looks like a spear,” she says. And she calls out to Caridad, who is in the kitchen. Caridad pops in the door and takes my grimy towel and makes a whip out of it. She lifts it and brings it down forcefully on the nut’s member. He jumps on the bed and yells, “They want to kill me!”

The two women start to laugh.

“Put that thing away, you shameless fool,” Caridad says, “or I’m going to cut it off!”

The two women leave, discussing the nut’s member.

“It’s a spear,” Josefina says with admiration.

I walk out after them toward the dining room, where Arsenio is handing out breakfast. I drink a glass of cold milk quickly and go back to the TV room to watch my favorite preacher.

There’s a new crazy woman sitting in front of the set. She must be my age. Her body, while cheated by life, still has some curves. I sit next to her. I look around. There’s no one. Everyone is at breakfast. I reach my hand out to the loca and put it on her knee.

“Yes, my angel,” she says, without looking at me.

I raise my hand and get as far as her thighs. She lets me touch her without a complaint. I think the television preacher is talking about Corinthians now, about Paul, about the Thessalonians.

I raise my hand a little more and reach the crazy woman’s sex. I squeeze it.

“Yes, my angel,” she says without taking her eyes off the television.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Frances, my angel.”

“When did you get here?”

“Yesterday.”

I start stroking her sex with my nails.

“Yes, my angel,” she says. “Whatever you want, my angel.”

I realize that she’s trembling fearfully. I stop touching her. I feel pity for her. I take one of her hands and kiss it.

“Thank you, my angel,” she says absentmindedly.

Arsenio comes in. He’s done handing out breakfast and he comes to the TV with his usual can of beer. He drinks. He looks at the new crazy woman, amused.

“Mafia,” he then says to me. “What do you think of our new acquisition?”

He puts a bare foot on Frances’ knee. Then he puts the tip of his foot between the woman’s thighs, trying to drill into her sex.

“Yes, my angel,” says Frances, without taking her eyes off the television. “Whatever you want, my angels.”

She trembles. She’s trembling so much that it looks like the bones in her shoulders are going to come off. At that moment, the preacher is talking about a woman who had a vision of paradise.

“There were horses there …,” he says. “Tame horses grazing on grass that was always delicate, always green …”

“Mafia!” Arsenio screams at the television preacher. “Even you are in the mafia!”

He takes another sip of beer and leaves.

Frances closes her eyes, still trembling. She leans her head on the back of the sofa. I look around and there’s no one. I get up from my chair and get on top of her gently. I put my hands around her neck and start squeezing.

“Yes, my angel,” she says with her eyes closed. I squeeze harder.

“Keep going, my angel.”

I squeeze harder. Her face becomes a deep shade of red. Her eyes tear up. But she remains that way, meek, uncomplaining.

“My angel … my angel …,” she says in a small voice.

Then I stop squeezing. I take a deep breath. I look at her. I feel pity for her again. I take one of her emaciated hands and kiss it all over. Upon seeing her like that, so defenseless, I feel like hugging her and crying. She remains still, leaning her head on the back of her seat. With her eyes closed. Her mouth trembles. Her cheeks, too. I leave.

Mr. Curbelo has arrived and he talks to a friend on the phone.

When he talks on the phone, Mr. Curbelo sits back in his chair and puts his feet on his desk. He looks like a sultan.

“The competition was yesterday,” Mr. Curbelo tells his friend through the phone receiver. “I came in second place. This time I shot with a sling speargun. I got a fifty-pound jewfish!”

Just then, old one-eyed Reyes goes up to Curbelo and asks for a cigarette.

“Shoo, shoo!” Mr. Curbelo waves him away with his hand. “Can’t you see that I’m working?”

Reyes recoils toward the hallway. He hides behind a door. He looks all around with his one eye and, sure that no one can see him, takes his penis out and starts to urinate on the floor. That’s Reyes’ revenge. Urinating. And a storm of the most brutal beatings can come down on him, but he will always urinate in his room, in the living room and on the porch. People complain to Mr. Curbelo, but he won’t kick him out of the boarding home. Reyes, according to him, is a good customer. He doesn’t eat; he doesn’t ask for his thirty-eight dollars; he doesn’t demand clean towels or sheets. All he does is drink water, ask for cigarettes and urinate. I go to my room and throw myself on the bed. I think of Frances, the new little crazy woman whom I nearly suffocated a few minutes ago. I become angry with myself as I recall her defenseless face, her trembling body, her sad voice that never asked for forgiveness.

“Keep going, my angel, keep going …”

My feelings about her are a confusing mix of pity, hate, tenderness and cruelty.

Arsenio comes in the room and takes a seat in a chair next to my bed. He takes a can of beer out of his pocket and starts to drink.

“Mafia …,” he says to me, looking over my head toward the street. “What’s life all about, mafia?”

I don’t answer. I sit up in bed and also look out the window. A homosexual dressed as a woman walks by. Then a black sports car goes by, with its radio at full blast. Scandalous rock music invades the street for a few seconds. Then it starts fading as the car gets farther away. Arsenio goes over to the dresser belonging to the crazy guy who works at the pizza place and starts to root through his things. He takes out a shirt and some dirty pants and throws them on the floor. He comes upon a drawer with a lock on it, but he takes a screwdriver out of his pocket and inserts it between the lock and the wood. He pulls hard. The screws give. Arsenio opens the drawer and searches anxiously among the nut’s papers, soaps and combs. Finally, he pulls a leather wallet out. He opens it and grabs a twenty-dollar bill. It’s the nut’s earnings from six days of work. He shows it to me. He smiles. He kisses it.

“Tonight we’re going to eat well,” he says. “Pizza, beer, cigarettes and coffee.”