The Wild Boys Read Free

horror his eyes wild. Now El Mono is shoving the candle in and out his ass teeth bare eyes rolling he gasps out:
“Sangre de Cristo
…” The pimp impaled there for all to see. Joselito leaps up and stomps out a triumphant fandango. Awed by Tío Mate and fearful of a recent impotence, a difficult bowel movement, a cunt-licking, the pimps fall back in confusion.
    Tío Paco now mans the upper balcony with his comrade in arms Fernández the drug clerk. Tío Paco has been a waiter for forty years. Very poor, very proud, contemptuous of tips, he cares only for the game. He brings the wrong order and blames the client, he flicks the nastiest towel, he shoves a tip back saying “The house pays us.” He screams after a client
“Le service n’est-ce pas compris
.” He has studied with Pullman George and learned the art of jiggling arms across the room:
    hot coffee in a quiet American crotch.
    And woe to a waiter who crosses him:
    tray flies into the air. Rich well-dressed clients dodge cups and glasses, bottle of Fundador broken on the floor.
    Fernández hates adolescents, pop stars, beatniks, tourists, queers, criminals, tramps, whores and drug addicts. Tío Paco hates their type too.
    Fernández likes policemen, priests, army officers, rich people of good repute. Tío Paco likes them too. He serves them quickly and well. But their lives must be above reproach.
    A newspaper scandal can mean long waits for service.
    The client becomes impatient. He makes an angry gesture. A soda siphon crashes to the floor.
    What they both love most of all is to inflict humiliation on a member of the hated classes, and to give information to the police.
    Fernández throws a morphine script back across the counter.
    “No prestamos servicio a los viciosos
.” (“We do not serve dope fiends.”)
    Tío Paco ignores a pop star and his common-law wife until the cold sour message seeps into their souls:
    “We don’t want your type in here.”
    Fernández holds a prescription in his hand. He is a plump man in his late thirties. Behind dark glasses his eyes are yellow and liverish. His low urgent voice on the phone.
    “Receta narcótica falsificado
.” (“A narcotic prescription forged.”)
    “Your prescription will be ready in a minute
señor
.”
    Tío Paco stops to wipe a table and whispers … “Marijuana in a suitcase … table by the door” … The cop pats his hand.
    Neither Tío Paco nor Fernández will accept any reward for services rendered to their good friends the police.
    When they first came to live on the top floor five years ago Tío Mate saw them once in the hall.
    “Copper-loving bastards,” he said in his calm final voice.
    He did not have occasion to look at them again. Anyone Tío Mate doesn’t like soon learns to stay out of Tío Mate’s space.
    Fernández steps to the wall and his wife appears at his side. Her eyes are yellow her teeth are gold. Now his daughter appears. She has a mustache and hairy legs. Fernández looks down from a family portrait.
    “Criminales. Maricónes. Vagabundos
. I will denounce you to the police.”
    Tío Paco gathers all the bitter old men in a blast of sour joyless hate. Joselito stops dancing and droops like a wilted flower. Tío Pepe and Dolores are lesser demons. They shrink back furtive and timorous as dawn rats. Tío Mate looks at a distant point beyond the old waiter tracing vultures in the sky. El Mono stands blank and cold. He will not imitate Fernández and Tío Paco.
    And now Tía María, retired fat lady from a traveling carnival, comes out onto the lower balcony supporting her vast weight on two canes. Tía María eats candy and reads love stories all day and gives card readings the cards sticky and smudged with chocolate. She secretes a heavy sweetness. Sad and implacable it flows out of her like a foam runway. The
vecinos
fear her sweetness which they regard fatalistically as a natural hazard like earthquakes and volcanoes. “The Sugar of Mary” they call it. It could