A Detour

The mocha pot is set and now I just wait for el cafecito I was promised. I watched him fill the bottom chamber with water and add the coffee grounds, twisting both chambers together carefully as his arm muscles flexed. I stared at the low flame, set carefully so as to not burn the coffee, while I tried to reconcile how I even ended up here. I had decided to surprise my parents with a visit. I flew to the Dominican Republic without telling them. Selfishly, I also wanted to see the city without their supervision because despite being an adult, I can’t visit their home country without a chaperone. My second night here I decided to go out. That’s what people do when they travel, right? Though I have family all over, I  came unannounced, staying at an Airbnb. To what? Hook up? That can’t be why? Regardless, after many drinks at a gay bar, one I had to Google for a solid thirty minutes to find, I danced with a stranger. Instead of waking up at the Airbnb I had paid for, I woke up in a random man’s apartment, somewhere. I’m not sure where.

I sat up and rubbed my arm. We hadn’t done a good job of tightening the mosquito net before going to sleep and I got bit a couple times on my forearm. He set the table with brown sugar, small teacups, a banana, and pan de agua for our light breakfast. The light from the unclosed metal shutters on his window showed on his copper skin, highlighting his red and golden undertones. I wouldn’t say he was model attractive, but he had a quotidian charm that I found to be much more attractive than fantasy. Let’s be honest, I could never get a guy others would objectively fawn over. I have committed the sin of being a gay man who’s not white and fat, though not quite a bear. And yet, Simón was definitely out of my league. He was slender and had soft, but firm features. He had strong arms and a soft belly full of plátanos and yuca. I paused, realizing  that I don’t know if all of this remains true, at least not here. Here, where I’ve never properly lived, where I don’t actually date. I don’t think I personally know a single queer person in the entirety of this island. Here is a mystery to me, despite a lifetime of visits.

The sound of the coffee boiling broke me from my daydream. He poured the coffee and sat down next to me in silence. He mimicked my head-in-hand position, that I unconsciously landed on while I observed him. Our natural play at domesticity tickled me. I pondered how quickly familiarity can bloom, while intimacy with other people always seems to get suspended at the horizon despite our best efforts.

I suddenly felt gross in yesterday’s clothing; it all smelled like sweat.  My jeans felt stiff, and my black polo kept sticking to my skin. “Do you have an iPhone charger?” I asked.

“No, I don’t have an iPhone. I have an android. But I can try asking the neighbors,” he suggested.

“Nah, I won’t stay long enough. Plus, it’s not like I have any minutes or much data here anyway. I got an e-sim, but I can’t seem to make it work” I replied as I leaned back in the chair.

“So, when did you arrive?”

“Night before last.”

He raised his eyebrows, “so you have been here for two days, and you haven’t seen your family yet. I assume it’s a surprise visit.” I nodded. “But why?” he followed.

“Well…I thought it’d be nice to explore and be here without them constantly around me,” I responded a bit annoyed..

“Ahh, ok,” he retorted seemingly satisfied, as if my answer was sufficient explanation. Maybe he understood, or maybe he didn’t care enough, or maybe despite last night we were still strangers.

“My parents are staying in the capital, east of here, past Alma Rosa, somewhere in East Santo Domingo,” I offered.

“Want me to take you?” he asked

My eyes widened, “no…thank you.” We sat in silence, tearing pieces of bread and dipping it into our coffee instinctually. Once I finished my coffee, I asked, “Do you not live with your family?”

“No, they prefer that I not,” he responded curtly.

“Oh…ok”

“It’s better this way you know, it gives me more freedom —” he said before being interrupted by knocking on the front metal door to his apartment. His unit had two doors, an exterior metal one with bars and an internal wooden one with a mahogany finish.

“Simón, it’s your mother,” yelled a woman.

I shot up and asked nervously, “should I hide or …”

“No, just sit, don’t worry”

“Apúrate, I have to run to your tía before her husband leaves for the store. You know she’s sick.”

“¡Ya voy!” he yelled as he scurried to the door dragging the slippers on his feet. He opened both doors and let his mother in with a kiss on the cheek and a blessing, “’ción mami.”

They walked back to the kitchen. She set a small plastic grocery bag with containers on the kitchen counter and a medium sized canvas bag on the floor in the opposite corner from me. The late middle-aged woman stood and turned to me. She started and then extended her hand towards me. Her manners were that of an elegant woman. Her appearance was plain though intriguing. She had a long canary yellow skirt with a white short-sleeved blouse and tan-brown heeled flat sandals. Her complexion was a tad lighter than her son’s, but her eyes were the same intoxicating honeyed wheat as his.

“Isabela, I am his mother.”

I stood quickly, shook her hand, and replied, “Carlos, mucho gusto.”

She then turned to her son, took a deep breath, and said nothing. Her eyes turned towards the bags, then she informed Simón of its contents — consisting of cooked food in the plastic bag and some new dress clothes for work in the canvas bag. Isabela kissed her son on the cheek and walked out followed by him in tow while she explained she isn’t visiting him until after his tía gets better. She closed the exterior door and walked down the short steps to the sidewalk. She stopped at the bottom step with her back to the house, to Simón. He grabbed at the bars of the door, staring at her back. She then turned at an angle, one foot on the sidewalk, so that she could look back at her son. I remained planted, standing in the kitchen, staring down the hallway at the tableau of a mother and child, each on opposite sides of the door, each gazing knowingly at the other. Finally, Isabela broke the trance and said, “Next time, me avisas” and then she turned and walked away as she yelled, “¡Be careful, te amo!”

Simón remained at the door briefly before returning to the kitchen, leaving the inner door ajar so that the breeze would blow through. The sounds of the morning filled his home with chatter, backfire, car horns, vendors selling their wares, and birdsong. We both stood next to each other, him averting my gaze, and I was unable to look away. I wanted to reach out to him. I wanted to let him know I understood. And yet, how could I? I met him for the first time yesterday. What kind of comfort could I provide?

“I’m not sure what you have planned today, but I’m not usually here on my own. If it’s not too much of an inconvenience, I actually would appreciate it if you showed me how to get to my parent’s place,” I finally said, breaking the silence.

He looked up, smiled, and replied, “I’d love to, gringo. But first, you need to take a shower. I might have something that’ll fit you.”

I turned on the calentón  to heat the water while brushing my teeth to give time for the water to warm up before I took a shower. I was grateful that the water hadn’t been cut off. I made sure to be quick so that Simón could take advantage of the shower after me. I walked out to find him standing with clothes in hand staring at me. “¿Que?” I inquired, curious at the look in his eyes. He moved closer and I moved to the side in order to give him space to go inside the bathroom, but he held me with his free hand. We both stood facing each other in the doorway. He kissed me, the fullness of his lips overwhelming me once more as he pressed me up against him. When we pulled away, he said, “you look good in my clothes.” I blushed and walked away, waiting for him in the living room. I turned on the portable fan to fight against the increasing heat of the day.

Soon enough, we found ourselves scrunched together in a beige four door van with twenty-five other people. The seats are reminiscent of yellow school buses in appearance, but with the comfort of an old 60’s minivan. My carry-on suitcase sat under my feet, raising my knees up to my shoulders. We managed to run to my Airbnb and check-out before the cut off at 11:00 AM. Simón and I were both wearing a more comfortable t-shirt and shorts attire. We didn’t quite match, but it was clearly the same style of clothing. When we both left the house, I wondered what people would think of us as a pair, friends, cousins, or something more.

The van barreled down a main avenue eastward. Its name never having fully registered. Luckily, we only had to ride the one car, though we had to walk half a mile for it, but it was the most direct route, or so he said. I was inclined to believe him, in all honesty the route seemed familiar to the previous trips with my parents. Our close proximity in public, while unquestionable due to our circumstances, made me jittery.

He pattedmy knee and said, “Calma, we will be ok.”

I took a deep breath and looked out the tinted windows. Cars, motorcycles, and mopeds were scrambling through the street. Power lines hung above us in a complex web between multicolored concrete buildings. I turned to him and caught him watching me.

“I can’t believe you were going to get there on your own without your phone. You don’t even have their address” he asked.

“I do have their address, it’s just on my phone and that’s dead,” I sighed.

“I know where their house is. I just need to get to the main cross streets and then I can find my way,” I continued.

“Ta bien,” he chuckled and looked forward.

“Also, it’s your fault my phone is dead,” I smirked.

Simón chuckled, “I think that's our fault.”

Despite the everyday noise of traffic outside the van and the multitude of conversations amongst strangers and acquaintances inside, silence sat between us. I wasn’t sure how he felt, but I felt overcome under the cascading quiet that surrounded us. My anxiety grew as we got closer to our destination.

“My family doesn’t know,” I finally said. He nodded.

I looked upwards and breathed deeply, “Well my parents and some aunts know, but the truth is that they’re very selective of who they tell and how.”

“I get that, my parents are the same,” Simón replied.

“My parents recently retired and they’re back home. They want to be careful. People gossip,” I continued while rubbing my left palm with my right.

Simón looked at me knowingly. I looked back and saw in him what felt like understanding.

His head was still directed towards me, but he lowered his gaze towards an invisible point on my knee. He eventually said, “My mom knows. So does my father. Not that I’ve really had the conversation with him. But she told me that she told him.”

I nodded, looking at the same point.

“We don’t talk about it. I left the house shortly after I told my mom, but before she told my father. She didn’t fight me on it. He did at first, but then afterwards he didn’t say anything. I visit them once a week. We eat, play domino, watch baseball, drink a cup of coffee, or have a whisky.”

“Do you talk about it?”

“Not about that. Not about much else though. At some point, growing up I didn’t know what to talk about and he didn’t know how to talk to me. So, we stopped trying.”

I nodded again staring straight. I knew what that meant. I knew how that felt. But I didn’t have the right words, if they existed. And whatever meager comforts I could potentially muster remained lodged in my throat. I cleared my throat as if to speak, but I didn’t.

He continued looking forward to the road and said, “I think we might be there soon.”

I looked around to see if I recognized something. The driver’s assistant, whose principal job was collecting cash and jamming as many people as possible in the car as he hung on the side of the van, yelled out, reminding us that this was our stop. We rushed forward out of the van thanking him. I pulled out my luggage, doing the best I could to not hit anyone. I’m not sure I was successful based on the complaints and mumblings. When we got out, we stood at a large intersection with a department store, gas station, mini-mall, and a parking lot. Simón yelled over the car horns and motors, “Where do we go from here?”

I pointed northeast of us and said, “Let’s cross the street and then turn right. The only thing is that I don’t remember the name of the street we need to turn on. But there is a corner store near here and they’ve been there for years. They will know where my family’s place is.” He took my tiny suitcase from me and with that we jogged across the street and walked forward.

“It’s not far from here and I’ll know it when I see it,” I said.

We continued walking up the main street as he rolled my bag until I found a hair salon I recognized, Adaly’s Beauty Salon. I pointed excitedly and then we turned right, snaking our way through side streets. The sidewalks were tiny and unlevel, each block brimming with homes and businesses. It was a late Saturday morning. Children were playing outside on their porch or lawn, while their parents drank coffee chit-chatting with neighbors and passersby. My eyes darted around, looking for any signs of recognition as I kept my breath steady. Simón walked quietly with the occasional sideways glance.

There it was, the colmado I’ve been going to for years. As a child I’d buy candy, popsicles, and juices in plastic bags from the couple pesos I could cajole my relatives into giving me. It was a white building with earth-brown framing the entrance and in a line along the sides of the building. We walked in, stepping onto the old, tile flooring, an open-concept store shaped like a baseball diamond. The refrigerators to our left near was where the older gentlemen of the neighborhood sat in the shade to gossip and play domino, usually with a drink in hand. In the morning it was coffee, and in the afternoon, it was beer, whisky, or rum. I scanned the room, filled only with natural light, and looked towards the counter.

“Buenas,” Simón and I called out.

“Buenas,” said the owner, Don Rubén. At that moment he recognized me and yelled in excitement. He rushed to us and gave me a hug. Don Rubén held us there for nearly fifteen minutes asking questions about me, my life, and how long I was staying. He kept commenting on how big I’ve gotten, how I shouldn’t get too fat because it’s not good for my health, and how I’ve become a man now.

Soon the obligatory questions came — Do you have a girlfriend? Why not, you need to start giving your parents grandchildren? There is nothing in this world as important as having kids.

I answered the same way I always do — Oh of course. Not yet though. I just finished my studies and now I will start working. Once my career feels solid, I can focus on a relationship.

Eventually, he directed me to where my parents live and sent me on my way with saludos for them. After we said our goodbyes, it was only a five-minute walk until we stood in front of the two-story cream-colored gated home. It had dark green accents on the top of the building, the gate, metal railings, and columns.

“My tío and tía live on the first floor with her mother, a widow now. My parents live on the second floor. They built the second floor a couple years ago so that they could have somewhere to retire to. Actually, most of my mom’s family lives from a five-minute walk to a thirty minute drive from this house,” I said.

Simón simply stared and said, “that’s lovely.”

He handed me my suitcase. I gripped the handle tightly as I searched his face for meaning.

“I . . . I think,” I started to say, when he cut in and said, “I should go.”

I nodded in agreement and responded with, “Thank you, seriously, I really appreciate it. If there’s anything I can do for you please let me know.”

“Yes, there is,” with that he pulled out his phone and asked me for my number.

“When your phone turns back on, you will find a message from me on WhatsApp,” he continued.

I chuckled and nodded, “Ok.”

“Buenas, I was just helping him get home. Have a great day,” he waved at someone behind me. The sudden alternative conversation startled me.

It was my mother standing by the gate on the small concrete porch at the entrance to the house. She looked at Simón soberly. After a brief pause her eyes flickered and she saw my face. Her smile spread. Her eyes filled with surprise and a spark of something else I didn’t want to name. Suddenly she screamed, opening the rickety gate, rushing to me. We ran to each other, hugging each other tightly, grinning from ear to ear.  Afterward, she scolded me for not telling her I was coming. She asked me how I found my way. When I turned back around to tell her, he was already walking away in the direction we came from. My mom shepherded me inside and started yelling for all our relatives, announcing my return home.

My tío rushed through the open door;  he looked both ways and hugged me. He pulled away and held me saying, “Who was that?”

“Who? . . . Oh, that guy? He’s no one. Just someone who helped me get home,”

He squeezed my shoulders, telling me how handsome I was and how happy they were to have me home. He instructed his wife to call Don Ramón and have them bring some beers, Presidente. “Tonight, we were going to celebrate,” he said emphatically. I spent the rest of the day sitting there answering questions, carefully, while my family gathered around me, joyfully. I couldn’t help but think of my phone, dead in my pocket, wondering whether if I charged it, I’d find a message from a stranger who helped me find my way.