“It’s time, lindo. I’m going out of business.”
“No way.” I sink into the worn leather couch at the Cruz Travel Agency where I have sat with my mom since I was six years old when we’d come to set up our annual trip to Puerto Rico.
“Carlos, It’s 2008. People get better travel deals on the internet.” Julio, who has run the agency for as far back as I can remember, wipes dust off the top of the computer screen on his desk. “Lately, I have been navigating the sites for some of the viejitos who don’t deal with computers. It’s not like before when vacations started right in that couch you’re sitting in.”
Julio’s family owned the agency since the 1950s. I recall when his parents ran the agency. His mom always gave me a lollipop and offered coffee before getting down to business. They retired when I was about ten and Julio has managed it solo since then.
Julio sits beside me. “I loved helping couples plan their honeymoon or when customers would ask for suggestions, I’d show them travel videos of Hawaii or-” Julio leaps up and rummages through a drawer and drops a pile of brightly colored cruise brochures with celebrity endorsements on my lap. “-I’d show them these.”
I look through them. “Who’s this?”
Julio cranes his neck. “Ay, that’s Kathie Lee Gifford, throw them in the basura.” He shakes his head and sits at the edge of his desk. “Things change, papito. Planning a trip was an adventure in itself. And since I did some traveling myself, I’d say things like, ‘You gotta stay in Hacienda Rosa in Barcelona, child. My friend Antonio runs it, and when you’re there eat at Carmela’s on calle Bolivar. Tell her you’re from the Bronx and you get a free rum and Coke.’” He laughs. “Those were the days.”
We sit quietly for a moment as I take in the old travel posters of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic that hang alongside calendars that show the entire year in one large sheet. The smell of fresh coffee fills the air, a smell that has seeped into the furniture and walls from the pot that is always ready. The old computers whir and Donna Summer sings on the radio about MacArthur Park. “When are you closing?”
“We already closed, technically.” Brick answers as he enters the shop door. He winks at me. “You good, Carlos?”
I nod.
Brick is as straight as they come. He has dark, hypnotic eyes and a bright seductive smile. He lives with his woman and their kid in the building right next to the Cruz Travel Agency. Although he’s tough and holds his own with any guy in the neighborhood, he isn’t like most of them. Mainly because the super macho Brick has a deep friendship with Julio, the diva queen.
Brick came to Hunts Point because he quit selling drugs and wanted to start over. Julio gave him a job and now he is as much of a part of Cruz Travel Agency as Julio. Brick builds shelves, buys office supplies, fixes plumbing and cleans the agency. He runs errands and delivers tickets to folks in the neighborhood. He says that he works part-time but is here all the time. Some of the guys in the neighborhood give him shit and he even had a fight with Damian, one of the auto glass guys who was spreading rumors that Brick was a homo thug. Even Brick’s woman used to joke and say, “I have my doubts about you.”
Julio adds, “The new tenant moves in on October first. But I’ll be out in about two months, by the end of August. It’s gonna take time to organize, pack all this up or throw most of it out. The new tenant will start remodeling in September.”
Julio slips off the desk and sits on the couch beside me. “I’m so happy to see you looking so sad. Are you gonna miss me or are you gonna miss seeing Brick cleaning my windows? You know I make him do it shirtless just for us girls.
”Brick flexes a bicep. “I do it ‘cause it’s hot outside.”
“What?” Julio holds a hand up to his ear. “I didn’t hear you. You said you do it ‘cause you’re hot. That’s what I said. That’s why I make you wash my windows exposing all your loveliness.”
“You crazy, Julio.” Brick smiles and goes down to the basement.
When I was a kid my friends and I would go trick or treating to all the stores on Hunts Point Avenue. Julio dressed up as an airline stewardess or a cruise director. He always wore a bright wig, red or blond, and high heels as he gave out candy, little packets of peanuts, small American Airlines pins or Delta Airlines magnets.
I accept a cup of coffee from Julio even though I don’t want it. “I can’t believe you’re not going to be here anymore.”
“¿De veras? What does it matter to you since you are ‘outta here,’ right?”I’m taken aback by the sharpness in his tone. “Don’t say it like that?”
“How am I supposed to say it? It seems like it’s OK for you to leave Hunts Point for a better life, but not me? Ever since you returned from your graduation, all you talk about is how this neighborhood is como una mierda. So, if it’s so shitty why do I have to stay here?”
I sip the coffee. I never stopped to think that Julio could want something more than Hunts Point as well. I know he has a house in the northwest Bronx, and that since he took over the agency from his parents that he travels less and misses it. “Julio, what do you want to do?”
He shrugs. “I wish I didn’t have to sell this space to those gringos. But I don’t have a better offer or better idea. And this in-person way of planning travel is over.” Julio looks out the large window, past the travel posters taped neatly in straight rows. “Even closing the shop, I won’t leave the neighborhood. I’m connected here. This place has been my life, ever since I was a little girl, but now I’m the age of the official NY state speed limit.” Julio whispers, “55.”
I chuckle.
“Papito, that ain’t funny. It’s a crime, but it’s time. You know I met a cute viejo on a cruise this past spring, right?”
“Really?” In all the years in Hunts Point, I’ve never seen Julio with a partner or lover.
“There’s no need to be all surprised. I still got it going on.” He snaps his fingers.
Brick walks in carrying more boxes. “You always got it going on.” He also snaps.
“Ay, don’t tease me, you fucking bugarrón. You had your chance to leave your woman and kid for a life of luxury with me.” Julio crumples up a piece of paper and throws it at Brick who smacks it away.“Some luxury. Carrying out stinky boxes of old shit.” Brick leans down and kisses Julio’s temple.
Julio wipes it off and puts it on his mouth. “That’s where it belongs.”
Brick walks out into the sun.
“What’s gonna happen to Brick?”
“He’ll be my property manager. The rent from these stores brings in decent money. I could raise the rents but why? I’m fairly comfortable and my tenants are like family.”
“What about those young queers, Enrique and Cariño, who are always coming through here?”
“They are tough. They can survive without La Julio. What about you Carlos, can you?”
I nod tentatively because moving out of Hunts Point for me didn’t mean I wasn’t planning to visit Julio’s agency on my visits back. I put the coffee cup on the floor, and hug Julio. “Hunts Point won’t be the same without you.” It feels good to hold him, so I squeeze tighter.
Julio pulls away. “Wow! What is going on with you?”
I shrug. “I’m realizing that I never showed you how much I appreciate you.”
Julio hugs me back. “We can still be girlfriends. You gonna have to come visit me in the North Bronx.”
“I’ll travel the world to see you.”
“Mira you, and to think you used to avoid me as if I was a smelly old bum.”
I feel guilty because when I first came out around 13, I shunned Julio because he was effeminate.
“Carlos, I knew you were family since the first time I saw you. I think you were five or six years old. I took one look at you and said, ‘that one is a little patito.’”
I laugh. “How could you tell?”
“Something about your eyes. And the way you followed that cutie Chulito around, but you stayed away from me.”
“I had a lot to learn.”
“But you came around and now we’re girlfriends.”
“But now you’re leaving, Julio.”
“And so are you, right?”
I nod. “You asked me that the other night. Why do you keep asking me?”
“Just checking.”
I still want to leave and move on from Hunts Point but lately I am feeling like I want to keep my connections, too. My mother and Julio are the only reasons I would come back to the neighborhood. I don’t get my mother’s fascination with staying in Hunts Point, but if she’s here I’d come back to see her. And it’s comforting to know Julio is here, and at the ready to hear me out.
I lift the coffee cup and before I’ve stood up Julio takes it from me. “My history here in this neighborhood, this business is important to me. You have a history, too. I know that a lot of fucked up shit has happened to you, to us, but is that all you see?”
I walk around the travel agency. I look at the posters and the small television that is playing a video of a Mexican getaway. I look at the sag in the leather couch and imagine my mother and I patiently waiting to book our trip and the thrill I felt knowing we’d be buying tickets to get on a plane. Then, I get an idea. “How long has this agency been here?”
Julio thinks a minute. “Let’s see, they opened it before I was born. I think it was 1949, so we have been here 59 years.”
“What if I wrote an article about your agency? You know, its history in Hunts Point? I would love for it to be in The Daily News, but I don’t work there yet, but since I have a summer job at The Bronx Times, I think it’d be easier to make a pitch to my editor there.”
Julio looks at me. “You think they’d do it?”
“It’s a good Bronx story. One that shows how a local business is affected by a global shift in technology.”
“Mira, you learned something in college.”
“And I could write about you. How amazing you are for this neighborhood. It would be like an homage.” I bow, but quickly look up. “But a news story, too.”
“Well, I hope they say yes.”
“Either way, I want to write it.”
“It will be a beautiful good-bye present for both of us, Carlos. Do you know when you are leaving?”
“OK, Julio, why do you keep asking me that?”
“I saw you and Chulito walking down the block the other day. Finding a new reason to stay?”
I broke up with Chulito or he broke up with me a few summers ago. But when I was with Chulito it was one of the happiest and most exciting times of my life.. He was Hunts Point tough, like a chocolate covered marshmallow, dark and crunchy on the outside and soft and sweet inside. And I’m a downtowner.
“Julio, I still love him, but we can’t be together, We’re just friends or figuring out how to be friends. You know, it still hurts when I think of him.” I shake my head.
Julio nods sympathetically. “Yes, papito. That’s just a broken heart. We all navigate that. I’m sure he deals with it, too.”
I wonder if not wanting to see and run into Chulito is also contributing to my wanting to escape Hunts Point. I check my phone for the time. “I gotta change, shower and go to the grocery store. I’m cooking for my mom tonight.” I sigh. “I was a bit of an asshole last night to her.”
“You? An asshole? No lo creo.” Julio laughs.
“What?”
“Well, I’m surprised you were an asshole to your mom.”
“Julio, you think I’m an asshole? I’m hurt.”
“Not exactly an asshole, but just a little stuck up.”
It was harsh to hear. “Oh, and I have to call this real estate agent to start looking for a place.”
“Come sit here.” He pats the spot next to him. “Don’t be so convinced that you know what you want in life. Let it be something you discover. When my parents died, I thought I would sell everything and start over somewhere else, like Miami Beach. I wanted to have a gay travel agency.”
“So why didn’t you go?”
“I discovered that I was serving people better here than there. Maybe I could have had a better life and maybe even a better business there, but I have no regrets. For me it was not so much what I could get out of life, but what I could give to life. And I had a lot to give here.”
“Most definitely. You’ve given a lot to me and to everyone here.”
“You have a lot to give too, Carlos. Enrique and Cariño look up to you. They see how strong and fierce you are.”
I laugh. “It’s funny that you say that. I mean, I can’t believe that I didn’t know them, and they knew me.”
“Muchacho, you too busy looking someplace else that you have trouble seeing what’s all around. You’re a famous gay here because of how you stand up to those bully Auto Glass guys or anyone who messes with you. And your romance with Chulito caused a mini Stonewall riot that summer. You went off to college and hardly came back, but all these young gays know. You Badass.”
“Really?”
“Sí, and that Enrique has eyes for you sistah. He’s such a talented artist and cute, right?”
“I feel like you are trying to get me to stay. Why?”
“Go or stay. Make your own decision, but I want you to know why you are leaving. Hunts Point is not just Damian and the assholes on the corner.” Then he touches my heart. “Or broken hearts. And now that I’m leaving, I think Hunts Point needs you.”
“But I don’t want to be held back.”
“I never felt held back by Hunts Point, but if you do, then you should find a place where you don’t feel held back.” Julio turns away from me.
There’s a knock on the window. I look up to see Enrique and Cariño coming through the door.
“Hey,” Enrique kisses Julio’s cheek. “Hey Carlos. Didn’t think I’d see you back so soon.”
I remember that I’d sent him a text last night that I was heading to Kenny’s in Brooklyn.
“’ssup.” Cariño nods at me. “You back from BK.”
I nod.
Enrique talks to Julio but sits next to me. “So, you outta here?”
Julio shrugs. “By the end of the month.”
“I can’t believe it, Julio. You been here since forever.” Cariño adjusts her Yankee cap and sits on the arm of the couch. “What’s gonna happen to the shop?”
“A juice bar.” Julio rolls his eyes.
“Juice?” Cariño laughs. “We don’t need a juice bar. We need a gay bar.”
Enrique shoves her. “You ain’t old enough to get into a bar.”
“You either sucka.”
Enrique jumps up. “But that is about to change! I’m turning twenty-one, baby.” His long frame dances around and his curls bounce.
We all cheer except Cariño who says, “In like a year. You just turning 20 this summer. You still can’t get into no gay bar.”
Julio pats my knee. “Come. All of you help get some of this stuff out of here.”
We follow him down the narrow stairs that lead to his basement. Brick comes down right behind us. He stands in the middle of the room and wipes his sweaty chest with his shirt. “It’s hot down here, damn.”
Julio holds up his hands. “I swear to you all. I don’t pay him extra to strip. That’s all him.”
“For real, it’s hot down here. Y’all ain’t hot?” We all just stare at him and he gets to work mumbling. “It’s fuckin’ hot.”
Enrique flips open his phone and then holds it up toward the ceiling. “Oh shit, I don’t have service down here. My pops is supposed to call me.”
Cariño laughs. “Man, you don’t have reception because you gotta get one of these.” She shows off her phone. “Blackberry is taking over.”
“Gimme yours.” He snatches her phone.
“Yo, give me that shit back.”
He hands it to her. “Stop showing off, knucklehead. And mine is a new Razr, but I gotta go.” He heads towards the stairs. “There’s a new dude moving into our building, a white dude. Pops wants me to be reachable in case he needs me to help move him in. I better go up.”
Brick hands some boxes to Enrique. “Take these up and leave ‘em out front with the rest. Make yourself useful.”
Enrique grabs the boxes. “See you later, Julio. Come by my studio, Carlos. I want you to check out my self-portrait.” He winks.
I smile. “I’ll be by later.”
Enrique stops. “For real? You going to finally come to my studio?”
“Yes,” I shrug. “I’ll come.”
“Gimme some boxes to take up.” Cariño accepts boxes from Brick and follows Enrique. “Wait up, Rique.” Then she peers down as she climbs the steps and whispers, “Careful, Cahloss. Rique bites.”
Julio leans into me. “That could be a good thing.”
Brick shakes his head and opens an old trunk. “Fo! These smell like mothballs.” He lifts an old garment bag, unzips it and pulls out a stewardess outfit. “What’s this?”
Julio grabs it. “I can’t believe it. That is an authentic Pan Am stewardess uniform. I wore it for a couple of Halloweens. Do you remember, Carlos?” Julio unzips the bag. “I’ve got to try it on.” Julio pulls off the t-shirt he is wearing and buttons up the uniform’s white cotton blouse. He pulls off his shorts and zips on a tight grey blue skirt. The zipper goes three quarters of the way up. “Shit! Help me.”
I hold the top of the skirt and Brick pulls up on the zipper while Julio holds in his stomach. The zipper moves slowly while we all strain, then in a quick zip, it closes.
“Hallelujah! ¡Gloria a Dios!” Julio shouts as he dances around the basement. “I can still fit it. Look for the little cap.” Brick searches the garment bag and finds a small cap that is preserved by a plastic sandwich bag, while I help Julio put on the uniform’s jacket.
The jacket doesn’t close, but Julio looks tall and slim. “I wish I had some tacones.”
We search the trunk and find a pair of heels. Julio walks around the basement. “Coffee, sir?” He pantomimes pouring coffee.
Julio finds a small plastic bag with Pan Am pins and pins one to his lapel. Then he comes to pin one on me. “Enrique said a white guy is moving in.”
I nod.
“And a Juice bar? Carlos, Hunts Point might turn into the kind of neighborhood you want to live in.”
“Ouch,” I say.
Julio smiles slyly. “I didn’t stick you.”
The door chime rings.
“I’ll go check it out.” Brick climbs up the stairs two at a time. Although Brick is slim, he has heavy feet so we can hear him walking above us.
Julio checks himself out in a small mirror. “I look a mess without my make-up.”
“I love it.”
“How could you not? Pan Am had one of the most tailored uniforms. This was when stewardesses had to be model thin and take grace and poise classes. Nowadays they hire anybody.”
“Are you gonna keep it?”
“Seguro que sí. As long as I can fit into it, I’m keeping it, but you can borrow it.”
Brick calls from upstairs, “Julio! Customer!”
“I don’t want to take it off, but I can’t deface the honor and glamour of this uniform by wearing it in public without shaving and putting on my face.” Julio hugs himself in the uniform, then whispers to me. “A customer? Carlos, tell them I’ll be right up while I change out of this.”
I do as I’m told, but as I climb the stairs say, “See, you’ve got a customer. Maybe a sign that you shouldn’t close shop.”
Julio waves me away.
I sit in the cool of the office with Brick and the customer who flips through a magazine.
Julio emerges from the basement. “Ay, it’s you. He’s not a customer. Brick, Carlos meet my viejo, Santiago.”
We shake his hand and Julio gives him a peck on the mouth. “What a surprise.” Julio hugs him. “¿Quieres café? Or do you want to get something to eat.”
Santiago pats his stomach. “Tengo hambre.” He then pulls Julio toward him. Santiago is in his early sixties with bright white hair that’s thick and combed back from his forehead. He wears a white guayabera shirt, loose khaki slacks and white leather shoes with a gold buckle. He looks like he just stepped off a Caribbean cruise.
“Let’s go to Carolina’s. She makes the best beans, and this viejo loves beans.” They start out the door.
“Un placer.” Santiago nods to me and Brick.
“Brick, querido, you can get rid of everything in the basement, except for the trunk. I want to go through that. I’ll be back in an hour in case there is a stampede of customers.” He rolls his eyes. Then he exits the store arm in arm with Santiago. I watch them pass through the faded travel posters in the window and make their way down the block. Julio pauses to introduce Santiago to Enrique and Cariño who are on the corner fumbling with their phones, texting I imagine.
Then, Julio and Santiago continue. Julio is talking and Santiago smiles and listens. I know that the guys on the corner aren’t going to make comments and the auto glass guys will pretend Julio and Santiago are invisible. No one will throw a bottle or call him faggot. Julio has been unapologetic his whole life, he’s earned the right to walk with his viejo to Carolina’s to eat rice and beans. Julio once told me, “The Stonewall riots broke out when I was sixteen years old. I took my skinny little butt down there to fight. So, I come from a line of fighting patos.”
Some passerby stares at the old couple. I do, too. It is the first time that I or anyone had seen Julio with a viejo. And he looks so happy.“
That’s bugged out seeing Julio with a man.” Brick says as he steps out of the store to take out trash.
I watch the couple as they head down Hunts Point Avenue.
Brick smiles. “Julio’s got the biggest balls in Hunts Point.”
“Bigger than yours?”
“Look at you. Is Julio rubbing off on you?”
I laugh.
Brick swings a sweaty arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him. “That would be a good thing, because that man’s also got the biggest heart I know.” Brick watches Julio walk down the street. “He’s got my back 100%. I ain’t had nobody like that. So, I’ll always be there for him. I love that crazy fuck.” Brick winks at me, releases his embrace and goes into the shop.
I know that I, too, came from that line of fighting patos that Julio speaks of, and I hope that, like Julio, I’ll be happy with a “viejo,” a young one my age. I continue walking slowly, watching Julio and Santiago cross under the Bruckner Expressway and disappear into the crowd in the distance. I walk down the block imagining that Julio and Santiago leave footprints on the sidewalk I can follow.
