Read Online Chulito by Charles Rice-Gonzalez - Free Book Online

ballooned all around him occasionally revealing a small line of smooth skin on his stomach. It was like Mother Nature wanted to see Carlos naked and was threatening to blow off his clothes.
    Since the fellas weren’t on the corner and it was too early for many people to be around, Chulito decided to not let Carlos just walk past. He distracted him from his struggle with a loud, “Yo!”
    Carlos looked at Chulito leaning on the car.
    “Hey, Carlos, how you been?” Chulito braced himself for Carlos’ tirade.
    Instead, Carlos ignored him and continued to walk into their building.
    “Hol’ up, Carlos, please?” Chulito checked to see who was around then stood up. “I called and texted you a couple of times to apologize.”
    “Hey, Chulito, they still call you that, right? They haven’t changed your name to Thug or Nigga?”
    “Nah, it’s still Chulito.”
    “What’s with the braids? Your curly hair is too soft? Looking for new ways to look gangsta?”
    Chulito patted his head. “I had them done this morning. All the cool reggaetoneros are sportin’ them. You know I like to keep up. What do you think?” Chulito winked.
    Carlos shrugged. “What do you want?”
    Chulito looked away. He’d wanted to talk to Carlos, but now that he had his attention he didn’t know what to say. “Can we go talk privately?”
    “No. If you have anything to say, say it now. Here.” Carlos stood still, but the wind continued to animate his clothes and hair. “Well?’
    Chulito looked away from Carlos. “I’m sorry about not keeping our plans that—”
    Carlos interrupted him. “You already apologized. I got your texts and your phone calls. Consider them sufficient.”
    Chulito’s palm sweated. He wanted to say that he wished they could rewind and go back to the phone calls they were having. He wanted to say how excited he was anticipating Carlos’ return. He wanted to go up to Carlos, whose arms were weighed down by the two shopping bags and hug him tightly. Then help him carry the bags. “Gimme a second, Carlos, please?”
    Carlos put down one shopping bag and pushed his hair out of his face. Chulito realized that this was the first time in over a year that he was seeing Carlos’ face up close and it was all eyes like Japanese animation characters. A lock of hair was caught on one of his eyelashes and it reminded him of the morning Carlos was leaving for college.
    Carlos was outside, on the very spot where they both now stood, with his maletas, boxes and shopping bags. Clara, the marimacho who always wore plaid shirts and who worked at Borinquen cab service, was going to drive him out to Long Island. His mom stood there looking so proud of him. People kept stopping by to say “good luck.” Chulito’s mother brought Carlos a container with arroz con gandules and chuletas she’d cooked the night before. Chulito saw all this through a slit at the bottom of his shade. He felt as he did now, full of thoughts and feelings about Carlos but unable to express them. Earlier that summer the bottle incident had happened and they never spoke about it.
    Just about everybody loved Carlos. He was so smart that he got skipped twice—once from the third to the fifth grade and again from the seventh to the ninth. Chulito admired that about him, especially since he hated school, but he liked hanging with Carlos, so Chulito did his best to keep up.
    That morning was windy, too, and Chulito watched Carlos packing the back of Clara’s taxi. His loose stringy black hair kept falling in his face and he kept brushing it back. A few strands got caught on some of his long eyelashes and he blinked to try to get them out of his large copper colored eyes which looked brighter against his pale, creamy skin. And his smooth lips looked especially kissable. Chulito knew that he was not supposed to be noticing Carlos that way, but as he sat all pissed off in his room watching him pack the cab that day he thought Carlos was cute. Ever since he saw