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by Christopher Gil
It was Carlito that had called me. He gave me the address. I must have been broke; was home early that day. The phone call came at two in the morning. I geared up and headed out. The place was at walking distance. A strange day too, not even the prostitutes were out. I walked down Fort Washington passed the bus terminal looking at the George Washington bridge disappearing behind the fog. I was in some-what of a hurry. You really don’t know what to expect with Carlito and it was with Carlito I was dealing with, a Dominican hood from the Heights.
When I got to the entrance of the building I saw some familiar faces. The ones that stood out the most were Ricky’s and some guy everyone calls Pope. They let me into the building. Ricky was really drunk, belligerent and was rambling about something (could have been rapping to himself, but I didn’t care to listen) Ricky was one of those guys that had just gotten out of prison. He was away for three years, so I heard. I watched him stumble around the lobby with his friends who were also drunk but less disorderly. I got into the elevator. As the doors of the elevator closed I saw them, (Ricky and his friends) someone else’s problem. On my way up I could hear voices in the hallway but the higher up I went the more the music drown out the voices.
The hallway upstairs smelled like Marijuana. The door wasn’t locked. I turned the knob in what seemed to be slow motion as I entered. It was unbearably hot. I saw a bunch of faces I’d never seen before. The place was filled with people, but these faces were more sinister, grimier, almost lost, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. The women were wearing bikini tops and mini-skirts. There was sweat on everyone’s face. The place was packed. I tried looking further into the apartment but all I could see was darkness and shadowy figures bouncing. On the tip of my toes, I looked around the kitchen. I was being careful to not step on anyone or push too hard. There was no sign of Carlito anywhere. Now the weed smoke was all over. Damn it was hot. A group of guys were standing by the window blocking the breeze. I couldn’t take it anymore so I took my jacket off and fanned my face with my hand. I attempted to get a closer look into the darkness. I thought I saw Ramses. He was standing around looking at the asses gyrating and bouncing below him. I got a whiff of what was in there. Cigarette smoke and a hot skin. It smelled like a wet seat-cushion drenched in dirty hot-tub-water with a bit of urine. I was a little disgusted, but not by what was being acted out (which was “humping” not dancing) but by their reaction to what was going down. It was indifference, coldness that bothered me. A scary mentality, something in the way they looked at each other (both males and females). The music was too loud to hear anything. I didn’t even feel like drinking anymore. I saw Carlito by the doorway on my way out. He offered me a swig of Dominican rum (Brugal) I was happy to see him and Ramses.
We went out into the hall way. I lit a cigarette. We made some jokes about how hot it was inside the apartment. Ramses mentioned something about screwing one of the girls. We decided to go downstairs for some fresh air. Now it was our voices echoing in the hallway. The echoing made me sort of sad so it was only natural that I felt much better when we got to the street. Ricky was sitting on a car yelling about something. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I can’t tell whether it was fear or common sense or maybe both, but either way I wasn’t sticking around. The marijuana in the apartment must have got to me because I felt like I floated home. I undressed and turned the television on. I wondered what had led me to leave my comfortable couch in the first place. Something stupid was on TV, but I was too tired to look. I laid on my side with my bare skin sticking to the leather couch. There was nothing to comfort me, no fan, no air-conditioner, nothing; only the colors from the television dancing on my walls.
Christopher Gil is a 24-year-old Washington Heights native. His parents both migrated from the Dominican Republic. The family fell on hard times. When Christopher was 8 years old his mother went to prison. His father was a workaholic who rarely had time for his son. The father and son moved around a lot. At age 12 Christopher started writing. His subjects are mostly about the places he’s lived, night life, people and the places where people meet up. He’s currently finishing a bachelor’s degree in English literature, and plans to teach creative writing on the college level.
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