Las Biuty Queens Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by Iván Monalisa Ojeda

  Translation copyright © 2021 by Hannah Kauders

  All rights reserved. Copying or digitizing this book for storage, display, or distribution in any other medium is strictly prohibited.

  Originally published in the Spanish language as Las Biuty Queens © 2019 Alfaguara.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact [email protected].

  Las Biuty Queens is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Astra House

  A Division of Astra Publishing House

  astrahouse.com

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Ojeda, Iván Monalisa, author. | Almodóvar, Pedro, introduction. | Kauders, Hannah, translator.

  Title: Las biuty queens : stories / Iván Monalisa Ojeda ; introduction by Pedro Almodóvar ; translated from the Spanish by Hannah Kauders.

  Description: New York, NY: Astra House, 2021.

  Identifiers: ISBN: 9781662600302 (Hardcover) | 9781662600319 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH Transgender people—Fiction. | Gender identity— Fiction. | Sex workers—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. | Hispanic Americans—Fiction. | Short stories, American. | Short stories, Hispanic American (Spanish)—Translations into English. | BISAC FICTION / Short Stories (single author) | FICTION / Hispanic & Latino | FICTION / LGBTQ+ / Transgender

  Classification: LCC PS3615.J43 B58 2021 | DDC 813.6—dc23

  First edition

  Design by Richard Oriolo

  The text is set in Century Schoolbook.

  The titles are set in Avenir LT Std 85 Heavy.

  Contents

  Introduction by Pedro Almodóvar

  Overdose

  In the Bote

  Ortiz Funeral Home

  Jennifer’s Carnations

  Adriana la Chimba, or The Gorgeous Adriana de Pereira

  Emergency Room

  Biuty Queen

  Little Miss Lightning Bolt

  The Boricua’s Blunts

  Lorena the Chilena

  A Coffee Cup Reading

  Mother Hen and Her Chicks

  Sabrina’s Wedding

  Introduction

  THE STORY COLLECTION in your hands may sound like a book about transvestites and queer people, and that’s what it is, but it’s more than just that. Monalisa is Chilean, and in these stories he/she narrates the day-to-day, or rather, the night-to-night, of a group of Latinx transgender people and transvestites who work the streets, prostituting themselves in bars and in not-to-be-recommended back alleys in New York City. The American dream—seen from the height of a good pair of heels—turns into a nightmare, an everyday nightmare. For these biuty queens, violent death comes with the territory. The stories could be very sordid, but Iván Monalisa has the talent to endow his/her characters with vitality and grace: he/she tells you about their misery as something inevitable, but with humor and without turning them into victims. These are stories of survival in the face of Trump’s immigration policies, with characters who skirt urban dangers with humor and solidarity. They share drugs, pimps, beauty contest awards, illness, and delirium, but they are a very close-knit community.

  They remind me of my mother’s neighbors, when she went to live back in her hometown during her final years. Her neighbors took care of her much better than we would have. The solidarity and care among the widows who lived on my mother’s street is one of the most beautiful things I remember of my hometown. It is not strange that Julieta Serrano told her son that she didn’t want him to include her neighbors in his films. Neighbors are sacred, in the full meaning of that word.

  They’re not entirely similar, but Las Biuty Queens reminds me of my book of stories about Patty Diphusa—they show very different human landscapes and social surroundings. Mine is all hedonist fiction, while the stories in Las Biuty Queens radiate realism in every sentence.

  —Pedro Almodóvar

  Overdose

  NIGHT FALLS. I haven’t slept in three days. My pupils are dilated and my eyes are red. Sprawled out on the bed, almost motionless, I’m convinced my body smells of ether.

  When I turn out the lights in my room, everything falls into shadows. Little by little, piles of clothing start to take human shape. Immobile forms everywhere I turn. As night draws on, they look more and more like the silhouettes of people. It must be the effect of not having closed my eyes in days.

  It’s the middle of summer, and the room I’m renting is on the third f loor of a house in the Bronx. A house made of wood that holds in all the heat. I don’t have air-conditioning and the fan does nothing to regulate the rising temperature of my body. I sweat something that smells like chemicals and artificial sweetener.

  I have a big bottle of water next to my bed, but I can’t bring myself to move, not even to reach for a drink. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t had a drop of water in over ten hours.

  My intestines feel all crunchy because my stomach is empty, but I’m not hungry. I have enough money to order delivery, but something keeps me from picking up the phone. I can’t let anyone hear my voice. The last time I made a call on my cell, my friend asked what was going on, why my voice sounded all metallic, like I was calling from beyond the grave.

  Calling 9-1-1 isn’t an option. I know from experience that nothing good can come of it. First they’ll cart me off to the emergency room, and then straight to the psych ward at Bellevue.

  I pick up the rosary just as I always have since the age of ten whenever I feel rage or fear coming on. I try to pray, but I don’t have the patience. I barely make it through seven Ave Marias.

  I get used to the dark. I can distinguish between objects, but I can’t let my eyes focus on anything in particular. I know that, if I do, I’ll see someone.

  Without wanting to, I look toward the closet. The door’s cracked open. I make out a pair of shoes, and then, all of a sudden, the shoes are attached to a pair of legs. There’s someone inside my closet. I can see him clearly. He has long legs. I sit up in bed and whisper to him to leave me alone.

  Then I see my silk kimono shining in the semidarkness. It’s draped over a suitcase. In a second, it transforms before my eyes into the silhouette of a woman who is facedown, kneeling. I can’t bear to look at her face. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  I lie back down on the bed, which is damp and has a sweet smell. I take a deep breath and decide to start opening my eyes very, very slowly. On the opposite end of the bed, just beyond my feet, the only window in the room opens onto a giant tree that must be over a century old. A faint wind rustles its branches. Little by little, the swaying starts to accelerate and I hear what sounds like voices repeating an unintelligible mantra.

  I close my eyes again and try to breathe deeply. Something tells me it’s all in my head, or it must be the effect of so many sleepless nights.

  I try to snap out of it. I look for the bottle of water at the foot of the bed. I’m not thirsty, but I know I should drink something. I feel better. Better than I’ve felt in many hours.

  I promise myself this really will be the last time. I pull the glass pipe out from under my pillow and open the little plastic bag of crystal meth. I empty some of it into the pipe. I take the lighter and begin heating up the glass bulb. When I see the white smoke building up in the center of the bulb, I take a long hit. I repeat this four times. I wait for the pipe to cool down and put it back under the pillow.

  I lie faceup on the bed. I think of the time I told a friend that wh
enever I’m high on crystal meth and haven’t slept for a few days, I start seeing human forms. This isn’t the first time. My friend said they must be the ghosts of people who overdosed. Looking me straight in the eye, she warned me never to talk to the shadows, never to make any kind of contact with them. I should ignore them. It was for my own good, she said. I close my eyes and try to get them out of my head. But suddenly, everything starts spinning very slowly, in a way that feels almost pleasant, until just as suddenly, everything falls still.

  I muster the courage to sit down on the edge of the bed. I open my eyes and look toward the closet with the open doors. There are the shoes, which now connect to a pair of legs and the shadow of a man. I whisper to him without fear. I tell him this can’t be real, that what I’m seeing is no ghost. I ask if he’s really there, but the shadow doesn’t reply. I say it over and over again until I hear a voice saying no, none of us are dead. We are only shadows. I turn my head to see who’s speaking. My kimono is still being worn by the woman who, just a moment ago, was kneeling, facedown. Now she’s raised her head. I can’t help but stare. She tells me not to worry. Not to be afraid. She tells me to lie down and try to close my eyes. It’s time to rest. They’ll watch over me as I dream. And then the voices disappear and with them go all the colors.

  In the Bote

  THE POLICE HAD STOPPED ME on multiple occasions. The last time was around two months before what I’m about to tell you.

  After leaving the bar, if I hadn’t made enough money, I’d go walking along 14th Street toward 9th Avenue. My friend La Maru lived close by in the Chelsea projects. That’s where I’d change from him into her or from her into him. So taco, taquito, tacón, Iris Chacón. I’d wait to see if anything happened, if any cars showed up. Can you give me a ride? If they said yes, I’d get in. And even if I couldn’t get any money out of them, they’d at least give me a ride. The most they’d do was try to touch my legs on the way. I’d ask them if they wanted anything more. If they wanted to play, they should at least give me a tip. If they said no, pues okay, babe, thanks for the ride. Leave me here.

  One of those nights, almost at the end of the fall, I was doing shows at a bar downtown, one of the many run by the legendary Sandy Michelle. I had to play Bette Midler. So songs like “I’m Beautiful” or “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show” were part of my repertoire. They paid me fifty bucks and gave me open bar. Of course, I always ended up drunk.

  As on so many other nights, I walked along 14th Street to 9th Avenue. As I started to cross 8th Avenue, a car pulled up next to me. The window on the driver’s side rolled down and a sixty-something man appeared. He had pink cheeks and a full white beard.

  “Hi, babe. What’s up? Want to get in?”

  I stood there looking at him. Despite his appearance, and even though Christmas was fast approaching, he obviously wasn’t Santa Claus. I thought in silence about his red snapper face on the streets of New York.

  “Can you give me a ride?”

  “Sure, babe. Hop in.”

  There’s money here, I thought as I climbed in. We hadn’t even made it half a block when a patrol car stopped us. Two officers told me to get out and handcuffed me without another word. I tried to justify myself, saying I’d just asked him for a ride, but I was already prepared to get into the police car.

  The officers went over to talk to my alleged driver. Turns out Santa Claus was undercover. A plainclothes cop.

  It went the same as always, the same as so many times before. They took me to the police station on 14th Street, in New York’s sixth precinct. When they loaded me into the van, it was almost full already. Nothing out of the ordinary, since it was almost five in the morning. The last time an undercover cop caught me, I was the first one in the van. It wasn’t even ten at night, so I had to wait more than four hours for the van to fill up. One by one, they picked up my colleagues, girls they arrested at the exits of strip clubs or who worked in bars. Lots of them had gone over to the undercover cops giving them the whole sexy fool act. Babe, do you want a lap dance? They’d leave with what they thought was a john, and right there in the middle of the street, the police would be waiting. They’d put her in handcuffs and load her straight up into the van.

  But this time, I was the last person aboard the ship. No waiting, straight to the precinct. Nothing left to do but kill time until they took you to be sentenced.

  The first time they arrest you for prostitution, the sentence is to attend a class on safe sex, followed by another on the use of narcotics. When they catch you a second time, they start giving you days of community service: two days cleaning a park or putting stamps on mail at the NYPD offices. The more times they catch you, the more days of community service you get. Once, my friend La Myriam Hernández from El Salvador had to do a whole month of community service.

  I saw all this coming, but there was still something about it that surprised me. A few years before that night, in 2000 to be exact, I’d decided to walk the streets more. Years of hard-core hustling. I always made money or at least got a ride up to Washington Heights, where I lived at the time. From the center of the action down on 14th Street all the way uptown was a long way, but the cars would hop on the West Side Highway and get there in a f lash. I walked the streets at least three days a week. Or, I should say, three nights.

  Hustling on 14th Street in those years was like being right in the lion’s den. Or, rather, in the police’s den, because they’re one and the same. They were always out patrolling. They knew everything that went on and would arrest you if they felt like it. They were always there, always on the prowl.

  After the first month, when those bohemian cobblestone streets finally felt familiar under my heels, just when I’d learned to walk on them almost effortlessly, I started getting caught. They arrested me five times in three months.

  Sometimes they’d catch me when I was inside the car, just as the john on call was handing me the cash. Other times, they’d arrest me just for being in the area. You should thank us, we were waiting for you to make your money, that hypocrite of a lieutenant Torres said to me once. He was in charge of arresting all the sex workers he found walking around his territory. Once he arrested me just for talking to a man I asked for the time. Three patrol cars pulled up in front of me. With all the paraphernalia and the commotion, I thought they must have confused me with some high-risk criminal. Six police officers must have gotten out. I was cornered like a stray cat, blinded by the lights and somewhat stunned by the sound of the sirens. I’d never felt so important.

  It happened so many times and I got so many sentences of community service that, after a while, I started forgetting about the days when I was supposed to be cleaning parks or sweeping streets, and even the days when I had hearings with the judge.

  To get myself out of all this, I decided not to go back to hooking on the streets. From then on, I’d only work in bars. Case closed, I thought. I didn’t know back then and wouldn’t know until this arrest that your absences from community service or hearings turn into guarantees. This means if the police arrest you again, you go straight to jail. To Rikers Island, I mean. Or Las Rocas, “the rocks,” as Latinos call it.

  Normally I’d wait anxiously for the moment when I’d go to court to see the judge, but this time, I wanted the time to pass slowly. I just had this feeling. Maybe that’s why I came up with the brilliant idea of giving them a different name from the one I’d used before. The first time they arrested me, a loca in the van gave me some advice. I should never use my real name. The best thing was to say you were Puerto Rican. That way no one would bother to check if you were legal or illegal. Boricuas are citizens. And when it came to my Social Security number, I should say I’d forgotten it, obviously. The police think we’re all on drugs and have no idea what’s going on around us. That’s why, since my first arrest, I’d been calling myself Juan Cruz. Why Juan? Why Cruz? Beats me. This time, on my way to the courthouse in Midtown, handcuffed in the back of the van, I decided to call myself Luis R
ivera. What could be more Puerto Rican than Luis? What was more Boricua than Rivera?

  But as soon as I got to the courthouse, everything turned against me from the moment they took my fingerprints. They didn’t use ink anymore. That horrible stain that stayed on your fingers for days as a reminder: te arrestaron por puta. They arrested you for being a whore. Well, not anymore. Gone were the days of ink pads. We were in a new millennium. Now you had to press the tips of your fingers to a screen that recorded your prints digitally.

  “Name?” the officer asked me.

  “Luis Rivera,” I answered confidently.

  I waited to see some kind of reaction on his face as he entered my name. For him to realize that the names didn’t match up. I thought he must be used to lying delinquents, because that reaction never came.

  Once all the paperwork was done, they returned me to a cell in the courthouse and I waited to be seen by a judge. After a few minutes, the attorney who was going to represent me arrived, a fifty-something white man. He sat down across from me and started to read my record.

  “Hmm,” he murmured as he read my criminal history. “Are you Mr. Cruz or Mr. Rivera?”

  Back then, people didn’t have the delicacy to ask you for your preferred pronouns. So his mister sounded dry and direct.

  “Call me whatever you like, I’m both,” I answered with a smirk.

  He gave me a look that wasn’t quite a smile. He needed to maintain his composure.

  “I see that your only arrests have been for prostitution. Let’s hope the judge will be benevolent with his sentence.”

  As soon as he said this, he looked back over my record and let out an exclamation.

  “Yes?” I said, nervous.

  “It says here you didn’t show up for your community service twice. And on another occasion, you missed your hearing with the judge. A hearing you requested yourself, as you were pleading not guilty. The judge threw you a bone by giving you another court date to prove you were innocent. And you didn’t show up?”