Album familiar - short story - Latin America: Private Eyes & Time Travelers

"You staying here?"

"No, first let's see," I answered.

We went to another room, equally furnished, except it was dominated by an imposing wall picture of a girl with enormous breasts looking innocently at the camera. In yet another, before the photos, we found a man on his knees with his eyes cast downward as if in prayer. I closed the door trying not to make a sound.

Romero opened one more door and on the bed we saw a man crying and masturbating desperately. He turned to look at us.

"Pardon," breathed Romero.

"Forgive me. I forgot to close it. Wait a second. I won't be long. I'll finish, clean up, then you can come in."

Now Esteban seemed bewildered. It wasn't what he expected. No transvestites grotesquely disguised with fake breasts and full smiles with lipstick-stained teeth. No men making a mockery of halfwaylove, or anything. Only rooms full of memories and dark incense.

"You can take whatever room you want," Max told Esteban. "You can take as long as you need. You can look at them, dream, masturbate, cry, pray like the man we saw. The rooms are full of memories. Records by Billy Holiday, Janis Joplin, Nana Mouskouri, Madonna, and a lot of others. When we rescue something special we bring it here, where we keep all our memories, even if it only means hurting more."

Esteban looked at us, turned around, and went into the room dominated by the huge wall photo.

"Wow," said Perro, "and I thought that we were going to have to recommend him to some homosexual group like the one from Carma."

"That's why there's no use thinking, Perro," I commented, "We've made enough mistakes."

We each chose a room and, once more, shut ourselves in with the past.

COPYRIGHT 1994 Fairleigh Dickinson University
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group