Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn Read Free Book Online Page A

everybody happy?” Andres glares at us, his hands resting imperiously on his hips. Pedro bends over and picks up the packet without saying a word. When he has disappeared back into the men’s room to finish cleaning up, I turn to Andres. “You’re really an asshole, boss.” It’s Andres’s turn to blow me a kiss. “Takes one to know one,” he answers smugly.
    “Mister Heartbreak”—Andres nicknamed me, the first and only time he ever propositioned me. He didn’t seem to mind when I turned him down. Sometimes I don’t understand him. When I told him about my father, he shook his head in admiration. “You’re lucky you have Negro blood,” he said, “a little black is good for the soul.” This is the miser who treats Pedro like a slave. What a weirdo—a man of contradictions! He makes novenas to Tina Turner and Donna Summer: “Divine putas with juicy lips,” he calls them. “Immortal women, the way I like them.”
    “Just like your mother,” I tease. Andres, who is notoriously thin-skinned, calls me a black bastard. But I like him just the same.
    “DON’T FORGET THE LYSOL!” he yells. Andres leans forward and lights my cigarette. He pours himself some awful Spanish brandy. His puffy mestizo face with its prominent nose and broken blood vessels is tinged pink with excitement; Andres can’t wait for his bar to open so he can reign over his establishment, all that really matters to him now. He could never accept the fact that I’m CocoRico’s main attraction, the DJ and real star of the show. I’m sure Andres considers me one of his charity cases, just like Pedro.
    Andres wears his long, dyed black hair swept back into a greased ponytail. “My gaucho hair, my tango hair,” he proudly calls it, adjusting his signature Basque beret. In his youth, Andres Alacran was known as the best tango dancer in Manila. He was so good, they brought him in to teach all the old movie stars at Mabuhay Studios; he even made cameo appearances in quite a few musicals. The Fred Astaire of the Philippines, “El Professor de Tango”—Andres has all the clippings in his scrapbooks from bygone days to prove it.
    Andres discovered his one true love, a genuine hermaphrodite named Eugenio/Eugenia, starring in a traveling freak show—the kind I saw as a child in those sleazy carnivals that pitched their tents on the outskirts of Manila. Uncle used to take me. We’d see The Bearded Woman from Mexico, a stocky wonder with glittering eyes, thick wavy hair like Jesus, and a full-length beard. The Borneo Man, a terrifying spectacle with his forlorn eyes and python’s body curled up on the makeshift stage. Seven Little Dwarves Direct from Zamboanga, asleep in matching cribs, unfortunate infants with the wrinkled faces of old men, dressed in red jester’s caps and matching red booties with tiny bells on the tips of their curled toes. The Man from Java knew Uncle personally and proudly made his living tearing the heads off live chickens with his teeth. The gloomy, dusty carnivals thrilled me. I could never get enough.
    Eugenio/Eugenia. Andres talks about him all the time. I’ve seen pictures. Faded sepia photographs inscribed: “Yours truly, E. 1937. Love, Always.” Andres and Eugenio/Eugenia dancing the tango together, Eugenio/Eugenia’s head thrown back in a graceful swoon: 1938. Corny , but that’s a Spaniard for you. 1939: Andres in a striped, boatneck French sweater, the kind he still wears from time to time. “My Apache look,” he giggles. He wasn’t bad-looking then, I’ll have to admit, except for that parrot’s beak of a nose. He wore his ridiculous beret in every picture.
    Holding a long cigarette holder, Eugenio/Eugenia poses in a beaded flapper dress, his square-jawed, unsmiling face and pretty Chinese eyes heavily made up. Some of the photos are tinted, the hermaphrodite’s lips painted a bright red, his cheeks pink and rosy. Everything is slightly off, carefully posed and artificial. “Wasn’t he