Geta, Angely Mercado [simple ebook reader .txt] 📗

The M train was usually empty at 2:00 a.m. and I had taken it to avoid the crowds on the other trains, but for some reason there were still people on board. I had prayed for the car to be empty but for some reason luck just wasn’t on my side lately. My own best friend wasn’t even at my side. I stared at the stains on the floor and began to remember.

The first time I had taken the M train with Chino was two years ago. It all started when we had passed a blunt around in his apartment and stared at the welcome mat with the kittens on it. We giggled until tears of mirth crawled down our faces. To me, the kittens looked like demented hairy dragons holding plátanos. To Chino, they looked like fluffy robotic chickens.

The hunger pangs hit us after a few minutes of laughter and clutching stitches on our sides. We tore at a sheet of seaweed Chino found in the back of his fridge and shared my flask of warm Brugal rum. While we chewed, I stared at Chino’s eyes as they became redder and smaller.

“Can Chinese people see correctly?” I slurred.

“I have better eye sight than you douche bag, and I ain’t Chinese, I’m Japanese.”

“Boss calls you Chino.”

“Boss is stupid. Anything with Asian eyes to him is automatically a chino.”

“You let me call you Chino.”


“You’re not Boss, so it doesn’t really matter.” He winked at me.

I giggled and tried to throw a piece of balled up seaweed at Chino’s face. He swayed, trying to dodge my seaweed and stand at the same time. He stumbled and fell back down in a drunken haze. His butt hit the chair, making it slide back a few inches.

“Help me up asshole,” He muttered, holding out his hands.


I grabbed his arms and lugged him up as I wondered why he was trying to put his coat on. The television was showing a corny holiday movie. We had agreed to ignore the holiday festivities this year and that day we were hanging out in Chino’s house ignoring New Year’s Eve. I looked at my phone and the time said 12:30. Another year had come and gone but Chino and I were still here, living day by day in our shabby apartments in East New York.

That New Year’s Eve was cold, even for winter. Global warming had granted us two sunny days of 40 degree weather that week, but on New Year’s night the sky smacked down a cold so bitter that only the hand of God could have been responsible. People bundled up before leaving their homes, but I was pulled out of the apartment so suddenly, I didn’t even have time to grab my gloves.

I swore when the icy air seeped through my coat and prodded at my bones. Chino laughed; amused at the little dance I had performed in order to shake off winter’s death grip. He passed me the flask. I kissed the opening and swallowed until he snatched it away.

I don’t remember how we ended up on the Manhattan bound M train, but I remember how Chino and I had our faces pressed to the glass of the windows as we stared at the street lights below. After a few stops, we grew restless. I attempted pull ups on the horizontal poles that hung over the seats. Chino cheered me on and made his way to a vertical pole as I hopped down onto a seat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Junichi Watanabe, the world’s sexiest Asian and his sidekick…Luis the lame Latino!” Chino shouted at the empty car while he spun around the pole and stripped off his jacket.

The train rumbled towards the Williamsburg Bridge. An automatic voice announced that the next stop was Essex Street. The train reached the bridge and made its way over the river to Manhattan. Chino’s eyes widened as he stared at the skyline. I never understood why he loved bridges so much.

“Hey Luis,” he laughed, “is it New Years in California?”

“I think so.”

“Wooo! Happy New Year Luis!”

Chino leaned in and kissed me on the lips. It was warm.

I let him linger for a moment, and then pushed him away. Chino fell and landed on his back. We stared at each other for five seconds and burst out laughing. I reached out to help him up.

A teenage girl’s shrill laughter jarred me out of my thoughts. I scowled in her direction and tried not to let envy build up when I glanced around the train car. I was the only person on board who was sitting alone. The M descended into Manhattan and I stared at the screen, pretending I actually gave a damn about what time it was. The train continued its subterranean path and I was the only passenger who noticed.

Two years ago, after the train had crossed the bridge and went underground, Chino screamed.

“Roller coaster!”

We had raised our hands above our heads and howled.

I don’t recall how we made it home and neither did Chino. We woke up on the floor of my living room with a foul taste in our mouths and pounding headaches. But we had to work that day. There was no other choice. Our relentless boss demanded a delivery of goods to the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. I was running another delivery today. I still wasn’t used to doing them alone, but I figured this was Boss’s way of making life harder for me now that Chino wasn’t around.

“Hey Boss, have you heard from Chino lately?” I had asked the last time I was called in.

Boss looked up at me from his seat. It didn’t matter if he was sitting or standing, being near Boss made my stomach clench. If I stayed in a room with him for too long, the sharp predator look in his sunken grey eyes made me feel like a rat in a cage.

“Chino who?” Boss had responded.

I remember how cold sweat dripped down my back, matting my t-shirt to my skin. A few months before I asked about Chino, one of the other “delivery boys” had asked Boss if he had seen a guy named Markus.

“Markus who?” was all that Boss said.

Later that night over Tex-Mex food at a restaurant up in Jackson Heights Queens, Chino and I contemplated over what could have happened to Markus. It wasn’t uncommon for someone to just want to quit such a hectic job, but their motives or methods weren’t exactly publicized. Working with Boss wasn’t safe and we both knew it. Shady alleyways, empty subway stations, and public restrooms were our niches when it came to work. Every once in a while, rumors would float around regarding someone who had cheated Boss or was caught trying to contact the authorities. So far, Chino and I had never really discussed it in depth. But the idea hung heavily around our heads. It seasoned our food and floated in the air, kissing our noses like the perfume of an expensive escort from the Upper East Side.

I kept contemplating the question that I had asked Boss for days. On the days I was called in, I had to run deliveries and think about Boss’s response to my question sans food and a best friend. I thought about how we had both known that our “job” as street pharmacists put Chino and me in a 1984-like situation. George Orwell’s prophecy seemed to carry on into modern day. The government wasn’t our “Big Brother”, Boss and the reality of our job was. Truth, un-truth, person, and un-person. We’d give it a definition and then Boss would come and scramble it all up.

The friends and couples on the M rattled my nerves and dragged me out of my thoughts again. I had to count to 10 several times just so that I would calm down enough not to tell someone to be quiet. I left the train, made several deliveries, hopped back on the M near Chinatown and headed home. Had Chino been with me, he would have insisted on buying bubble tea or some takoyaki before heading back to Brooklyn. I transferred onto the L and got off once the train reached Canarsie.

I stopped at a grocery store and decided to walk past Chino’s apartment. For the last week or so, I had been taking the long way home from the train station just so I could walk by his place. Every time I passed by, the shades were closed and there weren’t any lights on, but I figured stopping by one more time wouldn’t hurt. From up the block I was able to see boxes covering the front steps of Chino’s apartment building. My heart quickened its pace and my feet followed suit.

The shadow of the row of apartment buildings loomed ominously over the sidewalk like a bad omen as I approached the front steps of the apartment. The landlord heaved boxes out onto the sidewalk. He grunted and tripped, spilling several items onto the sidewalk. A pair of wooden sandals tumbled out of the open box along with a few other things. When I bent over to pick them up, the landlord demanded to know where Chino was and if I had heard from him recently.

“Mr. Watanabe owes rent money and it looks like he hasn’t even come home in over a month.”

I was then given a description of the chaotic state of the apartment which included drawers flung open, clothing all over the bedroom and the stench of garbage which hadn’t been taken out in a month. I assured the landlord that Chino hadn’t contacted me in weeks. We made small talk for a few minutes as I nodded and shoved my hands into my pockets so that the landlord wouldn’t see how much they were shaking. As more boxes were eventually dragged to the curb, I grabbed the wooden sandals, Chino’s batman t-shirt and a random CD.

The pilfered items were tucked into my bag as I sprinted off to my apartment. I dumped the loot on my poor excuse of a kitchen table and stared at them. I tried to find clues in the creases of the shirt that could tell me where my best friend had gone.

The sun set over row after row of apartment buildings, it shot red rays of light through my window before it disappeared. The streets grew darker and quieter and I couldn’t help but wonder if Chino had eaten dinner. I looked at my fridge and remembered how last October, every time we had received our pay, Chino and I would purchase and devour bowl after bowl of spicy cup noodles. Last summer we had a thing for Dominican food and Chino would often demand that I make him mangú with shrimp on top. Before he disappeared, we seemed to be addicted to tofu, blueberry scones and veggie chips. Without him around, there didn’t seem to be a point in craving anything in particular.

I swallowed a bowl of cereal without really tasting it and wasted two hours staring at my cell phone. For some reason I had convinced myself that if I kept it nearby, Chino would sense it on the