Mom took us to spend a few days at the Torre de Acapulco during the summer vacation of 97. Dad didn’t come with us because of a supposed job interview. From the balcony of the apartment that our grandpa used to lend us, you could see the point where the beach turned into jungle. Up there I’d fantasize about how impressed my elementary school teachers and classmates would be if they could see what I saw. I wanted them to know that even though we drove here in a crappy car and lived far from Mexico City’s pretty neighborhoods, my brother and I couldn’t be the poorest kids in school if we had the best view of Acapulco.
Mom would go down before dawn to lay out towels and reserve three lounge chairs in front of a giant swimming pool. We could spend a half an hour making our way around it when we played taxi. I would latch onto a floatie noodle that my brother, taking on the role of driver, would pull around the pool. The trip ended when we arrived at the deep end, where the water fell forcefully from a concrete diving board 10 meters long known as “the waterfall,” which our parents warned us was dangerous to swim around. The waterfall never ceased to intimidate me; sometimes it took me several days to work up the courage to jump off. There are photos tucked away in our family photo album in which I appear pinching my nose, tight-jawed, in mid-flight.
During breakfast Mom told us that, while reserving our lounge chairs, she had bumped into the parents of Bruno Campillo, a schoolmate from my brother’s class I had never talked to before. I felt encroached upon; the Torre de Acapulco was the only place where I still dared to play kids’ stuff. I decided not to bring down my Max Steel and convinced my brother to not bring down his toys or even talk about them.
Before we got to our lounge chairs Bruno waved hello, excited to see us. His darker skin paired with his small pink nipples and perfect belly button that, to this day, I cannot get out of my head. I felt confused: I experienced the same difficulty looking him in the eyes as I did with Paula Macías, the girl I had been in love with since kindergarten and who I thought about whenever Mom set the radio to the songs on Nueva Amor 100.1 that made her cry.
I was afraid that the desire in my eyes was too obvious, that Bruno would call me a faggot, or worse, that my brother would find me out. I felt worked up and guilty, like when I pretended to be sick so I could stay in the apartment, go out on the balcony naked and fantasize that all of the people, reduced to ants thirty floors below, were able to see me.
I was relieved when Mom called for us to come back saying she had a surprise and Bruno said goodbye. When we got there, the waiters had just brought two enormous banana splits. While we devoured our dessert, Mom showed us a photo of Dad posing in front of the Quebrada.
“When did he stop smiling?” she asked herself more than anyone else.
“Ever since you started scolding him for wearing pajamas all day,” replied my brother as he struggled to stretch out his tongue far enough to reach the chocolate smeared on the tip of his nose.
I remember that I had taken a long nap in the lounge chair, waiting to let my stomach settle before getting into the pool, when Bruno laid on top of me, completely soaked. My brother laughed and I pretended to be annoyed. I wrestled with him a bit to get him off of me until I felt his hardened penis against my thigh. I froze up, his eyes locked with mine, and he smiled. That’s how I discovered that there’s something to brown boys’ smiles that the pink and slim vagina from my poster of Pamela Anderson just didn’t have: not only are they arousing, they also warm your heart.
My brother suggested to Bruno that we play taxi, and he could be the driver. I turned to look at him, infuriated: I had made it clear that I didn’t want to play kid’s games that day. But contrary to what I expected, when my brother explained what it consisted of, Bruno liked the idea.
I latched onto the floatie noodle next to Bruno and my brother started pulling us.
“Where will you be off to, gentlemen?”
“Please take us to the waterfall, but make it quick!” replied Bruno.
“Business trip?”
“Indeed,” I replied.
“No, it is our honeymoon,” corrected Bruno.
I began to panic — I thought my brother would call him a faggot and try to defend me — but he responded: “Congratulations. You will never forget this trip.”
“Where are we passing through now, driver?” I said, hoping to change the topic as we entered a deeper part.
“Australia, madam.”
The three of us laughed. Seeing Bruno smile again encouraged me to say in a high-pitch voice: “What beautiful kangaroos I see going by! Can you see them?”
Bruno let out a laugh and shouted out: “Yes dear, I see kangaroos in bikinis!” as he pointed towards a group of young American women.
He smiled at me again and I felt protected, but in my feminine form: I was a lucky woman to have such a caring husband. What mother never had. I raised my voice even higher upon seeing the streets of Tokyo as we passed by an Asian-looking man, probably from Oaxaca. I yelled with theatrical fright that Godzilla was destroying a skyscraper when I pointed at a waiter hanging from a palm tree collecting coconuts. Bruno took my hand to calm me down and didn’t let go as we admired the Torre of Acapulco transformed into an enormous Eiffel Tower, as we navigated through crocodiles in the Amazon when passing by a group of elderly German tourists, as we celebrated seeing our school go up in flames in the distance. Until we arrived at the waterfall.
“Here we are. That will be 10 million dollars.”
“Thank you, here you are.” Bruno let go of my hand and pretended to take a wad of bills from one of his pockets.
I swam off towards the deepest part. The tingling between my legs returned when I noticed that Bruno was following me and my brother was swimming away. I continued swimming to where the waterfall crashed into the water, keeping an eye out for divers. I knew we would be hidden behind the falls and Bruno could try something else. Before he could reach me, he paused while staring at the bottom of the pool. I waited for him for a few seconds, but since he wasn’t going anywhere, I went to see what he had found.
“Was that mosaic there last summer?” he asked me in an odd tone.
“No, it’s terrible they put that picture down there,” I said while looking where his submerged hand was pointing.
“I’m going to see what it is.”
Bruno dived under the water before I could stop him and stayed several seconds at the bottom. I was about to call for help when he finally came to the surface.
“I touched her, it’s not a picture!” he said, struggling to catch his breath.
“What should we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell that guy.” I pointed at a plump man bathed in suntan lotion stretched out on the recliner like a walrus.
I let Bruno leave the pool by himself; I was always very shy about talking with adults. I assumed they would all be as grumpy as Dad. I could see how the man shook his head no and Bruno was getting increasingly desperate. After two minutes he convinced him to jump into the pool with us.
“Down there,” Bruno told him, looking as though he was about to cry.
“Probably nothing down there, you stupid prieto.”
“Yes there is!” I yelled, enraged by what he had called him.
“I’ll kick both of your asses if this is some kind of prank, blondie.”
The man yelled at his daughter, a chubby girl wearing a pink one-piece swimsuit, to bring him his goggles. She took her time removing the headphones for her Discman; it looked like she was waiting to finish a song she was humming along to. She looked for the goggles half-heartedly while swearing under her breath, tossing beer bottles and packs of cigarettes to the side. When she found them, she threw them to the pool and put her headphones on again.
“Soon as I get out of here I’ll knock the snot out of you, spoiled brat,” said the man, knowing that she couldn’t hear him anymore.
He spent more than a minute adjusting the goggle straps. When I noticed that Bruno was crying, I missed his smile.
“It’s probably nothing, stupid fucking kids.”
As soon as he plunged his head underwater, the man began to scream hysterically:
“Somebody’s drowned! Somebody’s drowned!”
Bruno and I swam to the edge, a group of men jumped into the pool to try to rescue her, but others had to go in to rescue them because in the midst of so much effort and confusion they themselves had started to drown. They yelled that she was very heavy. I heard Mom call my name. As I got out of the pool and moved away from Bruno, I caught a glimpse of four men arriving from a neighboring hotel in tiny red swimsuits. It was the first time I felt attraction towards a grown man. When I got over to Mom and my brother, I saw from a distance how those beautiful men brought up an enormous blue woman from the bottom of the pool. After that, an absolute silence.
Ricardo Guerra de la Peña (Mexico City, 1992) is a writer and literary workshop instructor. He was a recipient of the Young Creators grant from the Mexican National Endowment for Culture and Arts in 2019-2021. His writing can be found on literary websites such as Este País, Tierra Adentro, Punto de Partida, and Confabulario. His twitter handle is: @ricardoguerrap.
Tyler Gebauer is a freelance literary translator who has worked for organizations and writers based out of Chicago, Mexico City, Bolivia, and El Salvador. His literary translation has been published in Modern Literature. You can find him online at linkedin.com/in/tyler-gebauer-1992n.
