Calixto

He blazed through the dirty streets of Browntown, Texas with his cigarette smoke-stained Converse sneakers, his faded and ripped 501 jeans, his magical acne-scarred face, dark-black hair, dark-brown complexion, thin and tall, his eyes said, “let me in your home to steal your jewelry, your money, your television set, your heart,” while his smile vibed waves of undeniable charisma. The smile he emitted was that of a street shark filleting his prey.The womb bathed him in defeat and the lullabies that introduced him into the world were that of a somber tone. No angels sang. No welcoming party waited for him when he was brought home. Faded white walls adorned in cracks and cobwebs for him to stare at as those who were in charge of him were hardly seen, rather heard in the background: cooking, talking, mumbling, whispering, snoring.

 

Of what school he attended I don’t know. Whatever his dreams were, I never heard them. Hardly anybody spoke of him—what he wanted, needed, loved, hated. He was simply the guy who lived with my aunt Janie and slept on her couch.

 

I would come home from wherever to find him sitting in the dark enthroned on a beaten  Lay-Z boy with a tall can of beer in his left hand, a joint in the other and classic rock on the stereo. The lights remained off for fear that he would scream or kick me. The linoleum was cool on hot summer nights as I sat and listened to Wish You Were Here as his “tiny cigarette” popped and lit up in the shadows of what little light came in through the living room window.

 

Calixto, you were one of my idols. A madman blessed with something more indelible than the trivial physical symmetry the world considers good looks. You ignited my nights while cockroaches scrambled on the walls, the kitchen floor, the bathroom. You mentored me unknowingly in the art of zen broken heartedness and handed me a busted, rusted excalibur which was my listening ear for good music. The people chose you from birth to make an example of what a man would look like crawling like a worm all his life. You allowed it.  An artist above artistry simply digging the night breeze as it would hit his sweaty chest from those humid  summer nights smiling to the sound of Roxanne coming through cheap speakers. And he would take deep drags of his tiny cigarette and hold his breath and choke with such delight you think he wasn’t choking but catching a breath of the freshest air known to man.

 

Hints of him crawl forth in some of my conversations, in the way I lay down lines on a woman at a random gas station, the way I sit in the dark and sing along to Whole Lotta Love in a low voice sipping on my Brandy. Sometimes kids walk up to me asking me for a lighter, change, conversation and I notice them wearing a pair of white low-top Converse. I always wanted a pair. I could never afford them when I was younger and now that I can, I pass…knowing that it would take six more of me to fill them.

 

You died of Stomach Cancer. I tell the world I don’t have regrets and its true. But I wish I did, so I could say proudly: ” Calixto, I regret not telling you how magical you made me feel, how strong and complete I became realizing that there is power in solitude, how I come first then the rest of the world. That life without music is a mistake.”  This arcane knowledge has kept me intact as all the ideologies that were inculcated in me, have long now crumbled.

 

It is true I don’t know what it’s like to miss another human being except in death. Calixto, I miss you. And although being a man of thirty-three and no longer a boy of nine, still learning how to love, I can say with less fear now that you’re gone, that I love you. Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight kicks in my stereo as I type this and I realize my heroes are their losers.

 

He was the criminal-no-one-extraordinaire; my Miles Davis; the late-night hustler swindling gold chains, earrings, perfume, anything and everything to keep his Coors beer and Kool cigarettes coming. He was a broken poet without a pen. A madman loving without a lover.

 

He was my Uncle.

∞