Enrique

In 1970s Kansas, a worldly dancer brings Patrick Gutierrez closer to the person he longs to be.

Salman Toor, ‘Over His Shoulder’, via Thomas Dane Gallery

I was 13 when I met him, and a door cracked open.

We were surprised when he walked into a meeting of our Mexican folk dance troupe. He was 28 years old then. Born and raised in Guadalajara, he traveled and performed all over the world. He was a professional. For us, Mexican folk dance was a hobby. We were beginners at best.

The founder had worked behind the scenes; she traveled from the midwest to southern California to persuade Enrique to move to Topeka. He would teach us and shape us into something that didn’t exist in Kansas.

He upped our game and we aspired to be better. We learned intricate footwork — zapateados, Enrique called them in Spanish. We created a program to perform, step by step, dance by dance. The boys wore traditional sombreros and sashes, and partnered with the girls in colorful costumes, whipping around their big flowing skirts. I wasn’t good at football, basketball or baseball. I knew kids in my neighborhood and at school, but had no close friends. I was smitten with the troupe. I learned I was a natural. I started to lose weight. My Huskies pants loosened. I wanted my clothes to hang off me.

Enrique was slim and graceful and walked with gliding steps. Light and airy. Brown skin, thick black mustache, feathered hair just below the nape of his neck. It was the mid-70s, after all. When I was around him I felt sparks inside my chest, my gut, my groin. I’d felt charged like that before, around men at church and older boys in the neighborhood, but only from afar. Enrique recognized my talent. I had his attention.

The next summer Enrique invited me to swim at his apartment complex. I felt special, chosen. Mom ok’d it. She knew I thrived in the troupe. Dad had come around to my being good at Mexican folk dance. By that time, some of their friends had noticed that I stood out and maybe Mom and Dad were modestly proud. Maybe they were glad that I made friends and found purpose. Enrique was a mentor my parents probably trusted.

So Mom took me. We pulled into the parking lot of the El Conquistador apartments — white stucco, wrought iron fencing, a bastardized design of someone’s idea of Spanish style. I got out of the Ford Galaxy 500, that tank of a car, and headed into Enrique’s building holding my rolled towel. The hallway air seemed stuck, smelled musty. I knocked on his door.

“Buenas tardes,” or “Come in,” he probably said. The words have faded from memory.

I stepped inside and saw the shimmering blue pool through the sliding glass doors. I changed into my trunks in the bathroom, then he showed me outside. I took quick steps in the thick Topeka heat, across the sun-scorched concrete toward the shallow end. No one else around; his roommate was at work. Enrique watched from the door then turned back into his apartment. I dipped my feet in and noticed my wet footprints on the bright patio. I plopped into the pool. Boy body submerged in cool water. I bobbed my head, carved the water with my arms. I dog-paddled to the deep end maybe 30 feet away, grabbed the edge, then pushed off and paddled back toward the shallow end where I felt safest.

Before long Enrique came out. He had changed into black bikini briefs. Long lean legs and arms. His dark chest hair trailed toward his flat abdomen then veered down below the top of his briefs. I watched him slip into the pool and swim underwater to the deep end. When he came up, he turned to face me. He stretched his arms along the pool’s edge and leaned his head back. I wanted to be that lithe.

Water dripped from his mustache, slid down his skin. A pattern of undulating bits of reflected water sparkled from the sun. He might have said, “It feels good,” or “How are you doing?” in his Spanish accent. We probably talked about the dance troupe, his experiences. I wanted to live that life.

I stayed in the shallow end, though the pull to be closer to him, to feel him, was strong. He didn’t stay long. I watched as he dried off. First his face, then his head, his torso, then limb by limb. When I went inside, he asked if I wanted to take a shower. Shower? I just got out of the pool. I’m going home. It may have taken a few words of convincing, but I felt that sudden charge. I tried to cover it, but I couldn’t hide the stiffness that pushed against my swim trunks. Three feet apart at most, facing each other. My face flushed. Maybe he asked, “What are you thinking about?” The scene is wordless now.

He turned the shower on, then left. I closed the door and peeled my wet trunks down over my flaring penis. In the shower the hardness wouldn’t soften. Then Enrique opened the bathroom door and walked to the sink, the shower curtain between us. So close. I stood still. Shallow breaths. In my memory he pulled the curtain back, looked at my groin, his eyebrows raised. No words. I remember electric currents, tiny points of desire shooting through me.

He started to shave and he began telling me about his roommate.

“Tom and I, we’re close.”

My mind was jumbled. “Close?”

“We sleep in the same bed.”

“You have two bedrooms.”

“Yes, but we sleep together.”

I hesitated before I said, “You touch?”

“Yes.”

“And kiss?”

“Uh huh.”

I took quick steps in the thick Topeka heat, across the sun-scorched concrete toward the shallow end. Enrique watched from the door then turned back into his apartment. I dipped my feet in and noticed my wet footprints on the bright patio. I plopped into the pool. Boy body submerged in cool water.

There is some version of this that is lost to time. I can see water shooting down from above me, feel the ache of my erection, trying to picture the two of them close like that. I wondered what would happen next.

***

A week or so later I returned.

It was new but not foreign. Awkward but natural. My tongue tangled with his, I learned to kiss. A different language. The warmth of the summer sun, the afternoon light, muted by the white sheer curtain in his bedroom. The musky smell of his skin as I ambled my nose over his neck, then down to his chest. The hum of the air conditioner. His naked body pressed hard against mine. Gentle turns into new positions. What probably took minutes felt longer. My nerve endings fired until I felt I was floating. Sprawled on the bed. Held. I wasn’t alone. I wanted to be there, but where was I going?

Afterwards I called my mom. I gathered my things. In my memory the place was quiet. Enrique busied himself in the background. The angle of the summer sun had shifted, more shade over the pool, the living room was darker. I held bigger secrets now — Tom and Enrique, me naked in bed with a man. Maybe Enrique asked if I was ok. Perhaps we said nothing other than good-bye. Relief and fear intertwined inside me. I walked down the stuffy hallway toward the glass door where I waited for my mom. Twenty minutes later she pulled up in the parking lot. Her prescription sunglasses were on. She reached over with her long, sleeveless, pale arm to unlock the door. I got in and held my rolled towel close. I stared ahead, worried that something about me would reveal what had happened.

“Did you have a good swim?”

“Yes,” I said.

14-year-old Patrick Gutierrez and dance partner Adele Martinez Kestner at White Concert Hall in Kansas, dancing Alcaraván from the Chiapas region of Mexico.

Patrick Gutierrez grew up in a small Mexican American community in Topeka, Kansas, with a tall white mom, a short Mexican dad, and two brothers. He moved to New York City in 1982 and danced with modern dance companies for ten years. He’s been a physical therapist since 1999. Patrick started taking writing workshops with Blaise Allysen Kearsley in 2015. He thanks all of the other writers and storytellers he’s had the opportunity to connect with along the way.