The ‘Sandor Case’

The 'Sandor Case' / 14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz
Posted on January 31, 2015

In tribute to El Caso de Sandra (The Sandra Case) by Luis Manuel García
Méndez
14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz, Havana, 30 January 2015 — A farmer wakes up
before dawn to brand with a burning iron the last cow he has left. It's
a ritual of pain and possession. A tourist brands a young person in one
of Havana's cabarets and takes them to bed in exchange for some money.
The brands are different, but both as permanent.

Sandor was born in the countryside and was raised to be rough. When he
reached adolescence he had already castrated and slaughtered pigs. His
wide shoulders, olive skin, and oriental eyes earned him town-wide fame
as being "hot." Since he was young he felt the pressure of desiring
other men. It was like a permanent breath down his neck that followed
him everywhere.

His father had deep wrinkles around his mouth, a group of them also
skirting his eyes. The hours in the furrow, beneath the sun, had cracked
his skin and his character. He started drinking rum with his friends in
the afternoons after work, but ended gulping anything he found. One day,
Sandor saw him downing one of his grandmother's perfumes. His mouth
smelled of sweet roses for hours.

Sine he was little, Sandor resolved not to end up like his father. After
he turned 16, he packed up what little clothes he had and went to
Havana. He arrived at night and walked from the train terminal to
Fraternity Park, where the lamps were off and one could hear moaning
coming from the shadows. "This is my thing," he immediately said to himself.

Between footlights

In Las Vegas Cabaret, the air smells of urine. There are tables far from
the lights where almost anything can happen. Sandor watches, empty-eyed,
the male stripper show unraveling on the stage. The bodies shine from
the oil they have been rubbed with.

A sixty-year-old moves forward and puts some bills inside one of the
dancer's underpants. Sandor follows him with his eyes and later sits on
his same table. He's wearing very tight clothes and his muscles stand
out provocatively, but competition is strong. He is part of a sea of
ephebes practicing prostitution that will battle to see who takes the
foreigner to bed.

"I am a male sex worker, a pinguero," he says shamelessly to anyone who
cares to hear him. He offers his goods to any buyer, although he
emphasizes not considering himself a homosexual. Sometimes his clients
are women, European and in their fifties, but his main market is made up
of men who come "de afuera" – from abroad. Cuba is a promising
destination for gay tourism and Sandor casts his rod into the turbulent
river waters of caresses for money.

He fixes himself up constantly while speaking, an eagerness for physical
perfection that makes anyone who approaches him feel ugly and wrinkled.
He has shaved his eyebrows and painted them in a fine, high arch. On his
arms, his forearms, his chest and his pubis there isn't a single hair.
Hours of painful hair removal have left his skin smooth and even.

He prefers this world to days of working in construction, erecting walls
or putting roofs together. He spent his first months in Havana working
with a brigade of bricklayers, but he couldn't stand it. Now, the palms
of his hands feel soft from the body lotion he lathers on to please his
partners with caresses, but during those times the hammer and chisel had
left him with rough and ugly calluses.

The Malecón, Central Park and the private Cabaret Humboldt, on the
street bearing the same name, are his habitual working grounds. "I go
looking for yumas [foreigners]. I get there and, in between drinks, the
zorreo [flirtation] begins and then comes business," he says when
describing his modus operandi. There isn't much to say in those places,
because those who visit know the codes and steps to take in order to
leave accompanied.

"I never leave with a Cuban, even if he has all the money of the world,"
assures the young man. The rates range from 10 to 100 CUC, so he seeks
to reach a middle ground so as to not sell himself "for nothing" but
also not to end up "more alone than the 1 o' clock peal." Not few times
has he had to exchange love for objects, like a watch, a pair of shoes
or an expensive bottle of cologne, but "I prefer cash," he says.

The hours to "expensively sell oneself" are before midnight. After that,
"the goods lose value and you have to take whatever comes your way." He
learned that language, or jargon, while working in a produce market.
Amid dirty sweet potatoes and the smell of rotting onion, he understood
that wasn't the life for him. "Now, in one night I can make as much as I
made in a month behind the counter of an agricultural market."

Below the sun-faded awning where he sold fruits and vegetables, the
first foreigner branded him. This, in street slang, means identifying
someone and exchanging seductive glances. He was Dutch and had come to
buy some plantains, but he noticed Sandor and invited him for some ice
cream. That night, they slept at the Hotel Nacional and for the rest of
the week he didn't show up to his job at the produce market. He had
never been in a hotel, so he jumped on the bed and left the faucet open
for hours. He swallowed his breakfast almost without chewing it and the
tourist gave him a gift of some clothes.

At that time, Sandor lived with an older woman, through whom he was able
to get a transitional address in the capital written down on his
national ID card. Without that, he was in danger of being deported by
the police if they asked him for his ID on the street. One night he
arrived with a lot of money, a bottle of wine under his arm, and she
began to suspect. While he slept, she checked his cellphone and found a
picture in which the Dutch man held him by his fly. In the middle of the
night, the woman threw his clothes from the balcony and told him never
to return.

Later he had a Mexican. "When this farmer saw himself driving a rental
car, with a gold chain and money in his wallet, he got used to this
life," he recalls while speaking of himself in the third person.
However, he says he prefers Europeans and North Americans because "they
pay better and are more delicate." He had an African only once, a doctor
from Luanda who gave him many gifts.

Beginning some years back, Sandor has had a routine he repeats daily. He
gets up at noon and tries to eat only protein. "No bread or fried things
that make me fat; my body is my enterprise," he brags. He also takes
vitamins and spends hours in the gym. "Pingueros are better paid than
the most regal prostitutes," he points out while lifting several pounds
of iron to render his biceps irresistible.

At the gym he met Susy, a transsexual who is also in the business. She
helped him find more select clients with more money. They both work
without pimps, although there are groups of pingueros that pay others to
protect them as they try to make a living in certain territories. On the
corner of Payret Theater one can only work if "one is protected" because
police harassment is very harsh, explained Susy on the first week of
friendship.

The police know the hook-up zones well. Some of the officers fight to
patrol those corners or streets to get money in exchange for looking the
other way. It's a profitable business, where the pinguero has everything
to lose if he doesn't give the cop a piece of the prize or do him a
sexual favor.

Sandor prefers not having to show himself off on the street, instead he
looks for his clients inside of clubs, cabarets, and other local party
scenes. His ID with a transitional Havana address expired and he is now
illegally in Havana. If he comes across a troublemaking policeman, it's
very probable that he will be deported to his home province.

Since he arrived in the city, he has been detained on various occasions.
He has three warnings and could be tried for the charge of pre-criminal
dangerousness. The last time he was inside a police station, the officer
told him that he knew what he was doing, so he changed his area of
operation from Old Havana to Vedado and Playa.

The danger is not only to end up in a courtroom, it's falling victim to
police extortion and having the entire night's earnings snatched away

The danger is not only to end up in a courtroom, it's falling victim to
police extortion and having an entire night's earnings snatched away. If
he had a pimp, then he would protect him and keep la fiana, or the
police, away, but since he works alone, he needs to deal with those in
uniform. The worst thing is ending up in a cell, because there anything
can happen.

The price of meat by its hanging weight

Every day, the market becomes more competitive and each client wants the
best porcelain for the smallest price. The illusion of buying a home or
supporting a lover with what you make is a thing of the past. A wrinkle,
a bit of belly that may show when you strap your belt will signify tens
of convertible pesos in losses. "On facial and body treatments, gym and
clothes alone, I spend most of what I make," he says while showing us
his Dolce & Gabbana underwear. Most likely they are a counterfeit of the
Italian brand, but, even so, they cost about a month's earnings for a
regular state worker.

He doesn't scout his clients on looks because he confesses that his work
does not give him pleasure and it's been a long time since he has felt
anything. In order to give a good performance of his role, he tries to
think of some porn film or he drinks some alcohol. Sometimes he thinks
of a girlfriend he had back in his town, when he still wore his middle
school uniform and life seemed simpler.

But that was a long time ago. Now he has to work very hard. Cuba
continues to be a cheap destination for tourists searching for a night
of wild passion, but there are many young people for sale and prices
decrease. For months he disguised himself an "intellectual" with sandals
and went to Plaza de Armas. There, he feigned looking at books on
displays and branded the yumas, capturing various sleepless admirers of
Che who wanted to feel "the clay of the new man."

Susy has shown him how to tell the ones who are forrados (the wealthy
ones) apart. It's in the details; like being treated to bottled water or
a Heineken beer on the first date. He once knew a German who, in
August's midsummer heat, would pack his own beverage in his backpack and
wouldn't even offer a sip.

The man turned out to be so stingy that Sandor got payback and applied
la segunda, which is to take him in a taxi to where, supposedly, they
will spend the night. The client would have paid for the room in advance
and when he gets out, the driver hits the gas and "if I once saw you, I
no longer recall." He later had to share his earnings with the taxi
driver, but at least he taught the miserly man a lesson… "so he learns,"
he would chuckle to himself for weeks.

The best case is when an old client recommends a pinguero to his friends
and so more come over. Sandor spent some months with a group of Japanese
businessmen because of that, but the Cuban government didn't pay them
what it owed and no one from the company ever came again. When he
remembers those days his face lights up and he shows off a gold tooth,
"it's a shame they didn't come back, because they were very polite and
had a lot of money.

In the world of the pingueros there's someone for every taste and every
wallet, but Sandor explains that "the one you see there, with the nice
watch and the fancy cellphone, most likely if a yuma propositions him
for 20 CUC he will say no" and he will demand that he give him more than
the 150 he already has in his wallet. But those older than 20 can't make
such high demands. "Fresh meat, the fresh meat always wins," he says
with some melancholy as he touches his hardened thigh muscles from hours
at the gym.

When Sandor closes a deal, he goes off to a privately rented room. A
bed, condoms, and it's all set. Nowadays he prefers private rooms to
hotels because they're more intimate and he also gets a commission for
taking a client. Some of them are just like hotel rooms, with air
conditioning, Jacuzzis, minibars, and mirrors on the ceiling.

Sometimes he gets a client who wants a longer relationship. Those are
the most yearned for. The biggest success of the operation is finding a
foreigner that will support them from overseas. The highest price for
his caresses is to manage to leaving the country. But, make no mistake,
on the other side he says he wants to abandon this lifestyle. "I'll load
bags onto ships with my bare back or mop floors in a hospital, but I
won't return to this filth."

For the moment, while waiting for the foreigner who will get him out of
here comes around, he dreams of buying a motorcycle. When he has it, he
wants to show it off in the same areas he has offered his goods, but
this time with a "hot girl with a killer body" on his arm. That will be
his small revenge for all that's past.

Maybe he'll go back to his town, to see what's become of his dad. He
will take a bottle of aged rum for him and get his grandmother some new
perfume. From that trip "I'll come back with a country girl to wash and
iron my clothes who I can also introduce to the business." He plans to
live off of her for some time, but, if they have a child, "he has to get
out of this shit, he has to get out of this shit."

Translated by Fernando Fornaris

Source: The 'Sandor Case' / 14ymedio, Lilianne Ruiz | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-sandor-case-14ymedio-lilianne-ruiz/