Chapter Eleven
Xavi
Xavi had been sporting a semi since Cheese Gate, a constant, pulsing need just lingering below the surface of his skin.
For a second, as Xavi licked the cheese off his thumb, he could’ve sworn something passed between Lulu and him, something heady and potent, like an electric current.
Not a spark entirely, but more of a low buzz that could’ve easily flared into something much more explosive if he’d allowed it to.
It was probably just in his imagination or a result of that mind-blowingly delicious cheese, yet Xavi could neither shake the feeling nor his hard-on.
Shit, it was a hard-on, wasn’t it? Not a fucking semi.
“You mind if we just take a break at the next exit?” Lulu eventually said a little after Toledo. “There’s something I wanna check out,” he added, an indecipherable expression on his face.
Xavi shrugged. If Lulu felt the need to stop, sure. He probably needed to pee again. The second he’d ordered the iced tea at the Mexican food vendor, then another to-go, Xavi knew Lulu’s pee-a-thon was commencing.
Grinning shadily, Lulu left the I-90, and after a few minutes, he turned onto what appeared to be the main street of some generic small town.
“Where are we?” Xavi yawned, ready to get out of the sardine tin.
“Gálvez,” Lulu grinned wider, as though he’d just said Nashville or San Diego, acting as if Xavi ought to know what the hell Gálvez was.
“Gálvez? What the fuck is in Gálvez?” This was so typically Lulu. For all he knew, there was some obscure tourist attraction that exactly 1.2 people visited a year. Like some giant mushroom that resembled Roosevelt when you looked at it from a certain angle.
“You’ll see.” Lulu looked all smug, then pulled up in front of a house which resembled every other house in small-town USA.
White-picked fence, wrap-around porch, and…
Xavi swallowed, his stomach doing a somersault, then another.
Sucking in a breath, Xavi turned slowly toward Lulu, who just sat there beaming at him, bouncing up and down in his seat from pent-up excitement.
“Why are we here, hermano?” Xavi rasped.
“Why do you think we’re here, oso?” Lulu wouldn’t stop smiling, his nose scrunched up into a cute frown, that fucking rose tint pulsing on his cheeks.
“But…” Xavi licked his lips, his mouth dry like the desert.
Then he read the small sign next to the gate again.
My Little Lorca Museum. What the hell? It couldn’t be, could it?
Surely not. Who would place a Lorca museum in the middle of nowhere in small-town Ohio?
It had to be something other than a museum for the Lorca.
As in Federico García Lorca, the greatest poet to ever live, if you asked Xavi.
“Wanna get out and take a look, or are you just gonna sit there and gape?” Lulu knocked his shoulder against Xavi’s before he reached for the door and opened it.
“Lulu, wha—?”
“C’mon. You’ll see. They’re expecting us.”
They’re expecting us. Xavi gulped, then opened his car door slowly, trepidation coursing through his body.
This was how most horror movies started, and he’d seen a few with Abe.
One wrong turn. A town out in the middle of nowhere.
A house that looked quaint and inviting on the outside, and then BAM!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Latino version.
Xavi had barely gotten out of the car when the front door blasted open, and a little old lady, followed by an even older man, blew out of the house like Lulu and Xavi were the Second Coming of Christ.
“Welcome!” the woman chirped, her light blue eyes twinkling with pure joy.
“Lulu, right? I’m Gwyneth.” She blatantly ignored Lulu’s offered hand and pulled him into a hug so fierce it should’ve been physically impossible with how frail she appeared.
The older man headed straight for Xavi and started speaking to him in Spanish, welcoming him to their humble museum, which was, Xavi soon found out, truly a museum dedicated to the Lorca.
Then, before Xavi knew what was happening, it was his turn to be hugged to within an inch of his life, while Lulu started chit-chatting with the older man who’d introduced himself as Ernesto.
“Come, come.” Gwyneth pulled at Xavi’s sleeve as they trailed behind Lulu and Ernesto up the stairs to the small bungalow.
“I made tres leches cake this morning. You have to try it.” Xavi found himself nodding, his head spinning.
He caught Lulu’s gaze overflowing with fondness as they were led into a small living room and coaxed onto a sofa that was barely big enough for the two of them.
Soon, they were bombarded with cake, cortados, and questions, and Lulu answered for the most part, his mouth stuffed with tres leches, Xavi still too stunned to speak.
Looking around the small living room, there was an old map of Spain adorning one wall, along with shelves upon shelves of books about the Spanish Civil War, the Franco Regime, but mostly just poetry from both Spain and South America.
Xavi’s mouth watered. Most of them looked old, perhaps even first editions, although he didn’t dare hope.
Noah would’ve blown a fuse if he’d been here because there were some by the Chilean author Pablo Neruda, too, a new favorite of his.
Fuck, there was an old edition of Espana en el Corazón which could very well be a first edition.
“Are you ready?” Gwyneth reached out her hand to him when they’d finished the cake.
“You ready to meet Federico?” Her blue eyes swam with unshed tears, and it was clear to Xavi that it meant something to her to be able to share her home, her little museum, with a fellow lover of the great Spanish poet.
Xavi nodded, accepting her hand, then got up, following her through the kitchen and up the stairs to the first floor, which turned out to be entirely dedicated to Lorca.
“But how…” Xavi whispered in awe as he took in what looked like he’d traveled back in time to 1930s Spain.
From the furniture to the music spilling from an original Brunswick record player to the shelves filled with Lorca’s famous works.
There was even a small desk, which looked like a replica of the one he knew Lorca had owned.
Where he’d written all his masterpieces, giving the Spanish people, his people, a voice.
“This is just…” Xavi turned around in a half-circle, his eyes meeting Gwyneth’s, then Ernesto’s and Lulu’s, who’d followed them upstairs.
“Vamonos,” Ernesto said, pushing first Xavi, then Lulu further inside the room. “Don’t be shy.”
“Why Lorca?” Xavi rasped.
“Why not?” Gwyneth said, a tender expression on her weathered face. “Because we must never forget. What he endured. And the actuality of his words. As long as there is oppression, there is a need for Lorca and his words, don’t you think, my young friend?”
Xavi nodded. It was true. As long as there was oppression… Lulu looked at him, his almond eyes covered by a wet sheen, his lips curled into a tender smile.
“Gracias, mano,” Xavi mouthed at him, and Lulu blushed, then shrugged, mouthing back a “De nada, oso.”
After that, Xavi lost track of time and disappeared into 1930s Spain.
Gwyneth told him how she’d studied Spanish literature in Madrid many decades ago and how she’d met Ernesto at a protest against the Franco regime.
Ernesto had been in prison for a while, and Gwyneth had been forced to go back to the States.
Through years of separation, all they’d had to offer them solace and invoke hope were the words Lorca had written decades earlier, fighting the same oppressor.
Eventually, after years of incarceration, Ernesto came to America to be with Gwyneth.
“What is your favorite collection?” Gwyneth eventually asked Xavi. He loved all of them—every single poem, the plays too—but there was a collection of ballads which had always stood out. Still did.
“Romancero Gitano,” he whispered, and both Gwyneth and Ernesto nodded simultaneously, like they’d already known the answer.
The Gypsy Ballads. Written between 1924 and 1927, the collection was first published in 1928 and comprised eighteen lyrical poems, all of them masterpieces in terms of their mythic allusions and Freudian symbolism.
Moving toward the back of the room, Gwyneth skimmed the books, then stopped, tapping her fingers against the spine of one of them, before pulling it from the shelf.
Hurrying back to Xavi and Lulu, she placed it ceremoniously in Xavi’s hands.
“There,” she said, and Xavi didn’t even have to look at the book to know it was a first edition; the mere feel of it against his fingers told him so.
He swallowed as tears pressed behind his eyes.
Lulu reached out and squeezed his shoulder, leaving his hand to rest there briefly before he pulled away.
“Take as long as you want,” Ernesto said, then tugged Gwyneth after him out of the room, the sound of their feet padding down the stairs bleeding into the background, as Xavi’s heart pounded in his ears.
“Read to me,” Lulu said, his voice heavy with emotion. “Read me your favorite poem, oso, and make it mine too.”
Xavi’s gaze flew to Lulu’s. What was happening? He’d never seen this side of Lulu before, like peeling a layer off an orange, unexpectedly revealing a strange fruit underneath.
“Read to me. Please,” Lulu repeated, wrapping his fingers around Xavi’s wrist, pulling him toward a small loveseat next to a window facing the backyard.
Sitting down next to each other, Xavi carefully opened the book, searching for the one poem he knew by heart, in both the original language and the English translation. This version was, of course, Spanish.
“It’s called Romance de la Luna, Luna.”