LAMPS FOR SALE

1977

Every afternoon when classes end at the Colegio Americano in Vista Hermosa, Guillermo hitches a ride downtown with his chauffeur-driven friends. The driver drops them off at the Portal del Comercio amid the crush of polluting public buses, and they make their way between the stands of cheap clothes and toys lining the arcade to the Klee Pharmacy and El Cairo, where the promenade starts. They stroll the length of Sixth Avenue to the San Francisco Church looking into shop windows and cafés, hoping to catch sight of one of their female classmates drinking a Coke or having ice cream at one of the sidewalk cafés. If, after a block or two, no one has been sighted, they settle down at a window table of some dive to drink beer and talk, gossip. To see and be seen.

The truly rich girls park themselves at Café Paris, Restaurante Peñalba, or L'Bonbonniere near the Pan American Hotel, and drink large Cokes through straws. They are the shapely and more stylish versions of their mothers, many of whom now wear Reeboks and sweatpants when they go downtown. The boys — dressed in their Farah pants, Gant shirts, and wingtip shoes — are younger versions of their businessmen fathers, without the mustaches.

The boys in Guillermo's group like going to the Fu Lu Sho because it's dark and the food is cheap. The restaurant is angular, with little round tables and booths with red upholstery. The boys act like big shots for about an hour, but the girls never come in because they aren't interested in boys pretending their parents don't have money. Then around five they scramble off to meet a mother or father or aunt or uncle, who gives them a ride home to Los Arcos or Vista Hermosa or Simeón Cañas. This is the daily pattern now, awaiting graduation.

Guillermo lingers behind because he will hitch a ride with his father, who leaves his lamp store, La Candelaria, at precisely six. For that one hour from five to six, he sits alone and watches the secretaries and stenographers who work in one of the Edificio Engel businesses come down for a Fanta when they're cut loose at five. He fantasizes about hooking up with one of them, one who might want to join him for a beer and egg rolls. He ogles the ridge of their breasts popping out of their patterned Dacron dresses. Acrylic sweaters are tied around their shoulders to fend off the night air — he loves their dark, shapely legs, their cheap high heel shoes, the red lips with too much gloss. If they would only look at him! But these older girls don't even know high school boys exist.

Fridays are different. Guillermo and his friends hurry downtown to see the four o'clock feature at the Lux — the latest Paul Newman or Robert Redford film — or they go over to the Capitol Mall to play video games under the haze of cigarette smoke.

* * *

In March he meets Perla Cortés at La Juguetería, a toy store. He's there buying a new soccer ball. She's getting a plastic dump truck for her baby brother. She's a "neighborhood girl" (the term used for someone whose parents aren't rich) in the tenth grade at the Inglés Americano, a second- tier high school. They talk, go have a mixta and a Coke at Frankfurts, and immediately she becomes his first steady girlfriend. They begin meeting on Fridays and going to the movies, since her mother works as a nurse until six at the Cedar of Lebanon Hospital on Eighth Avenue and 2nd Street. He takes her to the movies at the Cine Caitol and buys luneta seats, always near the back, where he can put his arm around her.

As the credits are rolling on their first date he accidentally brushes her firm breasts while standing up. She actually purrs, pulls him down, and snuggles closer. He feels an erection forming and puts a hand on her left leg. She happily takes his hand and brings it to her panties so he can feel how wet she is. She opens her legs, slips his hand under the band toward her pubis. She directs his forefinger inside of her and begins squirming and grinding, letting out little whimpers. At some point she pulls his penis out of his pants and strokes him till he comes mostly on the cinema floor.

Three of their dates end like this.

But on the occasion that Guillermo's pants become the target of his sperm, he decides he can't continue seeing Perla. Their sex feels mechanical, and he has difficulty accepting the fact that she's the one initiating the foreplay. He thinks the man should be in control.

He arrives at his father's store late, with his shirttail out.

This is the last time they are together.

* * *

"I want you to start working with me, Guillermito." Nothing would make Günter Rosensweig happier than to have his son become the financial controller of La Candelaria. His daughter fell in love with a woman and is living in San Francisco. "My only son, working alongside his father."

"Dad, I don't want to talk about it now." They are at home. It is a Sunday, a week after Easter. If a resurrection took place the week before, thousands of years ago, Guillermo is unaware of it. Lunch has just ended. His mother is in the kitchen barking instructions at the new maid. He has to escape upstairs, get away, do anything but discuss his future employment with his father. "I have to study for my finals."

Günter smiles proudly. He imagines his mathematical son overseeing sales, handling the ledgers, while he continues to attend personally to the customers. "You would be a big help to me. You know I like Carlos, but I don't want him inheriting my business."

"Pop!" the boy yells desperately. His father has a round, freckled face. His stringy red hair is combed back. His brow is always knitted and his eyes are constantly looking at the world with genuine expectation: the prospect of being liked, of concluding a sale; wanting the world to conform to his desires. There is expectant hunger in his eyes.

"I won't live forever." He had a heart attack two years earlier which almost did him in. Guillermo knows that it would kill his father outright if he had to leave his business to Carlos, his most...