CANELA
“When I started out, there were no condoms, and not as much information about disease,” says Canela. Her voice is rough and her missing teeth make her a little hard to understand. She continues: “But we knew how to take care of ourselves. A friend explained to me what diseased penises looked like. One day a client came to me, we made an agreement, went to the hotel, and he flipped off the lights. I told him I didn’t like it with the lights out but he insisted. He took his clothes off and I turned on the lights. His dick was full of pus. I told him I didn’t want to get sick, so I wouldn’t take the job. He answered that it was a different kind of semen, and nothing would happen to me. I told him that was bullshit and I left the room.”
After she fled the hotel room, Canela says that the sick man returned with a cop, who questioned her. “He complained that I hadn’t fulfilled the agreement with the man. I told the cop we should go to the room so he could see what I saw. He agreed. We went to the room and the guy pulled down his underwear so we could see his dick. The cop made a disgusted face and detained the client. I stayed healthy.”
Canela has been at the nursing home longer than most: “When I got to the city I was sleeping in the street, in whatever park, on whatever bench I could find. You can’t even imagine the solitude you feel. When I came to Xochiquetzal I found food and a roof.”
Her eyes stray, and she starts crying. She feels good now, she tells us, but the workday is hard. She has to sell 200 sticks of gum a day in order to get what she used to earn in 15 minutes when she was selling her body. The work is different, but her route through Tepito is the same as years before. |
