Hotel La Plantación

I had been mostly working the graveyard shift at the front desk of the hotel in San Juan for about three months, more or less. It was 2004, summer, and I was twenty-one. I needed the money to finish my hospitality degree and the experience to find a better job later. With nothing to do during one parching overnight shift but check-in a few odd folks who arrived late, I wandered about the hotel, over to the parking lot, the restaurant, the bar, looking for Cristina, the clean freak—a buddy of mine. She was eight years older than me and worked as a housekeeper. Some people called Cristina a yal, de la calle, del caserío—from the ghetto. She cursed too much, listened to Daddy Yankee too loud and dropped out of school too young. I had gone to private schools and college, and lived in a gated community. Our paths would never have crossed outside of the hotel, but there we were, both inside La Plantación.

The gringo manager called Cristina mi prieta, my brown one. I called her Tina. She often stole rum bottles from the bar for us. That day, she was going over the laminate floor of the bar with a mop.

“Still cleaning? People left hours ago,” I said.

“Pure pigs is what we had here,” she answered. “These cabrones were not even staying here. Just passing through. Jodios gringos stinking up the place. Why do we let them in?”

“It’s a bar, Tina. It’s open to anyone, even stinking tourists,” I told her.

“They’re a fucking plague. Vomiting all over, fucking in the bathroom. Look at the gunk in the corners. It’s stuck there!”

She dropped the mop and splashed pure bleach over the floor.

“You’re freaking out over some vomit, nena?” I asked.

“And used condoms in the cabrón bathroom!” she said.

Cristina adjusted her cleavage-baring black shirt, wiped off the sweat from her forehead, and continued mopping. “I’m freaking out because this is no job for a human being, carajo,” she said.

*

The next day, during my lunch break, I hung out in the parking lot with Horny Valet Guy. We were sauntering around cars, looking inside the expensive ones, while getting some sun. He was my age and would always flaunt his pick up skills, saying “con mi flow y labia me gano muchas gatitas.” But women always ignored him. He had the glibness of a bad car salesman and showered himself with Samba perfume so gringas and boricuas alike could smell him from the lobby. You’d see him bite his thick lower lip, raise one eyebrow and swagger towards a woman to invite her to go salsa dancing at La Placita.

The gringo manager (we called him the asshole manager) walked out to the parking lot while I was begging Horny Valet Guy to wear less perfume, looking for Cristina to clean after him. We had seen him get a room with a prostitute earlier.

“Where’s Cristina?” the gringo asked.

“Cristina’s in the bar, cleaning,” said Horny Valet Guy.

“Again?”

“No,” said Horny Valet Guy. “Still.”

“Still cleaning what?”

“Vomit on the floor.”

“Again?”

“No, not again. Still.”

“Need a clean up?” I said, frowning.

“It’s one of the suites . . . ,” he said, “but that’s between mi prieta and me.”

*

Back at the bar, I saw Cristina on the floor leaning against the bar table, drinking rum from a bottle.

“Tina, not here.” I said.

“Ay pendeja, let me be,” she said.

“Is that the same bottle you’re stealing for later or was it already open?”

“Open. Ha!”

“Ay, panita. Get up. The asshole wants you to clean the suite. He’s brought a hooker again. Third time this week.”

“Well, get used to it,” she said. “Fuck, I can’t take it anymore. Maybe I should move to New York like my cousin Julia. She’s the head housekeeper now.”

“Gringolandia, really?” I said. “You told me you can’t get ahead over there either—that it’s all a lie.” Tina drank from the bottle again.

“Oye, please finish the floor for me?” she asked.

“That’s your job, I don’t touch that shit,” I said and left the bar.

*

One early morning, a group of five police officers dressed in black and carrying rifles stormed into the lobby asking if George Samuels was staying in the hotel.

“I hope you didn’t check him in,” said the asshole manager.

“I didn’t. I don’t remember that name,” I said.

“We need to see the names of all guests, sir,” said one of the officers.

“I’ll get the list. You, search for all Georges in the system,” the manager told me and left the front desk.

“George, George,” I said looking at the screen.

“Dama, we’re dealing with a sex trafficker,” said one of the agents.

“I hear you. I’m looking.”

A few minutes went by.

“Aquí está. I have a Jorge Samuels,” I said.

“Room?” asked one officer.

“No, no, no,” said the asshole manager as he walked back in with copies in his hands. “We don’t share room numbers.”

“This is a highly dangerous man,” said the officer. “You’re required to release that.”

“Coño,” I said to the manager.

“What?” he said.

“It’s a fucking human trafficker,” I told him.

“Just give us the room number!” said the agent.

“2205,” I said, and the agents ran away, some to the elevators, others to the stairs. More entered the lobby.

“Are you stupid? Why did you do that?” the manager said, fist pounding once on the counter.

“But we had to.”

“I should call the police,” he said.

“They are the police!”

“Maldita señorita,” he said in broken Spanish, “this is not how I do things, comprende? If I want to save a motherfucker like that, I can do it.”

I wanted to spit in his face, but instead I looked down.

The agents came back with a man in cuffs. They walked towards us.

“Please check-out este hijo de puta,” the agent said, holding the guy.

“Okay, let’s see . . . Samuels, Jorge,” I said, a little jittery, while the average-looking, Aloha-shirt-wearing sex trafficker stared at me. “You have a refund for $137.50. Let me get that cash for you. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty. Five and two, that’s seven, and fifty cents. Here you go,” I said and directed the cash towards the criminal. Our eyes met for a very long and disgusting second. Then the agent intercepted the money, asked for a receipt, and left with the man and all other agents.

“He looks like you,” I said to the asshole manager.

And he did. They both had the same empty look in their eyes, the same thirst for power over others. The trafficker and the manager were beasts of the same ilk, de la misma calaña, just working in different fields. He knew the things he had done could get him arrested, too.

“I hate this island,” he said.

“Go back to Virginia, no one is forcing you to be here,” I said.

“I have to sell paradise, honey. Welcome, fellow gringos! Come get kidnapped and sold in Puerto Rico!” he yelled. I rolled my eyes.

“Que cabroncito es,” said Cristina when I told her about it. “We are the ones who were kidnapped. All Puerto Ricans. And you and I are stuck in this gringo hellhole, selling the fake Puerto Rico to tourists who only want to see pretty tropical shit and ignore how fucked up things really are. We are still kidnapped by los Americanos! Puñeta, we are sellouts; we bent over for the gringo. I only work here because it’s the only place that would hire a fuck up like me. But you? Don’t you stay here. Go back to college and escape this plastic paradise. Yo ya me vendí y vendí mi patria bien cabrón. It’s over for me.”

*

After a while, you forget it’s summer. You don’t remember what morning it is or what night. You’re just holed up inside a hotel. I’d worked with a few free hours between shifts and sometimes took a room to rest instead of driving home. One night, I couldn’t sleep. The sun was coming out when Cristina knocked on my door, rum bottle in hand. She was with Horny Valet Guy. The three of us walked out of the hotel, through the pool area, and then to the beach. We laid on the wet sand next to a graffitied wall, the early morning sun shooting into our faces and the scent of rum escaping from our mouths.

“I want to meditate in an ashram like that Eat, Pray, Love gringa,” Cristina said.

“Let’s go to a coffee plantation,” I said.

“I’ll go to any of those with you, gatitas,” said Horny Valet Guy.

“Maybe I can find some purpose or some divine in me,” said Cristina.

“These coffee places have museums inside . . . some are bed and breakfasts,” I said.

“I like B&Bs, I’m down,” said Horny Valet Guy.

“Om,” said Cristina.

*

Cristina and I had a great time driving around, racing other cars, and drinking rum after our graveyard shifts. The day was hot and bright. It was one of those times when you just stay on the road longer than you need to, to hell with everything else. We got to the coffee plantation and took the basic tour, the one that shows you where the slaves slept and then takes you to a little souvenir shop for a sample of freshly roasted coffee. But we saw ourselves as the slaves who once worked the land there. Fuck coffee, we declared. They were kidnapped from their homeland and taken to a tiny Caribbean island so someone else could enjoy a cup of coffee? They never returned home. They’re our ancestors. It hurt in my bone.

Yo ya me vendí y vendí mi patria bien cabrón. It’s over for me.

“I can’t believe we have colonizer blood,” Cristina said while looking at a tote bag inside the souvenir shop. “I hate that my African and Taíno blood is mixed with the blood of killers.”

“I’m sure we’re more African and Taíno than Spanish,” I said.

“Claro, I know I am. But you are not.”

“I might be lighter than you, but I have dark hair and brown eyes. Look at my aquiline nose.”

“I’m looking at your thinner lips, straighter hair, smaller butt . . . And that aquiline nose? Caucasian.”

“I could pass for Taíno, Tina,” I said. The store clerk side eyed me for a moment, so I whispered: “If I tan a lot, I could maybe even look African.”

“You sound racist,” she said. “Stop making shit up. You look Spanish. You have more killer blood. Nothing you can do about that. And you are treated like a princess because of it, you know that, right?”

When we got back in the car, I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. I could see that I was a white Latina, but I could still find my African and Taíno people in my features. I had never considered it before, though—my privilege. My life had been easier than Cristina’s. I too had inherited the pain and gunk of colonization and it was stuck there in the soul of my eyes, but the colonizer had been less harsh with me because I am lighter.

We left the plantation and drove fast to make it to the hotel in time for our night shift. Cristina said it was my fault, because I insisted we took the long history tour from hell.

“That was the worst. All that slavery talk makes me want to punch someone. And now we’re late,” she said while “Gasolina” played in the background.

“It’s what happened. You wanted them to lie to you?”

“And one sample of coffee? Really?”

“You could have all the samples you wanted. I had three.”

“No, we couldn’t. The lady told me I was allowed just one.”

A car zigzagged on the opposite lane, getting closer to us.

“Yes, we could,” I said. “Didn’t you just hear me? I had three.”

“That’s a cabrón gringo tourist in a rental, being reckless as always,” Cristina interrupted.

“He’s gonna hit us.”

“Slow down, then.”

“What if we hit him first?” she said, eyes engorged.

“What are you saying? Slow down!”

“A ella le gusta la gasolina!” she sang along with the music and stood on the gas pedal.

We were about to touch the other car when the driver saw us. He hit the brakes and stopped by the side of the road.

Cristina laughed for a while and then cried.

“What’s wrong with you, Tina?”

“I’m so fucked up, tan algarete. I wanted to hurt him for a moment, maybe hurt myself, but then thought that scaring him was way better,” she said.

*

We made it to the hotel and found out we were two hours early for our next shifts. Our drunkenness had tricked us. It was getting dark now, and we walked to a nearby park by the beach, rum flask in hand. Young surfers, mostly tourists, were walking by us holding their boards and soaking the pavement with sea tears. They come and use our waves, take salsa lessons, drink our rum. They like flirting with local women. When they’re satisfied with the season, they catch a plane and go back to gringolandia.

“Yes, model for me, surfing whores!” Cristina mumbled, drunk. “Let’s flip this privilege buuullshit.”

“Hey, babe,” said one dude.

“Hey, you fucking gringo!” Cristina yelled to his ear.

“Oh shit, you smell bad,” he said. “You’re hammered, bitch.”

“Tina, leave it!” I said.

“Just more killer blood!” Cristina said to him as he walked away. “You can take that fuck-me haze back to your country!”

The surfers drove away in their Westfalia.

“Let’s sit here, nena” I said. “One more hour to go. Let’s sober up, ta’ bien?”

“Ta’ bien,” said Cristina.

*

After working our shifts for a few hours, we took a meal break in the car, all fucked up and tired. Cristina was passing out on the driver’s seat. I saw the morning dew on the windshield, responsible, showing up on time. The white Puerto Ricans from Condado jogged by us. The comemierdas in suits drove past us on their way to work in their ritzy offices. We ate cold croissant sandwiches with Perrier and went back to work.

The asshole manager had brought a prostitute to the hotel again and Cristina was waiting for her to leave the hotel to go clean the room. But before stepping out of the lobby, the prostitute stopped by the front desk and asked me to break a hundred-dollar bill. Cristina was standing nearby.

“Don’t break shit. Don’t touch her shit,” Cristina said to me while holding a mop.

“What are we mad at her for?” I asked.

“Puta!” Cristina yelled and for a moment I thought she said that to me and not the woman in front of me.

I did nothing. The woman yelled, “más puta eres tu!,” looking at me.

“What did you do to her?” asked the asshole manager as he walked to the front desk, looking at me and then at Cristina.

Horny Valet Guy was standing by the sliding doors and walked towards us to listen. He usually followed the prostitutes to their cars, talking to them on their way there. A couple of times he came back with their phone numbers. He thought they wanted to date him, the bastard.

“Go clean the suite!” the asshole said, looking down, clearly pissed. Cristina started walking.

“Not you, Cristina. You,” he said, looking up and pointing at me.

“I’m not a housekeeper,” I said, surprised.

“She’s front desk. They don’t clean,” said Horny Valet Guy.

“Now you will clean, too,” said the asshole, gesturing towards the elevators. “Step out of the front desk; see it as part of a more well-rounded training.”

“I’m already done with my training. I have permanency,” I said, not moving an inch.

“She permanent now,” said Horny Valet Guy, leaning against the front desk and winking at me.

“I can revoke that. Mi prieta knows about that,” the manager said.

Cristina walked slowly towards me and stretched her hand over the desk. She grabbed a Hotel La Plantación pen and notebook and wrote: “Go.”

I didn’t know what she meant. “Go” as in go clean or “go” as in leave this dump. She had warned me about staying here.

“I’m not cleaning after this bastard,” I said to her, whispering.

“You don’t get to pick what you do and don’t do here,” the asshole said loudly. “Your boricua princess days are over. Go and clean, mi jincha.”

“Just grab the mop,” Cristina said. “The rest is on the suite’s floor.”

“Really?” I asked nervously. Cristina didn’t answer. She left the mop by the desk and walked away.

The valet guy left to help with the luggage of some wide-eyed tourists who had arrived.

The asshole manager stared at me.

I felt nauseous, maybe from all the drinking, maybe not. Then I remembered my plan of saving for college. Maybe that’s what Cristina meant. Go clean so you can leave one day.

I grabbed the mop and walked to the elevators. That day, I stole my first bottle of rum from the bar.

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