EPILOGUE

Eight years have passed since I first went into the prisons. In that time, I could have committed a murder and served my sentence. It is obviously very different to go to prison every day and be able to leave at five in the afternoon. Nevertheless, it is never easy to be in there, even when you know that at the end of the day you can go home and forget, at least for a while, the suffering you have witnessed. It is also impossible not to become fond of the inmates, including those who have committed horrible crimes. Even the venomous Clitoris became my friend. The poor thing was very disappointed when I told her that she would not be the main star of my study, though I promised her that if I ever wrote a book about transvestites in jail, she would be the first to feature in it. With some resignation, she later told me about her many adventures in her cell. She could not decide between Burro and Calza de Muela, two of her suitors. On several occasions I tried to encourage her to choose Burro, because I felt that he was her best bet -- he still had all his teeth. However, a week later, Clitoris would be back with Calza de Muela, because she said, “what good are teeth to me, anyway ?” She was eventually released, only to be murdered a few weeks later in Panama. They say she was found with her throat cut, in a pool of blood.

On other occasions I listened to Pedro’s stories. He had killed three people, including a transvestite in Heredia prison. I remember hearing his excuse -- that his victim had asked for it -as I noticed out of the corner of my eye, that the guards had locked the cell we were in. What would happen if he turned violent? Would I end up as mincemeat?, I wondered. But he had no feelings of violence toward me. His anger had been aroused by the infidelity, the betrayal of the transvestite. While Pedro proudly told me how he had stabbed his victim with a knife and how he had then cleaned up the “mess” because he didn’t like “filth”, I though of the poor transvestite who had fallen in love with Pedro. “But Pedro, don’t you think it’s a bit crazy to have killed him because he went with another man?”, I couldn’t help asking him. “He knew I was very jealous and he loved me to spy on him,” was his reply.

One day I had to comfort Toro because Angelita no longer went to visit him. She had been released from prison and it was rumored that she prostituted herself on the street. “No, no Toro. How can you think that she’ll betray you with someone else, when she loves you so much?”, I said hypocritically, to alleviate his suffering. “She’s a transvestite and you know how they flirt in the street”, he said weeping. “I know many transvestites who are very decent, housewives, faithful to their husbands, who go to church and are Christians,” I said. “Well, that’s because the bitches are fucking the priest,” was his reply. I remained silent because the truth was, I had seen Angelita whoring the night before on the corner of the Clinica Biblica (a well-known haunt of transvestite prostitutes).

I cannot deny that I also had my suitors. Once, a handsome young man sent me a love poem. It said I was the ideal man for him, that he found me extremely attractive and that I was the main character of his erotic fantasies. Although it would never occur to me to have a relationship that was unprofessional, I cannot deny that my ego felt somewhat inflated. When I told my work colleague that I was still considered attractive, my illusions were quickly shattered. “But don’t you know that this guy likes to strangle old foxes?”, he said.

I do not believe that the criminal mind exists. Rather, I believe that there are people with less control over their instincts. As Pico de Lora, my guide during all these years, says, “criminality is latent in all of us.” Any one of us, given the right circumstances, can fall into it. We are susceptible to good and evil; if you do not believe me, read about what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust. I cannot stop thinking that those who end up in jail are, in their great majority, the poor. I know many respected businessmen who have swindled the government. Others have made fortunes from contraband. Every day, some bureaucrat steals the people’s money and very few are tried and punished. The big drug dealers generally do not end up behind bars. Are these not the ones who really deserve to rot in jail ? On the other hand, some poor devil who has stolen a pig or a color television is locked up. As Toro says, in this country, the law is to punish the poor. “The rich can even kill and a few days later, they’re drinking martinis in the Country Club, while they discuss Aristotle with their buddies,” he concludes.

But I am not here to write a book about the judicial system. I am here to describe a sexual culture, though Pico de Lora (and many orthodox historians) may doubt that sex is part of culture. Some will believe that sexuality is an instinct like hunger and that we are programed to respond to the call of reproduction (the only normal form of sexuality, according to them). If I have learnt anything from this study, it is that sexuality is more elastic than we would like to admit. We are a product of our culture. This does not mean that we cannot make changes and break out of the mold, but these changes and “rebellions” are responses to what has been handed to us. Few people invent something new. There is a limit to what we can do with our bodies and minds. For this reason, I do not think our sexual orientation is determined by hormones, genes or differences in the hypothalamus. If that were true, “cacheros” would not exist.

I do not believe that I know any more about sexuality than the inmates. Some “experts” have told me that inmates are really homosexuals, like any gay, who simply do not dare to come out of the closet. A gay journalist told me bluntly: “If they could live their sexuality openly, without fearing rejection, they’d all be gay.” I do not believe that. I have learnt to differentiate between gay culture or homosexual culture and the culture established by other minorities such as prisoners, sailors, prostitutes, policemen and others with extensive experience of sex with men. Inmates are not homosexuals in the broadest sense of the term: the majority do not feel attracted to other men, they like women and do not share a background of having “felt different”, which is common among homosexuals (though not universal). Gays have no right to claim as their own minorities who do not wish to have anything to do with them, and have no desire to be represented by their “leaders”. Pico de Lora himself confirms this: “One evening this queen who’s the head of some gays’ organization calling itself the pinks or the triangulars came out speaking on behalf of all men who have sex with men. Who wants to be represented by some effeminate faggot? If I felt I was a part of that group I’d rather slash my wrists.”

With regard to the relations I have described, I have learnt much about human sexuality. The prisoners’ need to establish asymmetrical relationships also has its logic. In a patriarchal society such as ours, gender differences are so great that heterosexuals have no need to add more differences to the ones they already have: men and women are beings who are socialized in a different manner. But in the case of relations between men, both have been raised in a similar way. To maintain the chemistry of attraction, it is necessary for some to play a different role from the others. According to Pico de Lora, “people are attracted to something different, to what they don’t have.” If his argument is correct, prison culture stimulates this differentiation in order to maintain the interest of some towards others. Perhaps one of the most basic motive for sexual attraction is the desire to possess what one does not have; perhaps not. The “cacheros” will seek the most feminine part in the transvestite and vice versa, and the older man will be drawn to the youth of the “güila”. The foxes will look for qualities other than youth or femininity.

Prison culture is not much different from the culture of other sexual minorities. When Pico de Lora asked me, the day we met, why I was interested in writing this book, I did not have an answer. Now perhaps I have a better idea. Minorities have many things in common. One of these is that we are confined by prisons, real or imaginary: our space is limited; there are places which we cannot enter; our bodies have been colonized and our differences have been silenced. “Yes, Pico de Lora, though you may not believe me, I know what it’s like to live in a prison too,” I can now tell him. “But you’ve got money, you can leave this place and rub shoulders with the people who’ve got all the dough. How can you compare yourself with me?” was his reply. “But Pico de Lora, tell me the truth, don’t lie to me, don’t try to please me, don’t oil the wheels. Am I the same as the guards, the Ministers, the prison officials, the priests, the lawyers ?”, I ask without knowing the answer. “No, you’re crazy. You come in here, where everyone wants to get out, you eat the same shit we do, you bring workshops and entertainments, you’ve cried with us, you haven’t looked to see what you can take or get out of this, you’re crazy,” was his reply. “Thank you, Pico de Lora. That’s the best thing I’ve heard in my whole life. It’s time to go and write this book.” My guide escorted me to the fence which separates the two worlds and gave me a hug. I feel like Orpheus who has descended into Hell in search of something lost, trying not to look back this time.