Jody had the reputation of always haciendo males. Since he first started walking, he never passed up an opportunity to do a mal, like pulling down the tablecloth in the middle of dinner. Consequences didn’t matter. Nor did the investment of time and effort to do a desmadre.
He was thought to be behind most males in the Southside, like broken streetlights, police sirens at any hour, blasphemies graffitied on church signs, and dogs barking in the middle of the night.
It wasn’t that he was a bad kid. He was universally thought of as good-hearted and friendly, even something of a little mama’s boy. He had many friends and was credited with many favors throughout the community. It was just that he sought attention by doing males, and he was quite creative at it. His signature was that you couldn’t prove he did it, although everybody knew he did.
As midnight approached at Tita’s crowded New Year’s Eve party, everybody had their eye on Jody.
“What mal is he gonna do tonight?” people whispered.
Jody stood in the middle of the crowd alone smiling at everybody.
The tension in the room was peaking, to the point the room had grown silent, as if everybody was expecting a crash of kind.
“Hey, another mamón left the toilet seat up!” Chabelita broke the impasse with a shout.
Jody looked over at her and smiled widely. Chabelita took it to be an admission of guilt.
“That you, Jody? Desmadroso. Hacienda males everywhere you go,” she said.
Everybody turned to look at Jody, who kept smiling as if his next and imminent prank was playing in his mind.
“Chale. I haven’t even been in the restroom,” he said smiling after a long pause.
“Pos you look guilty de amadres. Didn’t your jefita teach you restroom manners?” Chabelita said.
“Pos I don’t know what those manners are, but if you’re talking about the seat, I never put it up anywhere,” Jody responded.
“Then how…,” Chabelita started to say.
“I sit down like my jefita taught me to do it,” Jody said.
Chabelita rolled her head and eyes. “
“Then who did!” she said looking toward the crowd, which had grown silent.
“I wanna go home now, grandma” a child’s voice said.
Tita looked down and saw it was her grandson.
“How’d you get here, mijo?” Tita asked the little boy.
The little boy looked toward the restroom.
“Where were you when we took all the huerquitos to bed?” Tita asked.
The little boy looked to the restroom again.
“Jody said hide there so I wouldn’t have to go to bed,” he said.
Everybody turned to where Jody had been standing, but he was gone.
