I don't listen to heavy metal

Singing like Shakira doesn't make me Shakira, but singing like Roberto Carlos does make me Roberto Carlos.

The Roberto Carlos hits that I like are love songs from the eighties, that's why I can't put them here.

What does Roberto Carlos have that I don't? What does Roberto Carlos have that Shakira doesn't have?

When I tell you that you are my sexual symbol I am not quoting Roberto Carlos, I am saying what I really think.

When I tell you that this is a declaration of love, I am not saying that I believe in love.

I don't believe in love but I could have a bike accident right now and I could break my leg and in the hospital they could believe that dressed like a scarecrow my name is Roberto Carlos.

Get the idea that my name is Roberto Carlos.

Or at least Shakira Carlos.

I don't know any baby, neither female, nor male, nor hermaphrodite, named Shakira Carlos.

When I think of a broken leg, a broken arm and a broken spine, I never associate it with Frida Carlos but rather with Roberto Carlos.

I don't associate Shakira with almost anything in life.

I have thrown Shakira into abandonment.

Shakira disappointed me since that album in English that had to do with a laundry.

I had never been to a laundromat before until I set foot in Miami.

I had never been to a Design District before until I set foot in Miami.

I had never been to a neighborhood called Little Haiti before until I set foot in Miami.

From Cuba you can go to Haiti without a visa.

This is false.

You need a visa to go from Cuba to Haiti and that visa costs an arm and a leg.

Cubans go to Haiti to buy cheap things to sell them in Cuba a little more expensive and to be able to buy onions.

Those who don't buy onions gather a little more to go back to Haiti before their visa expires.

And so on, like amusement parks.

delicious

I worked in Little Haiti as a cook at Loba Restaurant.

The owner of the restaurant hired me because I felt sorry for her.

The owner of the restaurant resembled Shakira in one thing: she was also Colombian.

She named the restaurant Loba to prove to herself that she would get ahead in life, like a wolf in a forest.

When I stop shaving my legs and arms I feel like a Wolf.

There are no forests in Miami so I am a frustrated wolf, without a forest, with a restaurant.

I imagine Roberto Carlos entering the Loba restaurant and ordering a leg of lamb.

As far as I remember, in the Loba restaurant they didn't make legs out of anything. Just octopus, simple fish, salads, steamed vegetables and the like, delicious.

As far as I remember, in the Loba restaurant there was a deaf and dumb woman who prepared octopuses and steamed vegetables with a hand in a cast.

Although her hand was in a cast and she didn't make a speech, like Shakira in the 1990s, the deaf-mute made some octopuses that everyone wanted to try.

I also wanted to try them until one day I tried them.

I put all the tentacles in my mouth.

I almost put the plaster in my mouth.

The deaf and dumb woman was Colombian and her name was Roberto Carlos.

She seemed like a confident, happy person, but she was actually full of resentments.

He seemed like a person with empathy towards others, but in reality he only felt empathy towards his cast.

She would polish her cast and draw on it, giving the impression that she was a budding artist.

Most of the cooks at the Loba restaurant gave the same impression.

I remember that one day I told them: you look like artists.

Well yes, they told me, we are a band of contemporary artists called Restaurante Loba.

A wild restaurant in the middle of the desert of Little Haiti.

All this was happening in the middle of the desert of Little Haiti.

In the neighborhood of Miami called of the blacks.

Where white Latinos don't like to go.

Where the Chinese don't like to go.

To where they displaced the black people who lived in the so-called design district.

How good is the life of designers.

How beautiful is the appearance of a designer.

The deaf and dumb Roberto Carlos cooked the octopus tentacles in their own juice.

Not metaphorically but literally.

When I put the tentacles in his mouth he smiled and began to sing.

I guess my sex symbol is that: a deaf and dumb.

Someone who does not speak, who does not make a speech.

Someone who doesn't hear what I say behind their back.

Someone with a cast and a broken arm.

You don't have to have a mustache like Frida Carlos, but you do have to sing love songs from 1985 in the shower like Roberto Carlos.

Someone who isn't me or has invisible hips like me.

Someone who has hips.

In short, after singing, the deaf and dumb Roberto Carlos told me that the tentacles were full of HPV.

So now the tentacles and I were alike in one thing.

Just like Shakira and the owner of the restaurant.

Just like most people.

We all resemble others in some way.

We all have resentments and viruses.

We've all had a cast at some point.

(Excerpt from unpublished novel).