Sanchez. Lopez. Valdez.
Many Spanish family names are affixed with the -ez ending.
Gutierrez. Resendez. Marquez.
And many traditional family names include paternal and maternal surnames, so sometimes you get a hyphenated twofer known as a “double-barreled surname”: Alvarez-Perez.
They might even rhyme on occasion: Hernandez-Fernandez. Yañez-Ibañez. Vazquez-Velazquez.
Like the –son ending in common English surnames, the Spanish –ez suffix is patronymic, meaning it denotes the lineage between father and son. Benitez means son of Benito,” Enriquez is the son of Enrique” and Bitchez is one son of a bitch. Ha! That’s a little joke I lifted from the movie Tonto Y Más Tonto, which is a Latin comedy directed by Jaime Suarez-Ramirez. The titular characters (Gomez Juarez-Martinez and Mendez Melendez-Menendez) were played respectively by superstars Goyo Chavez-Miguelez and Diego Dominguez-Valdez.
I don’t know what it is about the names of those two famous actors, but I used to get those guys confused all the time. Maybe it’s because they look alike, or because Goyo is married to Inez Estevez-Ramirez and Diego is married to Maria Nuñez-Gonzalez—two Latin fashion models who are also very similar in appearance. Whatever the reason, I know now that I will never confuse them again, not after what happened that Sunday afternoon in that shopping center in sunny Los Angeles.
I can give two reasons why I was there that day. Number one: I needed new underwear. It was March and after three months it had finally dawned on me that selling all my crusty undies on Craigslist in a bid to go commando was a fucktarded new year’s resolution. Temperatures were rising and I realized that swamp season was no time for a man to be caught without a crotch hammock—unless he’s a fan of scrotal bat wings, which I’m not.
Reason number 2: I ♥ slapping people in the face. Don’t ask me why, but it makes my pee-pee pop a wheelie. However, I can’t just go around in public smacking mugs all day because The Pigs will stick their nosy snouts all up in my bee’s wax. So when I need a fix, I settle for slapping inanimate life-size facsimiles—like statues or cigar store Indians. It’s not the full ecstasy that comes with a true facial swat of the flesh, but a minor thrill can still be achieved nonetheless.
So I freeballed my way over to the shopping center that day and I drove down to the third level of the parking garage before I found an available spot. The elevator carried me to the second level of the mall and deposited me directly into one of the anchor department stores. I made a beeline for the men’s department and as soon as I got there, I spun around like a pimp ninja and totally bitch-slapped one of the mannequins. It was borderline gazmo, but before I could even relish the tingle in my ‘nads, a killjoy salesman ran up in shock and murdered my nut buzz.
“Sir, what in the world are you doing?”
“Just browsing.”
“Why did you strike that mannequin?”
“There was a fly on it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Look, I need sexy new underwear. Are you gonna help me find some manties or what?”
He glared at me momentarily before picking up the straw Fedora I had knocked off the mannequin when I palm-fucked it, and then he turned back to me with a pursed grin and said, “Follow me, please.”
At first I thought he might haul me off to mall cop jail, or at the very least, escort me to the exits; but a few steps later we were in the men’s undergarment section and the guy was helping me assemble the most righteous collection of chones this side of the Mississippi. He was a true gentleman and a consummate professional. I gave him a pat on the back to show my appreciation but what my hand really wanted to do was prison rape his face. Lucky bastard. He’ll never know how close he was to getting the shit slapped out of him.
After paying for my undergarments, he asked me to fill out a survey card based on his performance. I wrote down “four slaps out of five” and headed for the exit. There was a couple in the elevator when I got in, and even though the button for level P3 was already lit, I pressed it anyway … repeatedly, with measured authority. It’s not a control issue. I just have to press my own floor button when I step into an elevator, illuminated or not. Call it insecurity, but I don’t want the other passengers to think I’m just piggybacking on their journey. I have my own plans, and I can make my own way thank you very much.
The elevator took us down one more level and stopped on the ground floor, where a man and his young son were waiting to board. They stepped inside and I recognized the father right away. I couldn’t believe it. It was him. He selected the button for P2 and the elevator continued downward. My mind was going crazy. I have to say something to this guy, I thought. I’m such a huge fan. But what do I say? What do you say to the great Goyo Valdez? I turned and I asked him, “Excuse me, sir. Are you Goyo Valdez?”
He didn’t even look at me. His eyes remained fixed on the elevator doors in front of him as he responded with a heavy, “No.”
I stared at the side of his head with sudden contempt, and then glanced over at the couple, who quickly averted their eyes. I was in total disbelief. I couldn’t believe that asshole Goyo Valdez would lie to me right in front of two complete strangers and his own son.
The elevator arrived at P2 and Goyo and his kid got out. The doors closed behind them and I, now red-faced with anger, asked the couple, “Can you believe that asshole Goyo Valdez just lied to me?”
“That wasn’t Goyo Valdez,” said the man, “That was Goyo Miguelez.”
My face went slack but kept its hue as I went from red with anger to red with embarrassment. We got off on the next floor and the couple and I parted in opposite directions. The awkward silence was eventually broken by the distant sound of the couple bursting into laughter at my expense as they approached their vehicle. It was an eruption of hilarity that seemed to bounce off the cold, concrete surfaces in an endless echo of humiliation.
I got in my car and drove toward the garage exit. When I arrived at the toll booth, there were three cars waiting to pay the parking lot attendant. The cars curved in a bend along the exit lane that afforded me an angle at the vehicle in front of me where I could clearly see the driver’s face reflected in the side view mirror. It was a luxury SUV and sitting behind the wheel was none other than Mister Goyo Miguelez. His window was down and I thought to myself “This is your shot at redemption.” I stuck my head out the window and shouted, “Hey, Goyo Miguelez!” When he looked into his side view mirror, his face performed a three act play of bewildered facial expressions. Act I: Who the hell is yelling? Act II: Is that who I think it is? Act III: Yep, it’s that asshole from the elevator, and he’s yelling my name. My correct name this time.
In my continuing display of temporary public-admirer insanity, I stuck my arm out the window, gave Goyo a single thumb in the air, and yelled, “I love your work!”
He stared at my dopey thumb and my goofy open-mouthed grin for a moment before I inexplicably upgraded the hand gesture from a thumbs up to an A-OK sign with an awkward delivery. Through the aperture created by my thumb and index finger, I could see Goyo’s disgusted face gradually disappear as the dark tinted window of his SUV slowly went up and wiped out my peephole point of view.
That got my dander up again. I couldn’t believe that asshole didn’t acknowledge my correction of his name, not to mention my kind words of support. I postponed the underwear fashion show I had planned for myself later that day and decided to follow that son of a bitch to his next destination. I tailed him for a few miles before he finally pulled into the parking lot of some public park in Beverly Hills. I parked behind him and we both got out of our vehicles and approached each other in a huff.
“You heard what I said back there, didn’t you?” I asked. “And you saw my okay sign, right?”
He didn’t say a word. He just reached back like a baseball pitcher in a big league windup and delivered a slap across my face that was so clean and so hard that I totally jizzed my pants. Goyo got back into his SUV and peeled off like a madman, while I stood there, regretting my new year’s resolution just a little bit more.