Chapter 12: Deconstruction

Cesar's POV:

It was Kendl's idea that the entire group should set up a permanent camp of operations in San Fierro. She convened all the men together the afternoon following the D.A.'s arrest and described it after laying out her success in acquiring Zero's RC Shop in Garcia and the Hippy Shopper in Hashbury as profitable properties. Where they each lived was left to their decision.

Truth, Dwaine, and Jethro agreed to crash together at an apartment Dwaine rented behind Bing's Bongs in Hashbury. Since she had extra income from subletting her apartment in Blueberry Acres, Kendl leased a condo she had spotted in Paradiso. Cesar had hoped he would be able to join her, but she pointedly stated that she had two roommates, a nurse named Katie Zhan and an entrepreneurial race car driver named Michelle Cannes. "No boys allowed!" she bragged before hopping aboard the trolley to go home that afternoon. Despite her cutting words, Kendl waved at him and blew a kiss.

'How does she do that? One minute she's hot and craving me. The next, I'm just one of the "boys" not allowed in her apartment? Then she's blowing me a kiss goodbye? Quel es mi mujer hermosa?'

Fortunately, a store up the street from the garage was renting out its adjacent condo space for approximately $3000 per month. Cesar found it in a pique of desperate searching. It was fully furnished and he could easily afford the condo on his own, but Carl was also without a roommate. After a quick conversation, the two gangstas handed over a large stack of money amounting to $18,000, and the owner of the condo handed over the key. Exhausted from their hasty negotiations, the two men collapsed on the pre-furnished sofas and fell asleep across from one another, ending their second day in San Fierro.

Cesar awoke early the following morning and studied the apartment. The living room floor was blanketed by a rough dark green carpet, but the hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathroom were imitation parquet flooring. CJ had fallen asleep on a pale brown leather sofa, which was arranged with two armchairs and Cesar's sofa to rest at the four sides of the living room's glass-topped coffee table. Two lamps loomed in the corners of the living room, and 36" screen TV sat in one corner atop an entertainment center that contained a VCR. 'This place is definitely worth eighteen grand.'

CJ had fallen asleep shirtless. Cesar's eyes drank in the beefy Black's chiseled chest, asymmetrical abs, and bulging biceps. The Hispanic gangsta had to tear away his eyes from the lascivious study of his best friend's body. 'I'm in San Fierro with Kendl now. Things might finally work out between us. I can't be staring at her brother like this.' He forced a shirt and a pair of shoes on his own body, and walked out the apartment to find a store that sold breakfast ingredients.

When he returned half an hour later with a bag full of groceries, CJ was still asleep. Cesar's eyes drifted to the prominent lump in the Black gangsta's red track pants. He would have stared for an indefinite time, if the paper bag had not ripped and spilt its contents on his feet. CJ remained asleep. As he scrambled to clean up the mess of bread, plastic-wrapped bacon, and shredded cheese, Cesar silently admonished himself, 'Dios mío, this is a sign, Cesar. Muchachos ain't for you.'

The Black woke within seconds of the third batch of pancakes reaching golden brown perfection (Cesar found some pots and pans left by a previous tenant in the cabinets and inside the oven). "What time is it?" CJ groaned.

Cesar checked the clock on the wall over the trash can. "Quarter 'til noon, homes, you hungry? I made eats."

CJ sniffed the air with zeal. "Oh yeah, I could definitely use something to eat right now." He rose from the sofa and stretched.

The Latino tore his eyes away from the full display of the husky Black's body. 'Dios mio, estoy mucho cachondo. If only I knew where Kendl and I stand, maybe I'd have some dominio, some self-control. Can't keep going on like this, can't think about Carl naked and pinning me, taking control of me.' To his embarrassment, the sex-deprived Latino felt his manhood stiffen at these exact thoughts.

Desperate to avoid Carl's critical gaze from falling upon the bulge in his well-ironed khakis, Cesar turned his back to the husky Black and leaned into the kitchen sink, pretending to scrub a fork. "Go ahead, homes, help yourself."

He listened as Carl's heavy footsteps entered the kitchen. "Ay, Ceese, you got any forks over there?"

"Just the one I'm washing."

"You mind if I come and get it?"

'Shit, don't say that!' Cesar's hardening member sprang to full hardness. He swallowed against his suddenly dry throat and held out the fork. "Sure, here you go."

Carl's powerful fingers brushed against Cesar's when he took the fork from the Hispanic gangsta's hand. Then he loomed over Cesar's shoulder to peer into the sink. His potent masculine presence made Cesar's pulse race. "Let me see if I can find a knife, Ceese."

The overpowering presence of Carl's natural musk and the bigger man's body heat were too much for Cesar. "Oh man, I gotta take a shit!" he exclaimed and darted for the bathroom. It took a few seconds to find it in the new condo, but as soon as he found the all-white porcelain throne room, the lean Hispanic locked the door, dropped his pants, and took his slim, brown, uncut erection in his left hand. It throbbed achingly with arousal and curved slightly to the left with a prominent artery along its length. Cesar marveled at the appearance of his own manhood before he began to pump desirously.

'Kendl sprawled on a poolside chair in a two-piece, blue-and-white striped bikini, sunglasses shielding her eyes. I come out the pool, sexy and ripped like a real muchacho, and she unfastens her top for me, shows me her hard nipples, big manly pecs….Wait, pecs? No, no, she shows me her lolos, her beautiful breasts ripe and firm, says "Come suck my dick, Ceese." No!'

As the pace of his hand quickened, Cesar yearned to fantasize about Kendl, but the only naked body his mind pictured belonged to her brother. CJ stretched on the beach chair before him in a pair of blue-and-white striped beach briefs, stood up when Cesar rose from the water, and eased down the briefs. Even in his mind, the Latino's mouth gaped at the sight of the Black's massive, proud manhood, so big it terrified him. It curved like a kitchen pipe and was thicker than Cesar could measure with his fist or any other part of his slim body.

'"Come suck this dick, Cesar." CJ's touching that big black carajo, stroking it, offering it to me, and I'm getting on my knees….No, no, I gotta stop, can't do this, won't do this, no!' With a pained roar, Cesar wrenched his hand from his pulsating erection and turned on the shower, as cold as it could get. He flung his naked body under the icy jets of water, biting his lip against the stinging sensation of cold water on his overheated golden brown skin and stayed under the water until his uncircumcised manhood softened.

After both men ate, showered, and put on their clothes from the previous day, the two men left the apartment together. "Man, I'm gonna need to get some my clothes from Angel Pine," CJ grumbled. "You know when Pitbull's coming to San Fierro yet?"

'Pitbull's the last person I want coming here. I can't be around that pendejo without him kissing me, calling me novio.' Cesar shrugged his shoulders. "No idea, homes. I tried calling but he hasn't said anything yet."

Carl locked the door. "Shit, that motherfucker better not have turned snitch on us."

Before the Hispanic racer could mollify his best friend's doubts, a passing pedestrian whistled at the two well-groomed, fresh dressed men. "That is one fine hunk of chocolate," the slim, blond man said. His eyes scanned the height of Carl's burly body. "Can I have a taste?"

The Black's lip curled irritably. "No, the only thing you can taste is the bullet I'm gonna put in your skull, bitch." He lunged at the man, fists balled furiously at his side. With a scream, the pedestrian sprinted down the street. Cesar blocked Carl from pursuing the man. "Fuck, we've only been in San Fierro for two days, and I already hate the town."

"Relax, homes, he ain't the first and probably not the last reinora we gonna see in this town. They got a whole neighborhood full of them! You can't go beat them all up, homes!"

"Yeah, you're right, Ceese. Let's not go into that part of town." The two men walked down the street, but CJ was steamed still. He walked a few feet ahead of Cesar and maintained an aggressive walking pace all the way to the garage. Cesar's eyes drifted more than once to the natural sway of the Black's booty clad in brown Zip khakis and the way the yellow Zip shirt clung to his torso. He had to avert his gaze to the lush trees in full fall foliage at Cranberry Train Station or to the gigantic crack running up the side of the fire station as a result of the dramatic earthquake earlier that year.

At the garage the two men set wordlessly to cleaning. CJ picked up a hammer and cleared out the remainder of the broken glass from the office windows. Cesar retrieved a sheet of sandpaper and a blue surgical mask from the office and resumed the task of scraping paint off the walls. "Ay, Carl, how's life workin' for those chotas?"

Before Carl replied, Cesar heard the well-oiled rumble of his Savanna outside. The car door slammed and Kendl charged into the garage as furious as a bull on steroids. "Do I look like a hooker to you?" she demanded of the two men.

"What?" both gangstas yelled.

"Who said this to you?" Cesar added.

"Those assholes at the construction site next door offered me twenty dollars to strip for them, and forty dollars apiece if I sucked their dirty dicks! I just went over there to find out how much longer construction was going to take!" She stormed into the office.

"I'm not gonna let them talk to mi mujer like that!" Cesar followed Kendl into the office, and CJ pursued him. Kendl was rummaging angrily through the drawers of the lone desk.

"Ay, what are you lookin' for?" the Black gangsta demanded.

"Cesar's gun, I know it's somewhere in here."

"Here it is, right here." Cesar reached under a counter and pulled out his Desert Eagle. "I'm going Filthy Tom on those motherfuckers."

"Give me that!" Kendl shrieked petulantly.

Carl blocked the office doorway with his massive body. "Nah, both of you, chill out right here. I'm gonna teach these San Fierro motherfuckers to respect the Johnson family. Ceese, you got straps in the car?"

"Yeah."

"Kendl, give me the keys." The sassy woman reluctantly placed the keys in Carl's outstretched palm.

"If some shit start to go down, I'm coming over there."

"I got you, Ceese. Take care of Kendl."

When CJ strode out the garage door, Cesar hesitantly approached Kendl. Her arms were folded defensively across her chest, and her lips pouted in a way he found both heartbreaking and demurely sexy. "Mi amor, are you okay?"

"Of course not," Kendl scoffed and folded her arms across her chest, "those pigs at the construction site just called me a whore, Cesar. I've spent my whole life trying to be a classy woman. I know I haven't been perfect, but look at me! Do I look like a classless hoochie mama?"

Cesar appraised Kendl's look. She wore a sky blue man's collared shirt over a crisp white T-shirt and a pair of cutoff jeans that stopped midway down her thick, buttery smooth thighs. To complete the ensemble, a woven belt held up the jeans and sky blue canvas shoes clad her feet. "No, mi corazon, you don't look like a hoochie mama." Cesar suppressed a laugh and approached her with consoling arms. "You are beautiful, stylish, and classy. Those construction workers, they just jealous that they go home and ain't got a woman like you."

He hadn't realized how close they were until his hairy arms crept around her waist and pulled her close to him. Kendl's warm, supple body actually yielded to him. She even rested her head on his chest, to his surprise. "Cesar," Kendl breathed.

"Yeah?" His voice was thick with a heady blend of emotional need and physical lust.

"You always knew how to make me feel good." Kendl tilted her head to his. It was all the invitation Cesar needed to press his lips to hers.

The Hispanic held Kendl's body close to him and yielded his passion to her, his strength to her weakness, his hard manliness to her soft feminine curves. Cesar filled the kiss with every bit of longing from the past months. His nimble hands roamed into her soft, shoulder-length ebony braids and stroked their glossiness until the Latino thought he would go dizzy just from touching her. As much as Cesar poured himself into that kiss, he knew with every nerve in his body that CJ's sister was giving away herself, as much as she could while fully dressed.

He pulled away desperate for air. Kendl's makeup was more than a little messed up, and her dark brown eyes were dilated with lust. "Cesar," she breathed sensually, "I-I don't wanna stop."

"Me neither, Kendl, but I want this to be real." He caressed the delicate curve of her cheek with the back of his left hand, and elicited a soft moan that travelled straight to his swelling manhood. "I want you with me because you know I'm the best man for you, comprende? No jugas con mi corazón….It hurts too much."

"Cesar, I…."

Someone with the worst timing in the state of San Andreas began to bang on the garage door. "Go ahead, mi amor," Cesar insisted.

The door rattled under punishing blows. "Go answer it, Cesar."

"No, baby, I wanna talk to you. We gotta have this talk."

More banging filled the slim gap between their bodies. "If you don't answer that door, Cesar, I will."

He stole a kiss on her cheek, pulled out his Desert Eagle, and strode to the door. "Ay, unless you're Jesus or a nun, you're about to be in trouble!"

Cesar unlocked and jerked open the door. "Have mercy on me, a sinner." Pitbull's 6'4" frame almost filled the doorway. He smiled charmingly at the Hispanic gangsta, and his blue eyes twinkled when they locked with Cesar's. He clumsily held out a bouquet of orange blossoms. "These are for you, mi queridísimo novio."

"Boyfriend?" Kendl repeated. Her hands were fastened to her hips as she stormed her way between the two gangstas and glared in Cesar's face. "Did I just hear him call you his boyfriend?"

"No, mamacita, I called him my novio. It means so much more than your American 'boyfriend.'" Pitbull glowered at Kendl the way Cesar looked at a rat running rampantly through his home.

"Pitbull, what are you doing here?"

Kendl ignored Cesar's question. "That's some bullshit. Cesar taught me enough Spanish to know what novio means. So don't even try me." Her head swiveled on her neck and her left index finger was moving around dangerously when she whirled on Cesar. "And you still ain't answered my question. Did I just hear him call you his boyfriend?"

"Is this how you livin' now, Cesar? You let this negro puta…"

Cesar lunged toward Pitbull, his gun forgotten in his enraged desire to slay the half-Dominican with his bare hands. Kendl restrained him and turned to Pitbull. Although Pitbull towered over her voluptuous frame by nearly two feet, the Grove Street Princess jabbed the prettyboy's chest and held his lethal gaze with one of her own.

"First of all, don't ever in your life call me a bitch again, in any language! Second of all…."

An explosion rocked the garage. Cesar immediately wrapped his arms around Kendl to protect her, but the building was merely shaken by the force of the blast. It originated from the lot next door. "Fuck, CJ's in trouble!" The Latino started to run off then remembered who was in the garage. "Kendl, I promise to explain everything when I return. Don't kill each other while I'm gone." He planted a kiss on her cheek and rushed up the hill to the construction site next door.

Cesar instantly spotted Carl in the driver's seat of a bulldozer that the Black steered around the construction site, pursued by three irate men in hard hats and Day-Glo safety vests. Several other construction workers laid on the ground with bullet holes in their necks and chests. The remains of several flimsy portable trailers were scattered around the packed earth. Flames still danced over the pieces of one of the buildings, which seemed to be the source of the explosion. At the rate CJ approached the last two portables, the angry construction workers were going to catch him.

Cesar aimed without thinking and took down the first construction worker with a bullet to the base of his spine. With his next bullet, the Hispanic blew out the kneecap of a second builder. The third man abandoned his pursuit of CJ and ran toward Cesar with a shovel in his hand. The Hispanic racer blasted his neck open with one shot and left the man to bleed slowly to death.

"What the hell?"gasped a man's voice. The Latino turned and spotted the foreman, a middle-aged, squat Black man, standing outside a Porta-Toilet. His eyes met Cesar's. The foreman timidly sequestered himself inside the toilet. Cesar ran to the toilet and found it locked. "I ain't seen nothing! You just go on and leave!" the foreman yelled.

The rumble of the bulldozer engine alerted Cesar of CJ's arrival. The husky Black kicked at the door. "Ay Ceese, was that the foreman who just went in there?"

"Yeah, it was." The Latino banged on the door with his slim fist. "Come on out, you coward pendejo!"

"Go away, leave me alone!"

CJ dragged Cesar back from the door. "Ceese, that motherfucker knows our faces, and the police are gonna be here soon," he warned murderously, "and these ain't LSPD I'm talkin' about."

"I got you, ese. Look, you go ahead and finish off those trailers," Cesar jerked his head in the direction of the last two portables. "I'll make sure the chota pigs don't hear his eyewitness testimony." The two gangstas bumped fists.

While CJ hopped into the bulldozer and steered it into the corner of the site where the last two portables waited, Cesar removed a chain and padlock from a cord of cleanly sawed through wooden beams, and placed one of the beams against the door of the portable toilet. The Latino wrapped the chain around the beam and the toilet and locked it into place with the padlock. Then he hopped into the cab of a bulldozer idling near a stack of concrete sewage pipes and steered it into the Porta-Toilet.

"Oh, God, no!" the foreman yelped. He pounded frantically on the walls and doors while Cesar drove the toilet toward a pit in the ground intended for the sewage pipes. "Someone let me out! Please! It-it's all in my mouth and eyes!"

'I've experienced worse, pendejo. You lucky 'cause you gonna be dead in about half an hour.' Cesar ignored the desperate man's curses as the toilet fell into the pit, and exited the bulldozer to hop into an idling cement truck at the other end of the pit. In less than a minute, the Hispanic had emptied the cement into the pit to provide the foreman with a concrete grave.

When the last of the portables were fit for matches, CJ jogged over and Cesar hopped out the cement truck. "Let's get back to the garage before Kendl and Pitbull kill each other," the Hispanic gangsta said hastily.

"Kill each other? Pitbull and Kendl, why?" Cesar ignored the bewildered Black and raced to the garage. He arrived in time to see Kendl riding Pitbull's back with one arm clenched around his thick neck and a screwdriver in the other hand.

Pitbull backed into a wall, and CJ's sister took a disorienting blow. The half-Dominican flung her to the concrete floor with an echoing crunch and loomed over her. Possessed with rage, Cesar dropped his gun, rushed him like a bull, and slammed Pitbull to the floor before CJ reached the garage and did worse. The prettyboy shielded his face with his arms, and Cesar rained punches on the gangsta's chest and arms with the determination to reach his face as well.

CJ knelt at Kendl's side upon his arrival seconds later. "Shit, Kendl! You alright, what happened?" The husky Black pulled his tough sister to her feet. Cesar climbed off Pitbull's body and crossed the garage to see for himself to see for himself if she needed medical attention. Other than a few loose braids and a cut near her right temple, she seemed perfect.

"I'm alright. For a nigga his size, Pitbull hits like a fuckin' girl!"

"You were fightin' my sister?" CJ started to storm over to Pitbull, but Kendl stopped him with one outstretched arm. Her gentle eyes found Cesar's lean, worried face.

"Did you see what happened, Cesar? What all this bullshit came down to? It's time you made a choice."

Pitbull climbed to his feet with a groan. "The stinkin' polvo is right. You need to choose, Cesar."

"Choose what?" asked CJ.

The other three people in the garage ignored him, as Kendl charged toward Pitbull with her screwdriver brandished like a knife. "I already told you twice about callin' me outside my name, you sweet ass motherfucker! Do you want another ass whuppin'?"

"If you hate me for being who I am, why don't you leave Cesar alone? He should be mine anyway. I had him first."

Cesar felt every drop of blood drain from his face at Pitbull's proud words. He had to strain to hold Kendl's smaller body from attacking Pitbull because he wanted to annihilate the half-Dominican himself. "I don't know what you think you had with Cesar," Kendl growled, "but my man don't go for dick, ok?"

"Really, you should've been there all those nights he spent at my house back then." Pitbull's blue eyes locked with Cesar's deep brown eyes. Unbidden memories raced through Cesar's mind of locking eyes with the prettyboy during a movie, over a pizza, knelt worshipfully in front of him.

"Tell her about all those nights I kissed your carajo, eh? Tell her how you drank my man juice, Cesar. Tell her…"

Kendl broke free of Cesar's relaxed grip and silenced Pitbull with a punch to his jaw. The half-Dominican collapsed to the floor with an unmanly lack of resistance. Kendl raised the screwdriver over his vulnerable chest, but Cesar snatched the tool from her hand. "No, Kendl, don't!"

She met Cesar's eyes with more pain than he thought he would see in anyone's eyes. "Don't, Cesar? Don't?" Her voice cracked and her lips trembled, but the Grove Street princess was too proud to shed tears when defeated. "Alright, Cesar, I'm done. You can have him."

Cesar suddenly grasped the implications of his actions through her eyes, and lunged desperately to stop her from leaving. "Kendl, wait…." She strolled out the door. "Kendl, it's not what…" He grabbed her arm but Kendl aggressively snatched it back. "Mi amor, just listen to me…" With her head held aloft, Kendl walked down the street in the mid-afternoon sun and out his life.

"Maybe I should go after her."

Cesar turned to CJ. The Black had an expression of unbridled disgust carved into his face. "Ese, please tell her…."

"She doesn't want to hear another word from you, Cesar. And neither do I, dick sucking punk."

CJ marched out the garage to the street, and backhanded a biker straddling a red FCR-900 with chrome flames on the side panels. "Can I have this?" he sarcastically asked, mounted the bike, and sped off.

Cesar remained frozen in place on the sidewalk. His whole world had shattered: His best friend had abandoned him, his girlfriend officially had dumped him, and Pitbull had outed him. The lean Latino sensed Pitbull's hulking presence behind him. "Guess those negros showed their true colors, eh?" He chuckled consolingly and rested a hand on Cesar's ripped right shoulder.

The Hispanic whirled and punched Pitbull twice, once in the groin and again in his solar plexus. "Yeah, me too." He walked back to his condo and left the half-Dominican gangsta gasping for air on the sidewalk.

Author's Note: "Filthy Tom" is my pun on the Dirty Harry movies, starring Clint Eastwood.

There are six more chapters in the San Fierro strand of this story (although the next chapter technically doesn't occur in San Fierro). Ryder and Big Smoke are coming to San Fierro; there's a showdown coming up between the Loco Syndicate and CJ; and Sweet's prison "relationship" with King takes a serious turn. Also, just to forewarn you, there will be two character deaths outside the GTA canon before the San Fierro chapters are over. Review and follow if you are enjoying.