SASHAY HIS WAY
it’s the tail end of the Omicron wave of COVID-19 in New York City when I greet Ross Mathews and Wellinthon Garcia over video. It’s a cozy night in. A ring light is reflected in their window; laundry, in mine. Ross is seated to Welly’s left—hair coiffed, he’s fresh off work. Welly is in a cream turtleneck sweater; his demeanor is confident and calming. It’s something Ross noticed right off the bat when they met in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Welly’s friends had stood him up for breakfast. “I was hungry, so I ended up going down for a breakfast burrito,” he says. When he brought it poolside, there was a greater distraction: a nearby pair whispering and staring. “I didn’t know who they were,” he laughs. “It was weird because they kept looking at me.”
In fact, Ross and a girlfriend were in cahoots over the man reading by the pool. Some eye contact later, Mathews (whose breakout role as “Ross the Intern” on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno launched his TV career) sauntered across the rooftop to introduce himself. “He said, ‘Hi, I’m Ross Mathews,’” chuckles Welly, who is clueless when it comes to pop culture and didn’t know who Ross Mathews was. “I replied, ‘Hi, I’m Dr. Wellinthon Garcia.’”
Welly, an educational administrator, previously worked in Big Pharma. (“I wasn’t a fan
