Tears of the Trufflepig

by Fernando A. Flores

  Bellacosa’s eyes went big, and she slammed one hand down on the counter.

  “Ooooh, look at that. You busted me now, yeah, that’s where I’m from. Learn it, son. But, as a young girl, I don’t know. I always identified very much with Mexico. I read all their writers, like Dominguére, Carrasco, and Delia Silve-Caigacielos. She has one of my favorite lines of all time, which is, ‘Pink like the gums of a great beast, was the washtub in my eye in the cathedral of you.’ I like that she uses the word ‘in’ twice. I think that’s what makes it for me. Anybody else would’ve changed it. Anyway, I’m bothering you, here you are. You’re just trying to eat. And I’m yakking away.”

  She walked away and left him alone to his meal. The people who had gathered to watch the snow moved on and for a moment, as Bellacosa chewed his food, everything was quiet in Baby Grand Central.

  “By the way,” the waitress said. “This other guy came around earlier. Also asking who I was. He was looking for a man he described to me. He left something here for that man. Is this also your name?” The waitress pointed to his surname written on an envelope. Bellacosa took out his wallet and showed her his license.

  The waitress smiled. “Really?” she said. “You don’t even look that old.”

  Bellacosa took the envelope and opened it with haste, as if it was an urgent telegram. It was a sepia-toned photograph of an indigenous woman wearing a birthday garland and nothing else, on location in some wooded area. He turned it over and saw it was actually a postcard, with a scribbled address.

  The waitress passed by with a tray of silverware to wrap and said, “Damn, sugar,” peeking at the postcard, as Bellacosa held it up.

  He looked at the photograph again, then put it in his coat pocket. The waitress started rolling silverware and Bellacosa said, “All you young women who work here are really something. How do they find all of you?”

  “Well, Marselita’s is part of the Tigirl Work and Travel Arts Project. Pretty much any independent, self-sustained business that signs up as a host can take any girl on to work part-time if they’re passing through the area. Usually things that don’t require a lot of training. Marselita’s, though, they’re the only host business along the border. This one has a huge turnover rate, as you probably know. Girls are always passing through. This one’s one of the hardest jobs, actually. There’s bookstores, sport shops, coffee shops, all kinds of host businesses that are much easier. People living along borders are weird. Not just this one, but every border of every country I’ve been to is just crazy. Except for Canada, but I don’t count that. And I’m not saying that in any kind of way.”

  Bellacosa felt he could’ve stayed at Marselita’s awhile longer. He was enjoying talking to the young waitress from Detroit. He set a large bill on the table and said, “I don’t need the change.”

  “That’s too much.”

  “It’s just a piece of green paper with a pig’s head on it,” Bellacosa said, as he walked toward the arches and the snow. The waitress waved goodbye.

  * * *

  BRITO PARK wasn’t very far. It was the city park where high school kids surreptitiously got stoned. There was a basketball court, tall oak trees everywhere, a drained, fenced-in swimming pool with a padlock at the entrance, and a statue of the South Texas bluesman Texas Joe Valles, where the kids gathered to play acoustic guitars and read subversive literature aloud.

  Toward the northwestern side of the park stood the biggest oak tree in South Texas, with a commemorative plaque. From a distance Bellacosa could see an old office desk set up below its hulking branches. Sitting on a chair behind it was Paco Herbert, smoking a cigarette. The snow came down in a soft drizzle. An ashtray on the desk that resembled a big green leaf was filled with butts of Caballero Lights. Paco Herbert had a couple of blue one-subject notebooks with scribblings in black ink.

  “Qué onda, cuate,” Paco Herbert said.

  He stood to shake Bellacosa’s hand, pulled out a small chair for him from under the desk.

  “I like this weird park,” Paco Herbert said. “I get a lot of work done here. It draws a strange crowd of people. Coño, how are you, friend? You look well rested. That looks like a good coat you’re wearing, you got a nice scarf, too, and all the works. I, on the other hand, must look like a fucking bus stop in hell or something. So, sorry if I’m smelling bad a little bit here. Please, sit.”

  “Paco,” Bellacosa interrupted. “I have to ask you something.”

  Paco Herbert perked up and said, “Sure. Anything.”

  “When we were at Marselita’s before the dinner. Did you lie to me? About those men following me around? You never gave me a clear answer.”

  “Okay. I want you to know I’m not the kind of person that lies. So, no. I exaggerated a little, probably. I think now it was just a coincidence those guys were in there the same time as you for several days. You know Baby Grand Central, always the same clientele. But I apologize either way. Please forgive me. I was in a tight spot, as you can recall. I needed a companion. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put my word on the line. Are we good?”

  Bellacosa gave Paco Herbert a half-hearted nod. Paco Herbert motioned for him to sit down and Bellacosa took another look around Brito Park before doing so.

  Paco Herbert followed suit. He grew excitable and said, “It’s snowing. I can’t believe that. It rarely happens here, doesn’t it? And look at this desk. I don’t know who brought it here, but I’m enjoying everything around so much. I drink coffee and try to get real work done at this park. The waitress gave you the note, I take it? Gorgeous girl. If it’s the same one we’re talking about. What’ve you been up to, Bellacosa? I’m glad you’re around. I had a feeling we wouldn’t cross paths again, I don’t know why. Is that morbid? Sorry. I shouldn’t say stuff like that out loud. I think it’s safe to talk here, either way. Bellacosa, I think I’m losing my mind. Or that I’ve lost it. I’ve been reading. I don’t even want to tell you what I’ve been reading. But I’m working on the story already. Which is great, because at this point I’ve exceeded the budget they gave me. And the sponsor who was supposed to pay for the dinner tickets bailed. Now the company lost all that cash and they’re naturally blaming me. Shit. I need to have the story in four days. That’s fine, because I feel I’m on the brink of something. What we saw the other night. At the dinner. That was just the beginning. Do you want to hear about it? What have you been doing, my man?”

  Thinking over everything that had happened to him in the past few days, sitting on those chairs under the oak tree as it snowed, Bellacosa said, “I’ll tell you. But you tell me first. What you’ve discovered since the dinner.”

  Paco Herbert shut one of his notebooks and shuffled through the other. Then, using restraint to stay seated, he told Bellacosa all he’d learned about the Aranaña, their view of reality and dreams, and how he believed the key to everything was a merging of modern science and the beliefs of old cultures.

  “Remember, at the dinner, Bellacosa, the Trufflepig? I had no idea of anything about that animal when we were there. I didn’t know even about the Aranaña people from down here, their mythology that’s deliberately missing from your history. I am just some fucking journalist getting hired to write a story on fucking illegal dinners. That’s it. But this Trufflepig is a mythological creature. It never existed. The Aranañas’ only surviving myth, which is almost impossible to track down, tells how they rescued their own Trufflepig, in their own dreams. You follow? The Aranaña, unlike other tribes that worship deities that resemble men, they worshipped this Trufflepig, which doesn’t exist. Think of it as something like a phoenix bird. Or like a dragon. Animals there are no remnants of except in our minds, because they never really happened. They were a product of our world fiction.” Paco Herbert jumped from the chair at the word “fiction,” then crouched and looked around, as if for a moment he thought they were being watched.

  “You’ll have to forgive my enthusiasm,” Paco Herbert said in a lower voice. “I’ve been up for days with l
ittle sleep, friend, drinking chingos of coffee. But I think I figured out what the Trufflepig is. What it represented to the Aranaña. The Trufflepig was some kind of mirror. A mirror reflecting who we are as people beyond time and space. A creature that reflects the ugliness of reality and embodies it in its being, by being just the way it is. Does that make sense to you at all? Like the Chinese calendar, where they have the Year of the Dog, Year of the Rooster. The Aranaña believed they were living through an age. And the Trufflepig was the deity of that age. They believed that reality and dreams were one and the same, because they were both things that were being perceived and imagined by the same deity. You get me? The same animal god. This age belonging to the Trufflepig.”

  Bellacosa had stood up and walked with Paco Herbert over a cold, wet caliche trail. The dark clouds enclosed the park like the ceiling of a Gothic cathedral, and it was impossible to tell what time of day it was in MacArthur.

  “In their mythology,” Paco Herbert continued, “the leader that saved the first Trufflepig disappeared forever when he walked into the Ballí Desert, carrying the Trufflepig. A couple generations ago, the Aranaña came back. From where? Who knows. Everybody said they came from some island that ran out of resources, that was cut off from civilization. But I’m willing to bet they all appeared in the place they disappeared. The Ballí Desert. I don’t know if they came back all at once or one by one. But suddenly they were here. Since then, as you know, the Aranaña were assimilated the hard way into society. Maybe the hard way is the only way we get assimilated. The original Aranaña now are all dead, and so is their culture, pretty much. Almost nobody speaks the language. Not even here in South Texas, and this is where most of them still live. But look around. It’s fucking snowing. Is this really South Texas? You think a fucking Trufflepig is dreaming all this? I’ll tell you what I really think, Bellacosa. I think the reason the Aranaña came back was because that was the end of the Age of the Trufflepig. A few generations ago we entered a different age. What could that age be now? Who knows. Maybe the Age of the Dodo. What heathen beast could be imagining all of this right now?”

  Paco Herbert held one hand out, as if reaching for a beverage, then stared at his fingers when he saw they were holding nothing.

  “I don’t know how we got mixed up in this together, Bellacosa. I’ve been feeling bad about it, and I must apologize. Thanks for all your help, for being a good sport. Your actions will be remembered in some way. This is just a small corner of the whole truth. But anyways, where did these Trufflepigs come from, really? You think that if the Aranañas reappeared in the desert that they each came back with their own Trufflepig, too? I don’t think so. This entire thing is a delicate balance of complicated things and quite simple ones, of primitive and modern sciences. That’s why I think the Trufflepig we saw was filtered. That there’s a filtering lab somewhere along the border here, or up in the hills. Now, I have no clue what the life span of something like a Trufflepig is. Usually they can’t keep anything filtered alive for more than a couple months. Which is why these underground dinners are ideal, unless you can sell the animals for the furs or something. Killing and selling filtered animals as food is a quick profit. But if this is true, and they’re running a filtering lab for the Trufflepigs, then how many can there actually be out there? And what are the repercussions of all this? The filtering syndicates have been operating for a decade now, and there are tests and recorded patterns in the environment that tell us how the world is being affected by their actions.

  “But,” he said, gesticulating, using one notebook as a prop. “The horror is. That if they really are filtering these Trufflepigs. A creature that supposedly never existed. Then what else could they be filtering? And at what numbers? And why? Just for the novelty? Just to make money from rich people who want to flaunt their wealth by displaying these animals? Because I’m willing to bet it’s not for the sake of science. If they could filter up a leprechaun, then what? I’m gonna be real with you now and tell you what really scares the shit out of me, Bellacosa. In whose hands does this technology now rest? In the filtering syndicates’? Because you better believe they’re out there fighting for the control of it. One day whoever wins won’t have it in their hands anymore. The world will adapt, and so will the government clampdown. But the technology will still be out there. And who will be in control of it then? Somebody’s ruthlessly fighting for this power as we speak. That’s what’s really driving me to drink.”

  They were in the old Jeep now, and Bellacosa pulled into Cameroon’s Express a few miles away. Bellacosa said, “It’s my treat,” and they each ordered short Americanos.

  Though Paco Herbert lived only a block down, Bellacosa insisted on driving the Jeep, since the snow was falling steadily and the roads were emptying out.

  Paco Herbert said, “There’s something else I have to tell you, too. I found your brother, Oswaldo. When I tried looking for you at your place. A Border Protector’s been helping him and driving him around, can you believe it? Did you know this? He won’t let me turn on any lights around him. In my apartment. Anyway, he’s passed out there right now, is what I’m trying to say. Unless he left. But I doubt that. He’ll be glad to see you. I promised him I’d find and bring you. His story’s gotta be heard, too, Bellacosa. He’s a survivor. I’m also working his experience into my assignment. Somehow, somehow.”

  Paco Herbert’s place was in the first level of an apartment house, the court in the middle already bearded with snow. They walked into his place; the smoky daylight crept in for a brief moment and Paco Herbert struck a match. He lit two candles in a ceramic teacup.

  “He discovered these Bavarian candles don’t hurt his eyes,” Paco Herbert said.

  Oswaldo was lying in the corner of Paco Herbert’s sad, empty apartment. There were a few books, newspapers, and magazines scattered around, along with empty cups and an ashtray. The place reeked of cigarette smoke; you could feel it wafting in the air. Oswaldo was scrunched up in a fetal position, facing the wall. His balding head had patchy, disheveled tufts of hair, like he’d been electrocuted on the chair.

  Paco Herbert and Bellacosa sat on the floor and in the Bavarian candlelight sipped their Americanos, waiting for Oswaldo to wake up, listening to the snow outside, and the wind scratching its face as it moaned. Bellacosa skimmed his eyes over the newspaper clippings tacked to the wall, which resembled a large map of the border told through tragedies. Oswaldo looked already dead. He didn’t seem to be breathing. After an hour, as if summoned by a force, he awoke, and it was when Bellacosa finally saw his brother’s face, with the pale, scabbing punctures around his mouth from the huarango thorns, that he decided to tell Paco Herbert everything that’d happened to him.

  SEVENTEEN

  Later that night, from the Gulf of Mexico, A cloaked barge rolled into Port Camarena, and at a dispatch center paperwork was exchanged for a sensitive shipment that was to be unloaded and carried to the nuclear power plant in Corpus Christi. There were thirteen large, special-made wooden crates, which had to be unloaded using a Gargantua forklift due to their excessive weight. The heaviest of the crates was over forty metric tons. Though most of the dockworkers had never seen snow, they worked as if it was just another day in the busy port. A balding man in a heavy wool jacket operated the Gargantua forklift, chewing on a piece of tobacco, as cigarette-smoking men directed him, since he couldn’t see where he was going because of the immensity of each crate. The shipment was scheduled to be on the road by dawn, and at 4:13 a.m. the last crate was unloaded. Nine wide-load eighteen-wheelers with “McM Imports” logos drove out of Port Camarena, through Brownsville, Texas, and instead of heading north, toward Corpus Christi, they headed out west against the last of the snow.

  An hour and twenty minutes later they arrived at a warehouse hangar located in Starr County. One by one the wide-load eighteen-wheelers reversed along the dock of Warehouse #8QA, in the back of the hangar-lot. There were many other warehouses in the hangar-lot, with workers noisily unloa
ding pallets and crates with jacks and forklifts.

  Inside Warehouse #8QA, two Gargantua forklifts were ready, so by the time the first truck docked up, the workers started. Toward the back of the warehouse, in a heated office, a small group of men was gathered, overlooking the work through a large window. At their center was an older man in a lion’s-skin jacket with an Astrakhan collar. Standing next to him was the head detective of the police department in Reinahermosa, Manolo Segura.

  As they watched the first crate being unloaded, and the men around them left the room for a closer look, Manolo said, in heavily accented English mixed with Spanish, “See. I told you my men would get the shipment here. You don’t have enough faith in me, McMasters. It hurts my feelings, because I’ve come through for you every time. If you really want to get out of the filtering business, and start dealing with antiques, you’re going to have to learn to have some trust.”

  Leone McMasters made no reply as the two of them watched the Gargantua forklift sluggishly bring in a crate. The steel beams holding up the warehouse seemed to bend and groan, as if a giant magnet from within was attracting the infrastructure. For a brief moment the warehouse felt like it was capsizing, until the crate was finally set down by the Gargantua forklift. It felt as if each of the crates held a trapped storm, or an individual star being born, or its own Bermuda Triangle. As they unloaded them, the workers could only guess at what they carried.

  When the job was finished, the eighteen-wheelers drove away, and most of the workers were dismissed. The reinforced screen doors were shut and the warehouse was lit up like a hockey rink around the thirteen large crates. A group of men gathered around one of them, along with Manolo Segura and Leone McMasters. Two warehousemen unscrewed the side of a crate using power drills, and eight others held it so it wouldn’t fall. When it was removed, the eyes of an extinguished sun god carved on a giant stone were looking right at them, with its mouth almost curled into a rueful smile, like a mobster who’d busted out of jail, expecting to be celebrated by his men.