by Pablo Poveda
“Blessed are the eyes,” he said and put the journal on the desk. “Damn, Nat, what are you doing standing there? Get this man a glass of water.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll help myself — ” I said aloud.
“Come shake my hand, man!” — He reached out to me — “What do you want? Do you want to come back?”
“No,” I replied. “I have not come to beg.”
The intern gave me a little plastic cup with water and went back to her place.
“I am not your assistant,” she said bitterly, humiliated.
He made an L with his thumb and index finger and pretended to shoot at the time he grimaced at her.
“Come in, come into my office,” he said, inviting me to my former office — which was once Ortiz’s — before he passed away.
I went into the room. Everything remained just as messy.
I had the feeling that he did not go there much.
“I’ll be brief,” I commented.
“Sit down, man, sit down. I’m not going to charge you for the seat.”
One.
Two.
I took a deep breath.
“There are some photographs in the archive,” I explained. “I need them back. I forgot them before I left, and they are crucial to an investigation that I am conducting.”
“I see,” he said, sitting in the office chair, fidgeting with the pen.
“It won’t take me more than a minute,” I continued. “I know where they are. I don’t want to waste your time.”
“I see.”
“So, if you will be so kind,” I said and got up, “I will thank you if you let me in the archive, I mean, you have the key there in the drawer — ”
“I see,” he said and inhaled. “I am afraid I can’t help you, Gabe.”
I hated being called that.
“What? You just have to turn the knob.”
“No, Gabe,” he repeated. Call me Gabe one more time and I will break your jaw without a second thought. “Did you sign them to your name?”
“No.”
“My hands are tied then.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t help you, I could get into a big mess,” he continued. “Things are going badly, mate. Can I offer you some coffee?”
“Cut the crap,” I replied. “What is it to you? Why can’t you give me a couple of lousy photographs?”
He smiled.
“If they’re worth so little,” he said, “why are you so upset about them?”
I sat down again.
“I won’t be able to make ends meet.”
“Oh really?” he said with sudden interest. “So, this is about money. That’s it.”
“Don’t laugh at me,” I lied. “It is tough as it is to make it to the end of the month.”
“I see,” he said. “What an ungrateful profession this is, isn’t it?”
“Come on, I don’t have all day.”
“I see,” he said again. “What photos are they?”
“Two photos.”
“From when?”
“Very old ones,” I told him. I was going to get caught. “I know where they are, don’t bother.”
“Don’t lie to me, Caballero,” he said with a sarcastic tone. “I know that you have a friend in the police. Ask him for the pictures.”
“My pictures are better. I don’t have shaky hands.”
“Very clever,” he said. “Let’s talk money. What do you offer?”
“Matías, between you and me,” I said while I saw him in the eye. “Just give me the pictures. You know that I like to work alone, without getting poked in the nose. Then we can split it in halves.”
“Halves my ass, Gabriel” — he got serious. “Don’t try to get smart with me. Give me the exclusive, publish your story with us, and you can throw an after party on the premises.”
I had the feeling that he did not care much about this. The newspaper was going to get acquired by wealthier shareholders — his family. Matías only wanted the recognition of drawing attention to the newspaper in order to keep on living in a bespoke reality. He did not give a damn what was going on outside.
The male intern suddenly walked through the door.
“What now?” said Matías sitting in his chair, fidgeting with a lighter among his fingers. “We are in the middle of something.”
“We just got an important email about the drugs.”
“What drugs?” I asked, turning at him.
Matias gestured with his index finger to shut him up.
He got red in his chair.
“The synthetic drugs that are coming in from Russia or somewhere,” the plump young man explained, fogging up his glasses, and sucking in his gut under a Beatles T-shirt. “There are all kinds, pills, powder — ”
A pencil cup barely missed my face at remarkable speed and slammed into the photocopier with a dry metallic crash.
“Shut up!” Matías yelled. “God damn it! You loudmouth!”
“I am sorry! I thought — ”
“You don’t think!” he shouted again, throwing everything he found across the desk at him. “Get out of here, imbecile! Pick up your stuff and get out of here!”
The intern — flinching and protecting himself with two arms that resembled two big sausages — left the room like a scared chicken, darting toward his desk.
“You yokel,” I said to Matías and got out of there. “You bit more than you can chew.”
“What are you saying?” he replied offended. “Do you think I don’t deserve this? Get out of here! You couldn’t even shine my shoes, you idiot!”
I went after the intern while I heard Matías cackling in his office like a maniac, assuring me that I would be back begging, as though it were the score of a popular song.
I followed the kid down the stairs to the street. He ran furious after the humiliation.
“Fuck! Bastida wait!” I shouted raising my hand. “Stop!”
He turned around, walked over to me, and punched me in the stomach.
“It’s Bordonado!”
For several seconds, I was left out of breath.
A loud bang resonated in the street.
Shattered glass and a sack of flesh and blood fell from the sky like a hail.
The body impacted the street tiles squarely, a few meters from us.
My heart skipped a beat.
“My God — ” exclaimed Bordonado covering his mouth with both hands.
A young man in his thirties had jumped from the top of the building that overlooked the Paseo de la Explanada.
I looked at Bordonado who was overwhelmed by his own emotions. I stood up, shook off my clothes, and looked at the body drenched in blood. His head was open as if someone had crushed it until it broke like an eggshell, revealing the brain. The impact must have killed him instantly. A string of brains leaked across the floor. I pulled up his shirt up to the ribs, and there it was again — that decapod crustacean of flattened oval body. That son of a bitch who appeared in my dreams.
“What are you doing?” inquired the chubby intern, white like a piece of chalk.
A bunch of snoops began to gather around us.
The intern walked to the door of a nearby business and threw up his lunch until his stomach was empty.
“Hey!” I addressed him, “come on, pull yourself together. Finish up and let’s get out of here.”
He was painful to watch. He looked as though he were intoxicated.
“What? How?” he asked in confusion and said, “We have to call the ambulance, stop nagging me.”
People murmured at the time they made a circle around the body and looked up at the heights.
“What are you saying? Come on, move, quickly,” I said while I pushed him to make him walk. “Forget about the ambulance.”
“The police are coming — ” he said nervously.
“Hush, come on,” I insisted, shaking him. He weighed quite a lot. “Keep quiet and pretend you have nothing to do with any of this. We di
dn’t do anything, right? We were there, and he simply jumped off. Period. So, do as if we hadn’t even been here. They won’t need us. Come, let’s go.”
We went down Bilbao street, crossing the Elche gate until San Francisco street. I pushed him into a bar and ordered us two beers.
“No, I am not in the mood for a drink,” he said.
“Get him a vermouth, he’s having a bad day,” I told the waiter. I insisted that Bordonado drink it, and so he did.
“Fuckin’ gross.”
“Man up!” I rebuked him. “By the way, don’t tell Cañete a word about this.”
“Pfft! Didn’t you hear he fired me?” he said and took some fried chickpeas from the plate.
“Don’t be silly,” I replied. “Go back to work tomorrow. That dumbass won’t even remember. By the way — what do you know about the drugs?”
“Drugs? Oh, the drugs!” — he recalled as he swallowed. He was beginning to get rid of the pallor — “They are selling something that drives people insane. It comes from the East, Poland or whatnot. It is gaining traction, and supposedly, it gets you super high, but it got out of hand, so they are hard to find.”
“They?”
“The pills. Apex, amphibia, magic dragons, the crab... It goes by different names. In Poland, they even sold them at stores! Can you believe it?”
“No,” I answered and took a drink. “How do you know all this?”
“Research.”
“Sure,” I said sarcastically. “Do you use it?”
Bordonado clenched his butt cheeks.
“No, man,” he responded and gestured with his hand. “Are you crazy?”
It was obvious that he did.
The pastime for those who do not know how to squeeze the juice of life.
“Carry on.”
“They say that a Mexican who lives nearby introduced them.”
“Didn’t you say he was Ukrainian?”
“Really? I don’t know; he could be,” he answered. I deduced that he had no clue what he was talking about — “No one knows him, not at least in person.”
“What kind of answer is that? Don’t talk if you aren’t sure! You will end up becoming a bullshit tabloid-writer.”
“Like all journalists,” said the waiter.
I snorted at him, and he went back to mind his business.
An old man came in with a maroon sweater over his shoulder. He approached the countertop, ordered a vermouth, and greeted the waiter.
“He’s done for. ‘Nother one for da shock,” said the old man in a heavy regional accent. “They should lock’em all up. That if da cops would of got it under control. M’I right?”
He sought approval by looking at us, who were trying to hide ourselves from any hint of guilt.
“They don’t know that they don’t know, I’m telling you,” the waiter philosophized. “The seventies were other times. People knew better. And look at us now, Don Francisco. Remember how things ended up in the eighties with heroin? All were junkies and whores, of course, but that has always been the case. We belong to a different generation, one of hard calluses and broken nuts, you know.”
“Like y’ar gonna tell me.”
“Yes, man,” continued the waiter as he dried the glass with a piece of cloth. “Back then, it was different. You know. What harm can a little joint, or a little hail do, they said. You know that’s how one would get started. Others got into drinking. But we all turned out hard-working and lawful, like ourselves. What happened today, has gotten out of hand. They get themselves into so much shit that I am not surprised, you know. I’m not surprised they jump off the balcony. And don’t get me started with broken families — we are screwed. Look at the state of the world and politics. What one hears on the street is no little thing. Europe is falling to pieces because of so much debauchery. And in the end, kids don’t have jobs but live at the expense of others. I knock on wood, but, hey, I would jump off too. It’s not that crazy.”
Bordonado listened spellbound to the conversation at the countertop across the generational gap. He was from a different generation. One after mine, who had suffered the aftermath of living attached to an electronic device. In a way, I envied him. The two worlds would remain divided as long as there was some feeling of loss on both sides. And there would still be generational matches even if the ring was the counter of a bar, and the conversation, a cluster of poorly given hooks. However, people like Bordonado had lost interest in everything, busy watching Netflix series online and competing to see who listened to the most underground band. The culture of the self conformed a legion of future ubermen who would end up stealing the controllers of their children’s videogame console. Again, I took a glimpse of the kid and wondered what was going on in his mind. His presence was out of context. It sufficed to see how he held the glass to realize that being at a bar constituted an out-of-the-ordinary experience for him.
“How much do I owe you?” said the intern awkwardly. He pulled a two-euro coin out of his pocket. I grabbed him by the wrist before he did something embarrassing.
“Are you leaving already?”
“Yes.” I’m meeting some colleagues.”
“Come on, we are barely starting,” I told him. He faked half a smile. He was sweating like a pig. “Don’t worry. This one is on me.”
“What if the police call me?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, petting him on the chest. “I’ll take care of it. Where did you say you’re going?”
“With some colleagues.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I still don’t know,” he said. He got notoriously more nervous — ”You know, the usual. A few pints first, then we’ll drive around the neighborhood, and then the nightclub.”
“Yeah, right,” I replied. “Well, keep me informed, okay?”
“Okay, let’s see,” he muttered. His hands were sweating. “We will have to reach a collaboration agreement, I mean — ”
I approached his face and poured the bitter smell of beer breath on him.
“You help me, and I’ll save you a police visit, who — by the way — would tell your parents about the pills you keep in your room.”
He gulped.
“Agreed,” he yielded. “See you later.”
“Great! Bye.”
At eight in the evening, sitting at the counter of a bar next to the branch of a popular electronics retail store, I waited for my new partner, Bordonado to leave the apartment where he lived with his parents. On the TV, they were talking about the event. The police repeated their version — another reckoning. There had already been so many that it looked like an uncontrolled mismatch. They had arrested another man inside the apartment building. They had had an argument that escalated into a fight. Apparently, the victim jumped out of free will, although there were no witnesses other than the alleged killer.
I thought of officer Rojo and the police station. It was going to be difficult to ask for an audience. Showing up there was no option either. The competition would be lurking around, taking notes and pictures, and guarding the vicinity. None of us knew anything. There were countless leads that led nowhere. The diners at the bar where I was sitting were also commenting on the news. They speculated whether the surge of violence originated in Russia or if it was about human trafficking. That far into the summer, TV series had already reached their finale, and the Eurocup had not started yet. People had already run out of topics of conversation to ease the boredom of a slow August.
Then I saw Bordonado come out, slick hair, and dressed in a similar way I had seen him in the morning. He had changed his sweaty T-shirt for a garish one.
I paid for the beer and got out of there, hidden behind my sunglasses and my two-day beard.
Bordonado walked to Castaños street and stopped at the corner of a student bar. He took out his phone, made a call, and lit a cigarette. A pretty girl walked next to him in an evening dress. He looked at her ass and put the cigarette out on the floor. I was about to give up on t
he intern when some of his friends showed up.
I waited a few minutes, they entered the bar, and I got ready to sit with them.
“Hey, Bordo,” I called his name, patting him on the back. “What a coincidence!”
“Bordo?” said one of them with a thick beard and a plaid shirt.
“What are you doing here?” he asked embarrassed by my presence. “Shit.”
“Who is this?” asked another one with thick glasses. That gathering looked like a myopic club.
“What kind of people do you hang out with, Bordonado?” I asked, sitting at their table. “I am Gabriel, a colleague of his. What are we drinking, beer?”
“Where did he come from?” asked another one in his group.
“You didn’t tell us you had invited someone, man,” said the bearded one. “But that’s fine for me.”
“For me too,” said the one in thick glasses.
“Well, that’s it, right?” I said. “Come, this round is on me.”
I got up and ordered a metal bucket full of beer bottles. I had won them over. Bordonado was still ashamed of me. Poor kid, he was still not aware of the chaos I could create just by walking in.
We talked about TV series, “Lost”, pop literature, Bret Easton Ellis... I showed them my Kerouac tattoo, and they asked me if it had hurt when I had it done. I told them that it was nothing compared to losing a girl, which they believed for lack of reference. After an hour warming the chairs where we were sitting, I got the feeling that we would not get very far that night.
“Hey,” I muttered in Bordonado’s ear. “Please don’t think this was premeditated. I swear this was a mere coincidence.”
“Right,” he replied. “Actually, it doesn’t matter. Thanks for the rounds.”
We toasted.
“So, what’s next?” I asked.
“Next?”
“Yes,” I responded. “You guys don’t have girlfriends, do you?”
The one in glasses heard me.
“What are you saying, man?”, he replied. “No girlfriends until we are twenty-nine.”
“That’s what you always say, Fernan,” the one in the plaid shirt added. “Then you hook up with someone and smother her until she dumps your stupid ass.”
“Like that American girl,” Bordonado intervened. They were making firewood of the poor kid.