Carcinus' Malediction

by Pablo Poveda

  Miranda lied like a crook, and worse, like a beginner. As the speed with which her mouth spurted out fabrications increased, so did the clanking of her finger against the bottle.

  “I don’t think you understood,” I said and took her hand. She looked at me confused and took her hand away from the bottle. “I have no intention to go after your dealer, or whoever smuggles whatever you are popping. I just want to know. There is something else to this story — ”

  The girl smiled.

  “Would like to try it?” she asked. I nodded. “You don’t look like — ”

  “Neither do you,” I replied. “Off the record.”

  Miranda laughed.

  I wondered what things that smile must have gotten her from life.

  “You know something, Gabriel?” she said with a playful tone. “We could go somewhere else.”

  Miranda raised her eyebrows and gestured at her purse.

  I asked for the bill, paid, and we got out of there.

  Delighted by the gracious movement of her feet, I got lost under that dress, the wiggle of her legs. An uphill walk took us into the district. We went to the Monkey, the same bar to which I had tried to drag Bordonado’s gang of losers. It was Monday, and the atmosphere at the place should be relaxed. We crossed the door, it was dark. Nothing out of the ordinary. Those kids were right — it was a bar by, of, and for males. Women were welcome, but they were scarce, same as good taste and manners.

  Miranda greeted the waiter — a scrawny kid with a quiff, thick-framed glasses, and a black Ben Sherman polo shirt — with two kisses on the cheeks. Everyone there seemed cut by the same pattern — tight Fred Perry polos, flowery shirts, and fitted clothes. He poured two beers in low-wide glasses, something that reminded me of my grandma’s china in her apartment by the beach.

  The same person who served the drinks was in charge of the music, which came from a turntable that played themes by The Jam, The Kinks, or The Specials. Everything was modernist, but alcohol had begun to accentuate the tiredness that I had been dragging for several days, the sleepless hours and the dejection of following a trailless track of clues.

  I moved my feet to the beat of the scores, Miranda wiggled her hips and started to behave in a strange way, seduced by the rhythm of the music. Out of the blue, nonchalantly and rabid at the same time, she threw herself at me, and we staggered, nearly falling to the floor.

  That was not a kiss. It was a signal.

  I felt her lips, her body, her hands on my hair. Her tongue, wet and sharp, tasted my teeth and my tongue. She showed me what she was capable of doing with that one part of her body. She massaged my tongue, twirling around it like a twister, leaving me breathless, and taking me with her. She moved away, walking a few steps back, and giving me a final smile.

  I had the feeling that an eternity had passed, but everything around was still the same. Loud music, people at the bar, and a couple watching us while ordering drinks.

  Determined, I grabbed her by the arm and brought her to me, but she offered me her cheek instead, making it clear that the kisses would come when she decided.

  “Come,” she said at the time she pulled her hair behind her ear. “Let’s go to the restroom.”

  I followed her down a flight of wooden stairs to a lower floor with black and white tiles in a chessboard pattern.

  “You’re crazy,” I said, “but as you wish. They all know we’re here.”

  “Let’s cut some lines, uh?” he said. “Besides, Paco is cool with it.”

  I understood that this Paco guy was the same person who had served the beers and played the music. Now, the coroner was making two lines on the lid of the dirty toilet.

  “One for each,” she murmured, turning her back on me.

  “I think... I’ll pass,” I replied. “I get pretty stupid when it kicks in.”

  Miranda snorted the first line. Coke, speed, who knows what that was.

  She blinked, threw her head back, and gave a long sigh.

  “Are you for real?” she asked, wiping her upper lip. “You are a little weird.”

  “Well, actually...,” I mumbled when I saw her on her knees going for the second one.

  Swish. She snorted the second one.

  “Shit,” she exclaimed. “Fuck! It hits hard! Are you sure you don’t want to try? I won’t hurt you.”

  “I thought you were going to tell me about the crab.”

  Miranda sat on the toilet and stretched her dress.

  “Come here,” she said and grabbed me by the trousers. She undid the zipper and started touching me. “Don’t be such a pooper now, Gabriel.”

  I kept silent and got carried away. First, she massaged me until she got me hard like a marble bar. Then, tactfully though somewhat aggressively, she put it in her mouth. Nervous, I was unable to enjoy it, knowing that someone could enter at any time. I looked down and saw her head, her eyes closed, and immersed in the task. She was dedicated. I felt her second hand in my chest while the other one pulled my pants down. I did not want to spoil it; I did not want to finish there.

  Miranda opened her eyes, parted her lips, and gave me one last lick.

  “Now fuck me,” — she jumped up, grabbed me by the neck, and sat me on the toilet — “Come on, I am very horny.”

  I penetrated her. She introduced me into her world. There, while Miranda touched her hair and went up and down, swinging over my legs, bringing me to the verge of tears, I focused on not cumming, reading what others had written on the walls of the restroom, and thinking of the paragraphs that I could write to contribute myself. Our soggy bodies, a waist pain that was starting to get annoying, and the nails sinking in my shoulders, was all I felt the moment before a gush of sperm came out of me, flooded her entrails, and culminated with a slap in my face.

  We finished at the same time. We were that lucky.

  “I am sorry,” I apologized for the accident, without realizing that it mustn’t have been her first.

  The girl got up, grabbed some toilet paper and left the stall. When she lifted her dress, I realized a small crab tattooed under her rib.

  I pulled my pants back up in a hurry, she must be upset, and I had to calm her down.

  “Don’t worry,” she said while she wiped her crotch dry with a piece of paper and tossed it into the trash can. “I am clean. That was good.”

  “I wasn’t expecting it, really,” I replied. I was pathetic.

  “You know? I have a very difficult job. I spend a lot of time with lifeless bodies, smelling them, touching them,” she explained while retouching her makeup. “I have gotten used to their smell, their color, talking to them. I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t feel like being touched when I get out of the hospital. It’s my daily routine, my life. People don’t understand it, but that’s how it is. So, relationships never work. Every once in a while, I need to get laid and feel alive. That’s all. A bit of action. Nothing personal, I don’t want to give you false hopes — ”

  “Why do you have a crab tattooed?” I asked her from behind, looking at her on the mirror with her eyes crossed while she applied the makeup. Miranda reacted, looked up at the reflection, and looked me in the eye.

  She closed her powder case and turned around.

  “Do you really want to know?” she asked. I nodded. She let out a loud laugh. I was confused and bewildered. “Gosh! You are such a gossip, Gabriel!”

  “Don’t you take me for a fool!” I said, raising my index finger. The atmosphere got tense. Miranda was playing with me. “You lied to the police.”

  “Damn with this hack,” she said in a derogatory tone. There was something in her voice that I was familiar with. It was the tone of someone reluctant to answer questions — the voice of withdrawal syndrome, of drug abuse. “This is all bullshit. I didn’t lie to anyone. Now what? Are you going to tell your little friend? I was such an idiot! You are going to get me fired.”

  “Tell me about the tattoo, come on.”

  Somebody was coming down to the res
troom.

  “It’s a trend, okay?” she said. She seemed embarrassed. “I like it, and this isn’t new. You and your friend are a few months late — how smart you are!”

  “What are you talking about? It’s only been a few weeks — ”

  “People have been using it since last summer, didn’t you know?” she explained, adjusting her panties. “The thing is that it got out of hand, that’s all. You know, like it always happens. It’s always the same — scumbags at gyms, trendy posers, and airheads that go to nightclubs. They really like vice but can’t control it. Who do you think was the one this morning?”

  “What about the crab? What is that about?”

  “How should I know, man?” she asked at the time she smeared lipstick. “They say the smuggler used to be in a cult. Then his wife passed away, and he decided to get so wasted that he could talk to her, to the point of losing his head, and became a crab himself, like the one he saw in his visions. So, that’s what they say happened. Like the Illuminati, but they are so last-century, right? Tomorrow, Bieber will have his own tattoo, and so — ”

  “What cult? Do you know its name?” I insisted.

  “Oh God!” she snorted and grabbed her bag. “Are you as much of a mean drunk as you are of a mean fuck? Wouldn’t you rather pop one and live it in the flesh? You may find the answers and stop nagging me.”

  “Is it acid?”

  “No,” she answered. “It hits differently. I think I have some left, wait.”

  Suddenly, while Miranda was looking in her purse, the door opened. It was the waiter, the so-called Paco.

  “They are having a brawl up there,” he exclaimed. He seemed scared. “Come on, Miranda, not now, the police are about to get here.”

  The girl looked at me as if to tell me to go help her friend. I was lost in that triangle of momentary complicity.

  I went outside and was stunned by what I saw.

  It was Bordonado’s bearded friend, that boring and gray man with whom I had shared a beer a few days earlier. To my surprise, the only thing left of him was his plaid shirt and that hipster-wannabe beard. The kid, fat but strong, had started a hand-to-hand fight with two prostitutes and their pimp. The women — one fat one with a Colombian accent, and the other, blonde, made up, and with a Russian accent — had their faces bruised. The pimp was leaning against a wall, his cheekbone was wounded and bleeding. Enraged, the kid pounced, out of himself, against the girls, trying to hit them.

  The waiter and I tried to stop him to no avail. I turned around, looking for Miranda when a hook reached my face and threw me to the ground.

  That hurt.

  “You bastard!” I shouted. He was Bordonado’s friend, enraged and possessed. He had no reason to do it, but I knew it was not a fluke. He was under the effect of the drug. It was going to end badly.

  Someone called the police.

  Other two pimps showed up before the police officers arrived. The kid approached one of them. I saw Miranda run down the street. I called her name, got up, and stepped aside. Bordonado’s friend picked up a bottle from the floor and broke it. A Slavic-looking pimp kicked him in the hands. The kid was able to dodge it, ran to him, and drove the bottle in his neck. Screams of horror resonated around us. Miranda ran away and got lost from the yellow lamppost in the back of the street. The blood spurted out like a hydrant. I sought help, but there was no one. The door to the bar was locked. The waiter had disappeared. The man with the split cheekbone pulled out a jackknife, came up from behind and stabbed him in the kidney. Two quick stabs. The third one did not arrive. The kid pushed him back, pulled the knife out of his flesh, and with a hand covered in blood, slit the pimp’s neck. He was drooling. His skin was pale, and his eyes bruised. He fell to his knees. He was bleeding out. Then he collapsed.

  I heard a police siren in the distance. I got up and ran in the same direction as Miranda.

  I heard bangs, screams, and more loud bangs behind my back. I ran from that horrific spectacle, hoping it would disappear behind me, without looking back. I followed the trail of perfume that the girl left after her in that damp and lonely night. Ten minutes later, I found her at a doorstep, unconscious. I called her name. Bypassers gathered around, looking at us. I slapped her twice, but she would not react. She mumbled something. The police were approaching.

  “Come on, Miranda. Make an effort,” I said and grabbed her by the shoulders like a drunk couple coming home after having one too many. She could still walk and was awake. Tired? Maybe. She needed a shower.

  I called a taxi, took her home, and got into the elevator.

  “Gabriel?” she mumbled. “Is it you?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” I replied. Save your strength, you’re going to need it.

  “Did you rescue me?” she asked, seemingly back to her senses.

  I introduced the key to my apartment in the lock. I pushed the door and felt a strong gust of wind in the face. The window was open. However, a strong smell hit me in the nose. It was rough and deep. It smelled of beach, harbor, moisture, and rotten fish.

  I looked for the switch, but it was not working. The lamp at the entrance was blown out.

  I walked into the living room, everything seemed in order.

  “Come, I’ll give you a bath,” I said to her.

  We walked to the bathroom. The smell was stronger.

  I heard a slight noise and hit something with my foot.

  I opened the door and switched the light on.

  I began to tremble.

  First, I saw the kid’s head, then his body, immersed in blood-stained water in the bathtub. It was Bordonado, the poor intern, the same one I had seen meeting with a girl hours before. Now, he was naked, floating in the bathtub, with his hands hanging over the edges. His eyes, his skin, and his life were gone. A swarm of crabs surrounded him, biting into his flesh, and tearing it, walking into his orifices, and coming out with the remains of his soul.

  I left Miranda leaning against the wall and pulled out the phone in shock.

  I had to make a phone call.

  Before I got to place my call, my phone’s display illuminated.

  Someone was calling me.

  It was Rojo. I hit the answer button and took the handset to my ear.

  “We have to meet,” he said in a trembling voice. “Something unexpected happened.”

  I took a deep breath.

  I held two seconds.

  And then my stomach unloaded a yellowish substance.

  “Yes...” I replied, gasping.

  “What is going on, Gabriel?”

  6

  Decadence.

  Historical period. Also, progressive loss of strength. Like the wagon of a roller coaster. When it reaches the peak and stops — the very same moment when you take a deep breath — a tingling crosses the rectal area, the muscles become numb, the pressure increases. You have always thought that is the right time to reckon your life, that you would see it all before your eyes like a movie film — fast-moving. You are disappointed that it is not the way it is. There is just not enough time for the fabled movie. You breathe deeply and hold on to the metal bar. You are such an idiot that you forget to enjoy the moment, ethereal, unique, and fleeting. You feel the descent in slow motion, barely moving inches, even if it is miles in reality. You lose pressure. You fall at full speed, time stretches, your heart freezes before it beats again, bells ring at the top, and you catch air again.

  That young man’s cold corpse lay in the bathtub, being slowly consumed by the crustaceans, his hands hung by the white porcelain of the bathroom, now turned into a mess. I felt an acute pain in the chest, not sure if it was angina or lack of exercise. I looked at Miranda, who was beginning to catch her breath just to lose it again, throwing up onto a handful of crabs that floated in the toilet.

  “What is going on, Gabriel?” Officer Rojo repeated on the other side of the line. The girl groaned. “Who is there?”

  “You have to come to my apartment,” I said and grabbed her by the
arm, dragging her into the kitchen. “You’d better see it with your own eyes.”

  “I’m on my way,” he was beginning to say.

  “Wait!” I shouted before he hung up. “Come alone. Don’t send anyone, not even your partner.”

  I heard him breathing on the microphone. I took a glass out of the cupboard and filled it with water. Then I gave it to the girl.

  “All right...” he said at last. “Don’t do anything weird.”

  Miranda walked to the sink and threw up again.

  “Damn, you are making such a filthy mess,” I exclaimed and held her hair. I turned on the tap, splashed cold water on the back of her head, looked for a vitamin B12 pill in the drawers. “Here, take this and don’t throw it up.”

  Like a patient, she obediently took the pill and drank the water. I dragged her back into the living room and laid her on the couch. I undressed her, taking off that beautiful black dress, now stained and smelly. I helped her into a white cotton T-shirt with a drawing of The Basílica de la Sagrada Familia in black. Then, I covered her with an old blanket and prayed she would not turn my sofa into a puddle of vomit.

  Most of the time, the girl was not aware of her surroundings, and when she was, she lacked the strength to do anything but throw up.

  I could not move from there, I had to wait if I wanted to get anything of value. I had to be very careful. I could not spoil the evidence around me.

  Whoever did this knew my whereabout, my life. I may have been surveilled during the previous days. It was evident that they also knew the kid. Sons of bitches, I thought. I walked back into the bathroom and took several pictures with my telephone. He was pale like a piece of boiled ham, his countenance looked exhausted, and his eyelids closed.

  I felt sorry for him. He had nothing to do in the matter. He had just had a date. How could anyone be so evil? However, the lack of bruises made me think. Maybe, Bordonado had not been killed. Maybe, somebody had taken his body once he was dead. Maybe he had gotten wasted like a chimpanzee. Maybe, maybe. That was beyond me, and the only person who could possibly help us had passed out in the couch.