by Javier Calvo
“I'm going over to the neighbors' house to return their blender,” says his wife. “I'm taking the keys in case I stay to chat and end up coming back late.” She smiles with a vaguely obsequious expression. “Just so you know.”
Manta looks at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It's ten past eleven. Manta sighs.
“I won't wait up, then,” he says in a soft voice.
“Good idea,” says his wife, who is already on her way to the door. “Don't wait up.” A couple of seconds later the sound of the door closing is heard.
Since he started reading the Italian X-Men comic that same afternoon after lunch, Manta has managed to decipher four and a half pages. Which, considering the comic has thirty-two pages, seems to indicate that his reading is going to take him at least the rest of the week. The deciphering process is hindered by the fact that Manta, who has suffered from severe dyslexia since childhood, has trouble finding the words in the dictionary. He is often forced to pause and try to remember the damn alphabetical order by counting on his fingers the way they taught him in the special school. On a few occasions his therapist has seemed willing to admit the idea that his dyslexia could be a result of the traumas he experienced during his childhood because of his excessive size and his schoolmates' taunting.
He has only one panel left on page five when the doorbell rings, twice, two long and incredibly high-pitched rings in the silence of the apartment. Manta takes off his reading glasses and stands up stealthily. He looks at the alarm clock. It's already past midnight. He walks barefoot toward the hall closet and takes out a three-foot-long iron bar with his initials written in permanent marker on one side. He tiptoes toward the door while two more nervous rings buzz.
“Whoever you are,” says Manta through his teeth, trying to see into the door's peephole, “you're gonna get it.”
Manta unlocks the lock and opens the door with the iron bar ready in his other hand. It takes him a second to recognize the messed-up individual who is standing on the other side of the door. His face is familiar. In spite of the dried blood and bruises. And the hair that falls in bloody dangling bits. The hair is definitely familiar. Manta frowns. The individual brings together two crudely bandaged hands in front of his bloodstained sweater in the universal sign for begging.
“You gots to help me,” says Pavel, his pleading hands together at his chest. “I'm in really serious trouble,” he says, but he has to stop talking to lift his arms and protect his head from the iron bar coming toward him. “Wait.”
Manta chases Pavel on the landing, hitting him on the arms and back.
* * *
The eighth season of Friends is a terribly complex amalgam of implied psycho-emotional references, relationships tainted by traces of lust and the complex forms of reproduction associated with heterodox sexualities. Iris Gonzalvo leans forward to snort a line of cocaine and uses the FAST FORWARD button on her remote to skip the parts that are less relevant to her grasp of the show's psycho-emotional drama. At the end of the seventh season, Monica and Chandler had finally managed to consecrate their love at the altar. After the fleeting intrigue triggered by Chandler's disappearance the night before the wedding. While still far from consolidating his relationship with Rachel, Ross had finally managed to establish a fairly satisfactory rapport with his son, Ben, whose mother, Carol, had divorced Ross in one of the early seasons after discovering that she was a lesbian. In a last unexpected twist, Phoebe and Rachel find out that one of the show's female characters is pregnant. Iris thinks she hears knocking on the door of the walk-in closet coming from inside, but she can't be sure because there are firecrackers going off in the street. The eighth season, as is customary in Friends, begins right where the previous one left off. In this case, minutes after Monica and Chandler's wedding. In which the best man was Joey dressed in a World War I uniform for an upcoming role. As the first few episodes play out, the cliffhangers from the previous season are resolved. Rachel turns out to be the one who's pregnant and Ross, after maintaining the suspense for a while, admits that he is the father. Yet not even the child they are about to have can bring them together. Instead they both continue going out with other people and Ross hooks up with a girl named Mona that Iris doesn't like at all. As the season progresses and the lines of cocaine disappear from the tray, things get complicated because stupid old Joey falls in love with Rachel. Iris isn't sure if she likes this new plot twist. Friends provokes complex networks of identification and repulsion in Iris. Of the three female leads, she doesn't think she has much in common with Monica, although she finds her the best-looking by far and the one she would sleep with if she were to have a lesbian relationship within the world of the show. Rachel is pretty stuck up and not very cute, although Iris admits that they share certain traits, while Phoebe is clearly just too histrionic. She has fucked the three male leads many times in her imagination, together and separately, although Joey is the one that she finds most sexually attractive and he would be her favorite if only he wasn't such a pinhead. In general, Iris considers herself a compendium of the virtues of the three female leads, without any of their snotty, stuck-up nonsense. It's true that the girls in Friends seem to live better than her, but that's because Iris hasn't yet achieved Fame and Success in Life. After half a dozen episodes, she doesn't hear firecrackers in the street anymore. The lines of cocaine have vanished and been replaced. The Finlandia with tonic on the tray is the fourth Finlandia with tonic. Iris isn't sure if she likes that Joey is going out with Rachel. The whole point of Friends is that Rachel ends up married to Ross. Iris has no doubt that she's going to achieve Fame and Success in Life very shortly. In fact, she's completely sure that the coming year will be the year she achieves Fame and Success in Life. Iris doesn't know exactly how she knows these things, but she knows she knows them, and that's good enough for her. Iris isn't like other people, thinks Iris. The eighth season of Friends is known for the appearance of a good handful of Hollywood stars as supporting characters in the series. Brad Pitt appears in the eighth season of Friends. So do Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn, both as guys Phoebe is dating, something Iris finds pretty unrealistic. It is completely silent now on the streets of Barcelona as Iris continues using the PLAY and FAST FORWARD buttons to watch her favorite show. A sound similar to a moo comes out of the walk-in closet where Eric Yanel seems to be unconscious inside the laundry basket.
* * *
Juan de la Cruz Saudade frowns as he examines the covers of a dozen DVDs from his lavish porn collection, lying in the bed of the bedroom he shares with his wife. He always ends up in the same dilemma when choosing a porn movie: big asses or little asses. The decision becomes even more complex given the size of his collection and its extraordinary range. The tits have to be big, that is the second most important rule. The pubic area has to be shaved. That is the first and most sacred of the rules. The absence of a shaved pubis is reason enough not to fuck his wife, currently absent from their household. Saudade sighs. Often the ass question mires him in a state of indecision that threatens to hinder the very process of porn watching. The visual and tactile sensations aroused by a small ass are radically different from those produced by a big ass. And yet, it can't be flatly said that one category is intrinsically better than the other. The pros and cons of both types of asses are fighting a fierce battle in his mind when he hears a series of timid little knocks on the bolted door of the bedroom.
“Daddy?” says the voice of his eight-year-old son. From the other side of the bolted door. “Can you open up for a second, please?”
Saudade clicks his tongue. He gathers up all the DVDs spread out on the bed and sticks them underneath the comforter. He sits on the bed, lights the stub of the joint he has in the ashtray on the bedside table and takes two drags as his son's knocking continues. He opens the window and waves his arms to get rid of the smoke like certain teenagers do after secretly smoking joints in the bathrooms of their parents' houses. Finally he opens the door and looks at his son with a defiant face. His son lo
oks at him with a frown. Dressed in footsie pajamas that are too small for him and visibly squeeze his neck and shoulder area.
“What?” asks Saudade.
“Why is the window open when it's so cold out?” asks the boy with a frown. “And what is that bulge under the covers?”
Saudade puts his hands on his hips.
“Do you mind going back to your room?” he says. “It's Christmas Eve, for the love of God.”
Cristian Saudade, eight years old, only child of the civil marriage between Juan de la Cruz and Matilde Saudade, lowers his eyes. The multicolored patterns on his too-small footsie pajamas depict the four main characters in Los Lunis, a kids' show on TV that's like a poor man's Muppets. His father remains motionless at the door to his room wearing only briefs and a promotional T-shirt of a heavy metal group that peaked in the eighties.
“When is Mom getting out of jail?” asks the boy.
Saudade rubs his temples with his index finger and thumb.
“Mom is not in jail,” he says. “How many times do I have to tell you? She's at her mother's house. Do you understand? Fuck.”
“Dad,” says the boy in an impatient tone. “Mom called the other day and said she was in jail.”
Saudade sighs. He opens up the drawer on his bedside table and begins to search through the papers inside. After a moment he pulls out a wrinkled piece of paper and smooths it with his hand.
“Here.” He gives the paper to his son with a hostile expression. “Your mother's coming back on Tuesday. Are you happy? Eat what's left in the fridge and when it's gone, call your aunt and tell her you have to spend a couple of days with her 'cause we're having some work done on the house. You understand?”
Cristian Saudade, eight years old, goes off down the hall dragging his feet. Saudade bolts the door. Then he closes the window and puts a movie with big asses into the DVD player. Then he lies down on the bed and uses the remote to skip the transitional scenes that precede the first anal sex scenes. Anal sex scenes are, in Saudade's opinion, the main element of a good porn film. Oral sex scenes are also very important because they show an actress's technique. But there's no denying that the anal sex scenes are what give pornography true meaning. He usually fast-forwards the vaginal sex scenes with the remote or just skips them with the Skip Chapter function on his DVD player. Once he's found the most adequate scene, he lights his joint with a lighter advertising his favorite soccer club and takes a couple of hits before putting it back in the ashtray. Then he sticks his hand into his briefs and proceeds to carry out the controlled stroking that makes up the main phase of the mental-physiological operation he's nicknamed “recharging the batteries.”
* * *
Stretched out on the sofa in her living room with the DVD player's remote in her hand, Iris Gonzalvo alternately pushes the PLAY and FAST FORWARD buttons to select those fragments of her favorite show that release emotional responses of identification, desire and repulsion in her. It's possible that the sun has already come up. It's hard to tell because she closed the blinds hours ago so she could concentrate on what was happening on the TV. She isn't hungry or sleepy but that doesn't mean anything when you take into account that by now she's finished off the reserves of cocaine she had in the kitchen. She moves the sofa cushions to make herself more comfortable, closes her eyes, and imagines how things will be when she achieves Fame and Success in Life. She imagines the magazine interviews and the photo sessions and the dates with famous men in restaurants. The kinds of things, she thinks, that make life worth living.
* * *
Marcia Parini is crying beside the bed at the prestigious psychiatric center for children where her daughter Valentina is sleeping with white plastic straps around her wrists and ankles and a drip delivering sedatives into a vein of her arm. She cries and dries her tears with a wrinkled handkerchief and once in a while holds her daughter's inert hand. A nurse with a bruise on her face and her arm in a sling comes in to check the reading on the ECG machine. Marcia looks up at the nurse with a troubled face.
“Oh, for God's sake,” says Marcia to the bruised nurse. “You have to give me your medical bill.” She shakes her head sadly. “I never imagined the poor little thing was so strong.”
The nurse smiles weakly.
“We're insured against patient attacks,” she says. “It's one of the downsides of the job.” She pauses and looks at Valentina with her eyes gathered together. “Does her father know she's here?”
Marcia dries her tears with her wrinkled handkerchief.
“Her father's in Uruguay,” she says. “Anyway, Tina doesn't get along with him.”
The nurse nods. There is a moment of silence punctuated by the barely audible beep of the ECG machine.
“We have a coffee machine on this floor,” says the nurse kindly. “If you want we can go have some breakfast together. After all, it is Christmas, isn't it?”
Marcia Parini smiles and nods as she blows her nose into her wrinkled handkerchief. Marcia and the nurse leave the room.
In her bed in the children's hospital, surrounded by machines and white furnishings, Valentina Parini opens her eyes suddenly. Her pupils dilate and begin the trembling, rough dance of sleep's rapid eye movement phase.
Wonderful World
CHAPTER 31
The Down With The Sun Dream
Lucas Giraut lifts his head, trying to get his bearings on the deserted, wind-swept avenue that Tottenham Court Road seems to have become. Not a neon sign as far as the eye can see. No rivers of shoppers with their plastic bags from department stores and no giant West End theater marquees. Lucas Giraut takes refuge in a doorway and lifts an arm to protect his face from the gale winds. There may be someone nailed to the Astoria's door. Lucas doesn't want to get closer to check. The wind drags dried leaves and tattered newspapers. Lucas catches one in flight. He reads the date: August 7, 1972. He starts to count on his fingers. With a frown. It's really amazing how many pieces of newspaper are flying along Tottenham Court Road.
Three blocks farther up, he arrives at the pub he has to go to following the internal logic of the Filial Down With The Sun Dream. It isn't hard to find: above the pub, tied to the roof of the building and floating in the night sky, is an immense hot air balloon in the shape of a pig. With pig ears and a pig tail. And with an inscription on the side in those cloudlike letters that were popular in the early seventies. It reads: “WELCOME TO THE DOWN WITH THE SUN DREAM.” Giraut shakes off the pieces of newspaper stuck to his back and shoulders and pushes the pub door open.
Inside the pub it's warm and full of people, and yet no one is speaking. Everyone is silent. The faces that stare at Lucas Giraut when he enters are terrified faces.
“In the back room, darling,” says a blonde on the other side of the bar who looks terrified and wears a T-shirt advertising the Filial Down With The Sun Dream.
Lucas Giraut thanks her for the information with a half smile and continues walking among the crowd of fearful faces.
“In the back room, buddy,” says a guy smoking a pipe.
Lucas Giraut enters the back room and looks at the three official members of the Down With The Sun Society. They're cheerfully occupying a round table filled with empty pint glasses, on which a shockingly young and not yet bald Bocanegra has just put down four full pints of beer. Lucas looks at Bocanegra. Then he looks at Koldo Cruz. Then he looks at his father. Finally he looks at the fourth figure seated at the table. The fourth figure has no face. His entire body is wrapped in bandages like those Egyptian mummies in old horror movies that come back to life. The bandages are stained with blood in various spots. On the wrists and the ribs and the forehead. Neither its height nor the configuration of its limbs is particularly human. There are two yellow lights where there should be eyes, which can be faintly seen through the bandages.
“David Gilmour's over the hill,” Bocanegra is saying as he puts the beers on the table and sits between Cruz and Lucas's father. “I don't think the band will last another year. I m
ean, let's be serious. Roger Waters is Pink Floyd. They're synonymous.” He pauses. He looks in the direction that his fellow members of the Down With The Sun Society are looking and notices Lucas, standing in front of the table. “Ah, Lucas! You're late. We should have toasted to our invisible house twenty minutes ago.”
Lucas Giraut sits on the paisley sofa where the club members are seated and takes the pint of beer that someone offers him. The five figures around the table bring their pints together and all take swigs before putting them back down on the table's wooden surface. Lucas looks around him. The three members of the Down With The Sun Society have long, tangled hair and denim jackets over paisley shirts. There are eight necklaces among the three of them. Seated beside him on the paisley sofa, Koldo Cruz holds a joint between his index finger and thumb and is looking at it with a lethargic smile. Without a metal plate on his right temple. Without a patch covering his right eye. With glitter sprinkled over his face. None of the three members of the club seem older than twenty-five.
“The invisible house is what paid for this trip,” explains Lorenzo Giraut. Looking at his son with a kind smile. Lorenzo Giraut's arm is resting on the shoulders of the inhumanly tall figure covered in bloody bandages the way young men lean on their girlfriends' shoulders. “Which isn't really an invisible house. It's just a house that doesn't exist. We sold a house that doesn't exist. That is how the Down With The Sun Society was born. We sold an invisible house and took a vacation to London with the money.”