Shooting Down Heaven

by Jorge Franco

  One morning, we were awakened by Fernanda’s shouting. “Come here, boys, wake up, look what I found!” She came into each of our rooms with a shoebox full of video cassettes. She told us to come downstairs immediately, prodding us along so relentlessly that Julio and I decided to go just as we were, in our underwear, barefoot, our eyes puffy from sleeping till eleven in the morning.

  “Where can we watch these?” Fernanda asked.

  “What format are they?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Let me see them.”

  They were Betamax cassettes. The machine in the living room was VHS.

  “We need a Betamax,” Julio said.

  “There’s one right here,” Fernanda said.

  “That one won’t work.”

  “Of course it will,” she said. “You two watched a movie just last Sunday.”

  “That’s VHS. Those cassettes won’t work there,” I explained.

  Fernanda cursed. She grumbled that she had no idea what we were talking about.

  “I know where there’s one,” Julio said, and headed for the bodyguards’ room. They had an old Betamax where they used to watch porn movies.

  We started connecting it to the TV while Fernanda examined each cassette, hoping to find a clue, a mark, a written date. The first one we put in had footage of some horses, taken from a car. You could hear the noise of the engine, the wind, but never Libardo’s voice. Julio said the horses were from the old stables at El Rosal.

  On another tape, Libardo appeared playing soccer with some friends. Fernanda recognized several of them. There’s Benito, look, in the red shirt. It was a younger Benito, and Libardo, too, looked rejuvenated. He was playing, shoving, laughing, joking around with his friends. Fernanda started crying, and I wanted to too, but I held it in. That guy in blue is Genaro Robles, Fernanda said, he’s dead now, she added. And she mentioned others who’d already faded from my memory. All dead, all killed. Shut up, Julio told her, I can’t hear a thing. But there was nothing to hear. The person who’d filmed the video was standing next to a speaker, and all we could hear was the music playing to liven up the match. Then another player, wearing soccer duds, walked onto the field and everybody clapped. We looked at one another in shock when we recognized Pablo Escobar.

  The third tape showed one of Julio’s birthday parties. We figured it was Libardo recording the gathering because plenty of guests were in the video but not him. There were our grandparents, Benito again, Fernanda, me, more kids, more friends, and a number of bodyguards. How old would you have been?, Fernanda said, I think eleven or twelve, she calculated while wiping away her tears. Twelve, I said as soon as the cake appeared and I swiftly counted its twelve little candles. There was noise, music playing, voices in the background, but none of them were Libardo’s.

  Another tape had the sea, the beach full of tourists, ships off in the distance, as if they were being recorded from the penthouse of a hotel.

  “Where’s that?” Fernanda wondered, and said, “I don’t recognize it.”

  “The water’s really blue,” I said. “It could be San Andrés.”

  “Oh, right,” Fernanda said. “We went a few times, even took you two, but I don’t remember him filming.”

  “Shush,” Julio said. “Dad’s talking.”

  We listened, but he wasn’t actually talking—he was laughing uproariously. The camera lowered, and we saw the railing of a balcony and some towels tossed on chairs. Then the camera swung sharply around and focused on a naked young woman who was lying on the bed and trying to cover herself up with a sheet, laughing too. She said, no, Libardo, stop being silly, don’t record me like this, silly. He moved closer with the camera, and she shrieked again, looking at him mischievously. He pulled the sheet back, and there she was, naked, curled up, both of them dying of laughter.

  When I turned to look at Fernanda, she was half out of the armchair, and her face had gone blotchy with red, purple, white, and green spots. She was clenching her jaw and shaking with rage.

  “It’s that tramp,” she growled.

  I leaped up to turn off the video player, but she stopped me with a roar.

  “Leave it! Let me see those fucking bastards.”

  “What for, Ma? Why torture yourself?” I asked. “We have to focus on what we’re looking for.”

  “That’s the girl, that skank Vanesa,” Fernanda said. She stood up and clenched her fists.

  “I’m going to turn it off right now,” Julio said, but before he could get up, Fernanda had grabbed a bronze horse off the coffee table and hurled it at the television. She pounded the screen, ignoring the sparks, the smoke, the shards of glass that sliced into her hands.

  Still pounding, she said, “I hope they kill you, you bastard, you fucking cunt, I hope they take you out, I’m not going to lift a finger to get you free, and as for you, you fucking whore, you big-boobed vulture, I’ll kill you with my own two hands.”

  She struck the TV one last time and fell to the floor in a faint.

  65

  Sitting on the floor in the shower with the hot water falling on my head, I see a procession of images of everything I’ve experienced during these sleepless, stressful hours. Medellín as one big flash of light, the smell and noise of fireworks, the raucous shouting of drunks and the dull thudding of songs that say nothing and yet say everything, saying how small we are, how small we’ve become: a monotonous, empty reggaeton tune, misogynistic and violent, a cult of nothingness. One day, one night, one early morning linked to this next day that’s nearly turned to night again. Fernanda, Pedro the Dictator, La Murciélaga, Julieth, marijuana, aguardiente, coke, Julio, Libardo’s bones, my grandparents, Vanesa, Rosa Marcela, and among all those other faces, hers, Charlie sleeping, crying, drinking, her hair on my shoulder, our hands intertwined, her sad face that is becoming blurrier in my mind with every passing minute.

  The water starts getting cold and my fingertips are wrinkled. The bathroom is full of steam, the mirror foggy, and the towel Fernanda’s given me is the kind that doesn’t really dry you off. Outside I can hear her laughing. Is she still on the phone with Julio? He called from the farm to tell us he’d decided to bury Libardo next to a lignum vitae tree on the land next to the lower ravine. I knew which one he meant because Libardo always used to stare at it in amazement when it was in bloom.

  My suitcase is still on the bed with the clothes all jumbled up as if I’ve been here for days. Fernanda keeps laughing hard, and then I hear a man’s laughter alongside hers. She and whoever the other guy is murmur something and then laugh again. I know that laugh.

  I go out of the bedroom and try to find them. The muffled laughter and fragmented sentences are coming from the kitchen. I know that voice. There they are, close together and leaning on the counter, Fernanda and Pedro. As soon as they see me, they freeze, especially him. She tries to stop laughing, like a little girl who’s hiding something. But they can’t tamp it down. Fernanda’s nose is white, and Pedro’s holding a knife with a bump of cocaine on its tip that he was about to sniff when I walked in.

  “You bastard,” I tell him.

  “Larry,” Fernanda says, but besides my name she doesn’t have anything else to say.

  I spring at Pedro and ram him. We both fall to the floor. Fernanda screams, but instead of intervening, she tries to gather up the coke that’s spilled out of the bag and scattered across the floor. Pedro and I roll around; he’s stronger than I am, always has been, and he pins me down.

  “Let me explain.”

  I hurl every insult that occurs to me. Pedro may be stronger, but I’m more pissed off. I flail and manage to lurch to one side. I attack him again, and Fernanda digs her nails into my neck and tells me to let him go. I punch him in the face and take off running. I’m trying to get away not from him but from the entire experience. And from the truth.

  At the elevator, I
realize I’m barefoot. I go back to the apartment and ring the bell. Pedro opens the door.

  “Give me a minute to explain,” he says. “It’s a long story.”

  His nose is bleeding. I shove him and he falls down; I go into my bedroom, grab my shoes, and leave again, slamming the door. Outside, the streetlights are already on. Where the hell am I supposed to go? The world’s so big, but I’ve only got one place I can go: my grandparents’ house. I have a sister too, but do I dare? As I’m putting on my shoes, I hear someone calling my name.

  “Larry! Larry!”

  I turn and see her. It’s Julieth, shouting to me from Pedro’s SUV. She signals me over. Inga’s asleep next to her, and La Murciélaga is crying.

  “Where are you going?” Julieth asks. Seeing how upset I am, she asks, “What happened, Larry?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re waiting for you and Pedro,” she says. “He went up to get you.”

  “Don’t talk to me about that asshole,” I say.

  “What’s wrong?” Julieth asks, surprised.

  The three of them are still wearing the same clothes they were in yesterday. They stink of alcohol. They’ve lost their charm. Inga’s drooling, La Murciélaga’s eyes are swollen, and Julieth looks glazed over.

  “What’s up with her?” I ask, gesturing to La Murciélaga.

  “She’s sad.”

  “Why?”

  “Everything.”

  “Are the keys in the ignition?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Julieth says. “Pedro will be right down.”

  I get into the driver’s seat and start the engine. I haven’t driven for years, but it’s one of those things you don’t forget.

  “What are you doing?” Julieth asks.

  I don’t answer and hit the gas.

  “Where are you going? What about Pedro?” Julieth says.

  Any street will do as an escape route; instinctively, I head up into the hills. A bottle rolls around under my feet and gets trapped between the pedals. Instead of braking, I accelerate. The women scream.

  “What are you doing, Larry?”

  I manage to drag the bottle free with one foot. La Murciélaga starts crying again, and Julieth begs her to stop thinking about that. The bottle’s still got some aguardiente in it; I squeeze it between my thighs, uncap it, and take a long swig.

  “There’s the booze!” Julieth exclaims. “We’d lost it.” She snatches it from me and takes a slug, then passes it to La Murciélaga and says, “Drink this and stop blubbering, please.”

  I turn on the radio and La Murciélaga yells, “No!” She slams the radio off and, freaking out, says, “I don’t want music, I don’t want liquor, I don’t want anything, I don’t want to live.”

  Without realizing it, I run a red light and another car screeches to a stop just short of my door. Julieth screams and La Murciélaga doesn’t even notice. Inga moans, still asleep. They yell at me from the other car; back in the day, I would have gotten shot. Julieth leans forward and, feigning a dignity that doesn’t match her level of sobriety, tells me, “Don’t be childish, Larry. Stop being such a dick. Tell me where we’re going already.”

  I prise the bottle from La Murciélaga and take two more swigs. My body is trembling like a dog that’s just woken up.

  “Answer me, Larry!” Julieth shrieks in my ear.

  “To fucking hell,” I say, and slam the gas pedal all the way to the floor.

  66

  After finding the video of Libardo with his mistress, Fernanda spent the next few days shut up in her bedroom. She came out only to make herself coffee in the morning and, at midday, to pour herself a drink. She didn’t even come to the phone when Cubides called. And she didn’t want to talk to Eloy either. You can go ahead and kill him, she told us to tell him, though we changed it to, she’s busy right now, please call back later.

  The house was a shambles. Though we opened the windows, it reeked of old food, cigarettes, confinement, and even of scorched plastic ever since Fernanda had destroyed the TV. I don’t know how many weeks it had been since we’d changed our sheets. Desperate, I called Gran to ask for help.

  “We need someone to come in and clean, Gran.”

  “What you need is someone to look after you,” she said. “Come over here. I can take both of you in.”

  She was right. We’d be better off at her house, but we couldn’t leave Fernanda alone right now.

  “Thanks, Gran, but we just need somebody to help out with the cooking and cleaning.”

  “Where did everybody go?”

  “Mom fired them. There was a situation, and she didn’t trust anybody.”

  “Well, I don’t trust her either,” she said. “You’ll be safe here and have everything you need. Eladio and Marcos are still with us—they can take care of you.”

  “Maybe later,” I tell her. “For now, I’d appreciate it if you know of anyone looking for domestic work.”

  Meanwhile, Julio and I kept watching the remaining videos. We were certain that one of them would contain Libardo’s voice. But what we found were side notes from his eventful life. Meetings with prominent politicians and businessmen that he’d probably held on to as evidence. A group of men unloading boxes from an eighteen-wheeler and then loading them onto a plane. Men shackled in a basement, their limbs being amputated by a chainsaw. Libardo and Pablo clinking beer bottles at a barbecue. Things like that, some of them awful, others insignificant. And one that was particularly moving: a trio of musicians accompanying Libardo singing. He was drunk. With one hand on his heart and his eyes welling up, gazing into the camera, he sang, the fear of living is the lord and master of many other fears, insatiable and trifling. The musicians were trying to follow him, but Libardo was so immersed in the song that he seemed to have forgotten that there were guitars and people around him. It is yours and it is so mine, the fear of living that bleeds in our heartbeats like a challenge, Libardo sang, stricken.

  We finished watching all the tapes; none of them contained Libardo’s voice. The song was useless for the comparison. And so we were left right where we’d started, or even further behind, since Fernanda’s new attitude meant that the recovery efforts were on hold. Cubides even suggested that Julio and I take up the negotiations with the kidnappers ourselves. He was eager to show results. I refused for the same reason I always gave—I wasn’t sure the voice on the call had been Libardo’s—and Fernanda forbade Julio to get involved. She had a long conversation with the prosecutor, but they were unable to come to an agreement.

  With life on hold, I went back to inviting Pedro and his friends over to the house for drinking, partying, sleeping with Julieth. I no longer cared whether it was the weekend. We’d whoop it up any day they wanted. And I didn’t care whether Julio and Fernanda were home. Julio kept going off to his girlfriend’s house by cab, though sometimes he’d hang out with us. Fernanda didn’t give a crap about my parties; she stayed shut up in her room, drinking alone.

  One of those nights, Fernanda came out of her bedroom in her pajamas on her way to the kitchen, and when she passed through the living room, Pedro called her over. He invited her to join the group, offered to make her a drink, another one, since she’d already been drinking, and she accepted. She looked happy, which she certainly hadn’t been that afternoon. After everybody introduced themselves, Fernanda asked loudly, “And which one’s Larry’s girlfriend?”

  Julieth looked at me in horror and lowered her head.

  “Ma,” I said.

  “Hey now, who’s the lucky girl?” Fernanda insisted.

  “Her,” Pedro said, pointing at Julieth. “But he’s the lucky one.”

  Fernanda smiled at Julieth, and she smiled shyly back. From then on, Fernanda kept watching her with discomfiting curiosity. Sometimes she’d smile when she met Julieth’s gaze, but I knew there was nothing friendl
y about it.

  Eventually, Fernanda had lost the little composure she had left. The uppermost two buttons of her pajama top were undone, she was having trouble hitting the ashtray with her cigarette ash, and she stumbled when she went to the bathroom.

  “Larry, sweetie,” she said, “bring the TV from your dad’s study.”

  I thought she was looking to fill the space where the smashed TV had been.

  “I’ll set it up tomorrow, Ma.”

  “Bring it,” she commanded.

  “Ma.”

  “I said bring it, Larry. I want them to see something.”

  “I’ll help,” Pedro said, but I started suspecting what Fernanda was aiming at.

  “No,” I said. “We’re not going to watch anything right now.”

  “I’ll bring it for you, Fer,” Pedro said, and signaled to another guy to go with him.

  “You’re not going to bring anything,” I told Pedro.

  “Why not?” Fernanda challenged me. “I want everybody’s opinion, your girlfriend’s too,” she added mockingly. She got to her feet and said, “I’m going to show them Libardo’s bitch and I want them to tell me who’s better-looking, her or me.”

  She tried to strike a pose, but she lost her balance and wobbled sideways.

  “I’m warning you,” she said. “That tramp’s a lot younger than me, though she doesn’t even come up to my thighs. I’d like to see her when she’s my age.”

  “Ma, stop, enough.”

  “Let them compare.” She looked at Pedro and told him, “Bring that TV.” And again she addressed the room at large: “At the age that slut is now, I’d already been crowned Miss Medellín.”

  She looked at Julieth and said, “Now you know where Larry gets his good looks from.”

  “Shut up or I’m leaving,” I warned her.

  “Well, leave then,” she said.

  They grabbed me to keep me from going. Julieth murmured to me, don’t listen to her, she’s drunk, but I insisted on shutting myself in my room. I called Julio to make him come back and help me, but he didn’t answer his cell phone. I sprawled out on the bed and turned the TV all the way up. Julieth appeared and lay down next to me.