⎯ What can they do to us? There are only four or five of them max. On the other hand, there are a whole bunch of us.
⎯ Yeah, but having the cops police on their side makes them a lot stronger. You don’t believe me, but things are getting ugly since they came the first time two months ago and kicked up a real stink. ⎯ Ramiro attends to one of his customers who has come for her clothes. He woman gives Ramiro the receipt, Ramiro hands over two blouses and a skirt on three coat hangers, the customer pays and leaves. Ramiro and Lolito remain in silence for a while, smoking, thinking, watching the people go by out on the street.
⎯ It’s not that bad, ‘bro. Maybe we should give them a good hiding to straighten them out and get them to back the fuck off.
⎯ Christ, get real, man; all that’d happen is that we’d get the fuzz on our backs.
⎯ Well, we could get them to join the gang.
⎯ In your wildest dreams, ‘bro; they think they own the colonia and, the worst thing is they’re gaining ground every day. Better we change our patch.
⎯ Don’t even think about it, things work real smooth here and it was our colonia long before these idiots began to call themselves the Macacos, and that’s all they are, a bunch of monkeys. Let them dream, feel like masters of the universe and we’ll see who can cut it.
⎯ Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.
⎯ Don’t wrinkle up on me, cozzie, have faith in the gang and you’ll see, everything’ll be sweet as.
⎯ Why don’t we give the cops a cut? Then they’ll look after us instead of the Macacos ⎯ Ramiro lights up a cigarette, the twentieth today.
⎯ They’d want a heap of dough. Anyway, I’ll talk to El Carroña, see what can be done.
More customers arrive at the dry cleaners, Ramiro attends to them: he hands over clothes, writes receipts, collects the money, takes in bed spreads, duvets, men’s suits, evening gowns. Lolito smokes like a chimney and the dry cleaners is empty again.
⎯ Where did El Carroña hide the stereos?
⎯ In his brother’s warehouse, I think. He asked me if I could keep them at my place but the old lady has been drilling me with a heap of questions lately and I don’t want her to cotton on.
⎯ What has she been asking? ⎯ Lolito stubs out his cigarette.
⎯ Yesterday when I got back at two in the morning with the mirrors and hub caps from the Chevy, she caught me red-handed and she started to suss me out and then she asked, you know, Where have you been? Whose is that? Where did you get it? I told her it belonged to El Carroã and that he’d given them to me to look after while his car was at the work shop. So why have you got them? Hasn’t he got somewhere to store them? She asked me. I got flustered and told her a bunch of nonsense, which she didn’t believe, of course.
⎯ Ay! What an idiot!
⎯ It’s just that you don’t know the boss, it’s as if she’s got radar hidden in her pussy and it’s hard to pull a fast one on her.
⎯ Well, let’s see how you can do it faster, ‘cos nosey mamás can become your worst enemy. We should rent an apartment and the whole gang could go and live there, we wouldn’t have any snooping, nosey parkers around.
⎯ Wouldn’t be a bad idea ⎯ Ramiro chucks the cigarette butt on to the street ⎯ Hey, bro’, have you seen Ernestina?
⎯ She was in hospital again, but that’s not unusual – Lolito eyes Ramiro sideways -. Why? Do you still hook up with her?
⎯ Once in a while.
⎯ She’s good, eh?
⎯ That’s the truth, I really like your prima a heap.
⎯ Well, marry her so we can be primos – Lolito laughs at his own joke.
⎯ No way, José. Ernestina’s a good lay, but she’s got a screw loose, big time.
⎯ Yeah, bro’. Poor broad, she’s really nuts – Lolito looks at the wall clock and stretches lazily -. I’m heading off now, mate. The old lady gets really heavy when I arrive even five minutes late at the shop.
⎯ Are we meeting today same place as usual?
⎯ You betcha. There’s gonna be a lot of work with the little number at Casa Lamm, we’re gonna get a lot of luxury cars, nice condition, first class goods – Lolito smiles deviously -. That reminds me, call El Marrano, we’re gonna need him today as well. You’ll see, bro’.
Lolito goes and Ramiro is left alone at the dry cleaners thinking about stereos, moldings, hub caps, mag wheels, rear vision mirrors, mudguards, head lights. He also thinks about Ernestina, her wasp waist, her voluptuous hips, her sensual mouth. His mind wanders, he drifts off thinking of Tinita’s smell, her firm breasts, the faraway look in her eyes. His customers come in, he attends to them, his hands still on Ernestina’s legs, his mouth kissing Tinita’s lips, consuming Ernestina’s whole body with his eyes. Afterwards, he doesn’t remember anything. Complete darkness takes over him, his every thought, hies every desire. He tries desperately to remember, but his mind is completely empty, except for a black veil that closes in front of his eyes. He tries to recall a face, a gesture, a shout, a bang. Nothing. That’s it, nothing and then the hospital, the nurses, the tubes coming out of everywhere in his body, the pain in his chest, in his belly, in his groin; the questions of the police and his mother and his brother. I want to go home, it’s the only thing he can think of.
As soon as Lolito found out about the shooting, he packed his things and went to Ciudad Juárez without saying anything, without saying goodbye to anyone. He just told Hortensio he’d be back in a couple of days and to try his best to stop Natalia from worrying and asking more questions. The next bullet would be for him and this time, it could hit the mark.
34
I had had an abortion, years ago, between Hortensio and the twins. I didn’t make it happen, but it wasn’t natural either. As you you can imagine, it’s not something one likes to talk about, and I don’t even know why I’m telling you this, maybe just so’s you know what Lolo was like, ‘cos that’s what you want, isn’t it?, to find out what my husband was like and work out who killed him, right, Señor Lawyer?
I was four months pregnant and was very down, thinking that our situation was going to get really grim. I hardly slept at night, asking myself how I’d manage with this new child. Lolo hadn’t come home to sleep for several nights; I suppose he’d been staying with some floozy he’d been seeing at the time, what else? He was always in a bad mood, breaking plates if the frijoles were cold, slapping me across the face if I happened to answer him off-handedly, slamming any door he came across and saying all the time that he didn’t need me in the least, that he’d be better to go with the other woman, at least she treated him like a man. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t even feel like answering him, I felt so sad and crushed.
That day, he threw his earthenware plate on to the floor because according to him, it was cold. I swear by the Virgin Mary, Señor Solicitor, that it couldn’t have been any hotter, but he was itching for a fight and he threw the plate, smashing it into little pieces.
⎯ I’m sick to death of eating this cold shit; don’t you
understand that I want it ve-ry hot, boiling, if possible?
With one blow I was down on the floor as well. He shoved me really hard, first I banged my stomach against the door frame and then I bounced like a ball on to the floor and banged my head. I lay there on the floor for a while, I didn’t know whether I was alive or about to settle accounts with the Almighty. I remember thinking, Ay, mamacita, take me with you once and for all; I’m fed up to the back teeth with this bastard. But I was still well and truly alive. For a moment I didn’t feel any pain, just really very angry; the sort of rage that almost blinds you and you see stars, that’s why I thought he’d knocked me off, but he hadn’t. When I came out of my trance, I got up and without saying anything, I went to the kitchen; I grabbed the rest of the plates and took them to the dining room table. Then I piled them all in right in front of my husband’s face, who just looked at me as if I was crazy, saying, She’s gone mad. I think I had gone crazy because,
you know what I did after that? I grabbed the pile of plates and I said to Lolo:
⎯ Look, Lolo, this is how you smash plates ⎯ And crash! I dropped them all on the floor ⎯ Not like you, one by one, you’ll never finish that way. Next time you’ll know how. And I went out of the room leaving him with his mouth open. A little while later I started to get a really high fever, shivering and sweating. I said to myself, now I’ve done it. But I said nothing to Lolo. Then I started to haemorrhage, but me, I didn’t say a word. Then Lolo came into the room, I don’t know whether it was to beat me up again or to ask for forgiveness. Whatever it was, he couldn’t do it because that’s when he saw me lying on the floor in a great big puddle of blood. He went crazy; at that very moment the kids came home from their friends’ place and started to bawl and Lolo didn’t know what to do. Finally, with all the shouting Francisco Tocino and Florencia, his wife, turned up; if it weren’t for them, I’d have bled to death because typical Lolo was like a possum in the headlights and couldn’t think straight. They took me to the Red Cross and I was there for a little while, hovering between life and death.
Wouldn’t you know it, Señor Solicitor, the days I was in hospital, Lolo was as smooth as silk; really loving, attentive, he brought me chocolates without the nurses seeing, and once in a while a rose. I almost fell for it but then Florencia make me come to my senses.
⎯ Don’t be an dope, sis’ ⎯ she told me ⎯ the idiot is going around with his tail between his legs ‘cos he’s the one responsible for all this fuckin’ mess; it won’t be long and he’ll be beating you up again and then let’s see if you live to tell the tale. If you let him brain wash you, you’re stuffed.
When the doctor told me about the abortion; instead of feeling bad, I felt very relieved. I said: Thank you, Virgencita, for relieving me of this burden. They say the ways of the Lord are mysterious; I believe that because if it hadn’t been for the beating Lolo gave me, I would have had another little kid who would have made life even more difficult for us. So that’s how it was I had the abortion, Señor Solicitor.
35
Francisco Tocino sits on the bench, he gets up, he takes off his leather jacket, sits down again, looks at the people: at the mamás with their children, couples in love, the beggars, the street sellers peddling their medicinal herbs for pancreas, liver and broken hearts. A small group of school girls come running and flop down in the shade of a tree. They laugh happily and comment all at the same time about their daring and how they climbed over the wall and out-witted the high school’s strict security. Francisco sees them arrive and tries to discern what they are saying, but he can’t hear anything other than their giggles because they’re conversing as if they were discussing state secrets. Francisco has no option but to just watch them. One of them, the prettiest one, rolls her long socks down to her ankles and her school dress up at the waist so it looks like a mini skirt; her friends do the same and they all lie there with their legs bare in full view of Francisco, who stares at them fascinated. Another takes a packet of cigarettes from her fraying satchel and offers them to her friends. Only two of them know how to smoke and try to teach the others in the group. Francisco closely observes the one he likes most. Anita takes the cigarette she is offered and listens carefully to the instructions of her friend, who assumes the pose of a woman of the world as she tries to explain how to inhale. Anita is overcome with a paroxysm of coughing and casts the cigarette to one side. The others laugh raucously and make fun of the expression of distaste on her face. Anita refuses to try again even though she risks being teased even more by her friends. Francisco can’t keep his eyes off her. She must be sixteen, he thinks, or perhaps a bit less. None of the young girls are conscious of being watched; they aren’t aware that their bodies are being scrutinised very carefully, from the colour of their hair to the type of shoes they are wearing, the shape of their recently formed waists, their hips that are just beginning to take shape and their chests that are still almost flat. Anita’s body is the only one that seems to have matured almost completely; two little golf balls emerge from under her blouse, a slight curve accentuates her hips and the more rounded shape of her buttocks is a sign she’ll be well-endowed. Francisco Tocino doesn’t miss a single one of her movements, her gestures.
Almost at once, they all jump up, brushing the dry leaves, grass and earth off their skirts and legs. Completely unaware of the eyes that are on them, they go on their way towards the shuttle bus stop, where they get into one without ever realising that Francisco has gotten into the same van as they have.
At the ticket office, each one pays her own entry fee to the Chapultepec fairground. Some of them don’t want to go on the Russian Mountain, but the others convince them to go on it - almost force them. Below them, Francisco waits with all the patience in the world. They reappear doubled up with laughter, talking loudly about the experience and encouraging each other on to have another go. Francisco becomes anxious as he has lost sight of Anita. At that moment, he sees her again and smiles. But she is not alone; a twit of more or less the same age is chatting with her and Anita blushes, she smiles shyly and tries to get the words out, but can’t think of anything to say. Francisco frowns, clenches his fits and curses the young woman who is coming on to Anita, his Anita. With a sour look on his face, Francisco leaves the fairground but not without casting one last look at Anita’s body and her face. The group of young girls continue to enjoy their day of truancy, in complete ignorance of the outside world and Francisco’s twisted thoughts.
36
I don’t think he had enemies; even less anyone who’d have wasted him. Sure, he was a poor drunk, a smart arse, good-for-nothing, a bit of a lazy bum, I’d say. But he wasn’t such a rat bag that someone had got stuck into him so terribly. I liked him ‘cos he was chatty and simpático. He made me laugh a lot; the only thing was that his jokes were typical of an old macho who doesn’t have what it takes any more. When he’d had one too many, he was pretty unbearable, always looking for a fight and getting into scuffles about any little thing.
I don’t think he had any debts either; there wasn’t anyone who’d lend him a cent; anyway, La Covadonga earns enough to live well. Maybe some jealous husband killed him, although I don’t understand that, maybe it’s ‘cos I have a relationship with Clau that’s very “open mind”.
Well, that’s what I call him; of course his name’s not Clau, it’s Claudio. He calls me Vale, it sounds nicer, more caring, don’t you think? You could say, Clau is my husband.... Yes, I know that in this country of double standards marriage between gays is not permitted, but I’ll explain how we did the deed.
It was one day, fourteen years ago, when a friend of mine was getting married. Anyway, he and I sat at the back of the church so we wouldn’t be seen and we listened carefully to the mass and were as nervous as if we were the bride and groom, and in reality we were; it was as if it was our wedding; we listened to the words of the priest as if he was saying them to us. When the Padre read the marriage vows, Clau and I consented with a movement of our heads. John Smith, said the voice of the Padre, do you take Mary Jones as your wedded wife, in sickness and in health and in this and in all of the rest of it; and Clau accepted with a gentle nod of his head and without saying a word, he put the ring on my finger. Mary Jones, do you take John Smith and so on and so forth; I nodded my acceptance and I put the ring on Clau’s finger. Standing right next to me was my madrecita who was quite emotional and cried the whole time. Her fifth husband, Rómulo, patted her hand and passed her the tissues. As you can imagine, my madrecita gave me away and acted as my bridesmaid in charge of the bouquet, the wedding coins, the lazo, the rings, etc. That’s how Clau and I came to be married before God and the church. I doesn’t bother us that it isn’t valid, the most important thing is that we are joined in the eyes of the Lord, as it should be.
As I was saying, I disagree with crimes of passion. Whenever I like someone to spend the night or two with them, I always tell Clau about it and vice versa; if it w
asn’t that way it would be cheating. It’s healthy to have a change once in a while, to have a taste of something different; otherwise life gets very monotonous and then c’est fini, the couple split. It’s different when one gets emotionally involved with someone else; that’s when I’d justify putting a bullet into one’s rival; well... I mean... I wouldn’t kill any one, of course I wouldn’t; what I mean is that one would send them packing.
Clau and I have a wonderful relationship, like a fairy story, he is the charming prince and I am Cinderella. But I’m not his maid, definitely not. I do his meals, I have his clothes all ironed ready every morning for him to go to work; but not the drag of doing dishes, cleaning floors, making the bed and all that shit; for that we pay a girl so she can take care of all that hassle that really isn’t my thing. Imagine what it would do to my hands, they’d be rough and horrible, not what you’d want to caress my charming prince’s silky skin...OK, OK, I’ll stop talking rubbish.
37
Hortensio leans on the counter at the store staring at nothing in particular, and thinking of nothing in particular. There are no customers at La Covadonga, no noise on the streets, no cars blowing their horns, no early morning drinkers looking for a beer; even the drunks seem to be on holiday this sultry Sunday morning in summer. Sundays are really so boring, thinks Hortensio as he doggedly chews the nail on his little finger. He’s feeling tired and his vision is becoming blurred. It was a great night out last night, up until five in the morning; now he’s paying the consequences. What a hangover, jeez. If it weren’t for the hangovers, everyone would get drunk more often, starting with Hortensio’s father, with Lolo Manon. Hortensio can still hear the pounding of Led Zeppelin in his ears, then The Doors, and even cooler, Carlos Santana. What great songs! I’m not gonna drink any more of that damned rum ; I hate white Bacardi, from now on I’m gonna drink whisky, the good stuff. What a laugh, carambas, with that idiot Ramiro dancing the dance of the fifty three veils. He was plastered, the idiot; well, we all were. The Gargajo albino was even worse; he even smoked sheets of newspaper; the poor thing’s a moron but I like him. He’s so very nice, he even likes his own nick name. Híjole, bro’, I’m still pissed.
A Dead Man's Travail Page 9