And as for my mother, I still hadn’t called anyone. I hadn’t mentioned my loss to any of my family or friends. People understand what they want to, what interests them.
I know it might seem that I’ve got a grudge against society, and the truth is at that moment I did.
The elevator opened just when the pain became unbearable. The young, casually-dressed Thai and the older Dutch man in a suit came out.
The young man was holding a gunmetal gray suitcase, the kind you only carry if you know that what’s inside is valuable. They looked me up and down. I think they were surprised that I was barefoot. Or maybe not… The truth is that every time I feel different I think that the rest of the world will realize, but most people don’t notice anything.
I remember a song that said, “The good-looking people are the weird ones, everyone knows that but no one dares to say it. Even they don’t like themselves, and they’ve got hang-ups about being different.” I’ve always liked those lyrics, I know that what they say about good-looking people is a lie, but I loved thinking that being handsome isn’t the panacea. I’m not handsome, obviously, if I were I wouldn’t like the song.
My mother used to tell me that I looked a lot like James Dean. That’s how mothers are. Although over the years more than a dozen people have agreed with her. I met Dean on Minorca. Not literally, his car had crashed years earlier. I remember that my mother had a performance on the island that was cancelled because of rain.
So there we were, in a hotel in Fornells, she and I watching how the rain had turned a possible Sunday on the beach into a lackluster day of waiting; into one of those days that seem like they don’t count.
My mother asked me if I wanted to meet a star, one of those that shoot through the sky quickly but are so spellbinding that people never forget them. At twelve years old, I was anxious to see dazzling stars, or anything that would entertain me on that rainy day.
We saw East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant, one after the other. Every movie he ever made in one night; it was easy. When Giant ended, I felt what my mother had predicted I would: that a dazzling star had shot through my life.
I never knew if I actually look like James Dean or if my desire to look like him has made me slowly, bit by bit, resemble him. Maybe it’s like how dogs that are fascinated by their owners feel, and then they end up looking like them.
I’ve always maintained that Dean wasn’t handsome, he was magical. And that his magic was mistaken for beauty.
The young man with the silver suitcase was handsome; he had very black hair. I’d always liked hair that had a very definite color to it. Another thing I don’t have: my hair is dull chestnut brown. The woman that hugged me on Capri always said that my hair was lovely, but I never knew if she really meant it. I’m very distrusting when it comes to compliments given in bed, in the middle of an embrace.
“Can we come in?” asked the young man with the black hair, without even introducing himself.
“Sure, sure,” I answered twice. I always repeat words when I’m nervous; that’s happened to me since I was a kid.
The older Dutch man didn’t say anything. They came in.
They stopped as soon as they crossed the threshold. Which is a courtesy I’ve always found strange, especially when there’s only one possible route from the entryway to the living room.
There were dishes from last night’s dinner on the coffee table. Then I still only had three meals. Irrationally I thought of raising the blinds, but it was nighttime and that wouldn’t solve anything.
They were about to sit right in the middle of the sofa when I decided that I didn’t feel like having them make themselves at home in my living room; I didn’t know them that well. Something told me I shouldn’t allow it.
“Why don’t we go out on the terrace?” I asked, using a tone that implied it was an obligatory suggestion.
The older man looked at the younger one and he seemed to think it was fine. That was when I realized that the young man was the older one’s bodyguard.
Aside from security reasons, I’m sure they agreed because they didn’t much want to sit in front of some stranger’s leftover lasagna either.
Again they politely waited for me to lead the way; I kindly showed them the two steps to the terrace. They were very tame little mice.
I have lived in nine apartments in my life. I never minded moving, I only wanted each one to have a larger terrace than the one before. For me that’s progress: a better terrace and better views. From my terrace you could see the bustling Plaza Santa Ana, one of the most beautiful plazas I’ve ever lived in. I don’t know what it is about it, but having the Teatro Español on one side makes the magic of the stage extend to every corner of the plaza.
Even then, as I looked at that plaza at three in the morning, I was surprised at how full of life it was. All the stores were open, kids playing on the swings, mothers having a coffee with other mothers and a ton of people enjoying their rem. Rem was a new mealtime that had recently been created. A lot of people were saying that rem was the most important meal of the day. I don’t know, maybe it was true; maybe if you look at everything from the perspective of spending 24 hours a day awake, rem could be the perfect moment to fuel up.
The clock marked three. I’ve always been a minute ahead. I told you, I’m impatient. At that time of the day you could always spot people in suits rushing because they were late for work. One of the shifts started at three thirty in the morning.
That plaza was chaotic, but what better way to receive the medication than in the midst of that craziness. Exactly what was in store for me when I took it.
I think the older man didn’t even look at the plaza for a second; he placed the suitcase on top of the white garden table that was in the middle of my terrace.
Just then I thought of my mother, of what she would say if she knew that, as soon as she had died, I had decided to get the injection to quit sleeping.
But I needed the world to be different, I needed to not dream of losing her again and I needed the days to not be the same as the ones when she was by my side.
A tear slid down my cheek. The two men thought that it was out of excitement at getting the medication. If they had known the truth I don’t think they would have understood.
I guess that they had mothers too, but you couldn’t tell by looking at them.
The older man stuck his hand into the suitcase. In a few seconds I would finally get my first look at Cetamine, the medication that nine months earlier had turned our world on its head.
3
THINKING LIKE THE THIEF WHO’S LOOKING FOR IT AND LIKE THE PERSON WHO’S HIDING IT
When the old man’s hand reappeared from inside the metal suitcase, his fingers were holding two small injections, the kind without a needle, the kind that perforate your skin and you don’t even know how. They were the size of the old USB card that my uncle used to have on the desk in his office. He called them electronic pencils.
I was glad they weren’t injections. I’ve never liked injections; I’m scared of them. My mother always used to say that they were opportunities that life gave us to blow and make a wish, but it’s never going to feel good to have a needle go through your skin, no matter how positive a spin some people try to put on it.
The older man held out the two strange capsules to me, but when I went to grab them, suddenly he wouldn’t give them to me. It was like in the hallway, but reversed. Now he was the one who knew the path, who knew the steps and he wouldn’t give me that medication without the corresponding instructions.
He gave the impression of being conscientious. The type that are the archenemies of the impatient. I wanted to inject it into my veins and he looked to want to explain every last detail to me. He looked into my eyes, so intently that I had to look away.
“Do you know how it works...?” he asked, dragging out each of the syllables in the sentence.
I liked that older man’s delicacy and tone. He was a bit sweeter than the young
er one. You could tell he wanted to empathize with me. He didn’t know that I hadn’t wanted more friends, for some time now. Years ago my quota of getting to know people had been filled, by far.
“I guess you inject it and that’s it, right?” I responded.
“Yes... That’s it in theory. You inject it and that’s all. But in practice it’s a little more complicated.”
“What do you mean?”
“Should we sit down?” the old man requested very kindly.
I knew right away that I shouldn’t sit down, that I shouldn’t listen to him, that all I had to do was grab that injection and let it do its job. But I liked the man’s tone, it reminded me of an old priest who used to talk to me about Jesus, when I was a boy. And I would listen fascinated. I blindly believed everything he explained to me: dogmas, miracles and faith. Until my grandmother was at death’s door and I prayed so hard that I wore out Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Creeds. My grandmother died and I discovered that that priest had taught me some charms that did nothing, absolutely nothing.
I sat beside the old man. He moved the injections out of my sight, as if he wanted me to concentrate on his voice, on his moment. He was like a magician at a funfair.
There are so many people that know they have their moment and they take advantage of it...
The fishmongers know it when you ask them for advice about a fish fillet. Even the dermatologists when you worriedly show them a dark spot know it’s their moment. Even the cleaning woman, who comes on Thursdays and scolds me because the dust builds up in inaccessible areas, is aware that I should listen to her.
“What’s your name, boy?”
While the old man tried to get to know me better, the young man lit a cigarette and turned to look at the plaza, taking no interest in a conversation he must have heard thousands of times.
“Marcos,” I answered politely.
“Marcos, I know that the product’s advertising says that if you want to quit sleeping all you have to do is inject the contents, and gradually you’ll notice small changes that will result in being able to live 24 hours a day without sleeping.”
“Yes, that’s what it says.”
“Well, I should warn you that it’s true, but it’s also... a lie,” he declared with an interesting dramatic pause.
At that point I decided that I wanted to smoke. I asked the young man for a cigarette. They weren’t what they used to be, and hadn’t been for some time. My uncle, who was a big smoker, quit when my grandmother died of cancer. Later cigarettes gave up people, they took out all the nicotine and now they’re like candies with smoke.
An entire generation abhorred them, but ours, the one that still discovered Bogart classics on television, sometimes wants to smoke, to emulate our heroes in black and white.
He kindly gave me a cigarette and I lit it very slowly. It was a unique moment, it was an instant classic in black and white.
“What do you mean by that?” I exhaled all the smoke I could at the end of the question.
“That you will stop sleeping if you take it, and that your body will make up for it with movement. But it is more important that you know what that will mean. Like everything in life, first your head has to accept the change, you understand?”
I had never liked the demagoguery in the condescending you understand?”. I can’t stand it when people condescend to me. And least of all him, with his line of work.
He didn’t know it, but it bothered me enormously that he doubted my reasons for what I was about to do, the changes it entailed and what it would mean. I was really angry that his whole speech was so simplistic.
“Are you asking me if I know what I’m about to do?”
“Yes, more or less.” He stared into my eyes again.
“I know, I’m going to stop sleeping. And that’s what I want. Is that all?” I responded without the slightest hint of friendliness.
Now he was the one who looked at me scornfully; it seemed clear he didn’t like his big moment being rushed.
He couldn’t stand the true simplicity and I couldn’t stand the false complexity.
“That’s all,” he confirmed. “We have to make sure that the user understands what he is going to do. Do you have the money ready?”
His tone changed when he talked about the financial aspect. It was no longer sweet, it became rough. His gaze stopped observing me attentively; now, I was of no interest to him.
I went to find the envelope with the money. In cash. They always charged that way, since at first people would take the injections and then go cancel the check or the wire transfer and disappear. And later, even when you find them, how can you take away something that is forever? Stopping sleeping is like immortality: if they give it to you, how can they later take it away?
So they only accepted cash.
I had the money at home since the day before; I took it out of the bank as soon as I found out I had lost my mother. I went to the bank that was in the entryway of my building; I didn’t go out onto the street.
It was nearly eleven at night when I took out almost all my savings. When I got home I didn’t know where to put it; there were only a few hours left before they brought me the injections, but I was afraid someone would rob me as I slept.
I spent time thinking where to hide it. I don’t know if you’ve ever found yourself with the problem of hiding money at home. It’s complicated, because you think like the person who hides it, but at the same time like the thief who’s looking for it.
You think you’ve found a good spot, but then you think like a thief and you realize that it would be the first place you’d look.
Socks, shoes, backs of closets, nooks, tiles, the bathroom cabinet... They all seem like brilliant ideas, but immediately they turn into terribly obvious hiding spots.
It took me almost two hours to find the right place. It had to be unthinkable both for the person with the money and for the thief. And, it had to be someplace easy to remember. How many times have we hidden things of value so, so well that later we couldn’t find them.
I went over to my pillow, took off the case and sewn inside there was the narrow white envelope that held all my money. How ironic, the pillow held the key to quitting sleeping.
I went back to the terrace. The two men weren’t talking. That made me think that they couldn’t stand each other. I imagined a fight between them, over money, over character differences and even over some shady girl trouble. I handed the money to the older man. He passed it immediately to the younger one, who began to count it.
When he finished he counted it again. And then a third time.
No one spoke during those three counts, no one looked at anyone, only the sound from the plaza flooded everything. The sound of those who had already achieved it. Money in showy motion.
“It’s all good,” said the young man as if the triple check hadn’t happened.
The older man handed me the two injections. I took them and noticed that his hand was cold. I didn’t like it, I’ve never liked people without body heat.
“Enjoy,” he said without any sort of positive intonation, so I wouldn’t think he believed what he was telling me.
“Thank you. I hope you can find your way out,” I answered.
I know, it was very rude not to walk them to the door, but I didn’t want to have to retrace the path to the door, wait for the elevator to arrive and say goodbye again.
They appreciated it; they left. I’m sure they had to wake up many more people so they could quit sleeping.
I sat in the chair that the old man had left cold and I kept smoking, expelling the fake nicotine forcefully from my clean lungs.
In my left fist were the two injections; I squeezed them tightly.
4
FEAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
We’re all afraid. We all have fears, but the good thing about this life is that hardly anyone asks us what ours are.
They sense them, they smell them, they encounter them one day at the airport, in the
middle of a dark street, getting onto a bus in a strange city… And suddenly they realize that we are afraid of flying, or of the dark, of being mugged or of loving and giving part of ourselves when we have sex.
That night, as he gave me the injections, I had a horrible fear of losing… Of losing my dreams, of becoming just one more of those who had given up sleeping. One of those people in the plaza… My mother once told me, “Being different only depends on how many people are on your side.”
I don’t know if the old man’s words had affected me or if simply, as so often happens, that as a long-awaited moment approaches you realize that maybe you don’t want it to.
Weddings, investments, kisses, sex… In all those moments you can decide to turn back out of all kinds of fear.
I’ll admit it, I didn’t want it, it wasn’t something I thought I should do.
When Cetamine was introduced, a lot of people said that they would never take it. That you’d have to be a fool to give up sleeping, give up your naps and your dreams.
After a few months, so many had succumbed that you realized you either had to convert or lose a part of your life.
There were some that decided to take it out of jealousy. Yes, jealousy. What was your lover doing while you slept? Who were they with, what was going on, what were they seeing, what were they feeling…? That got to a lot of people, people who didn’t want to be left out of what was happening at night, those nocturnal moments that seemed to have been created for the loveliest things on the planet. When your lover came home, woke you up and told you about something incredible that happened at five in the morning while you were still accruing hours of sleep, there with your crusty eyes, well, that feeling won out over many people’s refusal to give up the nocturnal life they’d always known.
But I still wanted to sleep even after I heard those reasons. After all, I’ve always thought that sleeping is like time travel. A lot of people think that we’ll never travel to the future, but I think we do it every night. You sleep and when you wake up incredible things have happened: treaties have been signed, the stock market’s values have changed, people have broken up and fallen in love on other parts of the planet, where life continues…
Everything You and I Could Have Been If We Weren't You and I Page 2