Kill the Ámpaya!

by Dick Cluster

  Two more days gone. 11:00 at night.

  The Visigoth took me by the hand, and I felt a little jolt in my stomach. That’s a good sign, the jolt, because it always happens when one falls in love.

  I’ve read a few things, but here I’m trying to bring you up to date on my life without Claudio. I thought it would be worse.

  Oh—I’ve got another one on the list. In hand, or better to say before my eyes. A guy I’ve known for years, a contemporary of mine, but he’s kind of a ladies’ man. He’s spent his life getting married and divorced, although I don’t want him as a husband, of course.

  About the guy you know, the less said, the better.

  The next day.

  Pablo my very dearest, you called but I wasn’t home. I felt so bad about it. You know, I’ve been thinking, and I believe I made a mistake. I’ve taken Claudio way too seriously, I mean, à la Sophocles, sometimes à la Shakespeare. Claudio is more a guy to be taken à la Moliere or maybe Hector Quintero. I won’t deny he’s a son of a bitch, a degenerate, a Rubik’s cube, but not entirely. Anyway, it’s too late. He’s gone. I saw him yesterday, with his Mona Lisa smile. I’ve wasted a lot of time on anxiety and anger. And what’s worse, sometimes I’ve forgotten I exist.

  Two more days.

  Pablo, my dear, it’s not the Visigoth and it’s not the ladies’ man. It’s the nomad. Because you can’t deny that the most nomadic of all is a baseball player. Yes, a baseball player, what the hell, you don’t have to get all surprised. It’s a long story and, like always, it’s got a tragic aura to it. Tragicomic, anyway.

  It may surprise you that I’m fond of our national pastime, but it’s true, I’m a fan. At the stadium I met a girl who’s friends with all the players. The other night, after the game, she invited me to a disco-karaoke place to celebrate a win. It’s been a while since I frequented places like that, and I was a little afraid, but I went.

  And right there I started dancing with the catcher of my team. Baby, I need to explain to you, the catcher is the one who gets the ball, the receiver, the one behind the batter in front of the umpire (that’s the guy everybody screams curses at). Anyway, we started dancing (he’s a terrible dancer), and what can I say, I was in seventh heaven, because the guy is really good-looking (when the game is on TV, you can see him). He said he always saw me in the stands, he took special note of me, all the nonsense people say when they’re dancing. From song to song and drink to drink, my catcher starting pulling me closer, and I went along. Dancing in the half-light, you know, and sometimes none at all. He invited me to his room and, tramp that I am, I went.

  Well my boy, when we got there and he turned on the light, he recognized me. He said, “Hey, you’re what’s-her-name, I’ve seen you, you’re a writer!” And I’m remembering the story about Virgilio Piñera and the mulatto (you remember? the longshoreman who wanted to talk about books?): “Get dressed and get out!” This fine man has been courting me with all kinds of silly shit and explaining how he locates his hand and his arm and his feet and even his ass when he’s up at bat, when suddenly he gets all intimidated and the next thing I know he wants me to recite him a poem. Are you listening? A poem, at that of all moments? My god, this could only happen to me. And I’m going, No, my love, you talk, please, baby, I want you to talk, baseball is my favorite thing in the world, all the peaks and valleys I’ve lived through watching the games, so please, honey, talk to me about baseball, the bat, the mask, the umpires, sons of bitches that they are. But he’s like, no, please (you see?, “please” and everything), you’re such a cultured and literary woman (only it sounded more like “lititery”), why all this about baseball, I’m just a country hick, I need some polish for when I go abroad because, you know, baby, I’m going to be the best catcher in Cuba. And I’m like, okay, that’s more like it, back to baseball, but he’s no way, Barbarita—may I call you Barbarita?—I don’t want to talk about that.

  Now stop and consider, Pablo dearest, after ten or twelve glasses of rum, when one’s body—especially my body, aching, bruised, trampled on—is ready for a good fuck, for a tremendous body-to-body with that guy built like a brick wall, along comes this crap about a poem and literature. No, honey, I don’t have anything to recite, I can’t even remember a poem, the only poem here tonight is you, your batting, the way you rob your opponents of hits. So in the face of all that, he started kissing me, which of course he does as well as he catches, but that’s all it amounts to, because I’ve never been with a woman like you, my queen, and it’s messing me up, I don’t know how to say this nicely, pardon my language, but the horse won’t move an inch. And I’m like, damn, because what I needed right at that moment was nothing more or less than a horse, a good one, a stallion, the summum of all stallions, the Trojan Horse, the cosmic one. But he was nearly dying of shame, Pablo my only, and so I consoled him, I said it doesn’t matter, my stud, this can happen to anyone. He insisted on accompanying me home, and he made me promise to be in the stands that next day, in the same seat as always.

  The worst part was that when he kissed me goodbye, the horse . . .

  I’m saying, Pablo, that when my catcher and I said goodnight in front of my house, the horse said, here I am. What a waste, no?

  That night I didn’t sleep well. I dreamed of Claudio and of him. I got them mixed up. Him in my bed, Claudio playing baseball and hammering immense home runs that flew over the fence and kept going and going until the ball reached the moon or who knows where. For two days I didn’t go to the stadium, because I was kind of embarrassed, so I listened to the games on the radio. The announcer just kept on repeating, “There’s something wrong with our man behind the plate, he seems like he’s got a cold or flu. . . . now he’s touching his waist, maybe he’s injured . . .,” but I knew the poor guy didn’t have a cold and wasn’t injured. It was because of the horse.

  Finally, I went to a game and I sat where I always do. When they came out to warm up, he saw me and gave me a kind of shy wave at first, he put two fingers to his mouth like throwing me a kiss, then he threw me the ball, and luckily a couple of guys next to me reached out and one of them caught it, because otherwise it would have cracked open my skull.

  The game began. That night they stole second base off him fourteen times, third base twice, and a very handsome shortstop stole el home. A total disaster, my friend. I felt like everyone knew I was responsible, though in fact it wasn’t my fault at all, I was more the victim. When he came up to the plate, I don’t even want to tell you, instead of keeping his eye on the ball, he turned his head to look at me. He got hit by two pitches, once in the back (of course, since he wasn’t facing the pitcher) and once in the shoulder. The score was seven to four in favor of the other team, and I was furious, all I wanted to do was jump down on the field and shake him, thump him, do something.

  Ninth inning, bottom of the ninth, that means it was our last chance. The first two batters went down—the first one struck out, the second hit a line drive to center that was caught. The next two got on, a walk and a hit batsman, and the one after that hit a línea to left that got down. So, bases loaded, Pablo my dearest, and it was his turn to bat. All thirty thousand people in the ballpark started booing him. The pitcher even made a special threatening gesture—I’m an expert in gestures—the jerk touched his own balls and then swiped the index finger of his right hand across his throat, which in baseball talk means, “I’m going to strike you out and I’ve got the balls to do it.” My catcher was bouncing on his feet, he crossed himself, he looked my way. The pitcher wound up and threw—strike called, no swing. The pitcher wound up again—low and outside. One and one. Another pitch got by him, one and two. At that moment, Pablo my love, I remembered who I am. I stood up and yelled, “Rito, that can happen to anybody. You’re the greatest, give it a whack.” Pablo, it felt like a Kevin Costner movie. Me on my feet, the game down to the last strike, him batting, or trying to, which isn’t the same, him turning toward me in slow motion, and then a big close-up of his face that s
aid, “This jonrón is for you.” The pitcher taunted him again, and this time it was my guy who touched his balls. I tossed my scarf and my beret on the field and the umpire yelled at me, “If you don’t calm down I’m calling the police and having you arrested,” so I made a dirty gesture at him. The pitcher got tired of this and threw one practically in the dirt, but even so my guy reached for it and made contact. Pablo, right from the start I knew it was gone. I think it hasn’t landed yet.

  So that was it, we won the game—remember, we had three men on, the hit scored four runs, we won eight to seven. I launched myself onto the field and hugged my catcher, everyone congratulated him, and they tried to lift him up in the air. I said, “I’ll wait for you to change,” but just then who should appear but Claudio, with two policemen, saying I’d gone crazy because he walked out on me. I cursed both Claudio and the cops with such conviction and in such pure Spanish that one of them said, “between husband and wife, best get out of the way.” Claudio asked me, “What the hell is going on between you and Rito?” And I answered, “What the hell is it to you?” But now Claudio had his arms around me and almost pulled me bodily out of the stadium. My catcher saw us from afar and started to laugh. He threw me a kiss. Since then I’ve only seen him on the field. They haven’t stolen more bases off him, and he hasn’t been hit by any more pitches. Probably someday he’ll be in the World Classic or the Olympics.

  THE LAST VOYAGE OF ARCAYA THE SHARK

  Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

  (Venezuela)

  Rodrigo Blanco Calderón (Caracas, 1981) is the author of three collections of short stories: Una larga fila de hombres (2005), Los invencibles (2007), and Las rayas (2011). He is the founder of the publishing house and bookstore Lugar Común, and he teaches literature at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. At the 2007 Hay Festival, Bogotá, he was named as one of “Latin America’s 39 Most Exciting Authors Under 39,” and he was awarded a residency at the University of Iowa International Writing Program in 2013.

  National tragedies put a country’s great truths to the test. What happened in the state of Vargas confirmed, among other things, that at least in Venezuela there’s no more odious character type than the one that appears when somebody takes on the persona of a diehard baseball fan.

  I already knew this, but the tragedy unleashed by the December rains of 1999, during the key month of the Winter League pennant race, had momentarily clouded that truth. That same tragedy, in its context of death and defenselessness, would soon bring it back to mind because of a thoughtless joke made by a coworker of mine.

  One week earlier, at the outset of the disaster, there had been a national referendum to approve or reject the new constitution. On the day of his victory, even before his celebration of the result, the president expressed his solidarity with the people of Vargas. The celebration of the new Magna Carta would be introspective and discreet because the rain, though so far only a mournful drizzle, had already brought the first fatalities. Perhaps the president had an intuition that history, when all is said and done, repeats itself. Or perhaps he sensed that pure willpower and an inclination for theatrics can compel it to repeat. However that was, his moderation in victory succumbed to a terrible onset of last-minute pride—the same pride that brought Odysseus to shipwreck long ago and now would impel several thousands of people to shipwrecks of their own. Just when a fair wind was blowing the end of his speech toward a safe harbor, the president decided to recall the impious and outlandish words of Simón Bolívar, pronounced on March 26, 1812, after the historic earthquake that shook Caracas: “If Nature turns against us, we will fight her and make her obey!”

  The night following that day of December 15, 1999, the tragedy unfolded. A week later, when the approximate count of those dead and disappeared in the mudslides of Vargas had exceeded the ten thousand mark, I left my desk in the newsroom and went out into the hallway for a smoke. My idea was to make both the cigarette and the walk last as long as possible. This showed me I wasn’t cut out to be a reporter. Not only was I exhausted, but I was taking after the weather, my heart a darkened sun of melancholy and depression. I didn’t have the strange sense of strength that journalists feel when contemplating the misfortunes of others amidst the frenetic activity of colleagues. I didn’t feel that my interminable and uninterrupted hours of work at a small desk in the newsroom were helping in any way.

  I took a few puffs and saw Carlos come out after me. His face, like everyone’s, looked agitated, feverish. We exchanged silent glances. I don’t know what he might have seen in my eyes, but for some reason he tried to cut through the moment’s tension with a joke. And before my eyes, Carlos stopped being Carlos and turned into an imbecile.

  “Now it’s true for sure,” he said with a feigned grimace. “The Sharks are down to their last few fans. Just Juan Pedro and you, and the five poor souls who’ll be left in La Guaira after the flood.”

  He gave me an awful slap on the shoulder to help me digest his comment, and he left. I stood alone in the hallway, quizzically regarding the extinguished end of my cigarette. I lit it again, and while exhaling the smoke I remembered some lines of poetry I’d memorized long ago.

  “King” is another word for tyrant

  East, west, south, or north—

  And one of the worst among them

  Is Spain’s Carlos the Fourth.

  That verse comes from the local anthem of Vargas. I discovered it by accident in an illustrated geography book when I was a teenager and Vargas was still just a municipality of Caracas, not yet a separate state. The lines and the pictures fascinated me because they were so full of anger and violence, the seed of a furious revolt against power, the song of a guerrilla movement. I memorized them so as to reaffirm, both to myself and to my family, that my having been born in La Guaira, Vargas’s capital, was not an accident but rather the hand of fate.

  All this began a little earlier, when I was about ten or eleven and had started to cultivate a rather ostentatious “Guairismo.” My family was full of followers of Caracas and Magallanes, so to declare myself an inveterate Sharks fan was the first act of conscious independence I can recall. Both Caracas and La Guaira played their home games at the University Stadium in Caracas, so to attend only the La Guaira games was a declaration of principle. To memorize Vargas’s anticolonial anthem was—to judge from the puzzled expressions of my parents, siblings, and aunts and uncles—an act bordering on extremism and delirium. Many years had to pass before life taught me that my passion for these stanzas was not just a whim. What taught me this was not only Carlos’s cruel joke, but also my long conversation with Juan Pedro the next month, which is really the subject of this story.

  By January of 2000 the die was cast. The country was drenched and desolated, Vargas had become the new Atlantis, and the Sharks were facing up to yet another defeat. The Sharks had a new manager—Luis Salazar, one of the emblematic players of the victorious 1980s—but he failed to lead them to what La Guaira’s fans and players had by now come to see as utopia, which was to make it to the second round of the playoffs. The year before, Pedro Padrón Panza—the team’s father, owner, and founder—had been carried off by the slow river of time. As if his death were not enough, among those who had now disappeared in the mudslides were his son and successor Peruchito and Peruchito’s own son, the tiny grandson of the founder. La Guaira’s Sharks had been stripped of past, present, and future. Those three deaths were the definition of orphanhood, the birth certificate of a ghost team, a team doomed to swim in the waters of nostalgia and sadness in search of its lost origins. These were the kinds of thoughts that drew me farther down the hallway on that Monday in January, or maybe those thoughts were, like me, dragged down the hallway by the smoke of the cigarette. Down the hall I went, and down the steps, and out onto the street.

  Now what? I could fulfill some commitment elsewhere in the city, I could go home, or—if it wasn’t yet time to go home and I didn’t have any pressing errand—I could go have coffee at La Socieda
d, a friendly dive on the same block as the paper, the kind of place where a pair of ancient but still powerful speakers broadcast vallenato hits morning, noon, and night. There I headed, and on the way I set to work reviewing my list of frustrated loves. There’s nothing strange about this. It goes right along with misspending endless hours bemoaning the bad luck of my baseball team. All La Guaira fans see our club’s fortunes as a coded but shared version of our life stories. Each of us deciphers the code differently.

  Lists of frustrated loves are so long they’d be endless if the minor detail of death didn’t get in the way. Sometimes that process works backward: people die because they can’t remember who they love. People whom accident or illnesses turn into vegetables, in a state of living death, are unaware of the world and have forgotten all their loved ones. They’re exiled from life because they can’t participate in love. I suffer from a humiliatingly similar but opposite malady: I fall in love at least once a day. For me, it’s impossible to see a beautiful or mysterious woman on the street and meekly accept that I won’t get to know her. I console myself by recalling that neither requited love nor loyalty changes the picture very much. I’ve spent nights lying awake beside a body that I love, one that sleeps trustingly by my side, when I still don’t fully understand what it’s doing there, how it came to be given to me. My list of frustrated loves is long because every love, in the end, is a frustrated one.

  Let me say that my tailspin into memories that particular morning had a more concrete cause, too. Because of the rain and pressures of work, my friend Daniel and I had not been able to repeat the trip to the Paraguaná Peninsula that we’d made in the first week of January the year before. This meant Daniel would have to wait for Carnival time, or maybe Easter, to visit his family; it meant I had to wait indefinitely to revisit the scene of a lovely memory. The beaches of Adícora and Buchuaco would have to get on without us, as if our feet had never touched their sands. They would become an empty photo album, all their images erased.