When I got home that night there was a message on the answering machine, although I didn’t discover it till the next day. It was just when I was getting out of the shower, while I was gulping down a cup of coffee, with just enough time to get to work. “It’s Pedro,” I thought. “He called me while I was asleep and I didn’t even realize it.” However, it was another voice that spoke when I pressed the playback button: “Hello, Ramón. It’s John Jairo, the Venezuelan that you met last Sunday on the bus ... Remember? I have the afternoon free and I’d like to have a few beers with you like you said ... But I see you’re not ... Well, I’ll call you another day. Ciao.”
So the dark-skinned boy that I met on the bus was real, despite the fact that I, during the last sleepless and drunken days, had been putting him in the bottomless pit of one of my dreams.
There is always a before and after in our lives, a turning point beyond which we are guided forever and irreversibly to our destiny. And that was my turning point.
But no, this tale is not a Christmas story. It isn’t, although it could be, because it had a sad beginning, very sad, and it was cold, very cold ...
Pedro, however, soon changed to an unreal entity and passed to form part, not even of a dream, but of a nightmare. He wouldn’t stop calling me, looking for me, hounding me. He reached the point of making passes at me and suggested, in his desperation, that we start over. Poor Pedro! He was so pitiful! I could never imagine that I would stop loving him and that things would take on this appearance. I was cruel to him, I rejected him with no mercy, and that motivated, on his part, a greater interest in me. As one might suppose, we ended up hating each other and doing each other a great deal of damage. It’s unbelievable how these stories repeat themselves, one and a thousand times, with nobody learning his lesson. We have all gone through them and we all make the same mistakes.
John Jairo called me again three days later, but neither on this occasion did he find me at home, which I regretted very much, since I had contrived hardly to go out after his first call. However, an unavoidable appointment had made it necessary for me to be out that afternoon and I cursed myself for my bad luck. The Venezuelan boy, nevertheless, left me his phone number on the answering machine. I wrote it in my datebook with trembling fingers and, after some moments of doubt and indecision, armed myself with courage and called it.
To my surprise, his voicemail came on. A whispering voice, emitted as if panting, said: “Hello, this is J.J. ... At this moment... Uf ...! I’m fucking and I can’t come to the phone ... Thanks for your call and have a good day. Ciao.”
Somewhat startled, afraid I had called the wrong number, I hung up without leaving a message. However, a few minutes later my phone rang and it was John Jairo himself.
“Hello, Ramón ...? Did you just call?”
“Yeah, but since you were ...”
“No!” he laughed. “It’s just a joke. I’m at the gym right now. I was just lifting weights and ...”
“Well, you have a very unusual voicemail.”
“Yeah, it surprises people,” he said with a laugh.
“And what happens if a respectable lady calls you about a job?”
“Well, everybody who calls me already knows me. They know I’m ... horny!, as you say here”
It seemed incredible to me that we were talking with such ease when we were two perfect strangers who had met by chance on a bus a few days before. I said, “Whenever you want, we could go have those beers.”
“Okay. How about this afternoon?”
“Yeah, sure, but if you’re at the gym ...”
“No matter. I’ve had enough exercise. We can get together.”
I waited for him almost an hour and I was feeling very much ill-used, but when I saw the boy’s smile and his honest expression, my good humor was restored immediately.
“I’m sorry,” said John Jairo, reaching out his hand to me. “I forgot to tell you that we Latin-Americans always arrive late.”
“Oh, yeah? But I thought that was just a cliché! I took it for granted that you weren’t coming. I was about to take off,” I said, squeezing his hand.
He wasn’t wearing the baseball cap and, since he was dressed differently today (black pants, denim jacket, and beige sweater), it took me a few seconds to recognize him. His skin, like tarnished copper, was darker in some places than others, which gave him a strange chromatic effect, like the subject of an impressionist portrait. He was taller than I remembered, and, because of the contained vibration of his legs, it seemed that he was preparing some sexual game. Several pimples (slightly more than I had noticed the other day) speckled his beardless face, but instead of marring his appearance, it conferred on him a certain delayed adolescence. He wore his black hair very short and thick, combed back, and his eyes were so dark and opaque that it was hard to guess the direction of his gaze. Be that as it may, the boy’s presence attracted people’s attention the minute he entered the café. I also was starting to attract it by the fact of being with him, but I tried not to let it affect me in the slightest.
“I am sorry,” insisted John Jairo. “I misjudged the time. Besides, I had to go and change ...”
“Of course, don’t worry. Not a problem,” I said, inviting him to sit table. “Beer?”
“Well ... I don’t know. You see ... it’s just that I’ve quit drinking ...”
“What? But I thought that we were going to have a few beers.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s all right. I’ll have a non-alcoholic beer.”
“That’s a good one!” I laughed. “I thought ... I thought you really wanted to drink.”
“I’ve done a lot of drinking up to a few weeks ago. Up to then, this was the only exercise I got,” said John Jairo, moving his hand mechanically up and down with a sympathetic gesture. “Again and again. Always with a glass in my hand. But I fucked up my liver and I had to stop.”
“Well, in that case ...”
“I stopped smoking too. Two weeks ago. And now I go to a gym. I’ve started a new life. I want to be in shape. Get a look at this, in only two weeks, what my arms are like. Feel, feel. Before it was a lot more flabby.”
“Solid iron,” I said after feeling an arm.
The waiter came over to our table and took our order. He was a young Moroccan. He saw me feel John Jairo’s arm and he shot me an ambiguous look, I couldn’t tell of sympathy or rejection. He wrote down our order and left.
“Your voicemail surprised me,” I said, just to be saying something, after we had remained silent for a few seconds.
“I like to fuck,” said John Jairo, smiling innocently.
“Like everybody else in the world, I suppose.”
“Yes, but I like it more. I could fuck all day. I never get tired of fucking.”
“Fascinating,” I said, blushing. I thought I understood then why that boy walked the way he did, with a certain kind of rhythm in his waist and his legs. Maybe the pimples on his face were the inevitable consequence of his immoderate sexual addiction. “And why did you drink so much, John Jairo, if you don’t mind the question?” I asked.
“Don’t call me John Jairo. I don’t like it. Call me J.J. That’s what my friends call me.”
“Okay, J.J., so why ...?”
“It’s a long story ...”
“... that you’re going to tell me.”
“I don’t know ...” he said in a whisper. “I don’t know ...”
The waiter showed up with the beers and the two of us kept quiet. The young Moroccan directed finally at me an understanding smile, and I reciprocated with a smile according to the circumstances. I thought: “I’ll have to come to this bar more often.”
“I came to Spain for love,” said J.J. when the waiter left. He picked up his alcohol-free beer and tipped the glass carefully. “I came here in search of a woman and I still haven’t seen her, although I know where she is.”
“That sounds very romantic.”
“No, it’s not so romantic. I came here a year ago
and I still haven’t been able to meet her. For me there’s nothing romantic about it,” he added, taking a swallow of beer with a gesture of bitterness.
He was eighteen years old and was training as a cadet in a military academy. He wanted to be a professional soldier like his father. In his family there were several soldiers. An uncle of his was also a soldier. From childhood he always wanted to be a soldier. Two more courses and he would have graduated as a lieutenant. He was right now at that point if he had stayed in Venezuela. He liked military life. The spirit of military life. In the world, in society, according to his father, there were only bosses and underlings. Some command and others obey. That’s just how it is. And he liked commanding, being a boss more than being an underling. Although, in the army, you always have somebody over you and you have to obey somebody else’s orders. Before coming to Spain he was very happy. His father and he were friends. Sometimes they would go together to fish or play ball. His Mommy ... oh, how he adored his Mommy. And she, how she spoiled him and took care of him. How his Mommy loved him. He missed her so much. He had a twelve-year-old sister. Raquelita. His only sister. She was already a little woman, Raquelita. So shy, but how stubborn and obstinate. She had the most beautiful black eyes that he had ever seen in his life. He was fortunate to have that family. They provided so many things that most kids his age lacked. Maybe he would have liked to have a brother. Another boy in the family to play with and fight with. That was the only thing he missed: a brother. But otherwise, he considered himself fortunate. Until he met Dora. Then his life changed completely. And now he was miserable. Because of Dora, only because of Dora ... He never knew what love was until he met Dora. Love seemed foolish to him. He always made a joke of love. Women only interested him sexually. He never fell in love with any of them until he met Dora. Then he started to do crazy things. He started to sneak out of the academy at night, to turn rebellious and to commit infractions. Dora was pretty. Very pretty. But that’s not why he fell in love with her, since he had known prettier women with whom he had not fallen in love. Dora was dark-skinned, short, with slanted eyes ... She had four different races. She was South American Indian, African, Spanish, and Chinese. She was also poor, very poor. In her house there lived twelve people, including two grandmothers and an aunt. They were so poor that they didn’t always have enough to eat. So he was helping them. He was giving them money and some things that he snuck out of the pantry at his home. Two of Dora’s brothers lived in Spain and she dreamed also of going to Spain. John Jairo could never get that obsession out of his head. Finally she left and he decided to follow her. It wasn’t easy. He had to fill out a ton of papers and gather money for the fare. He argued with his parents. He abandoned all his obligations, all his former ideals. He no longer gave a fuck about the army. On account of Dora he turned crazy and a drunkard. If only Ramón had met him when he was in the academy. If there was ever anybody that had a soldier’s vocation, it was he. He was simply made for the army. He was one of those guys who love discipline and physical effort. One of those who like to measure his strength against that of other men, to test his resilience, to earn the respect, both of officers and that of privates. He felt at home in the army. And yet, on the other hand, how he had changed since then. Nobody who knew him during that time would have been able to recognize him now. His trip to Spain got delayed. Things got messed up. He couldn’t leave the academy overnight. It took too long to arrange the documents and he and Dora got disconnected. When he got to Madrid he had lost her trail. A month later he found out that she had gone to Mallorca and, by that time, he had spent all his money. His parents, opposed to the trip, had not helped him financially. So he had to go to work doing whatever he could find. He took menial and disgusting jobs just to survive. From a boss he went to being an underling. Worse than that: he had become a servant. A second-class citizen. However, with patience and resignation, he began to save some money to pay his way to Mallorca. He didn’t want to go there empty-handed. However, it was not easy to save. In the beginning he thought he would earn a lot of money. Salaries, compared with those where he had come from, seemed high, but expenses were also tremendous and money disappeared easily. Yes, from time to time, he spoke to Dora on the phone. But every day he found her colder and more distant and he didn’t know what was happening. Or he did know but he didn’t want to know. Every day she told him fewer things. It even seemed that it bothered her to talk to him. He started to worry and get nervous. He had to get to Mallorca as soon as possible. He eliminated almost all of his expenses and in a short time he had saved a lot of money. Enough for the trip. Now he only had to buy the plane ticket. He called to tell her. He thought she would be glad, but, instead of that, she told him that she didn’t love him and that she was living with another man. It was too hard a blow. A blow that left him knocked out for several days. Ten months had gone by since he arrived in Spain, almost a year without seeing her, and he still loved her as much as he did on the first day. He couldn’t resign himself to losing her. However, he had lost her. Desperate, he started to spend money on drunken sprees and wasted everyting in just a few days. His self-destructive madness was such that he finally fell ill and had to go into a hospital with a ruined liver. When he got out of the hospital he quit drinking and set himself to work. He tried to find a goal for his life, to feel like a new human being. One of Dora’s sisters, Gisela, who also lived in Mallorca, had invited him to spend a few days in her home. Gisela had always shown herself opposed to him. She said she didn’t like soldiers because when she was a child she had had a bad experience with one of them and she thought they were all the same. However, at the end she had changed her opinion of him. She admired what he had done for her sister and she loved him. They called each other often. Gisela told him that she didn’t like the Spanish guy that Dora lived with and that she would have preferred him as a brother-in-law. But he no longer loved Dora. No, he didn’t hate her either. He had forgiven her. He didn’t love her, but he needed to see her. He had to see her, even if it was for the last time in his life. Gisela had spoken with Dora and she agreed that they should meet again at her house. But before that he had to heal his liver and build up his strength at the gym. He had always been thin. She had always known him thin, so that, when she saw him again, she would be surprised by his new look. He would go to Mallorca in the summer. He would wear a tight t-shirt to show off his biceps. He was not only strengthening his arms, but also his legs. Feel, feel. Hard, right?
“Yes, very hard. I think you look great. Super. I’m going to order another beer. Do you want another non-alcoholic? Does it bother you that I’m drinking beer with alcohol?”
“Yes, but I can stand it. I’m strong. I have a great strength of will. I don’t like being enslaved by any vice. Only sex. But sex is good, isn’t it? Do you get much sex? I think sex is good. I’m going to have an impressive body by next summer. That’s what they tell me at the gym. I’ll heal my liver, I’ll get healthy, and, when I get rid of these zits ... You know, I’ve had several girlfriends, but I never fell for any of them like I did with her. I like a lot of them, but I only fell in love with her. I fuck a lot of them. Venezuelans, Colombians, Cubans, Ecuadorians ... Fucking is what I’m good at. I never get tired. I can fuck all day. I leave them all very satisfied. Spanish girls? No. I don’t like Spanish girls. They’re frigid. Very cold. It hurts here or there. They don’t enjoy, they don’t feel, they don’t move ... Eventually I want to go back to my country. I want to go back, but not like this. First I have to save some money. I want to buy some land in my country or set up some business there. I can’t go back to the army any more. I no longer like the army. I’m no longer a soldier.
“Everything you tell me is so romantic!” I said with a sigh.
“Romantic?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Fuck! You came here in search of a girl that you haven’t even seen for a year ... You left everyting for her, but she dumped you and yo
u still love her ... You’re trying to impress her or rekindle her love for you, I don’t know ....”
“No, I don’t want to ‘rekindle,’ like you said. I only want to see her to be sure that she doesn’t feel the same thing for me as before. I need to see her for the last time. I’ll accept that she doesn’t love me if she tells me to my face. But I’m not going to show up there like some loser, get it? I don’t want her pity. That’s why I have to save. To take her places and all that. You already know that. I came to Spain for her and I have to see her sooner or later. ‘Don’t leave anything half done’ my Dad told me one day and that is also my motto.”
Don't Come Back Here Any More Page 3