Tentacle

by Rita Indiana

  Unfortunately for Argenis, the buccaneers returned the next day. As soon as he opened his eyes, the strange handle that seemed to let the ghosts into his head began to turn and, just like the day before, everything was connected and real. He stayed in his cabin, trying to get rid of the visions by taking deep breaths, doing push-ups, taking cold showers. Nothing worked against the Taíno, who passes around a bucket of milk, nor the black man, who leads him to a rough basin where the little French guy greets him once more: “… qui a survécu à la Côte de Fer.” He’s using a paddle to stir the peeled skins in a dark liquid. Argenis grabs another paddle and copies the French guy’s movements. The black man watches him with a tight fist but Argenis is doing a pretty good job. Concentrating on that one repetitive activity and now seriously concerned, he decided to step out of his room.

  When he got to Iván’s workshop (he was late), there was a photogram on the screen from Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 2, in which Norman Mailer played Houdini.

  Professor Herman had dedicated an entire class to Barney’s work. Iván de la Barra noted the connection between his installations, videos, and sculpture, and Goya’s work, their shared sensibility for the sublimely terrible and the elaboration of mythologies rooted in popular culture. Iván had seen Cremaster 2 in Madrid at the Reina Sofía the year before and Elizabeth had seen it in Chicago in 1999. Malagueta had never left the island and Argenis had only been as far as Cuba, to a camp for the children of revolutionaries, so they had to make do with Iván’s narration. Iván explained that the cremaster is the muscle that lifts and lowers the testicles and responds to changes in temperature; the narrative thread that runs through all five films in the cycle is the process of sexual differentiation in the embryo. In Cremaster 2, the organism resists differentiation, resulting in a drama that, according to Iván, plays out like a surreal western while creating a poetic biography of the American killer Gary Gilmore. “In a spectacular exercise of free association, Gilmore was executed in 1977; he was the first person to be condemned to death after capital punishment was reinstated in the United States. Gilmore’s father was supposedly the son of a famous magician who passed through Sacramento, possibly Houdini. Gilmore’s mother was a Mormon, and the honeycomb is a Mormon symbol.” Iván was writing all this on the blackboard. “What Barney is doing is sifting through this information with an aesthetic proposition that blurs the usual connections that symbol and ritual make,” said the Cuban as he clicked through to show other photograms.

  The skins are now free of hair and flesh and nearing their final color and texture at the bottom of a basin filled with alum and salt. The little French guy plucks an unshelled peanut from his pocket and eats it. His hands, blackened by work and the lack of hygiene, are much more real to Argenis than Iván’s efforts to make Barney’s films a work of genius. After the workshop, Argenis accompanied Malagueta to look for a book on Cremaster 2 in Giorgio and Linda’s library, a bookcase three meters tall in the living room. While Malagueta climbed a chair to reach the book, Argenis glanced over the collection and was surprised to find a shelf filled with volumes on buccaneers, Osorio’s devastations, and pirates and smuggling in the Caribbean. This kind of coincidence ought to have a name. Whenever he heard a word for the first time, a stream of references, information, and associations would rise up out of nowhere, as though the universe were conjuring up the tools necessary for learning, or as though it were giving its approval to a specific path of knowledge. Linda was on the terrace and Malagueta went over to her to let her know he was taking the book to his cabin and that Argenis, too, was borrowing some books. After the incident with the anemone, Argenis had reacted like a cat stung by frog venom and avoided Linda as much as possible. “Giorgio said you painted something incredible last night,” she said as she caressed Billy with her big toe. “Can I see it?” At any other time, Argenis would have taken Linda to his studio, thinking about his dick coming in and out of her beautiful ass the whole way there. But something had happened in the water and now he felt a strange repulsion connecting the libidinous desires that drove him into the nest of anemones with the resulting disagreeable experience.

  Once in his studio, she was quite pleased with the painting. “It’s excellent,” she said, then, winking at him, she added: “If there’s a disaster that destroys technology, electricity, and digital files, your work will survive. What would happen to the work of all of those video artists and performance artists?”

  Linda Menicucci had an apocalyptic way of thinking about things and treated everything, even works of art, like species to be measured for their capacity to survive on earth. She had agreed to sponsor these artists because her husband had assured her they would recover their investment and the profits would help push forward her environmental protection project for Playa Bo. Giorgio and Linda were thinking about buying several more kilometers of beach and continuing the research to identify all the species that lived in the coral reef. Although government laws protected areas of the reef, the lack of resources made it practically impossible to enforce them, leaving hundreds of species at the mercy of indiscriminate fishing, construction, and contamination. Argenis now understood Linda was only interested in him for one reason, the same reason he was interested in her and Giorgio: money. She needed it to save her little fish and Argenis to realize his fantasy of future happiness: a life snorting coke, painting, and paying sluts so they would suck him off without anyone giving him a hard time.

  In this way, Argenis and this high-class woman were equals. Argenis would have enjoyed this small victory more if it wasn’t for the fact that, in his other life, he was being forced to pull the skins from the basin to air them out: it required almost all his attention. During the three hours the process involves, his arms begin to tremble; the black guy, Engombe, as always, waits for him. He walked Linda to the door and saw her in this new light. He could make out the lines the sun and her excessive concern for her cause—a lost cause, as far as Argenis was concerned—had drawn on her face. He closed the door, glanced at the clock to confirm it was lunchtime, and threw himself in bed. He quickly fell asleep, fried.

  Immune to sleep, the buccaneers continue. After hanging and massaging the skins, Roque, who had disappeared for most of the day, comes out of the northern thicket with the one-armed man, announcing that there’s an English galleon on the coast and they will meet with the crew the next day. He pulls two bottles of wine from the bag on his shoulder as proof and a shirt, which he tosses to Argenis. “Regardez, survivant à la Côte de Fer…” says the little French guy, who doesn’t have a name for him, and gestures for him to put on the shirt. They drink, passing the bottles from one to another in the warmth of the fire prepared by the Taíno, who takes great pains to offer the best pieces of cassava and pork to Argenis, whose eyes are shutting in that world just as he is due to wake in this one.

  It looked like this nuisance was going to be around for the long haul and there was no way for Argenis to disconnect himself. Unlike the previous night, this time the visions had left him full of questions. Was this a past incarnation? Was it schizophrenia? Witchcraft? If his patrons ever found out about this they would kick him out of the project, and then he knew he’d really go crazy, out of his mind, full-on wacko at his mom’s house.

  Oh shut up, he told himself, and stepped into the fresh night air of Playa Bo with Esquemelin’s Buccaneers of America under his arm, following the sound of music coming from the terrace. As he crossed the row of dwarf palms dividing the cabins from the house, he got a whiff of the marijuana Iván and Giorgio were smoking as they whispered together. He had promised himself he’d stay away from coke for the duration of the project, but he wasn’t going to say no to a little pot. When he saw Argenis coming, Giorgio stood up, a little nervously. “Monsieur, try this,” he said, passing him a joint and catching sight of the book Argenis had set on the table. “You like that? This place was full of buccaneers,” he said, with a gesture to suggest as far as the eye could see. “Must be full of gh
osts.” Iván had a Word document open on his laptop that read: “Notes for Olokun,” in a font that looked like Helvetica Bold. When he closed the document, the screen showed the first engraving from The Disasters of War as his wallpaper. “Do you like this engraving?” he asked without looking up from the screen. Argenis explained that he’d taken engraving classes and had worked on his technique in school, but he’d never made a professional series of prints. By then Giorgio had filled Argenis’ glass and was raising his own for a toast: “That the spirits of the buccaneers will bring us luck!” Argenis was on his second toke of the hydroponic grass, which was much more potent than he was used to, and it hit him hard. Giorgio was talking about the adventures of a friend of his who’d spent the last twenty years combing the beaches of Puerto Plata with a metal detector, looking for treasure left by the pirate Cofresí. His friend had dumped his wife and abandoned his kids, his job, convinced that one day he would find the loot buried somewhere by the great plunderer. Rapt, Iván coughed from too much laughter. “Dude, what an asshole!” he said. Argenis opened the book to a random page so he could focus on something and avoid their looks, because he felt on the verge of a panic attack. In his narrative about the lives of the pirates and buccaneers of America, Esquemelin had included the code that protected injured pirates: “For the loss of an eye, one hundred escudos or one slave. For the loss of the right hand, two hundred escudos or two slaves. For the loss of two feet or two legs, six hundred escudos or six slaves.” The reading competed with the associations Argenis was making in his mind: They are referring to me, I’m never going to get ahead, the dead buccaneers have come to find me, Goya’s engravings are a sign: they are going to mutilate me. And on it went. Giorgio noticed Argenis was not doing well. “Maestro, relax.” He stood behind him and started to rub his neck. These faggots are going to rape me, thought Argenis, that’s why Iván said ‘asshole’; goddamn pot. Giorgio’s massage began to take effect and a heaviness came over every part of his body, sound vibrations overwhelmed his interior dialogue and produced a silence punctuated by a low and heavy hum. He experienced a few fleeting holograms. In one he was a little boy running towards his father, there to pick up Argenis and his brother for an obligatory biweekly visit. When his father lifted him up, Argenis grabbed his head with both hands and kissed him on the mouth. His father threw him violently on the ground, looking around them in all directions. “Are you a faggot, huh?” He felt again the equal parts of pain and fear he’d felt that afternoon, as the tiny particles of light that made up the memory vanished, victims to a miraculous dispersal. He opened his eyes and the massage was over. Giorgio was squatting in front of the stereo to change the CD and Iván was tying up the trash bag next to the grill to take it out. “Man, if we leave this here, it’s going to attract flies.”

  Argenis came to understand that the buccaneers would let him be at night but would claim the day, even his daydreams, so he decided to wait until the sun came up to go to bed. He was mentally exhausted and he didn’t give a damn about Iván’s theories concerning Goya. As soon as he fell asleep, he found himself among Roque’s men, walking through a scrubland of sea grapes and brambles.

  The one-armed man cuts a path with the scimitar in his good hand. They’re hauling one hundred skins in rolls of ten, two barrels of jerky, one bag of salt, and some sweet potatoes. They cross the last of the vegetation and find themselves on an ash-colored reef, heading west. They reach a cliff and climb down with the goods. They’re in Playa Bo. The Menicuccis’ beach is almost unrecognizable, the sea full of shoals, fish swimming in circles in the hundreds, some a meter long that could be pulled from the water by hand. A galleon with its sails furled is anchored a short distance from the coast and two small rowboats approach to pick them up.

  Once on deck, the captain—an Englishman with clean nails and yellow teeth who has just sacked a Spanish rescue ship en route to New Spain—goes over the list of things Roque requested in exchange for the skins. Twenty bottles of wine, a sack of wheat flour, two pairs of boots, two felt hats, a trunk, gunpowder, buckles, two long arquebuses, and a sort of table the three men struggle to lift out of the porthole. The captain removes the canvas from it to reveal a printing press.

  With the press come three rolls of paper, three wooden plates, and everything needed to make an engraving, except ink.

  They complete the deal. Roque promises to bring the captain one hundred more skins once he returns from Bayamo, Cuba, where the people—who’ve been abandoned by the Spanish policy that only Havana and Santiago can receive commercial ships—will welcome him as a hero. It takes them half the day to transport the heavy machine to the hut. Roque meets the complaints by explaining that the Spanish residents on the island, as needy as the people of Bayamo, will want to buy it for much more than they paid for it. The Taíno, who had stayed behind to keep guard over their settlement, welcomes them back with joy and tells them there are two hundred heads of cattle in a nearby clearing. His Spanish is clumsy and only Roque can understand him. With the others, he acts like the fallen cacique he probably is. Roque orders the construction of another hut to house the press. The one-armed man and the little French guy pick up their axes and head south looking for wood. Roque, Engombe, and Argenis start for the place where the Taíno has seen the cattle, armed with one of the new arquebuses, a bottle of wine, and several knives. Without a word, Engombe, who carries the arquebus, separates from the group and stealthily makes his way east. A few steps ahead of them, Roque and Argenis can see the animals, grazing at the foot of a hill, and Engombe, who has reached the far right side of the slope and is loading his gun to begin the slaughter.

  Argenis woke up at the first shot. With a feeling of dismay and excitement, he sat up, watching how the cattle fell to the bullets Engombe was pumping, at close range, into their heads. Those that were still alive, stupid and heavy, ran in circles. Roque explained that they would flay a few of them now, that tomorrow the cattle would return to graze in the same place and they’d slaughter a few more then. Engombe and Roque worked on the dead cattle quickly and with precision, slashing from the throat to the anus and then from one leg to another. When all the cattle had been opened up, they began to peel the skins, with the help of Argenis, who took notes with a piece of charcoal and a piece of fabric he’d unrolled on the floor of his workshop. With his vision clouded with the hot smell of blood, which was beginning to clot in the faraway pasture, he reached for the Cadmium Red, squeezing the tube of Winsor & Newton straight onto the brush like toothpaste.

  ‌

  ‌The Gardener

  With the water so clear, it was easy to pull out octopuses, starfish, and sea snails from under the rocks. Willito had come alone because none of his homies would dare go to Nenuco’s beach. The last time the group had gone fishing there, Pachico had wound up with a shot in the ass, the cops telling them they were on Nenuco’s property and he had the right to fire on them.

  Nenuco was a real bastard, with more fish in his waters than he and his family could possibly eat or sell, and Willito had two little brothers and a sick grandfather. He supported them by selling whatever he could find on the coral reefs to the gift shops and restaurants in Sosúa.

  The pool formed by the reefs on Playa Bo was full of animal life because, unlike the others, it had a madman with a shotgun who wouldn’t let anyone near. It’s better this way, thought Willito. Alone, with a wetsuit, fins, and a harpoon, he’d make very little noise.

  He’d left the house at five in the morning, when it was still dark. He skirted the coast in his grandfather’s skiff, leaving it anchored behind a crag so he could leap and swim over to that trove of natural treasures at the first ray of light. Willito had been there three times before; he knew how to get to the reef underwater, through a hole in a rock several meters long and two feet wide. Pachico had shown him how to swim through it without getting stung by the anemones.

  Willito was wearing a belt with weights so he wouldn’t float. He moved quickly, propelled by th
e fins, holding the harpoon with both hands until he reached the mouth of the rock and saw a body, a dead body, in the hole. His fear was greater than the weights and he shot up to the surface, splashing and screaming as though he didn’t know how to swim. His vision blurred by water, Willito saw Nenuco in his underwear, standing on the reef and pointing at him with his shotgun. “There’s a body in the hole, Nenuco, don’t kill me,” he yelled.