Then there were his eyes. They had a reckless come-hither glint to them. They were the eyes of man who would buy you a drink one moment and cut your throat the next; who would accept your aid and comfort, then seduce your wife and daughters. These were the eyes of a killer, a highwayman, a rakehell, a debaucher of women, a man willing to sell his sword arm to the highest bidder. They were the eyes of a man who, unlike the rest of us, refused to cower in guilt and fear and who lived life on his own terms. Here was a man from whom I could learn much.
He treated me to a scintillating grin. It was quite overwhelming—wicked enough to break a bad woman's heart or turn a good woman bad. I was so taken by the singular dazzle of a flashing gold tooth, I almost missed him rubbing the two reales between his thumb and fingers. I naturally recognized his smile had the sincerity of a crocodile's tears.
"I have a mission for you, Chico Loco," he said.
"What mission?" I asked, my eyes fixed on the coins. Two reales was a day's wage for grown men and more than I'd ever possessed at one time in my whole life.
The rogue nodded toward a raised, covered pavilion. Under its canopy the alcalde of Veracruz and the city gentry gathered to greet the archbishop. Tables of food and drink had been set out for their pleasure.
Staring down at us from the top row was the alcalde's new young wife. His previous wife had recently died of fever. The woman saw us looking up at her, and she smiled coquettishly at my newfound employer, her eyes softly seductive. She was half-sitting, half-standing, in one of those great globelike dresses that puff out majestically and are not meant for walking, lying, or sitting but solely for gachupin admiration.
I thought the dress looked stupid but not the woman. I'd seen her once before in a passing carriage. She reeked of sensuality and looked to me as if she could snare the soul of a sinless saint. I said as much to the fray, who was with me at the time. He recognized her and described her as "the serpent who tempted Lucifer," which in this case, I suppose, was fitting. My newfound master needed no introduction to Satan.
The rogue handed me a small piece of folded paper. "Take this to the señora. Climb the shoring timbers under the grandstand to get to her. Do not be seen giving it to her. If you get caught, swallow it."
I hesitated.
"Yes?" he asked, smiling pleasantly.
"Your name if she asks?"
"Mateo."
"Mateo," I said softly.
He handed me the coins, then leaned down so that his garlic-and-wine breath reeked in my face. Smiling the entire time, he said, "If you tell anyone about this, I will cut off your cojones. ¿Comprende?"
I had no doubt he had a whole collection of cojones.
"Comprende."
The pavilion I was to enter featured three levels of wood tables and benches, each row higher than the previous one. The last row was ten feet off of the ground.
The alcalde table was in the middle of the top row. Each row had a wooden bench thirty or forty feet long and a table the same length. Atop the cloth-covered tables were a selection of food, fruits, and wine. Beneath the rows of benches and tables was a maze of boards and timbers shoring it up.
Two reales for storming this citadel? ¡Dios mio! I could lose my head and my cojones. I deserved an entire treasure fleet. I looked back, and Mateo drew his dagger and pointed it menacingly toward his crotch.
I felt my own cojones tighten and looked back to the structure I had to scale. I realized why he had chosen me—only a contortionist would be able to twist and crawl and scurry through the maze of supporting timbers.
When I was out of his sight I eagerly read the note I was to deliver.
Your face is written in my soul
No rose is redder than your lips
Your eyes are burned into my heart
No goose is softer than your cheeks
Tonight, my love,
At the hour when your body is the warmest
"No goose is softer than your cheeks?" ¡Qué va! Couldn't he have stolen better poetry than this?
I went beneath the pavilion and began twisting my way up through the boards, contorting my body every which way. Some of the boards weren't firmly fixed, and I had to continually test their stability, keeping my weight on the stout vertical bracing-timbers. Once a cross board came loose in my hand, and I had to meticulously work it back into place.
Any second I expected to be spotted by the gentry above or to have the entire jungle of shoring timbers come crashing down on top of me, killing everyone on the grandstand—myself in the process.
Finally, however, I reached the top level. I came up under the table so I wouldn't be seen. I was at one end, about fifteen feet from where the alcalde's señora sat, and I slowly crawled in her direction, avoiding the shoes of men and petticoats of women as I crawled.
I crawled until I recognized her dress. Puffing out like a big round ball an arm's length in each direction, this rose-colored raiment was supported underneath by cane spokes and wire loops. I have heard the dresses called both by their French name, farthingales, and their Spanish one, guardinfantes. Some of those I've seen flared out several feet on each side. The woman was not sitting naturally nor was she expected to, because the frame of the dress would not permit her. A wooden device had been constructed for her to lean back against in a half-sitting position.
I pulled on the hem of her dress to let her know I was there. I was reaching up to hand her the note, when her husband shouted, "Amigos! Don't doubt me when I tell you I am the greatest bullfighter in all New Spain. You've seen men fighting bulls with lances from the saddle of their horse. I stand with my feet on the ground and fight the bull with nothing but a cape."
I heard him stomping around to demonstrate his technique. "I need a cape. Clear this table," he told servants. "I will use the cover."
I needed the table cover! If I lost the cover, I lost my head!
Desperate and panicking, I hid in the only place available—even as the table cover was being pulled off by servants—under the woman's dress. I buried myself under her wire-framed tent and petticoats.
Ayyo, what saint did I fail to honor on their festival day to deserve this punishment? Dios mio, Holy Mother, Jesu Cristo! I am an innocent boy. A thief, yes. A conniver, true. A liar, often. But why must I have my head removed and impaled upon the city gates because of an affair of love that I was not involved in?
Furthermore, bullfights were done from horseback. Everyone knows that. Why must this fool of an alcalde have to pretend to fight bulls on foot? This was an offense not only to the bulls but to me, whom he had put in harm's way. Why couldn't he leave the pavilion and demonstrate his skill on a horse?
While he entertained the audience with his childish antics, I found myself under the tent of his wife's dress, squeezed in the warm, mysterious place between his wife's legs. Afraid that any part of my body might show, I squeezed in tighter against that sanctum sanctorum, and she spread her legs wide apart to allow entry. I quickly discovered that the woman wore nothing beneath the voluminous petticoats, and that I was flush against her most intimate of intimates.
I had seen naked little lépero girls urinating on the street, and I been told that women too had an opening between their legs. Yes, I knew now that was true. I could confirm that it was warm and moist, a wet lushness that was more tender and inviting than I would ever have imagined. I began to understand why men would want to place their garranchas in there.
Her hand grabbed my hair and pushed me deeper into the split between her legs.
Soon my nose was pushing up against the warm wetness, and she was pulling me harder and harder against her and wiggling more and more as she did. Something was between her legs that I did not know a woman had, a little button, a mushroom-sized pene of her own. From the woman's frantic movements I could tell that touching this was of great interest to her. This secret treasure seemed to have a hidden nerve. When I fondled it, her gyrations increased in proportion to the force of that touch. When I accidentall
y bumped my nose against it, her whole body trembled and shook. She squirmed, pushed it toward me, and the opening between her legs began to spread.
The alcalde's voice carried down to me as he stomped up and down the pavilion, fighting off a bull—played by a servant.
It was awkward, but somehow she managed to brace her backside against that board and hook a leg around the back of my head. The next thing I knew her treasure trove was in my mouth and between my lips. I fought to disengage, but her leg tightened its grip. My mouth and nose were now buried in that secret valley, and I couldn't get my breath. I opened my mouth wider, my tongue came out in a silent gasp, and—and—
That was what she wanted.
My tongue.
I was trapped. Her leg locked around the back of my neck. A mob of gachupins on all sides who would draw and quarter and castrate me if I was caught. I had Mateo below, who would likewise geld me if I failed to give her the note. My only recourse was to mollify her.
I began nervously, hesitantly, circling her nub with my tongue, almost afraid to touch it. But the more I circled and avoided it, the more her own hips began to tremble. Whenever I touched it, her body shook so hard I feared we'd be discovered.
Not that she seemed to care. She squirmed and gyrated, and her private parts became even hotter and wetter until my own garrancha grew, became muy excitado, throbbing uncontrollably.
Now the terrible fear was being replaced by something else: unbearable pressure. I had experienced these feelings before, and once a friendly puta, whom I'd slept beside one night at the house of the poor, had showed me how to touch it to relieve the pressure.
"Magnifico!" The crowd proclaimed as the alcalde "killed" the bull with his sword.
The more they screamed, the harder the señora locked onto the back of my head, the more my mouth and tongue worked at her source of joy.
"You have seen, amigos, the technique of fighting a bull with one's feet on the ground. I tell you that someday bullfights will no longer be from horseback. Our Portuguese friends say that will never happen, but mark my words—it will be hombre against el toro, facing the charging animal with nothing but his courage and cape to protect him."
He threw the cape-table cover back on the table, and servants rushed to put it back in place. As the audience applauded, the woman's thighs and private parts were vibrating voraciously against my face.
I knew that my throbbing garrancha belonged in there. Although the fray expressly forbid any misconduct in the house of the poor and put up a blanket to partition off an area whenever a woman stayed, I had seen a lépero atop a puta pumping with his rump in the air, just as Don Fernando had mounted Miaha. My position now, on my knees with my head between her legs and her half-standing behind the table, made that impossible.
Unsure how to continue her pleasure, my coyote instincts took over, and I did what I felt was natural. I stuck my tongue into her hot, sultry opening.
It was a mistake.
She moaned and squirmed and a salacious shudder ran through her. God only knows what expression she had on her face. As I waited to be dragged out from under her dress and my throat slit, slowly, ever so slowly, her spasms began to subside. Panicking, I slipped out from under her dress as the alcalde addressed her.
"Mi amor, my love, your face is hot and flushed with excitement. It never occurred to me that you would get so excited by my performance!" The alcalde's voice was awed and gleeful at his wife's sexual excitement.
I lifted the tablecloth enough to make eye contact with the woman. Sweat lines from our antics were visible as trenches in the thick beauty powders on the sides of her face.
I held the note so she could take it. I smiled at her to show her that I was pleased to have given her pleasure. She allowed me a small, mischievous smile, half grin, half grimace, then lifting her knee, booted me in my face back through the wide opening in between the boards. On the way down I bounced and banged, careened and caromed off every cross beam, support joist, and shoring timber on my way down, hitting the ground with a resounding thump.
Slowly I rose and crawled out from under the pavilion. I hurt in many places, but mostly in my soul. The rogue was nowhere to be seen. As I limped away, I considered my experience. I had made two important discoveries about women. They had a secret spot where they could be touched to give them pleasure. And once they had had their pleasure, a kick in the face was all you could expect.
I had gone only a short distance when the crowd parted for a coach. I saw a chance to ply my trade. But as I trotted toward the coach, an old woman in black stepped out of it and paused, looking down at me as she was being helped by attendants. Her raptor's eye caught mine, and an icy hand squeezed my heart.
The woman drew back in shock, but the surprise quickly left her face and alarm took over. I had once observed the same sort of reaction from a man bitten by an iguana—first the recoil in surprise, then revulsion, then anger as he beat the iguana to death.
I had no intimation as to why this aristocratic Spanish doña found me so loathsome, but my lépero instincts put wings on my feet. I raced into the cheering crowd as the archbishop reached tierra firma and bent to kiss the dirt.
I never looked back until I was clear of the crowds and well up an alley too narrow for a coach to follow. Even in the alley I felt naked and exposed, as if the sun itself were spying for this woman.
THIRTEEN
I went home to the House of the Poor, skulking along side streets, convinced the Angel of Death was everywhere. The hospice was empty. Fray Antonio and his charges, who would that night sleep on the floor's piled straw, were with the crowds honoring the archbishop. Soon the waterfront reception would move to the alcalde palace. The buena gente would attend the festivities inside, while in the plaza Veracruz's citizens, along with those in town for the treasure fleet, would celebrate through the night and into the next day. To miss the greatest celebration of my lifetime was deeply disappointing, but my fear outweighed my eagerness.
The Casa de los Pobres was little more than a large, rectangular room. One corner was blanketed off for the fray. Behind the hung blanket were his private quarters—a bed of straw in a wood frame, a small table with a reading candle, a chest with his personal effects, and several shelves for his modest library. The books weren't much—a few religious tomes, the rest classics from Greek and Roman antiquity. No doubt the local church and the alcalde had more books. Perhaps a few wealthy citizens as well, but it was a substantial collection of libros in a city where the vast majority of the people could not read their own names, let alone buy books.
My greatest pleasure was to sit in the fray's draped-off bolt-hole and read, but today I entered it to hide. I sat on his bed with my back to the corner and gathered my arms around my knees. Veracruz's streets had honed my survival instincts to a razor's edge, and I had felt stronger emotions emanating from the old woman than mere malice.
Fear.
Had I—or the parents I never knew—done anything to her? The fray never indicated any such thing, so her hatred, by itself, was inexplicable. But her fear? Why would an aristocratic, all-powerful matrona, the dowager of a great house, fear a lépero boy who cadged alms to earn his bread?
It was not the first time I had been mistaken for another. The day Don Francesco had beaten me within an inch of my life, his guest had claimed to recognize my true paternity. Perhaps the old woman saw the same similarities.
From time to time I'd questioned the fray about my father's identity, but he denied all knowledge. Once deep in wine he said my father had been a wearer of the spurs, but then grew angry, perhaps for having said too much.
But the old woman, like Don Fernando's guest before her, saw something in my face, knew what she saw, and it put me at risk. I now feared what she saw might cost me my life.
I tried to put the woman out of my mind, but I could not stop thinking about my parentage. That my mother might have been a thief and a whore made no special impression on me. We so-called "Childre
n of the Lord" were notorious for base parentage. That my father might have been a wearer of spurs was also of no significance. The gachupins ceaselessly debauched our women, watching them drop their bastards without remorse, with contempt rather than love. To them, we were a slander against their stock and blood. They demonstrated their hatred in the laws they enacted against us, their own offspring. We bastardos had no rights in society. We could not inherit from our fathers; we were not even recognized as their children. Not just the streets of Veracruz—¡Bueno Dios!—one end of New Spain to the other, swarmed with the bastardos of Spanish hombres. If anyone had proven to a gachupin that I was his son, he would have stared right through me as if I'd never existed, because under the eyes of the law I did not exist. Our gachupin masters could use and abuse us at will.
Sometimes one heard the expression "son of a gun" applied to street children because their mothers were whores who did not know which men impregnated them. The term was first applied to the children born to prostitutes on ships. Large war galleons often carried putas to service the crew. When the women were about to give birth, they were laid next to one of the ever-burning braziers near the big guns, which had to be continually available to ignite the black gunpowder. Their propinquity to the cannons earned the appellation of "son of a gun."
Being the bastard son of a gachupin gave me no more rights than had I been the son of a gun.
And now I had met two people who apparently hated me for my parentage, as if I was responsible for parents I had never met, as if my very existence fomented blood feuds, as if I had committed the sins of my forebears.
Ayyo, perhaps the fray would tell me why this woman hated me. Perhaps he would find some way to take care of this problem. I knew he would if he could. Fray Antonio was a good man. He helped everyone. His only sin was that he was too good. After he was defrocked, he turned to the secular community for help. He talked a well-to-do merchant out of a rundown building in the heart of the mestizo barrio. In his spare time he solicited money, food, clothing, and medicine from the wealthy. He provided all that and lodging, too, to the poor.
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