Say a boy, some kid of fifteen, shows up with peeling skin, hair falling out, his balance shot to fuck? Doesn’t matter. These guys had an energy (I don’t know, maybe it was the fashionable threads) that turned this debauchery into an entertaining spectacle. They laughed warily, criss-crossing Avenida Sexta a dozen times, constantly on the alert to the slightest movement that spelled a new hook-up, a new beginning. It was like an athletics display by a team of scrawny gymnasts. Me, I enjoyed it. Every couple of hours a crowd of people would flood out of the cinema and we’d take up strategic positions; everyone knew who went to the afternoon screening and who went to the evening show, and had a different attitude, a different greeting for each. The way you greet a passing (alcoholic) nun – or some kid your own age who’s a freak, or a Marxist professor who once told you that in life every action should be a blow against imperialism – is radically different from how you greet a laid-back junkie who shows up with good news and three lines of coke for his friends. These guys hung out here, they practically lived here and spent their days taking drugs – something that the nun, the freak and the Marxist had to know. So what did they do to dodge scorn, or lob it back like a volleyball?
To these solitary specimens of rectitude and reason, they opposed their unity, their numbers, their music (which wasn’t theirs) and what remained of their beauty. Everyone passed this way, the whole world passed this way. Those with a social conscience negotiated the area by averting their gaze, heading home to read an improving book and get to bed early. For their part the guys would swarm and neutralize any insult, circling gently and constantly like flies. Some – the more nervous ones – would jeer at passers-by, lay into them for their failure to appreciate the night, to get their kicks, like we used to say, accuse them of being square; others – the more lucid – clung to the conviction that when the time came to pass judgement on this era, they – the junkies – would stand as witnesses, those entitled to speak. And not the others, the squares who all thought alike and knew nothing about life, not to mention the intellectuals who indulged in nights of alcohol and cocaine till they were raving, vomiting and green round the gills – as though this was just poetic licence, the ungrammatical syllable essential to burnish a line of poetry. No, we were impossible to ignore, we were the last wave, the most powerful wave, the one that sweeps you from the sea wall of the night.
When it came, it was magical. The sudden flare of car headlights, the purple mountains, the music of the boys clapping, skipping, shouting. I smiled and in the newborn darkness my teeth – like Mariángela’s – gleamed like marble as if they’d never rot, never decay. I should point out that it’s no easy matter, having to get used to night always arriving like this, always extraordinary. To become inured to such a thing would mean madness. That’s why we are the way we are.
I’d completely charmed Leopoldo Brook, while Mariángela, who’d been watching and watching for the night to fall, took her time telling me about her woes, how the day had grated against her body, just like the cicadas. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘You’ve got your darkness now and soon there’ll be music.’ She was really sad, because she’d found thousands of photos of her mother out in the country as a girl, holding Mariángela in her arms. She was tormented by the idea that she’d seen more of life at seventeen than her mother had at fifty (a disparity that’s understandable, given how times have changed). ‘The only sin she ever committed was when she met my father, a touring Belgian tennis pro, and they went off together and fucked like rabbits.’ She stopped, utterly bewildered, then said pleadingly, ‘I need music,’ at which the red-haired guy said she only had to ask. He opened his guitar case, and started strumming chords and belting out his message ‘in front of all these losers’ – that was the word he used. ‘No,’ Mariángela said, ‘let’s walk around the block so I can chill,’ and the redhead immediately jumped to it.
I took a minute to look for my friends, let them know it I’d only be gone for a while and would catch them at Flores’s rumba later. Bull and Tico had spent the whole afternoon with the radio turned up full blast and more than one solid citizen had come up to bitch about it. But Tico could be a dangerous bastard and Bull, just by standing behind him and thus staring down anyone who came to complain, provided solid backup.
‘Listen, if you need to chill out,’ I said as we headed south, like it was the most natural thing in the world, ‘I’ve got a gram of coke.’
The redhead nearly dropped his axe, and Mariángela immediately changed course – she grabbed me by the shoulder and all but frogmarched me across the street. She was completely fired up now, and invited us all back to her place in Granada, near the hill.
Her mother wasn’t home and we had to turn on all the lights. It was one of those dark houses with yellow walls; out on the paved patio there was a cracked, empty swimming pool.
‘Poor mamá,’ Mariángela said mournfully. ‘She’s gone to Saturday mass at San Judas. Better work fast, we don’t want her walking in on us.’
Aside from instantly making us all happy, the cocaine also inspired Leopoldo to play two hours of English songs, while I admired and adored him in worshipful silence; it also inspired Mariángela to say something I’ll never forget. Eventually Leopoldo bowed his head, his mane of red hair completely concealing his guitar; he was done playing. He asked for a drink – water or a glass of wine – and Mariángela said I should come into the kitchen with her to get the wine and when we got there she stared at me, stared into my eyes for so long, and she was so beautiful, with her hair just like mine and a face that said she knew exactly what she was doing, that I let her unbutton my dress and cup my breasts with both hands and then she said it: ‘Guys are jerks. You’d be better than them at handling the little dick they make such a big deal of putting in you.’
‘I like guys,’ I said, taking a step back (no reason for me to tell her no one had ever put it in me), ‘and I really dig your friend the rocker.’ So I went back out to him, bringing my wine and the conviction (which in a way I’d copied from Mariángela) that in my wine and my company he’d find his repose. He totally got it, so much so that in that fit of empathy and goodwill, I almost admitted that I’d understood fuck all of the lyrics he’d been singing. But I didn’t. Once again I wished Misery Guts Ricardito was here; he would delicately and faithfully translate every line of a song for me.
‘Let’s go – you want to?’ said Mariángela, her words, as always, polite orders.
The night was deepest blue, and Mariángela danced alone down the middle of the street as we set off for the rumba through the Parque Versalles, dark and circular as a ruined amphitheatre. I glanced up at my house and saw everyone was already asleep.
Every life hinges on the course we decide to take at one precise, privileged moment. On that Saturday in August I broke with my routine, and the same night I ended up at Skinny Flores’s rumba. It was a simple decision, but one that would have extraordinary consequences. One of them is that I now find myself here, safe in this haven of night, telling my story, shorn of all social standing and the crass manners I was raised with. No doubt I’ll be held up as an example. Peace and goodwill over my land.
I knock on the door and it’s opened by a young shirtless guy, and without waiting for him to say, ‘Come in,’ I push past, because I’m frantic at still being on the outside of all this music. I remember hearing a man singing in a high voice with sparse accompaniment. I remember I crept in like a dog tracking a scent. The walls were utterly bare, not a single picture, and I immediately started dancing, eager to get caught up in something so as not to tumble into this glassy chasm, its walls like ice floes; my dance is a nocturnal creeper, simple and arching, a solitary act; and so I danced alone, since everyone else was sitting down – was it me or were they already nodding off?
I didn’t say a word, didn’t say hello to anyone (behind
me, I heard a commotion as Mariángela made her entrance); I caressed myself, grateful for the music, heard whispers of appreciation and approval, and as I tossed my hair I was thinking, ‘Pelada, you’re bringing this place to life.’ How else could I explain the sudden blaze of strange brilliance, UV light, little cries and a shrill unintelligible falsetto, all merging into a chorus singing the glories of my hair. These were my friends, yes, my friends. I realize now that the song only lasted a moment, that I suddenly stopped, stumbled, opened my mouth and focused, only to find I was about to fall flat on my face in front of my adoring fans. ‘Lose your balance,’ I thought, ‘and you lose it all.’
I tensed, gritted my teeth, my whole body aching for the rhythm which some guy, a tall dark shadow, rushed to pick up. I was just thinking, ‘I have to ask who’s singing this, it’s amazing,’ when there was a burst of applause and everyone got up and I found myself surrounded by Silvio, Tico and Bull, Carlos Phileas, the women didn’t even look at me enviously, and I was all smiles, little glances over my shoulder (none of them realized that seconds earlier I’d almost fallen on my face like a fool), and wreathed in such praise, such adulation, such glory, I never did ask the name of the song or the singer. Another yawning gap in my education …
They picked me up, sat me down and I felt calmer. And as the music had started up again and I was totally into it, I thought: ‘This is life.’ Ever since that moment, my life has been a conscious, lucid (if I can use that weird word) acceptance-extension of that fleeting thought. Never again, I realized, never would I encounter such closeness, such harmony. I knew I had friends all around me though I didn’t recognize them all, but still I somehow understood that I would never again be so protected.
‘How you feeling?’ a face asked, the face of poisoner-to-be Pedro Miguel Fernández snaking between all the shoulders, the tangles of hair and the half-light, giving me a glimpse of the firefly of madness already flitting in that shadow that was his face with its huge, prematurely rotten teeth. ‘Better than I’ve ever felt, Pedrito,’ I said, and this was enough for him to close his eyes in satisfaction and go back to his business, to his little corner. I felt exhausted and all emotional. Leopoldo Brook had already found a place for himself and his guitar. The only person I couldn’t see was Mariángela. I moved only when I no longer had the sensation of being at the physical centre of the house, which was clearly very big because from upstairs came the distant sound of footsteps, doors closing, the creaking springs of someone bouncing on a bed. No parents around, obviously. Maybe it was the whiteness of the walls that made it seem as if spurts of blue were coming from the courtyard planted with fruit trees.
There was no furniture, I noticed, apart from the powerful high-tech hi-fi system on my right. People were dancing now and I heard someone say, ‘As soon as she gets here, everything changes.’
I missed Mariángela. I got up, not to look for her but just to see if I could stand. I went to join the dancers, walking the way I always do, as though I’m marching – someone once told me I had a masculine gait, I guess it was meant to embarrass me – like someone carrying a heavy weight, a stately electric guitar, a steel guitar, a lead guitar; moving forward, legs and knees first, back straight, conquering all before me. A pity my mouth wasn’t big enough to ferociously peck everyone around me.
Hands reached up, strung garlands of bells around my neck. I still wear them, they ring out like Christmas Eve, that sad pealing that makes people stupidly long to be young again. I don’t believe in that kind of reactionary nostalgia; pretending not to grow up, that’s what nostalgia is. I was growing up, and in public: praised, pampered and imitated.
Was it my overwrought excitement or could I hear a live guitar being played? Chords strummed by a real person? I turned this way and that until I saw the redhead: lips pursed, perfectly in sync, he was playing the modest role of another speaker: the fifth.
‘Who is he playing along with?’ I asked suddenly, manically, looking for anyone to comfort me.
‘Eric Clapton,’ said a voice through the tangle. ‘Eric Clapton.’
‘Oh,’ I said, turning to find a strange boy with a white shirt, a headband and beautiful lips. ‘Is he good?’ I asked.
‘Good?’ He adopted a serious expression and told me, ‘In my humble opinion, he’s God!’
I stopped dancing and went over to the redhead. I adopted the karma or kata position – that Indian thing, whatever it’s called – and I watched him as he went about his munificent work, bringing to our feeble nocturnal celebrations all the wisdom gleaned from the USA, teaching us discipline. He pulled faces, becoming paler with each one, shedding beads of sweat that I would happily have lapped up to turn into tears of emotion. He closed his eyes, but between each blink – I managed to blink in time with him – which was every time he played a low note he’d open his eyes and then I’d give him a huge smile; he would see me and I imagined how magnificent was this vision, me and my tinkling bells.
At the end of the song (‘White Room’, someone told me), he took a deep breath; I felt moved and wanted show him how much I wanted to protect him, to clear a path for him through the feral tropics he had willingly come to.
‘Here on holiday?’
‘No, not at all,’ he told me.
‘Oh God,’ I thought, but what I said was, ‘Oh, that’s wild! You’ll see, I’ll find you stuff to do, there’s always stuff going on.’
Legs approached. I looked up, in pained anticipation. It was the lofty form of Lanky Flores, come to pronounce the inevitable ‘Everything cool?’
‘Everything,’ I said excitedly.
‘Cool! I want you to open your mouth,’ he ordered, effortlessly dropping down so he was crouching next to me. In this light, the bones in his face all looked like splinters. A sexy thought popped into my head when he said ‘open your mouth’, which sounded like a proposition, but I dismissed the thought and did as he said – I opened my mouth, even stuck out my pink and pointy tongue. Then he showed me his hands, one a fist, the other holding a glass of water.
‘What are you giving me?’ I said awkwardly, my mouth still wide and probably drooling. Opening his fist, he showed me two purple pills.
‘Acid,’ he said. ‘Now, open your mouth.’
This was because I’d snapped my mouth shut – gulp – the minute I saw the acid microdots, my face slashed along the horizontal by the name he gave them.
‘Don’t be scared.’
I stopped messing around and licked my lips. After all, I had to try it some day.
‘One or both?’ I asked.
‘Just one!’ said the redhead, helpfully. ‘Jesus H. Christ!’
So I took one and popped it. The water tasted funny. The redhead took the other microdot and went on strumming.
‘Is he ignoring me?’ I wondered, scrabbling to my feet defensively.
He stopped strumming for a minute to ask: ‘You leaving?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Can you hear something? Sounds like people fighting outside.’ I was thinking – by now I was up and running, I stepped on someone and they apologized – ‘They’re beating up Mariángela. Where’s Mariángela?’
There were eight or nine people crowded in the doorway; Mariángela was nowhere to be seen but I could hear her, hear her swearing.
‘Let me through, let me through,’ I screamed, trying to force my way past, and when they didn’t let me, I pinched one guy savagely, kneed him where a knee was meant to go, with the classic cry: ‘Man down.’ I couldn’t stand by and do nothing while someone beat up Mariángela. ‘She’s had enough hatred in her life,’ I thought. Outside the fresh air left me suddenly dazed but eventually I managed to see what was happening and retreated, feeling a sudden splitting headache.
It was a pitiful sight: Mariángela was kicking the shit out of Misery Guts Ricardo, and the poor guy didn’t
even try to apologize, the more she kicked the more the idiot screamed and insulted her. ‘What can I do, I have to see both sides,’ I thought and I waded in, grabbed Mariángela by the shoulders, spun her round and said, ‘What’s going on?’
The moment I touched her she calmed down, breathing into my face. Incredible: yet again (for perhaps the thousandth time) she was delighted to see me. She started breathing more slowly, attempting, with some effort, I think, to count to six. What she said was said without anger. The action was all over. All there was now was me.
‘There I was,’ she said, ‘thinking beautiful thoughts out here, because I didn’t feel like going in to join the rumba, when I see this guy roll up to the door shambling like a halfwit. And I was feeling so blissed out I felt moved by his never-ending misery. So I went over to him and I said, “Welcome.” And you know what he said? He said, “No one welcomes me.” He even dared to touch me. He shoved me and said: “Get away, curvaceous woman, guitar body.” Well, as soon as he lays a hand on me, I grab his arm and shake him from his fingertips along his spine to the bone that supports the skull, to the coccyx and down to his heels. Then I knock him to the ground and start kicking him. I think that’s when you showed up. He says he knows you.’
I looked at Misery Guts. His mouth was smeared with blood. He wasn’t crying, he didn’t seem to be in pain. Someone tried to brush the dirt from his shirt and he furiously pushed them off and got another kicking for his trouble.
He stood up, brushed away the grass, the blood, the twigs from his eyes and stood there, hands in pockets, glowering hatefully at everyone except me. Me he looked at with divine distance.
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