Time passed with the rhythm of daily life, and one night, by chance, I bumped into the guy from apartment 10 at the local supermarket; it was the man with whom I had complained the most about the police for hours in front of that damn door. No, as far as I know, nothing’s happened, he said. What? I exclaimed, indignant; seeing him had revived the memory of the screams that came from that poor dead woman, because she had definitely been killed. Yes, he responded, I think they killed her too. But then, I asked, how is it possible that nobody went to the station and filed a report; wasn’t the door finally busted down? No, not that I know of, he said, shrugging his shoulders, then added: we all remember the incident, we even lower our voices when we pass the metal door. Even the next door neighbor, remember? The one who called and called the police? She’s going to move or maybe she already has; she told me last week when I saw her taking boxes up to her apartment. We must do something! I insisted, furious, as if I were determined to go and personally file the report. But you, why would you commit yourself to going to the station? You don’t even live in the building. I stared at him; it had been almost two months… The supermarket cashier then said: That will be 275 pesos. Do you have a parking ticket for validation? I handed over the money, mechanically, picked up my change, and said goodbye to the neighbor.
Part III.
A SQUIRREL WITHOUT A TREE BY ROLO DIEZ
I was still very young and had barely experienced heartbreak when I first saw the bird with enormous wings. The wings were so great they covered the sun and threw shadows over an entire Arab city, across those churches with multicolored towers, round and pointy like a spinning top. I saw the bird in Graciela’s storybook. I see it again now, when there’s nothing left in the city, only the beating of the wings and me; it’s colder here than in Reclusorio Sur prison or Nevado de Toluca.
Black coffee, a roll, and a pastry-I’ve always had the same breakfast. Although sometimes a beer is the one and only remedy for mornings when the sun is blinding and a man regrets that last pint. But now I need my coffee, my roll, and my pastry. Maybe because it’s 3 in the morning and the last time I had a bite to eat was yesterday afternoon, or because of that cold strip between my back and my guts, or because there are only two of us on this empty street and two is a terrible number at this hour, with everything I still have to do, and do without any help or witnesses.
Let me tell you, at this hour, on these streets, it’s best if you’re from the neighborhood. Around here, God helps whoever helps himself, everybody knows what’s going on, and no one expects the head of government to actually solve any problems or for the best fighter to win in the ring. Friendly folk do not abound. Respectable people walk determined to just get home in one piece and with a few bills still on their bodies. The strong survive, that’s the law of the land.
There’s another guy on the street and he moves as if he were alone, as if it were 10 in the morning and the Squirrel didn’t exist; he ignores me and that must mean he wants to control me. I tuck my right hand into my jacket, cover the handle of the sevillana, and squeeze hard to feel it. I took this knife off an aimless gringo leaving the Bar Leon, up to his ears in local bourbon and without a clue where his hotel was. A gift. He’d even lost his shoes. I decided to go easy and just take the knife. A useful beauty, the best thing in the world.
The guy keeps going. It’s three blocks to my house and then the street is mine. The cold air on my chest shakes me to the core. It’s a good time to go into La Cotorra and ask for an aged tequila and a hot snack. But it’s closed. No way. It’s late.
I think about the One & Only. Graciela is the first woman with whom I’ve resorted to begging, and she’ll be the last. Like Jose Alfredo drunk on love, like an encyclopedia of boleros. I’ve shown more appreciation for her than for a box of gold Rolexes, a new car, or a whole year in Acapulco. Has anyone ever seen me behave like this with any other woman? Not a one. Our names must be written in the Book of Destiny. Celebration and quarrel always come in the wake of the bird in Graciela’s book.
Centuries ago, the One & Only was just a flower of promise and great wings grew from my back.
We lived deep in the neighborhood, my Tia Clodomira and me, in the Republic of Guatemala between Rodriguez Puebla and Vicarious Leona. She took me in after I was abandoned by my mother’s misfortune. She called me Squirrel out of love, and I knew that in her skirts I’d find the first and most exclusive hideout in which to seek refuge. Clodomira worked in a clothing store and she’d leave me playing on the patio. “Do not move from here, Squirrel.” “No, Tia.” “Wait for me.” “Yes, Tia.” Pretty soon I learned to go from patio to patio, and from the patios to the street. Scared to death, I began to wander and made my way around the block. Haven’t stopped since. I must have been about four years old then and that’s my earliest memory. Before then, I can’t picture anything. Although sometimes, on nights when the world crashes in on me, I believe I’ve glimpsed cloudy shapes and shouts that surround and beat me with an incomprehensible ferocity. Frightening things, which I neither recognize nor understand, but which haunt me, force me to turn on the light and smoke one cigarette after another until I see the sun come through my window.
I think about the One & Only and I know that girl-whom I first met when she was just a gaudy, awkward caterpillar, and whom I later witnessed as a butterfly-was whom I truly loved. I say it now because I don’t know if I’ll ever say it again. I remember when I first went to the circus, my aunt’s fiance-a stocky guy named Reynaldo who was a coyote in Monte de Piedad-told me to keep my eye on the trapeze artist because he might fall and kill himself and it would never happen again, even if I showed up with a fistful of bills and paid a hundred times the ticket price. “Good things only come around once,” said Reynaldo, “and if we aren’t ready to dive in, we risk being left out, forever regretting.” It’s not that Reynaldo was a wise person, because if he were wise he wouldn’t be in prison, but for anybody who depends on hustling to eat, his words make sense.
At fifteen, I was making plans and holding on, barely passing my way through high school, looking to learn more and trying to keep up with Graciela from afar. We weren’t friends anymore. The One & Only despised our little gang from Guatemala, our tricks to get money, the zits that tormented me, and even my skill at beheading rats with a slingshot.
In the gang, it wasn’t a good idea to let on that you were in love; in fact, it was disastrous, because the guys had a cruel laugh reserved for anyone who developed soft feelings more appropriate to old women and fags. Like the men in bars from olden times, the gang didn’t tolerate anybody in uniform, or women. An honorable “Guatemalteco” only concerned himself with those sweet enemies when it came time to steal their panties and their hearts.
Actually, keeping the secret wasn’t that hard in the gang. It was all about taking on an attitude appropriate to a Guatemala hustler. “That chava belongs to me, one way or another. Nobody better touch her cuz she’s mine.” Still, it’s hard to love somebody who looks at you like you’ve got eight legs and can crawl up a wall. But it wasn’t always that way. A lot of time passed from the moment that little girl came to the back patio with her book in hand, to the day the nymph stopped coming, to the time that woman refused to even greet me. There were afternoons when I took to reciting romantic songs and taking her picture when I saw her lower her guard for a moment, revealing a gentle moistness about her eyes and a bloom in her cheeks. An anxious and flattered woman is an open window to anyone who knows how to look into it. I swear I felt like Juan Diego greeting the Virgin of Guadalupe. But each and every time, just when a feeling seemed to be stirring inside the One & Only, just like a chick pecks away at its shell in order to come to life, something would happen, and Graciela would again notice the marks on my skin, and she would wrinkle her nose as if something were rotting and then everything got fucked up again. Furious and desperate, the only thing I could think to do was insult her, bring her down with savage commentary to erase her sense of superiority, twist her rejection of me into fear of the streets. Later, when she was fifteen and I was eighteen, love and scorn were the same thing.
