Life During Wartime

‘Tell me ’bout him.’

‘Just look around you. Look at this place, look at the barrio. Hah! Look at the others. They think they’re in control, but they’re only Carlito’s pawns. Made in his image.’ The old man jammed his cap down over his eyes. ‘Best thing would be for you all to throw yourselves in the sea. Now go on, get out. We’re closed.’

‘I just wanted to—’

‘Get out, I say!’ The old man gave him a push. ‘It depresses me to be around you.’ He shooed Mingolla off with a flapping of his bony hands and slammed the door behind him.

Mingolla blinked at the intense sunlight. The two men on the steps stirred like leaves in a soft wind. He felt less inclined to help them now, but it would at least pass some time. One of them—bearded, blond, wearing clothes that appeared to have been rolled in soot—was leaning against the doorframe. His face was abraded, the cuts crusted with grime; his hair was long and stringy, and though he was sitting in the shade, the pupils of his blue eyes had shrunk to pinpricks, as if he were living in some internal brilliance. Resting across his knees was a machete, its blade fretted with brown stains. The other man lay beside him, his face turned to the golden doors. Mingolla dropped to his knees, preparing to work; but as he met those blue eyes, as he noticed the petulant set of the man’s mouth, the slight bulge of his brow, he was flooded by a feeling of despair.

‘Gilbey?’ he said, and then knowing it was Gilbey, he shook him. ‘It’s Mingolla, man! Hey, Gilbey!’

Gilbey stared at his scabbed, broken knuckles.

Mingolla focused his power, trying to restore Gilbey’s patterns, talking all the while, desperate to make that sullen punkish spirit burn high again. ‘C’mon, man,’ he said. ‘Remember the Farm… ’Frisco? You gotta remember ‘Frisco.’ He was in a panic, like a kid fitting together the pieces of a valuable vase he’d broken.

After a few minutes, Gilbey responded. ‘Mingolla,’ he said wonderingly. ‘I… ’ He nudged the other man. ‘This here’s Jack.’

Jack grunted, knocked Gilbey’s arm away.

Gilbey seemed to fade, then perked up again. ‘Know who this is?’ he asked, tapping Jack’s shoulder. ‘He’s… he’s famous. Hey, Jack! Wake up!’

Jack rolled over, eyes slitted against the sun. His face was partially obscured by a heavy black beard, but his features — cleverly made, foxy—looked familiar.

‘He’s famous,’ Gilbey repeated. ‘Tell him, Jack. Tell him who you are.’

Jack rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘Name’s Jack,’ he said foggily.

‘Naw, man!’ said Gilbey. ‘The guy’s… Shit! Tell him. Jack!’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mingolla said.

‘I’m… ’Jack squeezed the sides of his head as if trying to still his thoughts. ‘I’m a singer.’

‘Yeah, yeah!’ said Gilbey. ‘That’s it. You ’member, Mingolla. Prowler.’

Mingolla stared in disbelief, saw Jack Lescaux’s face melt up from the beard and dirt. ‘How’d you wind up here?’

Jack rolled back over to face the door.

‘He ain’t feelin’ so hot,’ said Gilbey. ‘But it’s him, ain’t it?’

‘Yeah, it’s him.’ Mingolla stood, suddenly exhausted. ‘You come on back with me. I’ll find ya a bunk at my place.’ He plucked the receiver from Gilbey’s ear.

‘I dunno,’ said Gilbey. ‘We gotta…’

It’s okay… I’ll be responsible.’

Gilbey plucked at Jack’s shirt. ‘Let’s go, man.’

‘Just leave him.’

‘I ain’t leavin’ him, man,’ said Gilbey, displaying a flash of his old contentiousness. ‘Me’n him are tight.’

‘All right.’ Mingolla set to work on Jack and soon had him standing. He was shorter than Mingolla had assumed from watching him on TV; his clothes were as filthy as Gilbey’s, and he had a crowbar in his left hand. In their rags, leaning together, they looked like zombies at the end of their term. Dead men with blue eyes.

They shambled at Mingolla’s heels across the parking lot and down an empty street lined with groceries and butcher shops and bakeries. Murals of cakes with halos of painted flavor, ice cream bars surrounded by exploding stars, bananas wreathed in music notes. Little coiled nests of human shit everywhere testified to the passage of the armies.

Gilbey picked up his pace, stumbled alongside Mingolla, searching his face. ‘What happened to you, man?’ he asked.

‘You mean back in ’Frisco?’

‘Un-uh.’ Gilbey tripped, regained his balance. ‘What happened to you here.’ He tapped his forehead, very gently, as if afraid he might punch a hole.

‘Bad drugs,’ said Mingolla. ‘War. Shit like that.’

Gilbey nodded, his brow furrowed. Same here,’ he said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

On a night not long after he had found Gilbey and Jack Lescaux, Mingolla was about to enter his room at the Casa Gamboa, when he heard Ray’s voice issuing from an open shutter. He flattened against the wall and peeked through the window. Ruy was standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in jeans and a black wind-breaker; his hair was combed straight back, and the collar of the windbreaker was turned up, framing his face in such a way as to give it the austere nobility of a vampire.‘

‘Leave me alone!’ said Debora.

Mingolla couldn’t see her, but the distaste in her voice was clear.

‘I’ve been trying to,’ Ruy said. ‘But I can’t.’

‘You have to,’ she said. ‘I don’t love you… in fact, you’re beginning to disgust me. Don’t you have any self- respect?’

‘Not where you’re concerned.’ Ruy moved out of Mingolla’s line of sight. ‘Don’t you understand how he’s stifling you, stunting you? God, you should be—’

‘I’m not listening to this! Get out!’

‘Debora, please.’

‘Get out!’

‘For God’s sake, Debora. Don’t do this!’ There was a catch in Ray’s voice. ‘If I could just touch you once… like a lover.’

‘I want you to leave right now.’

‘Sometimes,’ said Ruy, ‘sometimes I think if I could touch you just once, that would be all I needed… it would sustain me the rest of my life.’

A pause, shuffling of footsteps.

‘Are you saying that if I let you touch me, you’d leave me alone afterward?’

‘I… I don’t know. I…’

‘Suppose I were to let you touch me,’ said Debora coldly, ‘Would you swear not to bother me again?’

‘You shouldn’t treat me like this,’ said Ruy. ‘I love you.’

‘Answer me.’

‘You’ll let me touch you?’

‘Only if you promise to leave me alone.’

His anger growing, Mingolla went to the door.

‘Please don’t do this,’ said Ruy.

Another pause, and then Debora said, ‘I’ll tell you what. You can touch me, touch my breast, if you swear you won’t even talk to me for at least a week.’

Mingolla put his hand on the doorknob.

Ruy was silent, and Debora said impatiently. ‘Well? Do you want to or not?’

‘I… yes,’ Shame in the quaver of the words.