A Quiet Vendetta

‘Sleep tight, Daddy,’ I whispered, and stepped out into the night.

I climbed into the car, started the engine, and drove out into the town, a town known only by those who lived there, a town that was none the wiser and would not be for some hours.

And those hours passed in a haze of alcohol-induced lust and heated passion. With the better part of a thousand dollars between us, Ruben Cienfuegos and I trawled the lower-life end of La Habana Vieja, and there we found girls who would do indescribable things for less than ten bucks Americano. We drank as if we had walked from the desert, and as morning ached its bruised and sallow way towards the horizon and color returned to the monochrome haunts of the darker underbelly of the city, we staggered half-blind and incoherent to our rooming house where I found my father sleeping the sleep of the dead. I remember stepping over him, hearing him slur and mumble unintelligibly, and I thought for a moment how easy it would have been to kneel across his chest, wrap my hands around his throat, and choke the last pathetic breath from his body as payment for what he had done to my mother. I stood over him for some time, the walls bending every which way they could, and I withheld myself. I believed it would have been too easy to kill him then, for the penance he had delivered to himself, of a broken-spirited man, a shell of whatever he once was, was far worse. I decided to let him suffer his own pains a while longer, and I crossed the room and lay down on my own mattress.

When I awoke it was late afternoon. I thought to call on Ruben and venture out once more into our hedonist’s paradise, but I stayed a while and spoke with my father. I gave him some money and told him to go out and get himself cleaned up, to buy some new clothes, to find some seventeen-year-old hooker and do his worst. He took my advice, once again pathetic and obsequious, and from the window of our room I watched him stumble away from the building towards the end of the street. I cleared my throat and spat after him. I turned my face in disgust. I could not bear to think that he had been the one to bring me into this world. I was better than him. I was Ernesto Cabrera Perez, son of my mother and of no-one else.

As the sun slipped beneath the skyline I left my room and walked down the stairwell to Ruben’s room. I knocked loudly, waited for a while, and then noticed that the door was not only unlocked but off its latch. I stepped inside. The lights were out, and where Ruben should have been, lying on his mattress, there was nothing but the sweat-stained tussle of sheets.

Perhaps he had come up to find me, and seeing me asleep had left. I knew where he would be. Down the block and across the junction was a narrow-fronted bar where he and I would meet when we became separated. I wandered down there, appreciating the feeling of freedom that so many dollars in my pocket produced, sufficient to fuel me through another week of such a lifestyle. Not a care in the world. Not a thought.

When I found no evidence of Ruben in the bar I became puzzled. I considered where he might have gone. I asked one or two of the older men if they had seen him.

‘He had many dollars,’ one of them said. ‘He was here some time ago, an hour, perhaps two, and then he left. He did not say where he was going. I didn’t ask. What you people do is none of my business.’

I left the bar and walked towards downtown. Perhaps he had gotten drunk and made his own way out to find some entertainment for the evening. I did not really care. Ruben could take care of himself. I thought to go back and get the car, the Mercury Cruiser I had driven from the motel the night before, and parade my way through the old city, pick up some girls, maybe drive out to the coast and make out on the beach. I decided against it. It was a conspicuous car, quite unlike any I had seen down here, and I did not wish to draw attention to myself.

For three hours I wandered through Old Havana. I paid a hooker to give me a blowjob in a back street but my body was so tired and replete with liquor I could not respond. I gave her money anyway, and she asked me to come visit her next time I was around. I said I would, but minutes after she had walked away I would have been unable to recognize her face. After a while they all started to look the same.

It was close to midnight when I turned back and headed home. I was angry, frustrated; irritated that Ruben had left without me, but in some way relieved. I needed to sleep. I felt poisoned with whiskey and cheap rum. I had eaten nothing since I’d woken and my body pained me greatly.

It took me the better part of an hour to reach the rooming house. The place was dark, my father had evidently not returned, and when I started up the stairs towards my room I thought to call in and check if Ruben had returned and was sleeping off his drunk.

The lights were out, the door was still open, and when I pushed it wide and stepped inside I knew that something was wrong.

The light that shone directly into my face blinded me. It was almost painful in its intensity, and before I had a chance to shout, to say something, there were hands on my shoulders. Terror, absolute breathless terror, grabbed me from behind and would not let me go. I was forced to my knees, and even as I opened my eyes once more a rough hessian bag was forced over my head and something was tied around my neck. My hands were tied, so tight I could feel the blood swelling at my wrists. My feet were behind me, and before I could move them or attempt to stand, I felt the pressure of something hard and unyielding against my forehead.

The click of the hammer was almost deafening.

The voice was unmistakably Italian.

‘You are Ernesto Perez?’ the voice asked.

I said nothing. I felt urine escape from my crotch and soak my pants. I could see the darkness that had faced me in the motel room. I could see whatever was inside me and it terrified me.

Somewhere to my left I heard a struggle. I heard a muffled voice, someone suppressing a howl of pain, and then there was silence for a heartbeat.

‘You are Ernesto Perez?’ the voice asked again.

I nodded once.

‘You killed a man in a motel last night,’ the voice stated matter-of-factly.

I didn’t move, didn’t say a word. I had lost all sensation in my hands. I could feel the veins in my neck swelling and pulsing.

‘You killed a very good friend of mine in a motel last night, and now we are going to repay his death.’

I felt the barrel of the gun stabbing at my forehead. I wanted to scream, wanted to lash out any which way I could, but with my hands tied, and the men behind me standing on my ankles, any movement was impossible.

‘Stand up,’ the voice said.

I was dragged roughly to my feet.

I could still sense the bright light shining directly towards my face even through the sacking over my head.

The light moved, back and to the left, and then with one swift motion the bag was snatched from over my face and I stood facing the man with the gun. That gun was now aimed squarely at my stomach.

I felt everything inside lurch upwards into my chest. It took every ounce of will I possessed to stop myself from screaming.

I looked to my left, and there, roped to a chair, gagged and bound like an animal waiting for slaughter, was Ruben Cienfuegos. He had been beaten within an inch of his life. His eyes were so swollen he could barely open them, his hair was matted with blood, his shirt had been torn from his shoulders and there were cigarette burns all over his skin.

I looked back at the man facing me, unquestionably an Italian. He was my father’s age, but his eyes were darker, and when he smiled and nodded there was something truly unnerving in his expression.

‘You know this man?’ he asked. He glanced towards Ruben.

I shook my head.

The man smiled and raised the gun. He aimed it directly between my eyes. I could almost hear the sound of his finger muscles tensing as he increased the pressure on the trigger.

‘You know this man?’

Once again I shook my head. I believed it would not have been possible for me to speak even had I wanted to. My throat was tight, as if a hand gripped it relentlessly, and as I tried to breathe I felt a fear so profound I believed it would stop my heart right where I stood.

The Italian shrugged. ‘Seems to me one of you is lying then,’ he said. ‘He says he knows you. He says your name is Ernesto Perez and you don’t deny it. How come he knows your name?’

I shook my head. I looked directly at the man, past the gun and straight into his eyes. ‘I-I do not know,’ I stuttered. I tried to sound certain. I tried to sound like a man speaking the truth. ‘He is a liar,’ I said.