the illuminated sign for the fried chicken place had burnt out and was dark.
And it started raining again: in a town near the Magdalena river even the dogs drowned. In a hamlet close to the Ciénaga de la Virgen, four children and a teacher died. They were trapped inside a Social Welfare centre that got swept away by the current. On the radio, they were talking about the Submarine Outfall again: a Dutch company was going to start building it. The national government tendered the work out to foreign companies because the national ones had already stolen the money three times. But the Dutch didn’t steal.
Johnny sent me an email: I miss you, baby. And another one, in English this time: I miss u, beibi.
I thought of going to see Gustavo. The last time had been about six months earlier, a bright, sunny day, and it went like this:
I sat down at the worktable and the smell of fish made me feel sick. I suggested we go for a walk to get a change of air. As we walked, he told me that Olga had gone: her sister had come to get her from Venezuela. I couldn’t believe that anyone would choose to go to Venezuela. Even a slut like Olga could surely aspire to something better than going to Venezuela. She’d be better off here. We walked along the beach for hours, and finally sat down in a canoe that was falling to pieces and filled with crabs. I was thirsty. I asked about Willy. He died, said Gustavo. Of what? He shrugged. And Brígida? She died. Liar. I don’t know about Brígida, he said after a while. What about Willy? Or him.
This time I had brought him an umbrella and a small arsenal of vices: cigarettes, beer, rum, some weed. He rolled a cigarette and poured a couple of rums. He was wearing long trousers; I couldn’t remember ever seeing him in long trousers. He was going bald. He was getting old. The rain stops me from working, he complained, gesturing at the churning waves. Me too, I said, looking up at the clouds. Gustavo’s pool was filled with stagnant water; there were dead fish floating on the surface. The larger creatures must have been lurking somewhere in the depths. The tarpaulin was ripped in various places and water was streaming through it. The driest place was the double wooden seat, although it was also damp. Water and wood are not good friends, I said to Gustavo. We sat down.
Tell me a story.
I’ve already told you all of them.
Tell me a story with me in it.
Gustavo sighed heavily and shook his head. It’s a sad story.
I don’t mind.
I curled up next to him. I laid my head on his scrawny, smelly lap. He began stroking my hair.
Once upon a time, there was a sweet, noble princess who had only one flaw: she couldn’t tell the difference between what was good and bad, beautiful and hideous, diabolical and heavenly, perverse and pure…
I fell asleep.
11
The next flight to Miami was hell. And the ones after that. The Captain was avoiding me and now seemed more interested in Susana who, as she had no ass to speak of, had started sporting a very revealing push-up bra. I couldn’t care less because I had my Johnny, who was becoming more attentive and affectionate; he’d given me a laptop, so we could chat. I told him about the city: that in the centre they were building mansions that were filling up with celebrities. Julio Iglesias, Caroline of Monaco, Mick Jagger, Lady Gaga – they all had houses there. Johnny didn’t seem very impressed. All Johnny wanted was for me to turn on the webcam and talk dirty to him while I touched myself. And I did, but not always. I thought: one day Johnny will come to his senses, he’ll know what to do.
Johnny was becoming flaky.
The last time I saw him, he took me to the same dive bar with the buffalo wings, in Kendall. He was distracted, sullen, eyeing up the Dominican slut, who appeared to have developed huge matronly hips overnight. At some point, a well-dressed woman stood at the doorway and surveyed the place. Johnny said, she doesn’t think it looks clean enough for her to sit her bony ass down. He sounded bitter, resentful. Then he fell silent again. What’s up? I asked him. He said there was nothing wrong. We went to a motel, we fucked, he lit a cigarette and went silent again. I switched on the TV, nothing happened, it was broken.
On the flight back, Susana avoided me. I said to her: Johnny’s going to ask me to marry him and she said, Great! But it sounded false.
Then one day, Johnny stood me up. I was waiting in the lobby of the hotel. I was all dressed up to go salsa dancing: hair in a ponytail, shiny trousers, jangly metal bracelet. Suddenly I felt ridiculous. I called his home phone number, his wife answered, and before I’d finished asking for him, she was shouting at me, holly shit, you fokin puta! Then she threatened to shoot me three times in the pussy. There was a pause, during which I suppose she was catching her breath to start insulting me again, and I seized the opportunity to say: look, lady, Johnny knocked me up. And I hung up.
Going back was miserable. When I got to the apartment, I collapsed on the living room sofa, staring out the window: the chicken sign wasn’t lit up. It wouldn’t be until later. I didn’t eat, I didn’t go to the toilet, all I did was think about Johnny and stare at the grimy window pane. 19, 18, 17, 16…
Johnny didn’t appear online. I sent him three hundred and seventeen emails. Nothing. I never heard from him again. And with time, the sadness passed, but I was filled with pity. Firstly, for him, because he must have lost everything: his car, his unemployment benefit, his Ecuadorian wife, his VIP passes, his dignity. Then for me, because I’d lost my drives around Miami, the lobster and champagne, the sunsets in Mallory Square, the good life that Johnny had got me used to. And then for me, again for me, for the many times in my life, for every time I’d lost someone I didn’t even care about.
12
I took some time off once and didn’t know where to go. They made me take time off because, according to my boss, I had never taken any holiday and I had to. Why? Because it’s a new policy. I thought that there was something wrong with this new policy, and I told her as much, but she took no notice. It was a very small airline and they were tendering to move up a category, to get more routes. During those days off I visited my mother and the first thing she did was show me photos of a boy aged three, four years old, dressed as a cowboy, dressed as Snoopy, dressed as Tarzan. Who’s that? I asked. Who? That child. She shot me a furious look: Simón, your nephew! I didn’t know what to say. While my mother grumbled away, I realised that she had become an old woman: she had grey hairs and wrinkles, and the stale breath that comes with age.
I stayed for dinner.
My father had finally given up the taxi business for good, but he was still complaining: nobody takes cares of things that aren’t theirs. A letter came for you, said my mother. When? She squinted and said: it was over a year ago. Why didn’t you let me know? I don’t have your phone number. Yes, you do. She waved me away with her hand: pah!
I got back to the apartment at midnight. I opened the windows; it was hot. A breeze wafted in, smelling of sludge.
The letter was from Maritza Caballero, my teenage friend. She said she hadn’t heard from me in a long time, and as she only had that address for me, she had taken a chance on writing to me there, although she presumed I had probably moved. For a while we used to write letters to one another, but then I stopped replying. I got bored. According to what she told me, Medellín was a shitty city. It was neither cold nor hot, pretty nor ugly, rich nor poor. Medellín was nothing. Anyway, she didn’t live in Medellín anymore, but in Panama. Her father had been posted to Peru many years ago. She had gone back and forth many times, and
