The Savage Detectives (2 page)

The waitress (her name was Rosario) asked me to do her a favor. I should have said, "It depends," as my uncle had taught me (to the point of exhaustion), but that's not the way I am. All right, then, I said, what?

"I'd like you to write me a poem," she said.

"Consider it done. One of these days I promise you I will," I said, using
tú
with her for the first time and finally getting up the courage to order another tequila.

"It's on me," she said. "But you have to write it now."

I tried to explain you can't just write a poem that way, on the spot.

"Anyway, what's the hurry?"

Her explanation was somewhat vague; it seemed to involve a promise made to the Virgen de Guadalupe, something to do with the health of someone, a very dear and longed-for family member who had disappeared and come back again. But what did a poem have to do with all that? It occurred to me that I'd had too much to drink and hadn't eaten in hours, and I wondered whether the alcohol and hunger must be starting to disconnect me from reality. But then I decided it didn't matter. If I'm remembering right (though I wouldn't stake my life on it), it so happens that one of the visceral realists' basic poetry-writing tenets is a momentary disconnection from a certain kind of reality. Anyway, the bar had emptied out, so the other two waitresses drifted over to my table and then I was surrounded, in what seemed (and actually was) an innocent position but which to some uninformed spectator-a policeman, for example-might not have looked that way: a student sitting with three women standing around him, one of them brushing his left arm and shoulder with her right hip, the other two with their thighs pressed against the edge of the table (an edge that would surely leave a mark on those thighs), carrying on an innocent literary conversation, but a conversation that might look like something else entirely if you saw it from the doorway. Like a pimp in conference with his charges. Like a sex-crazed student refusing to be seduced.

I decided to get out while I still could, and doing my best to stand up, I paid, sent my regards to Brígida, and left. When I stepped outside the sun was blinding.

Cut class again today. I got up early and caught the UNAM bus, but I got off at an earlier stop and spent the rest of the morning wandering around downtown. First I went into the Librería del Sótano and bought a book by Pierre Louys, then I crossed Júarez, bought a ham sandwich, and went to read and eat on a bench in the Alameda. Reading Louys's story, plus looking at the illustrations, gave me a colossal hard-on. I tried to get up and go someplace else, but with my dick in the state it was in, I couldn't walk without attracting attention and scandalizing not just whoever passed by but pedestrians in general. So I sat down again, closed the book, and brushed the crumbs off my jacket and pants. For a long time I watched something I thought was a squirrel climbing stealthily through the branches of a tree. After ten minutes (more or less), I realized that it wasn't a squirrel at all-it was a rat. An enormous rat! The discovery filled me with sadness. There I was, unable to move, and twenty yards away, clinging tightly to a branch, was a starving, scavenging rat, in search of birds' eggs, or crumbs swept by the wind up to the treetops (unlikely), or whatever it was he was looking for. Anguish choked me, and I felt sick. Before I could throw up, I got up and ran away. After five minutes of brisk walking, my erection had disappeared.

I spent the evening on Calle Corazón (the street one block over from mine), watching a soccer game. The people playing were my childhood friends, although
friends
is maybe too strong a word. Mostly they're still in high school but some have left school and gone to work with their parents or don't do anything. When I started college, the gulf between us suddenly deepened and now it's as if we're from different planets. I asked if I could play. The light on Calle Corazón isn't very good, and you could hardly see the ball. Also, every once in a while cars would go by and we'd have to stop. I got kicked twice and slammed once in the face with the ball. Enough. I'll read a little more Pierre Louys and then turn out the light.

There are fourteen million people living in Mexico City. I'll never see the visceral realists again. And I'll never go back to the university or to Álamo's workshop either. I don't know what I'm going to tell my aunt and uncle. I finished
Aphrodite
, the book by Louys, and now I'm reading the dead Mexican poets, my future colleagues.

I've discovered an amazing poem. They never said anything about its author, Efrén Rebolledo (1877-1929), in any of our literature classes. I'll copy it here:

The Vampire

The first time I read it (a few hours ago), I couldn't help locking myself in my room and masturbating as I recited it once, twice, three times, as many as ten or fifteen times, imagining Rosario, the waitress, on all fours above me, asking me to write a poem for her long-lost beloved relative or begging me to pound her on the bed with my throbbing cock.

Now that I've gotten that over with, I've had some time to think about the poem.

There can be no doubt, I think, about the meaning of "deep and gloomy tresses." The same isn't true of the first line of the second stanza: "As I unlock the tight rings," which could refer to the "deep and gloomy tresses" and to drawing them out or untangling them one by one, but the verb
unlock
might conceal a different meaning.

"The tight rings" isn't very clear either. Does it mean curls of pubic hair, the vampire's curly tresses, or the human orifices-
plural
? I.e., is he
sodomizing
her? I think I'm still haunted by my reading of Pierre Louys.

I've decided to go back to the Encrucijada Veracruzana, not because I expect to find the visceral realists there, but to see Rosario. I've written a few lines for her. I talk about her eyes and the endless Mexican horizon, about abandoned churches and mirages over the roads that lead to the border. I don't know why, but somehow I got the idea that Rosario is from Veracruz or Tabasco, possibly even Yucatán. Maybe she mentioned it, although I may have just made it up. Or maybe the name of the bar confused me, and Rosario isn't from Veracruz or Yucatán at all. Maybe she's from Mexico City. Anyway, I thought that some poetry evoking lands that are the diametric opposite of hers (assuming she is from Veracruz, which seems more and more unlikely) would be more promising, at least as far as my intentions are concerned. After that, whatever happens will happen.

This morning I wandered around downtown thinking about my life. The future doesn't exactly look bright, especially if I keep cutting class. But what really worries me is my sexual education. I can't spend my whole life jerking off. (I'm worried about my poetic education too, but one thing at a time.) Could Rosario have a boyfriend? If she does have a boyfriend, what if he's jealous and possessive? She's too young to be married, but you never know. I think she likes me; that much is clear.

I found the visceral realists. Rosario is from Veracruz. All the visceral realists gave me their respective addresses, and I gave them all mine. They meet at Café Quito, on Bucareli, a little past the Encrucijada, and at María Font's house, in Colonia Condesa, or at the painter Catalina O'Hara's house, in Colonia Coyoacán. (María Font, Catalina O'Hara, such evocative names-but what is it they evoke?)

As for the rest of it, everything went fine, although it almost ended in tragedy.

Here's what happened: I got to the Encrucijada at eight. The bar was packed, the crowd grim and grisly beyond belief. In a corner there was actually a blind man playing the accordion and singing. All the same, I elbowed my way into the first opening I spotted at the bar. Rosario wasn't there. When I asked the girl behind the bar where Rosario was, she acted as if the question were somehow fickle, flighty, presuming. But she was smiling, as if she didn't think that was so bad. Honestly, I had no idea what she was trying to get at. Then I asked her where Rosario was from, and she told me that she was from Veracruz. I asked her where she was from too. From here, from Mexico City, she said. What about you? I'm a cowboy from Sonora, I said. I'm not sure why, it just popped out. In real life, I've never been to Sonora. She laughed, and we might have kept talking for a while, but she had to go wait on a table. But Brígida was there, and when I was on my second tequila, she came over and asked me how I was. Brígida is a woman with a frowning, melancholy, offended look. I remembered her differently, but I'd been drunk the time before, and this time I wasn't. Brígida, I said, how's it going, long time no see. I was trying to seem friendly, even cheerful, though I can't say I felt that way exactly. Brígida took my hand and pressed it to her heart, which made me jump, and my first impulse was to back away from the bar, maybe even just take off, but I restrained myself.

"Do you feel it?" she said.

"What?"

"My heart, you idiot, can't you feel it beating?"

With my fingertips I explored as much territory as I could: Brígida's linen blouse and her breasts, framed by a bra that seemed too small to contain them. But no trace of a heartbeat.

"I don't feel anything," I said with a smile.

"My heart, bonehead, can't you hear it beating, can't you feel it slowly breaking?"

"I'm sorry, I can't hear anything."

"How do you expect to hear anything with your hand, lamebrain, I'm just asking whether you feel it. Don't your fingers feel anything?"

"Honestly… no."

"Your hand is icy," said Brígida. "Such pretty fingers. It's obvious you've never had to work."

I felt watched, scrutinized, bored into. The grisly drunks at the bar had taken an interest in Brígida's last remark. Preferring not to confront them just yet, I announced that she was wrong, that of course I had to work to pay my tuition. Now Brígida was gripping my hand as if she were about to read my palm. That interested me, and I forgot about the potential spectators.

"Don't be cagey," she said. "You don't have to lie to me, I know you. You're rich and spoiled, but you're very ambitious. And lucky. You'll go as far as you want to go. Although here I see that you'll lose your way several times, and it'll be your own fault, because you don't know what you want. You need a girl to stand by you in good times and bad. Am I wrong?"

"No, that's perfect, keep going, keep going."

"Not here," said Brígida. "There's no reason these nosy bastards should hear your fortune, is there?"

For the first time I dared to take a good look around. Four or five grisly drunks were still hanging on Brígida's words, one of them even staring at my hand with unnatural intensity, as if it were his own. I smiled at all of them, not wanting to upset them, trying to let them know this had nothing to do with me. Brígida pinched the back of my hand. Her eyes were burning, as if she were about to start a fight or burst into tears.

"We can't talk here, follow me."

I watched her whisper to one of the waitresses, then she beckoned to me. The Encrucijada Veracruzana was full, and a cloud of smoke and the music of the blind man's accordion rose over the heads of the regulars. I looked at the clock. It was almost twelve; time is flying, I thought.

I followed her.

We went into a kind of long, narrow storage room piled with cartons of bottles and cleaning supplies for the bar (detergent, brooms, bleach, a squeegee, a collection of rubber gloves). At the back stood a table and two chairs. Brígida motioned me toward one of them. I sat down. The table was round and its surface was covered with gouges and names, mainly illegible. The waitress remained standing, less than an inch from me, watchful as a goddess or a bird of prey. Maybe she was waiting for me to ask her to sit. Touched by her shyness, I did. To my surprise, she proceeded to sit on my lap. The situation was uncomfortable and yet in a few seconds I realized with horror that my instincts, taking leave of my mind, my soul, and even my most shameful wishes, were stiffening my dick to the point that it was impossible to hide. Brígida surely noticed the state I was in, because she got up and, after studying me again from above, offered me a blow job.

"What…" I said.

"A blow job, do you want me to give you a blow job?"

I looked at her blankly, although the truth, like a lone and flagging swimmer, was gradually making some headway in the black sea of my ignorance. She stared back at me. Her eyes were hard and flat. And there was something about her that distinguished her from every other human being I'd known up until then: she always (wherever you were, whatever the circumstances, no matter what was happening) looked you straight in the eye. Brígida's gaze, I decided then, could be unbearable.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.

"Baby, I'm talking about sucking your dick."

I didn't have time to reply, which was probably all for the best. Without taking her eyes off me, Brígida kneeled down, unzipped my pants, and took my cock in her mouth. First the head, which she nibbled, the bites no less disturbing for being light, and then, showing no signs of choking, the whole penis. At the same time, she ran her right hand over my lower abdomen, stomach, and chest, slapping me hard at regular intervals and giving me bruises I still have. The pain probably helped make the pleasure I felt even more exquisite, but it also prevented me from coming. Every so often, Brígida would lift her eyes from her work, although without releasing my member, and search for my eyes. Then I would close my own and mentally recite random lines from the poem "The Vampire," which later, when I reviewed the incident, turned out not to be lines from "The Vampire" at all, but an unholy mixture of poetry from different sources, my uncle's pronouncements, childhood memories, the faces of actresses I loved in puberty (Angélica María's face in black and white, for example), a whirlwind of spinning scenes. At first I tried to shield myself from the slaps, but once I realized that my efforts were futile, my hands went to Brígida's hair (dyed a light chestnut color and not very clean, as I discovered) and her ears, which were small and fleshy but almost unnaturally tough, as if they weren't made of flesh and blood at all, only cartilage or plastic, or no: barely tempered metal, from which hung two big fake silver hoops.