Ernesto Quiñonez - San Juan Noir

“What?” she’d say. “What’s up?”

I’d say nothing and leave. The cars don’t stop if they see me. She’s going to kill herself. She’s going to fuck herself over.

I turned on the TV so I’d forget the dream. I was pissing myself but was afraid to get up. Fucking dog, fucking Lázaro. I told myself that it’d be better to come clean to Charo. Look, Charo, I thought, listen to me, I was the one who took out your brother, the fucker. He had it coming. Because of the thing with Landi. But I knew better. Every time Lázaro did something, or stopped paying, or let something slip, and I told her about it, Charo would say: “My brother is sick. Only a piece of shit messes with a junkie.”

That’s what she called him, My brother.

But Landi had given him too many chances. When he found out about the most recent thing, he didn’t say anything. Charo went to square things with him, but he said, “Forget it.” I knew what was coming, but I didn’t think he’d send me.

“Your turn,” Landi said to me.

Shit, shit, I thought. Fucking shit. I shit on Lázaro’s mother, that fucker. I tried to say something to Landi, but he looked at me the way he looks at you when he’s had it up to here and it’s better to just shut up.

That was last Wednesday.

It was easy to find Lázaro. I saw the dog on the corner first, on Calle Las Palmas. Mami always said that dogs smell fear. If you’re passing by a stray, don’t get scared because they’ll know and that’s when they bite.

“Cuñi, come here,” I said to Lázaro. “Get in, Charo wants to see you, she’s about to leave for Ecuador. Come find her with me, she wants to say goodbye to you. Get in.”

“Give me something first, I’m jonesing, pai.”

I had brought what Landi had given me and a Whopper. So he’d be happy.

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

“Here, here,” I said to the dog, giving it the Whopper. Lázaro went behind the aqueduct so I wouldn’t see him doing his thing.

Right away, the dog sunk its teeth into the hamburger and fries. It raised its head and stared at me, like it knew something.

Charo said her brother was respectful. That he never fixed in front of anybody. Whenever he came home he wore long sleeves, for the marks.

“He’s good like that, always so humble.” But the thing with Papi fucked him up. She never told me what the thing with Papi was. I asked her once and she just shrugged. Charo looked like a real woman, but people made fun of her shoulders. I didn’t like it when she wore a tube top to come out with me. People looked at us. They looked at her, because of her shoulders.

Lázaro wanted to put the dog in the truck and I said, “No way, loco. Just no.”

“But they’ll take him. And besides, what’s the big deal? This truck is a junker.”

“Who the hell is going to take that bag of bones?” I asked, signaling with my hand for him to get in right away.

“The city people, Cuñi. Or someone.”

I said no dog, and told him to hurry up, that Charo was waiting, that we had to go find her on the docks. That she was with the trick from Puertos. He got in and kept looking back to where the dog was until we turned the corner.

“He’ll wait for me. One time, when Charo put me in a program, he waited a month for me. Since I give him food and stuff.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Ecuador... that’s down farther. Down below Colombia. Is that where Lake Titicaca is?... I’m happy for her, man. God willing, everything will come out fine. Get her out of all this, loco. Once she has the operation you won’t need to stay. Hey, that stuff you gave me is good,” he said, leaning back in the seat.

He looked out the window. He had something of Charo, that mania she had for biting her lips when she smiled, of moving her knees when she sat down, nervously. They never looked anyone in the eyes; he looked down and she looked every which way.

Something smelled bad. I didn’t know if it was him, the dump, or the mangrove. The Kennedy always stinks. His hands looked like gloves full of water.

I regreted that it was such a short drive. We entered the same dock as always. I’d been there many times, doing things for Landi. I turned off the lights.

When I got to Landi’s place, they were setting up one of those bouncy houses for neighborhood kids. When he saw me he said something to Domi, who ran off and grabbed something from the freezer. He came up to me, but I didn’t want to take the payment. I didn’t say anything, I just gestured to Landi, as if to say that I’d see him later, and he understood.

I was going to go to Ponce de León to check on Charo, but I thought I’d better not. I headed home, went up on the roof. I smoked. I could see the docks from there. I closed my eyes, hard. Very hard.

Charo spent the money for the ticket to Ecuador on the funeral. Not the money for the operation. She didn’t say much during those days. She didn’t even go out on Thursday, which is her best night. Finally, on Friday, she got dressed and was about to leave.

“Stay,” I told her. “I’ll cover your ticket. You know—”

“I’ll pay for my cunt myself,” she said, and she didn’t say anything else.

The cable company had cut the building’s stolen connections, and all we got was channel six. It was showing a black-and-white movie and I sat down to watch it. It was Santurce a long-ass time ago. I knew because of the Metro Cinema and the Labra School. The Ponce de León was full of people, many wearing hats. And that’s when I heard the bark. I thought it was the TV, but no. Another bark. I looked out. It was Lázaro’s dog. Furious.

That fucking dog, what does he want? I thought.

It wasn’t barking at my building. I thought it was a cat or something, but then I saw it was barking at my truck, which I’d parked out front. It went up and sniffed it. And it barked again.

“Shit, shit, shit. Fucker, get out of here, fucker,” I said in a low voice, as if the dog could hear me.

If I go out there, it’s going to come bite me, the motherfucker. But if Charo comes and sees it barking at my truck, she’ll know something. I went in and turned off the TV so I could think. Shit. If I club it, it’s going to squeal and people will tell Charo. I went to look for a broom or something to use. There was no other way. I could kill it with one stone if I threw it hard enough. Papi had killed a dog once with a pick because it pissed on his car tires, and it didn’t squeal. Mami had covered my eyes and ears.

Damnit, I said to myself, fucking shit.

Then something occurred to me. I went to the freezer, pulled out a piece of meat, and grabbed the bat from the back door. I went out. I looked around and there was nobody. The bulbs in the streetlights were still fucked. The dog saw me and went quiet. It lowered its head. Its problem wasn’t with me. It looked at me, it looked at the meat in my hand, it looked at the truck.

Once, when we had cable, Charo and I watched a competition of people who looked like their dogs on Don Francisco. Charo, dying of laughter, said: “If my brother went on with his dog, he’d win. They’re the same. And look, they’re giving a thousand bucks. Overdose.”

It did look like Lázaro, in how its eyes and head were always down. In how skinny it was, how black. I stretched out my hand and showed it the meat. It thought about it for a second, but eventually went over. I let it eat until it was done, and boom .

The bag weighed more than I remembered. Clearly it had died very satisfied, the fucker. Like Lázaro.