Laura Restrepo - Delirium

It was then that I decided to go up to my office and wash my hands of that miniature Roman circus, because although you may say, Agustina doll, that I’d put up with anything for Spider’s sake, this was so depressing that even I had to draw the line. His little squeals of glee, not to mention all that giggling and squirming, overrode my sense of duty; he may have been baptized in a starched christening gown and his great-grandfather may have brought civilization to our country, but he’s still a yokel with no scruples who struck it rich, and I promise you, Agustina doll, that that night he was like a happy Neanderthal, but since everything changes from one minute to the next, and when you least expect it what’s white turns to black and what’s black turns to white, in that same way Spider’s satisfaction with Dolores’s tricks began to turn to annoyance, The thing isn’t working quite right, Midas my boy, he told me, puffing so hard he could barely get the words out, this woman is 80 percent swindler and 20 percent actress, and there’s plenty of moaning and fake wailing and crocodile tears, but almost no true feeling; it’s been rehearsed so carefully that there’s hardly anything real about it. And how could I explain to Spider that this wasn’t the moment to be picky, since after all the woman wasn’t Our Lord Jesus Christ, about to let herself be crucified for some random Christian’s sexual salvation.

But you know how far Spider is willing to go to satisfy his urges, Agustina doll; it was more than clear that his thirst for the pain of others wouldn’t be satisfied with ordinary pantomime, so he demanded that the woman be submissive and docile, and questioned the pimp’s professionalism and dedication to his duties as whip-wielder, and since neither of the two paid much attention to him he started getting on my back, hinting that it was my fault for not lining up a real show, a more convincing scenario, so right then and there, I, Pilate McAlister, washed my hands of it all; Spider had already laid the blame for his erectile dysfunction on me once, to give a scientific name to the problem afflicting his floppy dick, and as obsequious as I may be, Agustina kitten, I wasn’t going to take the rap again.

So I shut myself up in my office, lowered the blind of the window that overlooks the gym so I couldn’t see anything that was going on down there, took a hit of weed, and immersed myself in Pac-Man, which is what I do to take my mind off things that irritate me. Pac-Man, adorable Agustina, is the greatest invention of the century; when you’re playing Pac-Man there’s no pain or love or regrets, and your thoughts are no longer your own, so I turned on the monitor, hooked up my electronic toy, and let myself be hypnotized.

I wasn’t myself anymore, Agustina darling, just a little ball all mouth and teeth, a ball roaming the labyrinth and eating pellets to give me strength to wipe out the little ghosts that crossed my path, and I started to win bonus points and my score went through the roof, because you’re looking at the world champion of that stupid game, Agustina princess, I swear the bastard hasn’t been born who could beat me at Pac-Man, I can gobble up the entire pellet supply in a single round, and if every so often I could hear Spider bellowing for blood from downstairs, I pretended it had nothing to do with me, I was remote from it all and looking out for number one, pac, pac, pac, eating pellets and darting around my labyrinth, I was just a little ball with a wild craving for pellets and a primal hatred of ghosts, and if any female cry reached my ears, I pretended not to hear it, I’m sorry, Dolores my girl, I can’t help you, you’re off my radar, but of course sometimes she would make some frightening noise and then I would get nervous and distracted, letting the ghosts take over, and Pac-Man lost lives like crazy.

It’s not that I’m sentimental, but I made the mistake of talking to Dolores before the show, I had brought her up to my office to settle the bill and we chatted a little, just the usual small talk, and when I gave her the money, I added a tip that she thanked me for on behalf of her little boy and that was when I committed an inexcusable error: I foolishly asked her what her son was called and it turned out that his name was John Jairo, or Roy Marlon, or William Ernesto, one of those double-barreled bilingual names, but the problem was that the boy crept into my consciousness, because putting a child at risk by torturing the mother is hardly my style, and that’s why I was so jumpy.

Then the great performance, that vaudeville of lashes and hooks and skewers and pinches and butt-slapping, reached its climax, and suddenly everything was quiet and from down below, the noise of the gym machines started up, the old familiar hum of the pulleys, the sharp clang of weights falling into place, the clatter of the presses, and I relaxed, thinking that the two escorts, Paco Malo and the Sucker, having had their fill of sadomasochism, were warming up on the machines now, Go for it, you flabby pair of thugs, let’s see you lose those little bellies you started at L’Esplanade, I thought, putting some disco music on full blast for them to work out to, and I submerged myself in Pac-Man with maniacal concentration, I don’t know how many hours I spent like that, Agustina doll, I swear that when I’m playing I lose all track of time, pac, pac, pac, opening and closing my big mouth and devouring pellets, pac, pac, pac, around and around the labyrinth overrunning ghosts, and I would’ve kept it up all night if the Sucker hadn’t stuck his head in my office to say that there was a problem and Mr. Spider needed me downstairs. Holy Mary Mother of God, I sighed, stopping the game and trying my best to be patient, because who could bear Spider whining and begging forgiveness for his latest erotic-sentimental defeat and demanding that I set up the next extravaganza for the next day, and when I got down there he was looking very old and very fat and infinitely weary in his wheelchair, So what’s the problem, Spider my friend, I asked condescendingly, The problem is that the little woman kicked the bucket, Midas my boy, God save her soul.

I won’t even tell you what I felt, Agustina darling, or rather I will tell you; at first I didn’t understand what Spider was saying, but when he pointed toward the other end of the room, where the machines are, there on one of the multipurpose stations, the Nautilus 4200 Single Stack Gym, my most beloved and recently acquired machine, equipped with a pec deck, leg extension station, abdominal bar, ankle cuff, side tower, and 210-pound weight stack, there I saw Dolores lying all disjointedly, as if they’d broken her neck by strapping her down and pulling the cable back too far, as if they’d drawn and quartered her, as if they’d turned my Nautilus 4200 into a torture rack, as if they’d gone too far and something had snapped.

Is she dead? I asked Spider and his two thugs, and now I understood what the sound of weights and pulleys had been that I’d heard a little while ago, and that had made me think the worst was over when it was precisely then that things were getting hideously out of control, Is she dead? She’s fucking dead, said Spider, dead, dead, dead and gone, but get a move on, Midas my boy, don’t stand there with that long face, the mourning and condolences will have to wait until later because now we have to get rid of the body, And the guy who was with her? I asked, He went for a stroll, Don’t fuck with me, Spider, tell me where he is before it’s too late, I’m telling you, Midas my boy, we got rid of him because he didn’t want to play along with us; before the girl up and died on us we told her boyfriend that he’d better go home if he didn’t want to play rough, that he should just go and not worry, that his fiancée would be fine with us, Get out, Velvet Hands, this is a man’s game; Spider thought that his two sidekicks, Paco Malo and the Sucker, could do the job with more zeal than that lightweight, How was I to know, Midas my dear, that these two would turn out to be such bungling clods, and anyway the other guy was so yellow that he didn’t say a thing when we suggested that he leave us alone with the lady, says Spider, at first he made a little fuss but he gave up looking out for his partner when the Sucker advised him not to get touchy because he might end up with an extra asshole, You do the best you can on your own, baby, I’m out of here, that was his gallant farewell, and right there he took out a little comb to smooth down his hair as if that might restore his ruffled pride, then he wrapped himself up in his magician’s cape, and shazam, he disappeared as if by magic into the Bogotá night.