Daniel Alarcón - At Night We Walk in Circles

I felt almost sheepish admitting that I hadn’t gone to Collectors yet.

“But you’ve talked to him.”

I shook my head.

Henry couldn’t hide his disappointment. “I can’t go. What’s your excuse?”

I didn’t have one; or rather, I didn’t have a good one. I wasn’t family. Strictly speaking, I wasn’t even a friend.

He smiled slyly. “Are you scared? Is that it? Do you think something unspeakable will happen to you?”

I’d never been teased by Henry Nuñez before.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m terrified.”

Henry slumped back in his chair. “Well, you’re no fun.”

His apartment was messier than usual, with piles of books on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink. A white dress shirt was draped over one of the plastic chairs in the corner, drying stiffly.

“So what happened here?” I asked.

Ana wasn’t allowed to visit, he explained, so there was no need to keep up appearances. “Not that I would’ve fooled you anyway.” It seems that on Ana’s last overnight, there’d been a gas leak somewhere in the building. Everyone on the block had been evacuated, and many had slept in the park, including Henry and his daughter. It was a warm night, a neighborly night tinged with the mood of a carnival. But his ex-wife was furious.

“Sleeping outdoors. Must’ve reminded you of the tour.”

Henry shook his head. “It was nice, but no. There’s nothing like being on tour.”

We talked for a while about his plans, went over a few questions I had about the history of Diciembre, and when I was about to leave, I asked why he’d called me. It was odd, given that for each of our previous interviews, I’d had to work to track him down.

Henry looked up, nodding, as if trying to remember. Then: “I’m ready to write that script. The one we were going to do together.”

I gave him a puzzled look. “We?”

“Nelson and I. Our prison story.”

“Your prison story.”

He was energized, almost manic. “A love story. Rogelio’s story. We were going to write it together. A play. We can take it on tour. He said he wanted to help. Now we can. Now I’m ready. Will you ask him?”

“Is this what you and Patalarga fought about?”

Henry frowned and rubbed his neck. “Just ask him,” he said. “Will you ask him?”

IT WAS JANUARY 2004before I could get the proper permissions to visit Nelson myself. I remember we’d just hit ten thousand subscribers at the magazine, and were celebrating at the offices with an impromptu party. In the middle of it, my letter arrived.

You are granted permission to enter Collectors Prison on this day, at this hour .

I was given an appointment at the ministry building in the Old City to have my fingerprints taken. The celebration became more serious, more sincere. It was as if I’d won an award.

“Maybe we’ll finally see that article,” Lizzy said.

I’d been petitioning for something more than an ordinary visit: I wanted the okay to bring in a microphone and a tape recorder; and given the conditions inside, the authorities were skittish about these kinds of requests. No one wanted a journalist to embarrass them. I think back now and wonder why I insisted, and can only conclude it was a stalling tactic. These things take time, and I knew that. Perhaps I could’ve pushed harder against the sluggish prison bureaucracy, but I didn’t. I was busy, it was true, but I’ll admit that part of me was hesitant to compare my invented version of Nelson with the man himself.

Mónica went to see her son every couple of weeks, a ritual she both looked forward to and dreaded; and she often called me the next day to read me Nelson’s most recent letter over the phone. I’d hear the shuffle of papers through the receiver, she’d clear her throat; I’d make myself comfortable and listen. I liked hearing his words in her voice. When she finished, I’d thank her. I knew these letters were edited, because I’d read the ones he gave Patalarga.

“When are you going to see my boy?” Mónica would ask. “He says he has something to tell you.”

“Soon,” I’d respond.

I finally went to Collectors in March. Nelson was almost twenty-six years old now, and coming up on the third anniversary of his incarceration; an unimaginable length of time, but only a fraction of what he’d been condemned to serve. That was the thought I couldn’t shake as I presented my papers to an unsmiling guard, as I handed my bag over to be searched by another. Fifteen years. My tape recorder was removed from its case, examined by a guard who looked at it curiously, as if considering some obscure tool from another age. Twelve to go. He searched for and eventually found the serial number, which he then compared with the one on the document I’d presented. The numbers matched, and he let out a little sigh of disappointment. Then he checked my microphone, my headphones and cables, and once everything was confirmed to be in order, my arm was stamped, and I was on my way. All of this was accomplished without exchanging a single sentence.

I was patted down at the next gate, and then sent through with a grunt. I stepped out of the primary holding area and into the bright, beating sun. I covered my eyes. Standing between the two gates, neither inside the prison, nor out of it, but in a neutral zone, I stared through the heavy chain-link fence at the inmates of Collectors: young men milling about, looking bored. I would’ve liked to observe them for just a moment, but the next guard hurried me along, and quite suddenly I was inside. The gate closed behind me: just closed, it didn’t slam or make any noise at all. It’s subtle, in fact, the difference between inside and outside.

I looked all around, trying not to seem overwhelmed. There were so many men, but no Nelson.

Then a voice: “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

He’d pushed through the gathered, idle men, and come up from behind. There was a playfulness to his expression that told me this had been deliberate.

We shook hands. He looked different; better in fact. He’d cut his hair, and this alone changed the tenor of his features. No boyishness left; no whimsy. His face had lost its youthfulness, and it had been replaced by something else, something tougher and more determined. He wore jeans and a clean, light blue T-shirt. Last time I’d seen him at the courthouse, he’d been thin and callow and frightened; there was none of that now. He’d put on weight, had a certain heft to his shoulders.

Nelson was observing me too. “I don’t remember you. I’ve been wondering if I would, but I don’t. Nothing.”

“That’s okay.”

“I just thought you should know.” He pressed his lips tight. “My mother says you were at the trial. I didn’t notice you.”

“You had other things on your mind.”

He smiled cautiously. “She thinks we’ll be friends or something.”

A couple skinny, shirtless men hovered just behind Nelson, eyeing me.

“Seems like you have friends.”

“A man needs them. Is this your first time?”

“It is.”

“So take a look.”

This is what I saw. There were men: ordinary men as you might find on any street, in any neighborhood, tall men, short men, skinny men, fat men, black men, brown men, white men (though only a few of those), tired men, frantic men, old men. They looked like people I’d known, people I’d seen before, only harder, perhaps. But that was only part of the story: together, they were outnumbered by another group, the broken men, and these were legion. They were shirtless and desperate and wilting in the late-summer heat. This was their home, the front of the prison, the public spaces that no one owned. These fallen ones were sinewy and gaunt, covered in scars and the blurry tattooed names of lovers they’d forgotten and who’d forgotten them, men with sunken cheeks, men with dirty hands. They watched me with great intensity, or perhaps I only felt like they were watching; perhaps they were so high they didn’t even notice who I was. An outsider.