Daniel Sada - Almost Never

How to escape those wailing voices, or how to definitively bury what was by its very nature inanimate, that is, the judgment of his crimes? He would have to go to church, alone, a guileless devil who had no choice but to kneel for hours on end. Pray — how? or a convincing argument, what God had given him, that explosive trifle: eternal love. And: Lord, you have given me Renata, I want to have her with me till I die, so don’t let anything bad happen to us, I beg of you. Followed by the whizz-bang of the entreaty. Tomorrow, deeds of devotion — naturally! but now to the practical, the verification he sought. When he arrived home he at once saw that his mother was happy, for the servants she had recently hired were superindustrious: Amalia and María Fulgencia: a miracle, how cheerfully enterprising they were! The domestic sphere looked like a floating fantasy. This according to his mother, who was exaggerating to be sure. Doña Telma really was exaggerating because it wasn’t such a big deal, or maybe in her joy — was she spewing nonsense? Anyway, Demetrio decided to go to the pool hall so as not to hear more hyperbole, for now anyway — right? and he was tired. In any case he went that night: crowded pool hall, merrymaking, smoke, pestilence, money-spending vagrancy, that was what mattered. And Ángel and Aníbal fast and furious, well organized, come what may, they never missed a beat. Greetings. Ah. The outcome: the glory of careful bookkeeping, finally, in a still-dizzying atmosphere now devoid of people.

All on the up-and-up.

The employees: smart. God was now fondling him.

A robbery. No! Relief. Tranquility.

So the following morning Demetrio was obliged to go to church and offer thanks. Yes, as well as beg that Renata … et cetera.

Naturally the final pantomime would have to be exemplary.

How long to crawl on his knees and with his arms outstretched in the shape of a cross?

A good long while, you ass, someone from the next world might tell him with derision and aversion. We can, therefore, predict everything Demetrio did. Three laps on his knees around the nave of the church, inside, of course. A difficult act that — was it even worth it? His knees were bleeding: ow-ow-ow. He couldn’t walk quite right for three weeks. The slowness of his movements alarmed the servants, his mother, the employees of the pool hall, not to mention a vagrant or two, for nobody understood anything about optimal balance, a concept used by a circumspect curandero, and which Demetrio repeated everywhere. What! “optimal balance”—could it be flattery he swallowed whole?

His mother tended to him daily. Nighttime ministrations were even more supercareful, for she used miniature cotton compresses and other secondary dressings. Luck before ingenuity. Treatments very early in the morning and very late at night and very who-knows-what. Nonetheless, slowness, gentleness. So-called love and so-called relief. Relief from suffering. So the scabs would form as soon as possible, the solution. Herewith we have the mother: a fly-by-night curandera, quite devoted, even, poor thing, breaking a sweat. Everything subjected to a “now we’ve got it,” which was working. That inexperienced petitioner was quite put out, however, by this stooping compliance. That ferrule discipline. And three weeks went by and still the big guy was walking awkwardly, you should have seen him half bent over every time he walked from the house to the pool hall and vice versa and nowhere else; limping sickly was the price he paid for things to go superwell. Because the pool hall, well, although it used to open at four p.m., later they decided to open at one, and Ángel, Aníbal, and Demetrio studied the possibility of opening at ten a.m. and closing at midnight — every day! except Sundays, that is, for one mustn’t forget, not ever, the weekly Sabbath … So, here comes the reason!: how to deal with all the customers who came at all hours of the day! Many young bucks planted themselves at the door of the pool hall awaiting the happy opening, as if it were a grocery store; a whole hour ahead of time, believe it or not. And the spectacle of idlers eager to hit a few balls, to the sonorous sounds of shooting … No way around it! one day they simply had to open at ten a.m., and from then on …

Nose to grindstone! And … what about a raise? A small one. An all-too-subtle percentage that — damn!: crumbs. Well, now you have him: Demetrio was unremitting: his face was getting harder, as wealthy people’s faces do: handsome, interesting, self-sufficient, his two eyebrows like two triumphal arches and his mouth squeezed more tightly into a ball: signs of ceaseless success, a form of disdain, an attitude of thinking of himself as the cat’s meow. Much later there would be, let us call it, a “visualization” of the employees’ merits: those! tush! so honorable. And, from a different angle, since things were going so swimmingly — money by the cartload, a gift from God, rolling in the dough, day in and day out — he foresaw the possibility of investing in new businesses, maybe even citified ones, the urban brought to the small town, but which ones, which one: a dive — exciting! unique! that space envisaged so long ago. Oh, out with it: a cathouse with beautiful whores, good lighting, and rooms in the back. Ambition. Like the ones in Oaxaca: good old Presunción and the other, La Entretenida; also, with guards, but not aggressive ones: everything tending toward discretion, not like in Torreón, where he came within a foot of losing his life; no, not that, rather a joint that one would want to go to, to patronize … Oh, still a hazy dream. Though …

If he talked to the mayor. Invest fifty-fifty …

Partners worthy of something supersalacious … Still limping slightly, Demetrio made his way to the town hall. By hook or by crook he would get an appointment with Píndaro Macías. And he did. There to lay out his plans, dotting all the dirty i ’s and crossing all the t ’s. The mayor listened attentively to his diligent description of this seedy world. So many details, but the mayor, smiling stintingly, said, “No!”

Emphatically, it would seem. The “no” reverberated loudly.

Because Parras was not ready for such a radical change. People would rise up, first against him, then against Demetrio.

But even such well-established perversity: no!

Parras would have to grow to triple or quadruple its size for such a place not to be seen in a bad light.

And another stream of reasons for the rejection, though Demetrio would also be interested in starting up some other kind of business. More corrupt, less corrupt … Let’s talk … Another time …

Demetrio left the mayor’s office with a thunderous suite of ideas. Going into business with this mayor, hmm, better to become his good friend. Tactics piled on top of tactics. Perfidious and subtle utilization, and, of course, after, after …

Another meeting — when?

A difficult, because delicate, step.

Now it’s time to shrink time, for good news was going to flow like a wafting breeze (a weightless one), which is to say, nothing terrible was happening that would delay the multiple manifestations of a thousand and one simple situations. Nothing black, nor murky nor gray, hence whiteness, if you like, in all that he had to suffer or surfeit, made everything, therefore, turn out like never before. The mountains of money at the pool hall; for better or for worse each week the cash register filled to overflowing, and at home such remarkable pleasure: each day harmony more deeply entrenched, like a rosy and benevolent blob, something as normal as the sun shining large, or the sky clearing all about, or sweet aromas rising from who-knows-where, or when everything we see inspires us.