Daniel Sada - Almost Never

A chaos, indeed, what survived, awry, as an inexpugnable, growing glob. On top of which from time to time Demetrio remembered a few of his mother’s sentences, especially those uttered in the course of that sad Christmas dinner, while both were eating chicken awash in green mole sauce, with a garnish of yellowish guapilla peppers: You are the perfect age to get married. Or: I can’t wait for you to give me grandchildren. Or: In Sacramento you will find … Why listen to her? Little digs (pricks), irritations, itches, and redundant splashes of what he should be or what he should do. Fortunately, he found the counterpoint elsewhere, his triumphs, the remarkable ease of his job … Everything he’d left hanging had turned out as well as could be hoped … Except for one problem: the boss asked him for the checkbook. He didn’t make a fuss. His point was subtle. His request came just as they were exchanging a New Year’s hug. Then Demetrio’s automatic acquiescence, and from now on he would receive his expenses on a weekly basis. Full focus on his work; again his recreation would be games of dominoes and evening cups of coffee. Those ancient calumnies.

Those decent and inane contours.

To be as he was before.

The other splendor. The more authentic one.

But, how long would he bear up under it?

If his compensation was to write raptures both extravagant and purposeless to an enigma, moreover, rather than a woman, his would be the emotional effort of a novice: a “maybe no” over here and an “I guess yes” over there, a “perhaps” in the negative, until he realized he had written a little more than a page. Many corrections, but … Well, we’re still talking about disarray. All this in opposition to what had once been a genuine talent: the constant penning of letters to known but ghostly beings. On the other hand, he had Renata as an ulterior pretext, or an inanimate shape …

Sweating here.

Sweating there … hmm … Perhaps a cool breeze. An emotional titter.

Demetrio didn’t want to make his life difficult, and at a certain point, without thinking twice, he made his way to the Presunción brothel in desperation.

He arrived only to discover that Mireya was otherwise engaged. The wait chafed. He wondered if her occasional client was an incomparable ejaculator, an unbeatable mover and shaker; a shot of rum in the meantime: ponderous sips, as if going slowly would help him bring order to everything he had made chaotic by prolonging his absence, now further prolonged — for how long? an hour or two? Sadly, two and a half hours went by … and there he sat. During this lapse he downed several more shots, three in all; hence a touch of blue-tinged giddiness, dragging him down, while he remembered Renata’s sanctity ascending steadily toward that dismal ceiling of painted stars. Overhead, the blessed one in flowing white garments …

Overhead is the problem: inaccessible. The ranchera goddess spoke to him: You won’t see me naked until after we’re married. An immaculate and august edict, which though nonexistent the suitor already inferred because he would hear it in all its splendor if he visited the aforementioned: how long? Herein the knotty dilemma: it came down to the temporal (and geographic) distance, the gathering of steam to embark on such a vexatious journey. His annual vacation … not till August. Long months of indigence — still — so? There was largesse in the genuine if perhaps unwholesome proposition Do you want to sleep with me? And the predictable response, stamped on that dive’s dark though dimly shimmering ceiling, those heights as artificial as any presumption that Renata, why not and to his absolute astonishment, would make: Yes! Of course, I thought you’d never ask. And he: You really want to? And she: Absolutely! The only problem is that in Sacramento there aren’t any hotels, so we’ll have to do it in the hills. It will be beautiful. The desert wind will caress our skin. We should make love naked in the afternoon. I can’t wait. Nevertheless, the improbability, the demise of such an uncertain speculation, given that true (or enduring) love should be a battlefield. A feat or, rather, the expansion of a feat. A struggle so cruel and so prolonged that not just anybody … Then those words and the entire apocryphal scene falling onto the orange chairs, where those statuesque (now crushed) women were exposing the coarseness and wonder of their lower limbs, ready for … Extravagant payments. Nifty logic — eh? And Mireya: invisible, busy moving her own parts. She was taking her time because she was experiencing unprecedented pleasure — or not? Hence: another shot of rum? a perfectly good way to prolong one’s patience. But no! and: what a pity! He could always betake himself to the other dive, check out La Entretenida. Departing in defeat but with his curiosity swelling. He left. First he paid, looking miffed. The best part was that he was no longer thinking about Mireya and much less about Renata, both had now become rearguard fixations. Symbols to return to later, at the risk of going loopy … Evil, good, vile twisting: here unhappy, there dramatic. Now for something new — much more expensive! The cover charge: almost highway robbery, and the prime attraction: suggestive lighting in a brothel with an abundance of foreign beauties. He was approached by women who did not speak our language well or who spoke it with unfamiliar accents. An improvement? These women were more aggressive. They sat down at his table without asking leave. He was obliged to say: You, no … You neither. Go away! … I want to be alone … The policy of the place came to light the moment he spoke those last words. No, he couldn’t be alone. If he didn’t hook up with one of them — sorry! he’d have to leave. The third one told him as much and a skinny waiter repeated it, a very short waiter with an arabesque forelock, who casually informed him that the entire cover price would be refunded if he decided to leave at once. A boon. A relief. At least, and — out of there! To his lodgings. To imagine Renata as she so divinely was (a sacred being — gorgeous! descending from the heavens and alighting on her feet — gently — for him alone!). To carry on, but not before he made corrections to the letter. Foreseeable wakefulness.

Insomnia’s contribution: the risk of a hopeless muddle or the unlikely chance that all will flow brilliantly. It was difficult for Demetrio to find the point of deterrence, hour upon hour of toiling over praises as if he were trying to cram a square into a circle that was, in itself, imperfect; we must imagine the erasures, the sweats, the failure to descry any happy middle ground where he could assert his own importance and still strike a note of supplication where phrases such as “Really, believe me, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met” or “What I wouldn’t give to kiss the back of your hand” wouldn’t demean him or, better stated, wouldn’t make him the butt of Renata’s perhaps concealed and scornful laughter. So as not to cram it full of lyrical treacle, the agronomist untangled the threads of his composition, written of course in such a stylized hand that it looked like a missive from another world, and set himself the task of recounting unusual anecdotes from his life, placing particular emphasis on his childhood longings and fantasies. He had once wanted to be a doctor: when he was young he played doctor with his friends; later, he dreamed of being a bullfighter and was enthralled by the idea, practicing alone with a bath towel while imagining an enormous bull approaching from a great distance. Oh, to describe the details of the snorting: the variety of noises the animal made: torrents of descriptive largesse, enough details to round out the tone and even a state of mind, and the diarrheic prosody of very long sentences. Albeit: effusive imbalance, to the extent that he filled both sides of ten pages and he still couldn’t, no, who knows when. Then the brilliant unleashing, full of niceties (some fictitious, some truthful), seemed unstoppable until he was swept away by the monster of somnolence: galloping up from behind: horrors! may it be warded off till the final period be penned. He sought it. It was a strain.