Roberto Bolaño: The Savage Detectives

I decided to get out while I still could, and doing my best to stand up, I paid, sent my regards to Brígida, and left. When I stepped outside the sun was blinding.

Cut class again today. I got up early and caught the UNAM bus, but I got off at an earlier stop and spent the rest of the morning wandering around downtown. First I went into the Librería del Sótano and bought a book by Pierre Louys, then I crossed Júarez, bought a ham sandwich, and went to read and eat on a bench in the Alameda. Reading Louys's story, plus looking at the illustrations, gave me a colossal hard-on. I tried to get up and go someplace else, but with my dick in the state it was in, I couldn't walk without attracting attention and scandalizing not just whoever passed by but pedestrians in general. So I sat down again, closed the book, and brushed the crumbs off my jacket and pants. For a long time I watched something I thought was a squirrel climbing stealthily through the branches of a tree. After ten minutes (more or less), I realized that it wasn't a squirrel at all-it was a rat. An enormous rat! The discovery filled me with sadness. There I was, unable to move, and twenty yards away, clinging tightly to a branch, was a starving, scavenging rat, in search of birds' eggs, or crumbs swept by the wind up to the treetops (unlikely), or whatever it was he was looking for. Anguish choked me, and I felt sick. Before I could throw up, I got up and ran away. After five minutes of brisk walking, my erection had disappeared.

I spent the evening on Calle Corazón (the street one block over from mine), watching a soccer game. The people playing were my childhood friends, although friends is maybe too strong a word. Mostly they're still in high school but some have left school and gone to work with their parents or don't do anything. When I started college, the gulf between us suddenly deepened and now it's as if we're from different planets. I asked if I could play. The light on Calle Corazón isn't very good, and you could hardly see the ball. Also, every once in a while cars would go by and we'd have to stop. I got kicked twice and slammed once in the face with the ball. Enough. I'll read a little more Pierre Louys and then turn out the light.

There are fourteen million people living in Mexico City. I'll never see the visceral realists again. And I'll never go back to the university or to Álamo's workshop either. I don't know what I'm going to tell my aunt and uncle. I finished Aphrodite , the book by Louys, and now I'm reading the dead Mexican poets, my future colleagues.

I've discovered an amazing poem. They never said anything about its author, Efrén Rebolledo (1877-1929), in any of our literature classes. I'll copy it here:

The Vampire

The first time I read it (a few hours ago), I couldn't help locking myself in my room and masturbating as I recited it once, twice, three times, as many as ten or fifteen times, imagining Rosario, the waitress, on all fours above me, asking me to write a poem for her long-lost beloved relative or begging me to pound her on the bed with my throbbing cock.

Now that I've gotten that over with, I've had some time to think about the poem.

There can be no doubt, I think, about the meaning of "deep and gloomy tresses." The same isn't true of the first line of the second stanza: "As I unlock the tight rings," which could refer to the "deep and gloomy tresses" and to drawing them out or untangling them one by one, but the verb unlock might conceal a different meaning.

"The tight rings" isn't very clear either. Does it mean curls of pubic hair, the vampire's curly tresses, or the human orifices- plural ? I.e., is he sodomizing her? I think I'm still haunted by my reading of Pierre Louys.

I've decided to go back to the Encrucijada Veracruzana, not because I expect to find the visceral realists there, but to see Rosario. I've written a few lines for her. I talk about her eyes and the endless Mexican horizon, about abandoned churches and mirages over the roads that lead to the border. I don't know why, but somehow I got the idea that Rosario is from Veracruz or Tabasco, possibly even Yucatán. Maybe she mentioned it, although I may have just made it up. Or maybe the name of the bar confused me, and Rosario isn't from Veracruz or Yucatán at all. Maybe she's from Mexico City. Anyway, I thought that some poetry evoking lands that are the diametric opposite of hers (assuming she is from Veracruz, which seems more and more unlikely) would be more promising, at least as far as my intentions are concerned. After that, whatever happens will happen.

This morning I wandered around downtown thinking about my life. The future doesn't exactly look bright, especially if I keep cutting class. But what really worries me is my sexual education. I can't spend my whole life jerking off. (I'm worried about my poetic education too, but one thing at a time.) Could Rosario have a boyfriend? If she does have a boyfriend, what if he's jealous and possessive? She's too young to be married, but you never know. I think she likes me; that much is clear.

I found the visceral realists. Rosario is from Veracruz. All the visceral realists gave me their respective addresses, and I gave them all mine. They meet at Café Quito, on Bucareli, a little past the Encrucijada, and at María Font's house, in Colonia Condesa, or at the painter Catalina O'Hara's house, in Colonia Coyoacán. (María Font, Catalina O'Hara, such evocative names-but what is it they evoke?)

As for the rest of it, everything went fine, although it almost ended in tragedy.

Here's what happened: I got to the Encrucijada at eight. The bar was packed, the crowd grim and grisly beyond belief. In a corner there was actually a blind man playing the accordion and singing. All the same, I elbowed my way into the first opening I spotted at the bar. Rosario wasn't there. When I asked the girl behind the bar where Rosario was, she acted as if the question were somehow fickle, flighty, presuming. But she was smiling, as if she didn't think that was so bad. Honestly, I had no idea what she was trying to get at. Then I asked her where Rosario was from, and she told me that she was from Veracruz. I asked her where she was from too. From here, from Mexico City, she said. What about you? I'm a cowboy from Sonora, I said. I'm not sure why, it just popped out. In real life, I've never been to Sonora. She laughed, and we might have kept talking for a while, but she had to go wait on a table. But Brígida was there, and when I was on my second tequila, she came over and asked me how I was. Brígida is a woman with a frowning, melancholy, offended look. I remembered her differently, but I'd been drunk the time before, and this time I wasn't. Brígida, I said, how's it going, long time no see. I was trying to seem friendly, even cheerful, though I can't say I felt that way exactly. Brígida took my hand and pressed it to her heart, which made me jump, and my first impulse was to back away from the bar, maybe even just take off, but I restrained myself.