Fernando Royuela - A Bad End

Pudgy Di Battista drank the air that Doris breathed, which was hardly surprising, since when it came to drinking, he could knock back even the bad blood coursing through his veins. Essentially, the circus was a prison where he purged the accursed nature of his existence. It could have been worse. It can always be worse. He could have purged his accursed existence at a stroke with a eugenic bullet to the temple, which never happened, though several in the circus would have applauded heartily. Pudgy Di Battista’s liver must have tasted of cognac, which he’d have willingly given up for a taste of Doris, if he’d been able, but she was always on the alert and kept a diplomatic distance, though never entirely dodging a future commitment, emboldened by that kind of equivocal yes but no some women cultivate so artfully. Pudgy Di Battista would have squandered money he didn’t have to savor the trapeze artiste’s skin. He often suggested as much, and she’d reply the color of your money first, then full steam ahead, though at the moment of truth, I’m sure she’d have refused to allow even the fingertips of his shadow to touch her. Basically, she didn’t lack a moral side and would only have tasted temptation to fulfill a pledge, to mortify herself, and maybe redeem some lost soul with her self-sacrifice, like an early Christian martyr. Doris was from a sleepy, bad-sounding village in Badajoz and spoke with its weary piggy snuffle. Words seeped slowly across her head from her fount of understanding and surfaced from her lips worse for wear, distorted by her accent, though she always kept quiet on the trapeze and let her contortions speak for her, which was what really mattered. Doris’s skin still retained the veneer of youth but already showed a tendency to beget varicose veins and hemorrhoids, which betrayed the future her body was fermenting. She’d stand and look me in the eye when she walked past a cage I was cleaning out, and her broad smiles made me feel on top of the world. I didn’t credit them to begin with, but then gradually recognized they were for real; the girl must have had a weak spot for me. “Gregorito, one day you should come with me and have a swing on the trapeze, you’ll see what fun it is.” She’d drawl slowly, relishing the words in her mouth before uttering any. I feel I can still hear them. I used to nod and hang out my tongue like a dog being offered a bone, and my eyes followed her as she walked away, staring at the cocktail of her swaying hips as they melded into the colorful spectacle of the circus. Gelo de los Ángeles, her partner on high, also desired her mentally, though he said nothing, in order to safeguard the smooth running of their act. He knew his strength was waning, but he gritted his teeth and kept silent, because all he was good for was swinging through space. In secret he coughed up sputum flecked with blood and drank lots of chicory coffee, bottomless wells of it that steeled his spirit and geared him up for their strenuous routines. “Hey, dwarf, look how I drink coffee to thicken my blood. I couldn’t care a fig for anything else. I’m tired of wandering the atlas of the world and not taking root, but now I really couldn’t care less.” Athletic and stoic, Gelo de los Ángeles continued to perform and fill the breech in the program but kept quiet about the disease squirreling away his strength. He also kept quiet about how he was longing to let his desires loose on Doris’s flesh, but all the males in the circus kept that to themselves, except for the elephants who signaled it with a retractable erection of their trunks the moment she and her female scent peered into their cages. Many spectators — and pudgy Di Battista made the most of her as bait — only came to the show to ogle at the curves that Doris funneled tightly into her leotard. The key aspects of her anatomy were thus put into relief, were marvelous to behold, and the success of her act was assured in advance in an upfront manner unusual for the times. It was an era of secrecy and darkness, an era when one could only sin in the mind amid feverish, filthy fantasies one could never confess.

Once there was a fracas with the Movement’s provincial delegate in Zamora, who’d come to a show with his wife and seven children. The man was astounded, or so he said, to see her naked in the ring. Excitement coupled with the power of his position meant he began to clamor indignantly and proclaim like the troglodyte he was that it was outrageous and unworthy, an insult to the Christian faith and an attack on the fundamental principles of the Movement. There was no option but to suspend the show, and a writ was issued against the Stéfano circus in the person of Di Battista, whom the appalled bigwig wanted to deal with in the courts. Pudgy spent a month in offices and waiting rooms with lawyers, giving explanations, apologizing, and hyping his would-be past as a Blackshirt in Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. Naturally, the incident with Gurruchaga again came to light, and the matter became more complicated than it should have. While Pudgy was sorting that business out with his fatuous, patriotic verbal diarrhea that stank of cognac, the Stéfano circus was sealed off by order of the government, and in the meantime we were all left without a damned crumb to feed our bellies, apart from our worries and the vagaries about our role in the legal procedures that were underway. The ones that really came out best in the interim were the animals; apart from enjoying a rest from the exhausting paces we forced them through, they were fed in abundance on the stray dogs wandering the city, an indigenous victual that hardly rivaled the fame of local cheeses but was decent enough to placate their desperate stomachs.

Any desire Pudgy cherished to assail and sack the tasty dish of Doris’s body evaporated in the time he spent sorting out that business. In the end, with a couple of references, a bit of the old blind eye, and the occasional solemn statement before the Hispano-Olivetti of a rather dim-witted bureaucrat faithfully doing his duty, the issue was resolved with a small fine, and the Stéfano circus could continue to wander, offering hope of entertainment to the scabby towns and villages of the peninsular fatherland.

Whenever the opening of my sphincter is sore, poor Doris always comes to mind; what she was and how she ended up. Time sunders and sinks everything, and we can’t repeal the law that says we must respect the outcome. Generally people try to hide this type of ache and pain, due to a misguided sense of shame. They keep silent, then burst. Doris suffered, too. They were big and granulated in the folds of her anus. Big, purple, and granulated, like blackberries in the thick of the brambles. Hemorrhoids in women betray blood circulation problems and in men, constipation. The reverse can also happen, but the predominant rule is the one I just outlined. Constipation in women is usually frowned upon and in popular wisdom is linked to a vicious temper and a disinclination to enjoy sex. The best cure for hemorrhoids is a French pomade made from polyethylene glycol. At least that’s the view of Belinda Dixon, the European commissioner. It’s sold with a pain-free applicator. You simply have to relax before applying it. It softens the hemorrhoids and immediately reduces them to a minimal fleshly presence. It gives immediate relief and doesn’t leave sticky discharges. The commissioner spent the whole of the dinner singing the praises of that excellent pomade. In matters of protocol, affinity between guests is ultimately decided by those whose job it is to orchestrate the ceremonials; placing a dwarf is always tricky, so one can end up in any old seat. I’m not saying I attend these society bashes on a daily basis, but from time to time I’m certainly obliged to accept invitations I’m obsequiously sent by associations and public and private institutions. People generally believe that the talk at this kind of event doesn’t center on key matters affecting the well-being of the body politic, and though that’s true, it’s even truer that talk will focus on the dirty linen and skeletons in the cupboard of both absent and present colleagues. At such gatherings, wine is drunk from brittle glasses that enhance its bouquet, and one chews exquisite food with a palate alert to subtle flavors, but when the time comes to converse, it’s usually the same topics of gossip that are trotted out: personal grudges and bodily dysfunctions. Essentially, all humanity’s feet smell cheesy and flesh rots identically. Money, power, fame, and renown can window-dress biology, but the same terminus always awaits at the end of the road: the terminus of death.