Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

“He says he's gonna burn the place down,” says the waitress to Manta. With her arms once again on her hips. The waitress seems to think that hands on hips is an appropriate stance for moments of emotional tension and conflict at work. “And he stinks to high heaven. Some of the girls are thinking that maybe we should call the police.”

Manta stares at the dancers dressed as policewomen who are considering the option of calling the police. The dancers lower their eyes. Obviously ashamed. One of them is wringing out a wet rag above the unconscious security guard's head. Manta walks up to the stage platform overshadowed by a large banner that reads “THE CROOKED LADY COPS' PARTY” and looks up.

On top of one of the two towers with searchlights in the prison set, dressed in his Umbro sweat suit that it's hard to believe was once just powder blue and white, Juan de la Cruz Saudade waves at him with the hand that holds his baseball bat. In his other hand he has a can of gasoline.

“Manta.” Saudade raises his voice from his position high up on the tower. “I know I wasn't invited to the party, but I decided to come anyway. I used to be a cop. Anyway, who wants to come to this hole?” He makes a wide gesture around the club with the baseball bat that says “I KILL BARÇA FANS” written on it in permanent marker. “I only had a little bit of gas left in the tank, so I decided to make good use of it.”

Manta calculates the possibilities of climbing up the scaffolding that makes up the body of the tower and taking out Saudade without getting a potentially lethal blow to the head with the bat. The situation is definitely a picture-perfect occasion. The ideal occasion to give Saudade that thrashing that would be so positive for Manta's psychological evolution. A thrashing with broken bones and permanently altered facial features. Perhaps with spinal injuries that would leave the son of a bitch in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. This incident, after all, is worthy of such a thrashing. And leaving Saudade as a pile of broken bones on the floor would undoubtedly mean months of therapeutic progress in one fell swoop. But the question is how to go about it.

“Shoot 'im,” shouts someone from inside the circular bar. “Aim at his leg.”

Manta rubs his chin with a thoughtful face. Aníbal Manta's chin is much larger and wider and harder than the usual human chin. Shooting Saudade is definitely a viable option. And he'd probably break a bone or two in the fall. But it's not really the same as being able to grab him with his hands and feel his bones and facial features crack under the weight of his fists. He wonders if maybe there's some way he could get some kind of helmet and climb up the tower safe from Saudade's bat. But he can't quite see it. The dance music continues rhythmically hammering on the club's deafening sound system. Standing in front of the tower scaffolding, Manta feels like a not very diligent student faced with a complex logic problem.

“Hey, Manta.” Saudade's voice sounds slightly singsong from the tower. “Did you tell 'em that your wife screws all your neighbors? The whole building. Except Manta, of course. I'm not surprised.” There is a pause mixed with the sound of a cough coming from the top of the tower. Or maybe heaving. A few drops of something viscous fall on Manta from above. Then he hears Saudade's rich, mellow voice again. “Oh yeah. Smart girl, your wife.”

Manta grabs the scaffolding with his giant hands. His face a grimace of emotional stress. The way he grabs the steel bars of the scaffolding is powerfully reminiscent of the way certain very furious large apes grab the bars of their cages at the zoo. Looking through the bars with a murderous expression. And that's when Manta notices something strange behind his back. Not exactly silence, because the music continues blaring. But the screams and threats of the waitresses and the dancers taking cover behind the bar have suddenly stopped. Indicating that something has just happened in the Eclipse Room. Manta turns slowly to look over his shoulder. Without letting go of the bars of the tower.

Mr. Bocanegra, Showbiz Impresario and owner of The Dark Side of the Moon, is standing at the door of the Eclipse Room. Flanked by statues. Imposing in his clearly feminine mink or sable coat. Planted in the doorway with his hands on his hips and a frown on his enormous, shiny head.

“What the hell is going on here?” Bocanegra looks at the remains of chairs, tables, bottles, trays and other objects that are strewn over the dark carpet. “What is all this stuff doing on the floor?”

The music plays at full blast for a long moment of no one answering. Someone makes a sign with his hand above the bar filled with broken glass. Bocanegra walks over to the bar of The Dark Side of the Moon and looks over it to the other side. He looks first at the group of kneeling dancers and waitresses and then at the still unconscious security guard who has bloody water running down his forehead and cheeks.

“You have three seconds to explain what is going on.” Bocanegra slugs down the contents of one of the few intact glasses still on the bar. “Or heads are gonna roll.”

Several dancers come out from behind their barricade and take refuge behind Bocanegra's back. At the foot of the tower, Aníbal Manta clears his throat and shuffles his feet nervously like a six-foot-two kid caught somewhere he shouldn't be. Bocanegra looks up toward where the fingers of the barricaded girls are pointing behind him. He is still wearing the obviously woman's coat and is rubbing his hands to warm them up.

“Ooooh, I'm so scared,” says Saudade sarcastically from up on the tower. “Mr. Bocanegra. Ooooh, he's a real gangster! He could have our kneecaps broken!” He brings his fingertips to his cheeks like the actresses of the twenties did to convey fear. “Well, you don't scare me, you two-bit gangster.” He holds up his can of gas proudly. “It's time to take it down a notch or two, you bald bastard. You've been laughing at me for years. But you're not laughing now, are you? Looks like it's time to start negotiating.” He kisses the can of gas and almost loses his balance. “Unless, of course, you want me to just burn the place down.”

No one says anything for a long moment. In the Eclipse Room at The Dark Side of the Moon there are not only velvet sofas and wooden platforms and statues. There are also tapestries on the walls and framed engravings that mostly depict female nudes and classical scenes with fauns and nymphs and women with pale chubby bodies fleeing from hefty men in forest settings. The set onstage represents some sort of back alley adjacent to a prison wall. With a garbage can and an old-fashioned streetlight.

“Aníbal,” says Bocanegra. Without taking his eyes off the dance platform transformed for the occasion into a prison observation tower. “Bring me the ax. And you,” he says to Saudade, “of all the cretins I've had working for me over the years, you are the biggest, stupidest cretin of them all. You take the prize. Congratulations. And now, we're going to negotiate.” Bocanegra takes off his woman's coat. He gives it to one of the dancers and then removes his suit coat and rolls up his shirtsleeves. “The only difference is that my ax is going to do my negotiating for me. You can think of it as my agent.”

Bocanegra grabs the ax that Manta has just brought out from the other side of the door near the bar that says “PRIVATE — STAFF ONLY” and wistfully taps the handle into the palm of his hand a few times. His forearms are so hairy that in some places his skin seems covered with some kind of closely-knit black cloth. His mouth is pursed under his mustache in a way that could convey rage but also has an element of cruelty that's hard to miss. His way of gathering momentum for the first blow makes you think of a golfer before a long shot. With a rotating motion of his entire upper torso accompanied by a swinging of the arms.