Guillermo Rosales - Leapfrog and Other Stories

And she picked up three or four giant ants with her fingers and brought them to her mouth, then chewed them with great pleasure.

“At first, it takes work, but then they end up tasting as delicious as pork rinds. What time is it?”

“Six,” I informed her.

“Well, keep your eyes on the show, it’s the most unique show on the entire American continent.”

She went over to the stage and put on a record by Barry White and his Love Unlimited Orchestra. Little by little, she began swaying her hips slowly while undoing the pink cape button by button.

She ended up naked, and yet there was not an inch on that colossal body that wasn’t tattooed. Tattoos of naked women that seemed to move lasciviously to the beat of the slow and exciting music. I thought they were moving as a result of my incipient drunkenness, but when I took a good look, I noticed they were moving on their own, with their own lives, showing their asses, ardently kissing each other, rolling around in twos all over Ms. Donovan’s monumental body. It was a lesbian orgy. One of them was whipping another with a riding crop, while another practiced cunnilingus on a blonde with exuberant breasts. Others kissed passionately, united at the pubis.

I was perplexed — even more, I was turned on to the point that my penis wanted to break through my underwear. Suddenly, fat Donovan turned off the turntable. She came over to me slowly, and confidently taking me by the hand, led me to a small room behind the curtains. There, she fell on me like a lustful elephant. But I wasn’t looking at her, all of my attention was fixed on the dozens of tattooed women, who kept rolling around with each other, showing off their perfect asses, their divine breasts, their monumental legs. Thus, watching that overwhelming show of hot lesbians, I made love to the very fat Donovan. How many times? Two, three, five; until the tattooed women began to stay still, as if sleeping, and fat Donovan, beyond all tiredness, also fell asleep on top of me. Carefully, I wriggled out from under the weight of her body until I was completely free. Then, an enormous exhaustion came over me, and I fell asleep next to her, facing her enormous back.

I slept very little, it’s true, because the giant ants were attacking my feet with canine fury. At two in the morning, I opened my eyes and noticed that fat Donovan was still sleeping and snoring, despite the giant ants. Her back, her enormous sumo wrestler’s back, was the only place on her body without any tattoos. I looked at her white back as if into a mirror for a long time, and little by little, I noticed figures start to appear that had not been in the show. One of them was me in the room, naked and sprawled out asleep, and the other one was fat Donovan, who with a sickle was chopping off my penis all in one stroke.

I sprang quickly from the bed. Very carefully, I put on my pants and shoes. I left the room on tip toe and headed quickly to the wide intercoastal highway that would lead me to Miami.

I quickened my pace. My heart pounded. There, in the distance, I could see the lights of a town. Woodland, maybe. Or perhaps Alexandria. I didn’t know, the only thing I knew for sure was that I had to be in that town, or any town, by break of day.

My first job with Ramses, the photographer of the great beyond, was in steamy Miami Beach, at the Colony Hotel, where every Friday old classicists met who worshipped the ancient philosopher Pythagoras. They wanted Ramses to go there with his prodigious camera because they were going to invoke Pythagoras’s presence that day and it would be a good occasion to photograph him should he deign to appear. Ramses would handle the camera, I would take care of the lights, and Luisa, the medium, would try to communicate with Pythagoras from the fourth dimension.

When we arrived at the Colony, the classicists welcomed us with great displays of enthusiasm. They called Ramses “Maestro,” his prodigious camera “A Prodigy of the Ages” and they acclaimed the medium as gifted, touched by God’s hand.

We entered the lobby and the first thing that stood out were the many different animals there. There were doves, cranes, quails, a cricket, squirrels, white mice, and even an enormous peacock who smugly strutted around the place with its beautiful tail open like a fan.

Mr. Grigorakis, the hotel owner and a tried and true classicist, took us to the wide patio that overlooked the sea, where interested musicians had been playing lyres and singing sweet litanies invoking Pythagoras since seven that morning.

Luisa, the medium, who had been accompanying Ramses since he’d started his business, sat down in a chair in the middle of the circle of happy old men who were singing along to the sound of the lyres.

“Why are there so many animals?” I asked Grigorakis, pulling him aside.

“Because they understand Pythagoras,” was his response. And he then explained that, according to Pythagoras, after humans die they inhabit a variety of animals until they go through the entire universe of fauna. Then they again became human beings.

At that moment, Luisa, the medium, shuddered in her chair and fell into a trance, possessed by a spirit.

“I am Pythagoras of Croton,” she said in a guttural voice, “and I’ve been a lion, a chimpanzee, an elephant, an eagle, and a buffalo on the American plains. But today I appear in the body of a man, because my reincarnation cycle has reached its end. Is there love here?”

As their only response, the classicists took each other’s hands and started to kiss each other on the lips and the cheeks and to dance around the medium, to the sound of the lyres.

In the meantime, Ramses placed the camera in front of the medium and proceeded to take photos with the lightbulb and electrical-cable-laden device.

The classicists stopped dancing and crowded around the medium, who continued with closed eyes, imprisoned by a series of strong shudders.

Twelve photos were taken, until the medium stood up and said in a masculine voice:

“That’s enough for today. I have important missions to carry out in other parts of the world. But you can count on my eternal love, and call me whenever you need me. Ah! And don’t forget mathematics. Remember that mathematics is the primal science. And all other branches of knowledge stem from it.”

With that, Pythagoras abandoned the medium’s body and she fell to the floor face-down, where she lay for a long while, only recovering her senses little by little.

Grigorakis, the leader of the classicists, approached Ramses and asked him if he had managed to see Pythagoras through the lens.

“Just like I see you now,” Ramses responded.

“So, when will those photos be ready?” Grigorakis wanted to know.

“You’ll have them in your hands on Friday.”

“If Pythagoras isn’t in them, I’ll pay you anyway, but if Pythagoras appears in them, I’ll write you a check for six thousand dollars.”

“Don’t worry,” Ramses said, “Pythagoras has been photographed.”

They bid us farewell with a lot of applause and blessings and soon we were back on Flagler and 14th Avenue, where Ramses had his studio.

He started to develop the photos right away. I was also there, in the dark room, watching how Ramses developed the negatives under the faint red light. He developed all of them, and then he took a hold of the printing machine and started to print the photos. There appeared the happy old men, the lyre players, Grigorakis on his knees with his arms lifted high, as well as the medium with her eyes closed, surrounded by solemn old men holding each other’s hands. But Pythagoras was not there.

“Go find me a picture of Pythagoras in the archive,” Ramses ordered me, his voice urgent.