Daniel Orozco - Orientation - And Other Stories

He nudges the fedora aside, revealing a full-page ad with the headline DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS MAN? There is a picture, a blowup of a passport photo from some twenty-five years ago, of a glowering, beetle-browed man with black slicked-back hair and a broad, neatly trimmed mustache. The hair is now chalk white, full and untended. The mustache is ragged, and the brows have thinned out. The face is tanned. The glower is gone.

The old man reaches for his demitasse and tosses back the espresso. He shudders, gleefully. He calls to the waiter, orders another, and a crème de cassis as well. The waiter looks him in the face, bows, departs. Nothing. The old man giggles. He ponders a delightful paradox of photo portraiture — the picture in the paper is an accurate likeness of himself a quarter century ago, but so much so that no one will recognize it as him today. Remarkable. “Ausgezeichnet!” he says aloud. He shudders again, claps his hands. His chair gives a sudden leap. He hears a muffled roar, feels movement in the ground beneath his feet. The other old men look past him, upward, and he turns, cranes his neck. Above the apartment building across the street, a column of thick black smoke jeweled with embers boils upward. The waiter arrives, sets the drinks down, stands and gapes with the others, all of them watching the smoke drape across the sky like a closing curtain. The old man squints, sniffs. He can smell diesel fuel, burning oil, the stink of molten rubber. And something else, something distant and familiar. He reaches for his crème de cassis, raises the glass, and carefully brings it to his lips. He pauses. Yes, of course — the smell of burning flesh. He sips the thick, sweet syrup. The liqueur is served neat here, to the brim in a warmed cordial glass, in the style called Martyr’s Blood. And although still atremble with giddiness, the old man spills not a drop as he drinks to whoever has died today.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the villa, a bony cat rasps its tongue at a congealing smear of mashed bug on the slate tiles of the west patio. A wind from nowhere disturbs the trees and a blossom-fall erupts, sending slant flurries across the grounds. Security cameras tucked high and low throughout the compound click and whir to each other. In the kitchen, Cook slathers chicken parts with mayo, dices tomatoes and onions, and puts water up to boil, going through the motions of preparing a luncheon that will not be served. And upstairs, in the master bedroom, the mistress Dinorah sleeps. Twenty years from now she will serve iced tea to fellow expats on the balcony of her modest condo in Coral Gables. She will regale them with the stories they want to hear, of her life with El Presidente — the palaces and the private jets, the fetes and the galas, stories of jewelry and couture and thousand-dollar bottles of wine, of weekends abroad and late, intimate dinners with movie stars. But she will keep to herself the details of their last shimmering days together, when the ardor of their love seemed to flower even in the ignominy of exile, when they swam and gamboled in lagoons under the stars and made love all night and toasted the dawn with champagne, the both of them — sated and spent — taken truly aback by the remarkable clarity of light at sunrise in Paraguay.

But for now she sleeps, deep and hard, unencumbered by knowledge or memory or dream. She sleeps like a dead man.

700 Block, First Street. Parking violation. Car blocking driveway. Citation issued. City Tow notified.

5700 Block, Central Boulevard. Public disturbance. Rowdy juveniles on interurban bus. Suspects flee before officers arrive.

400 Block, Sycamore Circle. Barking dog complaint. Attempts to shush dog unsuccessful. Citation left in owner’s mailbox. Animal Control notified.

1300 Block, Harvest Avenue. Suspicious odor. Homeowner returning from extended trip reports a bad odor — a gas leak or “the smell of death.” Officers investigate. Odor ascertained to be emanating from a neighbor’s mimosa tree in unseasonal bloom. “The smell of life,” officer [Shield #647] ponders aloud. Officers nod. Homeowner rolls eyes, nods politely.

3900 Block, Fairview Avenue. Shady Glen Retirement Apartments. Loud noise complaint. “What kind of noise?” officers ask. Complainant simply says it was “a loud report.” “A gunshot?” officers query. “A scream? Explosion? What? ” Complainant becomes adamant, shakes walnut cane in fisted hand: “It was a loud report !” Officers mutter, reach for batons, then relent. Officers report report.

700 Block, Sixth Street. Public disturbance. Kleen-Azza-Whistle Cleaners. Two women in fistfight over snakeskin vest. Each declares ownership of claim ticket found on floor by officers. In an inspired Solomonic moment, officer [Shield #647] waves pair of tailor’s shears and proposes cutting vest in half. Approaching the contested garment, he slips its coveted skins between the forged blades. And thus is the true mother revealed!

3600 Block, Sunnyside Drive. Vandalism. Handball courts in Phoenix Park defaced. Spray-paint graffiti depicts intimate congress between a male and a female, a panoramic mural of heterosexual coupling that spans the entire length of the courts’ front wall, its every detail rendered with a high degree of clinical accuracy. Officers gape. Minutes pass in slack-jawed silence, until officer [Shield #647] ascertains incipient boner. Officer horrified, desperately reroutes train of thought, briskly repositions his baton. Second officer [Shield #325] takes down Scene Report, feigns unawareness of her partner’s tumescent plight, ponders the small blessings of womanhood. Vandalism reported to Parks & Rec Maintenance.

900 Block, Maple Road. Canine litter violation. Homeowner complains of dog feces on front lawn. Officers investigate, ascertain droppings are fresh, reconnoiter on foot. They walk abreast, eyes asquint and arms akimbo, their hands at rest among the ordnance of their utility belts: radio receiver, pepper spray, ammo pouch, handcuffs, keys and whistles, and change for the meter. Officers jingle like Santas. Their shoulders and hips move with the easy dip and roll of Classic Cop Swagger. “That business back there,” she says, “with the snakeskin vest?” He grunts in acknowledgment, scanning the scene for untoward canine activity. “I–I liked that.” Her voice is hoarse, throaty, tentative, as he’s never heard before. He nods, purses lips, nods some more. She nervously fingers butt of her service revolver. He briskly repositions his baton. A high color passes from one steely countenance to the other. Officers blush. Mid-swagger, elbows graze. And within that scant touch, the zap of a thousand stun guns. Up ahead, another steaming pile, whereupon poop trail turns cold. Officers terminate search, notify Animal Control.

9200 Block, Bonny Road. Vehicular burglary. Items stolen from pickup truck: a pair of work boots, a hard hat, and safety goggles, and — per victim’s description — a cherry-red enameled Thaesselhaeffer Sidewinder chain saw, with an 8.5 horsepower, 2-stroke motor in a titanium alloy housing, 4-speed trigger clutch with auto-reverse, and the words DADDY’S SWEET BITCH stenciled in flaming orange-yellow letters along the length of its 34-inch saw bar. Victim weeps. Officers take Scene Report, refer victim to Crisis Center.

5600 Block, Fairvale Avenue. Traffic stop. Illegal U-turn. Officer [Shield #325] approaches vehicle. Her stride longer than her legs can accommodate, she leans too much into each step, coming down hard on her heels, as if trudging through sand. As she returns to Patrol Unit, a lock of her hair — thin and drab, a lusterless, mousy brown — slips down and swings timidly across her left eye, across the left lens of her mirrored wraparounds. Officer tucks errant lock behind ear, secures it in place with a readjustment of duty cap. Her gestures are brisk and emphatic, as if she were quelling a desire to linger in the touch of her own hair. Officer [Shield #647] observes entire intimate sequence from his position behind wheel of Patrol Unit. Officer enthralled. Officer ascertains the potential encroachment of love, maybe, into his cautious and lonely life. Officer swallows hard.