Laura Restrepo - Hot Sur

“Rivers of lava.”

“Wrong. Make note of it there in your work journal. Write down that you understand absolutely nothing. When a volcano erupts, it spews rivers of shit, incandescent, shitty shit. Do you get it? Like diarrhea, a cosmic diarrhea. The earth gets pissed off and erupts in a diarrhea in which we all drown.”

“You’re disgusting,” I said, moving away from him, feeling nauseated. “You’re a pig, Joe, an authentic filthy pig. All you need is to make some comment so all the filth of the world slips past your mouth.”

“You’re right this time, you got me. I’m a pig. And do you know what pigs eat? They eat shit. They go around, sticking their noses in mounds of shit. You think you’re a know-it-all, but there are truths no one has told you about. Did you know that three-quarters of all living things are coprophagous?”

“They’re what?”

“Coprophagous, do you know what that is? Write the word down so you remember it. Three-quarters of all living beings: coprophagous. It means they feed on shit, like this, munch, munch, munch, yummy, yummy, yummy, they swallow it and they lick it, the fuckers. Write it down, three-quarters. Write down these words I’m about to dictate to you, memorize these, Copris, Helicopris, Onitis, Oniticellus, Onthophagus eucraniin, Canthonini . And you know the other rules. Don’t pull the chain of the toilet after depositing some stuff in the bowl, because you’d be wasting the food. And don’t be coming to me with stories; go with your surveys to someone who is more naive. I’m not one of them. Ever since I was a little boy, I knew how things worked. In high school, I had a friend who dreamed about burning down his filthy neighborhood. He set fires between garbage cans, lit firecrackers, and he was always going around messing with matches. He claimed he was going to build a great pyre one day, a global fire to teach the world a lesson, he said, and burn off all the shit that has been accumulating for centuries. All damn pigs beware, because I’m going to burn their asses with balls of flames.”

“Is that friend you?”

“No, a friend,” he responded. “A classmate in high school.”

But aside from his rudeness and obscenities, Sleepy Joe wasn’t someone I disliked entirely. On the contrary, I tended to like him. Physically, I mean. That’s what really disgusted me. Greg was becoming for me more of an old man, and with Sleepy Joe it was like the version of Greg when he had been younger. They had similar height and features, but Joe showed off his body in Lycra shirts with sleeves neatly rolled up over the biceps, and he wore tight stretch jeans to emphasize his ass and legs and to provocatively delineate the package up front. It was clear that he took very good care of himself. He must have spent hours at the gym, lifting weights and then on the tanning beds. God knows when he did all that, maybe while he was at his other house, the one he kept me far from, although he always denied there was such a thing. He assured me that for him settling down went no further than the roadside motels.

“What else do I need?” He looked at me with the eyes of a calf that has just been castrated. “During the day I have my truck and at night I don’t need much: a television, a bed, and a bar open twenty-four/seven, and I can find all that at any motel on the road.”

He sighed and played up the martyr angle. I was overcome with crazy feelings of just wanting to hold him, protect him, shelter him, and he noticed, of course he noticed, and took advantage of this. But he wasn’t a good liar. You couldn’t believe anything he said, and it was obvious that the only true thing in his life was his brother, who always lent him money when things got tight. Or just gave him money. He was a womanizer who abused the bonds of fraternity, a frightened boy who prayed away his fears, a good-looking good-for-nothing, with no job and of benefit to no one. That was Sleepy Joe, more or less. And yet when he stayed with us and he came out of the bathroom with his hair wet and a towel wrapped around his waist, I couldn’t take my eyes off his gorgeous six-pack tanned by ultraviolet rays. I’m telling you, Sleepy Joe with a towel around his waist was a god, and I had to bite my lips to restrain myself. Unfortunately, the temptation was ongoing because he took many showers, at least twice a day, in the morning and early evening, and if it was hot, in the afternoon also. The fight between the brothers often concerned those fifteen or twenty minutes that he spent in the shower. Greg would pound on the bathroom door yelling at his brother and asking if he was going to start paying the bills. And he was right, all that water and electricity for hot water weren’t cheap. But Sleepy Joe didn’t turn off the water; instead he yelled back at his brother that he was a pig, a dirty goat. And this too had some truth in it.

What a strange twist of fate, I thought when I saw my brother-in-law pass by me half-naked with steam coming out of his pores. That body, specifically that one and no other, is the one I’d have wanted beside me on my honeymoon, when I sunbathed on the Hawaiian beaches. Sleepy Joe knew exactly what was going on and he squeezed all he could out of the triangle, an electric triangle that vibrated dangerously when he was in the apartment: an older man, his young wife, and the younger brother. But now that I’ve told you about Joe’s six-pack, I should also tell you about the double-beamed cross on his chest on which I was almost crucified. One day, Sleepy Joe and I were seated on the sofa… but wait, not yet, that part comes later. I can’t help it; I keep jumping around and messing up the story. No problem, Mr. Rose, you can fix the order later before it is published.

The weird thing is that Greg didn’t even notice, naive as can be, sticking an Adonis in the house thinking that his young wife would take no interest in him. Greg, who was suspicious of everyone, jealous of everyone, who when we got home would make a scene if he had seen me speaking with anyone in the office, even if just on friendly terms. And who would threaten me with having to return the green card if I didn’t stop being such a whore. No man escaped Greg’s false suspicion, not the grocer, the neighbor, the insurance representative, his retirement buddies, my past loves, my doctor, and especially my gynecologist. My husband tortured himself imagining that I did things with all of them, or would if I had the chance, with all of them except one. When it came to Sleepy Joe, my Greg never had a single suspicion or bad thought, only brotherly chastisements, paternal affection, and the instinct to protect, my poor Greg; meanwhile the kid and I, pure lightning and thunder.

It made me shudder to think that Sleepy Joe was watching me. Greg had to punch his time card at eight in the morning, but since my hours were more flexible, I gave myself the luxury of leaving the apartment a little later. During that difference in time — twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour at most — Sleepy Joe and I would be alone. Sometimes he simply stood in the doorway not saying anything while I brushed my hair or buttoned my blouse.

“You need something?” I asked his figure in the mirror.

“No, I don’t need anything,” he responded with longing and sarcasm, as if to say, I need you, my little bitch.

And not a single suspicion from Greg. Is that maybe why I ended up in bed with Joe, the only man who could approach me without the threat that I’d lose my green card? I’ll confess it here: I tore it up in bed with Joe, touching the sky with my hands, making love to him not once, not twice, not three times, but many hundreds more, and to make it worse, right there, in the same marital bedroom I shared with Greg, on the same mattress and sheets, under the glare of the very same Christ hanging from the cross.