Laura Restrepo - Hot Sur

At times, Sleepy Joe would disappear for weeks, sometimes even months. During those times we knew nothing about him, did not get any calls or any other signs of life from him, as if the earth had swallowed him up. And then one day when I came from work the little red-and-green candy wrappers would be there, scattered on the floor of the living room, the ashtrays would be full of butts, and Sleepy Joe would be stretched out on the couch watching some shopping channel. Where have you been? What were you doing? Why didn’t you call? We thought you were dead and so on. They were useless questions and expressions of concern, because he never responded or explained. He reappeared just as he had disappeared, Casper the Friendly Ghost. One time he did say something. He had returned with one of those black armbands used for mourning, and I asked him who had passed away.

“Maraya,” he said, “I’ve just come from the burial.”

“Maraya? Your Maraya? The Chikki Charmer, the one who dances like Olivia Newton-John, but naked?”

“Shut the fuck up. Why would you mock the dead like that?”

“She died? Seriously?”

“I’ve never known anyone to die any other way.”

“I’m sorry. Really, Joe? I’m very sorry. I don’t know what to say. What a shock. Poor Maraya. How did she die?”

“In a Jacuzzi.”

“A Jacuzzi?”

“She lived in a place that had a balcony with a Jacuzzi. She went into the Jacuzzi on Monday night and died, and no one found her until Thursday morning.”

“You mean she was in the bubbling hot water for over seventy hours?”

“When they found her, the flesh was so soft, it was coming off the bones, like when you broil a goat.”

“Don’t be disgusting, Joe, I can’t even imagine, that’s the most horrible thing I’ve heard in a long time. Even I, who hated her, am horrified at what she must have gone through. But how did it happen, why couldn’t she get out? Did she overdose on something? I’ve always told you she was probably a drug addict.”

“She was murdered.”

“Inside the Jacuzzi? Who?”

“They don’t know, one of her clients, perhaps.”

“Did they call the police? Do they suspect anyone?”

“The police aren’t interested in such cases.”

“Who told you?”

“Some of her friends.”

“Her friends told you someone had killed her?”

“Her friends told me and I went and paid for the burial.”

“The burial of what was left of her… You did the right thing, Sleepy Joe. After all, she was your girlfriend for however many years.”

“That’s not why I did it. But regardless, I arranged for the ceremony that she deserved.”

“The Catholic thing?”

“I put a die on each of her eyes.”

“What?”

“A die.”

The whole story was so grotesque I almost burst out laughing. Fortunately, I was able to control myself because Joe seemed truly affected, or let’s say that he seemed stupefied, talking to himself more than to me.

“Why? What does it mean that you put a die on each eye?” I asked.

“That was something between me and her. She’d have understood,” he said.

“Is it a Slovak ritual?”

“I took all of her clothes out of the boxes.”

“All that Lycra and spandex, all those psychedelic colors that glow under black light…”

“What does that have to do with anything? Are you an idiot, María Paz? That’s why I never tell you anything, because you have no respect, because talking to you is like talking to no one. Go to hell.”

“I’m sorry, Joe. Please forgive me. It was an innocent comment, that’s all. So go on. What were you saying?”

He didn’t answer so I went on: “You don’t want to talk to me. You were saying that you took all of her clothes out of the boxes. I understand, because she lived in a rented room, which you had to empty. Something like that, right?”

I racked my mind trying to find some logic in his stories, but it was impossible. It was as if his brain worked under another set of instructions.

“I divided her clothes into four piles,” he said after a few minutes.

“That’s good,” I said, because I did not know what else to say. I always had to be careful not to say something he’d consider improper, but his criteria for such things were so inaccessible, it was difficult to gauge.

“And then I put each pile in a different corner of the room,” he said.

“But why four piles?”

“I burned the first pile, the second I gave away, the third I put in the coffin with the body, and the fourth raffled away.”

“I see. And who won the pile you raffled?”

“Strangers. Folks who had never understood her or appreciated her.”

“That happens sometimes. Very sad. But was there any family there?”

“She didn’t have any family.”

“Did you hire a pianist to play at the funeral?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t understand what happened, do you? I try to explain things to you, María Paz. I really do. In fact, I need to tell you about these things. But I’m wasting my time because you are never going to understand.”

“Maybe if you explained things more… especially the part about the die on each eye, that’s what I’m most having trouble with.”

But he stopped trying to get me to understand and I stopped trying to understand. He took out the pictures of Maraya from his wallet, burned them, threw the ashes in the toilet, flushed, and fell asleep and slept for three days straight. After a month he stopped wearing the black armband and never again mentioned his deceased girlfriend. I decided to tell Greg that one of his brother’s girlfriends had been murdered. Greg had been a cop, after all, and he’d have some opinion on the matter. I never, or almost never, told Greg something that Sleepy Joe had mentioned, so that he wouldn’t be suspicious about when we could have spoken of such things. But the death of that woman made me anxious. There was something too strange and lurid in the details of this story, and I was suffering from nightmares about that poached flesh coming off the bone, and with a die on each eye, the raffling off the poor dead woman’s clothes and all that, so I told Greg. Omitting certain details obviously, I just told him they had murdered one of Greg’s girlfriends.

“She was a whore, wasn’t she? Whores hang out with thugs until one of the scoundrels kill them” was all Greg had to say in response.

I knew very well that Sleepy Joe was a raging madman, and that he was getting worse: madder, more raging. His bile rose at the strangest things. He was very anal about certain things, and heaven help anyone who questioned him about it. His food, for example. Each item had to be separated from the other or he’d push it aside with a look of disgust. The rice should not be mixing with the vegetables and the meat should not be touching the potatoes. He insisted it was disgusting but never explained to me why. Once, I gave him a very nice wool sweater with leather patches on the elbows and the shoulders. Mother of God, he almost threw it back in my face. Who did I think he was that he’d wear mixed clothes? “Mixed?” I dared ask. “What do you mean?” “Wool and leather mixed, you moron. Can’t you see? Only you would think of giving me such shit; God forgive some of the lowdown things you do.” I remained stunned for a while after each of these outbursts. What did God have to do with the goddamned sweater? After a while, Sleepy Joe would feel bad about his behavior and come to me with kisses and hugs, begging me to forgive him. That time in particular he ended up taking back the gift, but only when I showed him he could take off the leather patches without damaging the sweater. That’s better, he said, but never wore it nonetheless.