The Lion, The Witch and The Wench

It had been a rough night. I was living in Buenos Aires, in a fifth floor in the neighborhood of Palermo. This neighborhood was divided by a long avenue called Santa Fe, which splits the Argentine capital like a backbone of bus smoke, hysterical honks, dirty cats, dive bars, cafes, American chain restaurants, blazing asphalt and haggard screams from driver to driver but really directed to an inclement God. On one side of the avenue was a nice little section of the neighborhood with galleries, live music and artists’ lofts. On the other side, well, there was me. All around my building there were the vestiges of old whorehouses that were being displaced by city ordinance, and newer buildings were resuscitating from their debris slowly. In the meantime it was a frenzy of construction, old buildings and one brothel left open, right in the corner, with very few women in it, it was mostly transvestites, pre-op.
It had been a rough night. I had been running around the city with a girl in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. The girl had the face of a witch, but she was young, so she was beautiful anyways, besides I always liked witches, and this was a witch with a very tight ass and a mad personality. The whiskey was bitter and very cheap, but she helped me with it. When we got to her door, just at the same time as the sun did, we kissed vehemently; we were ready for each other…
“You can’t come in,” she said sharpening the tips of her hair with her fingers.
“What? Why? How dare you say that to me?”
She laughed gracefully, “seriously, my aunt is visiting and she is sleeping in my room, but promise to call me later. I want to see you again.”
“Wait, I have no money for the bus back home,” I really didn’t have a dime.
“Fuck, I don’t have anything either. I already bought you two drinks at the bar, and gave you my last money for most of that whiskey bottle. Now, you can have the bottle, but you are going to have to walk home love, come on you are a big boy,” she clenched her lips to hold her laughter.
“You tease…” I said and turned towards the morning sun, which shone through my bottle and punctured my eyes, making the whiskey yellower and my bloodshot eyes redder (this I assumed for the way they stung). Fuck it… I started asking for money on the streets. I asked the people in dark suits going to work, strictly wearing their serious faces. I asked the robust women who ran with their pit bulls in jogging suits. I asked the old ladies who held their miniature dogs in one hand and their bible in the other. I asked every fucking pedestrian you can think of, and no one had 80 cents for my bus ride back home. True, I was drunk. True, I probably acted drunk, but I was very polite, besides I was not going to spend the money on booze if I already had a bottle in my hand. After walking for a few blocks I just leant against a post and got in the next bus. I climbed into the bus and explained my situation to the gentleman driving, and when he denied to help me, I told him I was not getting out of his fucking bus (as he referred to it). I tried to grab onto the greasy railing, but then the bottle slipped from my hand and broke, and my foot slipped and I hit my shin on the metal edge of the step, and he kicked me right on the ribs with his black leather boot and I fell out. I grabbed my ribs tightly and felt my shin palpitating. The pain was so sharp that it made the sun brighter, my impatience more volatile and my character more humble. Now I didn’t even have the booze. I leaned back and waited for the next bus, willing to hijack it if necessary, for 80 cents. It came and it went, didn’t even stop, and so did another one. I still held my ribs. The third one stopped with a little chubby man as its captain.
“Listen man,” I said as I got in, “ I have nothing to lose, I just need a ride and have no money.” Right then I was about to strike him if he said a word, but he reached into his pocket, got out 80 cents and put them into the machine.
“Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you very very much.” I was in such astonishment.
“Nothing to worry about kid,” he responded with a nasal voice, “just keep going. There are people trying to get in.”
So I did, only to find that my building stood there in the gleam of the provident autumn sun only five blocks down. I got out through the back door, hoping that the driver wouldn’t notice. I got home and poured myself some red wine and sat on the balcony to watch the tips of the buildings light up like mountaintops of matches with the rising sun.
I slept all day and woke up next afternoon with the most acute headache. Every sound was the swing of a baseball bat in a museum of porcelain, a stampede of wild cloven-hoofed antelopes through a palace of crystal. Every noise was the kick of a horse tangled in barbwire, making the wound deeper and deeper. I lived with a friend, who had been with me the night before at some point. Buenos Aires is a city where one always manages to get lost in the night. Every street is a path to ineffable possibilities, to unthinkable adventures. Every door leads to a stairway, and every stairway leads down, and every basement is a ticking bomb with neon lights. And every basement has a back door to escape, and every escape leads to an alley, and every alley to the house of a beautiful woman, and every beautiful woman leads nowhere but holds on to your hand very tightly for a dance or two. And there is enough time and space for stories of sweat, tears and shame, and afternoons are frugal and the day is just a sheet of white silk that cocoons the night, and the night keeps on ticking behind the sun, and all the creatures wait in their dungeons for the sun to vanish right in front of the eyes of perplex lovers, just so they can come out from ambush with an unquenchable thirst for wine and tango.
My roommate and I decided to go have some lunch in a steakhouse by our apartment, a steakhouse that sat right on the corner of the dreadful Santa Fe Avenue and Godoy Cruz, the street of wenches. We ordered some grilled tripe and blood sausage, and two beers to cool down the burning hangover. As we laughed about the curious events of previous night, I noticed on a mirror that two girls in the table behind us kept on turning and giggling.
“Look at them man, they like us,” I said filled with pride.
“Shut up, shut the fuck up,” he murmured, “they are from the brothel by the plaza, and they recognize us. Remember? The one I took you to the other night and you wouldn’t fuck because you said you were too drunk and had no money. In fact, the one in the stained blue jeans is the one you were talking to.”
“Oh,” I laughed, “lets go say hi.”
“I said shut up! My uncle owns this place and I don’t want him to see me and my friends talking to hookers.” He wouldn’t stop twiddling his thumbs. They kept giggling, but soon we forgot about them. Another friend joined us. He was a prince, well a student, but lived like a prince and was fully convinced he deserved every bit of luxury he enjoyed. He was one of my dearest friends: loud voice and epidemic laughter.
“How are you doing man?” He asked me landing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing it with empathy.
“You know, hanging…” I answered taking my cigarettes out of my pocket and spinning a blue lighter on a puddle on the table.
We ordered another beer and the conversation got good. He told us about some friend in common that had quit school and sold all his belongings and decided to become a Scientologist of the Church of Jesus Scientist of the Last Saints, or something along those lines. So he’d gotten on a boat and, one morning like many others, set sailed for Tampa, Florida, where he would finish his training: room and board paid, plus the lucrative amount of 200 dollars a month. We laughed but a few weeks later I confirmed this when I opened my email and saw and extended message from him, urging me to quit my degenerate life, urging me to find the messiah and donate all my material goods to the church, and then begin to prepare my soul for judgment day. In any case, we ordered another beer and another and another and another. Our faces were beginning to swell and the sun was starting to fade. Outside, the rioting streets wailed in the taut rush of anxious comers and goers with suitcases, of festive lovers hanging from each other’s arms bound to another romantic dinner, of terrified taxicabs with sad professionals as their commanders, of worthless cops with a billion bribes stuck to their forgotten conscience, of mobs of teenage boys with the heart of a soccer ball and the mind of a cock, of another Friday afternoon…
We must have ordered the bottle of whiskey as the first drop of sweat oozed from each of our eyebrows as a premonition of the night, because the timing felt perfect. The bottle arrived on the silver tray of a floating suit, just as the conversation took a sharp turn into the importance of friendship and its everlasting character. That whiskey vanished as if it was leaking through the bottom, our personalities lightened and everyone around seemed to be enjoying each other’s mumbles. We left the bar on the verge of the night after agreeing passionately on Latin American vicious politics and our hatred for authority.
When I opened the glass doors, the fresh air outside hit my face like a wave. On the other side of the street, right on the edge of the sidewalk, stood a cop directing the traffic, conducting the concert of lights and horns with his arrogant finger and his sharp whistle. Yellow and red lights raced in front of him, making him appear and disappear, and every time he appeared again, he was standing with the same dumb face inside the same dumb uniform. I felt like killing him. I despised him so much for his cocky face, for the way he blew his whistle, for the way his hat sat straight pointing forward glued to his glued black hair. I started walking towards him rapidly. The cars honked and passed by me ferociously, but my target was very clear. I didn’t take my eyes off that cop for a second. I suppose everyone must have been yelling and reaching for me in the middle of all this frenzy, but I didn’t care. When I was about to arrive to the sidewalk that his polished boots stepped on, he looked at me furiously and started screaming. I took a step on the sidewalk and swung my right fist aimed right for his face, but his hand reached mine faster, grabbed it, twisted it with unfathomable strength, as his other hand appeared from behind his back holding his baton and slammed it right across my face.
I opened my eyes and a group of people was huddled around staring in the morbid curiosity that attracts pedestrians to incidents. I saw my two friends holding the cop back and explaining something to him.
“Sir, please forgive him, he is drunk. His girlfriend just left him for another man and he hasn’t stopped drinking.” I suppose this reference made him relate to me as a man, because he deflated and stepped back. They talked a bit more with inaudible words. He patted my friends on the back and told them to take me home and take care of me. My face hurt and pounded and so did my ears every time my friends said the word imbecile, one from each side. We all lit a cigarette and kept on walking.
We took a left on Juncal Street towards our building and there, on the right corner, behind blue, yellow and red lights sat the only brothel left open in the neighborhood. Four or five Cinderellas stood outside smoking in feathers and thongs, although I couldn’t really tell if they were men or women. We walked in and there was a little welcome room first were they asked us a few questions. Then we were released into a big room with blue lights and mirrors, like three lions in a cage of little lambs. We sat in a table and ordered some drinks. The place smelled of bleach, cheap perfume and consolation. My partners in crime looked at me and warned me to not do anything fucking stupid, as they put it. They each left with a pretty girl before finishing their drinks. I finished mine and theirs and approached the oldest, ugliest hooker I could find. She must have been over fifty, crimson thick lipstick, tight secretary black skirt, chubby legs sausaged in tan stockings, voluptuous breasts squeezed into a bra two sizes smaller, like two hidden sentinels, and long deep wrinkles drawing extensions of her violet eye shadow across her temples. I paid at the cashier at the bar and got a condom as a receipt. We walked outside into a night, where the mad noise of the city had called a truce, and the horns were distant like whispers. She held on to my arm like a woman who loves her man, only she led the way. The way was around the corner, into an alley and through a black metal door. I climbed the three flights of stairs behind her. Her ass was wide and flat, and I could draw the contours of her underwear through her skirt with my eyes. Golden sandals with high heels held her feet. The bottom of the sandals was cracked and muddy, and the golden paint of their straps smeared on her ankles by the sweat. The bottoms of her feet were also cracked and dry, and behind the stockings I could see white crevices in the skin like rivers or canyons through a desert. She opened the door. There was a bed and mirrors on the ceiling; cheap Asian porn was playing on a 22-inch television and the maroon carped was coarse like sandpaper. She lay on her left side like a muse and started reaching for the laces of her sandals with her right hand.
“Why did you choose me?” she asked as she undid the knot of the faded golden straps.
“What do you mean?” I uttered dumbly.
“I mean why did you choose me out of all the young girls down there?”
“Are you kidding me?” I said trying to take command of the conversation, “I think you are the most beautiful.”
“Don’t feed me any bullshit kid. I was born at night, but not last night. I just want to know…” the harshness of her voice faded into a more vulnerable, sweet tone. I walked over to the bed and lay on my back, looking at us on the mirrors.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
She got up and walked around to my feet and took off my shoes and my socks gently. Then lifting up her tight skirt and revealing her blunt thighs got on top of me and started unbuttoning my shirt. She smelled of talc, foundation and latex. I looked into her eyes and said nothing. She must have been very beautiful when young. Her eyes were light brown, her nose was fine and delicate, although a bit crooked to the side, and her mouth curled down at both ends in a melancholic, enigmatic way.
“I don’t want to fuck.” I interrupted with my shirt wide open and my beaded rosary and my scapular resting on my newly hairy chest, “I didn’t come here for that.”
She grinned, “That is fine. You know, we are not here only to fuck. We can also be very loyal friends.”
“I know,” I said as she rolled to the side and lay next to me.
“What is her name?” she asked with a very mild lisp.
“Marina,” I sighed.
“She left you huh?”
“No, I left her.”
“Why?”
“I had to. I was going mad. That place we lived was hell, and I asked her to come with me and she said no. Believe me, I tried…” I watched two black men doing a little Asian girl now on the little TV, “We thought our love would endure the distance but she found herself a modern lover.”
“You will love again, you know?” she murmured with an ancient voice.
“I don’t know…”
“You will love again. You just have to let go. Besides boy, you are too young to know anything about love.”
“We were going to marry. I have felt love and now I have lost it!” I said indignant.
“Say whatever you want, and think so too, but you will see… Love is absolutely irrelevant to you now, you are just following the course of your destiny, and that, you have to fulfill regardless. You might have twenty children and a dog and a big refrigerator, or you might be old and alone, and that is if you don’t die. Regardless, you have always been alone…” She took out a flask from her purse and gave me some whiskey. We lay there smoking a cigarette, when a loud bell, as if from hell, rang.
“Time is up,” she said tainted with a casualty that bothered me a bit.
“Heaven only lasts for so long,” I murmured.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” I replied reaching to my pocket, “Here, pay for the rest of the night.” We took another swig of the flask with the newborn excitement that one feels at the beginning of a party. We had the whole room for ourselves as an oasis of the night, as a hideout until dawn.
I woke up as the first signs of a blatant sun breached through a window. I got up and ran to the toilet to vomit. Oh, how I hated throwing up, what a dreadful sensation, and there I felt the anticipation of more coming and the pain in the gut and again… I got up from my knees and washed my face. It hurt so much, and when I looked in the mirror I saw my black eye and swollen cheekbone, and remembered the brief episode with that agent of the law and his blunt baton. Fuck it hurts, I thought, barely being able to stretch my jaw. I had no idea where I was. When I walked out of the bathroom, I realized that it was a completely different apartment. This had nothing to do with the little room I had been in with my gentle wench. Everything in the room was modest, cheap figurines aligned by the windows and a white little wooden table with two white plastic chairs. I walked over to the table and got my pants. My wallet was intact. I had only one cigarette left, but everything seemed to be in place, except for me. I walked out without making a sound.
Outside the sun was rising. There were garbage bags on the streets and a few people hosing down their part of the sidewalk. Lanky dogs circled the garbage and the trees, and the stores on bottom floors were all cells of empty prisons. I stopped a cab, got in, and gave him my address. I leaned all my grief and doubt on the window and watched a million houses and slums pass quickly. I pressed hard on my stomach with my left hand as we approached my apartment and drove by the brothel, with its lights off and its door covered with a wide blanket of gray metal. When I got home I drank some water, vomited again, whispered to my drunken friends that I had arrived, went back to the kitchen and saw the red little light of the answering machine blinking. I picked up the phone and there was a message from the day before with the voice my beautiful witch quivering on the phone, saying to forget about going out with her again, she had been waiting for my call all day and never gotten it. She said I was an asshole. There was day in Buenos Aires again and there were no messages from Marina.