“That’s a fact,” I said, watching the fly struggling, trying to claw through the glass, moving slower and slower.
When the fly stopped struggling, Pepe said, “Poor fly. Drowned while minding his own business. I feel terrible at the brutal things I can do.”
Everyone laughed. Pepe turned the glass right side up. When the fly floated to the top, he touched it with his finger and the sopping fly stuck to it. He put the fly on the bar top, where it lay in a little puddle of water. Pepe shook his head sadly and stared at the tiny corpse.
“Pobrecito.” He shrugged and tapped an ash from his cigarette onto it. “At least I can give it a proper burial, eh?”
“Yes, you owe him that!” someone who’d seen the trick insisted.
Pepe nodded. “More, please. More ashes for the fly.”
We all flicked ashes on the fly until a little gray burial mound heaped over it.
The fly buried, Pepe suggested we fill up our glasses and drink a toast to the fallen aviator. We all did. “You know,” Pepe said, “I feel terrible about this. If it were in my power, I would take back what I’ve done. I would restore life to this innocent bug.” Pepe looked seriously into the distance as if communing with God. His face brightened suddenly and he said, “I will!” He bent down and put his face close to the miniature grave and gently blew away the ashes a little at a time. “Come, little one; come back to life.” The fly’s wings rustled in Pepe’s breath. He picked it up by one wing, set it on his palm, and softly blew air at it for a few minutes. Everyone who hadn’t seen this routine stared, amazed. It moved, by God! It stood up, Jesus! It cleaned itself for a few seconds, buzzed its wings experimentally, and flew away.
When the Casino closed at about two in the morning, Frank and I often walked with Pepe back to his place on the road at the entrance to the village. Pepe had his own little open-air bar there, which his wife, Incarna, usually handled while he tended the Casino. Frank and I got into an argument one night on the way to Pepe’s and lingered outside the Casino, yelling about something. It was one of those arguments that no one can remember the next day. The local cop, Rudolfo, and a Guardia came over to us, smiling. I had grown accustomed to the Guardia Civil, the state police, who seemed to be everywhere, though at first I was wary of them. They looked menacing in their long green capes and patent leather hats. They packed Walther 9mm pistols and sawed-off shotguns under the capes. The Guardia Civil had the power of summary justice, meaning they could blow you away with impunity if you fucked up and called Franco a queer. They didn’t do it often, but they could. The Guardia joined us as we argued while at the same time tactfully moving us to the edge of town.
Standing near a streetlight on the main road, I saw the Guardia’s pistol peeking out from his cape and asked him what kind it was, noticing I had no trouble speaking Spanish when I was drunk enough. He smiled, pulled it out of his holster, and held it up. “A Walther PPK,” he said.
“Standard issue?” I said, reaching out and snatching it from him. It got very quiet as I inspected the Guardia’s pistol. Rudolfo stared at me, his eyes wide. “Robert,” he said, “you should not grab a Guardia’s gun. It… it is not polite.”
“Huh?” I looked at the Guardia and saw the worried look on his face. I still didn’t understand my transgression, but I handed back his pistol saying, “Nice piece. Same one James Bond uses.”
On the way back to Frank’s, he explained to me that I was an asshole who had come “that close” to getting shot.
I didn’t just hang out and drink in Almonaster. I wanted to be a writer, and living in Spain, not having to work, was a good time to give it a try. So, in addition to drinking, I worked on a short story about a band of primitives who discover a fundamental method for time travel. When I finished the story, we found out that Bill Smith and his wife, Emmy, were in Portugal. We all decided to go visit for the Fourth of July.
The Smiths had rented a place overlooking the Mediterranean. Bill, a genial, freckle-faced Huckleberry Finn-looking guy who I remembered as a terrific cheater in Monopoly at Penn, was now a writer. That they were staying on the coast in a big house was just how I expected writers to live.
To celebrate the Fourth of July, we had a fireworks war in the house. Girls against boys. We threw firecrackers like grenades at each other. Made a lot of noise, and since the Portuguese (except those who celebrate every day anyway) don’t honor our independence, people noticed. When we started a small brush fire (the battle had moved outside), the police arrived. We threw buckets of water, which Jack, who was five and just came up to my waist, pumped out of a cistern, on the flames and put the fire out while Smith, speaking slick Portuguese, convinced the police to leave us alone. The man has a silver tongue.
Before we went back to Spain, I showed Bill my time-travel story. He read it and said it was good; just needed a little rewriting, was all. I took that as a polite way of saying I had some talent, and if I worked at it I might torture the stupid story into something bearable. I figured real writers just sat down and wrote the final draft—rewriting was for amateurs.
Spain. I’m walking along the road with Frank. We see a dog lying on the shoulder. I go to it and it wags its tail slightly, but I can see its back is broken. I’m outraged: these fucking people will just let a dog lie here dying? Where’s the owner? Where’s the vet? Pepe comes over and says someone has to kill the dog, but no one wants to and the vet is gone. You, Pepe says, have to kill the dog. Me? It’s not my dog. No one else will, Pepe says, smiling the way people do when they’ve stuck someone else with a moral dilemma. I squat by the dog and talk to it and it wags its tail, and I’m feeling sick. I stroke the dog. “Good girl. Good dog. You’ll be okay.” Someone hands me a sledgehammer. A hammer? That’s the best we can do? A fucking hammer? They nod. I’m holding the hammer. Everybody begins to leave. Everybody’s gone. I have to kill this dog. I’m talking to the dog, but the dog senses something is up and rolls its eyes nervously, its tail slapping the ground. I say goddammit to myself a hundred times and curse the Spaniards and swing the hammer like a golf club and smash the dog’s head right after I said she’d be all right.
Everybody buys me drinks at the Casino, but I’m pissed off; I’m shaking. Fernando comes in and tells me the dog didn’t die. I jump up. He quickly adds that someone else finished her off.
The Aguileras were packing up to resume life in the States. Barbie left a month before Frank to get their house ready while Frank finished his research. When Frank left, we stayed. I wasn’t ready to go home yet. We rented a small house next to Escopeta’s General Store on Ramon y Cajal, an ancient Roman road near the center of town.
I pecked at stories. Patience shopped and learned how to cook Spanish food.
Jack knew everybody and spoke Spanish like a native. I saw him run into Bar Buenos Aires one afternoon while I was there. He didn’t see me. His friends stayed in the street, too shy to come in without their parents. Jack—who was allowed by everybody to do anything he wanted—swaggered over to the counter and tapped a duro—a Spanish nickel—on top, demanding a chupa, a lollipop. His head was a foot lower than the countertop. Jose Manuel, the owner of the bar, leaned over, grinned, and handed Jack some chupas and took the coin. Jack walked outside and gave each of his friends a candy and they ran off together, a regular little mob of street urchins.
Jack accepted Almonaster as home with the aplomb of a five-year-old. When Patience and I went to Morocco, we left him in the village with Escopeta’s family, the owners of the grocery. Jack was especially good friends with Escopeta’s son, Manolo, but he was in love with Escopeta’s teenage daughter, Manola. She spoiled him with attention. When we came back a week later with an English couple we’d befriended on the trip, the village kids, dirty faces, short pants, big smiles, swarmed around the Roach, laughing and yelling. Patience pointed out one of the kids as our son. Our new friends were amazed.