“He wants to know why I lead this kind of life.”
Coco let out a guffaw. He wanted to look sinister, that fucking dwarf, so he could make a good impression on Don Jacinto, but the old man wouldn’t stop passing me his bottle. Then, suddenly, glassy-eyed, he said we should get out of this dump and get a refill. He went back to the bar, got his bottle filled and went outside, followed closely by Coco and me, the unemployed sociologist. I was starting to get dizzy walking along the dark and winding streets with this pair of miserable indigents who shared nits as well as hiding places, like the laneway we found ourselves in now. We sat down outside to have a drink with our asses on the stairs and our backs against a foul-smelling wall.
“I’m going to taste that meat,” mumbled Coco, rubbing his hands together. I thought the mangy dwarf was coming on to me, but instead, he lunged toward Don Jacinto’s fly. Don Jacinto let him do it, sipping at his bottle, breathing more and more heavily while that bald queen quickened his pace. All of a sudden, Don Jacinto let out a yell and Coco rolled onto the ground, laughing.
“You bit me, you son of a bitch!” he howled. Then, with one swift movement, he smashed the bottle into Coco’s face. “You goddammed bastard!” He stuck the broken end of the bottle over and over again into Coco’s belly, while he covered his bloody member with his other hand. Coco wasn’t even struggling now. He was a bloody mess, his face a hideous grimace and his guts spilling out on the ground. I got up, afraid that Don Jacinto would turn on me, but he sat back on the stairs, exhausted, and moaning over the spilled rum. He swore at Coco’s body and told me to go to the store to get more liquor. He was looking through his canvas bag for an empty bottle when I took out my pocketknife, the one with the bone-coloured handle, and slit his throat. His eyes were open in shock above his grey beard. I rifled through his pockets until I found the key to the yellow Chevrolet, picked up the canvas bag and headed back. I crossed the city as fast as I could, anxious to get back to the car, to uncover the private life Don Jacinto had guarded so jealously. I was smart enough to stop off and buy some candles to light up what I sensed would be a dark cavern full of booby traps. I got there just as Niña Beatriz was closing her store. The group of neighbours who collected there and on the corner had already cleared out. I headed straight for the yellow Chevrolet, opened the door and climbed into the dark interior.
The stink nearly knocked me out. I lit a match, a cigarette and a candle. I found a flashlight next to me and turned it on. The place was extremely tidy. There were no seats except for a single stool. It reminded me of a ship’s cabin. Rows of bottles and cans formed a kind of control panel. There were blankets piled up in the corner. An overwhelming feeling of happiness came over me. This was my space; from now on, it belonged only to me. I lay down on a blanket, turned off the flashlight and smoked. Tomorrow I’d have time to look the place over carefully. I was exhausted and needed to rest.
Then, just as I put out my cigarette and settled into a fitful sleep, I felt something slippery sliding slowly, revoltingly, against my body. I was paralyzed with fear. There was no doubt. They were snakes. What kind of snakes, I couldn’t tell. Snakes that had been hiding in the darkest corners of the car. I stayed still, trying to calm my beating heart, to clear my mind, to not let myself be carried away by my extreme terror. I could make out at least six ophidians slithering over my chest and between my legs. One of them moved across my neck and under my left ear. I tried to control my breathing. Of course — these were Don Jacinto’s pets, replacements for the wife and daughter who’d scorned him. If I could manage to keep myself under control for just a few more minutes, if I could concentrate enough so they’d feel my vibrations and understand that I was the new Don Jacinto, I’d be saved, and the greatest scare of my life would be transformed into the kind of greeting that a group of pets gives its new master. It worked. I stayed still for about five minutes, feeling as if I were Don Jacinto, as if the pocketknife with the bone-coloured handle were a kind of scalpel I’d used to make an enormous incision that allowed me to penetrate the world in which I wanted to live. The snakes slowly left my body, but I didn’t move until I was sure that my life would continue just the way I’d pictured it. Then I sat up, lit a match and looked for the flashlight. The damned things were there, each one in its place, coiled up and watching me. I lit a cigarette. I started to whisper, to tell them that the filthy old man had been transformed into the person who was now speaking to them. Of course, they understood me. I could see it in their tiny eyes; in the way they moved their tongues when I spoke to them directly. I told myself I needed to name them and learn how to recognize each one. I wondered how the hell Don Jacinto had managed to obtain and tame the snakes. The one next to the stool could be called Beatriz, like the shopkeeper, they clearly had something in common. But this late at night, and being so tired, I couldn’t say exactly what. Now that I knew I was captain of this cabin and master of this fearsome crew, I could relax the way I deserved to, at least until the morning, when I’d know for sure that this hadn’t been a dream, but the real thing.
Next day when I opened my eyes, I was afraid that I would find myself in my room in Adriana’s apartment and see that the whole thing had been a feverish hallucination. But what I saw was the yellow Chevrolet’s rusty ceiling. Before I even moved, I remembered Beatriz’s deadly eyes and her slippery sliding along my neck. After a while I sat up. They weren’t anywhere to be seen. Clearly, they liked the night. I didn’t snoop around. I knew they were there somewhere and that they’d come out when they felt like it, insolent, and obeying only what I’d inherited from Don Jacinto. As soon as I got comfortable, I took the cardboard off the windshield, put the key in the ignition and kept turning until I heard the reluctant cough of the motor. I moved the little stool in front of the steering wheel. I lit my morning cigarette and told myself that Niña Beatriz would have a pleasant day thanks to my efforts and my desire to move the vessel that Don Jacinto had left adrift. And off we went, at full speed, the yellow Chevrolet, the snakes and I, happy and anxious to get to other parts of the city, where we would begin the adventure of our new lives.
I made my way to the largest shopping mall in the city, where I hoped the yellow Chevrolet wouldn’t be noticed in the vast parking lot. I parked right in the middle of the lot, surrounded by other cars, so the security guards would have no reason to bother us. I covered the windshield with the cardboard again, turned on the flashlight, and took a bundle of papers out of the glove compartment. I wanted to uncover all the details of Don Jacinto’s life. I found his licence, his registration, some old receipts, a beat-up address book, a pile of letters and a couple of newspaper clippings. He was barely forty-two years old, his wife’s house was located in a well-off suburb, and the letters had been sent by someone called Aurora, who seemed to have been his lover. I got ready to study these missives with inquisitive delight, when I noticed some movement in the corner of the car. They all appeared at the same time, slithering towards me. They didn’t move aggressively. In fact, I’d say it was with caution. There were only four of them, not half a dozen, as I’d thought the night before. Now that I could see the way they each looked more clearly, I was able to name them once and for all. The plump one with the cunning eyes would be Beti; the slender one who moved timidly, almost delicately, would be Loli; Valentina exuded sexuality with her iridescent skin; and little Carmela had an air of mystery about her.
“Good morning, ladies,” I said. I lay down on a blanket to keep reading the letters and, to my great delight, I found Don Jacinto’s supply of rum next to me. I drank from a bottle, lit another cigarette and started to read. It was a typical tale of romance between a chief accountant and his secretary, both married, he, middle-aged, and she, in the prime of her youth. “It couldn’t have been just a soap opera story. Something more profound, more devastating must have happened to poor Don Jacinto,” I said to Beti.