EVEN SPIDER SALAZAR, who’s so touchy he instantly pulls his ads from any media outlet that dares to mention him in any way, good or bad, even Spider allowed us to joke with him at those Thursday dinners at L’Esplanade about the most sacred thing of alclass="underline" his masculinity. That night we’d already downed several bottles of Brunello di Montalcino during the main course, and then we got to joking about sex, you know, the whole macho routine, like whether so-and-so turned out to be a faggot, whether this guy is screwing that guy’s wife, whether the president of the Republic appointed his lover the head of such-and-such an institute, you know how it goes, Agustina, you’re nobody here if you don’t claim to have screwed a long list of women, starting with your own mother.
And then Spider said, Don’t be pigs, how can you talk about water around a man dying of thirst? Spider my man, what the hell, don’t tell me that little problem is still bothering you, I said, slapping him on the back, don’t tell me you haven’t been able to get it up yet, and if Spider let us get away with digs like that it was because deep down they made him feel better, deep down the jokes consoled him because they allowed him to believe, falsely, that his ordeal would come to an end, and anyway, we were only kidding around, mocking him slyly, making him think we weren’t aware that there was no remedy for his impotence. Spider, man, there are some saints at my Aerobics Center who’d be happy to work a miracle for you, I said bluntly, like a challenge, and Spider, evasive, said, Believe me, old boy, don’t think I haven’t tried everything, cocaine on the dick, placenta cream, I even sent away for a Playboy bunny and all I did was make a fool of myself.
But I insisted, Agustina doll, I insisted, trusting in the girls who work for me and eager to boast, I’ll bet you whatever you want, Spider my man, that the babes at the Aerobics Center will bring that dangler of yours back to life, and why did I ever open my mouth, when my ruin, and yours, too, my princess-in-waiting, began the moment Silverstein, Joaco, and Ayerbe called my bluff, because that was it, the three took the plunge, bet settled, everybody against Midas, If those chicks can make Spider happy, we’ll all pay Midas; if not, he’s the payola guy. And Spider? Under the circumstances Spider doesn’t bet, he neither wins nor loses, Spider just puts up his best effort. Silver, Joaco, and Jorge Luis bet ten million a head, everybody against me and me against everybody, that if Spider got it up I’d pocket thirty big ones, but if he lost…and I knew he was going to lose. Not like that, no way, I’ll be up against the wall, I said, pretending to back out even though I’d already decided to do it, to take the bet, do you see why, baby doll? Because even if I lost, I’d win in other ways.
They filled my glass thinking that if I drank enough I’d fold, and then, straight-faced, I said to Spider, Tell me the truth, Spider Salazar, swear it on the memory of your sainted mother, is it only mostly dead or dead for real? and Spider swore on his mother that it wasn’t completely dead, that sometimes he felt a tickle, something that might have been desire, and even a few times the stirrings of an erection. Then that’s it, I said, I’m in, but you’ve got to give me three chances, which means that if the first try fails, there’ll be a second, and if the second fails, I’ll still have a third chance, so we can adjust our focus. Spider, old man, all you have to do is let me know what turns you on, what gets your juices flowing, and we’ll go straight from there to the triumphant finale. Then Spider set his conditions, which were, most important, no whores or cheap sluts or women older than twenty-two, I want them to be white and daddy’s girls, classy, the kind of college students who suit up in lycra and sweat buckets at your Aerobics Center and eat sushi with chopsticks and drink Gatorade, nice girls who speak English without an accent. And it shouldn’t be just one, but a pair, though they’ve got to be girlie and the two of them have to work it out so that there’s lots of stroking and tasteful little touches, all in front of me.
That was it, but the other three wanted to watch, know what I mean, sweetheart? seeing is believing, witness with their own eyes whether the flag was raised. No problem, I told them, that big window in my office is a two-way mirror with a full-screen panoramic view of the gym, so we can watch and they won’t see us. Amazing, a mogul like Spider, and he’s as choked up as if we were really setting him on the road to salvation, Don’t worry, Midas my boy, I won’t let you down, and I say, Count on me, Spider, I’ll arrange something deluxe with two first-class angels, and you just watch yourself lift off, and Spider, pathetic, embracing me, I’ll be grateful to you forever, Midas my man, you’re the best.
SOMETIMES THE HUNCH, or the presentiment, comes to me suddenly even when we’re not in the ceremony; in math class, for example, or some other class, or at Friday mass at school, when Ana Carola Cano, who has the highest soprano in the choir and who’s in Agustina’s class, sings the solo in the Panis Angelicus with that voice of hers that’s so soaring it gives everybody goose bumps and those eyes that always seem to be full of tears, especially if the chapel is crowded and the nuns and the girls hover on a cloud of incense and can hardly breathe in the stuffy air because so many people, so many candles, and so many lilies hardly fit in the chapel, and it’s there that the premonitory trembling comes over me most often, and so that no one will notice I bow my head and cover my face with both hands as if I’m burning with religious fervor, but what’s really happening is that the powers are sending her the First Warning Call, shouting that their father is going to hit Bichi that night. I spend the rest of the day with a horrible migraine and can’t pay attention in class because the echo of the Power that makes me act is still reverberating inside me, and it seems as if it will never be time for the four o’clock bell to ring so I can leave school, go home, and warn Bichi, since he’s my little brother, after all, and I’m the one chosen by the powers to protect him.
Sometimes the voice is so insistent, so harsh, that Agustina skips school in the middle of the morning, running from Seventy-first Street and Fourth Road, which is where her school is, to Bichi’s school, which is at Eighty-second and Thirteenth, just to tell him that my father is going to hit him, and since the guard at the Boys School won’t let me in during classes, I make up a lie, please let fifth-grader Carlos Vicente Londoño come out because his sister is here to tell him that his grandfather is dying, and a little while later, Bichi arrives at the guardhouse all confused because he was in the middle of a geography test, What is it, Tina, which grandfather? and she, who realizes just then that what she’s doing is ridiculous, and that it would have been better to wait until both of them got home that afternoon, nevertheless says, It’s Grandfather Portulinus, the German one we never met because he went back to Europe, And what does that have to do with anything, Tina, did someone bring news that he was dying in Europe? I guess they did, she lies, but never mind, go finish your exam, and when Bichi is already far away, she shouts, Lies, Bichito, Grandfather Portulinus has nothing to do with this, what I came to tell you is that tonight my father will hit you.