The cold water and persistent wind, less hot on the coast, the tireless waves and sun already descending on a corner of the horizon, had perhaps kept the faithful away, and the Count didn’t find the colony of drop-outs he’d expected on that inhospitable rocky beach, as peripheral and forlorn as its usual clientele. Two couples went on making love in the sea at the wrong temperature and rhythm, and a group of youths skinny as stray dogs chatted next to some shrubs.
“They must be drop-outs, right, Conde?” Manolo asked when the lieutenant came out of the sea and returned to the rock.
“I expect so. It’s not a good day for a swim. Better if you come to philosophize.”
“Drop-outs are no philosophers, Conde, don’t try that one.”
“In their own way, they are, Manolo. They don’t want to change the world, but try to change life, and they start with themselves. They couldn’t care less about anything, or almost anything, and that’s the philosophy they try to transfer into praxis. I swear by my mother it sounds like a philosophical system.”
“Tell that to the drop-outs. Hey, aren’t drop-outs just hippies?”
“Yes, but a postmodern variety.”
Manolo gave the chief his shoes back and sat down next to him, looking out to the sea.
“What did you expect to find here, Conde?”
“I’ve really no idea, Manolo. Perhaps a reason to smoke pot or snort a line of coke and feel that life is on a headier level. When I sit down like this and look at the sea, I sometimes think I’m living the wrong life, that it’s one big nightmare, and I’m about to wake up but can’t open my eyes. A load of shit, right? I’d really like to talk to these drop-outs, though I know they won’t tell me anything new.”
“Shall we give it a go?”
The Count looked at the youths on the coast and the couples still clasped together in the water. He tried to dry his feet on his hands and moved his fingers as if he were blowing a trumpet or a saxophone. He decided to stuff his socks in a pocket and put on his shoes.
“Off we go then.”
They got up and took the best route through the rocks to get to the group talking and smoking under the high shrubs. There were four men and two women, all very young, scruffy-haired and half-starved, with a touch of grace in their eyes. Like all members of a sect they felt sectarian, because they knew they were the chosen few, or at least thought they did. Chosen by whom and why? Another philosophical issue, thought the Count, who came to a halt less than a metre away from the group.
“Can you give me a light?”
The youths, who tried to ignore the presence of the two intruders, looked at them and the one with the longest hair held out a box of matches. The Count made two abortive attempts, finally lit up and returned the matches to their owner.
“Would you like a cigarette?” he followed up, and the long-haired guy smiled.
“Told you so, didn’t I?” And he looked at his companions. “The police always try the same trick.”
The Count looked at his cigarette as if he’d found it particularly satisfying, and took another puff.
“So you don’t want one? Thanks for the matches. How did you tell we are police?”
One of the girls, her chest as flat as the pampas and with desperately long legs, looked up at Conde and put a finger to her nose.
“It’s a smell we’re familiar with. We’ve trained our sense of smell…” And she smiled, convinced of her wit.
“What do you want?” enquired Long Hair, in his putative role as tribal chieftain.
The Count smiled and felt strangely at ease.
“To talk to you,” he replied and sat down very close to the paladin. “You’re drop-outs, aren’t you?”
Long Hair smiled. It was clear that he knew all the likely questions forthcoming from the policemen that pestered them now and then.
“I’ll make a suggestion, Mr Policeman. As you’ve no reason to put us inside and as we don’t like talking to police as a rule, we’ll answer any three questions you care to ask, and then you can clear off. Agreed?”
The Count’s group spirit stirred inside him: he could also be sectarian and as a policeman he wasn’t used to accepting conditions when it came to putting questions he would blast out if necessary to extract all the answers he required. It wasn’t for nothing he was a policeman and that his tribe was the one with the force and even legal sanction to repress. But he held back.
“Agreed,” the Count concurred.
“Yes, we are drop-outs,” stated Long Hair. “Second question.”
“Why are you drop-outs?”
“Because it’s what we like. Everyone’s free to be whatever he wants, baseball player, cosmonaut, drop-out or police. We like being drop-outs and living as we think fit. It’s no crime till the contrary is proved, true or not? We don’t bother anyone, don’t take anything from anyone, and don’t like anyone forcing us to do anything. That’s democratic, don’t you reckon? You’ve got one left.”
The Count looked longingly at the bottle of rum shoehorned into a hollow in the rock. This oracle of passive democracy was going to beat him cleanly at his own game, and he saw why Long Hair was the natural leader of that crew.
“I’d like an answer from her,” and he pointed at the titless streak who smiled, flattered by this police interest that gave her a protagonist’s role. “Is that agreed?”
“It’s agreed,” agreed Long Hair, practising his selfproclaimed democratic policies.
“What do you expect from life?” he asked, throwing his fag end seawards.
Swept up by the wind, his cigarette performed a high parabola and boomeranged back to the rocks, as if to show escape was impossible. The Count scrutinized the woman he’d questioned as she thought up a reply: if she’s intelligent, the Count told himself, she will attempt to philosophize. Perhaps she’ll say life is something you find though you never lost it, at a time and place that are arbitrary, with parents, relatives and even neighbours that are forced upon you. Life’s one big mistake, and the saddest thing she could say, thought the Count, is that nobody can change it. At most, separate it out from everything, disconnect it from family, society and time as far as you can, and that’s why they were drop-outs, you know?
“Should one expect anything from life?” the skinny bint said finally looking at her leader. “We expect nothing from life.” And her reply struck her as so intelligent that she showed her friends the palm of her hand, like a victorious athlete, ready to receive the salutations the others granted with a smile. “Just live it and end of story,” she added taking another look at the inquisitive intruder.
The Count glanced at Manolo who was standing very close to him and held out a hand so that his colleague could help him up. Back on his feet he looked down on the group. It’s too hot in this country for philosophy to take seed, he told himself, as he shook his hands sticky with sand and salt water.