I put the ladder up against the garden wall and took another drink for courage. I began to climb, holding a bowl of croquettes; I was stretching to place it on top of the wall when I was knocked back by a sudden weight collapsing on my neck; I scratched at the air, my back slammed down against the turf. It was better not to move for a bit. I breathed. Wilson climbed on my chest, cuddled up, and quickly fell asleep in spite of the drizzle. How many more kilos had he gained in the past week?
A court decision forced me to deal with business matters and discover that my partners had cheated me out of my share. Lazy in the comfort of her pension, my mother, in a tone of retroactive warning, said, “The idea was to sell over time, hijo.” According to her, I had my father’s tendency to think I was clever, like most gringos in Latin America. Then she issued another warning, this time in a more severe tone: “And don’t sell the house!” Although it was already mine and I had power of attorney, it would be best to claim it as an inheritance when she died.
The truth is, I’d already sold it. Twenty days before turning in the keys, I went looking for a carrier to take Wilson back to Dallas with me. (The only suitable one I could find was actually designed for rottweilers.) I boxed things up, dealt with the furniture, and packed my luggage.
One wretched Saturday afternoon, it grew cold outside and looked like it was going to rain. I wanted another drink but couldn’t find a single drop in any of my bottles. To top things off, not even the cat was home. Then I heard him when he dropped onto the roof of the shed, and by the time I got to the garden he was already coming down the trunk of the palm tree, his second stop before touching ground. I grabbed him by an eyetooth and carried him up to my room, where I let him loose and closed the door. “Stop trying to crawl under the bed, you already know you don’t fit,” I advised. So he jumped on the blankets, curled up, and pretended he was asleep. Very well. I looked for his brush and began to comb his head. I remembered that the sonic frequency of a cat’s purr is capable of destroying cancer cells.
A few nights later, much worse-after another bad calculation regarding the content of my bottles-the screams coming from Spots no longer sounded like she was in heat. She was hungry and cold. After my fall, I was no longer enthused about climbing to leave her food. She’d been on her own for the last week. When I could, I’d leave croquettes for her on the roof of the shed, but it wasn’t easy for her to get up there. Wilson invariably finished her rations.
That night, however, I heard Spots jump from the garden wall to the roof of the shed. It was a dull thud, weak in comparison to the thunder from Wilson’s heavier impact. Wilson began dozing while I went out to investigate. I ascended the ladder, and there was Spots, eating what was left of the croquettes. She saw me and immediately began flirting. She meowed and purred and rubbed her body on the roof. I went back down for a slice of ham, returned, and tossed her a small piece. She ate it quickly, so I tossed her another. Each time, I dropped the pieces of ham a little closer to me. I talked to her about the weather, I told her it was cold and that it would rain again soon, and that it’d be better to go home or allow herself to be caught. The stepladder started shaking and I could hardly maintain control as Spots munched away. I suddenly lunged and caught her by the flea collar and was able to grab the scruff of her neck; I don’t know how I managed to avoid falling with that cat. There were kicks, scratches, howls; looks that said, I will never trust a human being ever again. I wanted to snatch the phone and the neighborhood directory at the same time, without letting go of her. I ended up using Wilson’s rottweiler carrier. That’s how I should have begun.
There was a gun collection on the wall. A huge rifle with a scope. No hunting trophies. The gringo seemed proud of his little mahogany bar lined with bottles. He fixed cocktails for both of us. Instead of toasting, he merely said, “Boozing time.”
Drinking hour, I said to myself, and then, like him, I nearly downed the full cocktail in one swig.
He asked about Alice. Her? Fine. I would be going back to the United States soon. I pointed to the carrier in which I’d brought back his cat. That’s for transporting my Wilson. The gringo finished another drink. I did the same.
“I’ve never seen a bigger cat,” he said. I agreed: if he were any bigger, he’d be in some museum as the live part of a Paleolithic diorama.
Not a muscle moved on the man’s face. His gaze was intimidating. There were moments when I wanted to leave, but another drink-or perhaps my fear of simply excusing myself, grabbing Wilson’s carrier, and taking off-kept me in my seat. I had a feeling that the old man was using my visit as an excuse to start some kind of party. From the moment I arrived with Spots, I noticed an eagerness that I first thought was relief at his pet’s rescue. His offer of a drink seemed natural under the circumstances, and fortunate, given the alcohol deficiency at home.
The gringo left his place by the little bar and moved over to his turntable. He put on a record by an American band. “You like Miller?” he asked without smiling, and then took a couple of dance steps, also without smiling.
“Yes, of course I do.”
He turned up the volume and pressed some buttons, concentrating on equalizing the sound. I looked with greater focus at the wall with the gun collection. One could almost imagine the sudden appearance of a red deer or buffalo head. In their place, I noticed photographs; the light from the little bar barely reached them.
I frequently think back to what happened during those three years in Mexico, and especially that night. Imprisonment in a Texas jail provokes obsessions that wouldn’t develop in other places, I suppose, including other jails. Here, the looming presence of death row and its dead men walking make for a different atmosphere. The proximity of the execution room and the condemned bring the past to life, the one that ends here.
Up close, I could see that the photos were of the gringo when he was young: as a soldier in the Second World War; dressed in civilian clothes, next to armed companions; receiving a trophy and, below, a sign that said The Perfect Marksman; finally, standing next to a freshly shot animal. There were also photos of John F. Kennedy: with Marilyn Monroe, with Sinatra, with his brother Robert, when he was in the military. Even one in which Kennedy looks like a cadaver, he’s so thin. And one more, a picture of Kennedy next to his wife in a convertible; below it, in an arduous scribble and barely legible in the weak light: Dallas, Texas, and the date, November 1963. The gringo appeared behind me and asked if it would bother me if he repeated “American Patrol.” No, I replied, then returned to my seat. I was talking carelessly, fueled by alcohol and my host’s silence; the fact that he wasn’t saying anything made me anxious. He was one of those people who hide their emptiness in silence. I spoke about Kennedy, alluding to the photos on the wall; I noted that not even the government’s commission investigating his death had been able to prove in any credible way that there was only a lone gunman. I talked about Alice, how we’d stayed friends even after we married; about Wilson and his ability to smile. I had my hypothesis: this would be the next ability that cats developed in human society; smiling, let’s say, as an extension of purring. An evolutionary leap to become even more desired and nurtured by humans. A resource, a new survival strategy. The gringo looked on, shrugging his shoulders. When I talked to him about Kennedy, I thought he’d at least explain the photos, but he barely blinked. He seemed to get more interested when I first mentioned Alice, but faded again once it became evident I wasn’t offering any intimate details. I only remember him saying one complete sentence: “So you’re Texan, from Dallas, right?” I thought it would lead to something, but he simply kept drinking.