I was going to go to Ponce de León to check on Charo, but I thought I’d better not. I headed home, went up on the roof. I smoked. I could see the docks from there. I closed my eyes, hard. Very hard.
Charo spent the money for the ticket to Ecuador on the funeral. Not the money for the operation. She didn’t say much during those days. She didn’t even go out on Thursday, which is her best night. Finally, on Friday, she got dressed and was about to leave.
“Stay,” I told her. “I’ll cover your ticket. You know—”
“I’ll pay for my cunt myself,” she said, and she didn’t say anything else.
The cable company had cut the building’s stolen connections, and all we got was channel six. It was showing a black-and-white movie and I sat down to watch it. It was Santurce a long-ass time ago. I knew because of the Metro Cinema and the Labra School. The Ponce de León was full of people, many wearing hats. And that’s when I heard the bark. I thought it was the TV, but no. Another bark. I looked out. It was Lázaro’s dog. Furious.
That fucking dog, what does he want? I thought.
It wasn’t barking at my building. I thought it was a cat or something, but then I saw it was barking at my truck, which I’d parked out front. It went up and sniffed it. And it barked again.
“Shit, shit, shit. Fucker, get out of here, fucker,” I said in a low voice, as if the dog could hear me.
If I go out there, it’s going to come bite me, the motherfucker. But if Charo comes and sees it barking at my truck, she’ll know something. I went in and turned off the TV so I could think. Shit. If I club it, it’s going to squeal and people will tell Charo. I went to look for a broom or something to use. There was no other way. I could kill it with one stone if I threw it hard enough. Papi had killed a dog once with a pick because it pissed on his car tires, and it didn’t squeal. Mami had covered my eyes and ears.
Damnit, I said to myself, fucking shit.
Then something occurred to me. I went to the freezer, pulled out a piece of meat, and grabbed the bat from the back door. I went out. I looked around and there was nobody. The bulbs in the streetlights were still fucked. The dog saw me and went quiet. It lowered its head. Its problem wasn’t with me. It looked at me, it looked at the meat in my hand, it looked at the truck.
Once, when we had cable, Charo and I watched a competition of people who looked like their dogs on Don Francisco. Charo, dying of laughter, said: “If my brother went on with his dog, he’d win. They’re the same. And look, they’re giving a thousand bucks. Overdose.”
It did look like Lázaro, in how its eyes and head were always down. In how skinny it was, how black. I stretched out my hand and showed it the meat. It thought about it for a second, but eventually went over. I let it eat until it was done, and boom.
The bag weighed more than I remembered. Clearly it had died very satisfied, the fucker. Like Lázaro.
Saint Michael’s Sword
by Wilfredo J. Burgos Matos
Blessed Michael, Archangel,
defend us in the hour of conflict;
be our safeguard against the wickedness
and snares of the devil
At that time Michael, the great prince who
stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise.
Yo voy a pedir, oye, por usted.
Yo voy a pedir por todo a mi San Miguel.
Río Piedras
Ángel knew that as soon as he turned away from the light at the end of the tunnel, pain awaited him on the other side of Avenida Gándara. If it hadn’t been for the forceful whisper of his favorite song, floating to his ear from the cantina on the corner, he never would have awoken from what he thought was his voyage to eternity. Ramiro, to whom he’d sworn his love two months earlier, was the last image he remembered when he opened his eyes around noon on Friday. There was no clear indication as to how he got there, and he was almost bleeding out, his right side shot through with a bullet from an AK-47. Panicked, he hobbled toward the house of his sister Mariela, who was a nurse, to get fixed up and to find the culprit.
“Mari, open up, please. Open the fucking door,” he moaned from the depths of his intestines.
“I’m coming, let me change the baby,” she answered calmly.
“Hurry up, I’m dying!”
Mariela came outside, desperation spilling from her eyes. She knew Ramiro was involved.
“I told you to stop seeing that guy, that nothing good would come of it. Look how he just left you for dead. Wait till I get my hands on him,” she rambled furiously, unable to stop talking even to catch her breath.
Ángel just looked at her and attempted to stay alert, but he was very tired. Bleeding, he’d already walked halfway across Río Piedras to arrive at the García Ubarri housing project. Yet he was also full of anticipation. He knew he’d be able to get revenge for the attempted murder, but he needed to find the perpetrator and Ramiro — he had to know something. There was an unease hiding behind the cover of night that was settling over San Juan, producing a sinister halo from the streetlights over the pavement. It gave him peace knowing that the darkness would hide his next moves until he was able to settle the score. Ángel wanted to take justice into his own hands.
A few hours later, after resting and drinking a chamomile tea, he left, even as Mariela implored him to spend the night. He barely heard her, the tingling along his spine gnawing at his conscience. He wanted to silence the agonizing hum assaulting his ears. Evil voices whispered to him from distant depths. With rage in every pore and experiencing vengeful pangs of melancholy, he followed his instincts.
He crossed the street in front of his sister’s house and headed south down Calle Georgetti until he came to the corner of Avenida Ponce de León. There he ran into Lutgardo, the greatest diva ever born in the Caribbean. If it weren’t for his ten-dollar blow job specials, Lutgardo’s daughter Roberta would be eating dirt and water with chikungunya-carrying mosquitoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Thank God there was something in the school cafeterias for his offspring. Lutgardo, who had lost his wife at just the right time to freely and fiercely suck each and every cock that crossed his path, had been liberated, literally, by the death of the greatest dumbass in America. His wife had tolerated his nocturnal outings and taken the money for the girl they had procreated.
“Hija de puta, how the fuck are you even here? You’re gonna make me faint! Who gave you mouth-to-mouth? Did you know that Alejandro sucked you off while you were bleeding to death? It all happened so fast that the police just left you lying there, to see who’d feel bad for you!” Lutgardo yelled like a bitch in heat.
“Lower your voice, coño, you’re always such a loudmouth. I just left my sister’s house, she fixed me up. Do you know what happened last night? I wanna know who had the balls to do this to me. What’ve you heard from Ramiro?” Ángel was worried.