by Matt Whyman
Before I could stop him, Alberto had come round beside me. I tried to stop him from lifting my top to find the buckle, and that’s when he just took over.
‘Mother of God, what has happened to you?’
‘Nothing.’ I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go.
‘Sonny, those bruises … was it Jairo?’
‘No!’
‘Yes, it was. Of course it was him! Don’t lie to me, Sonny!’
‘I can handle it,’ I pleaded, again when he snatched the pistol from the holster. ‘Please, Alberto!’
I tried to grab his arm, but he shook me off. I knew where he was heading as he stormed from the apartment, and a wave of shame and panic crashed over me. My friend had the gun now, and I had nothing. Not even my pride.
‘Open this door.’ Alberto was standing outside my apartment, looking strangely calm as he waited for me to let him in. Keeping up had been a struggle, but somehow it felt like I was under orders now. I had barely twisted the key full circle before my friend burst in so forcefully the door slammed back against the inside wall.
‘What the hell is this?’ Jairo was still at the table. He didn’t leave his seat to confront him, however, but to back away. My uncle had yet to hang the curtain again, which gave him a clear view of Alberto advancing on him with the gun in his hand. ‘Jesus Christ!’ He ripped off his glasses, as if they had just fogged on him. Tell me that isn’t real!’
‘Sit down.’
Ignoring the request, and panicked by this locomotive coming across the room, Jairo grabbed the roll of parcel tape and flung it at him. The roll hit Alberto in the face, but it was my uncle who shrank away as if he had taken the blow himself.
‘Let’s talk this through sensibly. Put the gun down, my friend. I’m begging you!’
‘Yeah? Begging is all you’re good for, little man.’
By now my uncle had backed into the corner beside the window. He was clawing at the wall, looking for any way out. If Alberto was here to scare him some, he had done his job already.
‘Please, Sonny,’ he cried, appealing to me now. ‘I’m sorry for what happened last night, really I am. I was a little drunk and I will never forgive myself, but please don’t let it come to this. Please!’
Once again my uncle’s chest got the better of him, and he broke into a volley of coughs that sounded like sobbing. Alberto went closer and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Calm down,’ he ordered, and promptly slipped the muzzle of the gun inside his mouth. Immediately, my uncle stopped coughing and started whimpering instead. Just relax, Jairo, do you hear? Don’t cry. Don’t let yourself down. Be cool.’
‘Alberto, cool it yourself!’ I wanted to haul him away, but it was plain that nothing would stop him now.
‘Chew on it,’ he suggested quietly, like this was a medicine. ‘That’s right. Yeah. Now we understand each other.’
I was standing beside the curtains, afraid I might collapse all over again. Jairo looked at me with eyes wide and white, and began to sink to the floor. I realised Alberto was guiding him down, putting pressure on the gun until he had him on his back.
There, he cocked the hammer, said: ‘You’re probably wondering if I can use this, huh?’
‘Oh God, no.’ I began shaking my head. ‘Brother, please don’t.’
‘Let me tell you,’ he went on, ‘I had some serious doubts myself, but they made my first hit easy for me. The guy I had to cap was strapped to a fence, all beat up and spread out like a chicken. You know what they did to him next, Jairo?’ He paused, and with his free hand traced a finger across his throat. ‘They sliced him. Man, they went from ear to ear. I watched the whole thing, didn’t see I had a choice, even when they pulled his tongue down through the wound so it’s hanging out like a necktie. I had no idea something like that could be done. I didn’t understand how anyone could even think of such a thing! So, I’m looking at this poor guy as he suffocates on himself. He’s trying to scream but it just makes the blood bubble … and that’s when they told me to whack him.’
This was Alberto we were listening to here. My best friend from way back, telling us the story in such detail I wondered if this was the first time he had ever put it into words. It felt like we were hearing some kind of unbearable confession, something you wouldn’t even dare reveal to a priest.
Alberto glanced over his shoulder, said, ‘Sonny, you have to understand I didn’t want to cap the poor guy. I didn’t want to kill anyone. But the way they had got him already, it was the kindest thing to do. He was dying there, a slow, humiliating death, right in front of all these people.’
‘For the love of Christ, Alberto!’ I dropped my hands and spread them, still dealing with the most immediate horror here. ‘Take the gun out of his mouth.’
Alberto looked back at Jairo, and appeared to take a second to remember why my uncle was down there on the floor, sucking on a gun. He sighed to himself, tipped his head to one side and said: ‘I was putting him out of his misery, that’s all. I was doing the right thing, wasn’t I?’
This time he really was seeking some kind of assurance, his voice sounding more tightly strung than ever. Jairo just carried on looking up at him, his horrified face frozen around that pistol.
‘You did what you had to do,’ I said at last, struggling to keep it together as I told him what I thought he wanted to hear. My mouth felt bone dry, and I licked my lips before reaching out to touch his elbow. ‘But you don’t have to do that here.’
Alberto heard me out but he didn’t take his eyes from my uncle. I tried to ease him away, my hand guiding him gently backwards. It was the wrong move this time, I realised, for he shook me off and flexed his finger inside the trigger guard. Uncle Jairo began to moan and breathe in spasms, like his lungs had shrunk and he couldn’t keep the air inside.
‘Ever I’m asked to kill a man now,’ Alberto said next. ‘I just have to think of my first time. I don’t care what the guy has done so wrong to earn the hit. That’s none of my business. All I know is that by taking his shitty life away I’ll be helping him out somehow.’ At last, but without warning, Alberto removed the muzzle from my uncle’s mouth. He wiped his brow with his forearm, took a second away with his thoughts. ‘So long as I don’t get my vest messy,’ he said finally, ‘my job is done.’
My uncle tried to speak, to utter thanks, but the air he gulped down just overwhelmed him. Alberto watched him fight for breath, then returned to my side. He put his gun hand between my shoulder blades. I could feel it in his grasp as he patted me on the back.
‘Don’t ever mess with your nephew again, you hear?’ Jairo switched his attention to me next, but I couldn’t look him in the eye. I just told Alberto we should leave now. For the first time since we had come into the apartment, he did as I asked. I didn’t look at my friend as he passed. I found it hurt to breathe once again, even though I’d barely moved, but that was nothing compared to Uncle Jairo. As I turned for the door, I heard him mutter, ‘Asshole kids,’ which is when Alberto spun back and shot him.
It happened as suddenly as a lightning strike. No pause for thought. No last warning. He just wheeled around in front of me and squeezed off a shot over my shoulder. The report from the gun brought me to my senses: an almighty snap that stayed in my ear so the scream that followed sounded like it was coming from another room. I turned back again and saw my uncle wrapped around his left foot. He had blood seeping through his fingers and looked both stricken and astonished.
‘You shot me!’ he howled, like we couldn’t see that for ourselves. ‘You really shot me!’
‘So maybe I should’ve aimed higher!’ screamed Alberto, his voice breaking up once more. ‘We may just be asshole kids to you, Jairo, but what does that matter? We’ve got the gun! Right now, I decide if you live or die, but if I’m honest you don’t deserve to be sent any place. You should be here, with Sonny and his mother, repaying them for taking you in.’
Alberto looked at me, shrugged like this was out of his ha
nds now, and said he had to go. I felt like I was one step behind him in every way. I was in a daze, still struggling with the fact that he had raised a pistol to my uncle. That he had actually fired it just seemed so incredible. In this city, gunshots were as common as car horns. I had seen bodies in the street, ringed off with police tape, but this was the first time I ever saw someone get hit. I had never been this involved before, and it blew me away.
‘What about the bullet?’ I gasped, remembering what Alberto had told me. ‘They’re keeping count!’
Alberto looked at the gun, and laughed right out of nowhere. It was as startling as the shot itself, and over in a flash, like some devil inside him had momentarily got a grip. I wondered what had gone through his mind when he pulled the trigger, or if he’d even had time to think at all. He turned to me once again, and told me not to worry myself.
‘What matters is I didn’t waste the shot, Sonny. Now get him to hospital, tell your uncle to say he did it to himself, fooling with a friend.’ He stopped there, glared at Jairo if to shut him up, and began to nod at what he was thinking. ‘Tell us what happened to you, man. What’s your story for the doctors and nurses?’
My uncle glanced up, his cheeks glistening, and his eyes pinched in pain. ‘I … I can’t say … What you’re asking—’
‘Speak clearly!’ Alberto insisted, playing with him now. ‘You’re gibbering!’
‘I shot myself in the foot!’ wailed Jairo. ‘I shot myself, all right?’
Alberto stood down with the gun, and asked me for the holster. He looked kind of restless now, not just here in my apartment but inside his own skin. Despite the pain, I unbuckled the strap without any help. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get it off.
‘I’ll see you later, brother,’ he said, collecting it from me. He nodded at my uncle. ‘Are you OK with him?’ He waited for me to answer, taking stock of me. I nodded, my teeth gritted tight to stop them from chattering. I could hear my uncle weeping now, and wished my friend would just leave. I loved him as a brother, but now I saw him in a new light. I needed space to take it in. Finally, he moved towards the door, only to stall and reach for his back pocket. ‘I was thinking, Sonny maybe you should look after my match ticket, like you did with the piece.’ He glanced at my uncle, making sure he remained out of earshot. ‘Way I see things, it’s one less thing to worry about.’
9
The emergency room at San Vicente de Paul Hospital is a crazy place. People from every barrio went there, including their gang members. Looking for a space when we arrived, I half expected a war to break out at any moment. I couldn’t work out what was stopping them from killing each other, but for the need to get patched up. Then I figured maybe Jairo was right. Sometimes it was best just to keep your head down and not ask questions.
Luckily, my uncle was seen quickly, mostly because his breathing had got so tight, and with no questions asked about how his foot had been nicked by a bullet.
‘Nicked?’ he said, sounding like he’d lost once again. ‘It’s still a gunshot!’
Once he had been checked out, we were told to sit in the waiting area and a nurse would call him to dress the wound. Uncle Jairo was still in an almighty mood as I helped him to a bench at the back, but at least time passed quick enough. There was just such a lot going on: all that noise and blood and emotion, so much life and so much death.
My uncle barely had a good word for anyone, except the intern who came over with painkillers. Most of the time he sat there muttering to himself, though his whispers broke up one time and he started sobbing again. It was a bit embarrassing as a lot of people started looking at us, but mostly I felt for Jairo. The way he breathed in pitiful snatches made me think this went down deeper than the shooting, and I tried to comfort him. I put my arm around his shoulders, and that brought him to his senses.
‘Don’t be a faggot!’ He shrugged me away smartly, and scrubbed his cheeks with his shirt-sleeve. ‘Haven’t you disappointed me enough already, Sonny?’
I felt bad about what had happened, but at least my bones stopped aching after Jairo offered me the extra pill he’d been given in case the pain got any worse. He may have been mad at me, but I guess in the end he also felt responsible for different reasons. The effects were strong, but I didn’t complain. It also made it easier for us both to sit together against that hard wall and watch people come and go. We saw a lot of victims in the hour or so we were there, from what could’ve been muggings and road accidents, stabbings, fist-fights and some bullet wounds more serious than ours. Some walked in, many arrived on stretchers wearing masks and tubes and all sorts.
When a nurse finally called for my uncle I expected him to snap at her for being made to wait so long. Instead, he accepted her apology without complaint, as if being here had opened his eyes to a few things. I stood up to go with him, but he insisted that I stay behind. The nurse invited him to ease into a wheelchair, and he even nodded at me as she wheeled him backwards through the crowds. I figured old Jairo was relieved to be in good hands. I just wished I could have said the same thing for myself.
All alone, in this hot and crowded space, I went back to fretting that the peace simply could not last. I tried hard not to think about it, but there were just too many faces dotted around who looked like they might be packing. It was as if my life no longer had a safety catch, thanks to Alberto, and now I saw danger everywhere. That he had even got his hands on a gun was a big deal for me. To see him pull the trigger was something else. My life had gone on hold when that bullet whistled past my ear, and when it started again things were different. Everything had changed. For me, that gun stopped being something to admire, like a toy that everyone wanted, and become a tool that made things happen. Until then, all those days Alberto got called away were just blank spaces. Now I began to fill them with the kind of tale he had shared with us. I would’ve accused him of cooking up that horror story just to scare my uncle, but he had gone on to shoot him so calmly that it was clear he knew how to handle himself. Thinking back on that moment, I realised Alberto knew what he was going to do before I had even turned the key in the lock, and that left me in awe of him.
Just then I wished I owned a weapon as well. I wanted the confidence it had given him, also the control. I had no regrets about keeping the pistol holstered the night before. Despite being knocked around, I had at least kept my promise to Alberto. Had it belonged to me, I decided, my uncle wouldn’t be here in hospital but on a slab in the morgue.
I pressed my head back against the wall, wishing they would hurry up with Jairo. Every time I caught someone’s eye it made me brood again, so I studied the overhead fan instead. It cut the air so slow that a layer of dust had settled on each blade. I even considered going outside for some fresh air. I could handle the antiseptic. It smelled good, in fact – strong, clean – but the din in here was making me tense again. I didn’t mind the chatter and the arguments, the alarm bells and beepers. What really got to me were the agonising screams coming from a room along one of the corridors.
It was a woman, I felt sure of that, but I had no way of knowing what was going on. At first it just added to the noise, but over the course of half an hour those screams grew louder, more urgent and frightened. One time the door opened for a moment and everyone in the waiting room could clearly hear her begging for this ordeal to be over. People stirred and scratched their necks, keeping themselves out of it, but now I didn’t care about attracting attention. I had to hop off the bench and take a better look. What I saw was a man dressed up in a pale blue gown, looking like he’d left that room just to breathe again. He was doing his best to keep out of the way of all the doctors and trolleys, but didn’t seem to know which way to turn. He was wearing casual clothes underneath, as if he’d arrived here in a hurry, which made me wonder if the guy was about to become a father. It all fell into place for me then, and I tutted to myself for assuming the worst.
Sitting back again, I turned my attention to the reception desk. A kid my age had just
run in, and one of the nurses was dealing with him now. She had a kind smile, and crouched so they could speak on a level. The kid was having some trouble understanding her, I think, because eventually she led him through the waiting area as if it would all make sense to him some place else. That’s when I realised the screaming had stopped. The hospital was still humming, but no sound stood out against another. I looked towards the corridor, and saw the nurse approaching the guy I had just been watching. He turned, and the boy left the nurse to race into his arms. From what I could see, both were in tears. The nurse kept her distance, but I never found out what was behind it all because my uncle returned just then, with a bandaged foot and a crutch so he didn’t have to lean on me any longer.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ he grumbled, once more looking like all this was down to me. Even so, I was only too willing to go home with him.
I left the hospital thinking scenes of birth and death could look just the same. Maybe the man in the corridor really had become a father, or perhaps his son had just lost a mother, a brother or a sister. Either way, I figured we came into this world the same way as we left: kicking and screaming, and with little choice in the matter. I decided that the guy must have stepped out at the final moment, whatever that was all about. It had been too much for me as well, and I was only watching from a distance. Now I knew just how unbearable things could be at the beginning and the end, I vowed to make the most of my life, just like Alberto. It certainly wasn’t going to happen in a waiting area, stuck with all these people.
By the time we found the main exit all I wanted to do was get out there and make my mark.
10
Alberto earned himself a tattoo that same day. It was why he’d gone off in such a hurry, I learned, when he found me out on the scrub with the rusty swings. I had been there for a while – avoiding my mother after she went crazy at my uncle and me.
‘What do you mean, you shot yourself by accident?’ she had demanded to know. ‘You need a gun to do that and so help me Jairo, I’ll put a hole through your heart myself if I ever find one here.’
