Menardo had taken to sleeping in the bulletproof vest after university professors had been awakened by masked men and marched to the big fountain in front of the university library. The assassins shot the night watchman too, but he had lived long enough to describe the execution. With pistols buried in their victims’ stomachs, the assassins shouted, “Test this!” Of course the professors had all been communists, and the assassins were likely men working for the Police Chief’s special unit. Still, in times such as these one could not be too careful. So Menardo had slipped his silk pajamas over the vest. The vest no longer chafed or caused heat rash over his stomach. Without the vest, Menardo felt strangely exposed and somehow incomplete.
Alegría had made fun of Menardo in his vest. They no longer shared the same bed, and he was careful to remove the vest before he slipped into the velvet robe he always wore to her bedroom. She had joked about Menardo without his bulletproof vest.
“Aren’t you afraid the communists will shoot you right here?” Alegría said, laughing. Alegría had a cruel side, which his first wife, Iliana, had never had. “They have a small size for women you know.” Menardo wanted to please her. Sex required such effort now that Alegría had moved to her own bedroom. It was her design showcase, she said, but the next thing, she wanted to sleep there alone. Her excuse had been fear of pregnancy, but Menardo knew the vest he wore to bed was responsible. Still Menardo had no choice; without the vest, his sleep was lacerated with nightmares.
Iliana had been dead little more than a year and already the world had changed a great deal so she might not recognize newspaper headlines these days. The rebels rely almost entirely on dynamite. They hit key railroad and highway bridges. Last week terrorists had wired the staff car of a general called Fuentes with ten pounds of dynamite. The blast had blown away both legs and both balls and only left a flap of skin for a piss tube where his dick once was. Let that story get around. Later the rebels had scattered flyers with cruel cartoons of General Fuentes in a wheelchair with a comical dildo strapped on attempting to fuck a cunt labeled “Capitalism.” Menardo had been shaken by the bombings. He had met Fuentes on four occasions briefly. Strangely, they had once stood side by side at the Governor’s Palace urinal; Menardo had not been able to resist the compulsion to glance quickly to his left to see the size and the shape of Fuentes’s cock. To think General Fuentes had been unmanned by exploding steel fragments—the very organ Menardo had so recently seen in the men’s room—had left Menardo nauseous.
BLOOD MADNESS
MENARDO HAD ASKED TACHO what he thought about men cutting off the sex organs of other men and women. Menardo had conversations with Tacho he would never have dared with a white man. Tacho had watched Menardo in the rearview mirror as he answered. The blood fed life. Before anything you had the blood. The blood came first. At birth there was blood.
Blood was powerful, and therefore dangerous. Some said human beings should not see or smell fresh blood too often or they might be overtaken by frightening appetites. Usually Tacho said little, but on gruesome subjects, Tacho was like all the other Indians, even Menardo’s own grandfather, who relished stories about accidents and death. Menardo wanted to take advantage of Tacho’s mood to ask certain questions. Were there human sacrifices anymore? Not by the Indians, Tacho said, but the human sacrificers had not just been the Mexican tribes. The Europeans who came had been human sacrificers too. Human sacrificers were part of the worldwide network of Destroyers who fed off energy released by destruction. Menardo laughed out loud at Tacho. Tacho believed all that tribal mumbo jumbo Menardo’s grandfather had always talked about. Tacho looked at Menardo in the rearview mirror as if the laughter had insulted him, but Tacho continued.
Blood and its power had been misused by sorcerers. Long before Europeans ever appeared, the people had already disagreed over the blood and the killing. Those who went North refused to feed the spirits blood anymore. Those tribes and people who had migrated North fled the Destroyers who delighted in blood. Spirits were not satisfied with just any blood. The blood of peasants and the poor was too weak to nourish the spirits. The spirits must be fed with the blood of the rich and the royal. God the Father himself had accepted only Jesus as a worthy sacrifice.
Menardo thought Tacho had finished on the subject, but then Tacho had blamed all the storms with landslides and floods, all the earthquakes and erupting volcanoes, on the angry spirits of the earth fed up with the blood of the poor.
Menardo did not raise the subject again with Tacho. The talk of blood and spirits thirsting for blood made Menardo feel nauseous. Then later in the day the disgusting subject had been raised again by General J., who wanted to talk about castration over lunch. The general fancied himself a bit of a scholar.
Menardo was disturbed that both General J. and Tacho had been so anxious to talk about sex and blood; he expected it of Tacho, but not of the general, who was highly educated. Yet the longer the general had talked to Menardo, the more animated the general had become, and a flush had spread up his throat to his cheeks, and Menardo had thought he saw a suspicious bulge in the general’s trousers. The general had continued with a theory some French doctors had had: he speculated that the sight and smell of blood naturally excited human sex organs. Because bloodshed dominated the natural world, those inhibited by blood would in time have been greatly outnumbered by those who were excited by the blood. Blood was everywhere, all around humans all day long. There was always their own blood pumping constantly.
Here Menardo had interrupted the general to ask, surely the general was referring to savage tribes—Indians and Africans—and not to civilized Europeans? But the general had laughed and shaken his head, draining his glass and wiping his mustache on the back of his hand. “No, these are the ancestors of the French we are talking about. The cave people of France.” Menardo did not recall the nuns and the priests or even the high school teachers ever mentioning that the early ancestors of the French had lived in caves eating raw meat. But the general was an intellectual, and Menardo knew the Catholic Church was old-fashioned about modern science. The French doctors had further speculated that the sight and smell of blood of the castration caused the body to release chemical signals to the genitals so that in primitive times, the conquerors who had castrated their prisoners would immediately impregnate the geldings’ women. The general had asked Menardo to forgive him for going on so unabashedly as he had about the unpleasant subject. But the general was about to complete a scholarly treatise on the use of physical measures such as castration to subdue rebel, sub-versive, and other political deviants. General J.’s main thesis was that only the body remembered. The mind would blank out. Tortured nerves and veins had a memory; what the torturers did to prisoners was to make human time bombs. General J. believed the best examples of the Nazi torture work were Jews who proclaimed themselves survivors. Because their bodies had carried cruel memories for years and years, and when the Jews thought they were home free, and safe, then the time bomb went off and they committed suicide.
The general’s other theory was that man had learned the use of rape through the observation of the sexual behavior of stallions in wild herds. The soldiers of the invading armies had simply made certain all pregnant captives had been repeatedly and violently raped until bleeding commenced. Like stallions, they replaced the aborted with seed of their own.
The talk about blood had left Menardo shaken. He tensed his muscles to feel the firm outline of the vest on his belly and chest. Oddly he had never feared wounds in his back. All he had ever been was a serious businessman, a pioneer in the world of casualty insurance. Menardo had never lifted a hand against anyone except those who had in some way threatened damage to one of Universal Insurance’s clients. Even then, Menardo himself had never touched a hair on anyone; he had always left those decisions in the hands of General J., who commanded their security services. As the president of Universal Insurance, Menardo enjoyed state-of-the-art protection around the clock. Expense was of little concern.
It would look bad for business if anything happened. Menardo had been thinking about a dealership for bulletproof vests. He liked the name Body Armor and knew it would sell strongly with his regular insurance clients. “We cover you for everything” was the slogan he would use.
Menardo began to make plans. It would be such a simple matter. He and Tacho would conduct a test. A simple but dramatic test of the bulletproof vest. By none other than himself. Menardo had studied the body armor brochures closely. Bullets had only left dark-purple bruises. Testimonials that accompanied the photographs again and again described the moment that vest users saw the end of the gun barrel and got ready to die. The velocity of the bullets had slammed them to the ground, but a miracle of high technology had given them a second chance. Menardo wanted to feel it, to experience it and to know the thrill, to see the moment of death and not have to pay.
SPIRIT MACAWS
TACHO HAD OBSERVED WHITE PEOPLE all his life. He had learned to follow Menardo’s moods and ignore whatever Menardo might say because Menardo was a yellow monkey who imitated real white men.
Tacho knew Iliana had warned Menardo many times about telling his dreams to an Indian. Tacho had been overjoyed the day Iliana took her fall. The marble stairs were imitations of the temple staircases the Indians had built. Tacho laughed all the more when the boss had married Alegría. Tacho had smelled Alegría, and he had correctly guessed the day Menardo’s new wife had gone back to fucking the Cuban, Bartolomeo. Tacho knows about the Cuban from his people living in the mountains.
Only Tacho and a few others knew about the macaw spirit beings that followed him, always roosting in nearby trees until they located Tacho again. The big blue-and-yellow birds had cruel beaks and claws. They followed Tacho wherever he went, and for a long time the big parrots refused to talk to him. Tacho stole cake from Menardo’s kitchen, and one of the blue-and-yellow birds had spoken to Tacho. The bird addressed Tacho as Wacah. Tacho was reluctant to hear any more and left the birds in the tree outside. Birds and animals that were too friendly toward humans might be sorcerer’s animals, not real animals. The blue-and-yellow macaws shrieked Tacho’s new name over and over from dawn to dusk:
“Wacah! Wacah! Wacah! Wacah! Big changes are coming!” For a long time after that, Tacho had hurried past the tree into the garage to avoid the two spirit macaws. But they had stayed high at the top of the tree and ignored Tacho, or Wacah. They refused to leave. The macaws kept reading off lists of orders, things that Tacho-Wacah must do. Tacho bribed the birds with candy, and then for two or three nights Tacho had beautiful dreams.
All Menardo’s dreams had contained the terror of a doomed man, and always the dreams were of ambush on the highway, dreams in which the cars and guards usually accompanying the Mercedes were suddenly gone. No matter how deadly the omens in the dreams, Tacho told Menardo there was nothing to fear; Tacho lied to Menardo every chance he got. Tacho watches the gradual changes in the yellow monkey. The change that the vest brought to the master and mistress’s bedroom is quite extensive and funny. They no longer fuck because Señor prefers to cower in his vest.
For weeks the vest keeps Menardo’s dreams simple and blissful. Then one night Menardo dreams of an asphalt highway in the moonlight where the white lines give way to a giant silver rattlesnake warming itself on the pavement. Menardo screams at Tacho, but he can’t brake. The car tires explode as they tear into the huge snake, hurling bloody chunks of reptile skin and flesh against the car windshield. Tacho says no need to worry, the giant snake is from the Bible, and it is good luck for Christians to kill serpents. But after the dream, Menardo can no longer eat red meat. He is haunted by a smear of reptilian tissue across glass. The sight of reptile scales makes Menardo’s skin crawl. Menardo proceeds with plans to experiment with the vest. If Tacho is going to assist in the test, Menardo wants him to understand a little. Menardo opens the brochure and points at a series of pictures of white men without shirts.
“Look! See?” Menardo’s fat brown forefinger slides over the white man’s left nipple. “The big dark spot! Right there!”
Tacho looked, then nodded slowly.
“A criminal shot him with a .38 special, but the vest saved him!” Menardo pats his own chest over his pajamas.
Tacho is cautious. “This very same vest?”
Menardo is suddenly impatient. “No, not this one, but one just like it. So today,” he says with a flourish, “today, my friend, we are going to perform a scientific test!” Today they are compadres. This will be their secret. Their secret alone.
Tacho is careful to take side streets to avoid the route of Menardo’s fatal dream. Although Menardo had talked excitedly about the tests and actual cases reported in the illustrated brochure, Tacho is not sure he understands.
POLICE INTERROGATORS
THE VIDEO CAMERAS and equipment had been gifts of the United States government. Their U.S. friends were concerned about the growing political unrest in Mexico. Their U.S. friends only asked to receive duplicate tapes of the interrogations. Menardo had always envied the police chief’s extensive knowledge of electronic technology. The chief had made a point of inviting them all into the conference room to review police interrogations on video. The chief said he needed their suggestions. While the others stared at the hundreds of tiny switches and lights on the panel, the chief had waved a thick instruction manual at them, saying it was so simple and easy, even an Indian could do it. Then the chief had laughed, and they had all laughed because none of them acknowledged any Indian ancestors.
The police chief needed the suggestions of El Grupo. They could not continue these interrogations with such stupid questions for the suspects. For example, Question: Do you know why you are here? Answer: No. Question: You are lying! This was to be an anti-subversive campaign. On the video monitor the young whore’s hard, upturned breasts filled the screen in freeze-frame. He watched the ten minutes of videotape over and over, listening to the questions the junior officers had asked. Of course they were asking her how many other girls were working as she was, and whom the girls were working for. Halfhearted questions. Girls such as her did not last long on the streets. Personally, the chief thought it was better for the girls when they got taken over by a pimp.
Communism was responsible for all the young girls, and yes, young boys, lining the streets downtown, and the parking lots outside tourist hotels. The chief had always felt his work was indispensable. They lived such a great distance from the Federal District. If the police chief was not constantly vigilant, the agitators from the South would stir up trouble. The police chief began writing furiously, hitting the pause switch on the videotape deck, rolling close-ups of females’ organs across the TV screen. The chief had sent his aide away before he had noticed the colors on the screen were all wrong—all yellows, greens, oranges, and browns and blues where they should have been rose-pink or bloodred. Still, the chief had been inspired by the whipping the junior officers gave the whore with the belts of their uniforms.
The police chief complained to Vico, his wife’s brother: the Argentine interfered and often interrupted interrogations. The Argentine had persuaded them to use lipstick and makeup on the genitals so they might show up better on the video screen. All the Argentine talked about was “visual impact” or “erotic value.” Making a little on the side selling the tapes—that was one thing, so long as police work was not hindered. The chief was delighted to make money from the filthy perversions of thousands hopelessly addicted to the films of torture and dismemberment. But a short time later the police chief had an idea. The videos Vico sold to the Argentine pornographic film company were only copies. With the originals, the chief’s idea was to educate the people about the consequences of political extremism. He wanted the people to see the punishment that awaited all agitators and communists. Stern messages could be interwoven in the interrogator’s questions, something perhaps like this: Interrogator: Why are you performing traitorous acts against God Almighty and the sovereign nation of Mexico? Wha
ck! with the rubber hose across the soles of the feet.
But the Argentine cameraman did not want to be delayed while new questions were drafted for the interrogators to use. Vico was no better than the Argentine. They both only cared about a “quality product.” Vico was blunt. They didn’t use the sound track except for the prisoner’s cries or the torturer’s grunts and the sound of breaking bone. The chief canceled all interrogations and videotaping by the police until the official list of interrogation questions had been completed.
The chief purposely stayed away until his interrogation questions were completed. He prided himself on the perfection he demanded in all he undertook. But in the ten days the chief was absent, the Argentine had completely taken over. It probably was the first time the Argentine had been surrounded with such yokels. The chief despised the junior officers and their kowtowing to the Argentine. So during the ten days he had been away, they had become grinning idiots in officers’ uniforms. Whatever the Argentine told them, they did without question.
The chief looked at the report by Dr. Guzman. The Argentine had made a mess of everything. The prisoners were covered with welts, bruises, and burns. “The videos sell for more money that way,” the subordinate answered when the police chief had questioned him about the medical report.
The Almanac of the Dead Page 40
