by Gonzalo Barr
I turn onto a street that ends in a canal and accelerate. I am going to get rid of this cabrón, once and for all. Before I get to the end, I brake hard. Pepe Luis goes flying into the water, and I turn the steering wheel as far as it will go, but it is too late. The lights of the house at the end of the street fly across the windshield. I hear the tires screech and a thump. Then the car tilts to the side and slides roughly down the embankment into the canal.
The car floats long enough for me to roll down the window and climb out. I am trying to swim, when I hear water gushing in through the open window and fill the inside of the car. The water laps over the hood and against the windshield. Soon, all I can see of the car are the trunk and the rear lights, still blinking, before they too go underwater. The alarm sounds muted as the car sinks deeper into the dark canal.
I am trying to swim with my work shoes on, the ones with the steel toes, but I can barely stay afloat. Then I hear someone panting. It is Pepe Luis. And I get all encojonado again and start to call him every name I can think of, starting with the letter A I see that Pepe Luis is shouting at me too, but I cannot hear him because I am working my way down the alphabet, through one insult after another. I am at the letter G when I think that here we are, Pepe Luis and me, two middle-aged men, once again treading water, trying to stay afloat, in the middle of the night.
I pull myself out of the canal and stand, feeling like I weigh a million pounds because of the wet clothes, when my son drives up and, after him, a couple of police cars. They take us all to the station, even my son.
Inside the station everything is cold. Nobody says anything to us, except to wait here. My clothes are still wet, and I start to shiver. Then a police officer takes us to a room where a sergeant is writing at a metal desk.
Although the sergeant does not ask us anything, Pepe Luis starts to talk. The police officer brings a finger to his lips and shushes him, but Pepe Luis keeps talking. The sergeant prints neatly on the form and does not look up. I have to hand it to Pepe Luis, he can talk his way out of anything. But then he always goes too far.
He says that his wife is a Santería priestess, a very powerful one, but that she was never good at aiming her spells. This is the first time I hear that his wife is a Santería anything. The sergeant stops writing and looks at Pepe Luis, who has his head down, like he is examining the linoleum floor for gaps.
So last night, Pepe Luis says, his wife was casting a spell, something she does only while he is asleep because she knows that he does not like it when she does Santería. He is a devout Catholic, he says with such a cara dura that I manage not to roll my eyes. The spell was meant to go to Cuba, he says. You know, to Fidel, but with his wife having such bad aim a little of the spell must have splashed on him while he was sleeping in the bedroom because one minute he was dreaming and the next he was sitting up in bed, then standing, a red-hot itching all over his body. And here Pepe Luis stands on one leg, then the other, pretending to scratch his chest and thighs, to show the sergeant and the police officer how hot the spell was that his Santería wife cast. He was not thinking, he says, about anything except cooling off when he ran out of the house and drove into the canal. “¡Qué va!” Pepe Luis says, looking at the officer now, the spell was so hot that when he fell into the water steam rose all around him. He was lucky that his good friend Braulio showed up to help him. And here Pepe Luis slings a bony arm around me.
I turn to Rafaelito and hope he says something, anything, because I see myself spending the night leaning against the wall of a jail cell, while Pepe Luis sleeps soundly on the floor. My son gets the message and starts to talk, but the sergeant asks him to step into another room for a moment. And while we wait, Pepe Luis does not say anything, and neither do I, which is fine with me because it is only a few moments before Rafaelito comes back and says, “OK, Pipo, we can go.”
The sky is beginning to lighten when my son drives us home. Pepe Luis sits in the back and stays quiet until we get to his house. He looks as if he is about to say something, but he must think better of it and steps out.
My son turns the car around while I watch Pepe Luis open the gate and walk to his house. All the lights are on again. The dogs are barking, but it sounds like they are tied up in the back. His wife comes out wearing a nightgown. She goes toward him, her arms open. He waves her off and walks to the driveway where the car had been.
“Wait,” I tell Rafaelito.
We watch Pepe Luis drag the heavy chain and the bumper and toss them in the toolshed. His wife calls him to come inside, but he ignores her. Pepe Luis takes off the shirt of his pajamas and walks to the collapsed roof over the laundry. His back is knotty. He is still as skinny as when we got here from Cuba on the raft.
Using both hands, he lifts the roof a few inches before his arms start to shake. Now his wife is yelling at him, “No, mi amor. ¡No!”
I get out of the car and run to Pepe Luis and put one hand between his and the other to the right.
“OK,” I say. And together we lift the collapsed roof and hold it up. Rafaelito stands on the other side of Pepe Luis. He is about to grab the edge of the roof, but I tell him to find something we can use to prop it up. I tell him to look in the toolshed, pointing to it with my chin. In the shed are blocks, sacks of concrete, two-by-fours, tools and belts, and even hard hats.
Pepe Luis starts to lose his grip, so Rafaelito grabs what is closest to him—a few concrete blocks to get some height and, upright on the blocks, the bumper of my wife’s car.
At first the roof is not very stable resting on the end of the bumper, but after a few adjustments, we set it down and let go. I stand back and wipe my hands on my tee shirt.
The roof looks funny propped up on the bumper and the concrete blocks, like modern art.
“Braulio, I was going to return the car,” Pepe Luis says. “That is the truth.”
“I left messages with your wife for you to call me, and you never did.”
“Clara is terrible about giving me any messages.”
“I left messages on your answering machine.”
“You did? I have told the children not to play with that machine.”
“Rafaelito and I came by—”
“Really, Braulio—”
“And what about the car alarm and the chain?”
“A lot of cars are stolen around here. When I heard the alarm, I did not know it was you.”
“You are making all this up. Pepe Luis.”
“I swear on my children’s heads,” he says, kissing the tips of his fingers. “May lighting strike me down this instant if I am not telling you the truth.”
“And what about that?” I say, pointing at the shed. “Do you plan to return the hard hats and the tools? What about those sacks of concrete?”
Pepe Luis is quiet. I am thinking that replacing the car will cost me a lot less than admitting to my wife that she was right about him.
Now his eyes are teary. He is very emotional. He gets excited about all sorts of things, like when a neighbor complained about his keeping a rooster in the backyard. Pepe Luis could not understand that most people do not want to be awakened at 3:00 in the morning by the crowing of an old rooster. He wipes his face with his hands. I want to show him that I am not mad, that I am willing to forgive him, so I pat his back. I can feel the bones just below his papery skin. I tell him not to worry.
“After everything we have been through,” I say, “what is a car? Even if it means my having to put up with my wife and her long face for another week or two.” And I force a chuckle, just to show Pepe Luis that I mean it. He nods and turns. And he hugs me.
Now I wish he were not so emotional.
“Come on,” I tell Pepe Luis, and I try to break the hug, but he will not let go. I am thinking that Pepe Luis will have to release me eventually. Then Rafaelito and I will be able to go home and get some sleep. I am thinking this when Clara and the children come and spread their arms around us. I look at Rafaelito for help, but he is looking away. Th
ere is nothing I can do. So I pat Pepe Luis’s back and keep my eyes fixed on the ground.
And while everyone is hugging and crying, I remember that I know a man who is selling a car cheap. Not an old cacharro. A Honda, I think. I promise myself to call the man tomorrow, maybe even today. It is Sunday, I know, but I am sure he will not mind my calling him on his day off, especially after I tell him what happened to my wife’s car.
Coup d’État
1.
When the elevator doors opened, I saw my neighbor sitting next to the front door of the condo that he shared with his wife. They were in their late twenties and did not have any children. Their apartment faced the elevators, so you knew it when they fried fish or had an argument. Their arguments went something like: Yes you did, No I didn’t, Yes you did, No I didn’t.
My neighbor wore a pair of expensive running shoes, shiny black gym shorts, a gray sweatshirt, and a baseball cap backwards. Every piece of clothing had the same logo and looked pristine. He sat with his knees close to his face.
I walked toward my own condo and turned the corner when I heard his wife’s voice. “I’ve never met anyone so egotistical.”
I peeked around the corner. His wife held a key with both hands and jammed it into the lock.
“This is the third time this week that you forgot your keys,” she said. “I can’t believe how selfish you are. You think that you are the center of the universe.”
My neighbor raised his arms, elbows out, and plugged each ear with an index finger.
The next time I saw my neighbor, we met in the lobby and rode the elevator to our floor. I had just finished my morning walk. He was holding his mail.
“Did you hear about the protests?” he said. “Everybody is protesting against Chávez. This is it. We are going to get rid of him.”
“But you just elected him.”
“I didn’t. Workers. The lower classes,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “Chávez is another Castro.”
I hardly knew my neighbor. Earlier that year, I had spoken to his wife after I discovered that she was the one who monopolized the only washing machine on the floor. She put their clothes in the washer and, once the tub filled with water, she unplugged the machine before disappearing for the rest of the day. When I figured out who it was, I knocked on their door.
She was polite and had the good looks of someone who could have been a cover girl once. I told her about the clothes. She looked at me as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. Then she slapped her forehead and apologized. But it didn’t stop. After a few more times, I pulled their wet clothes out and put mine in.
On our way up in the elevator, my neighbor introduced himself. He spoke very fast. His name was Benny, he said. He came from an old political family who had governed Venezuela for years before Chavez. He spent a semester at the London School of Economics. His classmates there called him Venny Benny on account of his nationality. A Sikh came up with the name, he said, moving his hands above his head as if he were wrapping cloth around it. His wife’s name was Iris. She was a finalist for Miss Venezuela 1992, Benny said.
That last part I could believe. We reached our floor. He took a deep breath.
After London, he went home to work for his family, but he wanted to start his own business, so he came to Miami. He sold real estate over the Internet. Exotic, pricey locales, he said. He gave me his card. Ven/Ben was the name of his company.
“How is it going?” I asked him.
“How can it be going with Chavez scaring off investors?”
“Why not go back and do something about it?” I joked.
Just then a woman wearing too much makeup appeared around the corner and called the elevator. She was the wife of a retired county judge who for years presided over a successful TV show called Gotcha! The aim of the show was to catch adulterous spouses in the act and get them to reform. Reruns still aired late at night. The judge and his wife lived down the hall from Benny. We both said hello. She smiled and nodded. Benny changed the subject and talked about his plans to take up jogging, all the while patting his stomach, sucking it in.
The judge’s wife stepped into the elevator and the doors closed.
Benny leaned close to me, and in a low voice said, “Why don’t I do something about it? Oh, but I will.” He narrowed his eyes, tapped his temple, and nodded.
For three months I did my laundry without incident. Until one Saturday afternoon, Iris caught me removing their clothes from the washer.
“Did I forget again?” she said.
Iris was barefoot. She wore a tee shirt that reached halfway down her thighs. The tee shirt lay tight and smooth against her body, showing none of the marks that suggested she wore anything underneath.
I stepped aside while she pulled their clothes out of the washer and tossed them in the dryer. She had long fingers and her tee shirt smelled faintly of lavender. She wore a ring with the biggest diamond I had ever seen. I asked her about Benny. She said that he was out working on a project.
“For his business?” I asked.
“No.” She kept putting their clothes in the dryer. The dryer drum amplified her voice. “He wants to overthrow Châvez. He is out talking to every Venezuelan he knows in Miami, organizing a protest at the consulate.”
The Venezuelan consulate was a block away from where we lived, a ten-story glass and steel building with a brutal-looking fountain in front of it made of brass rods that formed a fist of water in a bowl of gray concrete.
“He is convinced,” Iris said, “that he can overthrow the president of the republic.” She put the last of their clothes in the dryer.
I put my own clothes in the washer. When I finished, Iris was looking at me.
“Come,” she said. I followed her down the hall into their apartment.
Hanging on every wall of the living room were pictures of Iris. A large gilt-framed photograph of her standing on stage with the other pageant finalists dominated the wall behind the sofa. Iris stood in the center of the living room, turning as if she were looking at the pictures for the first time. She turned until her eyes met mine.
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll get you something to drink.” Then she went into the kitchen.
She returned with two glasses of white wine and gave me one. The other she put on the coffee table in front of her. She sat in an overstuffed chair, carefully pulling down the end of the tee shirt with both hands. I sat on the sofa and put my glass next to a large leather-bound photo album that was the centerpiece of the table.
“Benny is out a lot and I get bored,” Iris said, after taking a drink. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to. Even when Benny’s here, we don’t talk. He says I talk too much. Every night we have quiet time.”
“Quiet time?”
“Benny says he can’t think if I’m talking all the time, so starting last month, every night from eight to ten, we don’t talk to each other. No TV or music either. He thinks for two hours every night.”
She looked at my glass. I picked it up but didn’t drink.
Iris told me that she met Benny in Caracas, at an exclusive gym where every girl who wants to be a beauty queen goes to train. “It’s also a place where you can meet a good catch,” she said.
“Like Benny?” I said.
She said she recognized Benny’s last name; the rest she learned later. “You married?” she asked me.
I shook my head.
“But you have lady friends, no? You’re not gay, are you?”
“No,” I said.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she said. “I think my husband is gay. He goes weeks, and nada,” she said, motioning with her free hand as if she were wiping a slate clean.
I put my glass down.
“You know, he’s manic-depressive.” She took another drink. “He was being treated at home, but after a few public incidents, his father wanted him out of the way.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I manage. Anyway, his father helps us. He w
as a senator when I met Benny. Everybody thought he would be the next president. The way I figured it, if I wasn’t going to be Miss Venezuela at least I’d be the president’s daughter-in-law. So much for my plans.” She raised her glass as if making a toast and drank it. “His father bought this condo for us. Not bad, no?”
I looked around as I was expected to do. The furniture was trendy, probably expensive, possibly Italian. I ran my hand flat against a seat cushion.
“On his good days,” she said, “Benny can be sweet and considerate. On his manic days, no one can stop him. In his mind, there is nothing he cannot do. He is liable to fly to Caracas, take a car to Miraflores Palace, and demand that Chavez meet him on the front lawn to settle this like men.” She examined her empty glass. “When he’s down, he is a different person. He lies in bed for weeks until he smells. Won’t get up for anything, not even to take a bath. His last bout started around Christmas.”
“How is he feeling now?” I said.
“Emperor of the world.” Iris looked at my glass. “You haven’t had any wine,” she said. “Wait right there.” She stood and walked to the kitchen.
I sat back on the sofa. A few moments later Iris returned with the open bottle of wine. She refilled her glass.
“You need to drink so I can give you some more,” she said, sitting back. “I make sure Benny takes his medicine and sees the doctor.” She had a long drink. “His father pays for the treatment. He comes twice a year to see us and take care of business.”
“He works with Benny?”
“Of course not. His father has condos, bank accounts, too. Everybody with two cents in Venezuela keeps a bank account in Miami.”
“What about Benny’s real estate business?” I asked her.
“Benny’s clients are his great-aunt, who has some swampland in the northwest rife with Colombian guerrillas, and his mother, who inherited a small island so close to Guyana that it may not be Venezuelan territory. Money doesn’t interest him, though. Neither does sex, from what I can tell,” she said into her glass.
