The Iron Bridge: Short Stories of 20th Century Dictators as Teenagers

by Anton Piatigorsky

  Rafael hurries to the front door.

  “Hold it!”

  The boy clenches his jaw and faces his father with as much equanimity as he can muster. Don Pepé waves him back. Rafael approaches and stands before the rocking chair. Pepé holds out his clenched hand and indicates with his jaw that he’s got in his grip a precious gift. Rafael lets his father press the sharp contents into his fist, and then opens his hand to reveal two bright new bottle caps: Plinio’s St. Pauli Niña and his father’s Malta Nutrine. Rafael’s head swirls with excitement and dread. Each one of these bottle caps pushes its brand into the opposite category—odds into evens, evens into odds—as well as altering their relative values, which of course affects their positioning with other brands on the windowsill, and all of this value change needs immediate integration at risk of negating the dots-versus-dashes omen. Rafael’s on the verge of sobs, but neither his father nor his uncle can tell from his placid expression.

  “Thank you,” he whispers, tucking the two new bottle caps into his coat.

  “No more stealing your uncle’s neckties, chapita,” says his father. “All right? Now, Pétan’s got something important he needs to talk to you about. Go inside. He’s been poking his little nose out here every five minutes to see if you’ve come home.” Pepé winks at his son. “Go, chapita, go!”

  Rafael nods and turns away, secretly enraged by the mockery of that name, and wondering if his father would like those bottle caps shoved down his throat. If Rafael could have his way, he’d banish the word chapita from the Spanish language and throw anyone who ever used it into prison for the rest of his life. By the grace of virgin Altagracia, he thinks, how am I ever going to charm an Espaillat, Cabral, or Troncoso—or any one of those fancy girls from the rich families of the Cibao—if everyone in my thick-headed and vulgar clan insists on calling me “Bottle cap”?

  As usual, there’s chaos inside the house. The younger boys, Pedro and Pípi, are playing a game derived from baseball in the living room, while their tiny sister Nieves Luisa watches the mischief. The game involves one brother throwing an old tin into the air and the other smashing it across the room with a large stick. Pedro, who’s just had the pleasure of a direct hit, which has ricocheted the tin off the wall, is tackled by his brother Pípi for no discernible reason, and is now being punched and kicked as Pípi screams about the injustice of Pedro’s play. Another, slightly older brother named Aníbal has dragged a large washing tub, his makeshift terrarium, into the dining room and is trying but failing to force a large snake he’s captured to eat a whole frog.

  Rafael speeds by the little ones without saying hello. He passes the closed door of his sisters’ room, where Julieta quietly sobs—probably lying face down on her bed, as she often does. He enters the sheltered kitchen in the backyard and finds his mother, Doña Julia, and his two older sisters preparing supper. In truth, only his eldest sister, Marína, is helping his mother by boiling and mashing the yucca, while the younger one, Japonesa, passes her time stealing bites rather than working. Doña Julia turns away from her vat of red beans and rice when she hears Rafael enter. She offers her son a smile.

  “Mama,” says Rafael, holding out his arms.

  Doña Julia pulls the teenager into a tight hug and the boy plants a wet kiss on his mother’s round cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Mama, but I have to hurry off,” he says. “There is work I must do in my room before supper.”

  “All right,” she says. “We’ll eat in fifteen minutes.”

  “Perfect.”

  He nods briskly at his sisters, who grunt in return. Rafael leaves the outdoor kitchen and enters the house, this time heading straight into the bedroom he shares with Pétan and used to share with his oldest brother, Virgilio, before he left home last year to find work in Santo Domingo. He closes the door, removes the three bottle caps from his coat pocket, and sits on his bed. Now he can take a closer look at his compete collection displayed on the windowsill. A quick survey of the Pabst Blue Ribbons, stacked in groups of ten, confirms his earlier guess at numbers. There are fewer Malta Nutrines and St. Pauli Niñas, but they are still large piles. Rafael adds the new caps and makes the appropriate adjustments: re-stacking each brand; making sure the new additions are located in the centre of a stack and not at the top or the bottom; reordering each brand’s location on the windowsill if necessary. He mumbles a running commentary as he works, counting out stacks of ten, offering bits of encouragement to the bottle caps as if they were sentient beings. For the first time today, although the heat has slackened, Rafael begins to sweat.

  Pétan enters the room, cinching his belt, and shuts the door behind him. Although the boy’s only a year younger than his brother Rafael, he stands a good six inches shorter, a plight he tries to rectify with an exaggerated swagger. He stands by the side of Rafael’s bed and watches his brother work on the bottle caps.

  “Hey, chapita,” Pétan says. “Stop with that. We need to talk.”

  “Quiet,” says Rafael. “Come back later.”

  Pétan gives Rafael’s foot a light kick.

  Rafael turns his sweaty face against his brother, his teeth bared like a dog with its meal interrupted, and says, “I told you to come back later, asshole.” Rafael’s voice is high and shrill when agitated.

  “We’ve got a job. Listen.”

  “And don’t ever call me chapita again.”

  “Hey, Rafael, listen. We can make some money here.”

  Pétan sits beside his brother and watches. He knows his brother won’t stop fiddling with his damn bottle caps once he’s started, but then there’s no reason why Rafael can’t also listen to the proposal at the same time.

  “So Papa was up in the valley last week,” Pétan begins, “and he came across a rancher who wants to add a few to his herd. A couple of his old cows died last month and the guy let it be known pretty clearly that he’s got some pesos saved. He can buy at a good price, I mean if he gets healthy animals and a good deal. Anyway, I don’t know the specifics, but Papa made it seem like it might be worth our while.”

  Rafael nods to let his brother know he’s listening, although most of his attention is channelled towards the bottle caps on the sill. He’s pulling down the Daisys and Holsteins and reordering them in stacks of ten on his bed.

  “Papa hinted he could sell the man a few good cows with no questions asked,” Pétan continues. “Papa said the man was not so interested in where the animals might have come from, and his ranch is up at the far end of the valley, so there’s not much chance the new cows’ll be parading along the malecón or be giving out their address to any of the lucky girls, if you know what I mean.”

  Pétan tries to raise his grin into a smile, but the effort only lifts half his face and makes him feel absurd. He picks at stray threads on Rafael’s old bed quilt.

  “So this morning I went for a walk and happened to notice that the Uribe brothers down the river sure have plenty of cows in their field. You ever notice that, Rafi? I sure did this morning. Nice fat cows. They’re reproducing well over there. I was thinking they might even have a few too many to take care of. I was thinking they might need some help taking care of all those beasts, and I don’t think Papa would ask us any questions if we showed up tomorrow morning with some nice fat animals for him to take up into the valley. What do you think of all that?”

  “I don’t know,” says Rafael. “What do you think?”

  Pétan grits his teeth and stares at his brother, who still hasn’t even glanced at him. “I think not everyone can find work smacking his dick against an electric line for twenty-five American dollars a month, and that some of us might benefit from a little bit of work every now and then with an older brother’s help.”

  “I see,” says Rafael, fitting one cap inside another.

  “I think we could borrow a couple horses from Alvarez, then you and me and him could ride out late tonight. That’s what I think. Papa’ll let you take his horse and then we’ll have three.”

&n
bsp; “I don’t need the money. I don’t need the risk.”

  “Well, I fucking need the money, Rafi.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “All right, fine,” says Pétan. “But hurry up about it, because if we decide to do this thing, I should get over to Alvarez’s place and get those horses lined up before it gets too late.”

  Rafael whispers something under his breath, but Pétan has the good sense to realize that his brother’s secret words have nothing to do with his proposal and everything to do with the weird omens and portents he likes to tie up in those stupid bottle caps. He’s sweating and mumbling to himself like a lunatic, and certainly won’t waste any time in consideration of his brother’s plot. Pétan knows he’s just saying he will. Only drastic measures will shake Rafael from his reverie.

  “Hey,” says Pétan, “smell this.” He sticks a couple of fingers underneath his brother’s nose and grins his wry smile.

  Rafael breaks his concentration and pulls away from the offending fingers invading his treasured personal space. “What’s that?”

  “You know that girl María over on Padre Ayala.”

  “What about her?” hisses Rafael.

  “The nectar of that flower,” says Pétan. “That’s what’s on my fingers.” He sticks his fingers underneath his own nose, inhales, and shakes his head in wonder at the intoxicating scent. “My, my, my. So sweet!”

  “You’re lying,” says Rafael. “Her brother would have killed you.”

  “No way,” says Pétan. “And I might go back tonight for seconds over there.”

  “You’re a fool,” says Rafael, his tone rising. He tenses his upper lip and turns back to his bottle caps. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Whether you believe me or not doesn’t much affect the sweetness of the flowers of San Cristóbal, eh, Rafi?”

  “Get out of here,” says Rafael as he fumbles with a stack of ten Holsteins, trying to recall if he’s already handled them. “I’m busy.”

  “So it’s agreed? Good. I’ll go get Alvarez. Maybe he can come back here with his horses around midnight?”

  “I’m not doing it,” says Rafael. “They’ll catch us.”

  “They won’t catch—”

  “I said I’m not doing it. And that’s it.”

  Pétan throws his head back in fury and grunts. “Fine,” he says. “Terrific!” He sweeps his hand across the windowsill and knocks over the bottle cap towers, hopelessly mixing their brands, crashing some on the bed, and flinging others onto the floor. Rafael is too stunned to react, but Pétan, realizing he’s made an impetuous and terrible mistake, quickly stands and heads for the door. “What, are you so rich and powerful, Rafael,” he calls back without looking at his brother, “that you don’t want to make a few extra pesos?” He slams the door behind him, rattling the few remaining bottle caps on the windowsill.

  Rafael’s precious bottle caps lie scattered and disorganized, the new ones unidentifiable against the old—a scrambling that negates the good omen of surplus dots for the day and magnifies its opposite, virtually guaranteeing he’ll get cancer or some other illness of slow, withering decline. It’s his own fault, really, for having tempted Pétan with that harsh dismissal, for not appeasing his stupid and callous brother as he knew he should have. Appeasement would’ve shown proper respect for the power of the bottle cap ritual. Instead, he dismissed his work as some minor task that could be completed while holding a conversation. No, he did not protect his treasures.

  Rafael’s frantic eyes search for the upturned, flipped, and disorganized bottle caps, which are wildly dispersed along the rough tiles, by the closet door with the spiderwebs, and in the dust underneath Pétan’s filthy bed. He realizes it will be impossible for him to absorb their images in a single glance as required, let alone to account for their proper positions in relation to one another. His stomach constricts and his dread feels as heavy as an anchor chained to his ankles. The rock in his belly must be the hard mass of disease eating him from the inside. He wants to cry, and he’s gripped by a compulsion to powder his brow, which is now so rank and sweaty that he can feel the drops of perspiration clinging to his forehead like the ticks he sometimes picks up in the sugar cane. He tries to whisper to himself, out loud, that it’s unmanly to cry, undignified, but any clear articulation of those words is impossible. He moans low like a cow in the throes of labour as the dreaded tears escape down his cheeks.

  “Rafael,” his mother calls from the dining room. “Your supper is on the table.”

  He scoops bottle caps off his quilt and piles them in a heap on the windowsill. He jumps up and scurries around, picking the others up off the floor as fast as he can, trying to prevent himself from assessing their condition or registering their brands on the spot. All the while, he’s thinking that even if the bad portent proves not to be cancer or some comparable disease, it will be a horrible event, like a brutal beating from Fernando that results in lost and cracked teeth, or a massive, disfiguring gash on his forehead that could never be hidden with powder. He piles the bottle caps he’s gathered on the sill and pulls back the bed so he can access the few strays that have slipped to the floor against the wall. These too he stacks.

  The spasms in his belly are so painful now that he feels like throwing up. He surveys his work. The sight of all those distinct brands piled together willy-nilly without respect to colouring or condition, without accounting for dates and places of discovery, and, most importantly, not stacked in proper towers of ten weakens his knees and forces him to sit on his bed. His thoughts spiral into a familiar looping pattern of if, then statements: if you don’t separate the Malta Nutrines, then the tumour will grow a millimetre per day; if you don’t stack the Daisys bottom to top from least to most faded, then the tumour will snuff out your ability to breathe, and so on and so forth.

  Rafael uses his weight to push the bed back against the wall. He knows his family is waiting for him at the dinner table. He doesn’t have time to stack the bottle caps in their correct groups, but he wonders if he can’t at least separate them from this single, unholy clash of types, origins, and colours. Yes, there’s time enough for that. He wipes his brow with his sleeve and focuses on his task.

  As Rafael works, he begins to calm down. His breath slows and his legs regain some of their lost strength. He tells himself that things will most certainly be bad for a while, but that he has dealt with bad times before and will have to deal with them again in the future. As he separates the brands, a frisson of unexpected joy tenses his arms. Rafael realizes he’s grinning. He remembers that he is a strong and disciplined young man, one who can show fortitude when under attack. If he can survive this sudden misfortune, he will certainly have the strength for other perils thrown his way. He sits taller. He begins to imagine himself wearing a fine wool suit imported from Madrid, seated at the head of a long table of stained mahogany—the kind of majestic table one supposes would be used by a wealthy family in its dining room. He’s surrounded by aristocrats and other high-ranking military officials, with oxtail bones on their plates and half-filled goblets of wine and heaping fresh fruit platters placed on either end for dessert, and a Cuban cigar in every mouth. He imagines telling all his cultured guests, who are descendants of the great families of the Cibao, that a true man is never forged in the ease and luxury of life. No, he is born from hardship and strife, as I have been, from those grim occasions when omens turned against me and called upon the strength of my character. A man, he tells the rapt guests, is the product of his own virility and determination. Nothing more and nothing less. His hands work quickly, stacking and aligning bottle caps. Order rises from chaos before him. Yes, Rafael is man enough to handle any bad omen.

  “Rafi,” his mother calls. “Are you coming?”

  “One moment!”

  He has to stop for now. The reorganization is incomplete, certainly not far enough along to reinstate the good omen, but it might be sufficient to ensure survival through his upcoming tough times. Ra
fael takes care to straighten the quilt on his bed, erasing the wrinkles. He goes to his closet and opens the door so he can compose himself in the small mirror he’s installed. Before he sees his reflection, Rafael is struck by the dismal state of his two suits hanging from the bar. Yes, they’re clean and pressed and ready to wear, but the fabric of his favourite jacket is distressed on one shoulder, and the knees have thinned considerably on the other suit.

  His three neckties hang limply from a single hook. He fingers one tie, made of a rich purple silk with a faint floral print, smooth to the touch. It is probably the best-quality tie in all of San Cristóbal, with the exception of the two dozen or so hanging in Uncle Plinio’s closet. Still, he’s worn each of his three ties a thousand times, and he can’t keep tying the same damn piece of silk around his neck each and every morning. But what can he do? There is no choice. There will be no gifts coming his way any time soon; the bad omen of tipped bottle caps has, at the least, guaranteed that. Rafael’s mind races with rough calculations of how long it will take working at the telegraph office before he can save enough money to import another tie from Santo Domingo. Given the hefty percentage he offers his beloved mama each month, and will be forced to continue offering her until his infuriating papa stops drinking and finally humbles himself enough to plead with José at the postal office for a second chance and another job, and of course the absolute fortune that ties cost nowadays, Rafael realizes it will take him at least four months. Four months in three ties is unacceptable. Neither the Espaillats nor the Mejias, who are arrogant and strident in matters of comportment, would ever let one of their prissy daughters marry a boy from San Cristóbal who has only three suits and ties to his name. And there will be no temporary fixes to the problem either, as Rafael will have no further access to Plinio’s collection unless he prostrates himself before his uncle like a bitch in heat.