A Young Man's Guide to Late Capitalism

by Peter Mountford

  "What do you mean?"

  "The interview."

  "I don't know—I just called his office." She was, if not exactly rocking back on her heels, trying to deflect his tone. "What's going on, Gabriel?"

  What was going on was that he was wondering if his mother had spoken to Lenka, and, if so, had either of them put it together? He didn't want to get into it with her though. There were other, more pressing issues. He said, "I've just got a lot going on here."

  "That's why I'm coming down. I'll be there on the afternoon of the twenty-seventh. Where are you staying?"

  "You're not staying here."

  "Why?" She'd moved to Spanish.

  Resisting the autopilot impulse to reply in Spanish, he stood firm, saying, "Mom, please." The unspoken anger was more chastening than anything he could have said.

  "What's going on, Gabriel?" she said, still in Spanish.

  "Things are very complicated here. How long are you planning on staying?"

  "If you don't want me—"

  "I want you to come, but you're not going to stay at my hotel."

  "What's this about? Is it that girl?"

  "Which one?" he said.

  "Oh my... Gabriel," she said, as if unsure whether to be impressed or shocked.

  He sat down. "Look, it's not that. I'm working very hard here right now. If you're at my hotel, in my space all the time, it'll be chaos. It's great that you're going to be here, but I need space to work, and so on."

  "And so on?"

  He laughed at her scandalized innuendo.

  "I don't know, Gabriel."

  "What don't you know?" He then repeated his message, nearly verbatim.

  When he was done, she sighed loudly. "So, where do you want me to stay?"

  Nearing Lenka's house, still a little early, he wandered in Plaza Sucre awhile, rehashing the stages of the most disastrous scenario in his mind. It wasn't inconceivable, especially with his mother down there to entangle herself in events. Evo would have every reason to fire Lenka if he found out, and he would have just as much reason to take the story to the press.

  The plaza was largely abandoned on that sunny Christmas Day. The only people in sight were the guards around the huge wooden doors of San Pedro Prison. An attractive old building, at least from the outside, the prison had been an unusual tourist attraction for many years. Until a change of policy earlier that year had outlawed casual visitors, inmates had held a daily bazaar in the courtyard, where they sold everything from homemade sweaters to cola and sandwiches. The inmates could pay rent for a better room and were allowed to have their families share the cells with them, if their families were so inclined. That all came to a halt when it became clear that many of the "sandwiches" and "crafts" they were selling were actually cheap, disposable vessels for homemade bazooka, a gooey form of crack cocaine.

  Plaza Sucre itself was serene, shaded by evenly spaced umbrella thorn trees, whose leaves shushed in the gentle breeze. Opposite the penitentiary stood Lenka's family's church, the Iglesia San Pedro, built in 1790, just after Katari's uprising. San Pedro had been an indigenous neighborhood until the past few decades, when the country's caste system began to erode. Now, the neighborhood was generally mixed. As with the United States, the gentrification didn't amount to much real change. Racism was rife, and the Indians remained segregated from the mestizos; the only difference was that they had been pushed up higher, to El Alto. It was still unheard-of to see an indigenous person in the upscale restaurants around Sopocachi—unless that person happened to be the president-elect, of course.

  Gabriel was still sauntering around, taking it all in and considering his options, when his cell phone rang. It was Oscar Velazquez. "Merry Christmas, Gabriel," he said.

  "Right, right—you too, Oscar. What are you up to?" Gabriel sat down on a bench and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. He was suspicious. This wasn't a social call—not on Christmas—but he had no idea what was up.

  "This a bad time?"

  "No, no, if I sound winded, it's just the altitude—I was strolling through sunny La Paz. Looking at a prison right now and thinking it looks much nicer than my hotel." He resisted the urge to scratch his cheek.

  "That's Bolivia for you. So, you're still there!"

  "Astonishing, right? I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get out."

  "Understandable. You had an accident too. Some dynamite."

  "Yes, some dynamite." Gabriel looked around. He gave in, scratched his cheek furiously, briefly, then quickly stopped because it hurt and he was afraid of breaking the stitches.

  He'd taken two Percocets before he set off from the hotel and was feeling quite good now, all things considered. He'd smoked a cigarette after he got off the phone with his mother while he finished off his morning cup of maté. The hangover had initially been brutal: a bright bolt of pain had bounced inside his brain and lit up a wide grid of nerves. By the time he'd finished his conversation with his mother, the pain had focused on a particular twisted nodule in the base of his skull. He got dressed and fantasized—drearily, unimaginatively—about not being hung over. Then he'd remembered about the Percocet.

  "Look, I—uh," Oscar was saying, finally getting to the meat of the matter, "I think Priya's not sure what to do with you anymore."

  "Not sure?" That sounded like a euphemism for "completely sure." He girded himself.

  "I just wanted to give you a heads-up on that, so it's not a surprise. I think she was hoping you'd have sewn this Bolivia thing up by now."

  "She's the one who upped the ante."

  "I know."

  "And I'm on track. I've just been trying to work around the holidays, the election, and this dynamite thing. But I'm making progress. Two days ago I gave Priya the name of the next finance minister."

  "Oh, really? She didn't mention that. That's good. It really is, but I'd just try to figure out what you can tell her about that gas company that you mentioned."

  "Yeah, I understand." Not exactly a surprise, but he'd hoped that giving her the finance minister would tide him over for a while. Then again, the finance minister's name wasn't monetizable.

  "You really piqued her interest when you brought it up, but none of us have been able to find out what's going on, so now it's up to you. So you're making progress?"

  "Of course I am," Gabriel said. He had his report. It wasn't going to cut it, evidently.

  It was obvious now that he had made a mistake bringing up Santa Cruz Gas with Priya. It had been a critical mistake. In his attempt to placate her by simulating progress, he'd inadvertently sparked sincere interest. Now she had very concrete expectations. She wanted real answers, and though the stakes were still low for her, they had become high for him—never a desirable situation in a negotiation. He said, "What if I don't succeed? What then?" He knew the answer, but he needed to double-check.

  Oscar didn't say anything right away. He dragged the ensuing pause out long enough that Gabriel, not wanting to force him to say it, said, "Okay, okay, don't hurt yourself, Oscar."

  "I know it's not the kind of thing anyone wants to hear on Christmas Day," Oscar said, "but I thought you'd want to know as soon as possible."

  "It's fine, Oscar. Thanks for the heads-up. I'll see what I can do. Enjoy your Christmas."

  "You too."

  Gabriel hung up and walked around the square, trying to sort out what this meant. It didn't mean anything—really, it simply confirmed what he'd suspected all along, that the life expectancy of his career at Calloway was, in fact, quite short.

  He knocked on Lenka's door and scratched the wounds on his cheek one last time while he waited. Mirabel answered and cooed a vowelly declaration of maternal affection. Then she reached her plump moist hands out and gently cradled his jaw. "¡Pobrecito!" He kissed her cheek. "Such a beautiful face," she said. "I hope you're not too badly hurt!"

  "Oh, I'm sure I'll be even more beautiful once it's all healed," he said. She laughed. He thanked her for letting him come.
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br />   "Agh!" she harrumphed, waving at him. "You sure you're okay?"

  "I'm fine. More than fine! They gave me these pills; the worst that will happen is that I'll fall asleep on the sofa in the middle of the party."

  "Ha!" Mirabel hooked her arm through his and led the way down the long hall. "You can take a nap in Ernesto's room, if you want. Anytime. Just give me a sign"—she tapped the side of her nose with an index finger—"and I will show you the way. No one will care."

  He thanked her. She looked only vaguely like Lenka, mainly in the hypnotic, oversize eyes and her vivid chin. She was grandly proportioned, though, and she kept her hair, which was flecked with springy steel strands, cropped short. She waddled, slightly bowlegged, and wore cheap sandals that looked as if they'd been grafted to her feet some decades prior. The air around her was full of a beguiling and profoundly maternal kindness. She gave the impression that she'd seen so much of the world's crap, whatever crime you confessed to would not damage her opinion of you. Her love was not going to be swayed so easily.

  She said, "Your mother must be worried about you."

  "Oh, my mother!" He rolled his eyes. "She's actually coming down. She just told me this morning."

  "Aí!" She stopped walking and turned and hugged him. She looked up at his eyes and said, "I want to meet her. You'll bring her here?"

  He nodded. "I'll bring her around."

  "Any woman who raised such a wonderful young man by herself would have to be a miracle worker."

  "Yes, she is that. It's a difficult job, I see, raising boys alone. Lenka's doing it well too, I think. Ernesto is a wonder. Of course, she has you to help—"

  She shrugged. "But she takes care of him." She continued steering him down the hallway. "He says he's going to be president now too. Ernesto"—she shook her head—"he is even better than you, I believe."

  "Oh, I'm sure," Gabriel replied. "I've seen: he's a better dancer. Smarter. More handsome."

  She laughed.

  In the kitchen, she said, "I'll be right back to introduce you to everyone," and then she shuffled to a tiny patio beside the sitting room where a group of smokers were standing around a small grill stacked high with ears of corn. The smell of grilling corn and cigarettes drifted directly through the kitchen window, and it pleased Gabriel greatly.

  Dozens of people stood in every room of the house chatting. Gabriel lingered in the kitchen, glad that he had come. One way or another, he'd have to shake every man's hand and kiss every woman's cheek. Bolivia, antique in so many ways, was also atavistic in its formality, its attention to decorum. Still, he didn't mind. After spending the morning pondering the dangers of his situation (Catacora, Santa Cruz Gas, Fiona), dealing with his mother on the phone, and then receiving that call from Oscar, part of him wanted to retreat to his hotel room, but he truly was relieved to be amid the warmth of Lenka's family. He looked forward to shaking the hands. He looked forward to being paraded around by Mirabel, or Lenka, to seeing Luis and Ernesto.

  Thanks to the pills, Gabriel wasn't hungry at all, but he knew he'd be practically force-fed. Nearby, the charred remains of the pig now straddled the kitchen table, its legs outstretched, as if it'd seized, midleap. The head remained largely intact, its pudgy eyes pressed shut, its mouth open, almost grinning, but not. The ears were gone—to the dogs, probably. Its skin had turned amber; it looked as if it'd been shellacked. Apart from a few tufts of shredded flesh and gristle still clinging around the joints, the hindquarters had been more or less picked clean, leaving a pair of tan bones and blackened hooves. Its midsection had been ravaged as well- half of the torso was simply gone, and the other half had been fairly well decimated, revealing the ribs, like long witchy fingers clawing at the hollow cavity.

  Luis entered the kitchen, midconversation with another man, and started idly picking at the meat piled beside the carcass. He snarfed it with his hamsterish, repaired-harelip mouth. It was an indistinguishable meat pile, a brownish heap of fat, charred skin, bone, and shredded flesh. When Luis looked up and noticed Gabriel, he interrupted his conversation and beckoned Gabriel casually with a greasy hand. "I didn't see you arrive," he said. Gabriel was glad to see him. Then, in his eerie baritone, Luis introduced him to Marco, a deacon at the San Pedro church.

  Gabriel shook the man's hand, which was parched. He wore a baggy, pilled blue cardigan and a cheap digital watch, well-worn light gray slacks. He was gaunt, his expression pinched and dour. He said nothing and barely made eye contact.

  "I heard about this," Luis said, gesturing at his own cheek, "I'm sorry. They drink a lot of chicha up in the hills, and then they come down with this dynamite and it is not good!"

  "So I gather!" Gabriel said. "If I'd been standing an inch or two in another direction I'd have lost my eye, maybe even been killed, so I guess it could have been worse."

  "The other man is dead, no?" This from Luis still.

  "Actually, I think he's going to survive," Gabriel said.

  "Too bad!" Luis guffawed, slapped Gabriel on the shoulder with his clean hand.

  "Well—" Gabriel shrugged, scratched his cheek. "It was an honest mistake, I think."

  Marco just shook his head, glowering at it all. "We have some very angry people here," he said. "They are very angry and very poor," he added, in case Gabriel hadn't picked up on that.

  Gabriel inferred that Marco inflected principally with his eyebrows, like a bad actor. He spoke in a cheerless monotone and his expressions ran drearily between condescending acceptance and condescending denunciation.

  Gabriel said, "From what I can tell, distressed people all over the world are blowing themselves up these days. It's the new thing."

  Luis laughed heartily, pleased that Gabriel was gibing with the deacon. Marco himself just wrinkled up a concerned eyebrow.

  Not wanting to push it, Gabriel said, "Sorry, they gave me these pills, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm saying."

  That was when Lenka's mother poked her head in the room and commanded Luis to introduce Gabriel around because she was busy with the corn.

  "As you wish," he said. Then he cleared his throat, wiped his hand on a dishrag.

  The following ten minutes were spent processing around the rooms, Gabriel catching faces and names as he met everyone, catching their scents and then losing them all as soon as the next person came into his line of sight. He kept glancing around for Lenka but couldn't see her. Despite the confusion of it, and the inherent awkwardness of running through so many surface-level conversations, and despite the fact that he still hadn't seen Lenka, it was, as he'd hoped, a warming experience. And he wondered why he hadn't been spending more time among these people all along. Apart from the curmudgeonly deacon, Gabriel was awash in kindness, a feeling that was only amplified by the gentle euphoria he'd been given by the pills. All of his concerns about his mother coming down seemed a little trivial. Of course he'd bring her around here! And his job? So what if he lost it? There was more to life!

  Somewhere in there, Gabriel kissed the cheek of Luis's new wife, who said that she'd heard great things about him—he waved off the comment, as if modest, and said, "No, really, it's all true." And she laughed, touched his shoulder. Then he was on to the next cluster of people. He had no idea who lived at the house and who didn't. The web of relations was byzantine. It didn't matter anyway. The point was not to memorize names, it was to touch each of them, one by one, and to smile and say something nice, or funny, or generous, and then move along to the next.

  Mostly, Luis introduced him as a friend of Lenka's. Occasionally, he said friend in a semiconspiratorial way, and then the man Gabriel was being introduced to—Luis did this only with men—grinned at Gabriel as if Luis had just said that Gabriel was legally blind but aspired to be a commercial pilot. One of the men actually pointed at Gabriel's face and said, "Did she do that to you?"

  "No, not this," he said. "This was dynamite. The wounds she's inflicted—I can't show you those, not here."

  Luis and the other guy wer
e thrown into hysterics by this—they howled, tearing up, shaking their heads. Gabriel laughed too, scratching his cheek, vividly aware that it'd been a long time since he'd had so much fun.

  Lenka had been ensconced at the rear of the house so he didn't spot her until he'd almost exhausted the rest of his hellos. She was talking to a woman and gazing at Ernesto, playing with toy cars on the floor. She wore a prim brown pantsuit and a lavender blouse, and although it was one of the least sexy outfits Gabriel had ever seen her in, he found it intensely arousing. She was lost in conversation, unaware that he was even there, and it was one of those moments—like watching her handle her car—when he felt he could peer into a wonderfully mundane portion of her life. It was, by all measures, totally unremarkable, and that was exactly what made him sick with love. When she eventually noticed him, she grinned conspiratorially and stood up. She had a great body, and the pantsuit, despite its dowdiness, showed it off.

  Luis excused himself and Gabriel thanked him, still looking at her. She was beaming as she approached. They kissed cheeks and she said, beneath her breath, "Thank you for coming."

  "No, thank you for inviting me. I'm having a great time."

  "I'm glad."

  "A warning, though: I might have offended your deacon. I couldn't help myself."

  "He deserves it. And how was Luis?"

  "He's my hero: a human bazooka."

  She rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm glad someone likes him. Have you eaten?"

  "Not yet. What do you have left, some pig face?"

  She cast him a wicked look. "I saved the eyeballs just for you."

  "By the way," he said, lowering his voice still more, "my mother is coming down."

  "Wow."

  He nodded slowly, eyes cranked open in shock. "You didn't speak to her, did you? She somehow arranged an interview with Evo, and I was thinking..."

  "Oh," she said, when she realized what he meant. "Who is she with?"