The Atlas
Page 33
HAVE YOU EVER
BEEN IN LOVE?
San Francisco, California, U.S.A. (1993)
* * *
San Francisco, California, U.S.A. (1993
She bent over the bottlecap. — What sign are you? she said, pretending that he was there. — Leo is my rising sign. — Of course she was alone.
She made the white powder fizz in the bottlecap. She stirred it into the vial, twirling the plunger of the syringe like a cocktail swizzlestick. Then she bit open the rock, scratching her breasts.
Gettin' well, in a safe place, she purred. Don't have to kick anybody down. And a nice healthy bag. See, I always cop from fat dealers, 'cause they don't use. Skinny ones gonna steal for themselves.
She mixed it in with the head of her plunger. Then she shook the syringe, licked the needle clean, stuck it slowly into the underside of her forearm.
Wow, she grinned, a register right off!
Slowly, so sensuously, she slid the long steel point in and out of herself, her face sexual and alive for the first time. Her arm was raised; her hand gripped her chin. Her elbow trembled on her knee like another needle spiraling in. She leaned forward. The red sock was tied halfway up her bicep, and it too trembled and shimmered.
Damn! she said. I'm just having trouble getting a vein.
She pulled the needle out and eased it back into her flesh two inches under the pearl of black blood. She squatted, naked, hunched and dreaming. In that same molasses rhythm of hers she slid it in and out, moaning through her teeth. After a long time she pulled it out of the second wound and halfheartedly tried to smear away the bleeding with her dirty fingers but the two dark trickles only dabbled themselves together in mysterious patterns. She made the third hole equidistant from the others, mumbling softly, on her face the same greedy look as a masturbator's straining to get home.
Suddenly she hissed and let the needle go. It dangled from her poor ruined arm, half gorged with blood. Leaping up in great wonder, she pressed her ear to the wall.
If you hear the name Valerie, let me know, she said. I think they're saying Valerie in there.
Her fingers began their inexorable curl around the plunger again, and she was licking her chapped lips, but then she stiffened again, listening.
She's somebody I went out with for three and a half years, she said. She's beautiful, so beautiful . . . but rotten inside.
Oh! she cried. Got it! — The outstretched plunger wavered between her fingers like a dowsing rod of ecstasy. But then she withdrew it again, groaning. Her whole forearm was smeared with blood now. She massaged herself there, with the same automatism as a bee-stung dog shaking its body. That was the thing about her, that living on the basis of little more than a half-ruined instinct, like the dog proceeding as if pain were water. Then she made the fourth hole.
Oh, bleed, she whispered. Please bleed . . .
Then she was up on the chair in her stockinged feet, straining to peer through the peephole, licking her lips with desperate smacking sounds, moaning: Oh, Valerie, please let it be you!
She said: Hey, wow, I'm totally well right now. I promise I'll calm down in a minute.
Grunting, she began to thrust the plunger in and out once more.
I know she's up in this hotel, she said, breaking off. I dunno why she don't want me to know, though.
Then she whirled to regard the man who had paid for all this. — Sorry, she whispered.
She bent toward the keyhole, one sock on, one lying on the carpet where she'd wrenched it from her bleeding arm, and she was riding up and down on the balls of her feet so that her hard little buttocks bounced.
Why are they hiding from me? she wept.
She'd pressed both palms up against the door and had turned her ear flush against it. She was fellating the keyhole, licking it with an animal's unselfconscious slurpings.
Suddenly she threw the door open and said: You seen Valerie?
The woman outside wore clothes. She said coolly: I don't know the names, only the faces.
She slammed the door on the other woman and foamed like a tiger. — I don't know why she's hiding from me. It's all fucked up. Now they say they don't know who that is. But I can hear her right through the wall. They knew who it was when I fucking supported her!
Well, I may as well as well finish it. Lemme give myself a butt shot.
A noise came through the wall, a long sigh.
She's probably in there with another girl, she muttered.
She guided the needle into the crack between her buttocks. Another sound came, and she leaped up into a splay-legged crouch with the syringe hanging out. — I do not love her anymore! she screamed.
Now listen, she said to the man. You'll be here all night, right? You'll hear if she fucks someone. She's a really good lover. All the other girls that fuck her, they'll be making noises all night when she makes love to 'em. But her, she don't make a sound.
She fell to her knees again, curling into a sallow ball of sadness. She thrust the plunger all the way in. Then she began to sway while her head rested on her knees.
She was rocking, pressing her clitoris with a knuckle, hunching intently toward the wall. Every time Valerie's girl made another moan, she trembled with joy. Her labia had flushed the reddish-orange of molten copper. The empty needle hung from her like a breast sucked dry as she hunched forward, masturbating furiously.
She smiled and swayed for a long time. Then she turned to look at the man. Defiantly she said: Have you ever been in love?
No, the man said.
Oh, she said. I was just curious.
THE RED SONG
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
* * *
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Slender like candles they let their hair down beneath the trees. He knew that. Hurrying down the tunnel of fingernails, he saw their legs glisten in the rain. He prayed, his hands a knife to cut away sin from his face. But he could not stop knowing.
Under the night I'll help you, his friend said.
He replied: I'm afraid.
Not enough, or you'd have prayed me away! Tomorrow I'll find you. Tomorrow, in the night.
Tomorrow was a morning of shards in the dark dirt, an afternoon of rainbow laundry on white roofs, an evening of children peering over gates. Then tomorrow grew as dark as the sweat under a woman's breasts.
Wide yellow crosswalk-lines sweated yellow in the yellow light. On the corner, a man raised a roof-tarp as if for a market. Girls grew from the sidewalk like nighrfruits, growing up from pink stalks and roots, with hair for flowers. Jiggling their purses and smiling, they tolled the night in the bells of their skirts. With open arms, they leaned into the black windows of cars to ask directions.
Across the street two men were already waiting, one with his hands in his pockets, the other squinting ahead. A third came, tapping his feet, wiping his nose. The corner by the phone booth had a standing army of men whose shirts and jeans seemed bleached, yet bright.
The boy's face was pleasing like a waxed peach as he stood on the night corner, tapping a pack of cigarettes against his palm. His friend was instructing him. His friend said: This little knife is to kill the hearts of all the pretty amigas, so that they'll love me. And this belt, my novia gave it to me, to bind me to her kisses. But I escaped. And this blue bracelet, a young girl wove it to tie me to her side. But I go where I please.
; His friend was a squat brown rain idol with round holes in his mouth. His friend's skull glared ahead like headlights.
Another girl left her taxi, crossed slowly, let down her hair beneath the trees. Across the street, the madam opened a red notebook.
Slender like candles they stood on the narrow sidewalk which was their tightrope, and faced the passing cars. Tree-shadows passed through their flesh. Their high heels or knee-high black shiny leather boots glistened. Another taxi pulled up.
The truck with loud music stopped. The woman bowed her head slowly, but didn't trouble to uncross her arms.
In a voice like jellyfish collapsing, his friend said: That one's yours.
Oh, well, the boy said apologetically, she belongs to herself. . .
She's nothing but a pair of buttocks.
Everything has a mind, the boy whispered, afraid to look at this friend he contradicted. Everyone has a mind. Everyone has hands to work and make something good—
The idol laughed. — I have no mind. She has no mind.
She stood in the street like silverware gleaming in darkness. Behind her, a girl licked a Popsicle like a long red chili. For a moment it seemed that she licked her own tongue. She was the woman's daughter.
His friend nudged him. — How much? the boy said.
A hundred fifty thousand,* the woman said.
A hundred.
No. (Her pale white face shook.)
You win. Come with me. No, no, first give me your mouth.
She kissed him listlessly, like the trickle of a silver earring among black hair. Her kiss tasted of the penises of men long dead.
Triumphant, the idol swarmed into the air to infect the whole world. She did not see that, but her daughter screamed. (The madam wrote a cross in the notebook.)
Now the boy was bold. He took her by the chin. — I said come with me.
Wherever I go, my daughter goes also. She's afraid without me.
Come with me.
She undid her necklace of heavy plates of dark silver—smooth, almost buttery to the touch; they rang on the glass floor. The daughter turned her back. Knowingly she played with the silhouettes that vanish behind walls. So the pretty sisters used to play, noiselessly, in the clay rooms of old Egypt, after their god-brothers had taken them to wife.
The boy was not a boy anymore. He leaned back smoking, so that the round stone of his ring rose into the world. Smoke came out his nose. Again the mother cooled him with mercury tears of silver on whitestone, while the daughter turned her back. His friend was leading them by arm and waist to the culmination at the stall of green-lit bones.
What's the young girl's name?
I won't tell you, Señor. She's nothing to do with you.
The daughter turned her back.
Do you both have minds? he said. The longer I'm with you, the more your minds elude me.
I have no mind, the woman said. Long ago I let my mind down beneath the trees.
Every time, he got older. The daughter turned her back. She played behind his white walls, soon to be brown with drying blood. Her mother became a transparent insect on the wall, its thorax glowing like an ironribbed lamp. He became a grand bone column hollowed out with bells. That was why the idol laughed.
Under the night she'll help you, the idol said. She and the young bitch.
He replied: It's always night.
When the daughter drew up against his shoulder, as if of her own accord, her shadow became longer than his. He reflected on his skull the soles of her feet.
Make the child sing, he said. Then I'll give her pesos and rubies. One ruby, anyhow. I have one ruby. Do you know what it's called?
For the last time, Señor, I beg you not to touch her. I insist on it.
I'll give her a ruby just to let her hair down! Imagine that! That's more than I ever gave you. Do you know what rubies are made of? In the end I'll get her, whore. She has no mind . . .
On a night like a hooked obsidian knife, the mother in despair and fear whispered in his ear the Three Holy Names.
At once he thought he had the phosphorus to ignite the world.
He found the chapel of paper animals. The paper lion was the one who must not be touched. He saw the paper mountain which even the priest didn't see. It was a slender pyramid on the wall beside the altar. As he approached, it enlarged itself to infinitude. The priest screamed as he ran forward. (Others beneath the trees had screamed that way when he'd begun whipping himself.) He ran into the mountain and was gone.
The soldiers said that she was a bad woman. She prayed her way up the myriad white laces on their black boots. Her last words on the gallows were: He died as sweetly as a little lamb!
Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (1992)
Sometimes this round hard world smells like sugarcones. Sometimes sorrow detonates in an explosion of parks and bells. Regardless waits the future like an ivory-handled pistol in a snakeskin belt.
As bell-strokes assembled the bones of the hours, the young girl grew taller. She lived on the stalks and rays of seashell-light. Already other girls circled her in the dance of red crabs around the drum. Gliding like a cat on marble, she parted the bars on windows. They called her the Red Song.
Your mother was a whore! the madam called out, and a hundred girls laughed.
I was born on a stone mountain crowned with trees, she said. I'm as clean as any woman's white blouse.
On a Sunday morning that smelled like cakes, a soldier came to see her. He undid his pale green skull-crown ruled by logic like the yellow scales and tiles of the cathedral-dome. A ruby was hidden in his hair. — From your mother, he said.
Then she knew she was ready. She put on her shoes that could dance across the sky. (She never awoke the sidewalk ache.) She outdid the fat girl with doll's eyes.
The madam squeezed her and said: Why don't you let your hair down beneath the trees? You have a good shape, you know; you're slender like a candle. Men have money. Take them; leave them as cold and clean as picked chicken-bones!
I don't know how, she replied.
Don't know how? Why, it's as easy as sucking a licuado up a straw!
I don't know how because I have a mind. Only girls without minds know how.
Ah, so your mother had no mind? I owned your mother and I'm going to own you. Just wait and see; you'll sing my song.
My mother had a mind, and I'm my own song.
Was your mother better than my mother? My mother worked so long in the corner stand that she became part of the magazines, nuts and candles! She had a better mind than God. Your mother had no mind, I tell you! And I'm going to rent out your smooth throat; I need money to warm me at night . . .
My mother had a mind! I don't care what you say. She knew the Three Holy Names. And I do also, Sefiora, I warn you!
The madam departed. But there came the night when all girls must dance (the madam knew that). They dance on the zocalo and throw cigarettes from their bosoms. He who catches a cigarette grows lucky. But that's not all of it, because each girl also tosses one cigarette that she's kissed with her lipstick. Catch that, and she's yours.
The old madam stood waiting like a shadow on a rock. Once she too had thrown cigarettes to boys. (Her yellow tattooed breasts were the carven eggs of some extinct bird.) The idol flew down and brushed her like a musician's fringed black sleeve. The idol said: Under the night I'll help you. I'll help you rake away her mind.
The Red Song leaped up onto the plinth. The hot breeze lifted her purple skirt like the outer skin of an onion so that everyone could see her black and gold lace stockings. So many slender brown legs, dancing in red shoes, white shoes, black shoes! But the boys watched the Red Song. They wanted to buy a ticket for everything. Her belt of copper had a hundred little locks.
Whenever she danced, the idol threw confetti in everyone's hair. The other longhaired girls threw their cigarettes, but no one would catch them. Weeping, they hurled gold and silver necklaces, but these also fell unclaimed on the cobblestones, str
iking with noises like breaking glass. Just as the orange juice vendor draws his arm in to his naked chest, then jerks it down again so that his body shudders and the extractor shudders and golden droplets spray his chest, so the other girls flailed and shook until they'd spattered each other with sweat. Nobody wanted their juice.
What's her secret? they shrieked.