‘Wha-aat?’ it asked. ‘I can’t he-aar you.’
‘N-no, I won’t give up,’ I yelled, forcing my teeth to stop chattering. ‘A-and you won’t b-bully me into guessing too soon.’
‘B-bully you?’ it mocked. ‘I don’t want to b-bully you. I want to fee-ed on you. I want to gnaw a hole in your stomach and pull your intestines out with my teeth. You smell so swee-et.’
It slid its fetid tongue along my sheet, close to my face, and I vomited a little in my mouth.
It whispered, ‘I’m going to peel your skin ba-ack like a gra-ape. I’m going to dra-ag your bloo-ody body down into the pit of never-ending darkness.’
‘Shut up! Shut up!’ I yelled. ‘Just t-tell me the story.’
‘All-lll right,’ it said, chomping on its bit. It sounded like a rusty file being drawn against a brass nail. ‘Don’t be in such a hu-urry for your own damna-ation.
‘I’ll tell you a story about a boy like you. Worthless. Whining. A real ma-ama’s boy. He’s up to his ne-eck in trouble. And just betwe-een you and me,’ it said in a mock, confidential whisper, ‘I don’t thi-ink he’s going to survi-ive.’
As I write down the second of the Muladona’s story, the chorus of the creature’s words plays like an evil gramophone in my head. . . .
THE SECOND TALE
Job Hunt
Vincent’s hands trembled as he pushed open the saloon door. A cloud of cigarette smoke, whisky vapour and sweat engulfed him. His eyes welled up with tears and he felt on the verge of suffocation. Through the swirls of smoke, Vincent could make out crude wooden tables scattered around the room. Men in overalls sat hunched over, smoking, playing cards and drinking. The malevolent atmosphere threatened to pull him inside its maw and swallow him whole.
Vincent’s knees began to knock. Every muscle in his adolescent body screamed for him to run back out of the door, before it slammed shut on him like his own tomb. Through sheer force of will (or perhaps because his fear had so thoroughly taken hold of him) he stood rooted to the spot. The rusty door hinge creaked shut behind him, leaving him in the gloom.
He felt the saliva in his mouth turning to acid. Gulping hard, he clutched the dirty piece of paper in his hand. ‘I need this job, I need this job,’ he repeated to himself. It seemed to him that he waded, not walked, into the penumbra of the saloon. The air was so thick it was like spray off the bow of the Marie Celeste. His eyes adjusted to the smoke as he carefully skirted the tables. Each was lit by a flickering candle stuffed into an empty beer bottle, sputtering and spilling out its wax on the wasted generations of other candles.
At one table two men were arm-wrestling—grunting and swearing. Amongst the scattered beer bottles stood the long, rough, elk-antler handles of their knives, stuck into the table. Another man was busy making himself a prison-style tattoo, jabbing his massive biceps with a long, sharp needle, turning the point now and then in the candle-flame. The man was a massive figure with a shaved head criss-crossed with scars. Against his will, Vincent stared at the pattern of bloody pricks: they looked to him like an ancient hourglass or a mason’s compass. Vincent’s eyes accidentally met the man’s bloodshot orbs: he stared back at him with such malice that Vincent’s heart went cold. He picked up his pace, heading for the bar.
Vincent scanned the backs of the anonymous men hunched on their stools, trying to divine which of them, when he asked his question, would be least likely to take offence. As the barman walked past Vincent squeaked ‘W-where can I find “El Padre” Anselmo?’
Losing his nerve, Vincent tried to turn and run, but he found that his legs had turned to butter. The barman threw down a dirty rag on the counter and sneered, ‘¿Qué, no tienes tu propio padre?’
A wave of laughter rose from the hunched-over figures and one of them whined, ‘Sounds like he needs his mommy.’ The man closest to Vincent placed a hand on his knee, ‘You wanna sit on my lap while we look for her?’
Vincent grabbed at a half-empty whisky bottle to defend himself. Before he could pick it up the stool clattered to the floor and he saw that the man who’d touched him was sprawled on the ground.
‘You’re forgetting the code, Benítez,’ a voice behind him said. ‘No one messes with the kid until the job’s done.’
On his knees, the man mumbled an apology and made a strange sort of genuflection. Vincent saw that his saviour was the hulking, bald-headed man who’d been staring at him. The bald man reached over and grabbed the dirty rag from the bar. He wiped the pinpricks of blood oozing from his half-finished tattoo, then tossed the rag back to the barman. He said, ‘I’ll take him.’
The bald man grabbed Vincent’s shoulder and he was half-dragged, half-pulled towards a small doorway at the back of the saloon.
The man opened the door and shoved Vincent through. After the darkness of the saloon, Vincent was momentarily blinded by the light from a spirit lamp set on a table pocked with wormholes. A bearded man, his face half-hidden in shadow, sat at the table. He was wearing black pants and a leather jacket buttoned up to his chin. To his left and right were the vague shapes of other men, large and hunched-over, their features bathed in darkness. The bearded man was methodically arranging Tarot cards across the table: Vincent could make out the Juggler, and Death.
Vincent sucked in air and cleared his throat.
‘Are you Padre. . . ?’
The bearded man raised his finger to his lips and said, ‘Shhh’. He flipped over the last card in the row . . . the Fool.
Vincent determined to say everything he’d come to say. He was afraid that if he didn’t do it right now, the words would fail him. The man asked, ‘You Reggie’s kid?’
‘Y-yes,’ Vincent stammered.
‘How’s your mother holding up?’ he asked, in a gentler voice than Vincent had expected.
‘Better, I guess. I . . .’
‘Your father was a good man,’ the man said, and blew his nose between two fingers. ‘Better to die working than in your bed.’ He wiped his hand on his pants. ‘Work dignifies.’
The two gorillas on either side grumbled in unison, ‘Work dignifies.’
Vincent thought of his father, trapped in the mine when the supports collapsed. He thought of the water rushing in. He thought of the gas and the darkness and all the bloated bodies that had risen out of the shaft . . . and the others they’d had to pull up with ropes after they’d managed to pump out the water. He gulped and said, ‘Pa said if we ever needed anything . . . I should come see you.’
The man shuffled the cards and put them back in the box. The time it took him to do this seemed infinite to Vincent. Then he said, ‘You got a girlfriend?’
Taken aback, Vincent asked ‘Why? does it matter?’
‘ ’Cause it matters, that’s why,’ the man responded. ‘Answer me.’
Steeling up his courage, Vincent bit his lips and said, ‘Yeah, I got one. I got lots of ’em.’
One of the gorillas said, ‘He’s a niñito. He got peach-fuzz on his chin.’
The other said, ‘I bet he ain’t even kissed a girl.’
Feeling his face turning crimson, Vincent blurted out, ‘Yes I have! I’ve kissed lots of girls. And . . . and . . . more.’
The bearded man snorted and looked Vincent straight in the eyes. Then he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and said, ‘You ready?’
‘What? Now?’ Vincent asked.
‘Who do we protect?’
‘I . . .’ Vincent didn’t know how to respond. The gorillas answered for him: ‘The Union.’
‘And who do we protect it from?’
They chorused, ‘From all enemies, named and unnameable.’
‘And for how long do we serve?’
‘For all eternity.’
The man put the deck of cards into his jacket pocket and stood up. ‘No time like the present,’ he said. Then he gestured for Vincent to open the door. The man—whom Vincent prayed was really ‘Padre’ Anselmo—and the two gorillas followed him back out to the saloon. The smoke seemed thicker
now, and it burned Vincent’s eyes like high-sulphur coal. The hunched-over men all performed the same strange genuflection as he passed, and put out their candles with their fingertips. They stayed where they were in the darkness, except for the bald-headed man with the tattoo. He picked up his leather jacket and an axe-handle that was leaning by the door.
They drove off in an old wagon hitched to a pair of Clydesdale horses. Down dusty roads they trundled, taking a left at the fork. There was a full moon sometimes obscured by fast-moving clouds. The bald man drove, ‘Padre’ Anselmo sat next to him. Vincent was wedged between the two gorillas in the back.
Some time later they stopped near an arroyo. The men got out and passed a whisky bottle around. At first Vincent was afraid they would try to get him drunk, but they didn’t even offer him the bottle. They leaned against the wagon, mumbling things—verses or countersigns—that he didn’t understand.
Sitting in the wagon he overheard vague phrases like ‘disloyal competition’, ‘minimum wage’ and something that sounded like ‘the Witches’ Hammer’. He thought maybe it was code. ‘God Almighty,’ he prayed to himself, ‘if Ma didn’t need me so much, I’d make a break for it, I swear I would. I’d run into the woods and hope they couldn’t find me in the dark.’
But he stayed.
When they’d finished the bottle, the bald man smashed it in a ditch and urinated on it. Then they all got back in the wagon. He could feel their intent, smell their foul breath, see their eyes glassy with booze. Vincent felt his head nodding as they continued on and on, hypnotised by the monotony of the horses’ gait and the jingle of the gear. For a long time they went down the open road. On either side was open land, miles of barbed-wire, cacti in the empty spaces and waving grass that went on forever. . . .
One of the gorillas nudged him in the ribs. ‘Wake up, Snow White,’ he grunted. Vincent awoke with a start. He wiped the drool off his face and blinked. They had stopped on a darkened street in a small town, the horses tied up in the shadows of a tree. The bald man opened up a tool-box and removed a pistol wrapped in an oily rag.
El Padre Anselmo said, ‘Put it away, Dan.’
‘But, Padre. If that bitch . . .’
‘It’ll only make noise, Dan, and wake the neighbours. Remember, we have the boy.’
The bald man turned and stared at Vincent, a look of hatred in his eyes. Weighing the gun in his hand he hissed, ‘I swear, niñito, if you screw this up. . . .’
‘Screw what up?’ Vincent whispered. ‘I have no idea what we’re doing here.’
‘Dan,’ said ‘El Padre’, ‘put it away . . . please.’
‘Yes, “Padre”,’ the bald man said. He stuffed the pistol back into the box and slammed it shut.
‘El Padre’ Anselmo addressed Vincent, ‘What did your father tell you about the union?’
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Vincent said, ‘I-t makes sure the boss doesn’t screw us. Like not checking for gas before sending us down the hole and not paying us what we’re due.’
‘Anything else?’
‘You protect us from scabs and Union-busters. And sometimes there are special jobs, but I swear I don’t know anything about that. Maybe I shouldn’t even be . . .’
‘Good,’ said Anselmo. ‘Let’s go now.’
‘You’re not going to tell me what’s this about?’
‘No,’ ‘El Padre’ replied. ‘It’s better this way.’
The gorillas shoved Vincent out of the wagon and onto the pavement. Although it was cold, the bald man took off his leather jacket and tossed it into the cart. His muscles bulged in his undershirt. They walked past the dusty town square, the grass wet with night-dew. They walked past the church, the schoolhouse, the grainstore, a flagpole. All the way, the men kept looking over their shoulders, except for ‘El Padre’ Anselmo. He stared ahead with special intensity, muttering something under his breath. They stopped in front of an old building with a tower.
Vincent guessed it was the oldest building on the square. In the moonlight, it looked older than the church and the schoolhouse on the other side. It was incongruous, lumpy, as if it had been shaped on a gigantic potter’s wheel by huge rough hands. It stood looming, dark, with thick adobe bricks and a tall tower, and fragile iron railings that went up into the night sky. One of the gorillas rattled the front door, but it wouldn’t budge. He peered through the mess of barbed wire that separated them from the long garden, which disappeared into a grove of trees. The bald man they called Dan still had a grudging look—probably because he wasn’t allowed to bring the pistol, Vincent thought. Dan weighed the heavy axe handle in one hand.
‘Okay, get inside,’ Dan growled at Vincent.
‘What do you mean, “Get inside”?’
Dan grunted and said, ‘Pay attention, pendejo chingado, or you’ll get us all killed.’ Then he added, ‘Men!,’ and the gorillas heaved up the last strand of barbed wire, making a small crawl space between it and the ground. ‘Squeeze through and find a way into the back. Then open up the front door.’
Vincent looked at the gap and vacillated. This was the moment after which everything would go wrong. Once he went through, there was no turning back. And there were so many people depending on him. Vincent bent down, turned on his belly and made his torso as flat as possible. He put his head under the wire and began wriggling through. He was almost through when his pants got caught on a rusty barb. He said, ‘I’m stuck!’ The bald man pushed him through the hole with the heel of his boot. Vincent scraped his face on the flagstones and the barbed wire tore his pants and made a jagged cut in his leg. He got up, wincing at the pain.
‘Go on,’ Dan whispered. Vincent hesitated, feeling the warm blood trickle down his leg. ‘El Padre’ Anselmo said, ‘Just go ahead, son. It’ll all be over soon.’ Vincent limped towards the back of the house, turning once or twice to look back at the group. The bald man uttered a low curse and gestured with his axe handle for Vincent to carry on.
Vincent picked his way over the patio, hitting his knee on an old wheelbarrow. He stumbled through a stack of roofing tiles. Sharp, jagged things were stacked everywhere—broken bricks, rusty farming tools. There was no light from the house, the place looked deserted. ‘Good,’ thought Vincent, ‘they’re only here to steal something . . . or to send a message.’
Very carefully, he tested the chain on the door to the coal chute, and was relieved to find that it did not budge, because he didn’t want to go into the dark cellar alone. All the windows at the back seemed to be boarded up. The men on the other side of the gate would not welcome the news, but at least he could go back with a good excuse.
Just as he was beginning to think he was off the hook, he came across a servants’ door with a small, rectangular window set into it. Vincent felt around for something heavy and chanced upon an old brick. He smashed it into the window and the glass shattered in the cold air. He reached his thin arm through the opening, all the way up to his armpit. He could just feel the edge of the bolt with his fingertips. As a sharp pain radiated down his arm, he managed to reach the bolt and pull it across. The door screeched open and he stumbled back, upsetting a stack of terracotta pots. A small animal—a raccoon?—scuttled away into the night.
Leaving himself no more time for indecision he stumbled into the darkness of the house. Straightaway, he rammed his knee against a low table, and this time he couldn’t suppress a howl of pain. Was it his imagination, or did he hear another howl—not an echo, but the call of an animal—answering back?
‘Great,’ Vincent thought, ‘just my luck. The owners have probably left some mangy guard dog chained in here, and I’m going to be its first meal in days.’
The thought of how much his mother needed him pushed him forward. He was the man of the family now. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness as he carefully manoeuvred around boxes, benches and wardrobes. He felt along a table, rubbing off a thick layer of dust. There couldn’t be a dog; there hadn’t been anyone in here for years, decades even.
‘El Padre’ Anselmo closed the door behind them and locked all the latches and bolts. Then he lit a match, cupping it with his palm. From it, each man lit a small kerosene lamp. Anselmo handed one of the lamps to Vincent, his eyes twinkling as he whispered, ‘Have you seen her yet?’
‘Her?’ Vincent whispered back. ‘Who are you talking about? There’s no one here.’
The bald man swung the axe handle over his shoulder and said, ‘Christ, I knew it . . . he’s a waste of time. . . .’ He stopped as they heard the strange animal growling sound that Vincent had heard before.
‘It’s coming from the stairs,’ the bald man hissed. ‘This time I’m going to finish her for good.’
‘No, Dan,’ ‘El Padre’ Anselmo said. ‘You can’t risk it. We’ve already lost Adrian. . . .’
But the bald man had already begun to mount the broad stairs several steps at a time. The two gorillas looked at Anselmo. He nodded and they followed, the stairs groaning under their weight.
‘El Padre’ Anselmo turned to Vincent, ‘Whatever you see, remember why you’re here. Think of your mother back home.’ Then he bounded up the stairs after the rest.
What did Anselmo mean? Would they harm his mother if he didn’t help them? He was already in this—whatever it was—up to his eyeballs. They didn’t need to threaten him. Vincent stood rooted to the spot, listening to the shuffling and creaking from the floorboards above. A piercing scream rang out—a young girl’s scream. He started at the sound and felt an immediate need—he didn’t know why exactly—to go to her rescue. There came a series of muffled cries and a banging and thumping, and then that pitiful scream again. Vincent thought of the awful bald man and the two gorillas pawing at her, and he couldn’t stop himself.
Muladona Page 9
