Silverstein, Joaco, and Ayerbe called my bluff, because that was it, the three took the plunge, bet settled, everybody against Midas, If those chicks can make Spider happy, we’ll all pay Midas; if not, he’s the payola guy. And Spider? Under the circumstances Spider doesn’t bet, he neither wins nor loses, Spider just puts up his best effort. Silver, Joaco, and Jorge Luis bet ten million a head, everybody against me and me against everybody, that if Spider got it up I’d pocket thirty big ones, but if he lost…and I knew he was going to lose. Not like that, no way, I’ll be up against the wall, I said, pretending to back out even though I’d already decided to do it, to take the bet, do you see why, baby doll? Because even if I lost, I’d win in other ways.
They filled my glass thinking that if I drank enough I’d fold, and then, straight-faced, I said to Spider, Tell me the truth, Spider Salazar, swear it on the memory of your sainted mother, is it only mostly dead or dead for real?, and Spider swore on his mother that it wasn’t completely dead, that sometimes he felt a tickle, something that might have been desire, and even a few times the stirrings of an erection. Then that’s it, I said, I’m in, but you’ve got to give me three chances, which means that if the first try fails, there’ll be a second, and if the second fails, I’ll still have a third chance, so we can adjust our focus. Spider, old man, all you have to do is let me know what turns you on, what gets your juices flowing, and we’ll go straight from there to the triumphant finale. Then Spider set his conditions, which were, most important, no whores or cheap sluts or women older than twenty-two, I want them to be white and daddy’s girls, classy, the kind of college students who suit up in lycra and sweat buckets at your Aerobics Center and eat sushi with chopsticks and drink Gatorade, nice girls who speak English without an accent. And it shouldn’t be just one, but a pair, though they’ve got to be girlie and the two of them have to work it out so that there’s lots of stroking and tasteful little touches, all in front of me.
That was it, but the other three wanted to watch, know what I mean, sweetheart?, seeing is believing, witness with their own eyes whether the flag was raised. No problem, I told them, that big window in my office is a two-way mirror with a full-screen panoramic view of the gym, so we can watch and they won’t see us. Amazing, a mogul like Spider, and he’s as choked up as if we were really setting him on the road to salvation, Don’t worry, Midas my boy, I won’t let you down, and I say, Count on me, Spider, I’ll arrange something deluxe with two first-class angels, and you just watch yourself lift off, and Spider, pathetic, embracing me, I’ll be grateful to you forever, Midas my man, you’re the best.
SOMETIMES THE HUNCH, or the presentiment, comes to me suddenly even when we’re not in the ceremony; in math class, for example, or some other class, or at Friday mass at school, when Ana Carola Cano, who has the highest soprano in the choir and who’s in Agustina’s class, sings the solo in the Panis Angelicus with that voice of hers that’s so soaring it gives everybody goose bumps and those eyes that always seem to be full of tears, especially if the chapel is crowded and the nuns and the girls hover on a cloud of incense and can hardly breathe in the stuffy air because so many people, so many candles, and so many lilies hardly fit in the chapel, and it’s there that the premonitory trembling comes over me most often, and so that no one will notice I bow my head and cover my face with both hands as if I’m burning with religious fervor, but what’s really happening is that the powers are sending her the First Warning Call, shouting that their father is going to hit Bichi that night. I spend the rest of the day with a horrible migraine and can’t pay attention in class because the echo of the
They filled my glass thinking that if I drank enough I’d fold, and then, straight-faced, I said to Spider, Tell me the truth, Spider Salazar, swear it on the memory of your sainted mother, is it only mostly dead or dead for real?, and Spider swore on his mother that it wasn’t completely dead, that sometimes he felt a tickle, something that might have been desire, and even a few times the stirrings of an erection. Then that’s it, I said, I’m in, but you’ve got to give me three chances, which means that if the first try fails, there’ll be a second, and if the second fails, I’ll still have a third chance, so we can adjust our focus. Spider, old man, all you have to do is let me know what turns you on, what gets your juices flowing, and we’ll go straight from there to the triumphant finale. Then Spider set his conditions, which were, most important, no whores or cheap sluts or women older than twenty-two, I want them to be white and daddy’s girls, classy, the kind of college students who suit up in lycra and sweat buckets at your Aerobics Center and eat sushi with chopsticks and drink Gatorade, nice girls who speak English without an accent. And it shouldn’t be just one, but a pair, though they’ve got to be girlie and the two of them have to work it out so that there’s lots of stroking and tasteful little touches, all in front of me.
That was it, but the other three wanted to watch, know what I mean, sweetheart?, seeing is believing, witness with their own eyes whether the flag was raised. No problem, I told them, that big window in my office is a two-way mirror with a full-screen panoramic view of the gym, so we can watch and they won’t see us. Amazing, a mogul like Spider, and he’s as choked up as if we were really setting him on the road to salvation, Don’t worry, Midas my boy, I won’t let you down, and I say, Count on me, Spider, I’ll arrange something deluxe with two first-class angels, and you just watch yourself lift off, and Spider, pathetic, embracing me, I’ll be grateful to you forever, Midas my man, you’re the best.
SOMETIMES THE HUNCH, or the presentiment, comes to me suddenly even when we’re not in the ceremony; in math class, for example, or some other class, or at Friday mass at school, when Ana Carola Cano, who has the highest soprano in the choir and who’s in Agustina’s class, sings the solo in the Panis Angelicus with that voice of hers that’s so soaring it gives everybody goose bumps and those eyes that always seem to be full of tears, especially if the chapel is crowded and the nuns and the girls hover on a cloud of incense and can hardly breathe in the stuffy air because so many people, so many candles, and so many lilies hardly fit in the chapel, and it’s there that the premonitory trembling comes over me most often, and so that no one will notice I bow my head and cover my face with both hands as if I’m burning with religious fervor, but what’s really happening is that the powers are sending her the First Warning Call, shouting that their father is going to hit Bichi that night. I spend the rest of the day with a horrible migraine and can’t pay attention in class because the echo of the
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