invited me to have a drink, he knew a stupendous gin bar at the foot of the mountain, he could take me on the back of the motorbike. If I’d proposed going to the dog track he would have accepted—any plan struck him as better than going home. Even though I thought Pedro was a cretin, a certain congeniality was starting to pervade our conversation, a dangerous camaraderie that smoothed over any friction. One more step and there’d be no turning away from that friendship. I was saved from dragging out the night any longer because I find it vaguely gay to ride on the back of a motorbike, and also because of the lingering fear left by my heart scare; I was going to behave. We said good-bye, exchanging assurances that we’d never let our friendship lapse again. Then I told him I’d lost my mobile, and I switched a digit in the address I gave him.
I watched as he got on the bike, looking for all the world like a string of sausages on a hook. I turned around and headed uphill to avoid his little wave. Once I was alone I walked—gastric fluids slogging away at the bolus in my stomach—through empty lots as spacious as hangars, down unexpected slopes, across bridges and down blind stairways, along streets so open and deserted it was like there’d been an outbreak of a deadly virus. The alcohol began to dissipate, leaving a naked remorse for having injected myself with that hunk of meaty blubber; the lipid polyps must be playing deadly Tetris in my veins. Joan-Marc and Pedro-María, Pedro-María and Joan-Marc: those compound names are hilarious. I wouldn’t be giving him a second chance—that farce ended right there. Friendship is overrated, it makes you overvalue the past, and nostalgia is a leech that sucks the blood from your brain. As soon as I’d gotten rid of the weight in my stomach, that very day, I’d get started on a girlfriend.
Once I’d reached my building on Rocafort and made it up the stairs, I could just picture my heart slumped exhausted in my chest, so I spent the rest of the evening on the couch, flipping through channels, all fifty-two, and back again to the beginning. I got sick of cooking shows, tennis matches, skinny teenagers shaking their asses, talk shows, movies that were half over, those dramas that always end with a cliff-hanger, and the news feed on repeat, programmed by the CIA. My neighbor had gone on vacation and this time he’d remembered to turn his router off, and I knew all my DVDs by heart. Nor could I sleep with the thunder of taxis and buses from the Gran Via, so I got up and poured myself a proxy: a tumbler full of cold water with lemon. I’ve read somewhere that taste is a mental construct, that those yogis who spend their lives upside down have such control over their enzymes and taste buds that they can call up at will the flavor of crunchy chicken wings, or a curry, or whatever they eat in Tibet. And I’m not saying that a good placebo can’t cure a cold, or appendicitis or AIDS—I won’t be the one to deny the power of positive thinking. I’m just saying that my own brain let me down when I asked it to imbue that tap water, between the insipid foretaste and the chlorine aftertaste, with just a hint of Tanqueray.
Thinking about Helen helped me get over my state of prostrate self-indulgence. Only a fool like her would ever decide to attempt a reconciliation in that storehouse for old fossils weighted down by arthritis, paresis, hearing aids, and the metal scars of pacemakers stuck into the flesh of their hearts. First wives are not the best topic of conjugal conversation, and you were a bit naive when I first met you, so we didn’t talk about Helen much. Though I must admit it was delightful to have my two ribs together in the same scene on the stage of my imagination—one of the tricks that makes having the thing worthwhile.
And at first glance, you wouldn’t have thought Helen held many secrets: a stupendous blonde, predictable as an innocent joke. You got more of
I watched as he got on the bike, looking for all the world like a string of sausages on a hook. I turned around and headed uphill to avoid his little wave. Once I was alone I walked—gastric fluids slogging away at the bolus in my stomach—through empty lots as spacious as hangars, down unexpected slopes, across bridges and down blind stairways, along streets so open and deserted it was like there’d been an outbreak of a deadly virus. The alcohol began to dissipate, leaving a naked remorse for having injected myself with that hunk of meaty blubber; the lipid polyps must be playing deadly Tetris in my veins. Joan-Marc and Pedro-María, Pedro-María and Joan-Marc: those compound names are hilarious. I wouldn’t be giving him a second chance—that farce ended right there. Friendship is overrated, it makes you overvalue the past, and nostalgia is a leech that sucks the blood from your brain. As soon as I’d gotten rid of the weight in my stomach, that very day, I’d get started on a girlfriend.
Once I’d reached my building on Rocafort and made it up the stairs, I could just picture my heart slumped exhausted in my chest, so I spent the rest of the evening on the couch, flipping through channels, all fifty-two, and back again to the beginning. I got sick of cooking shows, tennis matches, skinny teenagers shaking their asses, talk shows, movies that were half over, those dramas that always end with a cliff-hanger, and the news feed on repeat, programmed by the CIA. My neighbor had gone on vacation and this time he’d remembered to turn his router off, and I knew all my DVDs by heart. Nor could I sleep with the thunder of taxis and buses from the Gran Via, so I got up and poured myself a proxy: a tumbler full of cold water with lemon. I’ve read somewhere that taste is a mental construct, that those yogis who spend their lives upside down have such control over their enzymes and taste buds that they can call up at will the flavor of crunchy chicken wings, or a curry, or whatever they eat in Tibet. And I’m not saying that a good placebo can’t cure a cold, or appendicitis or AIDS—I won’t be the one to deny the power of positive thinking. I’m just saying that my own brain let me down when I asked it to imbue that tap water, between the insipid foretaste and the chlorine aftertaste, with just a hint of Tanqueray.
Thinking about Helen helped me get over my state of prostrate self-indulgence. Only a fool like her would ever decide to attempt a reconciliation in that storehouse for old fossils weighted down by arthritis, paresis, hearing aids, and the metal scars of pacemakers stuck into the flesh of their hearts. First wives are not the best topic of conjugal conversation, and you were a bit naive when I first met you, so we didn’t talk about Helen much. Though I must admit it was delightful to have my two ribs together in the same scene on the stage of my imagination—one of the tricks that makes having the thing worthwhile.
And at first glance, you wouldn’t have thought Helen held many secrets: a stupendous blonde, predictable as an innocent joke. You got more of
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