The Cowboy Bible and Other Stories by Carlos Velázquez

beat, which, because it was new, sounded out of tune and awkward. The bass and drums interrupted the song. The model feared for her parts. The audience was disconcerted. The Cowgirl Bible hadn’t realized there was absolute silence in the room except for the hum of her instrument. Everybody was completely focused on her, and she was completely focused on playing. To make her come back, the drummer took a plate from a pile and threw it on the ground. The sound of it smashing on the floor brought The Cowgirl Bible out of her abstract pyrotechnics. The test was over. The audience started laughing and jeering, and The Cowgirl Bible came down from the platform sad and lonely, as if she’d just swallowed some matches.
    The Cowgirl Bible first heard about Crossroad in a documentary. If, as I suspect, her biographer is Latino, then her story will be titled Encrucijada . Perhaps they’ll also make a movie. It will star Karen Bach. The soundtrack will win a Grammy®. Then there’ll be a tribute by some black blues players. A street in the Bronx will be named after her and, finally, they will erect a statue of her along a path in Central Park and the inscription will read: The Cowgirl Bible Parker Iniesta Herbert Novo. The cursed poet of electric shavers.
    But I am getting ahead of myself, being too cute for words, and a little nasty. Before The Cowgirl Bible appeared on the covers of all the magazines, before she became the great mother hen, godmother to all the girls, mother of Marianne Faithfull, she suffered for a second time. She suffered from the futility of being a fledgling. And this is off the record: After her failure in the contest she thought about abandoning—definitively and without the option of Methadone, like a beautiful trauma—her love of the bush-sculpting art.
    That night after the concert, when all the bars had closed like wounds, she discovered Crossroad on TV. The documentary showed a mephitic location in the midst of a mythic nothing. It featured two paths that came together to form a cross. Or an X. Depending. On one side there was a bar attended to by a blind man, where they only served cola. Out in front, on a humble veranda, a deaf black man pretended to play guitar on a stick. They say a few meters up ahead there used to be a boot store called El Infierno, but nothing in the registers indicates such a thing. There is absolutely nothing there now.
    Everything I’ve told of so far is relevant to the story because legend has it that if you can’t figure out the signs, you won’t be able to make a deal in Crossroad. If there’s just one missing scenic element, then the journey will be harrowing, like dealing with a bureaucrat. If, by a stroke of bad luck, the bar is closed or the black guy is just meowing, then it will be necessary to return during lobster season. If by virtue of the Holy Child Jesus of Peyote, patron of PopSTock!, the requirements are met, then the devil will present himself at Crossroad at midnight, and you can make a deal. In exchange for your soul, you can even ask for press credentials.
    The documentary had testimony from people who asked for the wildest things. One guy was happy with a lifetime season ticket to see his favorite soccer team. Granted. Another wanted to play the drums in Beck’s band. But Beck wouldn’t change his Christian drummer, he was too good. Yet a soul is like a caress, it’s never unwelcome. So, in order to not squander his wish, the devil granted him a job as a percussionist. The last case was that of Old Man Paulino, the prestigious composer of El Mono de Alambre (whoever can’t dance to that can just go fuck themselves), who traded his soul for a pair of leather boots from The Cowboy Bible.
    At the end of the documentary, there were various fine-print clauses. But there was only one warning to those who might dare introduce themselves to the devil. The warning was not to do it while drunk. Contrary to popular song, Satan can’t stand drunks. Showing