made them feel as if they were in a savage storm at sea on a ship so sturdily navigated that not even a tidal wave could lift it or make it roll.
Sometimes they see hawks and falcons circling, colorless, sharp specks high in the sky; they’ve never seen one dive towards the cove, but they’ve seen them doing so farther away, beyond the blocked horizon, out over the harbor. And in the sky over Brooklyn, they regularly see faraway, tight flocks of pigeons swooping and dipping like giant kites. Gull shit rains down on them.
Sometimes at night Esteban hears brief crackles of gunfire in the distance, thinks of ambushes that are over in the time it takes a column of bodies to fall down, in the time it takes for a column of troop-jammed trucks to turn into an immobile wall of torn and twisted steel, smoke, blood, and screams…
No one is quite the same person he was when he arrived in June, not on the outside, certainly not on the inside: time fills them like the stagnant air in a flourishing mushroom cellar.
A dead ship, a mass of inert iron provocatively shaped like a ship, holds no snug dreamers at night, just fifteen fucked up marineros shivering and waiting for sleep. Every night they send themselves out on the same forced marches through the same interior landscapes of recalled, imagined, and reimagined pleasures, mostly having to do with love. But eventhe most pleasing and arousing and seemingly reliable love scenarios become harder and harder to bring to life after too many visits—though these keep smiling invitingly as if nothing has changed, smiling as if they really wish nothing had changed and are maybe even denying to themselves that they’ve grown bored and just don’t desire their lonely marinero’s callused touch anymore, they say tomorrow night it will be OK again but then it’s even worse; they fade, turn coldly reluctant and finally exasperatingly dull; they break your heart a little, when you just can’t bring a favorite love scenario to spectral life anymore. Then you have to, just have to turn to something or somebody else …
But insomnia is also like another person lying in bed beside you, verdad, Esteban? It’s yourself, keeping you company. Your mind, lying brightly awake beside you, while you turn away from it, burying your face into a stinking mattress, your body exhausted from being exhausted. Insomnia is a woman lying perfectly still beside you while you toss and turn, Estebanito, sometimes she reaches out a dry, cool hand and caresses your pene so stealthily that not even the viejo sleeping with his eyes open will notice; or sometimes she reaches out a hand and touches your shoulder, reaches out all the way from that warmly lit, yellow-painted room in León; she’s one of two sisters who shares it, although, Esteban, she’s also lying right there beside you at the same time. It’s a school night and they’re listening to El Amante Loco de La Loma’s radio show. For all the manly Castilian butter of his voice, they say El Amante Loco is actually a Spanish dwarf who came to León with a Mexican circus and then stayed behind. But what a voice! She told Esteban once that just hearing it made girls shiver and smile. All you men out there, listen to what El Amante Loco de La Loma has to tell you: A woman doesn’t want your resentments, jealousies, your crazy bad thoughts, save that for the cantina, compañeros, or for that sad song you’re going to write, set it to music and then pretend it doesn’t belong to you. A woman wants joy, happiness, pleasure, and if she tells you she wants you to be that new modern man, to open up that sad birdcage in your heart and let all your complaints and worries and misfortunes come hopping, squawking and flapping out, don’t do it ’manos. Listen to El Amante Loco, he’s neverwrong, never milks the wrong leg, amputates the wrong cow, pollinates the wrong train, boards the wrong flower, and now for this marvelous old bolero from Bola de Nieve … La
Sometimes they see hawks and falcons circling, colorless, sharp specks high in the sky; they’ve never seen one dive towards the cove, but they’ve seen them doing so farther away, beyond the blocked horizon, out over the harbor. And in the sky over Brooklyn, they regularly see faraway, tight flocks of pigeons swooping and dipping like giant kites. Gull shit rains down on them.
Sometimes at night Esteban hears brief crackles of gunfire in the distance, thinks of ambushes that are over in the time it takes a column of bodies to fall down, in the time it takes for a column of troop-jammed trucks to turn into an immobile wall of torn and twisted steel, smoke, blood, and screams…
No one is quite the same person he was when he arrived in June, not on the outside, certainly not on the inside: time fills them like the stagnant air in a flourishing mushroom cellar.
A dead ship, a mass of inert iron provocatively shaped like a ship, holds no snug dreamers at night, just fifteen fucked up marineros shivering and waiting for sleep. Every night they send themselves out on the same forced marches through the same interior landscapes of recalled, imagined, and reimagined pleasures, mostly having to do with love. But eventhe most pleasing and arousing and seemingly reliable love scenarios become harder and harder to bring to life after too many visits—though these keep smiling invitingly as if nothing has changed, smiling as if they really wish nothing had changed and are maybe even denying to themselves that they’ve grown bored and just don’t desire their lonely marinero’s callused touch anymore, they say tomorrow night it will be OK again but then it’s even worse; they fade, turn coldly reluctant and finally exasperatingly dull; they break your heart a little, when you just can’t bring a favorite love scenario to spectral life anymore. Then you have to, just have to turn to something or somebody else …
But insomnia is also like another person lying in bed beside you, verdad, Esteban? It’s yourself, keeping you company. Your mind, lying brightly awake beside you, while you turn away from it, burying your face into a stinking mattress, your body exhausted from being exhausted. Insomnia is a woman lying perfectly still beside you while you toss and turn, Estebanito, sometimes she reaches out a dry, cool hand and caresses your pene so stealthily that not even the viejo sleeping with his eyes open will notice; or sometimes she reaches out a hand and touches your shoulder, reaches out all the way from that warmly lit, yellow-painted room in León; she’s one of two sisters who shares it, although, Esteban, she’s also lying right there beside you at the same time. It’s a school night and they’re listening to El Amante Loco de La Loma’s radio show. For all the manly Castilian butter of his voice, they say El Amante Loco is actually a Spanish dwarf who came to León with a Mexican circus and then stayed behind. But what a voice! She told Esteban once that just hearing it made girls shiver and smile. All you men out there, listen to what El Amante Loco de La Loma has to tell you: A woman doesn’t want your resentments, jealousies, your crazy bad thoughts, save that for the cantina, compañeros, or for that sad song you’re going to write, set it to music and then pretend it doesn’t belong to you. A woman wants joy, happiness, pleasure, and if she tells you she wants you to be that new modern man, to open up that sad birdcage in your heart and let all your complaints and worries and misfortunes come hopping, squawking and flapping out, don’t do it ’manos. Listen to El Amante Loco, he’s neverwrong, never milks the wrong leg, amputates the wrong cow, pollinates the wrong train, boards the wrong flower, and now for this marvelous old bolero from Bola de Nieve … La
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