THE BETRAYALS

I used to buy large doses of Marijuana from my dear friend Sergio. Sergio was this big dark Mexican with a jolly personality, very charming, whenever he was asked: “Do you know where I can get some pot?” He would respond: “I don’t know, every one always asks me that, but I don’t do that stuff, and I don’t know where to get it.” That was that. He was my dealer for four or five deals in a row. I would walk to his house, we would sit and chat about petty laughable things, always wondering when we would both move back to our home countries, to eat the good grub our mothers had raised us with. Papas chorreadas for me, Chile Reñeno for him, hay dios mio, Lengua lo mejor para mi. We talked about the pretty girls, and about our jobs, and there were things that we would never talk about, such as horoscopes, tortillas yes, carnitas more, horoscopes never.

Sergio came over to my apartment on the day that I got a new puppy. I call it an apartment because I want to give it a sense of home, a multidimensional cuddling space, but it was a studio with no kitchen, ok man, it was a room. A white but dirty bed-sheet covered the paint stained window, the bed-sheet poorly sustained by two nails, you could not pull it to the sides, if I wanted sun, I had to tie it in a centering knot, effectively splitting sunlight, a trick that is both fun and easy to reproduce, you can try it if you want, splitting sunlight. The room was white too, my mattress cover was white, there was a pee yellow covering all that whiteness, my dingy closet had all the clothes hanging on the floor, clean clothes chaotically tangling with my dirty clothes. Everything about me smelled like it was almost clean, I took a shower everyday, I don’t remember where, the room did not have a shower, there must have been a public bathroom for my pee.

Puppy was light brown, short fat, promising to grow into one big hunk of shit producing affection. His favorite thing was to pee on me, every time he jumped on me it was flying golden showers. I always manifested my distaste for his proclivity, but the urine would fade to the point where I could never really smell it, I knew it was all over my clothes because I had seen his ejection but not because I could discern the smell. Urine doesn’t spot dark clothes, I always wear dark clothes because bright colors dish out too much energy, they act too happy, they attract attention from the wrong kinds of people, I don’t like energetic beings, I like quiet beings, beings that drift through the human condition without being too happy and without being to obvious. I mean my character was made to have a puppy that had bladder control problems.

When I was a boy of seven I was still peeing my pants, wetting my bed, it was a terribly embarrassing situation, but I was afraid to ask where the restroom was, I was very shy, the fear of asking was insurmountable it was easier to pee my pants. When I was in bed it was not fear, it was laziness, I did not want to get up; I felt my bladder gloating about its disposition, urging me release, and I never bothered to restrain it; it seemed so wrong, animals in the wild pee anywhere, I was in bed, warming myself up with my pee.

My parents saw it as a problem specially because my very nice bed was one of those that had clothes drawers underneath, the mattress became a sort of filtering system which would strain my urine to its highest contaminant purity right into our clothes drawer. I never had children perhaps because I was afraid of having to deal with a child that would just pee anywhere, it is not an easy thing to have such a child. I presume that I would have been less prone to it if I had been more aware of the world around me, but I was a hermit child, I had invisible play friends all over the house, I was always kept busy by them, so I never had time for the humans.

Later in life my parents told me that I used to love to play with my shit, that I would dig my hands into it and cover my face with feces and even eat the stuff, creative baby was me, mierda on canvas, seen that many times but I was just more accurate in detail than most artists. I don’t remember those eschatological love sessions, today I mostly don’t like shit, I don’t get a thrill out of going to the restroom, and I don’t like the fact that we are held hostage by our waste disposal system. I suffer a phobia for diarrhea, something I am afflicted with every time that I return to Colombia. The last time I peed my pants was at a movie with Audrey, it was a sort of tangled date, I did not want to go to the restroom, finally I had to let it go, she wanted to touch my leg, I was coldly distant, I was fourteen.

Sergio sat on the head of the bed and I at the other end, playing with puppy while my bag of pot laid next to my plant Cassandra, a semi suicidal hypochondriac that I fed water regularly, we talked about everything, and the different women in my life would affect her in different ways, Some would sicken her, dry her, cause her to go dormant on me, a few others would make her feel well but never too well. Cassandra liked my general indifferences, we were both indifferent to each other, we were the married couple that slept in separate rooms, never talked much, or if so only about our liquids coffee and water, no toast, neither one of us liked breakfasts, and she was so indifferent that she only ate once a week, I liked that about her, I was so indifferent that sometimes I would not feed her for weeks, then she would launch herself into one of those incessantly bothersome sessions “oh no I am dying, my green leaves now pale yellow, my stems suffocated so much that even water can not be absorbed, I am shutting down, I am going to die, you can not keep me alive, I never asked you for anything, I never used that much of the house, I stayed with you through all your drinking, I never accused you of being abusive or an alcoholic like all the others, and still you never cared about me, you know I love classical music and yet you never play it for me anymore, and ever since you been seeing that black bitch, who refuses to water me, you don’t care if I die!” Cassandra, who could believe her, but she just went on like that, and I would ignore her until she had managed to yellow herself dead pale, much of her stem turning a hideously dark brownish color, and then her guilt driven campaign would get to me, I would talk to her a little, play some salsa music to try to lighten her morbid composition, I take her many dead leafs off and then feed them to her, she did not seem to object to the perverse cannibalism of self, every leaf I placed in her soil disappeared, I never asked her about it, it was a subject that neither of us wanted to address; we respected each other that much, and so slowly she would come back to life, and be green as green, again.

There was a bang at the door, bang, “police open up! This is the police open up!” I froze, the door busted itself open, three pigs, I hate cops, always have, I could never be a woman that loves men in uniform, they sicken me. This buffalo smelling insensitive monster in boots, stands in front of me, my sitting face dead smack centered on his penile personality, musk mustache, I am smelling the primordial history of the universe, this guy was a find, frozen in the primordial urine of cells that would eventually make up donkeys, pigs, some would make it to cattle, this guy had made it to buffalo, there was a lot of hair all over his body, bushes full, and the smell of stampede was all over him. Such a virgin thinker, pristine raw emotions what a treasure.

I was dead frozen, fear freezes me, my little brother once got hit by a school bus, I froze, rather than rush to help him, I froze in the moment. He gets hit by that bus many times through my life. I don’t believe is symbolism because if I did the torture would be more immense. The buffalo pig grabs my bag of pot and puts it to my face and talks in a broken language which I discern as an interrogation to ascertain his certainty, “is this yours!” Let me see we are in my studio apartment home, I don’t get a community rate on my rent, I decide not to answer, maybe I am still frozen but it seems to be a decision that I have made, not to answer. His boots hold him steady, he grabs me by the shoulders and turns me around, fuck, something feels gross about this, I know he is fucking me, but I would never be able to prove it, around these parts only physical evidence counts, judges are buffalo too.

Then Sergio, who has been silent up to this moment speaks: “I told you I don’t do that shit and I don’t sell that shit, but everyone is always asking me if I know where they can get it or if I sell it just because I am a dark Mexican, but I don’t do that shit.” Sergio had turned me in to the cops, he was a good guy, he did not do that shit. He sold me some shit, he sold me to the cops to clear himself for good. He dint’s do that shit.

I had to leave my puppy in the apartment all by himself, with Cassandra, she will not feed him, she doesn’t care, with any luck he might shower her.