The Dog Fighter (20 page)

On my walks at times I despised the beauty of Canción. The colorful walls under electric lamplight. Vacant alleys and streets where my steps sounded loudly. Sounding as if I were not alone and turning to look but realizing then it was myself that was making those walking sounds. It was myself desperate not to be alone but to be with her who would finally understand everything. But after the fight when I sat watching Cantana with his hand in the small of her back even the daydreams I entertained of happiness no longer suited me. I worried that no matter how skilled I was or praised by the yelling men I could still fall before the dogs. That even with God much in this world seems left to chance. Unlike my father I believed that chance was decided by Him. I could not think my way out of this. I only thought that Cantanas will prevented us from being together and that had to be ended. I thought of ways to destroy Cantanas will. But I have never been a very clever man and nothing came to my mind through my anger and frustration.

It was not until one afternoon when Javier came limping to the salon carrying the bag full of items he had stolen the night I helped him that I began to know more about how I was to be with her finally.

Guillermo stood from one of the seats at a table where he and the poet and I sat in front of the salon.

Look at this! Guillermo yelled to the young men in the salon. He turned to the street with his cane hooked over his forearm and his arms opened wide to receive the limping thief. The poet stood to steady the veteran. You look good my young friend!

Watching Javier approach I was reminded of Ramón. Both men were handsome and full of pride. But with Javier there was a feeling of generosity. Of being allowed near to him for reasons other than his own needs being satisfied by you. With Ramón you served some purpose. When Javier came near and noticed me his look changed some but not enough for the others to notice.

In the arms of which beautiful woman have you been hiding out amigo? The poet clapped Javier on the back.

What makes you think I stayed to just one? Javier smiled and the men roared. Pinching his sides and patting his shoulders to welcome him.

Guillermo introduced me to Javier and I stepped forward so he did not have to. We shook hands.

Look at the size of this mans hands! Javier said loudly. The old poet here must be jealous of this ones fingers alone.

The young men in the salon laughed as the poet blushed.

Guillermo would tell me later what I already knew from our evenings at the dentists together. That Javier had been a pickpocket in the market as a boy. But that now he was a very accomplished thief.

Watch out for this young man. Guillermo said while Javier spoke with the other young men. This thief will steal your woman just as easy as your watch.

When he is not busy falling out of windows. The poet laughed.

Guillermo took the poet by the arm. Resting his weight upon him. Come now my young friend. He said to Javier. Show me what you have brought.

The poet helped Guillermo through a door at the back of the salon. Javier shook many hands as he limped by the other young men at the tables. After some minutes the poet returned to the table in the front where I sat alone.

What is in the bag? I asked the poet nodding toward the door. I was nervous and I knew the best way to distract the poet from guessing that I knew Javier was to make him talk.

Guillermo is a very busy man. The poet said. He knows that in this city of ours there are many talented young men looking for work on something besides the road and the hotel. More than picking the pockets of the poor in the markets. He knows where many of the most wealthy homes are. He has boys in the city find out for him. They sit on corners or they ask the girls who work in the houses of the businessmen. Cleaning and cooking in their kitchens. Then the young men you see here they go and take what Guillermo can send on the ferries to Topolobampo. Mazatlán. Acapulco.

Javier knows the city well then?

He does.

And he is a talented thief?

He once stole gold from the mouth of a man sleeping.

And these young men do not run out of work?

They do other things as well.

What?

When did you become so curious?

It is your fault.

Mine? The poet asked. How?

Not to discover weakness is. I recited to the poet. The mystery of strength. Impregnability inheres. As much through consciousness. Of faith of others in itself. As elemental nerve.

Dog fighter! Guillermo interrupted from the door at the back of the salon. Tell your deaf friend there to come here a minute. Javier was limping toward us folding money and putting it in his shirt pocket. The poet stood and smiled at me. He shook his head as he took a few steps before Javier stopped him. The thief took from the bag a small gift wrapped in newspaper.

I was enjoying this in the comfort of their living room when the old man got up to piss. He said. I thought you might enjoy it.

The poet unwrapped the paper and held a slim book with leather binding and gold lettering in English down the spine. He admired its delicate pages.

This is very generous of you Javi. I appreciate it very much.

The poet clapped the thief on the shoulder and hugged the young man before walking on. When the door closed at the back of the room Javier sat down in an empty chair at the round table I sat at. He rolled a cigarette in silence. I looked over the street as if there were nothing important to be spoken of between us.

Do you want a cola? I asked.

That sounds good. He said.

I walked to a cooler at the back of the room. When I sat down at the table he took a long drink before setting the bottle between us.

Gracias. He said after a moment.

De nada.

 

M
ost of the young men at the salon kept hours similar to Javier. They slept late through the sunny days to come in the afternoons to drink beer and play billiards. They kept their working hours to the cool of the night. Some also working at the fights or for gambling that businessmen did for the other men of the city but in secret. But the salon was a good place for the young men. They shared secrets of their work. Spoke of troublesome locks and the houses that had nothing of interest. Behind which doors and over which walls slept the most vicious dogs. When they spoke of the hotel they all spoke in the same voice. About Cantana and the changing of Canción it was the same. Their voice the voice of Guillermo. Occasionally also in the voice of the poet that I knew so well and even spoke in myself now and then. None of us said much of our own. The two old men at the back of the salon sat quiet during the day enjoying the sound of their echoes.

In the evenings the young men practiced picking pockets in the aisles between the tables. Guillermo gave them a game to play where one wallet was the wallet they were all after. Keeping it in their pocket as they went about their games pretending not to go after it.

It will teach you how to be quick and good with your hands. How to make it seem like you are not after something. Always to be on guard of what you have. The veteran told them.

Guillermo huddled with them in the back room over drawings of houses they made on their walks through the city at night. Deciding the best entrances. Telling them what to steal. Paintings. Jewelry. Silverware. What customers on the mainland wanted. He always spoke of Mexico as if Baja were not a part of it. He knew that the young men loved the small city but like all young men they were eager to move on.

The thieves were hungry. Anxious to pursue the connections Guillermo promised them in Ciudad México or in the United States even. Guillermo convinced them that they made the decision at first to steal for the money. And then the excitement took them and he no longer had to convince them. Their eyes were constantly restless but their bodies calm in the afternoons searching each others pockets for the one wallet. Eager for the veterans drunk praise.

This is a different life you have chosen. I heard him tell one young man. There are serious consequences. But it is a life with more adventure than building roads. Than ruining your back and hands working on the hotel. Do not let me decide for you what you do with your life. But I can help if you want. I know people in Tijuana. Los Angeles and San Diego. You have to be a very good thief to live in these cities. But I will teach you.

Javier smiled and laughed when we heard this. He shook his head and said to me. When Guillermo told me this story it was New York. He had a cousin there.

After being introduced to Javier at the salon I went there many times to meet with him while the poet was in the market at his stall. We sat at a table or played billiards while Guillermo settled disputes between the thieves. He listened carefully and judged fairly. Thinking for hours with his chin denting the back of the veins in his hands folded over his cane. If one of the thieves thought the decision unfair and believed that he had been wronged then the veteran always gave him something extra the next time he came to the salon with items to sell.

Sitting with Javier I listened to the thieves stories of sneaking and stealing and from this I knew how much they enjoyed the chance of being caught. In this they thought nothing of how their stealing affected others. The items for them merely shone with wealth or had gone dull with age that might promise wealth also. I thought the stealing wrong.

People should not put their memories in things. The poet said to me when I mentioned this. Most of the people that these boys steal from own these things to impress others. They own them not to admire and cherish for themselves but to remind others of what they do not have. These things cost nothing to people like this.

I spoke nothing of these feelings to Javier. Because he was my friend I did not consider him one of these other young thieves. Besides I was similar to them before the fighting of dogs. I was not affected by the pain I had brought on others. I even maybe felt more alive then. I know that if I had not found her or the poet or the dentist and Javier I would have been like these young thieves until I died in prison or with a knife in my chest sitting at an empty table in a bar. I am grateful for these others. For Canción.

At the salon I spent more and more time with the poet and Guillermo also. We bet on games the young men played and sometimes I was there to break up fights. There was always the threat of the young men dancing in the aisles flashing knives. But more and more often the poet and Guillermo spent their time in the back room talking. Or pacing back and forth from the salon to the shop down the street to be alone. The veteran with his hand on the poets arm. The cane dangling between them unused. Their heads bent together. Once in a while the police visited and went into the back room with Guillermo. Later he shuffled out of the back room pouring them cups of damiana while calling me over to be introduced to them and shake their hands.

The best dog fighter there is. Guillermo placed his hand on my arm for support. Everyone says so.

Thank you my young friend. Is what he said to me after they were gone.

But there was much that happened at the salon without my knowing. I could not help but wonder how the conversation between the poet and me would have finished if Javier had not interrupted to give him the book. Every time I saw the words painted on the walls I thought to check the young mens hands when they played pool.

I knew before I would admit to myself that I knew.

Still I was walking much at night alone. It was very strange for me to think that I was now in the words and stories of others after for so long being nothing in the words of anyone. All for the killing of a dog. But in a horrible way that earned me much respect. I preferred the shadows and light of the growing moon at night. When I asked once what the poet thought of the fighting he answered.

The fighting of dogs is something that the men of Canción have enjoyed for many years. You should feel proud to be of this tradition.

But shame also I think.

Still I searched the city streets for her. Spoke of her to no one. The poet sat in his stall in the market with the women. The workingmen continued construction on the hotel while around it the burned tractors sat. The road in the hills above Canción crept down toward the abandoned mine and then into Canción. No one mentioned the fire in the village in the mountains from the night of my first fight. No one spoke of those who lived there. I was too busy in my search for her to think of them. Every day I found her at the end of a street. Turning a corner to disappear. She taunted me with brief encounters. Led me down empty streets that ended leaving me in a maze that changed each time. I visited and revisited places I had imagined seeing her. Created her out of memories we never had together. Once when a little girl discovered me talking to myself she laughed and ran. Wandering like this through Canción I was only passing time until the next fight when I knew I would see her again. The streets light with the sun and softened by dust because there was so little rain in this part of Baja. The buildings beehives with people behind walls. Now and then there was the distant sound of blasting in the hills. The hammers at the hotel. But never anything of her.

I floated on my back in the bay at night with the tiny waves splashing into my ears and I whispered to her again and again.