The Dog Fighter (30 page)

This is the stronger fight. My father told me when my grandfather died. The more difficult and beautiful fight.

The poet once joked that God is two old men on a bench in the plaza mayor.

They play the cards that are our lives laid out on the wood of the bench between them. He said. The wind that deafens our ears each evening is them placing the cards. The air swept out beneath this. These old men deal us our fate.

Lost in the faces of the yelling men placing their bets I noticed Javier. He circled the ring without being noticed by the businessmen or yelling men. He did not know that I watched him. But he did not look for me either. He was there for other reasons. I followed him over the strong shoulders and raised necks to where a ragman knelt cleaning where I had killed my dog. Javier hissed at the ragman through the fence and the ragman looked up through his scraggly hair into the eyes of the thief. Javier spoke. Smiling almost. All this while Ramón was joking with the dog. Entertaining his audience. The ragman in front of Javier looked down at his bloody cloth when Javier spoke. Then he stopped when he saw the paper pesos folded longwise pointing at his nose like the end of a knife. The ragman snatched the money from the thief and fell back. Javier stood. He took one step back and there he stood at an angle so that he could hold his place in the shoving crowd and instantly leap to the fence.

The ragmen left the ring so that only Ramón and the teeth were across from one another. Mendoza held the leash taut through the fence. When he released the leash it went into the ring with the dog instead of staying behind in hand. It was nothing. An accident. Carelessness. But it never happened in the fighting of dogs. And when Ramón saw the flash of the colored leash it must have held his thoughts because he stepped back but did not think to put up his arm. He went toward the corner were Javier had been and slipped on the blood and fell to the floor of the ring. His shoulders pressed into the fence. The yelling men rushed forward. Javier with them. Knife in hand. When Ramón reached over his shoulder in confusion to place his hand over the wound where Javier had stabbed him it was enough to allow the dog to lock its jaws around the handsome dog fighters throat. It was as if Javier had never been there. The yelling men fell silent. Only the muffled tearing of the teeth into the muscles of the dog fighters throat could be heard. Mendoza did not stop the dog. All the men fell silent.

Cantana stood and he alone began the applause.

To the death of a great dog fighter! He yelled.

The yelling men dropped their cigarettes to the floor to applaud. Whistles and yells over the rooftops. The mistresses turned to see the dog gnawing at Ramóns throat. Their delicate chins trembled.

From where I stood my attention was caught by one businessman who leaned back behind the soft shoulders of his own mistress to give a quick whistle to another businessman sitting on the other side of her. They both leaned back but to keep their balance they kept their hands clapping in front of them outstretched like children making shark jaws. Like children chasing me through the market taking great chunks out of my thighs. The businessmen smiled at each other. Satisfied with his death.

I did not sleep that night. Cantana decided we were to wait until after the funeral for our drive to Mendozas. I spent the time sitting in the café across from her window. Some hours after her lamp came on each morning the old woman with silver hair came into the café. Then the old man would ask how the señorita was doing and this old woman would answer.

Singing. Always singing.

Eight

I
slept little the night before meeting Cantana in the plaza mayor. I left from the dentists early to stretch my back after lying so long in my small bed held awake by voices of the quiet city. I went to the small square to wait for the light of her window and in the fading dark there I sat thinking of how we would talk this over one day lying in bed together. I would tell her of the hours I passed waiting for the lamp in her window. She would run her hand down my face and kiss my cheek.

You fool. She would smile. Why not just knock on the door?

Then it was not so easy as this. Or I did not think it could be.

I walked to the malecón as the sun was white just above the bay. The moon pale and opposite this descending slow into the mountains that hide Canción from the world. Around the hotel to the north posts of the scaffolding glowed like bones in that early light. In the evenings when the winds went through those empty rooms and hallways music rose from the lungs of some terrible howling instrument. But there was no wind now. The sea layered evenly beyond. The reflection of the hotel very large and clear. The sun rose as I walked the beach and my eyes were affected very much by the brilliance of the light. Even when I turned from this the white of the buildings along the malecón also stung. I walked with my back to the hotel and my eyelids closed guiding myself by the sound of the waves pulling rows of sand. Debating why Cantana needed to die.

At the docks a young boy threw heavy ropes onto the deck of a fishing boat leaving for the day. Tiny silver fish glittered like falling coins through the water around the boat as diesel smoke came over the boy rubbing his eyes still swollen from sleep. Already old women sat on the stones arguing while they sewed nets. Some wore string necklaces with shells and a single pearl on them. These treasures their sons the canoe boys long ago searched coral for. Their own treasures the days in Canción a necklace of endless suns.

School is for the children of businessmen. These boys laughed with some pride when I raced them swimming. Remember rich boys eyes cannot take the sting of the salt water.

The distraction of walking through the many songs of Canción was good for my thinking that morning. I was nervous with thoughts of never seeing her again. When I walked into the plaza mayor an old man swept near the gazebo. This man was something my time in Canción gave me to expect. Always the birds were as many as leaves around him. In the trees and hopping on the stones. I sat on a bench between two other benches and watched the old man sweep into some shade where he paused to rest. In the shade he pressed a handkerchief to his forehead. The sun just full above the bay. Dabbing sweat from the creases of his dark skin. Hanging from a limb in a tree a piece of colored tissue dangled stiffly above the old man. Left over from some festival. He tried with the end of his broom to get at the tissue but it was dry now as snakeskin and just from his reach. He went in this way without luck. Then he stopped and returned to his sweeping.

He went about his day while around him more and more men and women came into the plaza. They greeted one another with nods or brief words. Patted him on the shoulder or offered their hands. There were the sounds of window shutters unlocked and creaking open. Of floors swept and tables set with cloths they beat the dust from with palm brooms like drums. But this was his little secret. This game he played with the tissue to amuse himself. He knew it would last until the next rain.

In the café that opened before the others on the large square a waiter took delicate sips from a cup of coffee. He salted and then ate pieces of papaya on a plate a younger waiter had come and set out for himself to enjoy. When the young waiter returned the other waiter sang to himself but loud enough so that the young waiter would notice his having stolen the food. When the young waiter noticed this the waiter laughed and a man from a bakery who knocked with his elbow on the door of the café next to this also laughed. With his back to the door the man from the bakery held a woven basket to his chest filled with rolls small and warm that were to be hard by the end of the day. Then they were to be given to the children to feed the birds. Maybe even to feed themselves. The two men laughed at the young waiter until he smiled to himself also and went in for more of the fruit.

Later the mariachi bands arrived. Or blind men dressed in rags their faces shaded by wide sombreros strumming guitars held by rope over their shoulders led from table to table by small children with dirty palms open for coins.

Watching these people prepare for their day I was distracted from my thoughts about murdering Cantana. Watching the shutters open and waiters take down heavy chairs I understood that the old men were correct in wanting to protect Canción from the hotel. But my reason for wanting the businessman dead was much easier to understand.

These people. The poet had said. They work for themselves and also for each other. I sit at my stall in the market typing letters. For myself and for those who need them. Not for anyone who does not live in our hidden city. The same money exchanging the same hands. The hotel will change this. Cantana thinks that all of us are made of soft wax. Easy to mold. That we will work at pretending to be as it was before the hotel ruined this city. All for the cameras of the tourists. But some of us are willing to sacrifice. To lead by example.

But the money will be not so bad for the children. I said.

Cantana has no interest in the children of Canción. The poet said. He knows that you have a good heart my friend. And he is using this against you.

The old men would give their lives to protect the small songs of these people. Songs they wanted heard. But they needed my voice as well. What my strength and size allowed me fighting dogs before the businessmen the old men did not have. So I sat on the bench between two other benches and waited for Cantana. Waited to take his voice from the song the old men wanted sung in only their voices alone. And for this she would be my reward. Our voices our own song.

The night of Ramóns death her eyes told me there was not much time. When I saw Cantana place his hand in the small of her back I wanted to feel the bones of his fingers break between my teeth. She was not at the funeral the next morning. Those who did not want to give money for the burying of the fugitive were those first to come forward for Ramón. The one they admired when he stole their women. A game they played among themselves. Those most proud whose women Ramón did not know. Of course Cantana contributed the most. But only he and several other businessmen came to the hillside cemetery to honor the dog fighter in the hot sun. Cantana rode with the coffin in his own limousine. The other businessmen in their own cars. The rest of us walked barefoot or in huaraches in the dust of their tires. Men who attended the fights for the fighting of dogs and not for the games the businessmen played behind the backs of their crying mistresses. Men who respected the fighting of dogs not for the money to be made on the winning and losing but for the tradition of the fighting itself. I did not want to attend the funeral but the old men insisted.

Pretend Ramón was your friend. The poet folded his newspaper. Cantana will suspect you if you do not attend and this will ruin our plans for him.

I walked but at the end of the procession. The fat priest sweated through his robes stopping the procession to rest. When we came to the cemetery hill Cantana invited him to sit in the limousine. The priest accepted. Elías driving the coffin. With the priest in the limousine the two altar boys fell back alongside the workingmen to ask for cigarettes. At the top of the hill the sun glared into our eyes when the businessmen stepped from their automobiles wearing black dress shoes. I turned and went back down the hill before the fat priest could gather his breath enough to speak well of Ramón. I did not care to hear the priests words.

I am sure Cantana noticed when I left early but when the black limousine drove finally into the plaza the next morning he said nothing. Light shone down through the trees onto the fender of the limousine. The fender had been polished the day before for Ramóns funeral but had dulled some now with dust from the road that led to the cemetery. Cantana wore his sunglasses. He drove alone. I was glad to see this because I did not want to have to kill more men than was necessary just to kill Cantana. With a cigarillo in his gloved right hand he tapped the horn of the limousine with the other. Birds shadows flickered on gray stones through the green leaves. I stood and wiped the sweat from my hands on my pants as I walked to the limousine hoping he did not see this.

Qué pasa? He smiled shutting off the car.

Nada. Y tú?

Nothing good.

We smiled over these words. They had been favorites of Ramóns. They suited the smile the mistresses desired him for. Cantana looked over the large square and though I could not see his eyes I knew where he was in his thoughts.

I am glad you are here to drive. Cantana said then. I was up late last night celebrating the life of our dead friend.

I could not wait to kill this man. He offered his hand and I took it in my own. The bones of his fingers splintered in my palm.

Be his friend. Guillermo said.

No. He will not believe you. The poet said. Be quiet like you are. But not so quiet that you are not his friend.

I will be how I have to be to kill him. I answered the old men.

I looked for something dangerous that he might have brought with him. His coat was folded over the back of his seat. I looked for the heaviness of a gun in his pockets. On the floor at the back of the limousine I noticed the neck of a bottle of clear glass. But it was not within reach of the front seat. I found no weapons he could use against me.

Let us go then. Cantana put his hand on my shoulder before walking to the passenger side. We have a long day.

When I drove us from the plaza the old man with his broom rested in the shade again to try for the tissue. But still it was just from his reach. Cantana saw him. He leaned from the window with a cigarillo in his teeth and said good morning to the old man and the old man waved the handle of his broom to Cantana as if they were old friends.

On our way from Canción to Mendozas I thought Cantana preferred to drive by his hotel. This and I did not want him to think I was in some rush. I kept both my hands on the steering wheel but not so much that the knuckles became white to show how much I wanted to kill him. When my hands became slippery from the sweat I rested one on the windowsill to test the air and then the other on my pant leg. It was a secret I kept. The man next to me was to die in these hands.

Such a beautiful day. Cantana said more to himself than to me as we drove from the large square over uneven stones and then hard packed streets. Always such beautiful days in Canción.

But when I asked if he preferred to turn toward the malecón he said.

First we need to meet an old friend of my fathers.

So I turned onto a narrow street in the direction of the cathedral as he told me to. I followed the directions he gave. Made the turns. All of this to deceive him. But when he asked.

Who did you do last night dog fighter?

I answered.

Nothing.

And he laughed at me until I heard what he had said and I knew then that he was asking me this to suggest even that he had been with her that night while I was alone in my small room unable to sleep waiting to drive him to Mendozas where I would kill him. My knuckles turned white around the steering wheel.

With Cantana. The poet had said. We can expect nothing but more labor for our pains.

Think of how he holds her in his arms. I imagined my grandfather say. The way her cheeks feel to his lips. Squeezing her thighs in his hand.

When we entered Guillermos shop the young men were hunched over their workbenches and engines.

Where are you hiding the drunk? Cantana yelled. Startling them.

Their faces and silence showed the surprise they had when seeing the businessman Cantana. El Tapado. And then me alongside him. Afraid their pause would reveal my secret I looked them each quickly in the eyes. But you are used to people being startled by your presence when you are of a great size as I am or of much power as Cantana was. You can see them wondering why you are before them. Worrying what you will do to them.

He is in the back. One young man waved a wrench in his hand.

Call him out. Cantana said. Even if you have to roll the old fool across the floor beating him with his own cane.

Guillermo had been sleeping. The lids of his eyes were red. Half closed. He cleaned his glasses on his robe as he muttered to himself and felt his way into the room over the workbenches. The thin skin of his old fingers just missing the ends of sharp tools. His undershirt dirty with food and alcohol.

You look as if you used the bottle for a pillow old man. Cantana laughed.

Junior! Guillermo yelled. Putting on his glasses.

The two men hugged. Guillermo did not look at me over Cantanas shoulder.

I brought this for you. Cantana handed the veteran the clear glass bottle from the limousine. Now there was nothing in the limousine that I would have to use for a weapon. Only my hands.

Very nice. The veteran turned the bottle. The golden alcohol brilliant but distorted through the tiny bubbles in the clear glass. He set the bottle on the workbench and clapped together his hands. Flaco! Guillermo snapped to one of the young men. Go to the café for eggs and tortillas and coffee.