The Dog Fighter (9 page)

There is an accent over the n in muñeco.

The businessman smiled. And then the others around him laughed and he laughed and the old man laughed also. Everyone knew that the old man was to leave the words in this way but only until the limousine was gone.

In the excitement of what I felt for what the fighting of dogs would give me I had given little thought to how the people of Canción felt about the construction of the hotel. For me it was only work. And I was there to be paid for doing it and then when it was done there would be more or I was to leave to some other place to be paid to do work there. This is what workingmen do. If there was talk against the hotel before the explosion I had not heard it. The words I saw painted on the walls of the city did not refer to the hotel so much as the name of Cantana. A name I despised for being more known than my own. As a young man I listened mostly to conversations within myself about the victories I had not yet won. I put my own name on those walls but knew nothing of the struggle they spoke of.

The engineers and architects had decided that the building was still strong enough to continue. Eduardo went about the hotel yelling at the men to work harder. It was decided that only the north side was to be rebuilt and then not rebuilt but shored with more steel and concrete. I did not see Eduardo do it but I heard that he hurried to take down the hammock before Cantana arrived the morning of the explosion. But other businessmen had seen and now even he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to yell at us to sift through the ash and charcoal for that which we could use again.

After this attack a dozen or so of the workingmen left the work on the hotel in Canción. But others soon arrived to replace them. When these men came into the bay they lined the railings of the ferry and we stopped our work rebuilding the scaffolding to judge them and laughed because the sooty concrete monster that they saw they had not expected.

Cantana had some of the police and his own paid guards posted with rifles throughout the day and night and a metal fence like that around the ring of the fighting of dogs put up around the perimeter of the hotel and its future grounds. Because of this I was no longer able to sleep on the top floor but on the beach again in the lights of the stone malecón and those cantinas whose music and laughter called to me each night. I was very tempted to drink. But I did not have enough money and the fighting was only days ahead when the attack had occurred and then I would have plenty of money or I would be dead.

 

T
he rooftop of the depósito where we fought dogs was in the south of the city in an area that had once been busy with the pearl industry but was now old and run down. In their war against Mexico American soldiers had used the people of Canción to construct the stone warehouse. Then they used it as a place to store their weapons but also to defend the city with cannons aimed over the bay. Los Cancioneros did not mind the Americans very much. It was not as bad for them as it was in other parts of Mexico. My grandfather told me stories of how when the American army captured Veracruz he and many other men were forced to clean the streets. That the Americans spit on him and other men working with brooms and called them pigs.

All that cleaning when the Americans occupied Veracruz was the best thing that came from el Intervención. My father said to me. And as soon as they were gone the filth returned.

But when I told my grandfather that my father had said this he whispered to me.

Your father knows nothing of war. Of difficulty and hardship. Look at his hands. So soft and clean at the nails. Remember. You can never trust the words of a man whose body is not a little ruined.

The Americans had the rooftop of this two story depósito made strong enough to support the weight of soldiers who slept and kept watch there. The walls around this came to the chests of the men standing before them and were lined with colorful shards of broken glass and several openings constructed to shoot the cannons from. In one corner a small room had been built to shade the officers. This is where we waited before the fighting. We came up into this room by a metal spiral staircase from a back door made of thick metal planks and heavy iron hinges. At this door when the fighting was held stood a man with a revolver. His name was Elías. The story I heard of him was that his brother was the toughest man in Canción but that he was always beating on the younger Elías and this only made Elías even tougher than his brother. When I once asked Elías why he did not fight dogs he said.

Because when I die I do not want to mess my pants in front of dozens of men with some dog hanging on my neck. Besides. He continued. Señor Cantana pays me enough not to.

On this first night I approached Elías standing before the thick door and told him that I was there to fight dogs. That Eduardo had instructed me to come there and introduce myself.

We have been expecting you. He said. Across the alley a group of ragged boys sat on wood boxes waiting at the entrance for the dog fighters. I could feel their eyes on me. Elías took a toothpick from his mouth and stared me directly in the eyes. He rested his hand comfortably on his belt near the revolver that was between us. But before I tell Señor Cantana that you are here I must ask you if you are loyal to Eduardo?

No. I answered him.

Seguro?

Yes. I answered and this was the truth.

Bueno. Elías smiled at me. Because Eduardo is dead. Wait here a moment.

Elías tossed the toothpick to the cobblestones and disappeared into the dark of the door he guarded. He was careful to secure it behind him.

Across the alley I noticed that one of the ragged boys held a box of matches. When I faced them they seemed suddenly unable to move. The voices of men on the rooftop talking loudly came down to us. I looked to the boy with the matches. I held out my hand and after a moment he came over to me but reluctantly. Checking over his shoulder at the other boys he gave me the matches. I turned the box over in my hands before taking one out and then closing it. As the boy stood at my side I struck the match and in the same motion threw it in the air. I had not thrown lit matches since I was a boy. The boys eyes watched it arc and die and then I handed the box back for the one boy to try. Several times the sulfur did not start or he threw the match too quickly and it went out in the air immediately. I took his tiny hand in my own.

Mira. I said. Like this.

When the boy learned it correctly the others swarmed around him grabbing for the box but he kept them back by threatening to throw fire at them. Señor Cantana knows who you are. Elías said when he returned. That you are good worker and that you are interested in the fighting. He told me to tell you he is very pleased that you are not loyal to Eduardo. And that he looks forward to your first fight. Buena suerte.

The other fighters were sitting quietly in the dim room when I came up through the floor on the spiral staircase. Lined by a thin and fading light of the full moon the only door of this small room opened onto the roof. Beyond it I could hear the barking of the dogs. I smelled the cigarette smoke and the perfume of the mistresses. I studied the light around the door.

On a chair in a corner Ramón sat rubbing a balm smelling of eucalyptus where the dog had cut his leg above the knee. The scar was still very pink. The two other fighters in the room also wore scars from the fighting of dogs. One fighter was a Tlaxcaltec from Ciudad México. His blood of those who joined Cortés to fight the Aztec my father had taught me. The other a fugitive named Vargas. Immediately I recognized them as the men from the stories that my grandfather had told. They had scars from beasts and their narrow eyes were lit by fire. We all bore scars from fighting other men. When I climbed to the top of the stairs I looked the men in the eyes. On my way up I had decided to do this. To make them fear me instantly. But the dog fighters were very tranquil. They said nothing. The heavy musk from the balm Ramón put on his leg filled the room. He sat quietly in his chair while the other two jumped in place or stretched. Vargas sharpened his toenails with a file. Then he put tape around his toes. The Tlaxcaltec watched him carefully do this and then asked him why he needed the tape.

The nails tear off when I claw at their skin. Vargas smiled. This is easier than having to wait to grow new ones.

That night the Tlaxcaltec fought first. He fought two dogs. One on a leash that was released at the moment the first dog was seriously injured. He killed both dogs but only after the second had torn some muscle from the calf of his leg. The room filled with light and smoke when the ragmen carried him in with his arms around their shoulders. He did not scream but his breathing was a hiss through his lips pulled tightly over his teeth. He grimaced when they sat him down and pressed his hands against the blood soaked rags around his leg. Cursing the dog. He narrowed his eyes at us. Ramón continued to rub his leg and the fugitive did push ups to strengthen his arms. His toenails scraping against the floor.

I want the teeth of that dog. The Tlaxcaltec hissed at one of the ragmen.

Mendoza? Ramón asked.

No. He smiled a wicked smile. They are saving him for you.

The Tlaxcaltec dug his nails into the chair when the ragmen took the cloths from around his leg for the inspection by a short bald doctor. The fighters knuckles went white. The doctor sweated through the arms and back of his shirt. A bloody flap of muscle fell to the floor still held to the Tlaxcaltecs leg. None of us in the room looked easily from this however much we tried to impress each other. Before coming up the staircase we had all drawn sticks from a velvet bag Elías held hiding their painted ends. The painted ends told us which dog we were to fight that night. If we were to fight only one dog or two. Our fate left to chance we thought. We did not know whose dogs we were to fight until they entered the ring.

No fighter wanted a dog belonging to Mendoza. We all feared the sharpened teeth. If a dog of Mendozas bit into you the teeth went to the bone. The pain went through your skeleton like electricity. Other trainers did not take files to the teeth of their dogs because as Eduardo had told me the men of Canción had been fighting dogs for many generations and they thought this wrong.

It does not stop Mendoza though. Eduardo had told me. They fear Cantana. Many of us young men of Canción bet on the dogs of Mendoza. We laugh at the old men and their tradición. It is a small game we play.

Vargas fought next. The fugitive ran the metal claws along the walls of the room as he left. Whistling as if it was nothing. The yelling of the men came through the edges of the door. The light was more electric than moon. Alone together Ramón and I said nothing at first. The ragmen had taken the Tlaxcaltec from the room with the bald doctor. The doctor had decided that the muscle would have to be cut away.

The calf is ruined. He said. If we do not take it off you will die from infection.

I am sure you will find a way. The fighter smiled his wicked smile.

You are forgetting. The doctor smiled back. Who it is that pays me to help you amigo.

The Tlaxcaltec spit at the doctors feet.

We will blame that on your pain. The doctor said.

When the fugitive returned to the small room after his victory Ramón also asked him if his dog had been one belonging to Mendoza.

No. Vargas said. Wiping the sweat and blood of the dog from his face and body. The Tlaxcaltec was right. After your last fight they have decided to save him for you. They want you to continue to impress them.

While the ragmen cleaned the ring from the fugitives fight the crowd began to chant Ramóns name in anticipation. He studied the painted end of his stick.

Maybe I have Mendoza. I said to him then.

No. He smiled a small smile without taking his eyes from his stick.

Why are you so certain? I asked him.

The teeth are in my dreams.

During Ramóns fight I was left alone in the small room. I wiped the sweat from my face and could taste the blood of the Tlaxcaltec still in the room at the back of my throat. I did not know what to anticipate. The dogs had been trained to kill. I knew only the fighting of men and labor. A small moment of doubt almost took me before I heard the yelling men outside.

Ramón! They chanted. Ramón! Ramón!

The door swung open and I could see the brilliant light globes strung above the ring as they had been at the circus. Low in the sky beyond this the full moon a glowing white orb. The cigarette smoke thick but still a faint scent of the mistresses perfume reached me. Ramón stood at the center of many men patting him on the shoulders. Their hands came away with blood. His face was flush. His eyes bone white. Still very handsome. Behind Ramón the dog lay dead in a pool of its own blood and voided bowels. Its tongue lolling in this with the dirt of the floor.

My eyes fell upon her.

Suddenly and unexpected. She came from the shadows on the arm of Cantana. Her skin the color of the earth after the first rain ends a long drought. Eyes a brilliant shade of jade. A dark red dress of silk. Her hair hanging lightly down the curve of her back black as charcoal but with glints of silver.

The ragmen wrapped my forearm into the heavy rug. She did not see me but I saw no one else. My ears rang hot as my eyes fixed upon her gentle face. Her high strong cheeks. Her painted lips. When finally our eyes met I felt her putting mine instantly into her own. She opened herself to me as much as I was open to her.