A song in two different tones now broke out from Sleepy Joe, first one tone then the other. For the first tone, a grand and serious voice emerged from his throat, a voice like Greg’s, I remember thinking, if I closed my eyes I could imagine it was Greg who was there, it was his Gregorian chant. Motherfucker, I thought then, I was hallucinating because of the incense that, not for nothing, smells like weed. What purpose did all this serve for him? What was the point of this ridiculous theater? Did he miss his brother? Was he summoning the spirit? I began to shiver. And then it was no longer Greg’s voice that was coming out of that throat, now it was a little thin voice, almost a child’s, that responded to the other one. Sleepy Joe’s voice as a child? The two brothers together and praying? Oh, God, so horrific I was getting goose bumps. They must have been very ancient chants from Slovakia, but so incomprehensible, son of a bitch, lightning over Tatras. In spite of it all, there was something very impressive about it, I had to admit. Sleepy Joe’s silhouette over the city was a potent sight. My loser brother-in-law had become a dark, half-naked priest, with the bloody face and the rivulets of blood dripping on the crucifix tattooed on his chest. He spread out his arms as if he wanted to hold the universe and let his head fall back. No laughing matter here — this was scaring the shit out of me. His back was tense, so arched that his ribs stood out like a vault. I was beginning to lose it, I don’t know, so much so that Sleepy Joe seemed to be emitting heat and brightness, perhaps burning, it seemed as if the air around him had caught fire. The veins in his neck popped out and his fists were so clenched that I could imagine his nails cutting into his palms. Could it be that he had some kind of supernatural powers? Greg used to say that his little brother was imbued with the Spirit, but I never believed that crap, because I knew that if his little brother had any powers they were located elsewhere. But now, watching this mystical display, I wasn’t so sure. Stop with this idiocy, María Paz, I told myself — what powers? what possession? — it’s just your asshole brother-in-law monkeying around with rusty buckets and pots and tin sheets. But the reality was that the man covered in blood celebrating this ancient ritual at times did seem more than just a man. Of course, I knew that wasn’t the case. He was just some maniac. Not a devil, just a man. It was a line from some movie that came into my head then. And it helped calmed me down, not the devil, just a fucking man. I repeated it to myself. This Sleepy Joe was like a coyote, mysterious and cowardly. A loser, all fucked up and defeated by life. But in that state he was in during the ritual, shaken by some sort of celestial orgasm, with his eyes gone white and fully raised to the heavens, Jesus, you had to respect it. I swear, Mr. Rose, more than a man. As if some high-voltage electrical shocks had transformed him, that’s what it seemed for a moment, and I began to understand some things then. I felt as if Corina were beside me and suddenly I got it. My Corina, I’m sorry for my stupidity. This is what you saw, Cori? This is why you fled, to save yourself. This is what frightened the shit out of you. This fear I feel now was your fear. These muffled screams were your screams. Oh, Bolivia, my beautiful mamacita in heaven, Corina in Chalatenango, have mercy on me and save me from this lunatic. Something has happened, now I can see that this uncouth man who had been my lover has been endowed with some horrendous power. He was a terrifying being, inside and out; he instilled fear in others and at the same time was devoured by it. His faith was nothing more than panic raised to a maddening power. But this was the first time I witnessed the full metamorphosis. I had known the signs. They were obvious every time we made love.
Sleepy Joe made his way through life half-asleep, lacking in initiative, no plans, indifferent and drowsy, a pack of muscles that went underused. In bed, however, he was able to let loose that impressive voltage that dwelled inside him.
“If you were to put such energy into work,” I always told him, “you’d be a millionaire.”
When it came to sex, everything about him was much too grand and lasted forever. There was in him a kind of excess that made me think of a goat, an animal in heat, a satyr, something not quite human, like those hyperactive and hypersexual monkeys Violeta and I saw once in the zoo, jerking off and fucking like crazy in the cage. Violeta was speechless. “Let’s go,” I told her, grabbing her arm, “come on, Violeta, there are other cute animals.” But Violeta did not move from there. “You go,” she responded, “I want to see this.” I had also glimpsed the other Sleepy Joe, in those fits of rage that made him want to kill everyone and everything. This monk-like creature on the roof was not my brother-in-law, not my boyfriend or my lover, not his brother Greg, not the poor, good-for-nothing Joe, the sleepy, lonely, fake trucker. He was something else now, a feverish possessed lunatic, a sinister priest, a murderer clown. This son of a bitch would no doubt kill me, I thought. Suddenly that became very clear to me. Or at the least impale me with a broom, as he had done to Corina.
There were some nails lying around and I started to try to reach them with my foot, little by little, so he wouldn’t notice. Until finally I was able to get a hand on one and with it I started to loosen the knot on the belt, doing it in little steps, patiently, slowly. It was time to gamble all or nothing: Sleepy Joe was flying, stoned with the divine presence, and as the knot started to come loose, I gave a good pull on the belt, managed to free myself, and flew down the stairs as fast as I could. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as before, no more of this hiding in the rat hole. This time, I grabbed my mink and shoes, and Joe’s wallet, which in a stroke of brilliance I snagged out of his jacket, and ran out the door. I flew down the stairs and out into the street! I buttoned the mink all the way up so that it wasn’t obvious I was butt naked underneath, and soon I was down in the labyrinths of the subway.
Hero! Shit, I had left Hero behind again. I hadn’t even seen him when I rushed out, and to look for him at that moment would have been suicide. But whatever was to happen, this time I was committing to rescuing him once and for all. At the next station, I got out of the subway and hailed a cab. You must be wondering, Mr. Rose, why I just didn’t call the cops to have Sleepy Joe arrested. The answer is simply that the cops are the enemy, that’s the main difference between your people and my people. You have authority on your side, and we always have it against us. If I would have gone to the cops in the state I was in, an ex-con in their eyes, a mess, ass naked under the mink, do you get how fucked I would have been, Mr. Rose?