Think you’re clever, dickhead? the skinhead persists. The blond guy doesn’t seem particularly willing to fight, you can see the fear in his face, he’d rather the other man calmed down; for that reason he holds up his right hand. However, because the skinhead isn’t pacified, nor does he feel sorry for the man who fell down, quite the opposite, he threatens to continue hitting him and a security guard arrives to join the struggle without much success. But even though the skinhead gets angry, the intervention is of some use, because although he continues with the insults, he seems to give up on the idea of coming to blows.
The scandal attracted the attention of Iris, who left her post and approached me, raising her eyebrows. Behind her appeared a few people who had left the queue for the sea-lion show. But since I didn’t know any more than what I could see, I could only offer the typical, vague conjectures that people tend to venture about the origins of any fight.
It was then, in that moment of distraction, as I was holding a silent dialogue with Iris, that the blond guy stood up and did something of which no one would have thought him capable, not those who were following the saga nor his son, nor even the man himself, much less the skinhead, who was now talking to the guard and gesticulating eloquently. The guy grabbed the base of a Coca-Cola sunshade that had toppled with him and in one movement that was as quick as it was furious swiped at his rival with a blow directly to the legs. Less from the force of the impact than from the surprise, the skinhead fell backwards and almost caught his neck on the edge of a raised flowerbed. Taking advantage of the fact that his aggressor was on the ground, instead of running away, the blond guy plucked up his courage and went to confront him, without releasing the sunshade, like a medieval knight brandishing his lance. What’s wrong with you, what’s wrong with you, he said. Iris let out a laugh, out of nerves, because of the ridiculousness of the situation, a noisy guffaw that she immediately repressed by putting her hand over her mouth. While the curly-haired boy continued crying, the girl in the miniskirt shouted Juan, to warn the skinhead of the attack. The young father’s warrior-like attitude didn’t last long. The skinhead’s expression contorted like a latex mask. We saw it clearly, Iris and I; this time we hadn’t been able to resist moving a bit closer. In two precise manoeuvres, with the speed of a ninja, no doubt born of some kind of training in martial arts or self defence, the skinhead disarmed the blond man of his sunshade, stood up and gave him a flying kick that clobbered him in the jaw. The guy collapsed, taking with him the only table that was still standing. Allowing him no time for anything, the skinhead leapt on the blond guy with all his ferocity: he kicked him in the stomach, the legs, the head, as if he were avenging some old family feud. The skinhead was so beside himself that not even the guards, of whom there were two by now, nor Iris’s aquarium colleagues could contain him. Only when the other man stopped reacting, trembling, his mouth and one eye bloody, did the skinhead allow four men to take control of him. One of the guards called for help on his walkie-talkie. One man held the blond guy’s head between his knees until the ambulance arrived. After a while, the police arrived in a patrol car, scaring the ducks with their siren.
The blond man was barely conscious, completely broken. They carried him into the ambulance on a stretcher along with his son. The skinhead was arrested. As the remaining group of onlookers gradually dispersed, the girl in the miniskirt stayed where she was, unburdening herself into her phone. Since Iris and I, not meaning any harm, were looking in her direction, she wheeled round to snub us and, in an instant, without pausing in her rant, she got her footing wrong and broke a heel.
Incident over, and with all traces cleared so that no one would suspect anything had happened, Canetti hosed down the area. The boy from the bar told us his version of events. From the looks of things, while the skinhead had been in the toilet, the blond guy had made a move on the girl in the miniskirt at the food stand. Not even a move, he had paid her a compliment. It would seem that the girl told her boyfriend and the rest was history. We stayed there discussing it for a while, it was really Iris and the boy, I can never remember his name, Cristian or Marcelo, discussing who had been at fault. According to Iris, the blond guy was a stupid chancer. The boy, on the other hand, defended the father and laid the blame on the skinhead. He was out to kill him, he was saying. I saw his face, I knew he was out of it. They couldn’t understand how he had been able to keep hitting him, on the ground and with the kid right there. He was really messed up. I say nothing, I keep scouring the ground in search of a bloodstain that might have been missed.
On the stairs of el Buti, a large hand falls on my shoulder and grips me. Benito hands me a bit of paper with a hurriedly handwritten note. I don’t need to read it to recognise Eloísa’s writing: Tonight party on a boat, it’s going to be great. Call me. That’s what she says and she leaves her phone number again. Thanks, I say to Benito who is waiting for a response like a messenger from another century.
In the flat, Herbert and Simón are playing at torturing a moribund beetle on the bathroom floor. When he sees me, Herbert blushes. He moves, as if wanting to hide what they’re doing. I don’t know what he thinks I’m going to reprimand him for. I ruffle their hair in greeting and with that they are forced to uncover the insect, pinned by three toothpicks. I don’t censure them; I don’t see anything bad in it — dirty, perhaps, but not bad.
I lie down to rest. The ceiling reflects the network of tree branches and the movement from the street at a speed I’ve never seen before. I make an effort to distinguish outlines, but abstraction always defeats me. Wanting to imitate that very quick, animated sequence, I try to blink in synchrony: completely impossible. I give in. The original landscape is disintegrated by this inverted projection and a new one created. A brief siesta and it’s eight o’clock.
Herbert is still in the flat; they’ve abandoned the beetle, now they’re entertaining themselves scratching each other’s heads, in turn. Aren’t you leaving, I ask. I’m in no hurry, I’m not training today. I wash my face and begin to hear the first bangs. Iris is arriving soon; I ask Benito to let her in, I can’t be bothered going down, in fact I’d like to be able to sleep a little longer. It was a struggle to convince her but she eventually agreed. She tried to insist that we eat in the hotel, but I had already decided. The truth is that she doesn’t like this building at all. She arrives loaded down with bags: fried chicken, olives, cheese, crisps, chocolate-coated peanuts and two bottles of cider. She’s taken aback when she sees Herbert, not for any particular reason, she just doesn’t like surprises. At half nine, Sonia appears, scolding her son from the door. What are you thinking, staying this late. I’m about to leap to his defence, say that I invited him, but I close my mouth. It’s a matter for mothers.
Before eating, we smoke the half joint that Eloísa left me. Iris refuses twice and finally accepts. It has an immediate effect on her. Her eyes narrow and she enters a state of childishness close to stupidity. A long way from her usual extremes, exultant or ill-humoured, for a while she becomes almost autistic. The joint overshadows me too. We devour without pause, no chatting, everything we have.