— I don’t want you here when my friends come. You have to leave.
And I was going to leave, but when his friends came, Jabi said:
— Don’t go. Come have a drink with us.
— I can’t, I’m sorry. Maybe next time—I said, tearing up, and then I whispered to one of them on the side, sniffling with hiccups, lifting my teary face and lowering it again:
— I’d like to, hic, but he won’t let me go with you, hic.
— If she doesn’t come, we don’t go. Period.
He took me by the arm to lift my spirits and dry my valley of tears.
— I would show her off if she were mine.
— Sure, that’s what pretty chicks are for. Relax, you’re not the only one.
— I don’t socialize with students—Jabalí said.
— They’re the best. They’re easily impressed. Listen, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
— I’m not ashamed of anything. Yes, come along—Jabalí said to me between clenched teeth while pinching my other elbow to the rhythm of:
— You’ll-pay-for-this.
— But, you told me, hic, I can’t. So, hic, I won’t.
Then off I ran like Little Red Riding Hood from the Big Bad Wolf. It was revenge. It was obvious his friends didn’t approve of his behavior. Imagine how humiliating that was for someone as vain and conceited as he was — but it was even worse for me because they were his friends after all. And what was I to them? Just another pretty chick. Pity is the pits. And I felt bad, really bad.
— You betrayed him. You didn’t keep the secret. You were accomplices. That’s what love is all about. Complicity.
— I didn’t betray him, my eyes betrayed me. It’s like the rain. Tell me, who can stop the rain? It’s against my nature. I wasn’t born for closets or twilights. Sometimes Jabalí would hide me in his room when he had company. What if — I thought — what if they happen to open the door and find me hiding here? How scary. How embarrassing.
— What a fool for playing along. If it were me, I would’ve dealt him another hand:
— Are they gone yet? Can I come out now?
— I don’t betray the people I love.
— But you told his friends he wouldn’t let you go.
— After I had said, “I can’t,” after my tears had betrayed me. I was already caught and couldn’t turn back. You can’t cross the same river twice. These were new waters. Salt waters. I was walking down the sidewalk when a taxi pulled up ten minutes later. Jabalí rolled down the window, stuck his head out, and shouted:
— You sonnavabitch, get in here!
How dare that motherfucking bastard call me a sonnavabitch. Jabalí was an illegitimate child. It’s perfectly legit to be illegit, but since I knew that was his Achilles’ heel, I shot my arrow there.
— I’m not getting in, you bastard. If I’m a sonnavabitch, you are a bastard, a real bastard. Try to deny what’s bugging you inside. It’s me, angel, your love.
— Believe me, you’re no angel.
— It’s not my fault. They’re voices.
— The insanity plea. It wasn’t me. I was possessed by voices.
— That’s why Jabalí left me. He couldn’t differentiate between fantasy and reality.
— I hate you.
— If you hate me, I’m leaving.
Hatred is just another voice. Let it be dramatic. Let it hate. Sometimes you have to voice hatred to voice love. They’re natural stages, and there’s always a backstage door and someone is knocking. It’s me, damn it. Don’t act like you don’t recognize me. You know who I am. It’s me. I’ve come to kill you. Killers, of course, have their own reality too. I’m not justifying the act, rather the fantasy. I’ve changed. But I’m still the same person. Open up. Understand me. Love me. It’s time to open all the doors of incomprehension and hear the siren’s song.
— That’s a low blow. You shouldn’t have gone there.
— I didn’t mean “bastard” in the literal sense of the word — illegitimate, fatherless — not in that sense, but “bastard” in the sense of a “lowlife sonnavabitch motherfucker.”
— Well, that’s okay.
— I had hoped it wasn’t our last goodbye, and it wasn’t. To this day I have recurring nightmares of a bat descending from the sky so slow and quivering in its flight — it’s eerie to watch it descend and announce its arrival. Then in comes Jabalí as a dirty wild boar, kicking up the dust as if he had just crossed the entire desert; he arrives at your house, filthy, grunting. I can hardly understand his grunts.
— Prff-prrff-prrff. I’ve come to take you away. Prff-prrff-prrff.
I hop on his back, and the bastard starts bucking and grunting and running down the hallway with me in the saddle, and I’m no jockey so I’m clutching for my life onto his reins, stirrups, and fangs, and we’re racing through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona until the pig, the filthy pig bucks me off into the desert dunes. And I wake up shuddering, gasping for air.
— Well believe me, if Jabi comes back and you hop back into the saddle, then that’s what you deserve. You can shrivel up in the wasteland where he dumped you. Yes, I know your tactics. My house, ah, he wanted to take you from my house. First, ha, I overstayed my welcome in your house, and now all of a sudden, it’s my house when you want me to rescue you from the desert dunes. The boar breaks into my private property to rape my little pussydog. How did you know it was him? Did it have his face, his voice, or what?
— Why would it have his face? It was a pig, a real pig. We’ve called him Jabalí so many times that he became a boar. I don’t even mention his name anymore. Why should I? He is a pig.
— Which is worse: if your lover dies or if he leaves you?
— If he leaves me and goes on living without me — unforgivable. If he leaves me and drops dead — an improvement. But to leave me cold-blooded is to kill me. If the killer had killed himself as well, it wouldn’t be so bad. But he didn’t die. He got away scot-free, only to kill again.
— The lover’s death is always worse because all hope of reconciliation is gone.
— Yes, but death can elevate him and put him on a pedestal, whereas if he dumps you, even if you still feel the love, you stop idealizing him. How could he have been my lover? He fooled me. I woke up from one reality into another and became a stranger to myself and to others. Ten years passed, ten long years. Ten years pass as quickly as seven. Seven years passed and soon it was ten, and I kept wondering:
— When will I see Jabalí again?
And who would’ve known I was reliving the way we were — over and over again in my head — distorting the fact that Jabalí cheated on me. This summer I went to a painting exhibit and saw him there on the other side of the revolving doors. I began to feel my heart racing as my cheeks began to blush, and I smiled, not quite, but my lips did part ever so faintly.
— Should I say hello or not? Turn your back on him. Don’t turn your back. Yes, do it.
More than ten years passed, ten long years. I went through the revolving doors, and Jabalí looked at me as if he were about to greet a long-lost friend after hearing the tragic news — serious, compassionate — as if to show how sorry he was to hear about my brother’s death. I looked him in the eye, and as soon as I acknowledged him, I turned the coldest cheek as if he were a complete stranger.