Home > Shooting Down Heaven(4)

Shooting Down Heaven(4)
Author: Jorge Franco

 

 

4


      La Murciélaga flaps in the passenger seat to the beat of a song that’s completely out of step with the moment and the situation. It’s way too early to be wiggling around like that. A female singer with a robotic voice demands, Papi, give it to me hard, give it to me hard against the wall, hard, hard against the wall, papi. As he drives, Pedro the Dictator tells us the story of a friend of his who fell through a manhole and spent the whole night down there because nobody heard his cries for help. He breaks off every now and then to laugh loudly. In reality, he’s only telling the story for himself: La Murciélaga is lost in her music, Julieth is texting, and I don’t really give a shit.

   Splayed out on the backseat, I close my eyes and cross my fingers that we’ll be driving a while so I can try to sleep a little despite the loud radio, Pedro’s laughter, and the alien sounds that La Murciélaga is making.

   Rush hour hasn’t ended yet, and we’re creeping along toward a place that sells hydroponic marijuana, which she claims is more potent and less harmful.

   “They grow it in pure water from the very beginning and fertilize it with volcanic stone,” she’d explained.

   “Wow,” Pedro had said.

   So that’s where we’re headed, even though I told them to count me out, I couldn’t hang out with them all night. At any moment, I said, Fernanda was going to call me to tell me I could leave. But what if she isn’t home, getting ready for my arrival, and instead is at the casino, glued to a betting table? I ask Pedro which casinos Fernanda’s been going to.

   “None,” he tells me. “She quit doing that stuff a while ago.”

   “No way,” I say. “She’d have told me if she’d stopped gambling.”

   “Who’s Fernanda?” La Murciélaga asks.

   “My mom,” I tell her.

   “I know her!” Julieth says, almost proudly.

   “So why are you asking him?” La Murciélaga says, pointing at Pedro.

   “Because I don’t live here and he does.”

   “I don’t get it,” she says, moving her arm to the beat like a charmed snake.

   “Believe it or not, Larry may look like a moron, but he’s an economist from the London School of Economics,” Pedro says.

   La Murciélaga turns and asks, “Really?”

   “No,” I tell her. “I started a degree at City University of London, but I didn’t finish.”

   “Well, your mom says it was at the London School,” Pedro says.

   “She doesn’t know the difference,” I say. “Besides, I was studying banking and international finance, not economics.”

   “That sounds cool,” says Julieth.

   “Anyway, we ran out of money and I had to drop out.”

   “What do you mean, you ran out of money?” Julieth asks in surprise. “I remember the cars you had and the clothes you used to wear.”

   “He’s got money, Juli,” says Pedro. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just pretending to be poor.”

   “Really?” La Murciélaga asks again.

   We live off of what Julio is able to make on the farm. There are good months and bad ones. I scrape by in London working at a real estate agency, and when the farm has a good month they wire me some extra cash. It’s not that I’m pretending to be poor, it’s that we used to be really rich.

   “Listen to this.” La Murciélaga turns up the volume on the radio and bops in her seat. Pedro keeps the beat with his palms on the steering wheel, Julieth goes back to texting, and all I can think of is taking a shower and then sleeping.

   “Call Fernanda, would you?” I ask Pedro.

   “You call her,” he says.

   “My cell phone doesn’t work here in Colombia.”

   “She said she’d call.”

   “She’s flaky. Please call her.”

   Pedro dials reluctantly. I grab his cell phone and just hear it ringing.

   “So much for proper English manners!” Pedro teases.

   Fernanda doesn’t pick up. I leave her a voicemail: Ma, it’s me. Give me a call on Pedro’s cell. I got in ages ago and I just want to get to your house and rest.

   Pedro turns off the wide avenue and onto steep, narrow streets. We drive through some residential buildings and then enter a business district.

   “Where are we?” I ask.

   “Solar system, planet Earth, third rock on the right,” says La Murciélaga, and Pedro eggs her on by giving her a high five.

   On the radio, a man is begging to the music, touch it, mami, touch it, mami, touchittouchittouchit, touch my heart, mami. La Murciélaga lets out a euphoric whoop and keeps wriggling to the reggaeton beat.

   Suddenly, Pedro brakes hard and throws the SUV into reverse.

   “What’s up?” asks La Murciélaga.

   “Check out these jackasses,” says Pedro. He parks in front of a contemporary furniture store, pokes his head out the window, and yells, “You all are real screw-ups, drinking this early in the day!”

   There’s a group sitting around behind the store window, and one of them stands up and comes outside, his arms spread wide. La Murciélaga, recognizing him, lets out an excited shriek as if she hadn’t seen him for years.

   “Ro!” She starts chanting: “Ro, Ro, Ro!”

   “Hey, old man,” Pedro greets him, while Ro grabs his head roughly and says, “Fucking dictator, where’ve you been, dude?”

   I think back, but I can’t place Ro. When I left we were all just coming out of puberty, and now we’re approaching thirty. When I left we hadn’t finished growing; our bodies weren’t done yet, our beards were scraggly, and our voices cracked when we talked. Now everything seems to have settled into place, even if just for a little while. And we act like we’re going to be young forever.

   La Murciélaga stretches over Pedro to kiss Ro on the cheek. Julieth rolls down the window and pokes her head out to give him another kiss. Seeing me next to her, Ro narrows his eyes, trying to figure out who I am.

   “It’s Larry,” Pedro tells him.

   “Larry?”

   “Larry has no idea where he is,” La Murciélaga says, and giggles.

   “Larry,” Pedro says again. “The one who was in London.”

   Ro looks at me closely and thinks a moment. “I don’t remember you either,” I tell him.

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