Twenty-one“All by myself”,

by Eric Carmen. “I’m Not in Love” by Ten CC. “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” sung by Yvonne Elliman. It seemed as if the songs in Radio Universal had been programmed to make fun of his misery. Gabriel turned off the car and stepped out to breathe the night air, which was as biting as in the countryside. He leaned against a car from where he could see the house. A group of noisy guests was ignoring the guard in a suit and tie who urged them to go inside to not disturb the neighbors. “Yeah, soon, man,” they would say, and continue screaming on the street. He could hear the music’s rumble and the indistinct chatter of the guests, and he could picture Lucía flirting and dancing in those clothes she never wore for him.

He crossed the street. The group of rich kids looked him over to see if they recognized him. With each step, he thought they would close ranks, block his entry, and demand explanations, or his ID.

The thing is to walk in as if I own the place.

They stared but didn’t say anything. The guard reviewed him for a fraction of a second and said:

“May I help you?”

“I am a friend of Luis and I’m here for the party.”

The guarura looked at him resentfully but let him in. A Tizoncito taco catering truck stood about 20 meters from the main entrance. Gabriel followed the scent of the tacos al pastor. The garage had been turned into a little town square festooned with colorful paper banners and food stalls, clay pots filled with stews, tables with big glass barrels of aguas frescas, baskets with traditional candied fruits: acitrón, calabazate, and a variety of sweets: natillas, pirulíes, alegrías, pepitorias. Gabriel dove into the hungry crowd and took the opportunity to order four pastor tacos with everything, two sopes, and two freshly handmade quesadillas. They were served to him with inquiring looks, but he got his food.

He crossed the enormous garden, marveling at the rows of votive candles on the wrought iron balconies and the two tall torches spitting fire at the main entrance to the house. A bronze sculpture of an indigenous woman draped in a rebozo waited for him at the door. She looked like she was about to stretch her arm and beg for a handout.

Gabriel went into the house, borne by his own adrenaline, emboldened for having cleared the first hurdle, having enjoyed a fine dinner to boot. It was so crowded that he could not take two steps without bumping into someone. In the dark, the bright gazes of men and women rested briefly on him like fireflies. He gazed back at them. Nothing like keeping your head down to give yourself away, he thought.

Indeterminate shadows huddled around a fireplace. In the back of the living room more people were dancing, and further away he could make out the blue aura of a swimming pool. He couldn’t find Lucía or Adolfo. On the opposite side of the room, a phosphorescent skeleton served drinks, illuminated by black light. He went towards it.

The skeleton hesitated for a second before offering him a drink. Gabriel, who had been lurking in the dark, glanced down and noticed that his white t-shirt had become a big violet neon sign.

“One Don Julio, please.”

As soon as he got his drink, he slinked away from the light. The promise of unlimited free booze and food distracted him briefly from his purpose. He snuggled up to the side of the bar and ordered another tequila. He moved like a lizard, sticking to the walls of the cupola in the vast foyer, decorated with hand-painted flowers and angels. August paintings of somber fruits and withered flowers adorned the walls in which six niches housed bloodied saints and painted wooden archangels. Searching for Lucía amidst the shadows, Gabriel arrived at a traditional Day of the Dead altar covered in Cempazúchitl flowers. At the center of the altar was a picture of a young man posing proudly next to a racecar, his helmet under his arm. Below the photograph, arranged in symmetrical mounds like the ones fruit vendors display in markets, packs of Lucky Strike, Tin Larín chocolate wafers, Japanese peanuts, and baggies of Chamoy, were placed in a half-moon around a bottle of Porfidio tequila, a bottle of champagne, and a bottle of Victoria beer. At the base of the altar, resting on a bed of yellow petals, lay a Paulina Rubio compact disc, a tiny bikini, a bottle of eau de cologne with an unpronounceable name, and a collection of trophies and miniature racecars. Gabriel was captivated by the details reflecting the short, privileged, and depraved life of this individual.

“Did you know my brother Adrián?” inquired the nasal sing-song voice of a rich girl.

For a moment, Gabriel assumed the question wasn’t directed at him, but no one else responded. In the backlight, he could make out the silhouette of a petite girl of about sixteen. She looked like a squirrel, her dainty nose dotted with freckles. She reeked of weed.

“I used to see him around,” Gabriel muttered.

“He was totally insane,” the girl said. “Do you know how he died?”

“How?”

“He was coming from a party in Tecamachalco, completely wasted. At the Monte Líbano bridge, he didn’t realize he was in the wrong lane and tried to avoid the oncoming car. He crashed into the rail and fell off the bridge into the ravine. He took the guy who was driving in the opposite direction and his wife with him, leaving behind orphaned baby twins. The Mercedes was crushed and Adrián was torn to shreds.”

Gabriel was silent for a few seconds and then asked:

“Did you make the altar?”

“No way! It was my brother Luis. I wanted to make an altar for the poor people my brother murdered right next to this one, but they didn’t let me. I’m Amanda. What’s your name?”

“Lorenzo,” he replied to the two shiny, dilated pupils.

“You want to dance?” Amanda asked.

Shit, I’m a hit with the princesses tonight.

Without waiting for his answer, Amanda put her hands on Gabriel’s shoulders, drawing close enough to arouse him. He held her by the waist, and they swayed slowly, ignoring the frantic music. Amanda smiled goofily and gazed at him as if she were discovering an exotic specimen. Whiffs of her dry cigarette breath reached Gabriel’s nostrils in rhythmic puffs. He pressed her lower lip between his teeth. Her spit was sweet and smoky. She clung to him, and he held her as if he wanted to break her spine. He kissed her hard, sticking his tongue in her mouth almost all the way to her uvula.

He would have liked to crush this little thing in his arms until her bones splintered, kiss her until he choked her, and tear off her tiny nose in one bite. But her smell of fancy perfume reminded him that he was there to take his woman, by the hair if necessary.

“I’ll be right back. I’m going to get a drink,” he said.

The skeleton eyed him with increasing suspicion, but it had yet to deny him any drinks. With his third tequila in hand, Gabriel went out to the garden, hypnotized by the serpentine reflections in the water. Cempazúchitl flowers floated in the pool like orange anemones. There weren’t too many people in the garden. Three guys were passing a blunt in a dark corner, discussing a trip to the Caribbean. Gabriel approached. They stared at him with distrust but did not dare confront him, and when the blunt finished going around, he joined their circle in such a way that they had no choice but to include him. He took two eager puffs and passed it along. An awkward silence choked the conversation, and since no one wished to resume it as long as he was there, he moved away from the trio and hovered nearby.

Gabriel walked deep into the garden and found a wooden bench under a leafy tree. These people had their own park with swings and seesaws and everything. The icy dampness of the grass seeped through the rubber soles of his sneakers and into the cracks on the soles of his feet. He got goosebumps. He felt each of his bones get numb, the cold freezing his marrow. He gaped for what felt like an eternity at the luminous dance of the waves in the water, and another eternity at the ghostly shapes billowing from the chimney into the murky sky. His own vapor mimicked the breath of the chimney. The privileged stoners standing in a corner of the garden were also shivering.

Their stink isn’t made of diamonds and their cold isn’t made of silver. They shit, piss and bleed just like the poorest loser. Their come, their snot and their tears are just as salty. In Mexico, the poor resign themselves to be treated like shit because they are the color of shit!

On TV everyone is white. The presidents are white. The owners of the banks are white. Businessmen are white. The kids in commercials, blond, blue-eyed, freckled—white. Even the maids in the telenovelas are white. Miss Mexico is white. The women who sing while wearing miniskirts so short you can almost see their throat, showing their belly buttons with their tits as hard as soccer balls—white. The garbage sifters—brown. The servants, drivers, nurses, gardeners, street sweepers, policemen, supermarket baggers, beggars, street vendors, knife sharpeners, balloon sellers, taco makers, plumbers, cobblers, waiters, maids, guards, cooks, ice cream vendors, fire-eaters, shoeshiners, organ grinders, bricklayers, sweet potato vendors, peons, peasants, garbage collectors, caretakers, secondhand clothes vendors, in their vast majority—brown. Chocolatey, cinnamoned, coffee-colored, chipotle, and molasses-looking, brown.

The thought of his girl lost in the crowd snapped him out of his reverie. He had a mission to accomplish. He headed toward his loyal friend, the skeleton.

“Can I get another tequilita and a Victoria?”

The skeleton glared at him and burrowed his arm into the ice cooler as if he had to descend to the underworld to grab the last beer from the devil himself, although it appeared that there were plenty of beers at the bottom of the icy water. He placed the beer on the bar but did not open it for him. Gabriel reached for the bottle opener.

“I’m out of shot glasses,” the skeleton informed him.

“Pour it in a plastic cup like those, brother, no sweat. Am I not a guest? You’re going to serve me all the drinks I order, and more, cabrón.”

He paused, astonished at the speech that flowed so eloquently from within him.

“Fuck, brother,” he continued. “I’m here in my black Jetta with my stereo and my sunroof, and my magnesium rims, and I live in Parque Vía Reforma 2347, Lomas de Chapultepec, Miguel Hidalgo County, Mexico City, Planet Earth, Solar System, and I am fucking one of your boss’ friends like a king. How about that?”

“Get the fuck out, you fucking drunk stoner,” the skeleton grumbled.

Gabriel pulled out a crumpled Alas from his t-shirt pocket. While he searched for his matches, a girl with curly blond hair came up to him and asked for a cigarette.

I’m telling you, they can’t resist me.

“Hey, can I bum one?”

“Of course. They are unfiltered, though.”

“It’s fine. Everybody’s out.”

Of course. Otherwise, the güerita would have never spoken to him. Gabriel smoothed the cigarette between his fingers, gave it to her and continued searching for his matches. While she investigated him, she took out her lighter and gave it to Gabriel, but she didn’t light up. Gabriel thought he had seen her before.

“Who do you know here? Are you a friend of Luis?” she inquired.

The questioning has begun.

“No, I’m a friend of Amanda and Adrián; que Dios lo tenga en Su gloria,” mumbled Gabriel.

“What’s your name?”

“Lorenzo. And yours?”

“Ximena. Lorenzo what?”

Ximena what, eh? Is she Lucía’s friend? Oh shit...

“Lorenzo Mendoza Bonilla, at your service.”

“And how did you know Adrián?”

“I was his mechanic.”

That’s what you want to hear, right, chata?

“I see. So you were invited to the party.”

“Here I am, aren’t I?”

“No, yes, for sure. And are you having a good time?”

“Yes, it’s chill. Wanna dance?”

Why the hell not? While we’re at it...

“No, thanks, I just needed a cigarette.”

“As many as you want. I’ll give you a light.”

“Thanks, I’m gonna smoke it outside.”

Fucking stuck-up bitch. Call the suited-up gorilla and have him kick me out if you don’t like it.

Gabriel rubbed his eyes and let out a fatalistic sigh. He could take this as a warning from the gods to escape, or he could take Lucía with him forever, after disfiguring her fag of a brother with his fists. He plunged into the dense fog, dizzied by the smell of pot, perfume mixed with sweat, alcohol-laced breaths, and hormones stirred by the sounds of a slow song in English.