Murdering Whores
for Teresa Ariño
"I saw you on television, Max, and I thought, That’s my guy.”
(The guy is stubbornly jerking his head, trying to take a deep breath, but he can’t.)
“I saw you with your group. Is that what you call it? Maybe you say gang, or crew, but no, I think you say group: it’s a simple word and you’re a simple man. You’d taken off your tee shirts and you were bare-chested, displaying your young bodies: strong pectorals and biceps, though you’d all like to have more muscle, hairless chests, mostly, but I didn’t actually pay much attention to the other chests or bodies, just yours, something about you struck me, your face, your eyes gazing in the direction of the camera (though you probably didn’t realize you were being filmed and beamed into our living rooms), the depthless look in your eyes, different from the way they look now, infinitely different from the way they will look soon, eyes that were fixed on glory and happiness, satisfied desire and victory, things that can only exist in the kingdom of the future, things it’s better not to hope for because they never come.”
(The guy is jerking his head from left to right, still straining for breath and sweating.)
“In fact, seeing you on television was like an invitation. Imagine for a moment that I’m a princess, waiting. An impatient princess. One night I see you, and the reason I see you is that I have, in a sense, been searching, not for you personally but for the prince you are, and what that prince represents. You and your friends are dancing with your tee shirts tied around your necks or your waists. Tied or perhaps furled, a word that according to cranky old nitpickers refers to sails when they’re rolled up and bound to a yard or a boom, but in my own young and cranky way, I use it to refer to garments rolled up around the neck or chest or waist. The old and I go our separate ways, as you will have guessed by now. But let’s not lose sight of what really interests us. You and your group are young, and all of you are offering your hymns to the night; some of you, the leaders, are brandishing flags. The announcer, poor bastard, is impressed by the tribal dance in which you’re taking part. He points it out to the other newsman. They’re dancing, he says, in his loutish voice, as if we, the viewers at home, in front of our televisions, hadn’t realized. Yes, they’re having fun, says the other newsman. Another lout. They seem to be enjoying your dance, at least. It’s just a conga, really. In the front line there are eight or nine. In the second there are ten. In the third there are seven or eight. In the fourth there are fifteen. United by the team colors and semi-nakedness (tee shirts tied or furled around your waists or necks, or turban-style around your heads) and the dance (if I can call it that) as it moves through the area in which you have been isolated. Your dance is like a lightning bolt in the spring night. The newsman, the newsmen, weary but still able to muster some enthusiasm, salute your initiative. You work your way across the cement steps from the right to the left, and when you reach the wire fence, you go back the other way. The guys at the head of each line are carrying flags, the team flag or the Spanish flag; the rest of you, including the ones at the ends, are waving much smaller flags, or scarves, or the tee shirts you took off earlier. It’s a spring night, but it’s still cold, and in the end that gives your gesture the force you wanted it to have, the force it merits, after all. Then the lines break up, you start to chant your songs, some of you raise your arms and give the Roman salute. Do you know what it means, that salute? You must, and if you don’t, as you raise your arm you can guess. Under my city’s night sky you salute in the direction of the television cameras, and watching at home I see you and decide to offer you my salute, in response to yours.”