Pacazo by Roy Kesey Read Free Book Online

she is nowhere so I walk out into the street. Down the center for a time. To the far sidewalk. A trellis covered with bougainvillea, and the Plaza de Armas.
    Tamarinds, ficus, Reynaldo would be proud of me. The plaza is beautiful during the day and I avoid it as I no longer have the energy to fight off the shoe-shine swarms, grab your elbow your hand your shirttail and now I see one asleep in the grass. His head rests on his wooden kit. At first I think I am going to kick him in the stomach but then I tuck a little money into his pocket. Beyond is City Hall and this means I am going the wrong direction.
    I turn and walk lines of crotons and poincianas to the statue. Here is La Pola’s face and here is one limestone breast loosed from her limestone gown and here is a lion’s head pinned beneath her foot. She is holding a limestone parchment declaring independence but the words will not hold steady.
    I step back, walk, march briefly. Soldiers come every morning to raise the flag and every evening to lower it and most nights to clutch their girlfriends in the shadows but there are none here tonight and across the street is the cathedral. Its paired yellow towers are gray in this light. Twenty columns and matched scenes from the Vía Crucis and I came here weekly with Pilar. Señor de los Milagros inside. Señor de la Agonía, Señor Cautivo, Señor de la Divina Misericordia. A gilded Virgin of Fátima. Silverwork on the main altar. A seventeenth-century pulpit with Immaculate Conception in high relief and Pilar takes her place, hears Mass while I work in the parish archives. Afterwards she comes, takes my hand, says that she prayed for me. I thank her and we go for Chinese food, another Piuran custom I do not understand, always Chinese food after Mass and I am happy and then staring empty-chested and angry and time to go.
    Along the sidewalk and smells rise up: laurel and urine, plumeria and beer, sweat. The street cleaners are already at work. They wear blue aprons, sweep slowly, never rest. Taxis stop beside me, none of them the right one—the drivers raise their eyebrows and I shrug or shake my head. In the doorways of the banks and shops and hotels are uniformed guachimanes. Some have pistols and some do not. A few are asleep, slumped against doorjambs, and the others smoke and stare into the street.
    I stumble on a curb and there are waves of perfume in the dark heat. The prostitutes on the corner all have long hair and small breasts and lovely legs, and it is hard to tell if they are men or women. I have heard that the men apply their make-up with greater skill. I wave to them, and they wave back, blurred and now clearer.
    I cross the street. Then I stop, turn to read the street sign, am careful not to think the thought. Three blocks west and I arrive.
    There are two men sitting in plastic chairs in front of the old green house. They slouch as if reminiscing but do not smile. The living room curtains are drawn but there are lights on inside. Soft music from the second floor. I nod to the men and they stare at me.
    - For Jenny, I say.
    I cross my arms and tilt my head, nearly fall. One of the men stands and goes inside. The other continues to stare at me. I look away, look back, nod again as if this time it might mean more.
    The first man returns, holds the door open. I walk into the living room, sit down on the couch, look at the collection of porcelain puppies on the mantel. Decide that there’s nothing wrong with porcelain puppies, that a porcelain puppy is a fine thing in the world. Decide that the archaeologist wasn’t evil, was probably just tired from all his fieldwork, should be forgiven, and in comes Ms. Alina.
    - Mr. Segovia, a pleasure. Did you forget to make a reservation?
    I acknowledge that this is the most likely scenario, observe the woman’s eyebrows, viciously plucked, scimitars, perhaps a clue.
    - Jenny will be free shortly. Would you like something to drink? Some coffee?
    I spread my arms to show