Stars and Stripes

After my second divorce, I decided to get out of Lima and travel. At least I’d forget more quickly that way. A cousin of mine lived in Los Angeles, and I spent a few days with him, but then I grew bored, rented a car and spent my time touring California. Though perhaps the correct phrase is wandering aimlessly. I wasn’t able to look at anything or talk to anyone. The only thing that made me feel good was driving for hours on empty highways.

One afternoon in Oakland I stopped at a cafe for something to eat. a train passed right over the cafe, and I had the feeling it was about to crash into something, just like me. Suddenly I saw Carlitos at a table, eating a cheeseburger.

His baseball cards passed in front of my eyes. The strange odour in his room. Mily. Echoes of a world that was never ordered again.

I can’t say we greeted each other with emotion, like two old comrades. Rather, I think we were curious. I don’t know how much I had changed, but Carlitos still looked like an oversized version of his cheeseburger. And I would swear his face still didn’t harbour a single hair.

‘I’m a cameraman,’ he told me. ‘For a programme of local shows. There aren’t many shows in Oakland, but it’s OK.’

‘And your mother?’

‘She lives here with me.’

‘You live with your mother? And what do you do when you want to get laid? Do you send her to her room?’

I laughed. But he didn’t laugh. He hesitated for a moment, as if he really were examining that possibility, before answering: ‘no . . . we get along fine. Everything’s OK.’

‘Sure.’

We were silent. I didn’t know how long he’d been out of the country, and I thought he’d ask me something about my life, or about Lima. But instead, after dipping his French fries in the last drop of ketchup, he asked: ‘Have you seen The Bounty Hunter?’

His pronunciation brought to mind his painstaking American English, though after so many years, in a country where it attracted no attention to speak the language, his English no longer seemed to display good diction. It was just dense and chewed over.

I shook my head, and he continued.

‘Jennifer Aniston has an ex-husband who’s looking for her so he can turn her over to the police. When he finds her, he puts her in the trunk of his car, but then she escapes, and he has to handcuff her, and then . . .’

A long explanation of the movie followed, almost scene by scene, which lasted as long as it took the sun to set. Then he talked to me about ice hockey, showing with detailed gestures how the players split heads open.

‘But this is Oakland,’ he concluded, ‘and there’s no ice here.’

‘I understand.’

I looked at my watch. I had thought about ordering another beer but changed my mind. He was scratching his ear. I began to wonder how to say goodbye without sounding unpleasant. Another train passed, making the restaurant tremble.

‘Do you know what Manuel always used to say?’ he asked suddenly.

I hadn’t dared ask about his brother, and now that he had brought up the subject, I didn’t dare ask why he spoke of him in the past tense.

‘What did Manuel always used to say?’

‘That everything that happened to him was fair payment for the good time he’d had. That the only thing he cared about was enjoying himself, and he had, big time.’

‘It sounds like a good philosophy,’ I said, just to say something.

‘It is. I believe that too. You have to enjoy life to the hilt, right?’

‘Absolutely. Absolutely.’

Without knowing why, I couldn’t get up. Neither could he. We remained sitting there, in silence, until the waitress began to place the chairs on the tables. If it had been up to me, we would have stayed longer. ■