A Glimpse of Paradise
On Labor Day,
the week before Sadie’s seventeen birthday, Pablo invited the girls to
Disneyland, and they convinced me to join them, the last time I went there, I
was with my grandfather and my grandma. I was eleven years old. Pablo brought
his cousin Julian with him, he’s twenty two years old. Both of them are nice and
handsome.
I think that
Pablo and Joy were trying to set up Julian with Sadie. I felt out of place in
the beginning, but Sadie preferred to be with me on all the rides. Maybe I
shouldn’t have accepted to come. Perhaps Sadie didn’t want me to feel bad, but
we all had a great time, Sadie kissed me a few times during the rides, and I
didn’t know how to react, like a friend, boyfriend or a big brother, but
brothers or friends don’t kiss like that, in any case, she was being a little
too effusive and I was enjoying it a lot.
Half the
people at the AA meetings, without a doubt look like losers, hopeless losers.
At least half of them haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in years, yet, they
keep coming. They’re not shy at all. They go to the podium and without shame,
tell all about their lives. It seems so futile. The other half are people sent
by the Court, for alcohol or drug traffic violations, we’re the decent looking ones. It
also appears that for some reason rich people don’t commit this kind of
infractions.
Half of them
have tattoos, half of them have long white hair in a pony tail and look like
hippies or Vietnam veterans. I don’t think I belong here. I bet most of them
have the same opinion I have. I wish I can bring the ones I don’t like to my
shop and perform my favorite ritual on them. Not all of them are pathetic, some
of them make me laugh. When the long hour is over, I’m glad. Pablo didn’t show
up today, so I start walking back to my house.
It’s been too long since ‘Fredo’s affair’ and
I believe I have contained my adrenaline for a long time already. Now that I’m
walking on the streets I see everybody as a potential victim. The Mexican guy
selling corn on the cob, the black homeless guy pushing the cart with the
aluminum cans and bottles, the middle aged chubby woman crossing the street, coming
from work or going to the market. But I don’t see them as a great source of
excitement.
The other
day I was thinking about killing a rich person, a wealthy female lawyer or a
smart and successful doctor. I wonder if there are any stupid doctors? There
has to be.
Then I see a
woman waiting at the bus stop and I sit next to her, she smiles and asks me if
I’m looking for a good time, and I say yes and I know this is it. The drought
is over. She’s just average, she’s in her thirties, no distinctive attributes,
just plain average. She asks me if I have a car, I say no, but I have a place,
she says, she charges fifty dollars. I say okay, but you must be blind folded
while we do it. She agrees. Then we head for my butcher shop or chamber
of torture, no, not torture, just chamber of terrors, short terrors. It must be
past nine, the streets are almost deserted. We use the side gate very quietly I
don’t want to disturb my grandma.
It’s very
convenient when they volunteer, less of a hustle, less of a struggle. First she
gets naked, then she sits on the stool, then I cover her eyes with a soft
cleaning rag. I get an immediate erection, but I don’t want to have sex with
her. I just want to get my beautiful sharp machete and slice her neck with it .
. . I wonder how it feels to have your
life disappear in an instant, without even the slightest warning, to have cut
off all your connections, veins, nerves, muscles, feelings and all of your
senses, to just cease to exist in a second. All your goals and ambitions and
entire future, gone forever. If it works
out like some people say that the next second you die, you’ll be in front of God. It’s
not a bad deal.
Her head
falls to the floor . . . she didn’t
suffer and both of us are happy. My orgasm lasts until I cut the last piece of
her. I love blood, warm red blood. I feel like I’m the master of the universe,
in my butcher shop in the middle of all this blood with very little light in
the room. The large glass windows in the front of the shop have double venetian
blinds, horizontal, inside the window frame and then vertical from floor to
ceiling. Everything’s sealed and secure, this is my world. I wouldn’t change my
life for anybody else’s.
Then, I
remember that I forgot to ask her name. How can I be so disrespectful?
At the park,
they all like me and show me their appreciation. I’m getting good at this too,
flipping hamburgers on my commercial barbeque grill. I brought a giant ice box
full of soft drinks, everybody is in line and they all look very happy. I’m
very popular now. Sadie comes from across the street from the store, she’s coming
to get hamburgers for her and Joy. She looks radiantly gorgeous. She gets
lovelier each passing day. Again, I received a lot of compliments for my
hamburgers. They think I’m a saint.
At night, I
served another feast for my grandma. The same dish I prepared for her with Leticia’s
desirable breasts, this time they’re C or D size or I don’t know what size, but
they are bigger. My grandma boasts a smile as soon as I put her plate on the
table and then with an inquiring look she asked me who they belonged to. I know
my grandma too well. I had anticipated her curiosity. On the center of the
table I placed a round tray to display cakes, but instead of a cake, I put the
head of the girl with no name, inside. The whole thing is covered with a
kitchen towel. I had taken my time cleaning her face, and combing her hair. After I removed the kitchen towel, she
looks like another guest. Then we proceeded to enjoy our meal on our table for
three.
When we’re
done, my grandma gives me a kiss and goes to bed. After I cleaned the table, I
put the head in a big kettle on the stove to boil it, because I’m going to keep
it as a souvenir. I’ll be using the skull as a piggy bank. I’ll put it on my
night stand, next to my bed.
To start,
I’ll put fifty dollars in it.
*
I bought a
pair of ear studs. They already pierced my ear, the left one, just to make sure.
They have a diamond in the center. I figured, if I don’t like how it looks I
just don’t wear it, it’s not like a permanent tattoo. But I do like it. I gave
the other one to Sadie for her birthday. Joy gave me a look of disapproval. I
told Joy that it didn’t mean anything, that I didn’t know what to do with the
extra one. It was really just a coincidence that today was her birthday. Sadie
was in seventh heaven and she kissed me a on the lips . . . in front of Joy!
What
happened with Leticia it’s happening again with Sadie, her constant proximity
it’s an inhuman temptation. I can’t help it. I’m attracted to forbidden
pleasures. In High School I fell in love so many times, with so many girls. I
had so many romances of unrequited love. I fell in love with girls I’m sure
they never knew I existed. I wrote poems I never delivered, for my exaggerated
fear of rejection. I wasn’t ugly but I always anticipated rejection. Now my
curse is to forever fall in love with teenage girls. And because I was rejected
so many times, my mind got stuck in that period. Now I want my revenge.
They say ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it
too’, I find that sentence so simple and stupid, but I also think that it is
profound and true.
My anxious
desire for Sadie is to eat her and to have her, to protect her and keep her, to
love her forever. At the same time, I feel the unnatural desire to kill her.
Then I could obtain the ultimate orgasm. But then, I wouldn’t have her. It’s
either one or the other but never both. She’s so fragile and vulnerable and innocent
and all of it attracts me to her so much. I don’t want her to change, but for
whatever reason, she will anyway. I know that if I touch her I will ruin her.
I wrote a
poem for her. I had it in my back pocket for a whole week already. I might
never give it to her, it seems so silly. It seems that nobody writes poems anymore.
I fear she might laugh at me and that might bring tragic consequences.
Early in the
morning, I sent Joy to the bank to deposit the weekly sales with the intention
to have some time alone with Sadie.
“You look
cool and handsome with your new ear stud, Angel.” Sadie initiated the
conversation, after Joy left.
“Thank you Sadie
and you don’t need a thing to look like the most amazing creature in the world.
You really are, but maybe I shouldn’t say any compliments to you, you’re too
young for me.”
I remember I
said those same words to someone else before.
“Only one
more year, and then I can do whatever I want. Joy says that you look at me
behind my back ‘with lustful desires’, I don’t mind that at all, it makes me
feel ‘desirable’. I know all relationships start as friends, so we can be
friends for a while, after that who knows . . .”
“Sadie,
you’re talking like a ‘femme fatale’ and not like the seventeen year old innocent
girl that you are.”
“Ha, I’m not
a famine . . . whatever you said. I just want you to take me to the movies or
some place. I don’t want to be my sister’s chaperone forever. And you know what?
I might not be so innocent after all, last night I had a dream with you . . . hmmm, I woke up sweating.”
“I like you
a lot Sadie, every way I look at you. I think you’re great, I wish I was ten
years younger, but I don’t wish you to be ten years older, you’re perfect now.”
Oops, that
was very direct, but nonetheless, that was true statement.
“When you
gave me the ear ring and I kissed you, Joy scolded me all night, she kept
nagging for hours, she begged me not to get involved with you, but I know her, she
loves me more than anything in the world. She protects me like a mother and I
adore her, but I know after a while she’ll leave us alone. Besides, I know you’ll never
hurt me." She said.
Then I
remembered about the poem in my pocket and after hesitating for half a second I
gave it to her. I turned away and began laboring on a large chunk of a cow,
cutting some ribs on the table saw. Right after I gave it to her, I regretted
it. I was a hundred per cent sure of its silliness, I wanted it back. Too late
now. I swear, if she laughs or throws it to the trash, I will not kill her.
Just ignore it, Sadie. I don’t want to kill you. Like it, or don’t say a thing,
please.
Earthly angel
Half my life was filled with emptiness
I kept floating in a dense fog
Empty space suspended in nothingness
Thus, we are the same age.
I feel I can touch you,
But you are light years away.
Galaxies, your freckles seem to me,
My soul, I could sacrifice,
For a kiss from your Celestial lips
Your Astral eyes, full of universal
happiness,
Fill my vacuous solitude.
Your Cosmic blue eyes,
Shame the ocean’s blue waters.
I want to transfuse your translucent
love,
Into my chaotic and confused heart.
I want to transform and translate a
word:
Beautiful
Into what you really are:
Full of Beauty.
≈
“Listen, I’m
new at this, but tell me, if you know so much about it: How do you tell your
heart not to fall in love with a certain, specific person? How do you tell it,
he’s off limits? How do you tell it, not yet? When I know my heart has its own
mind. And by the way Angel, I’m not light years away. I’m next to you and you
can love me, if you want to, we don’t have to wait for anybody’s permission”
She said, with unexpected maturity, after reading my inferior, third class
poem.
Sadie looked even more beautiful with water in
her eyes.
“I can only
tell you one thing Sadie; if you know nothing about love . . . I know less. And
please, if you start loving me, never, never stop.”
A minute
later Joy appeared at the front door and found us working. But our conversation
wasn’t over.
*
That night,
another note was left on my bed by my grandma
. . .
“Dear Angel: I love Joy and Sadie, I love them
and I don’t need to taste them. (Te has fijado que sus nombres significan
Alegria y Tristeza?)”
In Spanish, Alegria
y Tristeza means ‘joy and sadness’ or Joy and Sad-ie. They started to call her
‘abuela’ and my grandma loves it. Now both of them will live a long life.
I spent all
week trying to find an unsuspected excuse to send Joy away for a few hours and
my mind went blank, trips to the bank only gave me one hour. The opportunity
emerged unpremeditated. Pablo invited both of them to camp overnight at Pismo
beach and Sadie declined.
They left on
Saturday, around noon.
I’m exploring
new terrain. I’m thirty four years old and I’m very nervous about this infatuation.
I’m experiencing a new sensation. I felt this before, but all those times, the
other girls didn’t know I was in love with them; it was a one way love. I was a
single participant in a ‘love story’. The other times I was hidden and locked
in the confines of my room, creating scenarios, images and conversations that
never took place in real life; it was all inside my head. This time it was
real. Sadie was looking at me out of the corner of her eye, with a soft and playful
smile. It was real.
I’ve killed
six persons in this room, my father, the thief, Ana Suarez, Leticia, Fredo and
the hooker. Three of them I killed on the same stool Sadie is sitting on. Now I
truly believe I have two different persons in me, otherwise how can I fall in
love with an innocent young girl and simultaneously be an insatiable murderer?
Without any regrets or remorse whatsoever. And I can still lead a normal civilized
life. Which one is the real me? Even stranger to me, is to be able to
acknowledge my own situation. I think I can adapt better to my mean side, I
feel more in control. But, is it possible to be a sensitive man and a sadistic
killer at the same time?
I can feel
the tension in the atmosphere. I bet Sadie can feel it too. Heavy and dense, at
moments my body trembles anticipating what’s coming. This is what I felt when I
saw Leticia standing on the stool, but on that occasion the ambient was purely
sexual. This time the mix is perfect, the climax of a perfect encounter: Love
and Sex, innocent love and unrestrained sex, a divine combination of body and
mind. Both of us know what’s coming, we both are aware of an unnecessary and prolonged
courtship, we’ll skip the romance. This is the beginning and the culmination.
The flames existed before the fire started.
We performed
our cleaning chores silently, all excuses have expired. Let’s hope for the
best. I see my Scandinavian, Amazon with her flaming reddish hair, approaching
me. She looks ultra sexy, without trying to be. I don’t know what part of me is
more excited, my soul, my heart, my mind or . . .
She’s more
modest than Leticia, she doesn’t flaunt her charms she’s wearing a regular
girlie white dress and a blue blouse, she could be in one of those Target
fliers advertising teenage clothing, even there, she would stand out. Her lips
soft and succulent, her skin smooth and mild. When we kiss each other, we faint
and disappear from this world. Then I grab her by her waist and lift her to the
stool, where she stands. Then I remove her dress and underwear. I embrace her
and bury my face in her curly red, pubic hair at the center of her body, her
lower lips are just as sweet, and my tongue, like a fish begins to swim in the
depths of her red sea, her juices flow like lava from a volcano. She raises one
leg and wraps it around my shoulder. Paradise couldn’t compare to this.
All roads
taken, all decisions, failures and achievements, (if any) from the day I was
born until today, I consider that absolutely everything I’ve done up to this
point in my life, led to this moment. My life has just begun.
We spent all
night in my room, the same room where I endured countless moments of profound bitterness
and intense grief. With this single night I could erase all my accumulated
pain.
*Next: Limbo CHAPTER XI
≈ § ≈
Edmundo
Barraza
Visalia, CA.
02-06-2012
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