Page 2 of Sombra
One
Tavo - Los Rolling Stones
A few months earlier
As if a hungry dragonfly perches on my index finger, I suspend the stylus over the vinyl on my grandfather’s record player, allowing it to hover until the album spins up to speed.I inhale, position the tone arm, and place it at the beginning of the song. The needle scrapes, then catches in the groove. The speakers pop and crackle as the album rotates for part of a turn before the song plays.
While I wait for the music, I push my damp hair off my forehead and rub my jaw, scratching the dirt out of my two-day-old stubble. I’ve gotta get out of this sweat-soaked T-shirtas soon as possible. My hand digs in my pants, rearranging mycojones, which stick to my thigh. Going commando in forty degree Celsius weather messes with thehuevos.
Before I’m adjusted, the music starts, and a choir’s trilling the teeth-clenching opening of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones.
My sentiments exactly.
Not to be ungrateful, but it’s theanthem of my life. Once the song finishes, I won’t complain again. But right now I’m pissed off, I smell like horse shit, and I’m sick of the fallout from my latest blunder. So I allow myself to indulge in some self-pity—at least for the duration of the last track on side two.
Huffing, I sit on my bed and unlace my boots, perspiration pouring down my brow as the music plays. After a dismalmorning spent spreading horse manure in thehuerta—the olive orchard—while fending off the “help” of my annoying youngest brother, the “attention” of the fucking stalker girl next door, and an afternoon “discussing” my future with my mother (she’s not fond of my go-to-America plan), then back in the orchard for more work, I’m beat. Back sore. Feet tired. All my muscles used. I would’ve ratherexhausted my body in a different way.
Nope. No such luck.
I’ve got to shower before dinner and clean off the stench of the fertilizer, so I strip off my T-shirt. But after shoving off my boots and socks, I flop on my back and can’t help but hum the Rolling Stones song.
Pretty soon I’m feeling better, singing the verses and thinking about my kindly grandfather, who’s likelytaking a nap at the moment. Myabuelohas a great collection of music, mostly on vinyl, which I’ve pretty much co-opted. While it’s unusual that we still have this old thing, it’s not if you know my grandfather. He didn’t buy a television until 1991. He’s the type of old-school Spaniard who insists that life was better when Franco was in power.
“Less crime,” he says.
Less freedom,too. I definitely disagree with him, but he assembled a fantastic collection of music during that time.
Aww yeah, I sing. I prop my feet up on the iron footboard of my bed and put my hands behind my head. Harvest time will come soon, and I really don’t have time to rest, but I’m taking it anyway.
Normally, I’m upbeat, but I haven’t been lately. Most of summer I’ve been worn out andpissed off. Now, the familiar song lulls me like an advertisement for Prozac. Got discontent? Take a half hour oflosRolling Stones.
My angry muscles loosen as I sing, but not my mind.
Will I ever get a break?Not if I keep beating myself up for what happened last month.
It was a fucking mistake.
Literally.
I fucked a mistake.
I gave in to years of flirtyglances and alluring smiles, but it lead to … a nutty devotee who’s increased her concentration on me fifty-fold. She just won’t leave me alone.
Today, even though she was wearing a tiny crop top and shorts that showed the bottom of herculo, she followed me around in the orchard asking if she could help. Wearing so much makeup you’d need a sandblaster to take it off and barely-there sandalsthat made her first get a blister and then a thorn.
And then she wanted me to carry her.
Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I exhale, trying to get all of the air out of my body as if that would expel her memory from it.
Nope.
I roll onto my side and fumble in the bedside table for my sketchpad and pencil. Where is the woman who comes alive when she’s with me, the onewho’s an explosion of flavor on my tongue? Who gives herself to me so that I can give myself to her?
Nowhere. That’s where this woman is. She doesn’t exist. Not here. Not now.
And the way it’s going, maybe not ever. Taking my pencil, I start capturing the way the white egret I saw earlier looked standing on a rock at the base of the creek with a dead fish lodged in its throat. Howthe hell would it get that down?
I got ya, buddy. I know just how you feel. Life’s hard to swallow sometimes.
