extract - Wild Horses

EXTRACT FROM Wild Horses by Jordi Cussà (tr. Tiago Miller)

STORM OVER POBLE NOU

There’s a killer on the road,
His brain is squirming like a toad
‘Riders on the Storm’, THE DOORS

it’s raining so hard that all of my concentration is on driving. when i get to bián’s street i pseudopark on the corner carefully mounting two of the seat’s wheels onto the curb. only afterwards do i spot the funfair of police outside his front door: three vans nine sirens a hundred clowns:

i forget all about what’s falling from the sky and the foot of water racing down les rambles and head east again: obviously bián’s got problems and that means fermín el bueno has too. no choice but to hunt elsewhere. then a bolt of lightning like the ones besieging barna flashes in my head and i remember a certain someone somewhere giving me the number to a different dopedive in the same neighbourhood used as a stash:

when i run out of rambla i take a left and park up. i see there’s a police station just thirty metres away. today poble nou is planting storms everywhere:

i drive a hundred metres up carrer del taulat park up again and reach five orangutan fingers over to the glove compartment and grab the piece of animal hide i use to file my personal and professional papers: four wrinkled photos i keep meaning to throw away the eternal card collection from pubs clubs and cafébars i’ll likely never step foot in again and a worn notepad full of codes and hieroglyphics. today’s cock and bullshit phone number (someone called pearl) is under f for fabià where it shouldn’t be of course:

i notice a bar twenty metres away but the downpour dampens my enthusiasm: clutch brake ignition with one smooth movement: bar and car sidebyside: i harlemshuffle over to the passenger seat one two leaps and inside looking goddam washed up and looking for the goddam telephone:

i get the sudden idea there won’t be one when i hear another siren blaring down carrer del taulat. more police: not even tempests scare the bastards (should slow them down a bit though). i spot the phone in the corner by the bar when i realise i’m acting like a fucking fool: what am i going to say if they pick up? that i’m an old-time customer of bián’s and i’ll be popping over for a dozen grams? those sons of bitches have more than likely got the line under surveillance and all. i’ll ask for pearl and if she’s there for her to come to the phone then if she knows where ruth is: rational ruth from vic fabià’s wife: but if it feels hot even just a flicker of a flame i’ll hang up and ride the storm out of there:

i’m deciding upon this strategy as i count my change and a giant andalusian oaf serves me without a glass or manners the beer bottle i ordered despite not planning on drinking even a sip of it:

i dial the number and light a crooked cigarette to help me bear the inevitably slow ringing: one… two… three… five… seven… nine times. i hang up feeling washed up and weighed down before dialling the number again: through the glass pane of the cabin i see the storm swell with thunder and wind. the awning above the fishmonger’s opposite is hanging onto dear life by a thread. i know the feeling pal. if no one picks up i don’t know what the fuck i’m going to do. but i’ll do something:

while i’m weighing up the different options and outcomes of la mina sant andreu or badalona a female voice says oh hi mín not on the phone but behind my ear: i spin round and (who said i never get the rub of the green?) i find myself face to face with none other than rational ruth with red eyes wounded by salt and a sadaddictsmile:

‘ruth babe!’ i say and we kiss on one two cheeks slightly beyond simple politeness. ‘i was just…’ and then i remember the still-ringing phone and clumsily hang up. ‘where’d you come from? you want a drink?’

‘this is where i normally have lunch…’ she says biting her bottom lip and indicating a discreet door. ‘give me a shorty, gustavo…’

it’s incredible how a scene can change so rapidly when a certain character unexpectedly walks in! gustavo all smiles now brings her a shot of whiskey and asks me if i want one too. i tell him no thanks because despite feeling saved now i’ve found ruth i am of course sweating monkeys out of every pore. but gustavo now with the creepy bearing of a servile dwarf insists on inviting a friend of my dear ruth to a drink on the house. with a smile as big as it is fake i thank him for the shorty: a shot of whisky as small as it is revolting more than aware it’s going to perforate my stomach like a firebomb:

luckily for me it’s only a dozen more phrases until ruth a very sensitive person realises that i’m trembling and breaking out into dribbling yawns and dry-eyed tears and desperately trying to disguise the waves of nausea each time i inhale a bit of smoke or sip some whisky:

‘but you’re in a right state!’ she blurts unexpectedly.

‘a state of emergency.’

‘why didn’t you say something?’

i answer with a helpless hapless look somewhere between lost pride and the woeful feebleness of addiction. but she’s already up on her feet and walking towards the door: come on she tells me and imitating a flamenco dancer’s click-clacking lets gustavo know she’ll be back later:

we get into the seat under a festival of warring winds but at least the rain seems to be stopping. we go six streets west and eight streets north: ruth gets out and opens a scrapmetaldoor to what i guess is a tiny garage: i park my hunkofjunk: we go up to the first floor and she sore eyes and sad smile cooks me up a shot of flu killer. but i still don’t have the slightest fucking idea what the hell has happened to fabià:

after our respective jabs ruth rolls some rainydaywoman and begins narrating events with an almost domestic air:

‘it was seven in the morning or thereabouts… i’d been asleep in the back bedroom for about three or four hours… suddenly i hear the boiler… bián’s having a shower… at seven in the morning… i don’t know if you know about his level of hydrophobia… it’s not like any ordinary junkie, his is off the chart… but, hey, i thought, this damn heat’s dragging on and everyone likes a cool shower from time to time… even fabià…

‘… so i lit a cigarette and went into the kitchen for some cold coffee… but when i saw the moka pot steaming on the stove, i really began to worry… i poured myself half a cup and was sipping it slowly, with a bitter aftertaste in my soul… if you’ll excuse the expression… just as he got out of the shower and went into the bedroom… i poured another right to the top with three spoonsful of sugar, just the way he likes it, and took it into the bedroom…

‘… he was clean shaven, hair combed back, wearing the black jeans i got him for his birthday and was putting on his long-sleeved beige cotton shirt… the one with the wide pockets… next to his wet feet was a pair of sport socks and trainers… and well that was the straw that gave the camel the hump, you know what i mean?...

“where you going?” i asked, although i knew perfectly well.

“don’t start.”

“i didn’t marry you to end up a widow.”

“don’t make things worse. you knew who you were getting involved with.”

“and the kid?”

“the kid will have to smarten up the same as i did. same as you, if i can’t. life’s cruel. we both know that.”

‘… and that’s all folks… that last comment he said with a wry smile and it even got one out of me and i wasn’t exactly in the mood for jokes… i passed him the mug and we both drank our morning fix… then he prepared two doses and we shot up our second morning fix… he kissed me softly on the lips, picked up the sports bag i got him last christmas and left without a sound... inside the bag, as always, was his baseball cap and gun…’

WILD HORSES will be published on the 15th of July. More information HERE.