The Crystal Frontier by Carlos Fuentes Page B

away.”
    â€œWanna bet?”
    â€œSure. I always win when I bet against you. You’re ignorant, George.”
    â€œMedium.”
    â€œDo you know what gravity is?”
    â€œNo, and neither do you.”
    â€œIt’s a magnetic force.”
    â€œNo, skip the green stuff. Just the steak.”
    â€œLet’s see now. Is there gravity right at the edge of the ocean?”
    â€œNo, it’s zero there.”
    â€œWhoa! That’s real learning. No one’s going to pull a fast one on you.”
    â€œPut up or shut up.”
    â€œDon’t worry, I’ll take the bet.”
    â€œNo, son, I don’t like baked potatoes, with or without sour cream.”
    â€œWe still have to charge you for it.”
    â€œCharge me, but don’t put it on the same plate with the steak.”
    â€œLook, they’re going to fire me if I don’t. It’s the rule.”
    â€œOkay, okay, put it on the same plate.”
    â€œThey were going to charge you for it anyway. The steak costs twenty-two-ninety with or without potato.”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œGeorge, you know a little about a lot, but you don’t know anything important.”
    â€œI know a bad deal when I see one, a deal that’ll end in failure, Nathan. You can’t deny I know that.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know anything, but I’m an educated man.”
    â€œFacts, Nathan, facts.”
    â€œAre you listening to me?”
    â€œWith the patience of a saint.”
    â€œI don’t know why we keep talking to each other.”
    â€œA green salad.”
    â€œAfter everything else?”
    â€œYes, my boy, salad comes at the end.”
    â€œAre you a foreigner?”
    â€œYes, I’m a really strange foreigner with really strange quirks—like having salad after everything else.”
    â€œIn America, we eat it first. That’s the normal way.”
    â€œAre you listening to me, George?”
    â€œGive me facts, Nathan.”
    â€œDo you know that the annual earnings of the publishing industry in America are the same as the earnings of the hot dog industry? Did you know that?”
    â€œWhere did you get that? Are you trying to insult me?”
    â€œSince when have you become a book publisher?”
    â€œI’m not. I make hot dogs, as you know perfectly well, Nathan. Are you listening to me?”
    â€œAnd lemon meringue pie. That’s all.”
    â€œWanna bet?”
    â€œAre you listening to me?”
    â€œGive me proof.”
    â€œYou don’t know anything.”
    â€œI don’t know why we’re still eating together.”
    â€œBet.”
    â€œI’ll make a bet. Is there gravity on the moon?”
    â€œFacts, facts.”
    â€œI told you that deal was headed for failure. No doubt about it. You’re broke, George.”
    The one named George gave out a hoarse, tumultuous sob that didn’t seem possible coming from that impassive face.
    There is no fascination that doesn’t also contain its pinch of repulsion. We scold ourselves when we allow ourselves to be seduced by the eye of Medusa, but in the case of this pair of dried-out, bald, long-nosed, arthritic, argumentative old codgers armed with unlit phallic cigars—No smoking, please—repulsion overcame fascination. Dionisio impatiently began to play with a bottle of sauce, rubbing it more and more nervously as the endless debate between George and Nathan went on and on, like insomnia, utterly engrossing for the two old men, unbearable for Dionisio. To save himself from them, the Mexican gastronome began to think about women as he rubbed the bottle, and as he rubbed it, he noticed what it was: Mexican sauce, jalapeño chile sauce. Suddenly, magically, something was unleashed from within, a volcano bursting the ancient crust over its crater and vomiting lava the more the man named after Bacchus rubbed it.
    Except that it wasn’t chile sauce that came out of