The Ordinary Seaman by Francisco Goldman Page A

a woman tiredly braying, “Pepinoooo Pepinooo” in a low foghorn voice that sounded Cuban to Esteban, television, telephones ringing, the rattling whir of electric fans, air conditioners rumbling. And down below, nobody out, all stillness and shadows. They’d walked quietly, crossing the tree-bowered lawns, through the shadowy caves between brick buildings, young men lounging in open, graffitied stairwells turning to look at them, someone shouted something from a window. And as if that unintelligible shout from a window in the dark gap between two buildings had somehow warned them, they’d quickened their pace, and then it was like walking into lightning, the sudden, brief stampede of footsteps behind and then blurred lead pipes cracking against skin and bones; within seconds the crew sprawled as if napping, hearts pounding into the cool dirt and grass. Morenos and a few Latino-looking trigueños with moreno hair, one of them clasping a tiny pistol at the end of outstretched arms:
Stay down, don’t move, shut up,
that’s probably what they were saying. Roque Balboa said, “No dispara!” and the one standing closest kicked him in the head. But Roque’s saying don’t shoot like that suddenly made Esteban think of Guardia forcing people to lie facedown before shooting them in the back of the head and his fingers dug into the earth and he watched their feet, almost all of them wearing those big sneakers like Mark’s. Then one of their attackers spoke in Spanish, warning, “Tranquilo, tranquilo, muchachos, y no les va a pasar nada.” They were in a hurry, moving now as if they’d just snuck into a farmpatch to gather vegetables growing from prostrate bodies, stepping among them in their silent, big sneakers, yanking wallets and money from pockets, bending to undo watches… Esteban saw Bernardo pushing himself up, trying to kneel, out of it, his forehead pouring blood—one of them whacked his piece of pipe against Bernardo’s shoulders and Esteban sprang towards the viejo and instantly felt himself grabbed up and his arms pinned to his back while a muchachón with earrings in each ear and a piratical kerchief and his big, flabby upper torso bared stepped forward and punched him five, six times in the belly in the face splitting his lip filling his head with acid-tasting fumes. Esteban was let go of and slumped backwards onto the grass. Now there was laughter all around. Then someone else was standing over him, wide eyed, his mouth a small, silent
o,
slowly waving a long blade over his face … mierda,
his
knife, Soviet Army issue, he’d been allowed to keep it after the BLI. They ran off into the night with his knife and everyone’s money and watches, including the cook’s gold one and his gold bracelets, even necklaces and crucifixes yanked from necks, one with Pínpoyo’s once-kissed white boots tucked under each arm. And the four folded five-dollar bills, one from each of Esteban’s tíos, that he’d had in his pocket. He’d left his watch back in his cabin, but, chocho, he felt like crying about the knife. The crew lay there as if a grenade had gone off among them and they were only now beginning to stir from the sleep of the dead. Where’s my arm? Has anyone seen my head? It seemed to Esteban that he didn’t recognize anybody, had no idea who they all were. All those personalities that had already been tagged with nicknames seemed to have fled into the night too, leaving moaning, whimpering bodies behind on the ground, bodies beginning to stir now and grope for scattered wallets and letters to mail: Look, this is me, on this ID card, that’s my photo, and this letter’s addressed to my novia, can’t forget her name. There was Bernardo, his eyes closed and flickering in a mask of blood, barely conscious. Esteban tried to lift him up by the shoulders, but his own legs felt so weak and wobbly he fell down sitting with the old man sprawled over his lap. Hijueputa, in all the war I only got hurt this