The Cowboy Bible and Other Stories (2 page)

I beat Santo’s Son with three takedowns. They didn’t disqualify his suicide block, or a single hold, or even his straddling me. Cowboy Bible and belt in hand, I filled the mic with my maniac street preacher voice: Hey you, dwarf, campy film star, I challenge you to a match, just mask versus mask, no referee. Just us. Whipping our leather, whipping our courage. The star of so many ridiculous scripts responded: I accept, Menace Jr. Next week, right here, just one takedown.

Thursday, a day of tributes for the illustrious sport in Gomitos, we received notice that we were banished from the Olímpico Laguna. The reason given was that the first-division crowds threw too much stuff into the field. It happens frequently in soccer. So the match would take place behind closed doors and be broadcast on a national network.

The arena was empty. Just the second-string sound engineers hanging around their systems. We went up to the ring at the same time. Each one took his position at his corner. Behind the turntables.

It wasn’t a fun or dramatic match. My opponent wiped the floor with me. He was his father’s son. His collection of European vinyl was his advantage. It was huge. Broad. More than 2,500 records ready to go and fill a whole night of raving.

I did my best to get the most out of what I had, but no matter what kind of juxtapositions or genre acrobatics I played or sampled, no matter my programming or effects, the dwarf and his skills totally outdid me. All his equipment was first-rate. The needles, the earphones: Everything was imported.

The sacrilege I’d committed two hours earlier of breaking dozens of records proved irrelevant. The Cowboy Bible didn’t respond either. I tore at it, implored it, cursed it, and still failed.

I didn’t wait for word from the authorities to take off my mask; I failed and did it myself in front of the cameras. I said my name, declared my profession as a sociologist, and handed the trophy over to the winner.

On my way to the rudo dressing room, I placed the Cowboy Bible on the third seat of the front row and walked away with the idea that I might challenge Santo’s Son in about a month, mask versus hairpiece, in my hometown, in San Pedro, Bahía.

La Cuauhnáuac
was the most famous bar in the district for three reasons: The first was the house’s special brew, the second was the name, and the third was the burritos they sold outside.

1. 1
   The special brew was sotol cured with tarbush, mint, peppermint, guava, and pumpkin seeds.
   
2. 2
   Its name came from the mythical sunken
   city.
   
3. 3
   And the burritos were made from machaca. A basic
   diet.
   

Of all the bars downtown, La Cuauhnáuac had the distinction of having among its clientele a drunkard who had established the record for imbibing the most cups of sotol in a single sitting: eighteen. Double shots. The indisputable ace, who had held the championship belt for two consecutive years, was The Cowboy Bible, a burrito vendor.

What made the brew so good was that it lost all its coarseness after it was cured. The guava gave it a killer taste. When people tried it they immediately loved the flavor. It went down smoothly. Three minutes later they asked for a second round, and six shots later they left on their hands and knees.

The brew became a big hit. A reporter for
El Norte
, while investigating an article about public transportation, became curious when she saw so many people congregating around the joint. Her reportorial instinct suggested scandal, yellow journalism, but when she went in she suffered the disappointment of finding personable treatment and a friendly environment.

The bartender served her a single shot. She drank it cautiously, but the guava flavor eased her fear. She ordered another and another and another. After the fourth, she fell asleep at the bar. It was only five in the afternoon. When she awakened, her watch read twelve midnight. It took her a moment to come to and she decided her watch was broken. But no. Outside, the night confirmed that she was the broken one. The bar was still bubbling with activity. She was relieved to discover she had not been raped. And it wasn’t as if the others there didn’t want to: The place was jammed with exactly the kind of sexually repressed perverts typical of a place that sold five-peso drinks, but they were all afraid of the bartender. Though not exactly the bartender, but the machete he had behind the bar. The guy in charge of the brothel hated it when they bothered his clients and, besides, he was a ladies’ man, always ready to defend the femmes, whether they were fatales or not. The reporter ordered another sotol, pulled a notebook out of her purse and began taking notes.

The next day, there was an article in
El Norte
’s center spread. La Cuauhnáuac took up an entire page. The article attracted a new clientele. Among these were drinking aficionados, aspiring intellectuals, alcoholic college students, and an infinite number of weird and lazy self-taught trumpet players.

When all the other bars in the area that sold sotol saw this new popularity, they imitated La Cuauhnáuac’s style of curing it, but not one was able to copy the recipe precisely. The ingredients were the same, but as in all things gourmet, the ultimate success was attributed to the bartender’s masturbating
hand.

All that rock and roll didn’t last long. In less than six months, La Cuauhnáuac had stopped placing on the fashion lists. There was still a considerable crowd, but gone were the characters who had shown up during the apogee of its popularity and given the bar that trendy touch. A place free of prejudice. Showbizzy.

In order to keep the bar’s popularity from fading, the bartender reached out to the girl reporter and asked a favor: to save the bar from anonymity by creating the first La Cuauhnáuac contest. It was a competition to see who could drink the most cups of sotol in a single sitting. They established three prizes. The first was five thousand pesos, the second three thousand, and the third two thousand.

The announcement attracted the attention of everyone that could still be seduced by that kind of folklore. Twenty-three contestants signed up, but the competition didn’t last more than a half-hour. With a total of eighteen double shots, and without vomiting, The Cowboy Bible took first place.

The following year, during the second annual contest, The Cowboy Bible won again. He didn’t need to repeat the record, because his closest rival had lost consciousness at the thirteenth cup. On the fourteenth, The Cowboy Bible paused and toasted with a
beer.

In its third year, the contest got a little darker. The bars in the area had suffered a downturn, and some had closed. The more stubborn ones had used the contest as a betting game. At the beginning, in the second year of the competition, the bets had been between five and ten thousand pesos, but things got out of control when the local mafia got involved in the business. Bored with boxing, underground dogfights, and roulette, they found out about this peculiar contest and moved a certain percentage of their winnings to target sotol, their new blood.

For the third edition of the contest, the cash awards increased. First place was now ten thousand pesos, second was five, and third was three. Expectations also grew. The enthusiastic reporter promoted the spectacle, and they now anticipated about two thousand curiosity seekers. Three months ahead of time, they had to draw up a VIP list. The bar only had a capacity of sixty.

Plans began to spring up with the spontaneity that money allows. San Pedro, a capo and the biggest and heaviest of the drug barons on the scene, planned to take over the bar in order to manage the bets. It wouldn’t take much effort to take over the place. He had the money to buy it, and if the owner refused to sell it, he could kill him, make him disappear. Later, he decided against it. He preferred the actual competition.

The fight for the money was set. Don Lucha Libre was the cash cow. He was the cocaine monster on the east side of the city. He controlled part of downtown, managed the bets, and kept the balance in his favor. The Cowboy Bible was part of his cartel. He was his
pet.

Everybody knew The Cowboy Bible was unbeatable in any duel that involved swigging the special brew, but that did not affect the contest’s immense popularity. A skillful mouth-to-mouth campaign had it that San Pedro would provide a worthy rival, a steely trueblood.

But that was a lie. He was simply feeling them out. San Pedro wanted to top Don Lucha Libre, but he knew that fighting in the bar was out of the question. The moment he went after any of the event’s central figures, everything would fall apart. The bettors would disappear, and there would be no profits that year, no luck. Thus the bluff, the distraction.

The Cowboy Bible was at his peak as an inebriant. His ability to hold his liquor was a matter of record. He’d begun to drink at fourteen, and his talent had never diminished. No one could understand how he’d developed such a capacity. Two months before the contest he decided to have a trial run. There was no distinction between the first and the twelfth glass. He was tipping his fourteenth when the bartender (also his manager) stopped him. Stop, he said. That’s enough. Take a shower. The test suggested that on a good afternoon The Cowboy Bible could put away twenty or thirty double shots.

San Pedro wanted very much to be the new gambling marquis. He had everything he needed for the role: contacts in the judiciary, a wide-tire truck in the preferred baroque style of the drug barons, and credit in Sinaloa. The only thing stopping him was Don Lucha Libre. The aging minotaur had years in the business, and it would not be easy to take over the labyrinth built on the downtown streets by his pushers.

In order to become the new Christopher Columbus of wholesale distribution and blind weigh-in, San Pedro planned to bribe one of Don Lucha Libre’s intimates. The list of untouchables included the bartender and, obviously, the aspirant to the title. The only available target was Sussy, The Cowboy Bible’s wife. With great sacrifice, the woman made burritos so that her husband could go against God and make a living as a drunk. San Pedro had only one card, and he played
it.

As it turned out, Sussy was easy. She hated her husband’s celebrity. She angrily remembered when they had begun the burrito business together. The Cowboy Bible was a natural-born drinker. She’d chosen to put up with the situation and didn’t care one bit that he was an alcoholic. She trusted their profits could support his pastime. They never did too badly, as burritos were better than tamales and less hassle. Their first day, they got up early. Sussy prepared the stew, and he went to get a cooler. It was blue. Brand name Iglú. It had enough room for two hundred burritos wrapped in parchment paper.

The Cowboy Bible had known the bartender at La Cuauhnáuac since infancy; they’d been in elementary school and done military service together. When the future champion found out his buddy had a dive, he became a star client. Then the bartender gave him a chance to set up outside and sell his burritos. From the very first night on, the drunks would empty the cooler.

But their apparent prosperity was deceiving. About half their profits would disappear when they paid the tab The Cowboy Bible ran up at the bar. He was good at fueling up. When he got famous, he refused to help make the burritos. Sussy had made a last-ditch effort to save him from such a lack of productivity, but it was useless. The Cowboy Bible had become an underground rock star and spent all day at La Cuauhnáuac with a beer in one hand, wearing dark glasses, long hair, a two-week-old beard, sandals, and shorts.

When San Pedro approached Sussy, she turned out to be an excellent businesswoman and not much of a comfort to her husband. She was willing to cooperate but wanted a percentage of the pot—not just a generous cut, but the principal cut. San Pedro’s response was immediate: No way. Not only would he deny her such a sum, but he also refused to let her bet. That turf was reserved for the heaviest people; not even the nasty narco-retailers were allowed to bet. Only the heaviest heavies, and maybe one or two eccentrics who had a green light to bring trailers over the border, were on the list. To add a stranger would provoke suspicion. The cook would surely know that such an ingredient could ruin the
stew.

Sussy told San Pedro to stop pretending, that he could include her at the betting tables. If you want to win, set me up. It was an insinuation, an insult directed at the drug baron. But he wasn’t bothered. He remembered the rules of the underworld: No sympathy for the devil. They closed the deal—a slot at the third table. They’d unleashed the dog. Sussy had committed herself to eliminating her husband. That poor sucker wouldn’t even be able to get up the day of the contest.

At the start of the year, the bartender suggested The Cowboy Bible go on a diet, a safeguard for his stomach. Never. The Cowboy Bible wouldn’t take any precautions. Men didn’t do that. For three years, he had been nourished on machaca burritos and would not modify his regimen. Sussy’s seasoning had made him what he was. The burritos were his Special
K.

The burritos’ fame was almost as great as that of La Cuauhnáuac. They were known throughout the western side of the city. And as usually happens, they had been given the chance to expand their business. The first big order came from a young PAN loyalist who thought it would be cool to serve Sussy’s ice cooler burritos on her birthday.

Sussy had not counted on anyone to help her. The Cowboy Bible had said he would, but then refused: I’m hungover,
vieja
. You go at it, and if you manage to stay up all night, you’ll finish them. Whether more or fewer burritos, Sussy took care of the orders. In the meantime, The Cowboy Bible spent each afternoon shadowboxing at La Cuauhnáuac. The contest date was nearing. Rumors about an opponent who was up to snuff meant he had to increase his training.

In the next two weeks, the master burrito micro-industry went off the charts. The birthday girl told all her friends that the burritos from La Cuauhnáuac were fantastic. In order to keep up with trends, several very chic girls from her school asked their daddies for burrito parties. I can make them for you, one mother told her daughter. No, absolutely not. But it’s no big deal,
hija
. No, mama, they have to be street burritos. Do you understand?

The list of orders grew and Sussy could not keep up by herself. A week from the contest, the publicity campaign ramped up. The drug baron wanted his own Las Vegas at the corner of Madero and Villagrán, and he invested even more in propaganda. The Cowboy Bible dedicated the following week to finishing his training on the hill at La Campana.

San Pedro began to pressure Sussy, because The Cowboy Bible had not interrupted his training. It was looking like he would reign again as the idol of the gutless, the consul of the lumpen-depraved, the idiot drinker who would cost San Pedro thousands of pesos. It’s time to force a change, he said. We can’t
lose.

Sussy wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep up her end of the deal. Preparing the burritos exhausted her, left her too wasted to plan the conspiracy they needed to perpetrate against the father of her non-existent children. She didn’t know what to do to keep her
viejo
from showing up at the contest.

But then The Cowboy Bible returned from La Campana in a physical condition that assured their victory. Don Lucha Libre wanted to underwrite a trip for him to Liberia so that he wouldn’t turn into a pimp, but they reconsidered, since his opponent had surely not even arrived in Villa Juárez to prepare himself. With a little visit to the Formula 1 spa, surely The Cowboy Bible’s motor would be able to get some
rest.

Finally the day of the contest arrived. The excitement spread all over the city’s downtown. At ten in the morning, a parade officially kicked off the madness. A caravan sponsored by Coca-Cola led the way, polar bears included. Those in charge of logistics warned the narco that he’d look foolish. We don’t give a damn, we have more than enough bears, they taunted. For them, it was Christmas and New Year’s all year long. Besides, how would we be noticed without these red trucks? When have people not turned around to look at the colored lights on the damn trucks, soda cans painted on the sides?