CHAPTER FIVE #2
With a wave from Peach, the artist was present.
Joanna switched from Peach’s arm to Vicente’s, as Alex reflexively extended a hand.
Before Peach had even introduced them, Si-Man had grasped Alex behind both ears and brought their foreheads together until they were gently touching.
He smelled like rancid tomato. He then did the same to Joanna.
Vicente demurred, which earned him a look of disgust from Peach.
“Thank you, thank you my friends. It means the world to me that you…” Si-Man’s gaze landed on Alex as if seeing him for the first time. “You walked out.”
“I was overcome. The part about us all being connected to the empires our ancestors destroyed. Wow, man. Just wow.”
“Right on.” Si-Man adjusted his diaper. “I mean every word. The stage is a sacred space, you know? We can’t pollute it with lies, or it, in turn, pollutes our souls. Cinema is a perversion built on lies. We must preserve the sacred stage space.”
Right, thought Alex. Less artist, more cult leader, then?
“Peach tells me you’re the show that bailed for us? Truly, man—”
“Oh, it was nothing,” Alex answered, playing along. When the interruption seemed to annoy Si-Man, he shut up.
“Not nothing, my friend, it was a sign. A sure sign to me that you three understand the sacred nature of art, and that the stage can’t be polluted with something unready. Many artists don’t get that, brother. You have my gratitude and my respect.”
“I… that wasn’t quite—”
“We just want to put on something great,” Joanna jumped in.
“That you will. Your energy is…” Si-Man licked his lips as he approached her. “…ancient. Yet you’re so now.”
“They’re so, so now, Si-Man.”
Alex had forgotten Peach was there. He was too busy watching Vicente’s face to see if it would crack as Si-Man put his hand on Joanna’s. Damn. Maybe Vicente should have been an actor.
“You’ve been stealing?” Si-Man took a gold-painted ping-pong ball from Joanna’s hand.
“You gifted it to me.” She turned to Alex. “This was after you left.”
“I got that,” he answered.
“The gift is my show. In it, I give everything I have.” Si-Man smiled at Alex. “Think you can do that? What is your little show about, anyhow?”
If Vicente wanted to hit the man now, Alex would have let him.
Several of Si-Man’s faithful came to his rescue just in time, pulling the artist away without so much as a goodbye from him or Peach.
Joanna pocketed the ball once more. With no more than a look between them, they knew it was time to leave.
Vicente grabbed a bottle of red wine from an unattended table they passed. “He just accused us of stealing? Okay, then.”
The dry, warm air of the summer night wrapped around them, and to the left, a glowing cigarette revealed the face of Jago, who grinned as they joined him. He offered up a cigarette, which Vicente declined, though Alex could tell he was itching for one.
“What did you think?” Jago asked.
It should have surprised him that Jago was here, but it didn’t. Just as it hadn’t surprised him when he’d turned up at the café.
“It was… interesting,” Joanna conceded.
A few seconds of silence passed before the four of them erupted into laugher—even Vicente.
“Except now, he’s got our slot,” Alex said.
“I’m sorry?” Jago asked, his eyes widening. “I thought you were opening in two weeks?”
“So did we. Apparently, Maria needs surefire sales, which she’s somehow getting from…” Alex tossed his head in the direction of the doors. “…that.”
“Oof! No accounting for fashion, I suppose. That would explain why I didn’t see you all at the Culture Forum this afternoon.”
“Oh, shit!” Alex cringed. “Sorry. We didn’t know how to reach—”
“It’s fine. It’s an interesting place to explore,” said Jago, easing himself off the wall. “Come on. I want to share something with the three of you.”
* * *
They followed Calle de Atocha down to the wide avenue that was Paseo del Prado, rounding the enormous art museum to the locked gates of the Retiro Park.
“So much for a late-night stroll,” Vicente said.
“Trust me.”
Within a minute, Jago had disappeared beneath some shrubbery. His head popped out again as he beckoned for them to follow. A short scramble and several scratches later, they stumbled out onto the broad walkways of a dark and silent Retiro.
“It’s not dangerous?” Alex had heard stories of what happened to guys who roamed the parks at night.
“Not with four of us,” Jago answered with a mischievous grin.
“Don’t be a spoilsport, Alex,” said Joanna, following Jago in earnest.
They stopped at the enormous fountain of the fallen angel.
To Alex’s knowledge, it was the only monument to Lucifer in existence, at least, in a space so public and obvious as the Retiro.
He was amazed the Fascists and their church cronies hadn’t torn it down.
Though the fountain’s waters were still, the face of the Morningstar was clearly illuminated in the cloudless night, as was the phalanx of loyal demons at his feet, each warning would-be climbers away with its own infernal little scowl.
“What shall we drink to?” Jago asked, nodding at the wine in Vicente’s hand. “To certain performance artists’ careers? May they shine brightly but briefly.”
“Cruel,” Joanna admonished him, as Vicente opened the wine and passed it over. “But fair.”
Jago took a swig of the wine, then passed it to Joanna, who passed it to Alex. Vicente declined.
“Come on, darling,” Joanna said with gentle mockery. “This is your loot.”
“And it’s incredibly bad luck to break a drinking circle,” added Jago. “At least in Peru or… somewhere. We are all one spirit tonight, aren’t we?”
Vicente forced a smile and took his drink.
“Do you often come down here?” Alex asked.
“Seldom. It seemed an occasion best enjoyed with new friends.”
“You knew a gap in the fence.”
“They can’t wall off the whole thing, can they?” Jago turned, admiring Lucifer’s expression. “Just five outcasts thrown together.”
“You think so?”
Jago smiled at Vicente, taking another drink and starting a new round. “Did you or did you not just lose your theatre and rehearsal space?”
“Yeah, we did. To that…” Vicente growled when words failed him. “February, man. We’re supposed to wait until February?”
“I imagine you could put together quite the show by then. Of course, there is such a thing as too much rehearsal.” Jago turned to stare at Joanna, saying nothing at first, until… “Will you show us?”
Joanna shook her head. “Show you what?”
“What you’ve worked on. You’ve been dying to all evening. I can see that particular glint in your eye, like you’re excited to share a discovery but you’re afraid that if it’s left too long, you’ll seem foolish. So don’t leave it. Show us.”
“Now, you mean?”
Alex was just as hesitant. “Jago, I think—"
“Mister Si-Man calls the stage a sacred space.” Jago raised a hand toward the fallen Morningstar. “In the absence of a stage, I am asking you to dance for the profane.”
Alex, Joanna, and Vicente exchanged looks, but… why not? Joanna knew the music as well as if it had been pressed to a record inside her head. Her gaze landed on Alex, who acquiesced with a silent nod.
As her audience of three—four if they counted the Morningstar—took their seats on the fountain’s edge, Joanna began moving through ten minutes of completely new steps.
The violence, the hunger, the love and fear…
it was all there, but gone were the barriers of the text itself.
It was something new, vibrant and frightening, yet just as delightful.
Alex felt as if each movement were nourishing his mind and soul after the exhaustion that had been Si-Man’s self-aggrandised salvation.
When the dance was done, they sat silently in Lucifer’s shadow, watching Joanna scratch at the ground beneath her feet.
At last, she rose with movements as slow as nature would allow.
A shiver swept through Alex, as if February had arrived already and caught them with its sudden, bitter kiss. “Brava,” he said at last, just loud enough for her to hear.
Joanna pulled her dark hair off her face, tying it back as it had been before her dance. “It’s getting there.”
“Jo?” added Vicente. “That was incredible.”
“Thank you, darling. You’re very sweet.”
“I mean it. You were great before, but this is something—”
“Vicente,” said Jago. “She knows.”
Vicente resisted biting that, much to Alex’s relief.
Still, he wasn’t so sure Joanna did know.
By the dance’s end, she’d seemed uncertain, even frustrated.
He’d seen it in her eyes, just for an instant, as if she’d come so close to the perfection she sought, only to have it snatched away in one final moment, lost to silence.
“Vis?” she said. “I’m tired.”
“I’m not surprised.” He got up and took her in a hug. “You were up rehearsing most of last night.”
“Take me home?”
It lasted only a second, but Alex caught the sceptical look Vicente gave him. He had played nice all evening, but that look conveyed just one idea—Jago.
“Go,” Alex said softly but firmly. “We’ll be fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Can you find your way back to the gap in the fence?” asked Jago.
Joanna was already there, pulling back the shrubs to reveal the broken links. “Goodnight, boys!”
Vicente shook his head, taking Alex in a hug before reluctantly accepting a much shorter one from Jago, who gave him back the wine. “Goodnight.”
“Vicente,” Jago said after they parted. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
After so many forced smiles, Alex had to wonder if Vicente would need the rest more than Joanna.
He sat, left in comfortable silence with Jago, who dragged his hand through the waters of the fountain.
Alex reached out and began doing the same.
The water felt surprisingly cool, refreshing him as he rubbed some of it on his forearms, face, and neck.
“Don’t drink any,” Jago cautioned him. “I can’t say with any certainty that someone hasn’t pissed in this.”
“Hah. You’re joking. Wait, are you? Or is this your way of telling me you need a leak?”
Jago smiled, taking a golden ping-pong ball from his pocket. He began tossing it in the air, catching it each time with clockwork regularity.
“Did Joanna give you that?”
“The idiot launched about five of these into the audience like it was a Thai sex show.”
“Launched them from what?”
“Best not ask those sorts of questions, Alex.”
“Noted. You don’t mind if I insist on you washing your hands when you’re done?
Jago laughed, tossing the ping-pong ball away into the water. “We live in a city awash with artists, most of them not very good. But this has been true for the entirety of human endeavour. So what? I’m not saying they shouldn’t try.”
“What are you saying?” In Alex’s brief experience, Jago had not been shy of sharing his opinion.
They spied the beams of two flashlights in a far corner of the park.
“Maybe we should go home,” Alex suggested, noticing his leg resting against Jago’s.
“You mean to our respective homes, of course? Like the respectable, upstanding young men we are?”
They got to their feet, each admiring the playful glint in the other’s eye.
“No,” said Alex. “I mean to mine.”
Jago regarded him with an inviting smile. “I think mine is closer, yes? And larger? And there’s something I wish to give you, if that’s all right.”
Alex was too curious to say no.