Chapter 5
Once, on the wall of a public restroom, I saw a poem:
LESS LOVE
MORE GANG BANG
The clerk at the housewares store was a smiley, good-looking guy. His demeanor fell somewhere between affected and blasé, which I found abnormally attractive: his slender body, twinkish face, and empty head.
“Do you have tablecloths?”
“Linen or silk?” he asked as he led me down the aisle.
His curious blue eyes wandered over me, studying my clothes, my shoes, my skin.
He was trying to categorize me, this young man who’d come in on a Thursday afternoon looking to buy dinnerware.
He needed to know more about me before he could decide whether to flirt or just assist me.
Our tour through the store was like flirting on layaway.
With each product I bought, I moved forward one space.
I asked for crystal wineglasses and he smiled, saying he’d set some aside.
I asked for porcelain plates, and he giggled, saying he’d go look in the back.
I asked for the plates to be paired with stainless-steel cloches, and he beamed, saying that a cloche was very chic and chic suited me.
When I went to the cash register to pay, I asked for his number and he handed me a slip of paper from his pocket with it already written out.
I deliberated over the items, scrimping and saving as much as I could, while still valuing the presentation.
I skipped the tablecloth and ornate spoons for nicer plates and cloches.
I prayed my credit card would go through and asked to pay the total in ten interest-free installments.
I walked out, bags in hand, feeling powerful.
Back home, the world had turned upside down.
Miguel was home from his shift, still in scrubs that smelled like the hospital, arguing with Hugo and Piglet in the kitchen.
When he saw me come in, he took off his glasses and started chewing nervously on the temple tip.
He waved a sheet of paper in my face. I took it from his hands so I could read it.
It was a special summons for police questioning, addressed to all hospital employees.
“You’re just another resident who was on call,” I said. “There’s no reason for anyone to suspect you.”
“I helped! You all forced me!”
He sat on the stool and buried his head in his arms. Before I could say anything, Cora appeared in the kitchen, covered in blood.
It was everywhere: her arms, legs, face.
Like a scene out of Carrie. She left a cut of meat with the bone sticking out on the counter and wagged her finger at Miguel, scolding him like a spoiled child.
“Stop it. You’re disrupting my work!”
Hugo pushed aside the meat on the kitchen counter. “What’s that?” he asked grudgingly.
“It’s the lumbar vertebra. T-bone. Do you think that’ll do?”
“I hope so.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, trying to understand.
“We won’t have ten entrec?tes to serve,” Hugo said, wiping sweat with the back of his hand. “I’m trying to make do here with other cuts.”
Cora went back to the living room. Miguel was beside himself. “We’re harboring a psychopathic prostitute!”
“Hey, show some respect for my woman!”
“Did you see how calm she was? She just disemboweled a person like you would an animal!”
“You’re a pussy, you know that?” said Piglet, ripping open a packet of cookies.
“I should go to the police!” Miguel shouted.
He left the kitchen, fuming, right as Cora called me into the living room.
The body—or what was left of it—was now divided into pieces and laid out on a sheet on the dining table, next to a meat mallet.
The foul smell had died down somewhat, but the rusty stench of blood seemed to linger in the furniture.
With the knife, Cora butchered and selected steaks.
She’d separated all the fat, bones, and head, the useful organs from useless ones, into garbage bags.
“Some of those organs are considered first-rate. Heart, liver, pancreas, and kidneys,” she said, pointing with the knife. “There’s the lungs and stomach too, if you want to serve those for dinner.”
Cora was a hardworking woman. She was sweaty, out of breath, and a little smelly, but she held firm to finish the job. She handed me something unrecognizable.
“I threw away the head but kept the tongue. Did you know that in Laos the tongue is the most expensive part of the cow? It’s a delicacy. You can slice it up really nice and serve it like sashimi.”
“How are you going to get rid of the bones and the rest of it?”
“I asked my lil’ Nugget if there was a well or somewhere nearby to bury it.”
“And?”
“He suggested some woods over in Urca. Then I thought about the sand on Copacabana beach. The waterfront is huge and at night there’s no surveillance whatsoever. If we dig deep enough, nobody will ever find it.”
“That sounds risky.”
“I’m still deciding. If you have any suggestions, let me know. But leave it to me, this stuff is easy peasy.”
I chose to ignore her comment and, trying to sound as friendly as possible, said:
“Sorry, Cora, but … doesn’t this bother you? Doing this to a human being?”
She looked back at me perplexed as she carried some bags over to the corner.
“Don’t be stupid … That woman was already dead.
After death, every animal is the same. You’re funny, you know that?
If meat comes in a package covered in plastic wrap, you don’t care.
You just grab it, fry it, and eat it without a second thought about where it came from.
And now you’re over in the corner bitching and moaning.
You know what? The only difference is I’m not a hypocrite like you. ”
She handed me a plastic bag.
“These are the good organs. Give them to the asshole chef in the kitchen. Okay! Now it’s time to give this room a good scrub!”
The kitchen had a delicious smell, a mixture of vodka, lemon zest, and rosemary.
Next to the stove, Hugo was marinating the meat in a bowl—the smell was so potent I was salivating.
He massaged the tall, juicy steaks with his fingers mechanically.
The meat looked so appetizing you could forget it was human.
Without a doubt, if that steak had been for sale in the grocery store, anyone would have bought it.