The Sleeping World (10 page)

“If you're artists, let me see your art,” La Canaria said.

“It's transient,” Paco said.

“You mean you haven't done any?” La Canaria said.

“We're having a show tonight,” Zorra said. “In the Plaza Mayor.”

“That sounds cool,” La Canaria said, “but we have to keep moving because we don't have anywhere to stay.” She was perfect in these moments. I held my breath, trying to show I didn't care what they said next.

“You can stay with us,” Borgi said. “We squat in a big place, an old factory. There's room.”

“Well, then,” La Canaria said. “Let's go see some art.”

* * *

Paco got more beer and we followed them a few blocks to an old textile factory. We walked up three flights of stairs through a dingy boardinghouse. The kind without lightbulbs in the hallways, where you know they're not licensed and everyone is constantly terrified of getting evicted. The punks lived on the top floor. The door was off its hinges. Behind it, several dogs whined, pushing their snouts against the frame.

I couldn't tell how many people were living there. It smelled of piss and wet dogs and what gathers on your scalp when it has been weeks since you had a shower. A couple of punks were sleeping on the floor right by the door. Their mutts circled them, panting, but the punks didn't move. It was mostly guys. The girls we'd met glided in and out of the rooms, not touching any surface for long. The drugs they had were too expensive for us.

By the door, the almost-floor-to-ceiling windows were wide open but barely caught the breeze coming off the rooftops. The farther we moved into the building, the hotter and stiller it got. There weren't any doors, just half-standing walls and old blankets hung up between different spots where people were sleeping. Paco's stuff was in the middle, right under a dingy skylight that had been collecting the sun full-force all day. Just sitting there made me sweat.

Paco put on Santana's
Amigos
and set the record to “Europa.” Marco groaned and Grito smacked him in the chest. There was no electricity in the warehouse, but they'd rigged a network of extension cords snaking out the windows and over to the next apartment building. Across the room was a hot plate on a milk crate. The cord was that soft woven plastic from right after the war. The wires were visible and frayed.

“It's still so good,
gachó,
” Paco said, and passed a joint to Grito. “Listen to
that.
” The guitar did sound like smoke, a dangerous smoke that wanted to pull you in and lose you there.

Paco had just a sleeping bag and an old army roll. His spot was sectioned off from the rest of the room with an old blanket. Piles of broken wood—doors, pieces of tabletops, and old signs—were propped against the walls around us, next to buckets of house paint and horsehair brushes.

Paco moved closer to me and laid his hand flat on my stomach. La Canaria had floated into another corner I couldn't see, probably going after Borgi.

“Is it cool,
gach
ó
?” Paco asked Marco.

“Don't ask him what's cool to do to me,” I said, pressing down on his hand.

Paco leaned in and kissed me. I tasted chemicals, bright and burning as the sun on water. Marco was staring straight at me. I took off my shirt. Marco got up and passed through the cur
tain without saying a word. Out the skylight you could see the splayed forks of pigeon feet moving around on the glass.

* * *

Once it was dark there were more people bumping through the building. Grito came and sat by us, but I couldn't see Marco.

“How many people live here?” Grito said.

“I don't know,” Paco said. “It's a free space. If someone needs to stay here, they can.”

Borgi pushed open the curtain and stuck his head in. “Everyone's getting ready,” he said to Paco. “Let's go.”

“Hold on. I need my chocolate,” Paco said. He unrolled another cigarette and crumbled more hash into it. I put my shirt back on. We smoked and then stood up. Borgi had kept his head in the same spot the whole time. His Mohawk was stiffer now and smelled of raw eggs. He nodded his chin to the sound of an accordion player on the street, but his hair didn't move. Then he grabbed a bunch of the pieces of wood around us and handed some to Paco. Grito offered to help, but Paco acted like he didn't hear. He took a bucket of paint, too.

More young people were waiting outside, smoking and pulling on bottles of San Miguel. Zorra stood in the center of the group in a large men's trench coat. Once they saw Paco and Borgi, they all started moving in the same direction, toward the city center. Everyone was getting off work, moving in one current from their offices and storefronts downtown back into the apartments where they lived. We pushed against aging businessmen and young women in pressed polyester skirts and matching jackets. Some of the men cursed us and others looked like they knew—that we were coming up now, that they were the ones to get shoved in the dirt. Marco caught up to us, but instead of
reattaching himself to my elbow, he walked next to Grito. He wouldn't look at me.

We walked past a bar playing that stupid disco song, “Fly Robin Fly.” It only had six words in it, which these coked-up German blondes repeated over and over. Those six words had played a million times on the radio since last year. The place was empty because it was early, but a group of women stood outside the door, dressed in matching metallic pants and halter tops and platform sandals with clear plastic heels, their lips fluorescent pinks and oranges. They were practicing their dance moves and mouthing the words. Grito started walking toward them, shouting the lyrics over the instrumental break and gyrating his hips. They tossed their cigarettes at him.

“Fuck disco!” Grito shouted once we were past them.

“Fuck punk!” they shouted back.

The plaza was full of people going out for tapas and to catch the air, cool now that the sun had gone down. La Canaria absentmindedly traced graffiti letters that spelled out
REVOLUCIÓN SOCIAL
on a brick wall, the
a
an anarchy sign and the
r
a trademark. I caught Marco staring at the graffiti. Maybe he was looking for something specific, too.

Tiny pools of water from the afternoon street cleaning reflected the gold and pink lights of the bars and municipal buildings. The streets in the city center were immaculate, scrubbed raw for the soon-to-descend packs of English and Swedish tourists. In each window of the tapas places was a big empty table, but the waiters ushering people inside made them stand at the bar. This so the tourists would think there was an empty table and then get stuck at a bar with the rest of the fools. All the boards outside the restaurants offered the same menu as in Casasrojas—potatoes and red peppers, tortilla, octopus with garlic—but the food the servers scurried past us with was
far more elaborate than anything I'd ever seen. The punks didn't seem to notice the restaurants or the lines of tourists and Madrileños alike waiting to get in.

Borgi and Paco walked right to the center of the plaza and put down their pieces of wood and buckets of paint. It was so full, no one noticed them at first. I could hardly see them in the crowd because I hadn't been following them that closely. La Canaria was standing outside one of the restaurants. We were starving. Paco turned over the boards, which had cartoon sketches of political prisoners on them. One had the hammer and sickle in red behind black bars. It was pretty typical stuff. The same that I'd seen on posters and banners at the rallies in Casasrojas. La Canaria took her eyes off the platters of food for a second and glanced at Paco and Borgi. She rolled her eyes.

Zorra stood in the center of the signs and threw off her trench coat. “
¡Oyé
!
” she shouted. “Listen up! Everyone here knows someone who didn't come home. Who one day just didn't show up for work.” She was dressed like a flamenco dancer, with a black flared skirt, long black satin gloves, and big gold hoops, red carnations in her hair. In the artificial lights from the plaza, she appeared both young and old at the same time. “We don't even know how many dead there are! How many they marched out into the desert and never brought back!” She moved through the crowd, bringing her long fingers to turned-down chins, carving out a stage as people pulled away from her. “The police give us the medallions, but we never see the bodies—every one of you walking here! But you all saw
his
body—Oscar Luis Romero—throat slit on his front steps because he wanted to know where they are buried and who put them in the dirt. He wanted to know who killed—”

Borgi stepped behind Zorra and shoved her to the ground. I gasped. Paco caught her right before she hit the stones and
tossed her in the air. She spread her arms and landed in Borgi's arms, and then they both rolled to the ground. It was some sort of dance. They were fighting, but it was beautiful, too. Zorra kept trying to drag herself out of Borgi's reach, but then he would pin her down again. The people walking in the plaza stopped to watch. Some men tried to get between Borgi and Zorra because they thought it was real. Paco raced in front of them like a startled antelope, his neck arched back and arms out. Zorra got away from Borgi and twirled around and around, leaping into the air, her legs almost completely horizontal when she jumped, turning herself from a wounded doll two guys were throwing into a piece of sailing architecture. Borgi collided with her in the air and they rolled onto the ground. He started stage-punching her, his fist landing in smart slaps onto his splayed palm. Then he drew her up on her knees by her hair and pulled back her head. Though I knew it wasn't real, I believed it. Her neck stretched back like a curve of water. A man rushed toward them and Paco had to hold on to his overcoat. Borgi drew his arm up to Zorra's neck like he was about to slit her throat.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and smelled rust from the bridge in Casasrojas, empty aerosol spray cans, hand-rolled cigarettes. “Watch,” someone whispered in my ear. I turned around, but there was no one next to me. When I looked back at the dancers, Zorra was collapsed on the ground, Borgi standing over her. Still holding the man back, Paco motioned frantically at the punks sitting nearby. One stood up and threw a bucket of red paint on Zorra and Borgi.

The punks who'd been watching stood up and cheered. Paco tried to explain to the man what they were doing. The man thought he'd been tricked and kept checking his pockets. Finally he shrugged Paco off and walked away. The punks
passed around a hat to the crowd who had gathered to watch. Most people turned away once they saw it and kept heading in the direction they'd been going. Grito was shaking all the punks' hands and hugging them, his ponytail bobbing up and down. A few moving lines of people separated me from them. I walked over, going against the current, searching the crowd around me. I could still smell the bright rust that sticks in your throat, the decaying weeds and algae clumped around the bridge, the harsh burn of drying paint. Still hear that voice in my ear. La Canaria followed me. She hadn't said anything during the performance.

Grito wouldn't stop talking to the punks about the show. I'd never seen him so into something. La Canaria sneaked her hand under his crooked arm and around his waist. He turned to us, beaming. “Could you see from over there?” he asked. “Why didn't you come closer?”

“Yeah, we could see,” she said. Grito was waiting for La Canaria to say something more, but she didn't.

“It was just amazing,” Grito said to Borgi, who was trying to wash the paint off with turpentine from an old shampoo bottle. The paint clung to his hair, molding it into strips of red clay.

“Thanks,
macho,
” Borgi said. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

Paco stood talking to Zorra; their cheeks were flushed. They were in the center of a group of other punks. She stretched her leg out high and straight in front of her and laughed.

“Where's Marco?” Grito asked. “Where's that
pendejo
?”

“I don't know if he saw it,” La Canaria said.

“What did you think,
gach
í
?” Borgi asked me.

“Look,” I said. “It's Marco.” He was walking toward us, carrying a brown paper bag. The corners were shiny with grease.

“What's happening?” Marco stared at Borgi's red paint.
Borgi turned away from him and walked over to the others. “Here,” Marco said, and handed us each a ham and cheese sandwich, still not looking at me.

“How cute,” La Canaria said. “I like rich Marco.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Marco said quickly. He looked over at the punks.

“You're worried they're gonna hold you hostage for ransom money,
maricón
?” Grito said. His lips were lined in grease from the sandwich. A string of hot cheese hung out of his mouth.

“Why are they covered in paint?” Marco asked.

“They did this art thing,” I said. “Some kind of protest.”

“Glad I missed it.”

Grito swallowed the rest of the sandwich and pulled La Canaria over to the group with him.

“You don't like them,” I said to Marco.

“I don't have to. I just don't want them fucking with us.”

* * *

We followed the punks toward a bar a few blocks away from the plaza. A woman sang on the street corner, one of the old flamenco songs my abuela used to listen to. Zorra danced down the street, circling the singer and spinning away. Her clothes were refined in comparison to the singer's, Zorra's clearly a costume. La Canaria reached out and stole the flower in the ­singer's hair, but the woman didn't pause. When the rose wouldn't stay behind her ear, she traced it over the graffiti that sprouted haphazardly between buildings, smearing the petals on brick and cement.

I almost passed it. But I noticed La Canaria's hand hesitate for a second and then leap over a patch of wall. There—half hidden by a poster for Princesa madeleines—was Alexis's tag. I pulled up the paper ad to make sure, but I knew the second
I saw the long hook of the
x.
I pressed my hand against the cement until it warmed. La Canaria tore my hand away.