I lived in a shared apartment, a place in a rundown building, the kind you'd find in Old Havana or those crumbling structures in some North African city on the verge of collapse. The best thing about the apartment was the view. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that the only good thing about that place was the damn view, because everything else barely functioned, if it even worked at all, after years of constant use, and nothing would ever work properly again unless a full-scale restoration took place. But anyway, back to the view. The apartment overlooked San Cristóbal Park, one of the great green lungs of the city of Miraverde.
In those days, every morning after working on a novel I had been writing for two years, I would have breakfast on the balcony: toast with butter and oregano, seven scrambled eggs, and a glass of water while looking at the beautiful San Cristóbal, lush in spring and summer, half-naked in autumn and winter. I would sit there eating, staring at the park, and it never stopped feeling like something beautiful amidst the filth that we humans are. It gave me hope. I used to think: "Not everyone born in this part of the city has to turn out to be human garbage. Most of its streets and its people are. But look, this postcard-worthy view, this sight of San Cristóbal Park, is proof that there are exceptions to the rule. Even in the filthiest, darkest cesspool, there's always something worth saving. I'm going to be part of that something."
Of course, seeing the park from the balcony, safely removed from the filth festering inside it, was one thing. Walking through its dangerous paths was another. These were paths of fear, their entrances foreshadowing a grim fate for anyone daring enough to go forward. Dark paths, swarming with all kinds of human scum, mostly men, but a handful of women, too. Women who, truth be told, were no longer women, but merely monsters with vaginas. I didn't think it was right that these people were alive, and for a few months, I killed a handful of them. Fourteen, to be exact. Thirteen men and one woman. Of course, that wasn't nearly enough to make any real difference. It would have taken a bomb to wipe out all those foul, unwanted creatures, but that, damn it, would have destroyed the park as well. And that was something I couldn't allow. So, realizing I had lost, I gave up the fight.
Sometimes, I slept with a girl who had Bette Davis eyes. She worked at a bakery and lived with her grandparents in the apartment across from mine. The girl, Mariana, or maybe Mariela, once told me:
"A couple of nights ago, I couldn't sleep. I was in the living room watching TV when suddenly I heard a noise in the hallway. I walked over to the door to look through the peephole, and I saw you coming into your apartment. It was almost four in the morning."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"You looked really dirty. I don't know what with. Where were you?"
"I went to the park to kill a homeless guy."
"What?!"
I stared at her. She frowned, her expression shifting from surprise to something closer to fear, the kind of fear that creeps onto someone's face before stepping into the unknown.
I smiled in a Come on, I'm just messing with you way. She smiled too and said:
"You almost scared me. You're crazy. Come on, tell me where you really…"
"Don't ask me questions. We're not a couple or anything."
"Oh… I didn't mean… Yeah, I know we're not a couple."
"So, what's it gonna be? Are we having fun or are we calling this off?"
"Sorry. You're right. I'm being silly. Let's have fun."
I gave her a good-boy kiss and then asked:
"What did you bring me?"
She always brought me stuff from the bakery where she worked: cakes, pastries, all that crap. When she left, since I didn't eat anything loaded with processed carbs, I'd leave that junk on the kitchen counter for my two roommates to devour: a butch fat chick and a forty-something street guitarist.