THE CROSSROADS

My mother's anguish at Agenor's "disappearance" disturbed me a little. I tried to comfort her, but I did not measure the size of her affective dependence and did not know how to deal with it. She called hospitals and morgues and nothing about him. Having no identification as a personal document, everything was consumed by the fire inside the car, it delayed things a little. But the 7 pm news came to give the sad news and although the case was mistakenly reported as a reckoning, the mother knew it was him. In a scene of the news, the black tarpaulin that covered the body lifted, due to an air blow, showing part of it. She recognized the navy blue jacket with white and red stripes on the sides. She cried so much, so much, that I don't know if I could bear it alone. In those dark days for her, I was a good son. We went to recognize the body, we watched, we buried it. I took care of all the boring parts, but she was still obstinately mourning and seemed to fall into a deep depression. The strike ended after an agreement between the state government and the college's board of directors. I could no longer give all that attention to her and feared for her health. I chose to hire a maid, who would take care of the house, her and stay overnight. It took me longer to find it than I thought it would take. Her name was Edwiges, she was a lady in her fifties. They could get along, be friends. I hoped for that. I couldn't bear to see my mother in that state, paying for medicine, private consultations and seeing nothing work. I was almost freaking out. The "Crossroads" brought me good memories. Friends, students, music. And although returning to teaching brought much of the things that made Reinaldo himself Reinaldo, the one from before the damn book, being there was still a refuge, almost a relief. Because my life was not the same as before, although I did not have access to the book.

That night I drank more than I could handle. More than I remembered drinking. I called the taxi and asked to stop at the square, near the bridge. I paid and dispatched him. I would walk home if I could, if not, I would lie down right there and sleep in the open, like dogs or beggars. Sitting in the gap, between the sidewalk and the asphalt pavement, I smoked a cigarette and looked down, between my legs, at the running river water, passing under the bridge. The full moon and clear skies made the night beautiful and clear, which was a good thing, contrasted with my worn out black interior. The drink made me tall and seemed to connect me with sensations that sober I would have no perception of. I rearranged ideas, put together the pieces of the intricate puzzle that had turned it all over. When I glimpsed a path, albeit distant that I could follow, I noticed three slender shadows under the streetlights that illuminated the bridge. I struggled to get up and running, but I was so drunk for it that I surrendered to laughter and mockery. - Do you want to see a magic? Here, just serve, you suckers! So seeing? - It was the pocket knife that I turned in my hands, in a forced demonstration of the ability momentarily lost. I turned the knife over my hand and on the way back I didn't have the reflex to hold it and it fell. The guys who were already saying things like: "Want to kill yourself", "Look at this guy, what are you doing?", "Want to die", came up at the same time to hit me. But I managed to reach the knife on the floor and pierce the neck of one of them in time. The worm fell, crashing with a hand on the neck, a lot of blood was pouring. Of the two left, one ran away and the other kicked my hand that still held the knife and disarmed me. Then he applied a sequence of punches that made me fall and kept hitting. I moaned low, almost without strength, very hurt, when I felt the knife being hit in the flesh. I counted seven strokes, then I felt nothing.

Later the sepulchral silence of the dead came to my ears and the darkness penetrated my eyes in a tearing agony. The morgue wouldn't be my home, no. I was not dead. That place, in fact, my friends, would be my birthplace. A unique and terrifying cradle, which I escaped from after killing an employee using this scalpel. I hid from the rest by crawling and rubbing myself against those dirty walls, so that I wouldn't be seen by anyone. When the alarm went off, I was already outside. I escaped through the back. I arrived at the apartment, panting and shaking, I don't know if a delayed reaction of the body, due to my recent death, but I could barely hold the keys in my hand. When I entered the hall, beside the stairs, leaning against a brown paper package with a card with my name on it. The dimensions of the package should have been eighty by fifty centimeters and the way I was, dirty, tired and with knife holes, I just wanted to know how to go upstairs and take a shower. I took the package under my arm and left it on the armchair.