# Caguamas and Days

"Noise is also music," you tell the girl sitting next to you. "Here you have to listen to the way rules are executed, but in the sense of killing. There's a fascination with rebellion in noise. It's rebelling against the pleasure of listening to music; noise is annihilation."

She stretches her back and looks at the ceiling while lighting a white Marlboro. It's not that she exactly minds your sofa bed with no stuffing and cat hair. You annoy her more because you have the most boring conversation in the city. Besides, you haven't showered in four days and it's been a couple of weeks since you last brushed your teeth.

The girl turns to talk to someone else. You want to continue your monologue, but she gets up. You do the same and go for another beer. You've drunk too much. On your way to the kitchen, you notice someone went to hook up in your room. You're going to kick out whoever's there, but first you demand they stop playing anime songs. You stumble to your laptop, throw a glass with water and ice at the guy who put on the *Slam Dunk* opening, and put on a Melt-Banana CD.

These people (your friends, supposedly) murmur the same thing every time they drink with you: "He can't hold his liquor," "Fucking Sergio, you piece of shit," "Fuck off, always the same bullshit." You don't listen to them, so you turn up the stereo volume while they file out; someone spits on the floor. In half an hour, the neighbor will come kick the door: "It's Sunday, asshole!" You'll open for him and scare him off with three howls and your crazy eyes.

But for now, alone, the laptop reflects you and you think about yourself. Sergio: single (dumped) for five years, downtown apartment (that your mom pays with her pension), sound engineer (unemployed for four years), balding at the crown, drunk almost always. You've noticed for a while that people only talk to you because the caguamas never run out at your place.

The buzz starts to wear off. You need to go get a beer urgently, because you can't stand yourself sober. It's almost one in the morning on Sunday. You know the OXXO won't sell you alcohol at this hour, but you try with the last hope you have for anything, a fragile and slight one. The clerk dashes it: "System's locked; come back tomorrow." You beg. The other one is super sleepy and not in the mood to argue. He closes the window and leaves you there, in the transition to hangover while you hit the glass with a ten-peso coin.

You return to your apartment. You drink what the others left in their glasses; it doesn't matter if they have ash or matches. You do it until you pass out.

***

The following Saturday, your friends come for their free caguamas; the money your mom gives you goes to that and rent. As always, you kick them out in the early hours of Sunday. Or rather, they get fed up with your attempt to socialize: you yell, threaten, and change the songs for those noises you call art. Today it's *Anode*, by Otomo Yoshihide: forty-five minutes of pure senseless feedback and too much fuzz. Someone approaches to tell you you're killing the buzz. You spit at them while screaming that if you didn't have such shitty speakers, you'd hear the grain of Otomo's performance. You push that someone, they fall, the glass in their hand breaks and they start bleeding. Everyone gets up and complains: "Fucking Sergio," "Same shit again." They start doubting out loud if drinking for free is worth putting up with you. You tell them to go to hell, turn up the volume. The neighbor will come, you'll go down to the OXXO, they'll deny you beer, you'll come back to drink the leftovers. And so on forever.

Now at the OXXO, the clerk sees you, widens his eyes and from afar gives you a no with his finger. You bang on the glass door and yell at him not to be an asshole. The clerk disappears. He appears again but now with two others; they're a triple red-and-yellow flag. They open the door, push you and tell you if you're so tough now. You know you don't stand a chance, so you go in face first with fists. One of the triplets trips you, you fall and rain kicks and stomps come down. Luckily, they get tired quickly and leave you there, bleeding from the nose.

You need a beer because the pain is sobering you up. You remember another OXXO. You walk there; it's five blocks. You knock, ask for beer, they tell you come back tomorrow. You're in too much pain to make a scene again. You walk. You pass six OXXOs; all the same: "Come back tomorrow." You walk a lot.

There's little left until dawn. You stop to see if you recognize where you are: pretty far from your house, but you recognize the direction. You see an OXXO on the opposite corner. You have nothing to lose by asking. You approach; just as you're about to knock, a teenager comes out. You don't give her more than fifteen. You're curious that someone that age works an OXXO at dawn. You ask if she's alone and instantly regret how that sounds. She answers yes, smiles and asks what you'll have. You ask for two León caguamas. She says she only has León left. You're surprised because, according to you, they don't sell that brand at OXXO; you tell her then three. You see her disappear; literally you think you see her disappear between the shelves of chips and Bimbo bread. You get scared for a second, but you're drunk and beaten up. You could never trust someone that drunk. You must have seen wrong.

The teenager returns with your caguamas and you remember you don't have empties. You tell her and she answers that you can bring them later. You smile, pay and leave. Right there, you open a caguama and drink it in the street to celebrate. The beer, even mixed with blood from your gums, tastes like glory.

***

The next Saturday comes. Your friends, useless drunks like you but with jobs, return to your house. In the early hours of Sunday, you put on your noises again (now it's *Hard*, by Keiji Haino). When they try to change it, you fuck with them again ("This is a fucking contemporary opera, you deaf fucks") and smash your beer against the wall. You splash two guys waiting for the bathroom and a girl gets glass out of her hair. Everyone leaves furious, swearing never to talk to you again. But now it's different: you give yourself the luxury of ignoring the leftovers and go straight for your caguamas.

On the way, you wonder why you don't brag to any of them about those Leóns at dawn. You answer yourself that if they can't even stand a fucking Captain Beefheart album, then they don't deserve to share your secret. It's a walk of almost an hour. You pick up the pace, because the buzz wears off with every minute you're not drinking.

You arrive at the OXXO. Just before you touch the window, the teenager comes out, smiles at you. You raise the three empties, she nods and returns with your caguamas. You pay and she asks how you are. You answer good, that now you'll be able to keep the buzz going. She asks you for a drink of beer and shows you a styrofoam cup. You hesitate, tell her she's too young to drink. She smiles at you again. You open a caguama with a Bic lighter and pour her some. She introduces herself (Arantxa, "with an X," she says); you do the same (Sergio, "with an S"; ten points less for the dad joke). She explains that she can't let you in because of company policy. You understand. You look at her for a moment: her eyes are yellow and sunken; she has dried mud on her sneakers and, even from the other side of the window, you get her smell of damp clothes. You want to ask why she doesn't wash her shoes or why her eyes are like that, but you realize she might get angry. What matters is that someone puts up with you and sells you beers after midnight.

***

Arantxa asks you what kind of music you like. You think about lying ("Zoé," what your forty-year-old mind thinks a fifteen-year-old mind likes), but you tell the truth: "Japanoise." She doesn't understand. You tell her it's Japanese experimental music. She stays the same. She tells you that at all the tardeadas she goes to they only play the latest by Caló; that she likes cumbia, but she's embarrassed to dance it. As far as you know, the last thing Claudio Yarto released with a band was in the mid-nineties and tardeadas stopped existing when you graduated middle school. Arantxa interrupts your thoughts and asks about your job. You tell her you've been months (years sounds miserable) without finding anything. Arantxa offers that you leave your job application with recent photo and that she'll talk to the owner. You thank her and finish her beer. You ask if she liked it. She nods, but you can tell she hated the bitter taste. You smile, say goodbye and open the second caguama on the way. Heading home, you check Wikipedia's entry for Caló. They haven't released an album in more than twenty years. You arrive at your apartment and fall asleep immediately from the buzz.

***

Every Sunday in the early hours, you kick out your friends (and they still get mad; they should know by now it will always be like this) and walk an hour to go get the León. You even think you've been drinking less since you met Arantxa. She makes you feel naive, but confident, without masks. Her questions make you question things you'd forgotten years ago (doesn't that noise music you listen to bore you?, why don't you look for another girlfriend?, why don't you work at whatever?, what did you want to be when you were my age?). You ask her if she doesn't have to go to school. She says she got expelled and that she likes working at night. She entertains herself with inventory and cash register counts. Her shift starts at nine at night and ends at seven in the morning. Since almost no one comes at that hour, she listens to the radio or a cumbia cassette she bought at the market last week. She shows it to you: it's white, with gold letters; it still has its original booklet and is in perfect condition; looks new. She says she'll lend it to you, just take good care of it. You wonder if it's always been coincidence that she's awake, because just before you give light knocks on the glass, Arantxa is already turning down the aisle.

You arrive at your apartment and, since you don't have a cassette player, you look up the full album on YouTube: *No mientas más*, by Grupo Cañaveral. You fall asleep listening to it.

***

Arantxa asks you what this sound engineer thing is. You explain that it's like an architect, but of sounds. With the computer you turn up the volume on something or make it sound like it has echo. That all bands need someone to help them with recording. While she turns up the stereo volume and the bass of "Tiene espinas el rosal" rumbles, she tells you she doesn't believe it, that the Cañaveral guys already play really well by themselves. You laugh and for a moment think it might be true. You take out your Android and show her a sampler. You record Arantxa's laugh and turn the pitch up and down. She's delighted with the cell phone (she calls it "tiny TV") and thinks her laugh, when it's low, sounds like a demon and, when it's high, like a squirrel. She asks if you're rich and if you bought your device in Japan, because she's never seen one, and that's at the tardeadas there are sometimes preppy kids. You drink from the León; she asks you to refill her styrofoam cup. When you leave that dawn, you notice Arantxa struggles to walk straight. For a moment it seems like she's dancing cumbia while she goes down the aisles.

***

Fewer and fewer friends come to your house. It's not worth putting up with you for some beers. The three or four that still visit almost grab a full caguama and leave. They're not only leaving you without alcohol, but without empties. You keep spending on beer for them (or for you?) and fewer come each time. Now you go to the OXXO at dawn not because you need to, but because you want to.

While "Entrega de amor" plays, you pass Arantxa a cigarette through the window. You know she would have started smoking anyway, but it's better that you teach her with Delicados and not Camel or, god forbid, Boots Exactos. She coughs a lot. She goes toward the refrigerators and drinks a can of Coke. You laugh while you tilt back the caguama. If you had followed your father's path and gotten your (imaginary) wife pregnant at twenty-five, your daughter would be Arantxa's age. And you would have liked her to be like her: calm, but who gets into trouble sometimes, sincere. At that moment, you think you would have been a good father.

***

The following weekend, in the early hours of Sunday, you fuck up again with your friends (this time you think you do it on purpose so they'll leave early). Someone saw you had a bunch of cumbia in your history, makes fun of you ("Not so excellent, my Serch") and you land one right on his jaw. Three more jump you instantly and pin you to the floor. Before 10:30 you're alone. You leave "El paso del gigante" playing and turn the stereo all the way up. You grab three caguama empties and head out thinking if the neighbor will be less angry because at least it's not pure noise playing. You pass all the OXXOs you see, even though you know any of them would sell you caguamas.

You arrive fifteen minutes before twelve. The glass door is open. A lady around sixty works the register. You leave the empties. You go to the refrigerator, but there's only Indio and Tecate in caguama. You ask if there's no more León. She tells you they only sell Tecate or Indio; that she can't accept your empties. You tell her they've sold you León there. She says she's worked at this OXXO for five years and they've never sold León. With three Tecate caguamas in hand, you ask for Arantxa, if she didn't come to her shift today. The clerk tells you she doesn't know any Arantxa. You describe her: fifteen years old, pale, with dirty sneakers, who works at dawn and has been selling you León for months. She raises her eyebrows and ignores you while she attends to the person behind you.

You leave the OXXO and stay looking at the sidewalk. The other customers have to open wide to not bump into you. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice something stuck to the wall. You think it will be one of those crosses people put where someone died. It wouldn't have to have a name, just a date from the late nineties. But you turn and the cross is a bag of burritos someone threw outside the store. You hug your empty empties and go home.

***

You think maybe the alcohol has already affected your brain. You stop drinking for a few days. Now, you blame yourself all the time for your life, for Arantxa's, for the neighbor's. You blame yourself for what went wrong in your parents' lives and your friends'. Your mood worsens and you start compensating with tobacco. Within a week, you already hear a whistle in your breathing.

***

You return several times to the OXXO at different hours to see if Arantxa is there. You stay at the door and don't dare enter; you must smell pretty bad (you don't remember when was the last time you showered), because you manage to hear the clerks say "fucking vagrant." You thought stopping drinking would give you clarity; now everything seems foggier. It's the same place, only it has a strange air. You think it looks dirtier, like it hasn't been cleaned in months; the shelves seem almost empty. But it must all be your imagination. This is just another OXXO.

***

One day, you arrive after twelve. You bring an empty caguama container. It's the first beer you're going to buy in three weeks. You're about to knock and ask for a León, but you change your mind and run back. Which would you have preferred? That Arantxa came out or that she didn't? The second answer depresses you instantly. You forget to buy the caguama.

***

You stop answering your friends' messages. Some (few) insist on seeing you. You spend the money your mom gives you on decent food (for the first time in many months you eat more than cheap ham sandwiches). You can't sleep. You wake up at dawn scared. Are you afraid of Arantxa? Or of the caguamas you bought her? Were they real? Or maybe your schizophrenia has finally exploded. Which is worse, because you don't have money for a psychiatrist and your mom won't lend you any. The truth is you don't know if you're afraid. Rather you feel miserable like you haven't felt in a long time; as bored and sad as before you met Arantxa.

***

You see job offers online just to do something. They all want interns so they don't pay them fairly and fire them in a month. They won't want to hire you because you're "too experienced," though the truth is you're too old for them. Your mom already threatened to cut you off, told you you're getting spoiled. You hate your life and others more. Your friends got tired of trying to talk to you. *Akuma no Uta* is on its third loop on the stereo.

One Saturday afternoon, while watching a series you don't even like, you get sadder than you remember ever being. Your head hurts. You get paranoid, your hands shake, you think about Arantxa and taste Leóns. You salivate. You think it could be withdrawal syndrome, but that should have hit you days after quitting drinking and not three months later. You start running out of air, your hands shake and you have an empty feeling in your stomach. You leave your apartment. It's starting to get dark. You walk an hour to get to Arantxa's OXXO. You see from afar that the door is still open; you enter and check the display cases: there's no León. You leave and wait on the corner. There's still a while until midnight. You're tired.

***

Right at twelve, the clerks close the door. You're about to leave when *"Vienes y te vas"* sounds—with Los Askis, of course; the song rumbles from invisible speakers that are in the middle of the street; all the neighbors on the block should be awake, but no window lights up. And it may be because there isn't enough light or because you don't have enough alcohol in your blood, but Arantxa crosses through the door without opening it; she hugs three León caguamas and floats toward you with a Delicado lit at the edge of her lips.