City limits

I told Andrés that a certain Diogo had come here to look for him. He acted as if he knew the reason for the visit. He told he had already spoken with him downtown and Diogo told Andrés he had dropped by the farm and talked to me.

"And he's your friend from school?"

"Yup, there's only one school in Taurinos."

Andrés took off his glasses and was going to wipe them with his tee's fabric. I got a paper tissue from my purse and gave it to him. He thanked me with a tiny smile and was distracted cleaning the lenses for a while.

"What do you wear glasses for?", I asked him.

"I'm myopic."

"What degree?", this question is so common for myopics as a handshake is for the rest of the population — myopics included. We exchanged information about our degrees and came to the conclusion we had a very poor sight. "We're short-sighted, hey", I said from one myopic to another.

He laughed. We swapped glasses and he was bizarre with mine on. By his continual seizures of laughter I could tell he thought the same at seeing his glasses on my face. He was astonished at the difference, that was roughly one degree.

In these moments as a "normal" boy (whatever that means) he looks more like a bear cub or something candid and cute for that matter (the fact of being slightly overweight and his strong body structure helps compare him to a bear cub). But there is something about this client that really disturbs me deeply. I don't know what it is. Regardless of his aggressiveness and violent behavior, he still disturbs me deeply. I hate it when I catch myself thinking of this something else. But it is a feeling I often get, unfortunately.

"Are you really paying attention or am I talking to the wind?"

Andrés

In the afternoon, once again talking to Andrés. He tells me about his grandfather — that seems to be his favorite subject after the bulls — and how he got his friends together around a common idea.

"What idea?"

Andrés explained that the town was founded by bulls. I understood his speech as something symbolic and had him notice that. He said it was not symbolic. I asked how the hell it could not be symbolic. He told me that the foundation of the city around the bulls in remotely ancient times — that is, the eighteenth century — was not that remote. Grandpa Andrés had found a book at the National Library that dealt with the region's neolithic era. The first foundation of a village there, according to grandpa Andrés, dated back to 15,000 before Christ. Strange how the date would comfortably fit Niède Guidón's vast Brazilian chronology.

"No one knows where they came from. The men from that time painted on the rocky walls what they saw, the bulls founding a town as if they were people", he continued, "and the bulls attacked everyone that lived there, their horns dividing people in two like they were made of butter, the weak houses being trampled under their paws, children dying like flies under the stampedes. As they occupied the region, they had no choice other than fighting back."

He stopped at this point and stared at me silently, trying to see if I was listening in to what he was saying.

"Go on."

"Are you really paying attention or am I talking to the wind?"

I made use of the pause for my famous last words.

"Andrés, do you really believe this story?"

He was very angry when he heard this. Said the only reason for me to hear the story was calling him nuts or a liar. I argued that I only wanted a "yes" or "no" answer from him. What I thought of the story, (including my opinion whether it was true or a legend) was irrelevant. But it was very important to me to find out if he, Andrés Silva Conselheiro, believed it.

"Course I do! Why would my grandpa lie?"

I replied it didn't mean his grandfather was a liar. He could be taking mythology literally. Bulls founding the town would be symbols and he believed that's the way it happened, because this is how the story was told.

"A myth is a fantasy way to tell stories that happened… But not the way it is actually told. It is like poetry in which you crate fantastic impossible images to describe the real things you see happen every day."

He was angrier still and insisted it was no myth. That things came to pass the way he told me. If I had any doubts about him believing or not the story, they were already gone. He was the heir of the saga himself. I asked the kid to continue. He was still mad at me and told me if I showed any speck of doubt, however small, he'd never bring up the subject near me again. I promised to hear without questioning.

"They had come to a stage no one could say they didn't have at least a dear one or next of kin lost on account of the bulls' attacks. So the men started to turn on the bulls in wide open fields. In time they created their own ceremonies, killing the bulls they managed to track down in the most violent and brutal way they could think of. The more they had the bulls suffer the more they approached the suffering of their own people because of the bulls attacks."

"Go on", I said suddenly, feeling too long a pause.

"So the story goes", he said, after the pause, "that's the whole of it."

"And one day the bulls were tamed and no longer posed any threat to humans", I concluded. He grinned and said none of the bulls in Taurinos was really tame, even if they came to town tame they would be no more. I was perplexed and asked for more explanations. Andrés told me there was a sort of energy in town that could bring bulls back to that primeval feral state (the one he described when talking about the foundation of the city). That the bulls were never actually tame.

"If this is the picture, why hasn't the city gotten rid of the bulls yet? If they'll always pose such a threat to Taurinos, why does the city still live from them to this day?"

"Exactly on account of the reason you just talked about."

"What did I talk about?"

"About the city still living from them. As much as they live from the city."

What I understood from his explanation was that there was a perverse relationship between the town and the animals. But that it would stand no more without them as they would stand no more without it. That the city wouldn't trade the animals because no slaughterhouse would ever accept animals that were already dead.

"Why are they slaughtered before delivery? Why not sell them alive?"

"Because they are never slaughtered before delivery. Because the cattle dies if it crosses the city limits."

I felt like laughing, but refrained from it. I wasn't competent enough to conceal my laughter though; Andrés said he could see my confusion. Said I thought he was lying or bound to silly superstition.

"I'll prove you I'm telling the truth", he said, giving me a scowl.

Twenty five minutes later, we were on a truck driven by one of employees of the farm, back from Andrés' pens with three huge bulls on the back of the truck. The employee asked the kid why he was doing that.

"Is it so important to show that to someone that is an outsider, might never come back here? Such beautiful bulls… And three at once!"

"And I did choose the healthiest ones." Andrés replied looking at me instead of looking at the driver.

We passed a man by on the road. He was regarding the truck with disbelief, eyes wide-open as if he didn't believe we were about to do what we were about to do. A hunch started bothering me. Yes, I knew what awaited ahead. And knew it was no good.

One or two kilometers from the city limit sign on the road I heard a grievous sound of mooing right behind us; the car came to a halt, the engine died, Andrés opened the door and ran to the back of the truck. I started hearing him screaming when I still had hardly left the car. The truck started shaking like all hell was breaking loose, while the driver just shook his head, arms crossed upon his chest. As I came closer to the back of the vehicle I could hardly refrain from screaming: the animals mooing out of sheer horror, shaking in spasms, eyeballs like they were about to jump from their heads. Drooling. Succumbing. Perishing. Andrés beside me glaring at me from behind his lenses, snarling something unintelligible, lost in a remote and lonely place located between triumph, revenge and anger.

"Andrés, there is still time to drive back to town. Please…", begged the anxious driver, heating even more the plump oven wearing glasses at my side.

"Fucked if I will! Let her see", roared the little Mineiro in a full-blown fit of rage, "she'll see it to the end! Here you are, call me a fucking liar now! It's three just in case you say one was not enough! Never doubt me anymore, Ms. Grisam… Never ever again!"

The animals still agonized for long in what they clearly showed was extreme suffering. It made for moments of intense paranoia to me until the predictable end, when the animals finally rested in peace. What disturbed me the most was the fact Andrés had chosen to sacrifice three healthy robust bulls only to persuade me of something. And he did, I must say. More than that, he brought back those strange feelings and hunches I always get about everything around me.

Of bloggers and swords | Waiting for The Big One

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