In a time like this

All day long locked in my room. Internet. Updating the blog, eternizing the story I insist on remembering. That opens a new chapter in my life. Living and dying in Taurinos. The memories of the day before, the beating, the parental home violence, a boy on his knees, begging for forgiveness. It might seem incredible, but I no longer know if I myself wouldn't do the same, seeing my city threatened like Taurinos was, a little more than one week ago.

"Underneath the image, teenagers today are surprisingly conformist."

Selina S. Guber

I hear someone knocking on my door. Ask for a minute, rise from the chair and open the door. The youngest Taurino at home is in the corridor and has come to talk to me. He hardly looks me in the eye, but wants to come in and talk to me. I let him in, he sits down in a chair close to mine at the computer table. I look at his legs, marked by yesterday's belt. A note of sadness strikes a familiar chord in me, a shadow that I try to fend off with attention to details, with the expectation of what he wants to say to me.

"I got a nice thrashing yesterday, eh?", he said, with a shadow of a smile on his face, "look and see, red welts everywhere."

"Your father lashed you for too long. True, you deserved punishment, but putting you on your knees was a little too much."

"If Dad beat me that way non-stop for a week it still wouldn't pay what I owe you. It was nothing compared to what it had to be. Had I fallen on my knees on a mount of nails, it still wouldn't pay what I owe you. So, no worries about me. I have come to ask you to forgive me. I know you are never going to forgive me, but I had to say this to you anyway."

I was silent. Not because I wanted to go on with his punishment and ignore what he said, but because I couldn't find the words to say to him. What can I say to him? What can I say even to myself in a time like this? Andrés went on talking when he realized I had nothing to say.

"I'd lose my respect for him if he treated me differently."

I was astonished at his conformism. Said he couldn't be being serious. This a medieval punishment, I told him. He said that was the way it had to be.

"If my son did it, I'd have to be that tough on him. Otherwise, you lose respect, no? I remember when my father was my age. He left a run open and came to the farm. On the following day, we had to get all of the bulls together in their run again. It took us three days gathering them back here. I gave him a thrashing that only salt could heal. Becuase I had to make him understand how difficult it was for us to do that and mend his mistake or else he'd do that over and over again. He suffered like hell in my hands, but never left the runs open again."

"Right you are."

We were silent for a while. He attempted to start talking but failed. I think of how to say to him that this kind of punishment should be buried together with the persuasion techniques used in the Spanish Inquisition and by the Brazilian military dictators. Think of asking him if his father caresses and encourages him or if he just waits for his faults to come heavy on him as he did yesterday.

Internet. I update the blog. And check out my friendly blogger activity. I find an interesting article on the great Brazilian electronic music group Agentss in the archives of Sesper Works' blog. Not in English, but at least for a download of the unusual cover art of the band and their music, from Media Fire.

Adriano came to call me for dinner. Closing all open sessions.

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