Renegade

The horses stopped in front of my house. I glanced at the clock. It was seven-fifteen in the morning. By the sound outside it could not be only one horse. Looked through the window. Down there were a palomino and a black horse. There was a huge backpack on the black horse.

The knocks on the door, five of them. Renan. I come down and see him standing at the porch, sadness printed on his face. Asked if he could come in and I opened the door. He placed his backpack in a corner of the room. Told me that his father disinherited him. I told him there was no way of his father disinheriting him. Simply because his father would never die. He said it was worse this way, because his father disinherited him in life. Renan had no more than just his horses and his clothes now.

"Why did your father do it?"

"He thinks I have disgraced my family going to Anderson's door to humiliate myself… Besides, I had never gone out and stayed so long out without telling them first…"

"You could at least have been a bit more discrete, solve your problems with him in a bit more remote place, no?"

He was silent. Tears wet the child's face. A child without a ground to stand upon. I felt immensely sorry for Renan, however many feelings of violence he inspired me in Taurinos' brutal day-by-day.

"I have nowhere to go", he told me, looking in my eyes, "the only place I could think of going to was your house."

"Stay with me for some time. I don't want to see you anymore like I saw you last night, in the cold, in the rain. I want to talk to your parents about it."

He grinned amid his tears and promised to do whatever I wanted him to.

"Look, I want to see a lot of discipline from you concerning your business of the Obscure Police here in my house. If we are going to live together even if it's for a while you'd better learn right from the start you'll have to discipline this. You stay here but you'll abide by my rules."

Disciplining the Obscure Police. It sounds like a joke. Disciplining what has no fixing. Neither will it ever have, said the poet one day.

"You'll sleep here in the living room for now. When I wake up, I'll help you tidy a little room beside mine. I'll put the things that are in my room. when Meire is gone, you'll take her room."

"I can stay in this little room, no problem with me. You can keep the other for your visitors", and he grinned ear to ear.

"We'll discuss that later."

When we woke up and came downstairs, Meire saw the other policeman sleeping in my sofa. I thought I'd have to tell her this time it was a bit more… permanent.

"Another little angel?" and she gave me a knowing smile.

"Oh, it's hard to stand these little brats knocking on my door so early in the morning."

Later on, after lunch, Renan brought me an invitation from Taurinos Town Hall for the City Party to be held next Saturday. A homage paid by the population to Taurinos' Ancient Society for all we did and lived through for the continuation of the town. Sometimes I felt like those characters of cliché films who are adored by members of tribesmen in remote places.

"You're the one who can least fail to come", Renan had said to me, as soon as I manifested my willingness to stay home, "without you, nothing here would exist."

I just had to laugh. Meire looked at me, probably surprised at my reaction. "Welcome to Taurinos", I said to her. She too had to laugh.

Brothers in arms | Celebration day

Radio Universal: Obscure Police