The ladies of night took a glimpse to see I'm not buying today. See-through raincoats, feathers around the waist and neck, sharp-color heels with a band-aid on the bottom. Red, pink, and purple steps aside as I walk by. One of them pursed her lips at the sky and lit up a cig, the other extended her right arm with the back of her palm upwards. One ring...... christ, the market demand knows no limit.
I ignore the hand and the seller altogether, the latter throws her right arm back as if littering and crouches down next to her competitor.
Five to six steps away from the hideously grayish steel door of uncle's, a bald guy in his early 30s sitting closest to the pawn shop notices me walking straight towards it.
"Hey. Hey! Place's closed. Nothing to see there." Waving his bottle in hand like a traffic warden, the bald guy shouts with a slight hint of urgency in his voice as I skip two steps to the solitary door then proceeds to bang it as hard as I can with my right fist.
The streets close to the market ain't the safest at this hour and the residents around St Christofer know it well. As the sound of loose screws and chunks of stainless steel tattling door hinges, creating a continuous screeching thunk echoing the mostly empty street of west lanes, five maybe four passers across the street gave a quick glance before clearing out of sight for this foretold trouble for either the man knocking or whoever's inside.
Come on... open the fucking door..
A numbness sores the bones of hand, both mine and the security's passion wears thin but the bald man snapped first.
"You deaf or what, boy?" The other three in front of butcher shop stop the conversation all together and tilt their head towards me.
The man was ready to stand up as he press his palms on the handle, possibly moving his ass for the first time in hours. But the motion stops before he can get off the chair, for the dark, almost bronze-skinned man on a stool (a monobloc might decompose under him) facing the desolate movie theater across the street beat him to it.
"Calm the fuck down, that ain't some riffraff."
Between burly and fat, the big fellow soothes his man while striding towards me in quick steps, arms wide open, sleeves of his oversized leather jacket flopping like a boneless pigeon trying to fly.
The last time I saw him was a while back, could only remember the coat was much more fitting back than.
"Good ol Cal, got promoted from the doorman to the head of security?" Grinning by the side of his mouth, the big man lifts the sides of his jacket with his thumbs hooking the collar as accepting the assumption.
"Yeah, yeah. Fuck you and your sense of humor. Why’d you shows up after months later without giving a call first?" Cal leans on the steel door's handle, positioning himself perfectly between me and the other three still sitting in front of the butcher shop.
"As if the old man would roll up the red carpet and gives me a big hug at the doorstep." I lean the violin case on the iron bars by the door and stand with my arms crossed.
"Unlikely. But at least he won't be closed for the day when you're here....... probably." Cal shrugs and tilts his head back to check his fellows, though the guy's way too much of a roadblock I can't see what's up.
"Closed for the day?" I let out a smirk and inquired further. Cal raises half of his face along the brow before giving me an answer.
"Yeah. Day off, you know how spontaneous Tío Javier is." How fucking lazy you mean.
"Ain't that hard to argue... but uh....."
I scratched the back of my head like I was in a dilemma. "I ran into an acquaintance of mine couple minutes ago, and he told me the place was open this morning till noon...." Cal rolled his eyes and readjusts his position on the door to make himself more comfortable.
"Alright, he was open for the morning. But by noon he decided to take a lunch break...... till now."
"So he's still in there?"
"Or upstairs." He shrugs again and checks the post-modern clock on the wall of the movie theater across the street.
While his sight is off me, I sneak my right index to dig the metal blotch on the slide of peephole, dragging the slide open before he turns back.
The lights are still on but fail to escape through the gap for they pale in comparison to the neons outside, and through all matter and sorts of eccentric bullshit lying around the place, behind the counter and bead drape, I see the contour of half a man curls up in bed with his left arm hanging by the edge
"Pretty sure he didn't make it that far." Cal turns around and takes a peak at Javier through the hole too before closing his eyes momentarily.
"Look." His lip drops but words stuck as he furrows before raising his brows. "My shift's about to end, old man definitely ain't opening today. So how about you come back tomorrow morning hmph? So we can take the night off?" His eyes unperturbed while speaking, though he knew damn well I won't walk away.
"Wish I could man. But I've got something delicate and need it off my hands quick, least get a note of where to get it off. Or, at the very least, getting a notion of it."
Of all the folks in the lanes, cal would probably be the safest to share any hint related to last night's job, not entirely because he's solid but also for his lack of imagination.
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I flattened my brows and dragged the edge of my mouth vertically to a bitter smile before I ram my left fist onto the steel door hard and yell through the small gap.
"Oye viejo! Despierta, boludo!" The figure behind the bead drape twitched before it retracts the arm hanging out and turns around to face the wall and now his toes are sticking out.
"See?" Cal squeezes his fat face to the gap inches away from me, I can see the sweat on his cheeks. "Told you he ain't opening today." I purposely tilt my head back a little before shutting again.
"It's lee!....." God damnit. "Es callejero! Come on, got something for you, open up!" The vague line of the figure behind curtains stiffens, the rise and fall of steady breathing stops for a second before he pulls his leg back on the bed too.
And now he had it coming.
Cal pressed his thumb on his left ear for the near-deaf experience I gave him with less resentment in his eyes than I anticipates but still, it burnt his last patience for me. As he extends his right hand to grab my shoulder I shut one last time with my face practically on the door.
"Oi tío! Tu sobrino está aquí para verte!" Cal was going to do...... something to me but all actions stopped with the noises of violent rumblings, clinking, slurs bellowing, more rumbles, a loud thump, and a short wail that came from the pawn shop. A second later the door opens inward with the screaming of rusty metals.
***
Sun-carved skin draped on a hanger, saggy, hairless. Bloated arteries and skinny bones writhe under the back of his palms. Age spots and the dismal tattoos that were once black and red and full, now gray and a sickening dark green like the outside of decaying meat. That flimsy, dotted polo shirt he's too lazy to replace ain't doing much of a job covering them either.
Black pants got way too many sewing threads over and across the ankles and thighs making it a pass to cargo pants or borderline stylish though he's just way too much of an Ebenezer fucking Scrooge to buy a new one.
The most noticeable thing about the bastard is the silver amulet of a weeping Santa maría on one side and Santa Muerte on the other dangling in front of his chest, As far as I know, it's straight blasphemous to put them together but I guess the guy being a catholic is a bigger one.
The old man's old, but not as old as most think, he's about the same age as Luthier, 61 or so. But years of drinking (even I couldn't top him), living by nicotine and the poker table till a few years back had made him look like a 70ish with arthritis.
The spaces between his noticeable eye bags and the short hard beard around his chipped lips are filled with scar-like deep wrinkles, as if his skin is being sucked into them.
But behind the rotting shell that's standing half bent to catch his breath, vine-like hands on the steel door frame, mouth slightly open unconsciously with drips of sweat on the edge of his beard. Rests a spirit that stands unfazed and defiant towards the flame engulfing this world.
No matter how much of a bum he looks. Tío Javier's eyes burn the brightest among most I've seen. A spite towards what most think is right and a pity for the opposite, greed that swims like all the vendors and business owners in the lanes and occasionally, suck as now, a rare shade will surface making them seem almost transparent, open, full.
In those rare instances, with keen eyes you'll know, he cares.
They're of slate gray mixed with blue traces by the pupil and the white, the color of heavy rain washing down the sewer before surging back into the ocean from pipes. The first things I witnessed in Euforia.
Now a glint of fear, expectance, and an unsure longing runs in them......
***
Before it disappears into disappointment when he sees me greeting him. With my arms wide open and a giant grin on my face that drags the edge of my eye I bent my knees slightly to be horizontally aligned with him. I probably look like a moron but the look on his face makes it worth it.
"Uncle! How the hell have you been? Fuck me, did someone throw you in a dehydrator? You look like the carcass of a bull. The kind in the middle of a dessert." Javier's right eyelid twitched frantically as the left side of his face sags downward. The moment froze for the length of five blinks before he slowly closes his open mouth and turns to Cal next to me.
"What did I pay you for?" His accent is as thick over the years, especially on the pronunciation of each 't'.
Cal in response, shifts his sight to me and back to him before letting words slip down from his mouth in a conciliatory tone. "He said he got some......"
Before the gibberish can form a statement, Uncle cuts him
"No. No. I pay you, and those cojonazos of yours to keep dogs, troubles, and pendejos off my shop and in extension, the front of my shop..." The big man's shoulder slightly up and was about to say something but Javier raised his voice and continues.
"Perro, disturbio y pendejos Cal! .....And what am I looking at right now? The holy fucking trinity of the three!" Uncle throws his right hand back in my direction like flipping a table. I can't help but let out laugh.
Old man, never change.
Never change, old man.
"Déjate llevar por el diablo...And what are you laughing at?" He turns his head to my face out of the blue and snorts. I shrug at his question and put on a smile.
"Just got a revelation. If the Sun won't set, grass don't grow, birds fall from the sky, you can bet Javier will still be chewing someone out. Quite amusing don't you think?"
"Clever little shit." Uncle scoffed those words out of his mouth. Staring at me with annoyance as he tabs the steel door frame with his right hand repeatedly before he signs deeply and a quick cough follows at the end of it.
"..... And? You came all the way up north just to wake me up and grin at my face?"
In a matter of speaking.....
"Come on..." With my hands on hip and the smile unchanged, I sing with an ardent tone. "Can't yours truly be paying you a visit for.... I don't know, reminiscences?" The old man roars a cough out of his throat before spitting a load of sputum on the sidewalk.
"Try doing it in front of my gravestone. Then, I might be glad to see you or believe you. So be real this time, what did you interrupt my siesta for?" Seeing Tío's actually not in the mood for bullshit, I toned the smile down to a smirk and gave my violin case by the door a nod wordlessly.
Uncle followed my gaze and tilted his head right to the thing leaning inches from his hand on the door frame. He squints his eyes while cutting the lines on his face deeper, looking years older just by the simple fact.
It's really been a while huh?
I thought to myself as he looked closer at the 'Glasgow' sign on the exterior.
"You got something for me?"
"Aye." Javier exhales a long breath through the nose. He moves his jaw left to right, chewing on the fact and if it's worth it.
"Hot?"
"Could be. Need a…… A connoisseur. An expert." Uncle snorts again.
"Expert my fucking ass.........ahh Puta madre. Get in!" Hard to notice but a small trace of curiosity stays in his pupils after the quick estimation he made in his mind. Taking a step back, the bleak glower inside peeks out, right in the middle of purple and red, toning down and blurring the boundary.
"Gracias." I grab the case, skip two steps up the drain, and walk passes him with a hand on my left chest which tío rolls his eyes in response.
When he was about to turn back in too he finally noticed Cal by the side had been opening and closing his mouth like a koi fish.
"And what are you twitching for?"
"Javier, it's... kind of past my clock now. Is it alright if me and the boys....."
"You lazy bastards been jerking each other off for weeks. Now's the chance to earn your pay, and do your fucking job. Make sure no one comes in before callejero comes out..... or I do."
With that Uncle slam the steel door. But I didn't hear most of that except the door slam, my mind's always elsewhere when I'm in vieja tórtola.