NOWHERE-NOW HERE, HECTOR CASTELLS TRAVEL JOURNAL – CAPSULE X

QUENTIN JEROME FUCKING BORGES

Angelina is crying blue tears. The smoke of a million centuries is flowing through them. She had witnessed everything, except the growth of her baby. It is truly heart breaking.

The life-changing hug seems to repair me and destroy her, but nothing is what it seems.

I’m the bastard who asked if I could call her mum just an hour before she witnessed the emergence of his long gone son on national TV.

I guess finding your son is better than losing him, isn’t it?

I buried him many years ago, and he looks quite deadly right now, she says.

I should feel hopeful: if her dying son meets his fate, then I could be his breathing version, although I’d still be embarrassingly white.

The Irish in me says sorry and the Sicilian in her says thank you.

Thanks for what?

For holding his head before he hit the ground, kid: you saved his life.

I don’t mention how painful it is to be called a kid after being called son; I just ask what’s the name of her biological auld child. She says Jerome, which sounds a bit like Tarantino missing the plot.

Jerome?

I’m still struggling to understand what’s the kinship between Jerome and Lisbet’s grandpa. I want to text Lisbet and explain that Angelina could be her great grandmother, but I shall use a burner phone for Interpol eluding purposes.

This is a fucked up puzzle with an elephant in it bigger than the room.

I wonder how accurate she can be at identifying someone she has missed her entire life. I clearly remember her saying that Jerome was taken away from her immediately after she gave birth.

Heroes in the Seaweed

The newsreel of my intervention is all over the satellites, there’s not a single anchor on national TV trying to figure out whom the fuck is the half-crouching individual holding Jerome’s tiny skull like a precious bowl. Only one of them would call me a hero. This is proper sober journalism.

The Nippon Zen Master rings and asks what the fuck happened. I tell her about my random encounter with Lisbet, and the whole charade with the American TV crew, and she says that Interpol and Carl Murder should be my main concern.  Don’t trust anyone. I have contacted HQ. Get a burner phone ASAP. If things go sour, find the cat-flap at the back of Angelina’s. Mei, our Kendo master, is outside. And remember: Don’t believe half of what you see and none of what you hear, she says.

How to forget it!

She is great at quoting Lou Reed in life or death situations.

So before the Interpol, I shall fear Angelina?

The line dies before she can answer.

Q AND A

“I hate to ask this, Angelina, but how can you be so sure that he is your son if you haven’t seen him since he was the size of a pumpkin?”

Because the mark on his neck.

I don’t say that you need a magnifying lens to see that. I just reflect on her fine eavesdropping talents and her sharp sight, and the smoke of her alleged living century starts dissolving. The NZM is always right.

Next thing, I look at her green eyes and I say that my adoptive granny’s name was also Angelina. I’m emotional; I want to hug her; I mean, not this version of my Angelina, but the previous, non-biological one, my bastard granny.

She goes in full on Terminator mood. She still doesn’t know that this is Kill Bill.

This is not one of your books: it was your life. I guess it is time to say sayonara, she says in a very different voice.

Life as it Was

Angelina turns around; smiles and slumps down to the ground like a very young cat. I immediately emulate her, and the bullets pass hissing our heads and burst dozens of wine bottles behind us. She starts sliding through the shards of Bordeaux glass, red liquid splashing all over us.

She is now wearing leather gloves and her perfect hairdo is lopsided, uncovering a tuft of blonde hair. I see two shadows behind the blinders of the window shop, and the little pistol she is holding with her left hand, before I feel the presence behind me.

I perform an Aikido technique which name I have forgotten, slide backwards on my knees under the legs, and push them from behind fast enough to see the bullet go through his body instead of mine.

CATFUCK

I run towards the end of the shop and I can’t see the cat-flap.

I find a door instead that runs to the basement. I block it from the inside, descend a flight of darkened stairs with bleeding knees, and find a little switch on the wall. I turn it on and a flickering bulb illuminates the Garage Holy Trinity: Lisbet, her brother and mother are handcuffed and have their mouths stuffed with tennis balls. I remove them quickly and ask what the fuck is going on.

Lisbet says “set-up, trap” and all the Hollywood overused words meaning NOTHING. I wonder what Tarantino would make of this situation. He might be proud of the tennis balls, but that’s about it.

The garage door must be guarded from the outside. I hear someone slipping over the blood I have just spilled on the stairs, and next thing we see his cracked head opening up like a rotten passion fruit in front of us.

He is one of the physiotherapists I saw yesterday at the Memorial Centre. He was talking to Lisbet. He won’t talk ever again.

Hungarian Rhapsody

Angelina is nowhere to be seen and Lisbet is shouting something in Hungarian. Before I try removing her handcuffs, her brother escapes from his, and tackles my neck from behind with his massive elbow. He tries to break it.

I find a little gap, slide both my hands between his stiff arms, kneel down swiftly and thrust my body forward in sublime, lifesaving sumi otoshi. He flies over my head like a sack of dumplings and sorrow, falls flat on his back, and cracks something, so it sounds. He is crying out way too loud.

This is a bloody fucking mess, so I don’t hold back: I pin his neck with my shoe, and he wails in such a high pitch that the bulb explodes.

Lisbet reacts.

Roaming Tiger

Stop it, please, stop it, he meant no harm to you! We are on your side here.

Breaking my neck sort of side? Come on, Lisbet. Just tell me what’s going on before I crack your “brother’s” throat.

It is a long story, you know that, but remember: nothing is what it seems.

I realise she is stalling for time and let myself slump down again, and again the bullet passes whining and get perfectly lodged between Lisbet’s eyes, who falls back perfectly dead. I push my shoe, hear the crack and jump up.

This time the bullet misses my floating being and meets Lisbet mum’s stomach. I can see her guts open, blood everywhere, before she says: “They are all Murder’s bloodhounds. Tell the NZM that “The tiger is roaming and the stripes are gone. RUN.”

I do as I’m told. Angelina’s trigger seems stuck, I hear the click, but I’m not sure if she is trying to play me. I’m thinking way too much.

XL

My life was normal. Then a cop named Carl Murder killed my best student and my partner, Shelby, who was somehow involved in this big nightmare I’m crawling. Life is not what it seems; neither reality is what you wish.

Except now: I want Tarantino to say cut, and then he does.

Thanks god.

….

(TBC next week)