Blood-drenched Beard

He can barely get out of bed on Saturday morning. His cough has worsened considerably over the last few days, and now he is starting to experience chest pain and shivers. The rain stops at dusk, the sea becomes calm, and a flaming sunset appears and disappears in an instant as if it has walked through the wrong door. His wheezing is noisy in the silence of the night, and he is thinking about dragging himself off to the health clinic when he hears Beta yelping.

It must be another dog. Or just in his head. But Beta yelps again, this time insistently. The sound is distant and despairing and seems to be coming from the beach, the hills, and the walls of the apartment all at once. He pulls on his sneakers, opens the door, and stands outside. His shivers worsen and run through his body like electric shocks. He wonders if he is mad or delirious with fever. He hears the yelping again. This time he is almost certain that it is coming from the beach or the seaside boulevard.

He follows the path to Baú Rock without bothering to close the door, arms folded over his chest, listening carefully. He heads down to the beach promenade and is walking in front of the brightly lit, empty restaurants when he hears the barking again, frenetic and incessant. He crosses the street, ignoring an oncoming car, which flashes its headlights and honks twice. The barking is coming from a small bar with outside tables that is famous in summer for its caipirinhas made with bergamot leaves and a dash of curaçao and that opens only occasionally in the off-season, when it is frequented by locals. There are two barmen and another three men sitting at a small wooden table on the sidewalk. One of the barmen has served him on two or three occasions, a middle-aged man with an accent from the Brazil-Uruguay border, a mustache, graying side whiskers and goatee, skin wrinkled from the sun, and a body hypertrophied from decades of weightlifting. A blender is roaring away at top speed, Sublime is playing at a low volume somewhere behind the counter, and someone is smoking marijuana. No one greets him, but they all stop what they are doing for a moment, emphasizing the hostility that has just filled the air. One of the men leaning against the counter turns to face the street and starts drumming heavily on the slats of varnished wood on the facade of the bar.

Beta is barking loudly and incessantly, but it takes him a while to locate her in the driveway beside the bar behind a low wooden gate. She is tied by the neck with a red rag or item of clothing to the pipe of an outdoor faucet. Her protuberant ribs and cloudy eyes explain why she hasn’t been able to pull the pipe away. When she smells him nearby and finally sees him, her barks grow louder, more broken and sharper, like howls. The improvised cloth collar is strangling her.

He climbs over the gate, kneels next to her, and focuses all his attention on undoing the knot in the cloth, without wasting time trying to pat or calm her. She stops barking but keeps trying to raise her front paws and lick his face. The gate opens with a creak.

Leave the dog alone, kid.

The knot is as hard as cement.

I said leave her alone.

A kick in the ribs throws him against the wall between the driveway and a closed shopping arcade. Beta starts barking wildly again. He tries to get up but gets another kick in the stomach, just above his inflamed cut. This time he cries out in pain.

Who do you think you are, coming in like this and taking my dog, you piece of shit?

He starts to get up again, expecting the next blow, but this time his attacker decides to watch the spectacle of the man slowly picking himself up off the ground. He is a local, unshaven, with an animallike ignorance in his eyes. His blond surfer’s hair is poking out from under his red and white baseball cap and covers his neck and ears. He is tall and fills his baggy jacket and pants well. A hard man to take down.

Do we know each other?

Are you retarded?

I’m serious, I forget people.

The other men in the bar come over, forming an attentive audience on the sidewalk. One of them opens the gate and enters. The mustached barman hasn’t bothered to come out from behind the counter and can’t see anything. Beta snarls. The local kicks her and then immobilizes her with the makeshift collar.

’Course, we know each other, asshole. And if you don’t get out of here right now, you won’t forget me again, believe me.

The dog’s mine, and you know it.

I don’t know anything about that. I found her wandering along without a collar on the edge of the beach.

You’re the dickhead who was after Dália, aren’t you?

The local gives a little snort of amazement and takes a step forward, letting go of Beta.

What was that?

You’ve got a shark tattoo or something like that on your leg, haven’t you? I recognized you by your girly voice.

Jesus, this guy’s really asking for it.