The forgotten feeling of love

Enmanuel del Corazón de Jesús Augusto Guerrero Campana got out of bed, sweating profusely despite the forty degree morning. He reeked of cheap tequila, as he managed to crawl into the shower. At 5:45 in the morning, a cold shower is both a crime and an odyssey, the sort of insanity that only celebrities took part in. The water touched his body and he flinched, jumped and yelled as if he was electrocuted. A few seconds later, “Manolo” walked out shivering and put on a pair of leather boots, a large silver buckle strap, blue jeans, black shirt, and a black jacket. Ready at last, he spit the peppermint mouthwash he had been holding to avoid brushing his teeth.

A woman’s voice came from the room "Manolo", "Tell me" he answered plainly, "can you come over a second?". If there was something he hated more than sharing his booze, was being stopped when he was about to leave. To him, it was as if the Universe conspired to stop the normal course of the inevitable chain of events he called life. "Speak woman” he repeated several times, standing at the door. "Come” the girl shouted, this time even louder. He dragged his feet across the room, as if being pulled by a horse and stood staring at her. Suddenly the smell of her sweat wasn’t as appealing as the night before. "Do you love me?". His eyes almost popped out of his skull. Manolo could have shot her in the neck if he had a loaded gun. "Of course my queen" "Ok, my king. Don't go with your wife and leave me here forever" "What kind of man do you think I am?”. With this he left the house, both knowing, but for different reasons, that they would never see each other again.

To climb into his F150 truck, he had to put his foot on the side step bar, open the door and take a small jump to reach the top handle, it was like seeing a seven year old child climbing a race horse unassisted. As soon as Manolo turned on the ignition, the dashboard displayed several warning signs, one of them indicating that an airbag was not working and a blaring banda exploded from the speakers. The neighbor promptly yelled, but he couldn't hear what he said and if he had, he wouldn’t have cared in the slightest. He had a picture of his mother and his daughter in the rearview mirror, visible reminder of why he moves forward in life, every time he pulled backwards.

As he navigated through traffic, his phone rang interrupting music “Qué hay compa… Don't tell me, no. I'm almost there". The ocean of cars were a reminder that the virus thing was now over. He though of the reduced traffic as the only good part of the fake Chinese virus.

Manolo parked a block away from the garment manufacturing complex, near a truck that sold fruit. His cell phone began to ring again, which he chose to ignore. He looked at the fruit eating fools and could not imagine himself transformed into one of these degenerates, the kind who drink green juices, count calories, reuse plastic bags, weigh themselves once a day and go on intermittent fasts.

Galloping through the narrow hallways and into the factory, he could hear his acquaintances either welcoming or simply trying to distract him with the beauty of a new lady in the premises. He was hungry, but realized that he would not be able to have breakfast, which immediately made him angrier than he usually was. Moments later he noticed looking through a window pane located in the management office, a white lady talking to the owner. He broke the unwritten rule and looked dead straight at them dazzled by the beautiful woman, quite possibly a model in his mind.

The women exchanged some items, his boss gave her some papers and colorful pieces of fabric cut in squares. The white lady gave her a black notebook and a big, fat yellow envelope. The face of the old Korean supervisor sitting parallel to the office, five sewing machines away from him, revealed to him that he had been staring for too long. It felt as if he was committing a crime, and the old man was about to prevent it by mere divination, like cops usually do.

Manolo sat at his single needle machine, right next to the noisy overlock, grabbed his tiger-patterned fabric cutouts, layer upon layer and place them next to him. Just when he got up, he saw the Korean's eyes, he was looking at him like a hyena watching a dying animal, the old man even had the face of a hyena and when he spoke, especially in Korean, he seemed to sound like a hyena as well. The compadre walked through the door with the face of a satisfied man, they exchanged a few words and Manolo asked la virgen for strength as he sank into his chair.

Manolo placed his phone upright, in between swaths of fabric and the bulkier part of the equipment, saw the reminder that his daughter had programmed about a Disneyland trip and got to work. Upon placing it, he lit up the screen revealing a text message from an unknown number. He was going to open it, when he jumped from fear because a mountain of cloth fell to his right hand, the old man begun barking immediately, yelling that the P.O., the garment order had to be ready before the day was over.

His phone buzzed again, it was from one of his eight siblings. They hated each other to death because his brother became very arrogant after he attended medical school at UNAM. “Manny, I hope you are well. Mom has the virus, we are on our way to the White Memorial, give me a call." His skin froze, he felt pressure on his chest, as if a ghost in military boots kicked him in the solar plexus.

The boss and the gabacha, (the white lady) walked among the sewing machines grabbing swaths of fabric and chatting, sometimes in Korean, others in Spanish and finally in English. Suddenly, he felt a terrible shock in his right hand, followed by a raging fire, a cramp and a melting warmth. He bit his lips to avoid screaming in pain, wrapped cloth around his hand moaning softly. Before he could get up, the two women were too close, making it too risky to go out now. In order to protect his job, he dug his injured hand into his crotch and pressed it hard.

The cellphone rang insistently. The women already looked like they were on their way out, when suddenly something exploded next to him. The Korean lady saw the phone lying on the ground and before he could pick it up, the old man kicked it yelling "No cellphones during work hours". The old man then noticed the bloodstained feline printed fabric and gradually turned up the volume of his poor Spanish, until he reached an indistinguishable bark. For an instant his face deformed into that of a dog-hyena hybrid. Between the barking, the pain, the phone, the buzzing of the overlock machine and the hissing of the iron table in the back, he boiled until he stood up in front of the old man. Before he could do anything, the Korean lady separated them.

The mutation stopped, and coming to his senses, Manolo threw away the fabrics, picked up his phone and marched to the door making his way through the Korean lady, the hyena and the white lady. In the hallway he turned left, heading for the stinking stairs, probably for being a homelessness motel.

What happened next was unthinkable, instead of letting him go, the Korean woman entered her office, picked up her wallet, put a manila envelope and a black book inside it and followed him, shouting that she had to finish production today. When he unlocked the truck, all the doors opened and to his surprise, she climbed in, throwing her purse on the dashboard. She started apologizing and talking to him condescendingly, as if he didn’t know what he was about to do. Manolo had a knife under his seat, never in all the times he sharpened it, did he ever imagine a scenario like this would finally stain it. It would only take a swift horizontal movement, like the one used to slaughter a goat. He approached her slowly and said "Fine then, if you want to come, suit yourself". He put the cellphone on a magnet on the dashboard and drove away to the hospital.

They flew through the lanes as he rushed to the heavy traffic. By unfastening and buckling up again, she made sure that her seatbelt was on properly. Taking the exit down the ramp, he received a text message from his compadre and by zooming in on the screen, he made the content visible to both. The message read "I saw that you took the boss in your car, this is the chance to get the money, she must have our salaries there. We can have our own factoria…", the text continued but he locked the screen. It was one of the stupid jokes without context that would prove to have devastating consequences.

In the middle of silence they looked at each other through the reflection of the misaligned mirrors. Both wanted to be transported to another dimension, but on the contrary, were more present now than ever, at opposite ends of that text message. She drew a notch, mimicking a smile to hide her fear. He noticed how she was fingering her mobile. The music resumed, Manolo with a quick slap turned it off. "I don't know what he's talking about," he finally said, unsuccessfully trying to calm her down. She didn’t respond, now fumbling her phone less discreetly. After holding a combination of buttons an alarm went off. Manolo snatched the device from her hands with the same dexterity used to turn off the radio and zigzagged down the road. She screamed at the top of her lungs, pulling the handle to open the door, failing because she forgot to release the lock. She hit the glass with both hands, cracking it a little with her big ring. He violently yelled at her to be quiet. He pulled her sharply by the left shoulder to detach her from the door and this causing to panic even more, trying to snatch her phone from Manolo, then she grabbed the steering wheel and pulled as if her life depended on it, sending the pickup opposite to the intersection, sliding towards Mariachi Plaza where it crashed against the gazebo’s staircase.

Manolo opened his eyes, the air bag blocked his vision so he decided to recline his seat and a sharp flashed from his back to the big toe. Pulling himself together, he saw that the airbag on her side didn’t activate, her face absorbing all the impact. At her feet was the purse. He pulled it up, pushing her shivering legs aside and looked at a blood stained Manila envelope and a pristine black notebook. The envelope was labeled "Payroll”. In his experience counting counterfeit bills, there must have been at least twenty thousand dollars inside it. He grabbed the bag with everything and got out.

As he limped to the hospital, which must have been less than half a mile away. Maybe as a product of the trauma, he fantasized about paying the hospital bills and bringing his daughter on a trip to Disneyland. Also how he might find the white lady’s phone number inside the book. He walked through the Hospital door and his brother flung himself to his arms with tears in his eyes and gave him a sincere hug. Between the sound of the approaching sirens and the forgotten feeling of love, he heard "she is dead."