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Authors: Robert Hough
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when the capitano ordered him to stop. He was passed the bottle. The capitano stood on his chair and looked across the room.
â Before we go, I just wanted to thank the owner of this establishment for all his kind hospitality.
He then poured the contents of the tequila bottle over the aging wooden table and lit it with a match. As the menwalked laughing from the cantina, Carlos rushed to his bedroom and grabbed the embroidered bedspread given to him by his in-laws on his wedding day. He used this to beat back the flames. When he was finished, he sat alone in his smoke-filled bar and shivered. He could not control it. His teeth shook and his nose ran and his heart fluttered and his fingers would not stop trembling. It was if he were sitting in the coldest place on earth, not a bar in the middle of a small Coahuilan border town.
A week passed. A week in which he felt ashamed to look his wife in her lovely blue-black eyes. On the night that his problem first presented itself, the cantina owner had been tired, and he concluded later that this was likely the problem. He retired to his bed, where Margarita was waiting with open arms and a suggestive, mirthful smirk. He kissed her, and when it came to the point at which man and woman melt together like heated wax, he suddenly found himself assaulted by a vivid memory of that Villista capitano, all bad teeth and halitosis, firing away at the floorboards, wood chips leaping into the air, the other rebels shrieking with laughter.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think only of Margaritaâs comely tetas and the lovely curve of her fleshy coffee-toned thighs. When this didnât work, he thought of the curve of her ballooning hips, and when this didnât work, he pictured the hunger that radiated at such moments from her luscious red-painted lips. He felt nothing but the re-ignition of his shame.
â Not tonight, he told her. â Iâm tired.
â Ay, pobrecito, she responded with an understanding smile. â You work too hard.
The following night he was interrupted once more by the memory of his humiliating encounter. Margarita, naturally, pretended it didnât bother her: to do so would have been an insult to her husbandâs machismo. This did not help. With time, Margarita stopped dabbing the hollows of her neck with agua de rosa and took pains to be asleep by the time her husband came to bed. The cantina owner, for his part, perpetuated the charade by retiring later, and by no longer coming up behind her when she was bent over their sink doing dishes, which he had once done so often, and with such giggling abandon. He spent more and more time in the cantina, sitting alone and smoking. She, in turn, repressed her affections towards her once manly husband and redirected them towards a private relationship with Jesús. She turned pious, and dour. Their marriage, once a torrent of colour, turned into something chilly and grey.
The cantina owner tried everything. He drank a little tequila before congress, thinking this might relax him, and when that didnât work, he tried giving up beer and liquor altogether, in case they might have been dimming his energies. Thinking his blood might be a little thin, he switched to a diet consisting solely of beef necks and goatâs milk; this played havoc with his digestive system and caused him to smell like an abattoir. He went on long walks to energize his system with fresh air and exercise. He forced himself to fantasize all day about the pleasures of the flesh, which in the end only served to frustrate him. In his dirt-floored cellar he secretly prayed before a statuette of San Judas Tadeo, the patron saint of lost causes, and received only sore knees in return. He even thought about visiting Madam Félixâs House of GentlemanlyPleasures, thinking that the Marias might know of some wicked measure to restart his motor. There was only one problem: the Marias functioned within the gringo
â Before we go, I just wanted to thank the owner of this establishment for all his kind hospitality.
He then poured the contents of the tequila bottle over the aging wooden table and lit it with a match. As the menwalked laughing from the cantina, Carlos rushed to his bedroom and grabbed the embroidered bedspread given to him by his in-laws on his wedding day. He used this to beat back the flames. When he was finished, he sat alone in his smoke-filled bar and shivered. He could not control it. His teeth shook and his nose ran and his heart fluttered and his fingers would not stop trembling. It was if he were sitting in the coldest place on earth, not a bar in the middle of a small Coahuilan border town.
A week passed. A week in which he felt ashamed to look his wife in her lovely blue-black eyes. On the night that his problem first presented itself, the cantina owner had been tired, and he concluded later that this was likely the problem. He retired to his bed, where Margarita was waiting with open arms and a suggestive, mirthful smirk. He kissed her, and when it came to the point at which man and woman melt together like heated wax, he suddenly found himself assaulted by a vivid memory of that Villista capitano, all bad teeth and halitosis, firing away at the floorboards, wood chips leaping into the air, the other rebels shrieking with laughter.
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think only of Margaritaâs comely tetas and the lovely curve of her fleshy coffee-toned thighs. When this didnât work, he thought of the curve of her ballooning hips, and when this didnât work, he pictured the hunger that radiated at such moments from her luscious red-painted lips. He felt nothing but the re-ignition of his shame.
â Not tonight, he told her. â Iâm tired.
â Ay, pobrecito, she responded with an understanding smile. â You work too hard.
The following night he was interrupted once more by the memory of his humiliating encounter. Margarita, naturally, pretended it didnât bother her: to do so would have been an insult to her husbandâs machismo. This did not help. With time, Margarita stopped dabbing the hollows of her neck with agua de rosa and took pains to be asleep by the time her husband came to bed. The cantina owner, for his part, perpetuated the charade by retiring later, and by no longer coming up behind her when she was bent over their sink doing dishes, which he had once done so often, and with such giggling abandon. He spent more and more time in the cantina, sitting alone and smoking. She, in turn, repressed her affections towards her once manly husband and redirected them towards a private relationship with Jesús. She turned pious, and dour. Their marriage, once a torrent of colour, turned into something chilly and grey.
The cantina owner tried everything. He drank a little tequila before congress, thinking this might relax him, and when that didnât work, he tried giving up beer and liquor altogether, in case they might have been dimming his energies. Thinking his blood might be a little thin, he switched to a diet consisting solely of beef necks and goatâs milk; this played havoc with his digestive system and caused him to smell like an abattoir. He went on long walks to energize his system with fresh air and exercise. He forced himself to fantasize all day about the pleasures of the flesh, which in the end only served to frustrate him. In his dirt-floored cellar he secretly prayed before a statuette of San Judas Tadeo, the patron saint of lost causes, and received only sore knees in return. He even thought about visiting Madam Félixâs House of GentlemanlyPleasures, thinking that the Marias might know of some wicked measure to restart his motor. There was only one problem: the Marias functioned within the gringo
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