Guerrero

GUERRERO

Oliver Marshall

Once a tightly woven and condensed spectrum of secrets my mind now resembles a bubbling puddle of nightmares and ceaseless shadows. It is when those mud-bubbles burst that I am left gasping for air. They come to me in codes of numbers, whisperings and body parts. They speak of love, trust then trust and love again. Subliminal shots of glorious blonde hairs puncture my heart and spawn out from those heavy and worn ventricles making me burn. I feel them in my blood; I see their brightness in the veins of my wrist.

To say that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all is some sad shit. I miss my beautiful too much: I miss Blondie. I keep telling myself that this is not a love story. This is not a love story. This is not a love story. This is not a love story. I feel the cold sweat when it hits and it distresses me some more. This is not love.

Part One

Dreaming/Suffering.
Now I dream a great deal but I don’t sleep so much. What follows and what you will hear from me is just how I see things. That is all. The truth is my life has never had any real structure. Well, apart from maybe when I was a child but I won’t go into that much. If I’m being honest, sometimes my mind has been known to linger on crazy thoughts. In a way, I feel I should apologise for what may be a bit of a mess. I have really tried to bring some order to what happened to me to the best of my ability. It’s not concrete, granted - but there are constant disruptions so it is hard to concentrate. It’s also that I just don’t want to have to explain everything that goes on in intricate detail, like how I ended up in Sanremo in the first place.

What I guess I am really driving at is a kind of request. If you don’t mind leaving me a little peace and a couple of secrets we will get on like a house on fire. So, I’m asking you really to take what you want from me but no more. I will give you what I can. I will give you as much of me as possible. I promise.

About me; I guess I think too fast and swear a lot. Too much to be thought of as cool but not enough to be thought insane. I always toyed with what decorum my person would carry as I grew older. This certainly wasn’t it. I had been the archetypal gentleman growing up - fantastic with women. They would be my princess and I would fulfil the dutiful role of English gent. I opened doors, gave up my seat, bought drinks, complimented, amused, made all the right gestures, shaved as not to impose my masculinity but always left enough stubble for any girl who so desired. I had all the mannerisms expected from me tied down into a terrifyingly precise Windsor knot. I hated that guy, but admired the women he brought into the house. It was probably worth being him for them.

That all changed. I am torn by something more than love. It is hard to explain. It is not obsession. It is not dependency. It is not love. I am sure. It is more. Yet I know I am nothing special. I am not so unique. I just can’t put my finger on it. This is why I suffer so.

Death Letter
Some time ago now, my death letter arrived. It was as simple as that. I knew what it was the moment I saw it slide its way beneath my chamber door and rest itself against my foot. When I picked it up, I noted that it was surprisingly light for something so dark.

Before I had the chance to open it, She emerged across the face of my doorway. The grey suited siren. I found She always had a habit of turning up whenever I felt some anxiety. I had been feeling that a lot of late. The letter had distressed me somewhat and sure enough here she was again. Right on queue, bitch.

Her palm cushioned her slick black hair upon the great wooden post in anticipation of my recognition. She reeked of sex. It stunk out the place. She spoke to me in those familiar husky Italian tones; ‘I have something for you.’ I didn’t say a word back.

You’ll learn that I never speak. I just sort of think.

When the siren disappeared, undoubtedly disappointed by my lack of ‘progress’, I found myself staring blankly at the unmarked envelope. I knew I wouldn’t like what it contained. I searched for any signature or symbol on the paper. There was nothing.

I opened her.

I gazed at its seal searching for remnants of saliva. I felt along its stick. Every touch dried a little more. My fingers stuttered as the precious tape became as coarse and useless as dying skin. Something I am afraid I already know too much about. I began to lick the paper. I thought that I would taste my deliverer’s breath. I burned. My lip felt more alive than ever. As if kissed by poisonous lips I imagined my smile being lost forever. I smiled at the very thought.
Below me in the paper awaited the gift.

There lay an unconscious fly gasping for air. Its legs began to twitch searchingly for a platform. It was oblivious to the sick giant looking down upon it with half closed eyes in disbelief. It might have laughed had it known that the giant was scared. Nose to wing I took in its grotesque air. I sensed its breath coming back. The fly fluttered, once, twice, then raised its front legs as if to charge and with mighty strength was air-born. In a daze, I watched it drunkenly spill its wings on both sides of its determined frame whilst remaining afloat. It inspected the candles that remained untouched by my fire but appeared worn by the Italian sun. It rested a while on a rusting container for which I water those weak little flowers that find themselves side-by-side across my terrace in engrossing pots. They were my humble efforts to contribute to La Citta dei Fiori, but more on that later. As if disgusted by their roughness the demon took flight once again and found itself heading to the wall pregnant with deja-vu: the east wall.

The East Wall
Once a beautiful orange-pink the wall now presented shimmering flashes of both life and decay. Flies feasted on their father, mother, brother and sister as though they were a storming army of horses flooding a battleground. I spied one suffocated by the swarm being swept into the air like ash from a fire. Only it’s rotten membrane and shredded wings remained resting reluctantly on the tip of one of my blonde tulips. The vibrations were tremendous and their deep resonance continuously pounded upon aching drums. Overcome by the stench of this hellish mutiny of nature I hurled. Perhaps premeditating my reaction to their presence, the smaller, no doubt younger flies clothed my sickness and drained away my illness. I fainted.

I awoke a few feet away from the wall where a chair lay submerged in uncut grass. I knew this chair very well. I took my morning Grey with my post on that chair. I read and breathed my lilies on that chair. I lived those fuller days of my life on that chair; days once pregnant with love. Now this chair lay, abused or wounded a vulnerable sight in front of a far more terrifying one. Shielding my nose and mouth, I placed it upright. It struggled to stand; shaking and trembling whenever I pressed its loose legs. It was fighting me.

The chair had been a gift and it was love. It was now a disgraced tangle a broken wood too frightened to be still. It was horrifically restless and disjointed. My love was now a monster and it trembled to my touch. I wanted to breathe. Air: I needed some air that was all. I needed Italy’s light but burning wind to sweep through my nose, mouth and lungs like it did before. I needed a drink: a smoky Tennessee. I wanted to forget I was despairing. I am not the despaired. I’m uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable, that’s all. ‘You are dreaming as usual.’ It’s imagination. ‘This place does not exist to you anymore.’ It’s in your mind.

‘You need to remain calm. It’s Ok. Flies are attracted to dirt. We will find what they want; what it is they are after. Wipe your mouth. Tidy yourself, because you look like death Sir. The flies can wait. Tomorrow: we will address the flies tomorrow. Now, you need a wash. A good shave and a good smell is all that you need. Remember your appearance. You have a visitor today.’

My Father’s Death
I remember my father’s nurses being fantastic. There were four of them and they wrapped him heavily in clothes and blankets- one of which my mother had sewn for him as a teenager. His face was extremely frail but his soul had clearly not deserted him deep within those interwoven crème cottons. His eyes screamed the gratitude his lips couldn’t match and we all knew he was ready. The priest bid his blessing and commented how my father would be forever remembered as a true gentleman before he left. We were brought up into the Catholic faith and ironically this was the first time since I had taken my confirmation that I felt at all close to God. It had been six years since I had last prayed.

I remember feeling ever so cold by that beaten old bedroom door as I watched the slow decay of my life’s lion. He had been a fortress and a true boxer to pain. The nurses said that this time nothing could be done, only that he be made to feel as ‘comfortable as possible.’ It was from that wintry doorway that I asked those lily-white ladies to leave so that I may bid farewell. As they brushed past me and out of the room, I remember waiting for some act of miraculous creation. There was nothing of the sort.

I wasn’t ready. I feared earth’s rotation was too fast for me. I felt there was significance to how the curtains strained the dimming light upon those starved eyes. Then he breathed my name.
I will never forget the sound. It was his every effort. I gave him my hand so I could feel his warmth beneath that blue and mountainous veined skin. I never experienced anything quite like how he had said my name. As he squeezed my hand, I made a minute’s promise that I wouldn’t weep. I didn’t want his last image of me to be a crying fool’s face so I smiled back a fool’s smile.

He tightened his grip of me to let me know he was still there, that I shouldn’t be afraid. It was so hard to restrain the tears but I had made myself a promise and would stay true to my word. I wanted to tell him not to be afraid but deep down I knew he wasn’t. Words escaped me when I could have told of love for him. In those spare seconds, though, I just smiled and shared his loving gaze. Once he said it the way he did, my name would never be the same again. In that name, he told me to take care of myself. He hoped I would remain as happy as I had been growing up, and that now, I was to be the lion. He told me that I should fear nothing in life and not let the cancer destroy us both. Most of all, he wanted me to know that he loved me.

In my smile he passed. Those beautiful hazel eyes shone in mine for that last bloodless breath. The room fell silent, dark and to peace all in one instant.

When my mother entered a moment later, the light resumed and my heart began to beat again. I watched her silent response to our silence. She didn’t panic in her suspicions but lowered her ear to his mouth. She rested there as a tear stroked down her nose and found its way to the bridge in his lips. As she covered her dead husband with the blanket she made him when they first met, she explained to me in melancholy: “Life is hard and unjust. Love, my child, is unfair but truly divine.”

The Life and Times.
I couldn’t attend the funeral. I just couldn’t possibly.

The night he died I didn’t sleep. In fact, I have rarely slept since. My body simply wanted to keep up with the restlessness of its mind. So the night he died I ran away. I ran because I would be lost without him. I ran because I wanted to outrun my minds anguish. I ran because my body could take me anywhere.

I admit that leaving my frail mother alone was irresponsible to say the least. The money I stole from her purse, however, was unforgivable. You see, I couldn’t live with her now. Not after he was gone. How could I possibly even look at her after what she had done? In some way, I believe she understood why I had to leave. My real disgrace though, lies in my father’s body being unvisited by his only child.

I left with one hundred and fifty-six pounds, twenty-one of my father’s cigars, which was also his favourite number, matches, the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, various essays from Henry David Thoreau and my mother’s bracelet- the first gift he ever gave her. I placed them all in the briefcase he would take to work - though he never carried any papers.

The bracelet was a golden snake whose body revealed two heads glaring at each other through diamond encrusted eyes. They weren’t diamonds of course; we all knew that but never spoke of it. I coveted it the first time I laid my childish heart upon it. I had been playing with my mother’s soft dark hair, sat upon her lifted arms when that sharp but deadly gaze infixed me with a tremendous heat. She would let me wear it whenever I wanted. I tried it on every day in the hope that one day those two snake-heads would rest upon my wrist. The bracelet became my grandest toy. It felt so heavy for something so small. It spoke to me in such a powerful and profound way.

You probably don’t think of it so much, but you can lose yourself so easily. Sometimes my fragile eyes swell when I think to myself how small I am compared to the vast, the everlasting day and night. But I never cry. Though I wish I did.

Recently, I have contemplated breaking the bracelet beneath Italy’s own diamond eyes of the night. Starry nights here form like oil paintings varnished a thousand times over. I consider sending half the bracelet home but I’m positive the snake wouldn’t oblige. It is too strong to simply be snapped. I have thought about burying it in the garden but I know that I would feel those heated eyes upon me from beneath the ground. I hold it often between my thumb and index finger as though it were the most precious gem in the world. Of course it isn’t, not the stolen snake heads.

It only comes out at night, whenever I can’t sleep and am not myself.

The Girl
I had little to offer but an apple I had picked on some farmer’s orchard during my travels. I had been saving it for a special occasion- perhaps beneath another starry night facing out to the Mediterranean Sea with nothing but a stolen snake and a slowly draining cigar. I chose the apple coarse and unripe. I remember waiting for the sun to breathe a fuller life into the fruit.

I waited for days on the bank of a nearby stream for my chosen apple. I had no idea where I was, but my mind felt freer for it. I had learnt that when you have nothing it is worth starving another day rather than being devoid of rich flavour. That’s why I waited by that bank and watched the ducks float by. Maybe it’s a pride thing. I don’t know. When you have nothing even an apple is everything. The flavour brings continued inspiration and meaning to your adventure. Needless to say it is best when shared. So, when I saw her facing out across the waters as I had imagined myself to, I knew that this was what I had been waiting for.

She cast a lonely figure, with the water gently kissing her feet. The few clothes she wore wrapped around her tightly. A green and gold vest top, slightly ripped by the collar, seemed to be all she had on. No shorts. No trousers. No jeans. No dress. Her legs appeared as milk to my eyes. My wasted figure nourished off their purity. She looked young from afar.

I watched her stretch to the sea and leave her head balancing back on the hinge of her neck in search of night’s first star. I remember wanting to be that star. I imagined her searching for me lost within deep space. When she found me, I would shine brightly and forever. At least that is what I believed- for now I am not sure who found who.

She looked so free.

I approached this strange girl with a shadowed face and impoverished frame. Jesus, I must have looked a terrible sight!

My shadow must have loomed over her. She turned emotionlessly and waited for further cause. I loved her more for her nonchalance while half naked. I smiled ingratiatingly and in grace she accepted me. With my hand outstretched I offered her the first token of my love: the stolen fruit. Staring at me I felt her assessment. Her eyes pierced into mine looking for some soul. They must have told some fabulous lie as she took the gift and bit into it. I watched the manic juice spread itself unevenly across her lips. Like me, it wanted to sample every bit of her but it was also brave enough to drip onto her breast. I stood back in amorous envy but averted my eyes through awkward respect. I will always remember how good nature looked on her.

I spoke no Italian but thankfully she spoke a decent handful of English. When I asked her where she studied she changed the subject somewhat abruptly. I let it go. Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I think now maybe letting it go so easily was a mistake.

We had been playing catch, no more than centimeters apart with the pips of the apple. Eventually it got too dark to see, but her hair continued to shine like some royal mirage. She remained half-naked under the night’s blanket. When she grew tired she made a pillow from the clothes at her side. Before she fell asleep she asked me to comfort her. I said nothing under night’s last star. I simply waited for her to sleep and then I put my arms around her waist, closed my eyes and slept for what I hoped would be the last time.

Late morning, I rolled over onto her, keeping her fragile hand pressed upon me. Her eyes formed rings of sunflowers around the pupils, each fresh and light-filled. I could see their petals of orange and gold shine from their olive base as though summer was meeting autumn for the very first time. One or two petals had separated from the main body of the flowers as though they had been broken off by some passing breeze, but before I could follow their flight, we were kissing.

Her Story
We had both wandered far. Secrets flew in our midst as sparrows but she took me in without question. She made a home for me.

All in all, it consisted of an acre or two of land filled with thyme, fig trees, apple fields and sunflowers. Within that, the villa itself was really no more than a dilapidated old farmhouse. There was a beaten annex overgrown by some wicked form of ivy, and a wooden barn which hadn’t any doors and revealed nothing but compost and ancient hay.

Like the cracked fig trees around the plot, you sensed there was a deeper, darker rooted history of life here. Both natural and wild, it transcended every corner your eyes beheld. But just as those trees, you sensed the ground had swallowed something more than just dead figs and apples. Something else rotted here.

I had thought all was with good intention, and why not? This new and beautiful stranger had made another a home out of nothing but kindness. Of course life is never so simple. I discovered I was very wrong. When she told me her story, I understood that she needed me just as much as I her.

‘I am not so innocent. I am not so innocent at all.’ She lingered on the innocent the second time round. ‘This place, you must understand, it is not mine. Those apple fields, they do not belong to me. I have never sat on that child’s swing before the lake. This chair you sit on, it is not mine to let you do so. This is not my home, but it is all I have. Please understand though that this is not home. We can make it something though, no? I am here now with you. You are here with me. Yes?’

I wasn’t even sure she knew exactly what she was saying. There was something so peculiar about this girl, so odd, but also intriguingly charming. I enjoyed her vulnerability. She was weak, fragile, and so utterly delicate. She started to cry. She often cried. I loved her when she cried. I loved her tears.

‘I lost my father at twelve Mama could not cope. She was a mess. Crying, always crying. She hit me. It wasn’t her fault. And I cried. Always I was crying. I understand why. Why she cried. What she went through. Why she hated me. They were much in love. They travelled. Rome and Venice even Paris. Paris - Papa said that I would know what love is if I went. One day I will go. Too fast- It was all too fast. I was late. I had been with my uncle, my father’s brother. His name was Lorenzo. He picked me up after school one time saying he was to bring me home from know on. He told me to call him Lorro. I didn’t know him too much. But he was family. Papa told me family is trust. I brought shame to them. My body changed. I carried a family’s sin. For me though I believed I carried love. You see, I had loved Lorenzo.

Some morning I was sick. I tried to hide it but father knew. He knew. Papa knew. One night he left. He left. He didn’t come back. Mama panicked. That was when she hit me.
The next day the car arrived. It was like a silver bullet. Mama and I ran to the door. I could see Papa inside. He didn’t move. He wasn’t moving. Lorenzo stepped out of the car. Mama screamed.

She cried out and hit him. She hit him hard. Then he hit back and she didn’t move. He turned to me. I was crying. Into the car behind Papa, Lorenzo drove us to where you are now.
He buried Papa beneath that awful tree. He just looked at me. We were family. He said family was love.’

Gardening, Nazis and Happy Days
They had this garden, my parents. I remember lilies. Fucking lilies. Lilies. I forget their names, but Lilies of the Valley spring to mind. OK, I remember the name then. All my mother ever went on about were these fucking Lilies of the Valley and their fucking smell. They took her back, you see. Before the second war she lived in this tiny old village sat by some river in Luxembourg. I think it was the Moselle or something.

A young girl, maybe eleven or twelve, she lived at home and tended to her father’s goats when she came back from school. She used to watch and help her mother prepare dinner for her five other brothers and sisters. I can’t remember how many of each but in total there were six children. My grandfather was supposedly an important figure in Luxembourg. That’s all she said though.

The day before Nazis ransacked my grandfather’s house, he and my mother went for a walk through some forest. Apparently, it took ages and mother complained the whole time. She moaned about how she wanted to return home as her feet were worn and tired. She begged my grandfather, pleading and then questioning what the point of it all was. He replied with an enigmatic ‘you’ll see’ or something to that nature and marched on.

Then there were the fucking lilies. When she saw them she started crying and the two of them embraced. Why she started crying? I don’t know. It seemed a little odd that she would have such an emotional outpour over some flowers, but I can only repeat what she told me. This is what she told me; ‘it was the perfect day.’

Jesus, you would think that day belonged to some kind of legend the way she recalls it. I know I’m not doing much justice to her way of telling it but to be honest, I don’t enjoy the story. Of course, I know what she meant when telling this story. She wanted it to be a metaphor for me to always strive for beauty or goodness. Lilies of the valley were her treasure. I get it, right?
You know, sometimes I think she is just like me. Look at it this way, her lion was stolen from her just as mine has been from me. While I’m sure other unspeakable truths occurred the following day, I have been told of nothing more. Just the lilies grew from her story.

The garden itself was no sanctuary. Constructed from those sinless lilies, heavy industry rose in the attempted creation of beauty. It was a ground of worn slab from which dull and half destroyed pots were set upon. Acting as engines, the pots’ endogenous seedlings overgrew and suffocated the very sight of the other plants, cracking their containers until they had to be replanted into the raised bedding. They were overfed and with consistent cuttings taken from my lackey-like mother, who was so intoxicated by some past dream of her father, gluttony found a space to rejoice. The garden’s entropy became a family curse.

Forgive my serious tone. Strong words no doubt, but that small homage to the past never truly let any of us be free. It went like this: my mother had been ill for sometime. Her energy just went and she was left weakened by something no one really came to understand. At least I was never told. It was like the life was being sucked slowly out of her. She never wanted to get out of bed. Often I could hear her crying behind closed doors, while my father waited at her side. He would tell me not to enter whenever I knocked.
It didn’t seem like there was any pain, but to be honest I really knew nothing. The garden, as a result of her illness, became my father’s responsibility. She would cackle and crow orders pressuring him to act on the thing she wasn’t duly able to fulfil.

He was somewhat older than my mother but by how much I never truly knew. The work was strenuous, too much for a retired engineer. Between the weeding, cuttings and constant watering, my father had taken on something his body would not be able to sustain. It was his craving to fix things that made it impossible for him to stop. The garden became a calling, but of what exactly, I don’t know. All the while, my half broken mother would overlook his motions through slit curtains and howled her orders.

After some time, my father began to respond to the lilies and not her. The look of new love was in his eyes. He couldn’t wait for the calling whistle of those luscious petals whenever the wind swept through that horrid garden of theirs.
Under my father’s attention, the garden grew as much as it had for mother if not more. He was equally ambitious. He wanted to see the lilies raised to eye level when standing. Climbing in tiers, he created a layered setting of a creamy white paradise.
The first watering of the day preceded his cup of tea and toast for breakfast. In the garden, he would stand silently as he scanned what work needed doing or whether any of the plants needed preening. They were all straight. He hated it when they arched despite it being in their nature to follow the sun.

At seven o‘clock, he prepared mother’s breakfast of coffee, eggs and toast. He would then shower, change into his gardener’s attire of old pyjama bottoms and a Happy Days tee shirt and set about his days work with a plan of attack already set in his mind.

I actually liked watching him work in the garden. There was something quite serene about his routine if a little odd. At times of deep contemplation, however, I would also find it quite unnerving. It wasn’t his fault of course. Not really. He had worked under people his entire life. He took orders amending parts here or cables there etc. Always watched, his every move was supervised. Here, mother presented a similar scenario, but as she had grown weaker his autonomy over the garden had become stronger.

The real problem was that his garden presented no hopeful seedlings of life beyond lilies. It may just has well have been hers and I always felt that he had wasted an opportunity to stamp new life into the bored soil.

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