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Textos: Diferentes autores
Fotos: @ Eduardo Ruigómez

©Manuel Bayo

Then, without loosing his head, Santiago’s father paid the bill and said: let’s go outside, I never hit inside a bar. He had manners. Once in the street he only needed one slap to leave the one who had mentioned his mother knocked down on the floor, spitting blood. People cheered him on hoping for more diversion and if his son saw him he asked why he stopped and he answered that the other one was already on the floor, it was time to leave him. From this Santiago learned two things: that you never have to leave a fight out of fear (if you’re that dumb I’ll get out of my grave and slap you myself, his father once warned him) and that when you knock someone down it is time to leave him. Two trails deeply engraved in his sky.

A little while ago a young and boastful taxi driver insisted on beating up Santiago. Although he looked lazy and old, Santiago remembered the trail he engraved as a boy looking at his father, and fearing his father’s slap more, he got out of the taxi, and – ready to face up – he decided to take advantage provoking his adversary. You’re a son of a bitch and you only know how to use your hands to shake it. The boastful young man leapt furiously on him, Santiago dodged him and gave him a good kick with his knee in the balls, knocked him down and left.

But before, when he was the Madman, he already lived reading in the sky what his father had taught him.

The few minutes the Madman went out in the field were enough to forge himself a reputation and nickname. In any case, the Madman’s glory was brief, because the trainer expelled him during the second season because he always came plastered to training, always repeating the script written when he was a meteor. The Madman also learned this from his father, Santiago now laughs. A few days later, the Madman went to his trainer’s house, knocked on the door and gave a slap as soon as it opened. Things of the young, that’s the way I am, Santiago justifies himself. The federation disqualified him for life, as it had done years before with his father, also a football goalkeeper, for assaulting a referee. The father, forger of the soul.

Santiago also learned his bad habits with women from his father. Married four times, the four of them kicked him out for being a

womanizer. Santiago remembers going out shopping with his mother, when he was still a boy, and seeing his father with one woman on each arm on the other side of the street, and saying to his mother, who was intending to walk past them: mom, mom, aren’t we going to say hello to dad? Leave him, he’s busy now.
Then at home there were yells and reproaches, which his father listened to while cleaning his nails with a pocketknife. When the mother stopped, his father asked: are you finished? And then he stood up and left.

Santiago has gotten along well with his four women, he has loved them all, he values them all and he gives them alimony most of the time. Once he even took the four of them to spend the day at the beach. His mother despairs, you are just like your father, she says. His father now lives with a fifty-something and, though he admits it doesn’t get up anymore like before, he assures he still manages. Santiago is now making progress with a girl of 21. She was the one to show interest in him first; after the last matrimonial failure, Santiago waited a month and approached her. They met some times and she clearly stated to him she wanted to start a relationship. Santiago evaded her.

But my child, I could be your father and your parents would not like this. The little girl decided then to clarify things with her parents, she told them she loved him, but they objected.
Whatever your parents say I understand, Santiago told her the next day while they were having dinner in a hotel’s cafeteria.
But I love you, let’s wait a year and I’ll talk with my parents again.
That seems alright to me, and meanwhile we can get to know each other, find out if you like me and I like you, if I snore and you snore.
Alright. We can start right now and check about the snoring.
No, we are not checking that out now.
Why not? If we go to the hotel now, we’ll leave the bed without knowing if the other snores.
Santiago smiled, asked for the check and they went arm in arm to the reception, his child’s eyes watching amazed how his adult soul remained faithful to what he once innocently learned as a game.