The Guilty Read Free

plate. Brenda told me she had had a “very tumultuous” life. Now she led a solitary existence; it was necessary to satisfy Chus Ferrer’s production whims.
    â€œYou’re the latest.” She looked me in the eyes: “It took me so much work to convince you!”
    â€œI’m not an actor, Brenda.” I paused. “I don’t want to be a mariachi, either,” I added.
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    She smiled in an alluring way. I liked that she hadn’t said: “What do you want to be?” It seemed to suggest: “What do you want now?” Brenda was smoking a small cigar. I looked at her white hair, sighed as only a mariachi who has filled stadiums can sigh, and said nothing.
    One afternoon a porn star visited the set. “His penis is insured for a million euros,” Catalina told me. Brenda was standing beside me. She said, “The long shot million,” and explained that this had been the slogan for Mexico’s National Lottery in the 70s. “You remember things from such a long time ago,” Cata said. Even though the phrase was offensive, they went off happily to get dinner with the porn star. I stayed behind for the tongue kiss scene.
    The actor who was playing the Catalonian biker was shorter than me and they had to put him on a stool. He had taken ginseng pills for the scene. Seeing as I had already conquered my prejudices, I thought it sounded like a faggy thing to do.
    I was paid the same amount for four weeks of shooting as I got for one concert in any remote ranch in Mexico.
    On the flight back they gave us tomato salad and Cata told me about a trick of the trade she’d heard from the porn star. He ate lots of tomatoes because it improved the taste of his semen. The female porn stars appreciated it. I was intrigued. Did that kind of courtesy really exist in porn? I ate the tomatoes off of my plate and hers, but when we got back to Mexico she said she was dead tired and didn’t want to blow me.
    The movie was called Mariachi Baby Blues. They invited me to the Madrid premier, and as I was walking the red carpet I saw a guy with his hands outstretched like he was measuring a yard. In Mexico that gesture would have been obscene. It was obscene in Spain too, but I only realized that after I saw the movie. There was a scene where the biker came close to touching my penis and a colossal member appeared onscreen, impressively erect. I thought that was why the porn star had visited the set. Brenda schooled me: “It’s a prosthetic. Does it bother you that the public thinks it’s yours?”
    What does someone who has become an overnight genital phenomenon do? At the after-party, the queen of pink journalism gushed, “It’s so shamelessly raunchy!” Brenda told me about celebrities who had been surprised on nude beaches and revealed penises like fire hoses. “But those penises are theirs!” I protested. She looked at me as if she was imagining the size of mine and seemed disappointed, but she was terribly nice and said nothing. I wanted to caress her hair, to cry into the crook of her neck. But then Catalina arrived, with glasses of champagne. I left the party early and walked through the streets of Madrid until the sun came up.
    The sky had begun to yellow when I passed by the Parque del Retiro. A man was holding five very long leashes attached to five Huskies. He had cuts on his face and he was wearing cheap clothes. I would have given anything to have no obligations except walking rich people’s dogs. The Huskies’ blue eyes seemed mournful, as if the dogs wished I’d take them away with me and knew I couldn’t.
    I arrived at the Hotel Palace so tired I was barely surprised that Cata wasn’t in the suite.
    The next day, all of Madrid was talking about my raunchy shamelessness. I thought about killing myself but it seemed wrong to do it in Spain. I would mount a horse for the first time and blow my