The Guilty Read Free Page B

sat down on a pigskin chair and listened to marimba music for a long while. I drank two glasses of mezcal, nobody recognized me, and I believed that I was happy. I looked at the blue sky and the white line left by a plane. I thought about Brenda and dialed her on my cell.
    â€œIt took you long enough,” was the first thing she said. Why hadn’t I looked for her sooner? With her, I didn’t have to pretend. I asked her to come see me. “I have a life, Julián,” she said in an exasperated voice. But she pronounced my name like it was a word I had never heardbefore. She wasn’t going to drop anything for me. I canceled my Bajío tour.
    I spent three terrifying days in Barcelona without being able to see her. Brenda was “tied up” in a shoot. We finally saw each other, in a restaurant that seemed to be designed for Japanese denizens of the future.
    â€œYou want to know if I know you?” she said, and I thought she was quoting a ranchera song. I laughed, just to react, and then she looked me in the eyes. She told me she knew the date of my mother’s death, the name of my ex-therapist, my desire to be in orbit. She had admired me since a time she called “immemorial.” It had all started when she saw me sweat on Telemundo. It took her an incredible amount of work to get together with me. She had convinced Chus to hire me, wrote my parts into the screenplay, introduced Cata to the porn star, planned the scene with the artificial penis to shake up my whole life. “I know who you are, and my hair is white,” she smiled. “Maybe you think I’m manipulative. I’m a producer, which is almost the same thing: I produced our meeting.”
    I looked her in the eyes, red from sleepless nights on film shoots. I acted like a stupid mariachi and said, “I’m a stupid mariachi.” “I know.” Brenda caressed my hand.
    Then she told me why she wanted me. Her story was horrible. She explained why she hated Guadalajara, mariachis, tequila, tradition, custom. I promised not to tell anyone. I can only say that she lived to escape that story, until she understood that escaping it was the only story she had. I was her return ticket.
    I thought we would sleep together that night but she still had one more production:
    â€œI don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but you have to clear up the penis thing.”
    â€œThe penis thing isn’t my job: you all invented it!”
    â€œExactly, we invented it. A European cinematic trick. I had forgotten what a penis can do in Mexico. I don’t want to go out with a man stuck onto a penis.”
    â€œI’m not stuck onto a penis, mine’s sort of little,” I said.
    â€œHow little?”
    Brenda was interested.
    â€œNormal little. See for yourself.”
    But she wanted me to understand her moral principles.
    â€œYour fans have to see it,” she answered. “Be brave enough to be normal.”
    â€œI’m not normal: I’m the Gallito de Jojutla, even pharmacies sell my albums!”
    â€œYou have to do it. I’m sick of this phallocentric world.”
    â€œBut are you going to want my penis?”
    â€œYour normal sort of little sort of penis?”
    Brenda dropped her hand to my crotch, but she didn’t touch me.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do?” I asked.
    She had a plan. She always has a plan. I would appear in another movie, a ferocious criticism of the celebrity world, and I would do a full frontal. My audience would have a stark, authentic version of me. When I asked who would direct the movie, I got another surprise. “Me,” answered Brenda. “The film is called Guadalajara”.
    She didn’t give me the whole screenplay, either. The scenes I appeared in were weird, but that didn’t mean anything. The kind of films I think are weird win prizes. One afternoon, during a break in shooting, I went intoher trailer and asked,