We Eat Our Own Read Free Page A

against the wall, taps lightly with the hammer so she won’t wake the other guests. The hotel walls are tissue-thin, plywood, no insulation. Teo can hear the voices of the rest of the crew murmuring in Italian, quiet televisions, toothbrushes moving in mouths.
    The humidity beads over the bridge of his nose. He drinks again.
    But if it’s the snake you’re thinking of, he asks, what is it called?
    Anahi searches for the name. In my family we call it mata toro, but we aren’t from here. I think for most of the people here, it is anaconda.
    How long are they, usually?
    Sir, I don’t really—
    You know. Come on. I know you know.
    She lowers her hammer to her side. She squints, deciding what she can say to him.
    Why were you out there alone, anyway?
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    He could tell her the truth:
    Because the director told him to shove the Indian as hard as he could into the tree, to jam his shotgun into the triangle of skin under the Indian’s jaw and put as much pressure on it as he could stand. Because Teo did it, and the Indian yelped and screamed something in frantic Ticuna, and Teo pressed the gun harder into his jaw to close the man’s mouth. The Indian writhed under the pressure, the grass skirt slipping open over his hip. Teo could see the bit of wriggling pink in his mouth where the man was biting the edge of his tongue. He sneered and laughed, let the full heat of his breath push into the Indian’s face.
    Teo could tell Anahi that he liked this part. But he doesn’t want to scare her away; not yet.
    The director nodded. Okay. Okay. That’s enough.
    Teo pushed the sweaty hair out of his eyes and let the gun fall to his side. He knew it was only a rehearsal, but still, his breath wouldn’t slow, his nerves wouldn’t relax. The cameramen were still clustered in the lunch tent, just visible through the trees. He watched one ladle a mound of what looked like meat onto a plate and laugh at something. The Indian put his hands on his knees and spat a pink rope of saliva onto the ground.
    In his periphery, the director said: Di nuovo. Again.
    It was the eighth time they’d done it. Teo had worked withUgo on a dozen films before, but they’d never rehearsed like this—and of course, Teo had never rehearsed with Ugo at all, not as an actor. In Italy, he’d worked as a grip, hoisting cameras up ladders and onto tripods and taken them down again as Ugo’s mood dictated. They’d shot on soundstages that rented by the hour, wheeled wax palms in on dollies and knocked out every frame on a schedule drawn up to the minute. Ugo fed his actors their lines, and Teo had watched these men and women arrange their faces into expressions of horror or exhaustion or lust and pronounce the words straight to camera. And that was it; cut to print, no second takes. Getting out of character was as easy as shrugging off a thin coat, or at least it looked that way from the top of the crane. They’d make another one in six months, basically the same film but a different title, Jungle Something, Something Massacre, Revenge of the Whatever the Fucks .
    But then Ugo had called Teo two weeks ago, at a weird mid-morning hour: I want to do another jungle film, fifteen thousand lire a week, are you in? His voice had sounded strange, muted, like the volume had been turned down on the receiver somehow. He was offering three times what he’d ever paid Teo in the past. When Teo asked why, Ugo had said he wanted Teo to act in the film. When Teo asked him what the hell he was talking about, Ugo had hung up.
    Eight days later, a plane ticket arrived in the mail, Bogotá, one-way. No address on the envelope. No script, no mention of the role.
    Teo called Ugo’s flat and listened to the phone peal thirty-­two times.
    He hadn’t gotten a gig for three months, not since the union had gone on strike. He’d spent the time smoking in his apartment and watching the