Books Burn Badly - Manuel Rivas [152]
‘Did they kill them because they were gypsies?’
This boy, Korea, had a hard head. Other times, it was in the clouds. You never knew if he’d heard you or not, though he did repeat snippets of conversation. As with the difference in age, there were very few similarities. He was vain, always worried about what he was wearing. One of the reasons he came down to the port. He bartered with sailors from other countries. He was crazy about jackets and weird trousers, like the bell-bottoms he’s wearing today, which are orange and covered in zips for non-existent pockets. The crane operator wasn’t particularly fussy about clothes, but what was the point of having zips if there was nothing to close? Korea had abandoned his studies and had no fixed occupation. He said he wanted to be a boxer. That’s what he said. When he turned up with his gang, it was obvious he could rule the roost, but he wasn’t normally in a group. Occasionally he’d arrive on a motorbike he’d borrowed, almost always with a girl behind. For a time, he’d often turn up with the same girl. She would be dressed in her convent school uniform. White socks, tartan skirt, green V-necked jumper and white shirt. The contrast between Korea’s style and the teenager’s uniform was funny. But all this was, so to speak, at the service of sublime nature. What was unforgettable was the girl’s long, blond hair flapping like a head on the seas. Together they looked like a fearless, beautiful human machine. They’d circle the crane a few times and then zoom off. There was a reason Korea behaved like this. The crane operator appreciated these fleeting appearances of the blonde Amazon in a schoolgirl’s white socks, as if he’d been offered a sequence from a dream. One day, Korea turned up without a motorbike, on foot, with his cap pulled down.
‘Now you can see what’s inside my head.’
He removed the cap. His head was so shaven it looked transparent, pale white, like tripe that’s just been washed.
‘What’s this?’
‘Station house style. A number zero. Have a look inside.’
He’d been arrested. Two days in the clink. He hadn’t been taken before the magistrate, there were no specific charges. But he knew why.
‘You know why you’re here, don’t you?’
He shook his head. Which they’d yanked backwards. And were holding by the hair.
‘You’re a step away from the reformatory, Goldilocks.’
It wasn’t the first time he’d heard this joke. The one about destiny. He lived next door to the remand home. They asked him about the gang of Red Devils. A fight in Vigo Square, outside the Equitativa Cinema, where he’d been seen carrying a bicycle chain as a weapon.
‘That’s history,’ he said. ‘I left it. I’m not a devil any more.’
‘When d’you leave it?’
‘Ages ago. I don’t know. A day perhaps.’
Why wouldn’t they let go of his hair? Each tug pulled out a handful, but also chippings from inside his head, bits of thought.
‘It hurts, doesn’t it? That’s your fault for having hair like a girl’s. Where’d this fashion come from, that you look like a bunch of queens? If it were short, we wouldn’t be able to pull on it like this . . . and this . . . and this.’
Girl’s. A queen’s. It really hurt. Each root was a girl or queen.
Like counting hairs on a dog.
He’d always been told there was a good guy and a bad guy. Where was the good guy then? He finally arrived. An inspector who only talked. Talked to him about outings. Outings on a motorbike. A blonde girl. A blonde girl’s father.
‘Don’t you go pissing outside your pot any more. Listen to me. You ride that girl again, they’ll slap a clamp on your balls you’ll regret for the rest of your life. Do you know what it is to be accused of fucking a minor?’
‘I’m a minor as well. We used a condom. Next to the lighthouse.’
‘A condom? Tell the magistrate that and he’ll make it an aggravating factor. You used a condom next to the city’s main monument. Have you any idea what country you’re living in? Whose daughter she is? You can’t go in there. They think you’re a goat. A bum. A zero.’
A zero?
He liked the way this cop talked. He sounded