The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [61]
I laughed. Oh, yeah, the butt fixation. I’d forgotten about that.
“Or at least your butt’s understood. The knowledge is collected in your butt, which, by the way”—she glanced back—“is getting bigger and bigger.”
We walked on. The enchantment accumulated. Despite my wariness, stronger than me. I imagined zoo animals in wartime, having crept out of their bomb-shattered cages, wandering loose on the streets.
Suddenly, we were bumped into from behind. Leonarda skittered to one side. I fell forward, catching myself with one hand.
“Hey!” she yelled. “What the fuck?”
It was one of the cartoneros, the people who collect recyclable garbage. He was pushing a canvas cart suspended on wheels in which to amass his loot. It was piled taller than he was, blocking his view.
Leonarda walked around the side of the cart. “Dude, you knocked us over! What’s the deal?”
“Sorry, I’m really sorry.” The guy, surprised to be addressed at all by someone like her, and especially so informally, was about her age. He did look sorry.
“Well, whatever. Get it together,” Leonarda said, turning away. “C’mon, dufus,” she called to me.
I crossed the street to where she was.
“I know,” she said, grabbing my hand in her little, hot one. “Let’s go to the nerd bar. It’s right near here.”
By “nerds,” she meant hackers, computer program designers, video game inventors, maybe the kind of people she most admired, because they were at the forefront of everything.
“You know Mercury fell apart,” she told me on the way. “I knew it would. It was totally passé. This is the new center of operations. Welcome to nerd world!”
The bar was dark, everything looked red, with black-and-white cow spots here and there. Leonarda hoisted herself onto a barstool and sat there, shoulders hunched.
When the bartender came, she ordered a beer. I got one too.
There was a very tall guy with a very short woman at the end of the bar.
“Shit,” Leonarda said, “sexual vertigo.”
Suddenly, her face lit up. “Ohhh, the skydiver!”
A young man with dark hair was sitting about five stools down from us. He seemed to have been waiting for her to recognize him. He got up, beer in hand, and came over.
Leonarda turned to me. “This is Mateo. He’s a skydiver and a nerd. It’s the best combination.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “I’d like to try the skydiving part.”
“If you’re serious, I can arrange it,” the guy said. “The one thing I would say is that you should do it more than once. You have to do it a few times to really enjoy it.”
“Like how many times?” I asked.
He shrugged. “After the fiftieth jump you begin to enjoy it.”
“Fiftieth jump? Jesus.”
“I would never do that,” Leonarda said, scowling.
“Why?” Mateo asked.
“Because I make a point of living my life so I don’t take risks.”
“You do?” I asked, surprised.
“But you cross the street?” Mateo said.
“I cross the street in a way that it’s one hundred percent sure that it’s not a risk.”
Mateo and I laughed.
“How did you two meet?” he asked.
“I stalked her,” Leonarda said.
“You did?”
“Yeah, I began stalking her online. I found out where she lived and waited outside on the pavement. I followed her everywhere.” Her eyes had an eerie look, making her story sound totally believable.
A further group of nerds entered.
“I know that guy,” Leonarda said, pointing to one of them, her lips close against my ear. “From the university. He’s a famous hacker. Like, I mean, he hacked through the U.S. Department of State’s security system.”
The guy seemed to recognize her too, but was shy. Mateo went over to talk to the group.
“So anyway, where were we?” she said, turning back to me.“Oh, yeah, you as a product of Humboldt’s theory.”
We were like a comedy sketch. I lifted my eyebrows, meaning “Who’s Humboldt?” She rolled her eyes, meaning “Moron.”
“Humboldt, you know, the Austrian explorer naturalist,” she said. “Bolívar, like the friggin’ liberator of the continent, called Humboldt the true discoverer of America. He traveled around here for, like, five years, doing all kinds of tests, describing