and if that asshole puts his nose where it doesn’t belong, I swear I’ll make him remember why they sent me to prison in the first place.’
‘Don’t talk like that. You have to behave yourself. You have your whole life ahead of you, and now there’s Penny to think about. Don’t ruin your future because of your past – not again.’
‘You know I care about you, but quit all this crap about Penny. And bring me my food. I’m hungry!’
Sherrie smiles and walks away. I look at her: she’s well over sixty but she doesn’t look it. When she was young, she was beautiful – she’s shown me some of the photos she keeps in a tin; she looked like one of those babes in the movies. She tried to be an actress, in fact. She left the mountains and all that fresh air she misses so much and moved to New York City, but instead of becoming a star on the big screen she became a prostitute. The line between a dream and a nightmare can be dangerously thin, and when you get hungry and nothing else comes your way, you learn to adapt. And that’s when she crossed paths with my mother. Who knows just how long fate had been planning to turn them both into whores? And when I say whores, I mean it exactly the way it sounds.
I devour the steak and all the fixings, and then Sherrie brings me a cup of coffee. She sits across from me and gives me a strange look.
‘I’ve been watching you, my boy,’ she tells me.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve been here for an hour and I’ve been watching you.’
‘Did I do something you didn’t like?’ I ask her, with a provocative smile.
‘Well, first of all you look awful. Those dark circles under your eyes are scaring me.’
‘Time doesn’t do me any favours, I guess.’
‘It’s not that – I’m afraid it’s your bad ideas that aren’t doing you any favours. Don’t get yourself into any trouble, promise? No fighting, no wrong crowd, no alcohol.’
‘I don’t go out and I’m honest as a choirboy, I swear.’
‘Until she gets out of prison.’
‘Would this be Francisca you’re talking about?’
‘Obviously, and as soon as she gets out, you’re gonna be back in trouble, won’t you? So you’ll end up with more vacation time on the state’s dime and ruin yourself forever.’
‘You’re just like Malkovich – you don’t understand: I was ruined long before I met Francisca.’
‘That’s not true. You had issues, yes, and you were rebellious and desperate, but you’d never killed anyone.’
‘By some miracle. I’d have killed that other shit if you hadn’t stopped me.’
‘That shit wanted to hurt your mother and you defended her.’
‘The shit I did kill wanted to hurt Francisca. The only difference is you can’t stand her.’
‘It’s not that I can’t stand her, my boy, but try to understand me: I think we’re put on this earth to find our missing half. D’you know that story? No? They say that in the beginning, every human being was a kind of monster. Two heads, four legs, four arms, but despite being hideous, we felt complete. We breathed even better than we do now, like how I breathed back in Montana – I know what I’m talking about. Then some jealous god, one of those who flies into a rage at the sight of a happy human, divided us in two. Each new person had two arms and two legs and one head, but above all each had a single heart, you follow? And when the same angry god split everyone in half, he sent their parts to opposite sides of the world like a magician shuffling the cards. So all of the people who used to be complete are now looking for their other half. I have nothing against Francisca, but I’m absolutely certain that she’s not your other half. It’s like when you go crazy trying to force the wrong pieces of the puzzle together, and you end up joining a strip of sky to the tip of a cat’s tail, and it’s quite obvious that what you just did is totally wrong. Know what I’m saying?’
‘All I know is that you should open a matchmaking agency instead of a diner. Someone out there will buy these dumb stories.’
‘They’re not dumb. Listen to me.’
‘So you’re saying Penny’s my other half?’
‘Yes, I truly think she is. There was such great energy between the two of you.’