Avenue of Mysteries - Page 94

"The lionesses hate Ignacio--all the time," Lupe answered. "The lionesses are dumb twats--they're jealous of Ignacio because they think Hombre loves Ignacio more than the asshole lion loves them! Yet if Ignacio ever hurts Hombre, the lionesses will kill Ignacio. The lionesses are all dumber than monkey twats!" Lupe shouted. "They love Hombre, even though the asshole lion never thinks about them--unless he remembers that he wants to do it, and then Hombre has trouble remembering which one he wants to do it to more!"

"The lionesses want to kill Ignacio?" Juan Diego asked Lupe.

"They will kill him," she said. "Ignacio has nothing to fear from Hombre--it's the lionesses the lion tamer should be afraid of."

"The problem is what you tell Ignacio, or what you don't tell him," Juan Diego told his little sister.

"That's your problem," Lupe had said. "I'm just the mind reader. You're the one the lion tamer listens to, ceiling-walker," she said.

That was truly all he was, Juan Diego was thinking. Even Soledad had lost confidence in him as a future skywalker. The good foot gave him trouble; it slipped in the rope rungs of the ladder, and it wasn't strong enough to bear his weight in that unnatural right-angle position.

What Juan Diego saw of Dolores was often upside down. Either she was upside down or he was; in the acrobats' troupe tent, there could be only one skywalker practicing at a time. Dolores had never had any confidence in him as a skywalker--like Ignacio, Dolores believed Juan Diego lacked the balls for it. (For balls, apparently, only the main tent--the skywalk at eighty feet, without a net--was a true test.)

Lupe had said Hombre liked you if you were afraid of him; maybe this was why Ignacio told the girl acrobats that Hombre knew when the girls got their periods. This made the girls fear Hombre. Since Ignacio made the girls feed the lion (and the lionesses), possibly this made the girls safer?

It was sick that Hombre liked the girls because they were afraid of him, Juan Diego thought. But this made no sense, Lupe had said. Ignacio just wanted the girl acrobats to be afraid, and he wanted them to feed the lions. Ignacio thought if he fed the lions, they would think he was weak. The part about the girls' periods mattered only to Ignacio. Lupe said Hombre didn't think about the girls' periods--not ever.

Juan Diego was afraid of Dolores, but this didn't make Dolores like him. Dolores did say one helpful thing to him, about skywalking--not that Dolores had meant to be helpful. She was just being cruel to him, which was her nature.

"If you think you're going to fall, you will," Dolores told Juan Diego. He was upside down in the practice tent, his feet in the first two rope rungs of the ladder. The loops of rope dug into the creases where the tops of his feet bent at his ankles.

"That's not helpful, Dolores," Soledad had told The Wonder, but it was helpful to Juan Diego; at the moment, however, he'd been unable to stop thinking that he was going to fall--hence he'd fallen.

"See?" Dolores had told him, climbing up to the ladder. Upside down she seemed especially desirable.

Juan Diego had not been allowed to bring his life-size Guadalupe statue to the dogs' troupe tent. There was no room for it, and when Juan Diego tried to describe the Guadalupe figure to Estrella, the old woman had told him that the male dogs (Baby, the dachshund, and Perro Mestizo) would piss on it.

Now, when Juan Diego thought about masturbating, he thought about Dolores; she was usually upside down, when he thought of her this way. He'd said nothing to Lupe about masturbating to the image of an upside-down Dolores, but Lupe caught him thinking about it.

"Sick!" Lupe said to him. "You imagine Dolores upside down with your penis in her mouth--what are you thinking?"

"Lupe, what can I say? You already know what I'm thinking!" Juan Diego said in exasperation, but he was also embarrassed.

It was terrible timing: their move to La Maravilla, and their respective ages at that time; it was suddenly painful to both of them--namely, that Lupe didn't want to know what her brother was thinking, and Juan Diego didn't want his little sister to know, either. They were estranged from each other for the first time.

THUS (IN THEIR UNFAMILIAR states of mind) the dump kids arrived, with Brother Pepe and Senor Eduardo, at Casa Vargas. The statues of the Spanish conquistadors caused Edward Bonshaw to stagger on the stairs, or perhaps it was the grandeur of the foyer that unbalanced him. Brother Pepe took hold of the Iowan's arm; Pepe knew that Senor Eduardo's long list of the things he'd denied himself had shortened. In addition to having sex with Flor, Edward Bonshaw now permitted himself to drink beer--it was almost impossible to be with Flor and not drink something--but even a couple of beers could unbalance Edward Bonshaw.

It didn't help that Vargas's dinner-party girlfriend was there to greet them on the grand staircase. Dr. Vargas didn't have a live-in girlfriend; he lived alone, if you could call living in Casa Vargas living "alone." (The statues of the Spanish conquistadors amounted to an occupying force--a small army.)

For dinner parties, Vargas always came up with a girlfriend who could cook. This one was named Alejandra--a bosomy beauty whose breasts must have been a hazard around a hot stove. Lupe took an instant dislike to Alejandra; in Lupe's harsh judgment, Vargas's lustful thoughts about Dr. Gomez should have obligated Vargas to fidelity to the ENT doctor.

"Lupe, be realistic," Juan Diego whispered to his sullen little sister; she'd merely scowled at Alejandra, refusing to shake the young woman's hand. (Lupe didn't want to let go of the coffee can.) "Vargas isn't supposed to be faithful to a woman he hasn't slept with! Vargas only wants to sleep with Dr. Gomez, Lupe."

"It's the same thing," Lupe pronounced in biblical fashion; naturally, she hated passing the Spanish army on the stairs.

"Alejandra, Alejandra," Vargas's dinner-party girlfriend kept repeating, introducing herself to Brother Pepe and the staggering Senor Eduardo on the treacherous staircase.

"What a penis-breath," Lupe said to her brother. She meant that Alejandra was a penis-breath--Dolores's favorite epithet. It was what The Wonder called the girl acrobats who were sleeping with, or had slept with, Ignacio. It was what Dolores called each of the lionesses, too, whenever she had to feed them. (The lionesses hated Dolores, Lupe said, but Juan Diego didn't know if that was true; he only knew for sure that Lupe hated Dolores.) Lupe called Dolores a penis-breath, or Lupe implied that Dolores was a future penis-breath, which (Lupe said) Dolores was too much of a dumb monkey twat to know.

Now Alejandra was a penis-breath, just because she was one of Dr. Vargas's girlfriends. Edward Bonshaw, out of breath, saw Vargas smiling at the top of the stairs--his arm around the bearded soldier in the plumed helmet. "And who is this savage?" Senor Eduardo asked Vargas, pointing to the soldier's sword and his breastplate.

"One of your evangelicals in armor, of course," Vargas answered the Iowan.

Edward Bonshaw eyed the Spaniard warily. Was it only Juan Diego's anxiety for his sister that made the boy think the statue's lifeless gaze came to life when the conquistador spotted Lupe?

"Don't stare at me, rapist and pillager," Lupe said to the Spaniard. "I'll cut off your dick with your sword--I know some lions who would like to eat you and your Christian scum!"

"Jesus, Lupe!" Juan Diego exclaimed.

Tags: John Irving Fiction
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