I used to live in a shared apartment, the kind so close to collapse it could've been plucked straight out of Old Havana or some forgotten city in North Africa. The building creaked, groaned, and slowly crumbled. The best thing about the place were the views. Or better said, the only good thing. Everything else barely worked, or didn't work at all. You had to live there to understand what it meant to survive without guarantees. But ah, the views. From the balcony, you could see San Cristóbal Park—one of the city lungs of Miraverde. In spring and summer, it was lush, overflowing, a tamed jungle. In fall and winter, it stripped itself bare like an old actress who has nothing left to hide.
Back then, every morning after writing—I'd been lost in the same never-ending novel for two years—I'd sit out on the balcony for breakfast. Toast with butter and oregano, seven scrambled eggs, and a glass of water. And I'd stare at the park. And for a moment, something that vaguely resembled hope would sneak into my chest. I used to think: "Not everyone born on this side of the city has to be human scum. Most of its people are. But look at this park, this piece of proof that even hell can grow something beautiful—it proves there are exceptions. Even in the darkest sewer, something can shine. I'm going to be part of that something."
But of course, it's one thing to see the park from above, from the balcony, far from the rot that inhabits it. Another thing entirely is to walk through it. Walking San Cristóbal was stepping into a maze where human creatures on the edge of decomposition waited. Dangerous paths. Dark ones. Filled with broken men, drunks, criminals, vagabonds who didn't beg for bread—they begged for destruction. There were women too. A few. Women who, truth be told, weren't really women anymore. Just monsters with vaginas. I used to think people like that shouldn't still be alive. For a while, I tried to do something about it. I killed a few. Fourteen, to be exact. Thirteen men. One woman. Of course, it wasn't enough. No visible change. To make a real difference, it would've taken a bomb. But a bomb would've destroyed the park, too. And I didn't want that. So when defeat set in, I gave up. Like everyone else.
Sometimes, I'd sleep with a girl who lived across the hall. She worked at a bakery and had Bette Davis eyes—whatever that means. I think her name was Mariana. Or maybe Mariela. I'm not sure. One night, after a forgettable fuck, she said:
"I couldn't sleep the other night. I was in the living room watching TV when I heard a noise in the hallway. I went to the door, looked through the peephole, and saw you coming into your apartment. It was almost four in the morning."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"You looked dirty. I don't know with what. Where were you coming from?"
"I went to the park to kill a homeless guy."
"What?!"
I looked her straight in the eyes. Her brow tensed up—fear creeping in like a small animal sniffing at the unknown. Then I smiled, like 'Come on, girl, chill—it's a joke'. She smiled too.
"You almost scared me. You're crazy. Come on, tell me where you really…"
"Don't ask me questions. You're not my girlfriend."
"Oh… I didn't mean… I know I'm not your girlfriend."
"So what do you say? We keep having fun or cut this off?"
"You're right. I'm being dumb. Come on, let's enjoy it."
I gave her a friendly-boy kiss and asked:
"So, what'd you bring me?"
She always brought stuff from the bakery. Cakes, pastries, that kind of sugary shit that makes your stomach happy and your soul rot. I never ate that crap. I'd leave it on the kitchen counter so my two roommates could devour it—a butch Marxist chick and a forty-something street guitarist who preached revolution but never paid the electric bill.
I used to ask myself why the hell I was living there. And then I'd remember: I was training. Enduring. You don't become someone on a terrace in a mansion in the San Isidro neighborhood, or a balcony in some millionaire tower in the Los Altos neighborhood. You become someone by swallowing filth without blinking and surviving to tell the tale.
Though, come on, what bullshit. Pure cheap philosophy. Deep down, I know none of it matters. No one chooses where they're going. They just choose to keep going. And I kept going. Because something, somewhere, was pushing me. Something dark. Something inevitable.
And not long after, just when everything seemed as rotten as always, Irene appeared. And well, that's another story. You want to know which one? Really? Are you sure you're ready?