And A Black Motorbike

By Enrique de la Cruz

Life has not been easy for Alfredo. Now, finally, yes: he has a stable job, a girlfriend he likes, he lives comfortably... And yet, when Rufo, a friend from the old days, asks him for help in a shady business, his adventurous spirit leads him to say yes. But everything comes at a price. Will he go ahead or will he cling to the quiet future he seemed to have already secured?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Aug 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667410203

Book preview

Chapter One

On Mondays, above all, the cold was unbearable inside the large warehouse of the Sanchez Bros. Industrial Hardware. To be honest, of Sanchez Bros., as in of the Rose, just the Name remained. There were no longer any Sanchez brothers. There was only Clemente Morales, who was almost a Sanchez by marriage to Angela Sanchez, Celia’s mother; Alfredo’s girlfriend, who was christened as Alfred...but that’s another story. In the company, Alfredo was ‘the girl’s boyfriend’.

The Sanchez Bros. Industrial Hardware was nestled in a fairly typical industrial park known as the polygon; with wide streets prepared for the usual hustle and bustle of trucks. The main focus of movement was a couple of streets up, in a paper recycling plant which occupied more than half of the industrial park and generated enough economic movement to support the other half. The bustle was so important that the pimps stocked the surrounding area without wasting any time.

Their business was very well organized that, even though they were at plain sight, no prostitute was showing more than she should. At that time of the year, the scenery was completed with small bonfires that tinged the night in orange tones in the area. It was true that at the stroke of midnight, the whores and the cats went home.

Alfredo started working in the hardware store when Celia asked her father, believing he was the love of her life and thinking, as a young man, that no one would ever tear them apart. That was a couple of years ago. The boy had no more education than half a vocational training, which does not mean that he was not smart, although it can be said that he was smarter than intelligent, and very prudent in direct dealings. Yet, he rarely worked in front of the public. He was in charge of keeping the shelves tidy and clean and moved quite well among the material they called small, he kept it all neat and tidy.

He grabbed the cordless phone to call the office. One of the girls answered on the other end.

Good morning, Marta, he greeted, "can you pull up the Monday order projection for me. Our printer is frozen or something.

I’ll get it now, but it will be Tuesday’s order already, she joked, since yesterday was a holiday.

Of course, well, today is Tuesday, he remembered.

I’ll give it to Rafael so he can bring it down for you.

Okay, thanks!

Alfredo only got along well with Rafael, who called him Alf. He had dealt with the others, but it could not be said that they were even cordial. For the rest, he was a pet of the family, as we say in plain English. Everyone was very careful not to speak in front of him for fear that he might speak out at the birthdays of his in-laws, who were, in fact, his only family. Day-to-day work was comfortable for him, he handled his duties with ease and without having to think too much about it. Though they were monotonous tasks, he never felt bored. He valued the good things about that job because, despite his youth, he had had many others before.

He had paraded through bars and restaurants doing cleaning jobs, usually. He had collected glasses in drinking establishments and occasionally did security work. He had also worked in a graphic arts company, where he didn’t even have time to learn the names of his co-workers because he was fired the first afternoon for shaking off one of them who accused him of stealing money from the box office. He was not a violent boy, but he did not let himself be bullied. His thinness and gentle gesture made him look fragile, which together with his novice quality gave the guy enough confidence to dare to intimidate Alfredo. It turned out to be too much confidence.

Alf, your papers, said Rafael handing over some stapled sheets of paper.

Thanks, Rafa, he replied. How was your weekend?

Very good, boy. Counting weeks. What about you?

Well, no problem, that’s enough, he replied. Well, let’s get down to business, shall we?"

Alfredo went upstairs to the mezzanine to place the weekly order. I rarely had to change the forecast of the computer system because, if well used, it was reliable. This algorithmic reliability, combined with Alfredo’s meticulousness, made the work comfortable. In the meantime, Rafael went to the store to attend to the early customers, who were usually quite a few; even more so after a weekend. 

He conducted himself as a quiet man of few words; he was nearing retirement. Just seven months, to be more precise. He only exchanged friendly words with Alf, as the rest of his colleagues - if such a word could be applied to them - hardly asked him any questions or made any comments. What little they talked about were work matters, they didn’t have breakfast or lunch together. Rafael and Alfredo were a kind of cell independent of the others. They ate lunch at a worktable in the warehouse, outside the small dining room for the workers, mostly to avoid uncomfortable situations for everyone.

For Alfredo, lunch time was the most annoying situation. At that time, he would go out the back door and wait by the car of Mr. Morales, his future father-in-law, to go to eat at the house where the four of them lived. He always made him wait a few minutes, never less than five or more than ten. They would ride the brand new white Q7 and would go home for lunch. Alfredo used to travel by in his motorbike to and from work, but to go to lunch Clemente imposed this formula to save money and to make a team, he said. The house was just an eight-minute drive from work.

Alfredo found his motorbike more comfortable. It was a matte black Ducati inherited from his father about seven years ago. He had it for the first time since his father had the fatal accident a week before picking it up from the dealership. His lawyer advised him to keep it because, if he didn’t, he would lose too much money. He decided to pick up the motorbike and treasure it as the only piece of memorabilia left to him by his father. He also picked up the matching helmet from the dealer.

Celia and Alfredo met in the summer, at a swimming pool. Nothing seemed to indicate that it was anything more than a summer fling but, little by little, they got to know each other and realized that they hit it off. Celia had a lot of trust with her mother, so Angela was aware of the relationship since the beginning. He was her first boyfriend who could be categorized as ‘serious’.

Alfredo went to live with Celia’s family when the relationship became more serious. Angela’s mind was made up when she learned that Alfredo was living in a shared apartment with a man of bad habits, as Celia told her, exaggerating the true story a bit. The truth is that the family had welcomed Alfredo in a good mood. Morales wanted to please his wife, which included not upsetting Celia, so he agreed without objection to him living with them. Once that line was crossed, everything was easy because Alfredo was a tidy boy and coped quite well with his domestic affairs. He kept his room clean and, therefore, tidy. He was also good in the kitchen. He was a kid who knew how to behave and did not generate problems. After two months or so of living in that house, they stopped treating him as a guest.

Chapter Two

One afternoon, after leaving work and taking advantage of the fact that Celia had a seminar at the university, he went over to Ernesto’s house to see how he was doing. After two weeks without going, the house must have been a mess. He was in the habit of knocking instead of using the keys to get in first. As usual, no one answered. He took his keys out of his pocket and opened the door; he left a bag with some groceries by the door. The smell was sadly evocative. He was surprised that the small room was not too dirty. He pulled up the blind and opened the window to air out the room. The hallway to the rooms was quite dark; he turned on the light and advanced to what was his room. It was just as he had left it, which reminded him of those mothers who don’t touch their missing daughters’ rooms in case they ever return. He repeated the ritual of the blind and the window. He went into the old man’s room; the bed was unmade, and the sheets looked dirty, and a hedge of sweat could be seen on the pillow. The smell was repulsive. He tried to renew the air by opening another window. He searched the closet for a clean set of bedding he left behind the last time he was in. The sheets were still there, of course, intact. He took them out of the plastic and set about putting them on the bed. He took the old ones into the kitchen to put them in one of the garbage bags under the sink. There were only two bags left, a sign that he used them because he remembered leaving a pack of fifty. A dirty plate and a dirty glass were in the sink, which accounted for barely a third of the house’s crockery. He bothered to wash them. He then went to get the grocery bag and took it to the kitchen.

Alfredo lived with Ernesto for a while, in a place transformed into a house that the old man, a friend of alcohol, had exchanged for the ninth floor that had been his home for many years. Ernesto let him live there in exchange for little money and housework. At that time Alfredo worked sporadically with some bungler