Bad Weeds Never Die by Christopher Valen

Author:Christopher Valen
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: Conquill Press
Published: 2011-08-09T04:30:00+00:00

Santana walked from the orphanage toward Caracas Avenue under a lead gray sky and in a cold drizzle that had fallen intermittently throughout the previous night and for much of the morning. The decrepit shanties and dilapidated buildings in the barrio reminded him of photos he’d seen after the London blitzkrieg in World War II. The discards of basuco, a variant of crack cocaine, and crumbled plastic bags oozing the remnants of a pale yellow glue littered the streets. Prostitutes wearing neon-colored tops and fishnet tights stood on corners near clusters of street children wearing tattered clothes. A group of six desechables, or disposables, trailed him from the orphanage, alternately begging him for money and offering to sell him packages of Chiclets. None of them looked older than twelve.

Santana thought about the forgotten children that roamed the streets and alleys of all the major cities of the world, and the way many governments treated them like yesterday’s trash. So many people want kids and can’t have them, he thought. And so many people have kids and don’t want them. Losing his parents at a young age had left him feeling as incomplete as an unfinished portrait. Like the desechables, he would never know how different his life would’ve been had his family remained intact, what his finished portrait would ultimately have looked like.

He gave each of the six kids a few pesos before ducking into La Fonda del Camino on Caracas Avenue, which he’d seen from the cab on the way to the orphanage. The bar stood like an outpost on the edge of a block lined with brothels and windowless nightclubs, and no doubt was the same one Teresa Blackwood had visited.

The wood floors and bright red posts holding up the wood ceiling reminded him of similar bars found in Manizales and the paisa regions of Colombia. The shelves attached to the green and red walls were overflowing with antique farm utensils, the counters with displays of cigars, cocoa, and coffee. Santana could see large milk cans, an old saddle, a machete, a sewing machine, a brass cash register, and a hand grinder for corn. There was a small stage where men with guitars would play the old music in the evening, la musica de carrilera and la musica vieja, the music of the mountains and coffee plantations, the music once sung by Julio Jaramillo, one of his father’s favorites.

He sat on a hard wooden stool in the nearly empty bar drinking canelazo, a hot drink made with aguardiente, sugar cane, and cinnamon. The drink warmed his chilled bones, and like all drinks in the bar, was served with small plates filled with slices of pineapple, raw carrots, and mango.

“I have not seen you before,” the bartender said. His face was beaded with sweat and was as round and fat as a face in a Botero painting.

“I am from Manizales.”

“Ah,” the bartender said with a warm smile. “I was born in Medellin. We are both paisas.” He used the common Colombian term for the inhabitants of the coffee-growing region of the country.

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