Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino_Stories by Julián Herbert

Author:Julián Herbert [Herbert, Julián]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781644451366
Goodreads: 55552977
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2020-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino

For Luis Humberto Crosthwaite

I was making coffee when they came for me. Rosendo stood across the street and blew out the door of my house with a bazooka.

(I’m not switching the POV: I saw it all from the window.)

Gildardo made his way through the rubble, went to the kitchen (OK: maybe I am switching the POV), and pointed an AK-47 at me. I was sprawled over the sink, half-deafened, with my face and upper body covered in a dusting of freshly ground Starbucks Sumatra.

“Montaña wants to see you,” said Gildardo, grabbing the collar of my pajamas and throwing me onto the freezing tiled floor.

“What about my aunt?” I responded.

My aunt Rosa Gloria Chagoyán lives with me. Or rather, I live in her house. She’s eighty-three. While the sicario was dragging me toward the door, I managed to catch a glimpse of her through a smoking hole that the explosion had left in the partition wall. My aunt was in bed, unfazed. She was wearing her yellow terry cloth bathrobe and, as usual, was watching TV with no sound or picture.

Practically on all fours, I passed my bedroom and had a momentary view of the most woeful aspect of the destruction: hundreds of silver disks of my DVD collection littered the floor, and a broken pipe was leaking water onto the metal bookshelves where, until that morning, I’d kept my two thousand porn mags.

“This isn’t fair,” I said, still being dragged by the collar over the remains of the furniture, the splinters sticking into my ass. “She’s a vulnerable old woman.”

Outside, Rosendo was stowing the bazooka in the trunk of a Bronco.

“Montaña wants to see you.”

“And was it necessary to completely wreck the house for that? A clip on the ear would have done the job, you moron!” I was hysterical.

Rosendo leaned over me with a very stern expression and slapped me hard. I stopped screaming.

They blindfolded me, tied my hands behind my back, and loaded me into what I suppose was the back seat. A couple of minutes passed as they discussed whether I was correctly positioned and if the bonds were tight enough to prevent any attempt to escape.

“Tape his ankles,” said one of them.

“Do it yourself,” said the other.

Someone passed close to the car.

“Good morning,” mumbled Rosendo.

It was my aunt Rosa Gloria Chagoyán, who goes out every morning for bread while I strain the coffee; I recognized the rhythmic clank of her aluminum walker.

“Good morning,” Gildardo repeated.

My aunt didn’t reply. Good for her.

I heard the click of the car doors locking and then the engine turning over. We crossed Laredo, I guessed heading east. Then, to judge by the steady speed of the Bronco, we got on the Ribereña highway. As far as I could tell, we were making for the Frontera Chica. I passed the time reviewing that morning’s events. What I regretted most was having said “to completely wreck the house”: split infinitive.

We turned onto a dirt road, the Bronco bucking and swerving.

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