The Cowboy Bible and Other Stories (4 page)

Orquesta Mondragón

A fat girl.
A fat girl. I needed a fat girl. Not to make tamales, nor to make her cry. I needed a fat girl to make love to
her.

I’d heard thousands of stories at the bar. Legends, fantastic tales. I was particularly fascinated by the myths about men who slept with fat girls: Fat girls were said to rekindle their faith in love. The overweight woman was attributed prowess and sexual expertise that are not to be found in the rest of her gender. Because fatness presumes an aesthetic disadvantage, these fatties develop skills to compensate for what they lack and for their excessive roundness.

I had no way of knowing if this was true. I had never slept with a fat girl. I’m fat, but obese men don’t enjoy the same reputation. We’re known as terrible lovers. That’s what they say at the bar. I don’t know if that’s true either. I’ve never had sex with a fat
man.

I had never slept with a fat girl, but it wasn’t because I discriminate. It’s just that skinny girls drove me crazy. Their meatless little bones. Their little chicken legs, as if they had avian flu. They were my perdition for one single reason: They were cheap. The little birdies would just eat their birdseed—and so quietly! I dislike drunks and addicts. A woman who drinks more than you can lead you to ruin. That’s what I was counseled at the bar. Whenever anybody on the street tried to come on to me saying stuff like, The greater the flesh, the greater the sin, I’d just start counting numbers.

I decided to try to find a heavyset woman because I couldn’t have relations with my little wife. I didn’t know a thing about fat girls. At the bar they said getting it on with one it was like getting lost in a gigantic plasma all night. I wasn’t looking for a special fat girl. I’d be happy with anyone who could reawaken my faith in
love.

I had stopped sleeping with my wife because she disobeyed me. It’s curious. The fight started because I refused to take her to a dance where Valentín Elizalde was playing. I told her she couldn’t go alone. She paid me no mind. She and her sister climbed into the Grand Marquis and left without my permission.

At the dance, she ran into the devil. The guy who asked her to dance was born with a goat’s hoof and a rooster’s foot. The place started to smell of smoke, and all hell broke loose. My wife turned up burned to a crisp in the Red Cross emergency room. It was even in the newspaper. I don’t think the devil was on tour with Valentín. I wasn’t there. Nonetheless, the guys at the bar assure me that’s what happened. I’m the laughing stock of the neighborhood. And my wife believes they put the idea in my head. Everybody, including kids, now screams at me, The devil sucked off your wife,
güey
. It’s as if you dropped a piece of candy on the ground and can’t pick it up because it’s stuck to the dirt. Everything for God, nothing for the devil, my wife reproached me, but I hadn’t been able to find the sweetness in her body again.

Before I decided to try for the fat girl, there were others. But my game was off. I couldn’t get it out of my head that if that guy hadn’t turned out to be the devil, my wife would have ended up in bed with him. What good did it do me to throw myself at pound after pound of woman flesh, at the whole neighborhood, if I couldn’t figure out how to touch my
own?

Then I heard another guy at the bar say, That whore weighed two hundred kilos. She stunk so badly, she was disgusting. And in spite of that, I still climbed on her as if she was a pancake and squirted until I couldn’t anymore. You have no idea. I recovered my faith in life. This was the final push to move me to try to win a fat girl’s favors. It’s easy, I told myself. The world is full of fat girls. But I was wrong. There were ten prospective fat girls. One overdosed on coke, and so there were nine. Another one got raped by some cripple, so then there were only eight. Et cetera.

Why don’t you leave her? they asked me at the bar. Find someone else. So many hours on the stool made these drinkers think most men in my position would have gotten a separation. But I wasn’t part of that proud brotherhood. I didn’t dare leave my wife because I had already invested too much. One of my mother’s recurrent complaints about me is that I’m like my grandmother, incapable of throwing anything away. I still have all the notebooks I used in elementary school, my toys, and the lottery numbers I bought from Simón Simonazo. I have a real talent for not getting rid of things.

The perfect fat girl. When I got tired of that bouquet of fatties, the idea of getting a specific fat girl began to tempt me. Who would be my chosen fat girl? Would it be one of the Ultrasonics or one of the Poquianchis? My love life’s welfare depended on the flesh of a well-padded girl. Where would such a wonder be found? How deep would the ecstasy
go?

In order to make my search more efficient, I put an ad in the newspaper:
Looking for fat girl. Looking for a domestic helper saddled with the yoke of obesity. My wife is very jealous. Don’t even bother to present yourself if you’re not aesthetically unfortunate.
But my ad was a failure. My fat girl remained out of reach. Hopeless, I took refuge in a concert by Buki, Jesus Christ to sentimental fat girls. That’s where I learned my first lesson as a hunter of
chicharronería
customers: Fat girls are expensive. That sentimental prototype exceeded my budget.

Without actually thinking about it, my senses led me to the Olímpico Laguna, the wrestling arena with the greatest traditions here in San Pedrostuttgart. And that’s where the perfect victim appeared. A fragile and defenseless nineteen-year-old fat girl. The lamb, no, excuse me, the cow who would free me from the sins of the world. I tell you, it wasn’t premeditated. I’d just gone to enjoy the fights, and she came and sat down next to me, she just roundly settled beside
me.

She was called The Western Bible. At first, I thought that she was pulling my leg. Later, that she was crazy. She swore the crazy ones were her parents and showed me her voter registration card. It was no joke. The Western Bible really was The Western Bible. She was one imposing heifer: tall, blond, and so plump. And she wasn’t alone. She was with her son. I bought two beers and a Coca-Cola for the little calf. She told me they lived alone. She didn’t know who her son’s father was, and she had no intention of finding out. Her parents were in another house, in another city. It occurred to me they had fled from her. That they had left her the house and were supporting her at a distance, so long as they didn’t have to deal with her. The story was perhaps a bit fantastic, like the ones from the bar. Trying to have a romance with a fat girl was making me paranoid. Maybe they just lived apart because of work. But why didn’t they take her with
them?

From the very beginning of the show, I began asking myself how I was going to approach this young, fat, blond single mother. How was I going to insinuate to this robust female that I needed her vigor to reignite a carnal desire for my wife? Would I dare to shamelessly ask for her ass? Would I wait for her to offer it in some natural way? Would I appeal to her sense of single motherhood? To a sense of necessary sluttishness given her situation?

I couldn’t take any chances. I decided to rely on my slyer aspects. I ordered two more beers and a mortadella plate for the boy. No chilies. I bought him a Menace Jr. mask and, before the second fight had begun, he climbed up into the ring. The Western Bible focused on her son’s evolution in the wrestling ring as she drank her Victoria beer. She was distracted. Without hesitating, I took her hand and placed it on my fly. She did not complain, but retrieved her hand. Since she didn’t turn to look, I took her hand again and placed it on myself, and she took it back again. I ordered two more beers, and we continued with that same routine throughout the show, me insisting she put her hand on my less noble parts and her refusing to do so, until the second takedown during the last fight, when The Western Bible let her hand rest on my fly. The circle had been completed. I would know the indulgent love secrets of a fat girl’s spacious
bed.

As we were leaving the arena, The Western Bible stopped cold. If only she would allow me to explore her and discover for myself the promising pleasures inherent in excessive adiposity. She agreed, but only after we were certain her boy was asleep. It would be inconvenient if he saw me; that’s how it is with fatherless children. Unfortunately, every time somebody decides to screw their mothers, they develop a resistance to sleep.

So while the boy fell asleep, I walked a few blocks, bought some condoms, and, bored, finally, although reluctantly, went into a bar. I considered leaving, forgetting everything, and just going home. But I couldn’t. In some way, The Western Bible was already mine. I’d already spent a fortune on our beers. I didn’t want to later regret having passed up the opportunity.

My cellphone rang, and it was her. It took two hours for the little calf’s battery to run out. During that time, The Western Bible had been hitting the whiskey. She’d taken some good hits. Like a trucker. When I got there, she’d already finished one bottle and had a good start on a second. She offered me a drink, but I said no. She got pissy. She tried to hit me in the mouth and splashed my shirt. I had a momentary doubt but decided I had things under control. Anyway, if the fat girl became insufferable, I could fix everything by slapping her around, she might even like it. Maybe she’d like it and beg me for
more.

It’d be better if you took a bath, I told her. She came out covered in powder. She looked like a giant, overactive French loaf. I’ve always wanted to fuck in my parents’ bed, she said, and then crossed the backyard completely nude, the bottle in one hand and a CD in the other. Oh, this is going to get bad, I thought when I saw the king-size bed. I turned on a porn channel, put on the CD, and undressed. We hadn’t even gotten to the second song when I realized The Western Bible was drunk out of her mind. No, not out of it, but blind drunk.

Grotesquely erotic, she spread out on the mattress and began to suck me off. My god, she was horrible. She choked. My dick was getting red. Twice I told her to leave it alone. You don’t know what you’re doing, I told her. You don’t know how to suck. But she was determined to show me otherwise and she was hurting me. Hold on, hold on, I finally said. I’m really hot and I want to stick it in you. I screamed, pretending to be on the verge and managing to get away from her teeth. But she didn’t give me a chance to do anything, quickly throwing herself on top of me.
Puta madre
, that fat girl weighed a ton, she completely pinned me. We began to push and pull, and I thought I would asphyxiate under her mass. It was frustrating. I immediately thought of my wife. Poor woman. She must feel the same thing when I’m on top. It must have taken so much sacrifice and devotion for her to tolerate my corpulence on her rickety little
body.

The Western Bible stopped the pulling and pushing. I love that song, she said and got off the king-size bed to play it again. On her way to the stereo, she staggered, crashed against the dresser, and fell to the floor. I helped her up, and we continued with the penetration. I still had not experienced the divine loving grace of fatness when she again stopped to play the song over. Holy fuck, I shouted. Why don’t you just let it play? Concentrate.

Well, no, we’ll hear it a third time. And don’t scream at me,
pendejo
.

She wanted to climb on me again, but it was useless. I couldn’t take any more. My dick had deflated. We’ll stop here, I said, but she would not give up. She insisted on continuing. And to motivate me, she tried to suck me off again. Listen,
puta
, I agree that fellatio is an art, but it is not impossible for a mortal to do it decently, I said. Haven’t you ever eaten a popsicle? I asked her. It’s not science. It’s like sucking a Tootsie Pop. She changed tactics and got worse. Stop, stop, I shouted. I know what I’m doing, I know what I’m doing, she said in her defense, and because she was talking with her mouth full, she bit me. She refused to release me. To loosen her grip I slapped her. Then two more times, each time angrier than the other. She got up and hit me. I grabbed her and, with some effort, got her off me. I started to get dressed. She left the room, nude, with the bottle of whiskey in her
hand.

When I got to the door, the fat girl came up to me. Don’t leave,
cabrón
. You’ve exhausted me, you fucking greaseball. You’re like all the others, you think I’m crazy. You’re like my parents.

Just what I needed, puta, the venting. I’m leaving, I said again, but I couldn’t open the door. It had a double lock. It needed a key. Give me the fucking key, I screamed. She didn’t want to give it up. Where is
it?

Why don’t you understand? she began pleading. Don’t you understand? She poked my temples with her fingers and kept saying, I’m fine. This is normal, I just get depressed because I used to take drugs.

Stop, stop, I said. That’s not my fault. The
key.

It’s not my fault I don’t have friends. I’m normal, normal, but everybody wants to drive me crazy. You want to drive me crazy, she barked, and then came at me. I avoided her fist, but she wouldn’t stop, so I finally punched her in the face with a closed
fist.

Now in control and more eloquent, I demanded the key. The Western Bible was strewn on the floor. The key,
chingada madre
, or do you want another? Weak, she got up and said, You want your key? I’ll get your damn key, and she disappeared. I saw the bottle of whiskey and shoved it under my jacket. I would get drunk to forget this terrible moment. The Western Bible came back and, to make me turn towards her, she said, Here’s your key,
culero
. She was pointing a gun at me. I felt the blood drain out of me. It’s possible it wasn’t loaded, and she was pointing it just to get my attention, but I wasn’t interested in finding out. I didn’t dare wrestle this drunken mastodon for a gun at three in the morning. The little calf was still not awake. But with so much noise, he should have already been out of bed. If the boy could see us, The Western Bible would calm down and I could probably climb up the
roof.