My Ability

The woman whose name I believe is Consuela wheels me offstage as the band plays the sleazy Spanish-sounding song whose name I never learned and into the room of my keeping, feeding, pissing, shitting, and sleeping. It's a small, filthy room, with just a pine table on which always sits a  plastic five-litre bag of dark bean-mash with a hose screwed onto its mouth, and under the table a different plastic five-litre container in which the dark bean-mash goes after it has passed through my alimentary canal, leaving behind along its journey whatever nourishment my digestive system sees fit to absorb. It's curious to see a life chiselled down to its bare essentials; I wonder if my keepers Consuela and the stage manager have ever pondered the existential starkness of it all and discussed it—but I doubt it, because it's a horrifying thing, a life reduced to this, and so I believe I am the only one to have had these thoughts, thoughts as solitary and isolated as I am from everything one could possibly imagine constituent to being alive. Oh, and there's also a jug of water, always room temperature (which is always ninety degrees or more Fahrenheit) and a siphon with a bent neck. The other part of my world consists of three performances spaced from one another by about an hour and a half onstage facing the house with its hundred eyes, that is to say whenever my vision is not occluded by the flesh of Consuela's back as it writhes back and forth and up and down when my eyes—two-thirds of what must be called my essential and active life—can turn to see the walls of the theatre each with six lamps formerly gas but now electric or electric lamps made to look like they had once been gas lamps. During these thrice-a-day performances (not even a day off for Christmas which could be this very day for all I know), which last maybe fifteen minutes, the audience who have each paid between five centavos and two pesos (depending on if it's the first, second, or third performance), behaves differently. The first show pays the most, partly because the performers are freshest and partly because there are more gringos in attendance, and is most quiet. The band furthermore is playing top-notchedly because they're not too too drunk yet. The second audience is rowdier and pays slightly more. (I saw the entrance-board on my first day here as I was wheeled in the only entrance.) By the time I'm rolled onstage for the third performance there's almost always a cockfight going on in the rear orchestra.

I don't know who the other performers are because I'm never turned in a direction by which could see them. But I can hear and from the sounds of it it's a variety show. Right now, by the sounds of the slow mysterious music, I'd guess ... oh, whatever could I guess? What could possibly top my act which used to be ultimate but is now merely penultimate? What kind of degradation could the audience of Aunt Paul's (for such was the name I saw once upon a time posted on the entrance-board) be witnessing right now? A woman fucking a mammal or a reptile? Some kind of sadistic murder and dismemberment? I am sitting, left alone, with a dirty white-washed wall in front of me, with cracks I have memorized and could draw from memory (if only I could draw! he-he) or describe but I will not describe them. A bare light bulb is over my head, warning my white hair, accentuating the cracks in the wall, and buzzing with the wrong voltage or no grounding. I hear, out in the house, some applause, and I wait to know if it's the end of the performance or the end of the show ... no, there's the band, so it was the former ... the band plays up to a crescendo, and the applause comes up again, scattered now because all the men (probably; I have heard women once in a while, at early shows), are sated and ready to go to the next amusement out in the dusty street I've seen but once and then in the middle of the night, and they are standing and stretching and noisily unsticking their feet from the cummy floor. Show's over folks, hope you come again, aie-aie-aie muchas gracias amigo, Consuela will take tips if you have them to offer, let's hear it for the band, what part did you like most, what part should we cut out? tell your friends.

Someone—Consuela—has come into the room. I have a terrific sense of smell, not because of my situation—not like it allegedly is with blind people because I am not blind—but because I have to rely on my senses for all information and because it is my sole connection to the world: I receive information, but emit none—well, except for thrice a night. (Maybe that joke is a little too convoluted....) Consuela is a very pretty girl, with long jet-black hair and a nice natural body (probably only because she can't afford much more than perfumes), and she puts her hands on my shoulders with something like affection. Her fingers drum across my collarbones like other fingers once drummed across my collarbones, fingers from a long time ago seemingly and from a far place away absolutely....

In the East Wing of the castle, with dawn three hours off, my Queen's maidservant, named Bethany plus a last name I never learned, put her hands on my shoulders and looked deep in my eyes to giggle, You know this is not something we can let anyone ever find out about, and I swallowed thickly, I the King swallowed as I nodded past my better judgement. Beth's hands caressed my chest as I caressed hers with trembling guilty hands and as a noise came from the southeast hallway, a steady, knowing tread, a tread known to me intimately: it was the Queen approaching. Quick, I whispered, follow me quickly, and we fled to the northwest passage, knowing both she had discovered our tryst—but how? through Delores? through Evangeline? These names meant nothing to Beth, but I knew them very well. Hand in hand towards the North Wing we went, the stakes being her dismissal and my disgrace, barefoot and quiet, Beth pulled by me, the King, not ashamed at all but rather seeking to avoid the complications and arguments I would have to use to justify myself. We stopped in the North Wing to listen. We heard from the direction we'd come some feet moving quickly, but that was not all: we heard a quiet conversation that went: Your majesty! Evangeline! Why are you here? I couldn't sleep. Are you disturbed by something? My husband is not in his chamber, so here I came. Oh? and I panicked for it was my wife and my first mistress walking toward Beth and myself; I took Beth in hand, and we moved silently though quickly down the southwest passage. My Queen and Evangeline knew about one other, but they knew nothing of hot Beth. We stopped finally in the West Wing—the Wing of Sunset so it was called—where I trembled wondering how I could get out of this one. Surely since my Queen and Evangeline knew about one another I could deceive them about Beth as I had once deceived each about each other; I could say (somewhat as I had said once upon a time when the Queen had discovered me with Evangeline in a linen closet) I was helping with chores (as I had said once upon a time), but I looked about the Wing of Sunset and saw nothing needing any chore whatever and before I could cogitate further I heard a new sound—I heard feet coming down the East Passage, the so-called Passage of Stone that led from the circular staircase to the Wong of Sunset—the telltale footfall of Dolores; and still I could hear the Queen and Evangeline coming closer. I grabbed Beth and off we went, through the southwest corner and into the South Wing, not much to speak of, cobwebs and a preposterously huge window that would let in lots of light once dawn rose; and I heard: Dolores! Why are you here? Er, um. Don't tell me that.... Yes, it's true. He's been cheating on us, too? Er, um. What a worm! What a priap! He must pay, he must pay! and then there were six feet, six arms, and three gates of wonder, coming at Beth and me down the southwest corridor. I was at the end of my rope; to have a wife and a mistress, and a second mistress discovered by the wife and the mistress as being a mistress, all bearing down on me as I was with a fourth woman about whom nothing was known by the aforementioned three, was more than mortal could bear. The great window beckoned; it wasn't such a great drop; and I climbed out and hung practically by my fingernails, waiting for the storm to pass. I heard my Queen, Dolores, and Evangeline talking excitedly with Beth. And they talked. And they talked. And they talked.

I could hold on no longer—I let go, expecting to land with only minor injuries. Physics thought otherwise: he put a protruding brick under my left arm and I flipped to the right, and continued until I was heading down headfirst. Understand this was a matter of four seconds' work—in just four seconds, my entire life changed. Headfirst I hit the ground, and  knew no more.

I have been told I was incapacitated for two weeks, to which I responded: nothing. I was almost entirely immobilized, as a prisoner inside my own skin. In a bed, comprehending everything though saying nothing, I heard them deciding to do what they did to me. At first it was believed I would recover, but when that did not happen for months, the arguments changed. My people were getting anxious having not seen me for so long, treaties went unsigned, the winter stores were unattended to. (Another topic of conversation—and amusement—was the extraordinary and unusual nature of the part—other than my eyes—that was still operating normally, indeed hyper-normally. I think this had impact on my destiny.) Meetings were held elsewhere, though, solving this constitutional crisis, and though I know nothing of the hows and the whys—though I'm certain my brother has something to do with it—I don't even know if they announced my death or honoured a funeral—one evening five men in black masks came and spirited me away. I was loaded onto an airplane which travelled a great distance and I was unloaded, still at night, onto a grass runway with music coming from a distance, and I was rolled toward the music which turned out to be coming from a place of red and green electric lights. I was rolled into this street that was quiet—perhaps it was almost dawn—except for music from one building—the Aunt Paul, you know—and into this building I was rolled. The manager guided my guides to put me into the very room where I am right now, and so I have remained for who knows how long—three months, four months?—and now I have Consuela's hands on my shoulders.

Her soft hands which were rough months ago because of I suspected dishwashing are almost gentle on me, as if her hands knew it was because of me that they had become soft and smooth and they were thanking me for moving them slightly up in the world. Her hands move down to my chest and tickle my nipples and then I realize it's almost time for the next performance, time to once again be rolled out onto the stage and amuse the most decadent and depraved tourists and the locals who enjoy a good freak show. Consuela's hands are on my stomach now and I can also feel her breasts thinly veiled moving back and forth and up and down against the back of my head and I wish I could stop this from happening again but I cannot do anything about it, it's going to happen in almost precisely the same way. There's applause out there, and the band is starting to play the song—I wonder if there's some witty pun connecting the song and what's to come?—that introduces our performance. The two-thirds of me that are my eyes can't see downwards enough to see how she is preparing me for the act but I can feel everything she is doing to me and I find it horrible that she is preparing me to be used as a theatrical prop—and nothing else—and that I cannot but respond to the caresses she's making on my forevermore naked body. I can smell the sick-sweet tequila on her breath and hear her aspirating and I am wondering for the nth time if she is actually aroused by this or if she unseen lubricates herself during the entr'acte with something that smells plasticky—or is it just the smell of the stage or my half-armed wheelchair? It's impossible to tell because I can tell nothing—I cannot investigate the world very much, I can't test any guess about my surroundings, I'm helpless.

Her hands are off me now, and I am being wheeled backwards, out the door of the enclosure and then about and to the right and I pass the manager who is looking down at me, examining and approving of my trick. The red curtain opens, and I am facing the crowd for the second—or is it the third?—time that evening. All eyes are on my trick. Now Consuela will strip to the music, and then she will rape me.

How can I prevent it? how can I change this physiological response that I am freakishly cursed with? No matter what I do, no matter how I try to direct my mind when her hands are on me, there's nothing to be done about it. Also, after all, the day I fail to perform properly is the day I am wholly discarded. I don't know if that would be good or bad....

With the music I have heard hundreds of times already, a lazy and sloppy stroll (must be intentional since they never get better at it), Consuela lifts her gown over her head with her back to the audience, and she cups her breasts and turns around. I can smell something like ozone in the air and I wonder if it's just me in the first sign of a stroke. She moves around behind me as there's some whistling and a shout from the back of the place, out near the cock fight ring. She's come in front of me now—she took off her panties while she was behind me. She is right in front of me, and she spreads her legs and reaches between them as she shimmies backwards, reaching for the hard cock in my lap on which she will impale herself. There's another shout and it's as if suddenly the room is full of smoke. Consuela stops her movements and it's like I'm a dog salivating at a bell. When? The smoke is acrid and the whole panicked audience is on the move, moving away, toward the fire almost strangely, toward the exit. They are shouting now and a woman is screaming. For the first time I'm not bothered by linguistic differences because they aren't using any language but the sounds of terror. Consuela is gone; she's joined the crowd trying to get out and she looks nice naked for the very first time. They are all crying out, they're crying out. Call me Hop-Frog. I wish I had a mirror in front of my eyes. They're all screaming for, as seems to be the case, all the exits are blocked; I remember that this often happens in cheap venues to prevent sneak-ins. The flames are licking up the curtains at the back and the ceiling is being licked by the flames. The smoke is thick but not too thick; I can see people with blood all over and I can see people lying still on the ground. I wonder where Consuela is, because I am still hard, rock hard. Shouldn't she be here for one last thrill? Come, Consuela, come and rape me one more time; or, if you're not in the mood for it, bring me a mirror I can look into, because I want to see my laughing eyes.