Excerpt Maximilian's Achilles and Patroclus

Part II

Chapter Eight: Andrea

“Elena!”

Oh, the sound of her words is always like chalk on a board. I’ve missed a stitch. Yes. My quinceañera. His kiss. Yes. The kiss, only nearly a proper kiss; that is, a most improper kiss, almost on the mouth, just slyly off the cheek onto my lips, lingering. Yes. I felt his breath across my nostrils. Eager Paris. Yes.

“Elena, sister, Alexandros!”

Yes. I answer Andrea.

“Your husband, my husband’s brother, cuñado, your Paris.”

Decimosexto cumpleaños. The very day. Paris’ touch. My shoulder, neck, face.

“He’s shown up in the Wesleyan playing with his arrows, bow, whatever.”

Knee, thigh, mi panochita. Yes.

“There is this mess out there. The slaughter. Your husband, you would never guess he had come from a fight rather that he was off to a dance.”

Yes. That smell outside, I complain to Andrea. Get Maxi on a phone.

Yes. The smell of his body. Yes. Fast against mine. He felt my breasts all perfumed, but his chest, his back, his tight ass—all man. That is true, forever as I live. The girl, the flower, the flowery smell. As a flower, I can get around him, giving him all the pleasure, and he giving me everything for that pleasure, but he does not know his smell I cannot get out my senses.

“Your phone is right there beside you.”

I tell Andrea Maxi will not answer a call from me.

“Homer! Tell me what is going down there,” Max demanded over the phone.

“Oh, oh, Mr. Cortes, it is horrible. Marq the Greater killed Simoeisius. The bullet pierced his chest and departed through the shoulder. He toppled over like a smooth poplar grown in the water-meadows ‘til the carriage builder felled it. Then Príamos’ second son, Antiphus, replied with a shot from the ranks. He missed Marq, but struck in the groin Chris’s best friend Luke who fell in agony and died in Chris’s arms. Chris was enraged by his death and rushed from the ranks toward the enemy. There, with a burst of automatic fire from his MSBS 556B that killed, at least, Democoon, Príamos’ third son, the Templars turned back the Guerreros. Príamos’ first son, Hector, and the Guerreros gave ground, while the Templars, shouting in triumph, advanced. Hector yelled that Alec is out of the fight to no avail.

"Alec was out of the fight, but he was watching. I saw him atop the liquor store. He watched and did nothing."

“Homer, let me take this call, and you should call me back when the thing has ended. Yes? Who is this? Oh, Elena, you call? Isn’t it too late? Those mestizo degenerates you married into…”

I married only one degenerate I tell Maxi, and he is right here with me in sweet comfort. I shut Maxi off and drop the phone between us. You used to boast you were a better man than Chris, the Marx, the whole gringos gilipollas out there. Get up right now and challenge them.

“It is done already,” Paris tells me. “There is no challenge left.”

Done? I ask.

“Hector?”

That voice can peel paint off the wall. I ask Andrea where Astyanax is.

“You return? Is it done?”

Again, I ask where Astyanax is.

“You show no pity for your little son or your wretched wife, whom you’ll soon make a widow.”

She knows duty well enough until it inconveniences her. I just want to play flying boy with my son on the soles of my feet.

“Alec dispatched my father as if he were a mere wadded-up piece of paper.”

I tell Andrea though Alec has kept the truce, he can only see us as having broken it by keeping his old man and not returning him. He does not know the truth; but on a lie, he still keeps his bargain. It is that uncle of his—the old man’s brother. The first to be seen; the first shot. Ha! I want Astyanax. To tousle his hair.

“Your boy is in the Piano Room with Cassandra. You clean yourself up, and I will bring him to you. Elena has called Maxi. That is done!”

Sure. Let los Castillianos settle things.

“Cassandra!”

The baby seal on the Canadian ice shrieks. I keep to my mind, the time passing, moment by moment, till we can all speak, pass the hour, beyond the range, we will hear, no one can see, beyond the infinite, above death, pass the hour, pass all time, up in the sky, beyond the galaxy, truth is untrue, falsity reigns, that is true, the Liar’s Paradox, paralysis of mind, I keep to my mind.