Autor:    Julián Silva Puentes

THIEVES

We rarely do such a thing, but last Sunday we went out early in the morning to distribute bread and coffee with milk to people who live on the streets. It was her idea, Diana´s, because she is always the one who has these kinds of occurrences, especially when I am comfortable and warm in bed and don´t give a damn about the world outside my window.

I was having one of the best Sundays of my life, I mean it was raining outside and the bed was delicious after having a few drinks the night before; so I took the time to think about the pros and cons of getting out of bed with the cold of Bogotá that makes you want to do absolutely nothing, especially with that dew-like rain and the wind that blows icy from the darkest ends from hell.

—But it´s drizzling! —It was the only thing I could answer feeling the lowest percentages of empathy that I have experienced in a long time.

—You are a horrible selfish man! —Diana answered.

And it was just like that, without any further argument, than that of "being a horrible selfish man", that the enormous laziness that was seizing me from head to toe was knocked down. It is not that I care too much what happens outside the apartment, and if I am completely honest, I dare to say that I am not interested in the least, because sometimes I can be as selfish as the worst of pirates, those that abound in this world. However, and as always happens to me, I wanted to show her my best side, which is not always the best, but at least it is better than the other, that of the egomaniac and the indolent so present in my life since childhood. So I set about projecting my comfortable humanity into the world of rain and cold in Bogotá, and I almost succeeded, I mean I felt sad for a moment thinking about the young man with the shaved head and broken shoes that I almost see daily at the stoplight on the corner of my house, begging, shouting sometimes and crying to the cars that wait for the light to turn green before leaving without deigning to lower the window.

Then I became sad, a little at least, not as much as I would have liked, but it was at that moment, under the covers, that I felt one of those pains in the soul so typical of Sundays, especially when you think about all the things that you have stopped doing, and your age too, those 40 years that magnify failures much more than victories, comes to visit you from very away with a kick in the ass to force you to do something, whatever, once and for all with your life.

Also, it is true, that of being a horrible selfish. Worst of all, I knew, well, I know! I mean that I feel the sadness of people in the streets from time to time, not as frequently as I would like, and that is when that kind of human pain overwhelms me, a terrible and pitiful regret that lasts for a thousandth of a nanosecond, but mine, the pain of which I speak, is an ignorant pain, made of raspberry gum and icecream, nothing like those ghosts that walk through the streets always looking at the ground in search of the future that they abandoned a long time ago; that pain is really true, that affliction so real of hunger and cold, so great that it does not compare with our shameful middle-class vanity with tiresome high-class pretenses.

…

It is 8:30 a.m., with a heavy shower of dew and a bright gray sky. We walked with a bag of bread, each one hoping to meet someone to invite.

And just when I was about to recite the final line of Dante´s New Life, the one that says “but how lonely the populous city is, the lady of the people is like a widow”, with that sweet lyric that sometimes you say only to make you seem very intelligent and sensitive as well, very suddenly they came our way, two of those ghosts that I mentioned earlier, one with a huge black dog following in his footsteps, and the other with a black bag tied in his head.

Both were dressed in rags and their eyes were almost blank, as if they were searching within themselves for a good reason not to cut the throats of every passerby who crossed their path, just for the fun of it, or to snatch something too, something have been denied to them for so long, so so long.

My first reaction was to look up and down the street in search of a policeman, but then I remembered that we were trying to do something nice for someone, besides those ghosts did not threaten us in any way. However, his entire being, his entire humanity, gave us a lot of fear because misery is something that we all have in common as Colombians, I speak of the possibility of falling into it if we take the wrong path at the worst moment of our life.

We have all been there, all of us, without exception.

So there we were looking at the reflection of what can happen to us if life decides to hit us right at the right time, when a man shouted from a drugstore, a few meters away from us:

—Those two are thieves!

Just at that moment we offered the pair of homeless two loaves of bread for each. Diana looked at me not knowing what to do and I did the same, except that we had the loaves in hand and we couldn´t put them back in the bag.

—Those two tried to rob me! —the same man yelled once more.

—Sir, do you want another bread? —we asked the man of the black dog with our most absolute expression of circumstances.

—Thank you very much —he answered receiving the bread.

They looked at the man from the drugstore, and one of them yelled at him:

—Now I am going to give you what is yours.

We got away as fast as we could, we were afraid they could do something to us too; yes, the whole scene was quite comical if you see it from a different point of view, different from the guy they wanted to rob.

—If we can´t hear people screaming in agony, how are we even able to hear? —I told Diana trying to hide my nerves.

—What?

—It´s from the Henry Miller´s book you gave me —I replied.

—We should do something, right?

—What could we have done? —I said feeling the full weight of my cowardice on my back.

—Well, I don´t know, something ... those guys were robbing someone.

We continue to deliver bread to those we think most need it.

We were in silence, each one meditating on his things. I imagined myself defeating the pair of thieves in a heroic way. Diana was thinking of the indifference of all of us, because it is not the first time that we have witnessed a robbery or any other act of violence in the street. Our reaction is always the same: “if it´s not with me, I´d better not get in trouble”.

It is not necessary to watch the news to know that we have been vaccinated against the pain of others for a long time. And it is enough to just look out the window to see a piece of ourselves shuffling on the sidewalk. That´s when we think about all the things we don´t have and how much we need to buy a good car, or that trip to Italy that we´ve dreamed of for so long. We can think of that and many other things, very well protected in our warm apartment with the refrigerator full of food and a beautiful woman putting up with each one of our ridiculous chimeras; we can go to the point of complaining about our desperate situation even when one has only to set foot out there on the street, with the cold october wind and the milk-colored clouds cut like the dirty beaches of Manila, to know that there must be something very wrong with the structure of things, I mean the way the world works and ourselves too, so that we go crazy for the small of things that we lack, knowing how badly so many others have it, but many others, in this world of ours full of a few lucky poor people, and when I say “lucky poor people”, I mean me and those who, like me, have enough to be happy but still complain because the world has not satisfied our every pitiful whim.

It´s 11:30 a.m. of a sunny Sunday. The apartment is cozy, with a living room full of books, a coat rack, some furniture, the dining room and the kitchen where the huge steak that we left defrosting for lunch is  on the counter. The room is located about 3 meters from the kitchen. King size bed is messy. The sheets keep the house cat warm. Outside the window the sun is shining.

I ask Diana if she wants to try the new Tabasco sauce we bought at the supermarket. The world looks beautiful enough to not celebrating, more for the fact that we were safe after a robbery that had something to do with us.

—I feel bad for the poor guy from the drugstore —Diana says without coming to the point.

—But it was inside the drugstore —I answer— and you know that these people are afraid to enter a well-lit and clean commercial premises.

—Do they get scared?

—Haven´t you notice? In the street they can take a knife this long or a bat with a picot buried in the middle if you refuse to give them what they ask for, but they just have to enter a commercial premises so that they let themselves be thrown like dogs by a shopkeeper as threatening as you or me.

—I feel bad anyway —we never do anything when we see someone on the street in danger.

She is absolutely right, but I keep from admitting it because it makes me laugh to see us offering food to a couple of thieves in the middle of a robbery; it is so ridiculous that there is nothing left but to laugh, although in a very low voice, because the pain of others is real even if you do not experience it first hand; so neither I experience it nor does Diana experience it; so the house cat does not experience it.

It´s 5:07 pm on a Tuesday. The apartment is cozy, with a living room full of books, a coat rack, some furniture, the dining room and the kitchen. About 3 meters after the kitchen is the bedroom. The king size bed is made and the house cat sleeps on the blankets. Outside the window the clouds turn crimson red.

It is the time of day when it is not too bad to start drinking. We´ve gone from beer to Bloody Mary because that way we don´t feel like we´re drinking every day. So here goes, the end of this piece.

—Do you remember the thieves and the loaves? —I ask Diana.

—You put too much vodka on the bloody.

—I am telling you About the robbery on Sunday, do you remember?

—What?

—I wonder if you remember the thieves we gave bread to while they tried to rob the guy from the drugstore.

—Ah yes ... of course I remember! Poor man… do you think he finally got mugged?

—Anything can happen in this city —I tell her as if to settle the matter, even if I was the one who brought it up.

And so ends this little story of the time when we wanted to do something good, but we find ourselves in the middle of something very bad that happens every day in this city. All over the world for what respects me.

Be that as it may, I have nothing more to say, although perhaps I should, because of what my friend Nestor told me a few days ago, worried that I would not finish these little stories that I write from time to time. I replied that these are not stories that have an initiation, middle and end, but simple anecdotes, such as seeing two monkeys raping a beach ball at the zoo, I mean what else can one say about such a thing. In any case, Nestor is one of the four guys who read me, so I will say, by way of conclusion, that I have no idea what happened to the drugstore guy because we ran away, Diana and I, running with the bread trying to look very casual.

We went to the supermarket to buy the Tabasco sauce for the cocktails, after distributing the remaining breads. We went into the apartment and made lunch. We watched TV after that and fell asleep because night came. End.