Vignette: The Scrapper, the Dog and the Blood
What lies beyond the schoolyard wall
I attend classes at a Catholic school run by nuns from the congregation of Saint Vincent de Paul, a congregation prone to scandal, where children's innocence is perverted with tales written by people from a distant land and a time when science did not prevail.
To enter the school, one must cross a steel gate crowned with barbed wire, a detail that indicates the pedagogy of the place.
The floor is granite or marble, "dirty white" as my grandmother would say.
The tiles have a treacherous relief that produces a catalogue of injuries throughout the days: bleeding knees, scraped elbows, pants with holes, and occasionally, a gash in the head.
There are no trees in the area where we children play or attend class.
There aren't even plants in the classrooms.
Everything is grey, white, dirty, sad.
The only concessions to play are a pair of basketball hoops, installed on a sloped area. If you play to score in the upper basket, you're at a disadvantage, as the incline makes the ball bounce randomly.
We call it SAFALONCESTO (SAFABASKET), after the institution's name: Sagrada Familia.
In another area, against the high wall that separates the playground from the neighbouring junkyard, we improvise a goal to play football.
The other goal is marked with our jackets on the ground.
It's what they now call street football, playing against the walls.
I'm better at watching football than playing it, but my classmates insist I participate.
We're not friends, my classmates and I. We are just classmates united by boredom and the need to kill time during recess.
We tolerate each other, put up with each other, and sometimes, on days like today, we clash.
By unwritten decree, whoever sends the ball over the wall has to climb it to retrieve it - you break it, you fix it - without the nuns finding out and without the junkyard owner discovering the intrusion into his kingdom of trash.
Today I'm playing without enthusiasm, more out of obligation than fun.
Frustration builds with each failed play, with each look of contempt from my classmates.
And then it happens: out of anger, I make an ill-timed kick. The ball describes a perfect arc over the wall. Silence falls like a slab over the playground.
The insults are quick to follow. "What a fucking idiot! What are we going to play now? Moron! It's your turn to jump!"
The blush rises to my cheeks while a shiver of fear and rage runs down my spine. I've never had to jump the wall or face the scrapper before.
"If the ball gets punctured, you'll have to pay for it!" The threat makes me tremble. I can't ask for money at home, and my father can't find out about my mistake - his brutal response would be inevitable.
Two classmates, more to avoid problems with the nuns than to help me, interlock their fingers to make a platform. It takes enormous effort to climb the wall. Once at the top, vertigo grips me as I realize how difficult it will be to get down.
Still, at the school side of the wall, I can see the piles of metal and glass debris accumulated in the mountains without order. I look up and see Torre EspaƱa, aka "El Piruli," casting its shadow over the school with its 142-meter height.
I rest one foot on the tin roof that gives access to the junkyard. The metal creaks threateningly. As I put down my other foot, I hear a nun's voice.
My classmates scatter like ants before the rain, leaving me alone in my predicament.
"Who's going to help me get down?" I think as my heart pounds in my chest.
Between a pair of wooden boxes, I see the ball.
I'll have to jump to the ground to reach it, something no one at school has done before.
The creaking of the main yard gate paralyzes me. "The scrapper is back!"
Panic pushes me to jump. As I fall, a piece of metal cuts my pants at the calf.
Blood begins to flow, but fear is stronger than pain. I grab the ball and throw it over the fence with all my might.
A shout of "Yayyyyy!" from the other side confirms that at least the ball is safe.
I hide behind a barrel while a small man, grey-haired with a prominent moustache, approaches his car, an old school Seat 127. His grease-stained shirt and belly protruding from his pants compose an image I'll never forget.
In a moment of desperate lucidity, I decide to run toward the main gate. The scrapper turns at the sound of my steps, the cigarette dancing between his teeth. "Hey! What the fuck are you doing here! Thief!"
I accelerate while I hear a new danger: "Gatuso, get him!" A dog's barks approach rapidly. Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten. Tears blur my vision as I run.
Then I remember the piece of chocolate in my pocket.
I stop and turn toward the dog, cold sweat soaking my back.
The animal stops two meters away, undecided, barking.
With a trembling hand, I throw the chocolate behind its tail. The dog hesitates, sniffs, and finally gets distracted by the sweet.
Without losing a second, I run to the school gate and reach the back of the nuns' residence.
My vision begins to narrow, becoming an increasingly smaller tunnel, I fall to the ground without strength or energy, my cheek against the ground while through near-fainting eyes I see the dog approaching. He sniffs me, licks my cheek, and whimpers.
"I've ruined my pants" flickers through my mind before everything fades to black.