Joaquin walked silently and with an imposed smile, the wedding hall of his son, with the only premise of not running into his ex-wife. He had paid 50 percent of all party expenses, but his position was practically that of a caster.
He had already been congratulated, he had already cried, he had already drunk. But he was unappetizing. He had never danced in his life and would not start at that moment. Luckily the in-laws, Australians, did not bother him: they shared the table with Mariana, his ex.
Somehow tacit, he had not agreed to attend the wedding of his most recent bride. Neither she nor Joaquin himself had suggested it. Perhaps, also tacitly, that unagreed absence was the end of the relationship. Who could know?
Maybe he would find her at home when he returned, if he could get drunk enough not to think about that possibility. It would only happen if I didn't expect it. Suddenly a face caught his eye. Where did he know that face, "that gesture"?
It looked like a wax portrait on a real body. A face that would have remained in the past, with the expressions of high school, but implanted in the body of a contemporary adult. From the mists of time, the surname emerged in Joaquin's memory: -Balicelli.
He loudly emitted the memory, without deciding, as if taking a list.
Balicelli smiled. Assented.
But... before squeezing into an awkward, forced embrace, Joaquin wondered who had invited him. Was he a friend of Mariana's? It couldn't be. Whence? Or his in-laws? Impossible, they had attended directly from Australia.
"Balicelli," Joaquin finally repeated, and imposed on his question the greatest possible affability (largely thanks to the whiskeys provided directly by his father-in-law).
"I found out it was your daughter's wedding," Balicelli replied matter-of-factly.
"My son," Joaquin corrected.
Balicelli slapped his forehead as if he had forgotten something important.
"Son, son," he apologized.
Joaquin did not know how to proceed. What he had just pondered, being a strain at the wedding that he himself had paid, materialized in Balicelli. The Universe constantly tended these traps to him.
"I wasn't going to miss it," Balicelli added. Tomorrow you come home. Quid pro quo.
Joaquin pondered his alternatives: ask him to leave, ask if there were security personnel to expel him, continue drinking until he forgets that encounter. It opted, by default, for the third option. What is good, should not be improved. What is wrong, should not be made worse.
Indeed, at the end of the party, Natalia was waiting for him at home. The next day, in the healthy hangover of the Australian single malt, he discovered Balicelli's address on his whatsapp. I was waiting for him for an evening roast. "I don't tell you at noon because you're going to be destroyed by the party. What a party."
The mere mention of a barbecue at that time and after that night made him nauseous, but the curiosity to unravel the mystery of Balicelli drove him. After all, he had practically not tasted a bite at the wedding.
He arrived at sunset at Balicelli's, in Benavidez – he also freed Natalia from that commitment. He was greeted by another surprise from beyond the years: Mabel, the most beautiful student of the last year of high school, with whom Joaquín had been madly in love.
Balicelli barely got him through, did not subject him to the pathetic ceremony of "showing him the house", and immediately deployed the Yo-Yo Russel. A red Yo-Yo, with white letters, and a brand new white thread too, as fragrant and new, impervious to time, as Balicelli's face on his body.
Only then did Joaquin remember that in high school Balicelli was the king of Yo-Yo. Even the promoters of Yo-Yo, true artists, looking like Soviet athletes and prodigies in the art of that sliding sphere, with their red jackets and youthful smiles, recognized in Balicelli a colleague, an eminence of Yo-Yo.
On one occasion, Balicelli had struck a Yo-Yo blow to the forehead to Copero, a bully of the opposite course, on purpose, leaving him a bump of considerable size, and beating him for the rest of the school year.
At that same moment he exposed in front of Joaquín, to Mabel's robbery, the main tests of the Yo-Yo Russel: around the world, the puppy, the mongoose, the missile, the hopscotch of the air. For some reason, Joaquin was depicted as a Chinese champion of Ping-pong. But it was Balicelli playing Yo-Yo.
- Amazing, isn't it? Mabel said.
"Unbelievable," Joaquin repeated. Really amazing.
Balicelli had spent the rest of his life applied to the exercise of Yo-Yo. Mabel was the daughter of a senior executive of a record company, who had turned his industry into an amphibious item between food and entertainment. And in turn Balicelli had received the modest but persistent inheritance of an aunt, whose assets included the very house they inhabited. They lived comfortably.
Balicelli was still the king of Yo-Yo.
"This test is new," Balicelli announced.
He threw the Yo-Yo upwards, and the red sphere walked on the roof, like an elegant fly. He walked around behind Balicelli's back and returned to his place, picked up in the thread.
"Exceptional," praised Joaquin. But actually, I felt a little afraid. The whole scene was incomprehensible to him. What if they tried to kill him, or accused him of something?
- Che, I didn't want to disturb because I thought more people would come. But I don't eat roast: I'm vegan," Joaquin lied.
- No problem- Balicelli understood- There are some finger-licking salads. Mabel cultivates her own quintita.
Having lied so wildly also disturbed Joaquin. He sent a whatsapp to Natalia: - Call me and tell me that someone died.
But the girl didn't answer. He only appeared when he did not summon her.
- Do you want to throw yourself a Yo-Yo pull? Balicelli invited him.
"No, thank you very much," replied Joaquin. The truth is that I completely forgot.
"I refresh you," insisted Balicelli. Mabel accompanied him with a nod. But Joaquin refused with his hands.
When he finally managed to escape from that closed neighborhood, without even the alibi of drinking -the party had annihilated him in that aspect-, he breathed the air of the Buenos Aires night. It wasn't his favorite, but it was much better than being locked up with the king of Yo-Yo.
He longed to return to the city. He reflected for a long hour on his entire life. He had never been the king of anything. He had spent his whole life in solitude. He simply had not accepted the legitimacy of any kingdom. He went down to eat a slice of pizza, with a sudden incomprehensible appetite.
WD
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