Bad Head

a short story

via

Rodrigo Vega sat down in his kitchen with a cup of coffee and without the slightest notion that, within minutes, his head would be chopped off and thrown into the street to be used as a soccer ball.

But when he took his first sip and heard his front door get kicked in, he knew something bad was going to happen. When he saw several men led by Hector Arteaga, the same man he arrested for murder two years prior, only to escape from jail and join the Sandinistas militants, he knew he’d be killed. And when he saw the blood-covered machete in Hector’s hand, he knew how it would happen.

Rodrigo sighed, thought about pleading, but quickly dismissed that idea. Everything was going to shit. The communists won. He had no way out now. Better to go out with pride - the only thing he had left. He closed his eyes, ignored the shouts and taunts from Hector and his crew, and thought back to when he and his wife, now in heaven, spent a perfect week in Ometepe, swimming in the lake, screwing in the cabin, and planning for a future that would never come.

When Hector finally sawed through Rodrigo’s neck with the dull but diligent machete, he was relieved that the screaming stopped. Having never decapitated anybody before, it took longer than he expected and was uglier - and louder - than he could have ever imagined. Not like the horror movies at all. But once he held Rodrigo’s head in his hands, all the misgivings he had stopped liked the screams of the man he just killed. He held the head up and looked into its eyes. They were empty inside but the face was scarred with traces of pain and anguish. Hector knew the other men would forever judge him by what he did in this moment. He knew they’d talk to the commandantes and rumors would start about how crazy and violent he was. So he decided to give them a good story to tell. He kissed the forehead and said, “Rodrigo, my friend, you look like you could use some exercise. How about a little game of fútbol?”

Hector walked outside into the hot blazing sun. He winced and reached into his pocket for his sunglasses. To give the men more material for their stories, he put his sunglasses on Rodrigo’s head.

“Looking good, my friend!” he said as he held the head up for the men to see. But remembering what he came out here for, he took the sunglasses off and put them on his own face. He felt Rodrigo’s hot blood in the nose of the sunglasses slide down to the edge of his nostrils and regretted putting them on Rodrigo.

Walking in the middle of the street with machete in one hand and, in the other, the severed head of the local policeman whom everyone in the barrio knew, Hector felt good and powerful. People saw him and hid, but just a little. They knew they shouldn’t show dislike, but they were afraid, so they couldn’t help but do something - step back or partially behind something. Hector liked that. So afraid, they’re afraid to show they don’t like you. Real power.

He saw a group of half a dozen or so young boys - all around nine or ten years. The boys watched in silence as he approached them, and all felt both awe and fear, the recipe for respect.

“I have a present for you boys,” Hector said. He laughed and tossed the head into the road. It landed with a smack and rolled a few times and before it stopped right side-up, face towards the boys, like it was about to say something.

“I want to see some fútbol!” Hector said, his voice trying to be playful but coming out menacing.

The boys all looked at each other, nobody knowing what to do. They didn’t want to touch the head, much less play soccer with it. But they didn’t want to make the machete-wielding Sandinista angry, either. And then there was their family. They knew everyone was watching. Some supported the Sandinistas, but nobody supported this. And some were friends and family of the policeman, too. But all knew they had no choice. It was just a matter of who would act first.

Julio Cerras acted first. The oldest of the group at almost 11-years-old, he knew kicking the head first would make him look good to the guys in charge now and that would help him. His mom and dad wouldn’t like it, but they didn’t have any power here right now. Only the man who threw the head into the street mattered. He wanted to please them over anybody else.

Julio jogged over to the head with high knees like a World Cup player warming up on the pitch and launched a dramatic kick, for all to see, and he admired how the head flung into the air like a real soccer ball.

He didn’t know how quickly the rest of the boys would jump in once he did it, and quickly ran into the mix to ensure none of the better soccer players outshined him, the one who started the game they were all afraid to start. And each time he kicked the head, a head that once belonged to a man he knew, he felt he was moving up some ladder, like lots of good would come from doing what the people in charge wanted him to do.

But nothing good ever came. The war got worse. People died or fled. Eventually, Julio fled, too, with his mother and two sisters, to Miami. There he grew up, got a job, a wife, a house, a son. But he never got rid of the image in his head of kicking the man’s head down the street. The ravaged, dirt-covered face would pop into his mind, sometimes at random, sometimes prompted by something specific, like when he watched his son play soccer at the park.