Free Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout Page A

the tattoo; a look of concern, even fear, marked her face.
    â€œYou don’t like it?” I asked feebly.
    â€œWhat does it mean?” she said, her eyes wide and her lips trembling.
    â€œWould you believe me if I told you I don’t know?”
    â€œHow can that be?”
    â€œI used to raise quite a bit of hell. After one of those hell-raising nights, I woke up with this on my arm.”
    Alondra looked deep in my eyes. And after what seemed like an eternity, she said:
    â€œDo you believe in premonitions?”
    â€œI don’t know, maybe.”
    â€œWell, I didn’t. But I do now,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek.
    All this because of my crazy tattoo? I looked down at it, wondering what it could possible mean to this girl. It meant nothing to me, just an odd collections of letters:
    Â 
    E
    N
    I
    T N U J A A
    B
    N
    Â 
    Around four in the morning, we left. I didn’t have to say a word. We climbed into the car and drove toward the National University campus sculpture garden, where we waited for the sunrise, telling each other our dreams and nightmares.
    At eight in the morning, I took her back, having done nothing more than talk to her. Well, I did get that one kiss on the cheek. I doubt Alberto slept that night.
    In the following days, I saw Alondra several more times. We visited all the little-known spots in the city that interested her: temples and ruins, old cantinas and dilapidated stores.
    We spent our second afternoon together in my bed, and after that, we found several cheap hotels and motels in different parts of the city. We could have gone to my apartment, but the hotels fit well on the list of urban attractions Alondra wanted to explore.
    Every day, I tried to convince her to come live with me, to leave Alberto’s house once and for all. It wasn’t long before it felt like Alberto and I had traded places. Now that she was with me, I was the one suffering anguish and nightmares about the two of them together. Alondra was still sleeping under his roof, and although I believed there was nothing between them, there was always a nagging uncertainty. Alondra told me living with him was convenient because they were collaborating on a comic book, but eventually she finally had enough of Alberto’s tearful pleading.
    One morning, after we returned from a trip, she showed up at my apartment with her two suitcases. We took a quick shower together. I couldn’t believe my luck, but a voice inside my head kept saying, “Be careful.” Alondra didn’t make any promises, but she delivered no warnings either. Our relationship was nonjudgmental, but also noncommittal. I told myself I was content, but really I wanted more. My night shift was wonderfully convenient for both of us, and she continued to be active in the underground-comic scene, where she created, edited, and published various books.
    I’d told Alondra about my job in general terms, about my program and the unexpected turn it had taken. I explained how my vocation as a professional broadcaster was thanks, in large part, to my nighttime callers, who contributed the material we discussed every evening. By then, I trusted Alondra enough to start telling her how, sometimes, the stories I heard on the show resonated strangely with my personal life. How, in a way, I didn’t believe it was sheer coincidence the program had taken this course.
    I know that in the beginning Alondra thought I had a screw loose, or, more likely, was inventing macabre stories in hopes of appealing to that little necrophile all Goth women carry within them. However, her aesthetic tastes didn’t translate into an interest in ghost stories or supernatural phenomena. As for myself, convincing anyone of the importance or veracity of the stories I heard each day was not a priority. In the beginning, it didn’t seem relevant to me whether what callers said was true or not; finding rational explanations or dissecting