Knife Fight

KNIFE FIGHT

            I was reading on the galleria after lunch today when I heard a bottle smash up beyond the house of la Rubia, then Demonio (not Demonio Vivo 4 year old but a 20 something with long arms and an athletic gait) comes tearing down the dirt slope through the vacant lot next to La Rubia's house with Britannia, a stocky local young mother with short orange vertical hair, charging right behind him with a knife. They stop in the street in front of our house and square off about 20 feet apart, he is clutching a broken Presidente bottle as a weapon in one hand and is holding his side, where he has already been stabbed and is dripping blood, with the other. La Rubia gets between them, they each pick up throwing-sized chunks of broken concrete and each winds up and threatens to deploy, Demonio yells that he is going to kill her, La Rubia stays between them, and eventually they go separate ways. But nobody thinks it is over. Evidently Demonio’s wife had been sending Britannia food, which is a common thing here, but Britannia had not been returning the dishes. Any form of disrespect in the area of food ranks low on the list of dos and don'ts.

            Later in the day two guys came to the door looking for Kiki and calmly told Chavela that they would like to stab him because they don’t like him being friends with one of their enemies. Kiki was not here at the time so they wandered off after waiting out front for a little while. When Kiki returned and heard the news he left singing quietly to himself and casually twirling a two foot piece of steel re-rod. Later I saw him moseying down the street flipping a switch blade around and then later in the afternoon when Altagracia saw him out front with a pair of scissors she went out and grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around and  sent him to the marquisina. But a half hour or so later one of the barrio elders called for him and explained that Kiki was not in the wrong, so far. And so then they left, presumably to go try to straighten out what might only be a misunderstanding.

            So, to top it off; about five minutes after they leave two more tigueres show up outside the marquisina and announce that they are going out to look for Kiki but don’t say why, they leave, and then Joanglish comes home from work. He is working as a night watchman and because he has to go back very early in the morning the supervisor had let him take the signed-out, loaded .38 Taurus, made in Brazil, home with him. Nobody argued when I confiscated the pistol for the night, he has the shells and when he leaves for work in the morning he can have the  pistol back.