The street light in front of the cantina flickered, then burned out as night fell. Finally, customers began to arrive from the grocery markets, from the fields, from their fried banana kiosks and souvenir stands. Outside, an old woman had set up a roast pig over a barbecue drum. She used an acetylene blowtorch to scorch off the pig’s bristles.
Inside the cantina, rowdy patrons filled the tables, seemingly lost in the mirror maze of the walls. On stage, protected behind the chicken-wire barricade, the band played out of tune, to no one’s surprise.
The drunken knife-throwing man still sat at his small round table, somewhat conscious now. During the afternoon he had finished skewering all the black scorpions in the place and had eliminated most of the cockroaches as well. Now he held his kn
