Aunt Nelly

One time, on New Year´s Eve, my dad summoned the whole family, and we got together at a community club in Ituzaingó, just because the place was big enough to keep a reasonable distance between chairs. Family members showed up from every far corner of the country. An Italian, even. I had already received my Christmas presents and carried them with me everywhere I went: my first original CD to play in the truck stereo and a handful of notes that my mom and dad had given me. Fifty notes, to be exact. A small fortune.

When we got there, I took Room on Fire out of the stereo, put it back safely in its case and went inside the place. There, the people my father remembered from his childhood now had moustaches or missed a body part. Too many years had gone by. Neither my sister nor I knew anyone. And there she was, in the middle of the semicircle, siphon bottle in hand, Aunt Nelly. To everyone else, she was Mrs Nelly. Except for me, of course. I had to call her Aunt Nelly even though she wasn´t really my aunt. Aunt Nelly was old and, if she kissed you, she would prickle your face. She was seated on a plastic chair, the kind you usually kept in gardens and had a wool blanket on her legs even in the heat of the last day of the year. When Aunt Nelly laughed, she would do it so loudly that everyone could notice she was there. I remember not greeting her till later in the evening when my dad approached her and whispered something in her ear. Aunt Nelly gestured for me to get closer. “This is Aunt Nelly”, my father said to me. Thank God she didn´t kiss me. She did something worse, though …

— Got any money, kid? — Kid. She called me a kid.

I had the handful of bills from my Christmas present in my pocket. Fifty notes, to be exact. A fortune.

— I got 50 notes. — 25 say I can bite my own eye.

“I never lose”, I said to myself. I couldn’t lose. It was easy money. But, if I did lose, at least I would get a good show out of it. I had to see it for better or worse. Or maybe Aunt Nelly was just crazy; who knew? We shook hands-on. Her hand prickled mine just as if she had kissed it. It prickled but in a different way. Aunt Nelly then let go of the handshake, moved her hand to her face, took her eye out and bit it. A glass eye. I gave her the twenty-five notes. I should have gotten back to the car and played The Strokes, but I didn´t.

- I bet you the other 25 I can bite my other eye. — She told me.

I thought it was a way to give me my money back. Nobody can be that cruel to a 14-year-old. We shook on it again. Then Aunt Nelly removed her dentures and closed them shut on the eyelids of her other eye, the good one. Everybody had a good laugh, and I faked mine. I hated her. I hated her in the way you hate an aunt who isn´t really your aunt but can bite her eyes—both of them.

When we left, dad gave me 50 notes again and said, “thank you”. I remember that, even after getting my money back, I still felt ripped off. I hadn´t lost any money, but I had lost my imagination. That was the day I told myself nobody would ever fool me again. That was also the day I told myself I was going to be a writer, the day I told myself I was going to tell stories.