We stopped playing basketball as soon as Pastor Rigo shepherded a goat into the church’s
courtyard. The creature was past its prime: its teeth were yellow banana Chiclets; its horns stuck
out thick and gnarled like croissants; and its hooves chipped at the ends of its toes like bitten
caramel apples. Yet all I could think of was what Uncle Daniel, Rigo’s brother, had told me:
“Make sure to ask your uncle for one of the horns. They make kick-ass knives.”
Whenever I walked past its bedding near the basketball hoop, I’d peer down at the goat’s horns
wondering which side of them would be the cutting part. My older cousins were more interested
in ricocheting bottle caps or pesos off its head to make it angry, and using it as a furry garbage
disposal. I once threw a Golden Delicious at it— flesh, core and seeds— mostly because its
occasional yawps always caught me off guard, even after we’d made eye contact.
And yet, I felt compelled to stand near it, each time a step closer than the last. I wanted to know
if it had the brass to fulfill its destiny, from its horn section to its coda. I wondered if it had ever
herd a bad joke. Had it always been a good kid? Was it kind and true or a bully who goaded
others to prove that it was tough? When I sat next to it, I swear I could understand the relief in its
baas.
On its last day, Rigo approached the ruminant with the uncurbed enthusiasm of a child ready to
mount a coin-operated animal in front of a supermarket. The goat looked supple like an apple
weeping cider, ready to pie. It began to buck as soon as it felt the straddle; my uncle’s body
undulated to the rhythm of cumbia bass. He grabbed one of the horns and threw a lump of salt in
its mouth. The grit and sweat on his hand made it difficult to grip the knife’s handle— made of
wood, wind, nothing. He swiped at the ungulate’s throat, but only gave it a good shave, cutting
the top layer of skin. The blade— slightly sharper than fine plastic cutlery— was adequate to
dice a potato or julienne a carrot, but not to deliver a coup de grâce.
It was hard to witness as esse lost its hold on creature. The struggle between clergy and the beast
reminded me of men fighting— their two-step dance between the playful mutter, “Stop it cabrón,
I’m warning you,” and the aggressive shout, “STOP IT! Cabrón, I’m warning you!” The
violence modulated quickly from the key of A to the key of “Hey, Tío! He wants you to let him
go!” I could already hear my family’s joyous laughter dropping me onto all fours, parading me
from left to right. Memory was the deadliest weapon of all, and standing up for the victim of this
party would’ve placed its edge firmly on my jugular.
As the goat continued to rear and jump, Rigo looked like he was riding a cello that refused to be
bowed. For a second, I wondered if the goat could actually win and be spared because it was just
too hard to kill. However, the pastor made two more détaché strokes right under its jaw which
finally gave it the quietus that it needed.
Blood oozed from the overture and puddled like a vanity mirror under the trees. All the birds in
the Tijuana barrio adhered to the whole rest of the score and laid their flutes, whistles, and noise
makers on their laps. The wind was nowhere to be seen, and the smell of dirt and shit took its place.
I tried holding my breath, but my saliva tasted like bile. As the goat’s heaving worked up
to a rallentando accompanied by a decrescendo, I couldn’t look away. I had begged my uncle for
days to let me stand as close as possible to the slaughter, and now, the horn I’d wanted so much
bore itself deep into my belly button— a noose that wouldn’t let me renege.
Once the goat’s movement came to an end, everything resumed its normal tempo, and Rigo
pruned the horn off the bovine’s head. The cog rattle crunch lingered in my ears as he cracked
the tissue off its root. I imagined things happening differently: the innocent billy— 4 years my
junior— was going to somehow remove the spike from its head like a magnet from a refrigerator
door and present it to me for having been the nicest human it had ever met.
I wanted to run back to Grandma’s house, but my feet were frozen to the concrete like a pack of
old peas to the side of the freezer. Rigo walked up to me and gave me my present. It was
wrapped in nasal bot fly larvae, a song that crescendoed through the calcium cavities— the
deadened shofar’s last wails.
After Rigo hung the carcass upside down like a mutton piñata— the basketball hoop as its halo—
he began to disembowel the goat and place its extracted organs in decommissioned 5-gallon
paint buckets. Their mauve sheen hypnotized me and flooded my mind with more questions: was
our shared meal still in there, or had the goat, like a jilted lover, gotten rid of everything I had
given it right before it left me?
Luckily, Rigo’s caucasian guests arrived from Rialto, California and honked the horn to be let
into the church. “Let’s hide the guts,” he said and wiped the blood off his hands and face. “Don’t
wanna gross out any of these gringos.” The fetid scent stuck around during and after the festive
immolation. The goat blood remained as well; its stain permeated into the patio concrete like
parchment blotting ink— red, purple, brown, then black.
I took the horn to Uncle Daniel’s house, and he told me, “You gotta kill that pink stuff hanging
from the bone before it can be a knife.” So, we added salt on the rim and a hint of lime—
calcium hydroxide, that is: one shot to get it right. The chemical reaction bubbled up a white mist
that burned my eyes; its fumes were bitter like tequila aftertaste.
My stomach churned as I saw my prized crescent shrivel like a poblano pepper into an ancho.
Though the pointy end dulled, its connection to the flesh continued to cut. The caprine’s
squandered gift marked a fermata on my capriccio with games whose finale was blood.