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beers and with a kid they called Drácula. When the landlady left (and Drácula stayed: they called him that because one of his eye teeth stuck out over his lip), Zarco continued: Go on, Gafitas, tell Guille what you told me the other day. Although I guessed what he meant, I asked him what he meant. What you told me about the arcade, he said. I told him; flattered by my momentary prominence, maybe trying to score points in front of the group (or just in front of Tere), I added that now I was helping Señor Tomàs close the place. Zarco asked me a couple of questions, among them how much money Señor Tomàs collected each day. I don’t know, I said, honestly. More or less, Zarco insisted. I said a figure that was too high, and Zarco looked at Guille and I looked at Tere and at that moment I guessed I shouldn’t have said what I’d just said.
    ‘I soon forgot my hunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon with them. After my starring moment on account of the arcade and Señor Tomàs, I barely opened my mouth again; all I did was try to go unnoticed and listen while they drank beer at La Font and went out to smoke joints sitting on the rail of the bridge over Galligants, in the Sant Pere Plaza. That was how I found out three things: the first is that Zarco and Tere lived in the prefabs (as I later learned, the rest of them lived in Pont Major, Vilarroja and Germans Sàbat, but all of them or almost all of them had lived in the prefabs and most of them knew each other from there); the second is that, apart from Zarco, who was from Barcelona and had only been living in Gerona for a few months, they were all from Gerona or had been living here for years; and the third is that Zarco, Guille, Gordo and Drácula had all spent time in reform school (as I later learned, between the previous summer and the winter of that very year Zarco had been in Barcelona’s Modelo Prison, even though he hadn’t yet turned sixteen and was still a minor). As for the rest of it, until that day I had never tried hashish, so towards evening, after the feeling of well-being and uncontrollable laughter that a couple of tokes provoked had passed, I started to feel bad and, while we were on our way back to La Font from Sant Pere Plaza, I slipped away from the group and walked down Bellaire Street away from the district.
    ‘Walking through La Devesa did me good. When I arrived at the arcade it was still open, and as I walked past Señor Tomàs’ booth I waved to him, but didn’t stop to talk. I went directly to the washrooms; I looked at myself in the mirror: I was pale and my eyes were red. I still felt like I was floating in a thick fog; to clear my head I urinated, took off my glasses, washed my face and hands. Then, as I looked back at myself in the mirror again, I remembered Zarco and Guille’s conversation about Señor Tomàs and the arcade. On my way out of the washroom I bumped straight into the old man; as if he’d caught me doing something wrong, I was startled. What’s wrong?, asked Señor Tomàs. Have you been sick again? I said no. Well, you still look ill, son, said Señor Tomàs. You should go to the doctor. We’d started to walk towards his booth. The arcade was still full of people, but Señor Tomàs announced: We’ll close in ten minutes. At that moment I thought I should tell him what I’d told Zarco and Guille and the rest of them at La Font, and what I was starting to suspect about them; only then did I realize that maybe he had suspected it much earlier than me, since the first afternoon Zarco and Tere showed up at the arcade, and that this was precisely why he’d offered to make me his helper. Even so, I didn’t dare confess my suspicions – after all, doing so would have also meant confessing that I’d been with Zarco and the others and in a sense had turned into their accomplice, or at least that I’d said too much – and ten minutes later I helped him close up.
    ‘That same night I had my first fight with my