In Praise of Whores by Ronald Mackay
(Names of places and people have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty alike.)
“Go! Never return!”
Even Branco heard the finality of the Chief Executive Officer’s command. With an affected shrug, he turned, left the offices of La Bodega Futer / Futer’s Winery and heard the door close resolutely.
Sod it! Branco climbed into his truck. I was counting on my racket here lasting for another year...
In the shade of the false pepper trees bordering the vineyard where until five minutes previously he’d held the post of chief agronomist, he shrugged again. Screw him! A meddling Nosey Parker has never held me back. He passed through the wrought iron gates. Screw them all!
Too early to go home, he drove in sunshine through the countryside of sunlit orchards and vineyards to a small farm a dozen miles from San Antón. Better to be on the safe side. Get rid of any incriminating evidence, he decided.
He grew some grapes and olives at the farm, but his revenue came principally from the sale of the rolls of protective netting he’d been pilfering regularly from Bodega Futer.
Easy cash! He smiled with satisfaction.
Hail was a constant threat in this province of Argentina. Many small producers didn’t care where the netting came from if the price was right. Cash changed hands leaving both parties satisfied. The true owner was often none the wiser.
***
Where’s Julio, that hijo de puta? He searched in vain for his employee. The lazy beggar’s not worth even the little I pay him.
“Julio!”
A door opened in the nearest of three crumbling adobe cottages. Out poked a scowling face.
“What the…?” The face disappeared abruptly. A moment later a young man emerged buttoning a crumpled shirt. “You’re early, Don Branco!”
The peevish tone wasn’t lost on his employer. I gotta replace this wastrel.
Julio nursed his own thoughts: What’s he doing here at this time? Can’t a man extend his siesta by an hour or two?
“Load three rolls of hail netting into my truck.” Branco adopted his imperious voice when talking to underlings. For him, most people fell into that category.
Julio reappeared lugging three great rolls of synthetic netting. He dumped them unceremoniously into the bed of his employer’s truck.
Branco covered each with empty plastic sacks. These too, he’d “borrowed” from Bodega Futer.
“Lay heavy branches on top!”
Julio knew full well why the rolls had to be disguised.
Three thousand pesos, to the right buyer. Branco rubbed his hands. But I’ll make a deal for half that sum given the emergency. If Futer comes to check, they’ll find zilch. He was amused at the thought of the CEO driving all the way to Salta de los Geranios to find nothing. Imbeciles! Then he cheered up. At least I had a couple of profitable years before the old fella twigged!
***
Branco had “borrowed” from all three employers he’d worked for since graduating as an agronomist 8 years ago from Mendoza University.
“Depend on a wage only? Not me!” he’d bragged to his wife shortly after they married. “I’ll magic up a little supplement from time to time!”
Over the years, the little supplement had grown from pruning shears worth 50 pesos to items worth hundreds. From Bodega Futer his little supplement had grown to the rolls of netting used to protect vines from hail that plagued the province during the grape-growing season.
Larger vineyards could afford net protection but for smaller producers the cost was prohibitive. Branco learned to tip the delivery driver so that three rolls from each load were deposited into the back of his truck instead of into Futer’s warehouse.
Branco was an expert at the practice of viveza criolla, the art whereby one man defrauds another. Viveza criolla, practised by thousands, guaranteed that Argentina would never prosper though it was almost as big and rich as the US or Canada.
***
“We’re doing well!” Branco’s wife often bragged. “I have a car. We dress the children well. At weekends, we barbecue the best cuts of meat. We even have a building plot in a fashionable district of San Antón.”
“There’s lots more where this comes from!” Branco promise Adriana. “Soon, we’ll build a fine house that neighbours will envy!”
***
Barely two weeks after he’d been fired by Bodega Futer, Branco came home smiling. “Can you believe it, Adriana? My new job comes with free house on the estancia! There’s a swimming pool!”
Adriana and the children were thrilled.
“We’re not supposed to use the pool, but…” Branco shrugged. They all knew what Branco’s shrug meant: “We’ll do as we damn-well please!”
“I’m to be responsible for Estancia Primante’s fruit orchards and vineyards. There’s a cattleman for the Herefords.”
Adriana looked pointedly at her husband.
“No, not just of production,” Branco responded to his wife’s questioning look, “I’m in charge of the harvest and the sale of all fruit and vegetables too!”
Adriana nodded. She knew well that opportunities came not from managing production but from its sale. When money changed hands opportunities presented themselves.
“It gets better!” Branco’s smile grew broader. “The estancia’s owners have moved to the city of Mendoza. He’s ill and won’t get better. One of his sons will visit occasionally to see that all is going well.”
“And you’ll put his mind at rest.”
“It’s what I do best!” Branco and Adriana grinned, knowing how true this was.
***
Branco, Adriana, their three young daughters and their son moved into a dignified white house on the estancia close to the owner’s greater but now empty home.
Branco and his family enjoyed their house. They enjoyed the pool as if it were theirs. They encroached onto the terrace of the empty house and used his quincho to shower and change. At weekends, they used his parrilla to barbecue their steaks.
“This place is ours!” Branco boasted to Adriana. The entire family acted as if the estancia and its facilities were their private fiefdom.
***
During the first harvest, Branco simply pocketed the sales of a quarter of the fruit and vegetable production. Sales were made in cash 9n a country where confidence in the banking system was zero. Cash meant no audit trail other than the records Branco conjured up. Or so Branco believed.
During the second harvest season, with the owner lying at death’s door in Mendoza and his son making the three-hour drive infrequently, Branco grew increasingly daring.
“My new rule is ‘one for them’ and ‘one for us’!” Branco boasted to Adriana.
“Sounds fair to me!” Adriana dreamed of the fine house she would build.
***
Although the owner’s son couldn’t see what Branco was up to, one of the truckers did. He was one of several owner-operators hired to drive grapes to the wineries and fruit to the juice plants.
On each journey, Branco would drive ahead of the truck to the public weigh scale so the driver couldn’t surreptitiously offload produce for cash on the way. Then, armed with the chit from the weigh scale, Branco would lead the truck to the winery or the juice plant and present the chit that established the weight of the truckload that the buyer had to pay for in cash.
“Primante!” Branco would give the name of the estancia to the recorder for the first load. “Pucchini” he would give his own name for the next. And so it would continue, Branco pocketing half the earnings.
Now, Branco had insulted the trucker’s brother-in-law, Vicente. Vicente ran a fruit harvesting crew. He and Branco had met to agree on a price to harvest 45 hectares of Estancia Primante’s early grapes sought by a local bodega for sparkling wine.
Vicente had offered Branco a fair deal. “Starting next Monday, Don Branco, I can harvest all 45 hectares in 20 days for 45c a kilo.”
“Boludo!” ‘Prick’ was his favourite term of insult. “Are you crazy? Come back when you’re ready with a real offer. Boludo!” Abruptly, he’d turned his back on Vicente.
Vicente, comfortable in the knowledge that his crew was in constant demand at harvest time, let Branco swagger off. But with Vicente, Branco had overstepped the mark. Even a modest crew master can take offence at being called a ‘prick’.
Once home, the crew master told his wife. His wife told her brother the trucker. The trucker called his brother-in-law. “Don’t worry, Vicente, I’ll fix him. I’ll show him who the boludo is.”
The trucker spoke to Don Alejandro, the estancia owner’s son. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes, Don Alejandro.” From his pocket, he withdrew a list of the weights of each load of fruit measured at the public scales over the past nine weeks.
Alejandro, a careful man, visited the winery and the juice plants. “I need to check the records,” he told the accountants. Their records confirmed Vicente’s report.
***
“You won’t be needed once harvest’s over,” Alejandro told Branco in an even voice. “I myself am taking over.” He didn’t elaborate. Argentine culture proscribes confrontation.
Wordlessly, he watched his employer’s son get into his truck and begin the long drive back to Mendoza.
***
“Don Alejandro didn’t hire you, Branco, so he can’t fire you,” Adriana rationalised. “His father hired you and his father owns the estancia. Stand your ground!”
“You’re right, Adriana. I should have thought of that myself. Screw Don Alejandro!”
When Alejandro next visited, he found Branco and his entire family still living in the house, enjoying the quincho and the pool.
“You must go.” Don Alejandro spoke with respect.
“I take orders only from your father.”
“My father’s dying.”
“Not my problem,” retorted Branco. “Till your father says otherwise, I stay.”
Alejandro understood people and could spot one who practised viveza criolla. He knew too, that the populist government of Nestor Kirchner was influenced by corrupt labour unions that fought for employees’ rights while ignoring their obligations.
In this country, if a man wants justice he has to manufacture it himself!
***
“Look!” Adriana held up a large white envelope delivered by a courier.
“Open it!” her children chorused. It wasn’t every day a letter arrived let alone a special delivery.
Branco slit the envelope and withdrew a cream-coloured card.
“An invitation!”
“Read it!”
“It says: ‘The Ofrila Family have the pleasure to invite the Señores Pucchini and family to a barbecue at by the swimming pool on Sunday, 15 April.’ It’s signed, ‘Don Alejandro Ofrila.’”
“See, Branco! Adriana was jubilant, “I was right. Don Alejandro’s trying to make amends. He needs you to manage the estancia. This is his way of apologizing for his earlier blunder when the boludo claimed he would take over.”
Branco grinned. “I knew it,” he bragged. “That boludo knows only I can run the estancia. He’s begging me to stay on by offering us a barbecue.”
***
The day of the barbecue arrived. Branco, Adriana their three teenage daughters and twelve-year old son were getting ready for the party.
“Listen!” Another limousine bringing more guests. Laughter and joy could already be heard from the quincho and splashing from the swimming pool
***
Branco waited until he was certain that a sufficient number of guests had arrived so that he, his wife, his daughters and his son could make a grand entrance. Satisfied by the noisy laughter that the audience was now large enough he threw open the doors of his house and led his family to the glittering blue pool around which two score tanned bodies sported joyfully.
“See?” He boasted to his wife. “All for my benefit. You, mi amor, and my tender children are also fortunate to enjoy my triumph. Are we not fortunate that I know how to treat that boludo Don Alejandro? Another year or two like this one and I can retire!
Adriana’s sudden intake of breath made Branco pause. His eyes followed hers. With great enthusiasm, a dozen middle-aged men were pursuing nubile young women who openly flaunted their deliciously pneumatic nakedness. Six pairs of Pucchini family eyes, some for the first time, were treated to bouncing bosoms, bare bottoms and the swelling inelegance of priapic arousal.
It took much exertion on the part of Branco and Adriana to return their enthralled daughters and fascinated son back inside.
***
Calmly, Don Alejandro watched Branco’s truck drive rapidly down the lane between the rows of plane trees his grandfather had planted for shade.
Two birds with one stone! He paused to ponder how intricate the thrust and parry of viveza criolla could become in the hands of a true expert. Knowing that he had successfully delivered the penultimate prick, Alejandro turned on his heel to join his party. Here’s to working women and to the satisfaction they so generously provide!
Finca La Susana, Mendoza
Hail Damage to vineyard, Rama Caida, Nov 2005
Viviana with Cabernet grapes ready for harvesting
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Guanaco in Mendoza, Argentina
Viviana at a large bodega (winery) in Mendoza
Viviana and Ronald - Burns Supper
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Mount Aconcagua, the Andes Mountains, Argentina
