Contrerasâs son. I donât want to be Manuel Contrerasâs father too. Better yet, let it be a girl.
(10)Â Â This is not me talking. Someone is talking for me. Someone who is faking my voice. My father will die soon. The person faking my voice knows this, and doesnât care.
(11)Â Â Maybe by the time the book this fucking voice faker is writing gets published, my father will be dead. And people will think that there is something true in what my fake voice says. Even though it isnât my voice. Though I would never really say what Iâm saying now. Though no one has the right to speak for me. To make a fool of me. How easy it is to laugh at me. To blame me, to feel sorry for me. It has no literary merit.
(12)Â Â Clap for the writer, how ingenious. Clapping for him the way you have to clap for that kind of person. But clap him right in the face, with both hands, until you canât tell anymore where the blood is coming from.
(13)Â Â Now heâs saying that I give orders, that I know how to torture. That Iâm a chip off the old block. Now he says Iâm telling you to stick a pitchfork up his ass.
(14)Â Â Now heâs saying I donât have the right to challenge my destiny. That Iâm one of the walking dead. That Iâm saying things Iâm not saying. That I even thank him for saying them for me. Now heâs searching for words to tattoo on my chest using the biggest drill he has.
A)Â Â None
B)Â Â 9
C)Â Â 10, 11, and 12
D)Â Â 13 and 14
E)Â Â 14
65.
(1)Â Â With the money he won in the lottery, the old man decided to fulfill his lifelong dream, but since his lifelong dream had been to win the lottery, he didnât know what to do. In the meantime, he bought himself a Peugeot 505 and hired me to drive it.
(2)Â Â I went to pick him up one Saturday, and the plan was to hit the racetrack, but he was watching
Sábado Gigante
on TV and didnât feel like going out. He handed me a beer, and together we watched the segment âSo You Think You Know Chile?â Don Francisco was traveling through Ancud and Castro, interviewing people who lived in some stilt houses, helping to cook a
curanto,
making a lot of effort to tug a Chilote wool cap over his extra-large head.
(3)Â Â âThatâs what weâll do,â he told me, like heâd had a revelation: âWeâre going to tour Chile in the new car.â I asked him why not travel the whole world, like Don Francisco himself in âThe Spotlight Abroad.â He replied that before seeing the world, one had to really see oneâs own country. I asked him where we would start, in the north or the south. âIn the north, man, the north. What do you mean where do we start? This shit goes north to south.â
(4)Â Â His opinion at the end of the trip: âChile is a beautiful country. People are always complaining about the lack of freedom and the dictatorship and all that, but they donât realize that Chile is a beautiful country.â
(5)Â Â I liked seeing my country too, but I donât remember that much. I drove like a zombie, to the beat of the old manâs terrifying snores. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, Iâd see the glint of drool in his open mouth. When he was awake, he didnât like to listen to music, just some cassettes with jokes by Coco Legrand. I came to hate Coco Legrandâhis jokes, his voice, everything.
(6)Â Â I remember the cold near Los Vilos, where I smoked alone on the side of the road while five meters away, in the backseat of the car, the old man fondled two sad, big-titted whores. I remember when I woke him up on the beach at Cavancha and he thought I was a mugger. In Pelluhue a giant wave almost swallowed him, and I had to dive into the water in my underwear to save him. In Pichilemu he started to scold two pot smokers who were pacifists but still wanted to kick his ass. I also had to