The Marriage of the Fox

That’s what they call it here when it’s raining and the sun is shining like it was today. It makes me laugh because Raposa, which means fox in Portuguese, is the last name of the mayor up for re-election in Barcelos, the town closest to me where I pick up the fishermen when they start coming in. with a last name like that, you’d expect him to be cunning and sly, a perfect name for a politician, but from what I know of him and my own dealings with him, the name doesn’t quite suit him because he seems to be a fairly honest man, as honest as a man can be in his position, though his son is quite a different matter.
If anyone in town can be considered my rival, it would be he, though I spend more time in his father’s town than he does. He spends a good deal of his time in the city where he can spend a good portion of his father’s money more freely. Only on two occasions have I made his acquaintance, and instinctively I had a dislike for him. I year after our first meeting, I was to know why.
Many would have thought us quite similar, but only in costume are we alike, that and our fathers are both well known in the area. He is of the privileged sort that have never worked a real job, and once he is out of school, his father’s influence will find him a good position that would be hard to fuck up. For this I have no reason to dislike him, but the ground on which my instinctual dislike turned into hate, are too much. If ever I make his acquaintance for a third time, I may have to flee town for I doubt the mayor, if he still is the mayor at such a time, would take kindly to me laying his son out on the sidewalk. Even knowing the consequence would not be enough to keep myself in check.
But why such violence? Well, it happened while I was away for Christmas. The mayor’s son was back in town visiting his father, and became reacquainted with the girl I was with at the time, and had been with for a year and a half, and of course he fucked her. If he had been a serious rival, I wouldn’t have minded as much, but rather it was a caprice. He had a girlfriend at the time, one he is still with, so of course it meant nothing to him.
On the second time of our acquaintance, six months from the first, had I known this, I would have done more than just knock him down, as my tempered desire for satisfaction now requires. No, I only found out several months ago from a friend I thoroughly trust.
And the girl? I do not hate her, as some think I should, for her weakness. She’s still a child at twenty, though she imagines herself more mature. No, I don’t hate her, but am indifferent to her. She closed that door, that will never be opened again.
I saw her last weekend briefly. She found me because I sure as hell wasn’t going after her, and it’s easy to tell when I’m in town, everyone seems to know within half an hour. She held my hand with a certain tenderness like there was still something between us and maybe…
And I? Hardly looked at her, and didn’t say goodbye when she left twenty seconds later. As I write this, a box of her stuff, that she left in my room when we were still making plans together over 6 months ago, lies across the room, the things I packed up yesterday to send to her. That’s it. The end. I’ll have someone drop off the box, and let it end at that.