Hector Baley and the sleep

...For fatidical or -some say- obscurely announced reasons, the day 19 of .... of 1979, the goalkeeper Hector Baley made two big mistakes during the match in which his team Independiente played Vélez Sarsfield, at the Vélez home: the José Amalfitani Stadium, because the night breeze was pregnant of gargoyles and venomous cheese:

in the 19th minute of the game, an unexpected and long shot was ejected by the right foot of the Vélez player Pedro Larraquy from the center of the field, directly to the goal

the ball traveled trough the oxygen of the night, and drawing a rare, neverending parabola in the air, like a soft missile, entered easily the goal, which was completely undefended, because Baley was absent minded arguing with a group of fans who insulted him with racist slurs.


The roar of the stadium made Baley turn his back with despair: the white Pintier was into his goal, and a group of Vélez players celebrated close to a corner in delirious human pile.



There was another terrible error made by Baley that night, which we wouldn't mention in these lines

an error of professional negligence

Vélez won the match by a score which we wouldn't mention, in these lines.





The Independiente fans were seriously annoyed, we'd dare say indignant with all these Baley's inattentions

inattentions that, in the heat of the moment, the Ind'te fans deemed crimes

after the showers, going to the bus to leave the stadium, Baley and the rest of the Ind'te players had to be scorted by the police, to avoid incidents tete-a-tete with fans who already claimed for heads to bite the dust for this humiliation.









That night, in his sleep, Hector Rodolfo Baley dreamed of roaring stadiums

of white Pintier balls flying high, higher and higher

of empty goals with no keepers, of absurd goals


he dreamed of red eyes and angry throats
of insults and affronts, fair or not.




In his nocternal vision Baley saw a group of Independiente fans coming for him, taking him out of his own bed, and pushing him to fall into a huge pot

a pot replete of haggis or stew, a pot


an Anglo-Saxon Pot-Inferno where Héctor Baley hadn't any accent on the "e":
an English Hell for negligent goalkeepers



a horrid, a replenished, a brown, a municipal, a disgusting pot, immense the pot

immense, immense like the life itself, like the black and interminable oxygen of the night.






In the middle of shouts, furious eyeballs, slaps in the face and offenses Baley was pushed more and more to the pot that night
at the edge, about to fall Hector Baley into a rotting pot, huge, neverending the pot for Hector Baley

immense, immense like the death itself, like the black and interminable asphyxia of the night.