The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

The “shocking case of teenage fanaticism” (100) involving 16-year-old Julieta and 17-year-old Mariela quickly becomes international news. Reporters camp outside their families’ houses and the psychiatric clinic where the girls are being treated, but no one will speak to them. In the absence of comments from the girls or their families, the media is consumed by “an extreme hysteria” (100), and newspapers, tabloids, and talk shows discuss nothing else.

Julieta and Mariela were fans of Santiago Espina, an Argentinian rockstar with legions of both “worshipers” and “detractors.” After his second album, Meat, was a runaway success in Argentina, his label began considering an international release and promo tour; however, Espina disappeared just days before his first sold-out show in Buenos Aires. His fans, most of whom were teenage girls, were devastated and gathered publicly to mourn and create monuments “as if praying to a moribund god” (100).

Eventually, Espina’s body was found in a hotel room near the Once train station in Buenos Aires. He had skinned his own arms, legs, and stomach, then slit his throat. He left a note reading: “Meat is food. Meat is death. You all know what the future holds” (101). The air conditioning was on full blast, making the place feel like “a walk-in freezer” (101). The nation braced for “an epidemic of teenage suicides” (102), but Espina’s fans, “Espinosas” as they were known, largely went back to their lives, listening “to Meat as their idol’s last will and testament” (102). However, two of Espina’s fans were obsessing over their idol’s suicide note as they played Meat over and over.

Mariela was one of Espina’s early fans, following him around the city for a year to see all his shows. She was a familiar face at his concerts, and Espina would sometimes offer her a small token, even though he rarely addressed his fans. One night, in a club bathroom, Mariela met Julieta, who was famous among Espinosas for tattooing the star’s name on her neck. The girls were neighbors, and their idol’s death brought them together. They began to look so much alike that the caretaker who caught them trying to climb over the cemetery wall thought they were twins. The girls were “dazed” when the caretaker found them. He asked for their parents’ phone numbers, but when he saw they were covered in dirt and blood, he called the police instead.

The girls had snuck into the cemetery, exhumed Espino’s body, and “[fed] on Espina’s remains with devotion and disgust” (104). The girls were then taken to a private clinic. They just whispered to one another and held hands the whole way. No one would speak to the press. Espina’s mother was “overloaded on tranquilizers” (104), his band members were “disgusted” and “in shock,” and the girls and their families remained silent. The media interviewed other Espinosas and invited them to roundtable discussions. They mostly answered in monosyllables or giggles, but one girl sobbed and shouted that she was jealous of Mariela and Julieta, who “were closer to Espina than any of the rest of them” (105).

When Mariela and Julieta returned home, their families kept them home from school and did not allow them to speak to one another. Many of their neighbors moved away, frightened of “[t]he girls’ smiles, frozen on their TV screens and on front pages of newspapers” (106). However, all across Argentina, Espinosas began to receive mysterious emails. Everyone assumed they were from Mariela and Julieta, although there was no proof. Soon, the two girls would be 18 and would be able to do what they liked. The emails spoke of “an unstoppable underground cult, about They Who Have Espina in their bodies” (106), and the other girls waited eagerly for this day. They played Meat over and over, lingering on the last song, where Espina sings, “If you are hungry, eat of my flesh. If you are thirsty, drink from my eyes” (106).

The female narrator makes friends with Nico the “summer when all [her] other friends decided to become assholes” (107). Both are nocturnal, and they bond by conversing in chat rooms late at night. Soon, they begin meeting up in bars, where they “sip [their] whiskeys slowly and criticize everyone else” (108). Nico has dropped out of film school, but he has saved enough money to buy a camera of his own and places an ad in the paper offering his services for “weird film projects” (108). Sure enough, “weird or disturbed people” begin to seek him out (108).

Once Nico has completed the first few projects, he invites the narrator over to watch the videos. He smokes continually, and the narrator smokes almost as much, despite her attempts to cut back. She has given up on most of her attempts to get her life together and struggles “to meet goals as simple as sleeping at night and eating at least twice a day” (108). Most of Nico’s videos portray couples who hired him to be their private “porn director.” Another man hired him to film women in high heels walking down “specific” city streets. The next film is a tour of the city for a phobic girl who couldn’t leave her house. Nico calls the last one “the most interesting one” (110): A man hired him to film blond girls between the ages of six and 12. Nico went to a playground where he “stealthily” filmed children playing; however, when he gave the work to his client, the man was dissatisfied, telling Nico after some hesitation, “that the video didn’t have enough skin” (110). Nico tried again, this time visiting a pool that was holding a swim class for young girls. He tells the narrator that the man was so pleased with his work that he paid him double, plus an extra tip.

One day, a woman invites Nico over to discuss a job that is different from the “erotic videos” he usually films. The woman’s daughter, Marcela, suffers from hallucinations. All treatments have failed, and the girl refuses to accept that her hallucinations aren’t real. Her parents want to hire Nico to film her during one of her episodes to prove to the girl that she is alone. Nico agrees, and Marcela’s mother escorts him upstairs to meet her daughter. Marcela is dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, and her head is shaved to prevent her from tearing out her own hair. She smiles at Nico, telling him that her hallucinations are real and she “never [lies].” As she approaches, he notices her hands “[stink] of vaginal fluids, blood, sex, dead fish rotting in the sun” (112).

Nico and the narrator are fascinated by Marcela. They spend the day trying to piece together clues about Marcela’s mysterious illness, and when the mother calls, Nico goes alone to Marcela’s house while the narrator waits anxiously. Afterward, they watch the footage together as the girl, naked and covered in scars, masturbates compulsively, then goes to sleep. Although the episode ends, Nico’s tape continues, showing a half-hour-long “filmed tour of Marcela’s naked body” (115), which takes in her many scars but also her beauty. He explains that he cut that part of the tape before delivering the film to her parents. There is no sign of “the thing” that Marcela claims to see, and Nico is somewhat disappointed.

Marcela refuses to accept that Nico’s tape is true and insists that he film her again. Her mother tells Nico they cannot afford another session, but he offers to do the work for free. The next time he visits, Marcela’s father receives him. He tells Nico that his daughter “always had a lot of imagination” (116), but she was a normal child until the hallucinations started. Nico notices how Marcela’s parents treat her episodes like “a minor problem,” never explicitly discussing “the mutilations or the masturbation” (116). The second video is similar to the first, ending with a long exploration of Marcela’s body and failing to capture any sign of what is haunting her.

After the second video, Marcela asks to see Nico. She tells him that she thought Nico was the “chosen one” who would be able to see what she saw, and she is disappointed to be wrong. She also wants to see the videos he took of her while she was sleeping because she has “never seen [her] body” (118). This request surprises and unsettles Nico, but Marcela assures him she isn’t upset that he recorded her. Nico wonders how she doesn’t look at herself when she cuts herself, but she insists that “[he] cuts [her]” while she is sleeping. Nico leaves, sure he will not give Marcela the video. He and the narrator stop discussing Marcela, but they continue to sense her “between [them], naked and ravaged” (118), and they begin spending less time together. The narrator suspects that Nico fell in love with Marcela. When she asks him if he kept the videos of her, he admits that he did, but he assures her that he plans to throw them away. She doesn’t know if he follows through.