Welcome to the discussion of the fifth story in Things We Lost in the Fire short story collection and another tough read. If you read it, you know this includes sensitive topics, such as murder, child abuse, torture, drug use and will be described below.

Summary:

Pablo is a tour guide running a bilingual "murder" tour in Buenos Aires in 2014. He is happy with his new subject after moving on from Art Nouveau, despite not getting a promotion or larger salary. He closely studied the ten murders included on the tour, such as Emilia Basil and Yiya Murano, and was not bothered by the subject, until he has a vision of Cayetano Santos Godino on his tour bus. The namesake of the story, also called the "Big-Eared Runt", is one of the most famous killers on the tour. He only killed animals and small children, being himself young and illiterate. He died in 1944 at the Ushuaia prison. Only Pablo sees his apparition. Pablo wonders if his vision appears to him because he and his wife just had a new baby and Godino only killed children.

As part of Godino's story, we learn his older brother died at only 10 months old in Calabria, Italy before the family immigrated to Argentina, and obsessed him to the point that he wanted to recreate the burial. At his interrogation by the police, we learn about the first victim, Ana Neri, a toddler, who grows up in a tenement area for newly arrived European immigrants that no longer exists, where children roamed from an early age. Godino is 9 when he hits her with a rock and tried to bury her but was stopped by the police, who believed his story that he was trying to save her. In 1908, Godino drops out of school and possibly has epilepsy, He brings Severino Gonzalez to a vacant lot and tries to drown him and cover him in a water trough. Again, he is stopped by the police and again, his lie of helping the child is believed. On September 15th, he attacks another toddler, Julio Botte, who he finds in a doorway, and burns his eyelids with his cigarette. His parents turn him over to the police two months later.

In December, Godino is sent to a juvenile detention center in Marcos Paz, where he throws cats and boots in steaming pots in the kitchen and learns a little writing. He serves 3 years and is released with a stronger desire to kill. This is where Pablo usually ends the tour, with a dialogue from the police interrogation, which he reads out loud, feeling uncomfortable in the presence of Godino's ghost. The last part of the dialogue reads "-Why did you kill the children? -Because I liked it" and makes the passengers of the tour most uncomfortable. They are happy when the tour moves to a different murder, one that makes more "sense".

Pablo does not share his vision with either his colleagues or his wife. He is saddened that he can no longer tell her anything, like he could two years ago, before the baby was born. His son is called Joaquin and is 6 months old. Pablo feels like his son doesn't pay attention to him and thinks he loves him but isn't sure. What he does know is that his wife has changed. Her personality is overprotective, obsessive; Pablo wonders if she has postpartum depression. She only is interested in talking about the baby and doesn't listen to him anymore or have sex with him. The baby sleeps in the couple's room, despite having a nursery, because his wife is worried about SIDS. Pablo reminisces on the fun things they used to do, like climb mountains and do mushrooms. He can't remember why they decided to have a baby. The only subject that gets her attention, besides the baby, is the Big-Eared Runt. She claims Pablo is obsessed with him. After Pablo tells her about the Runt's fascination with fire, she forbids him to talk about his at home for any reason and locks herself in the bedroom with the baby, leaving Pablo alone.

The story that Pablo tells about Godino and fire is the case of 5-year-old Reina Bonita Vainikoff, a Latvian Jewish immigrant, who Godino attacks on March 7, 1912, by lighting her new dress on fire. Her grandfather is across the street and sees it happen. In his haste to reach her and save her, he is run over crossing the street. Reina Bonita dies an agonizing 16 days later from her burns. But her death wasn't Pablo's favorite. It was the case of Jesualdo Godino, a three-year old who is taken into a vacant lot and strangled with a rope, wound 13 times around his neck. Despite struggling to get free, Godino succeeds in strangling him and covering his body in metal sheeting. But something is bothering him, and Godino returns to scene of the crime to drive a nail into his skull. He later attends his wake and also his autopsy, where Jesualdo's father points him out. The Runt spits on the dead body and is found by the medical examiners to have an erection. Godino is 16 at this time. Pablo likes telling this story as the audience is most shocked by it. Although they are uncomfortable, they never ask him to end the story.

Pablo can't tell this last story to his wife; she begins to talk about moving to a bigger house and complains that Pablo doesn't make enough money. Pablo gets mad and tells her to work more if she wants more money. She yells at him that she has to take care of the baby and insults Pablo's mother as crazy. Pablo leaves the apartment to smoke.

The next day Pablo sees his ghost again, holding the rope he used to strangle Jesualdo, when the tour reaches the house of Arturo Laurora, on the Calle Pavon. He is the Runt's oldest victim, found strangled with his own shirt in an abandoned house. He is not raped but is found not wearing pants. At this story, the Runt's ghost disappears in smoke.

Someone asks a question about whether the Runt had driven a nail in any other victim, which he did not, but could have become a trademark of his murders. The nail obsesses Pablo when he returns home, reminiscing on memories of his math teach in school and his mother's tongue twister. He is revolted by the look of his house, with traces of the baby everywhere. He finds his wife and baby sleeping in their bed. He goes to the empty nursery and finds a nail that would have been used to hang a mobile of stars for the baby. He decides to keep it his pocket as a prop for the Jesualdo murder and falls asleep on the living room sofa with the nail in his hand.

Join us for the next story, "Spiderweb" on December 11, when u/Username_Of_Chaos will be leading the discussion.

On to the questions below!