MEXICO HAS ENERGY TO BURN
says my mom to my dad the afternoon of my conception: those who were displaced to the hidden lands — points out my mother from the water — behind the mountains where no offended tourist could see them, much less hear them and much less smell them, found that the promises of new homes were just words: they were screwed perfectly by being sent from the mountains facing the sea to a swamp called Florida City because the only thing there was a cesspool with no electricity, plumbing, or roof, just some piles of lumber and prefab Sheetrock, which turned out to have been bought by the municipal president of Acapulco from the company of a brother-in-law who was cousin to the governor, who sat next to Minister Ulises López in school, who was owner of the aforementioned cement factory, uncle of the administrator of the aforementioned cesspool, may God keep him in the cabinet of our incumbent President Jesús María y José Paredes, and who will, God willing (the important people in Kickapulco support this) (moral support, you understand), within fewer than four years comply with the huge revolutionary responsibility of naming his successor, do it in favor of, please, svp, come on now, prego, the aforementioned Don Ulises López, preferred and proffered son (prefabricated they say over behind the mountains in Florida City) of the Costa Chica of Guerrero, where I am taking a nice bath right now, where I sense, knowing, do you know? throbbing, throbbing me, that the coral and the jellyfish surround me outside my mom’s belly (thanks, Mother, for taking me in when my father fired me out of his pistol, I suspect that just for having done it, most belovèd protectress, I will always love you more than I love him, but nyahh!).
They say that the mayor of Tearapulco, Dr. Noel Guridi, received the gift of thirty coyotes trained by the governor of the state of Guerrero, General Vicente Alcocer, and he told him, don’t be afraid, you’ve got to work over these rebels, you understand me, work them over.
And the trained coyotes went out at night with their tongues and eyes irritated and burning, bonfires of smoke and blood in their eyes and snouts, the coyotes went out to do some working over, went out with their bodies covered with mangy fur and their muddy claws on the necks of the old and dying, on the necks of the sick and the helpless, whether they were cooling off on the mountains, groaning on their pallets, creaking motionless in their huts. They were the last rebels to remain scratching the mountains with a view of the sea and the bay: the sea and the bay belong to the jet set, not to the squatters, said Governor Vicente Alcocer as he stared at his photo in Paris-Match.
The boy with the long face and the long snout, like that of a plumed coyote, stands up stiff and tall like a banderilla in the center of the dried-out palm grove on the heights of the old communal lands of Santa Cruz, his yellow eyes wide open. He waits patiently for what must come: the dark eyes, the wet muzzles, the copper-dust-colored fur — the nervous howls — the giggles, the animals that laugh, waiting for the full moon: he waits for them with the patience of a brother, shedding his skin, as if the time and anguish of the wait had torn him apart both inside and outside.
The boy with the ragged suit and the snakeskin belt closes his eyes when the full moon appears, so that he can be seen without having to see them: he knows he should not look directly at them, they hypnotize, they misinterpret the stares of others and their own stares are easy to misunderstand: the coyotes believe in nonexistent challenges, or they communicate them.
He closes his eyes and smells them, he sweating and they sweating. They have gathered in a circle, as if they were having a conference. They fall silent. They listen to their leader, who is always the oldest animal. The others imitate him, will imitate him. The boy with long, greasy curls only knows that the coyote is a cowardly animal and that’s why it never comes close to people.
He opens his eyes. He offers them a hand filled with corn fungus. The coyotes come closer. It’s a new moon, and the boy howls. The pack approaches him and eats the corn mushrooms out of his hand. The boy feels their wet muzzles in his open palm, he pets their copper-dust-colored fur, finally looking into their dark eyes.
He takes an old-fashioned car horn out of his pocket and squeezes it: the honks at first scatter the pack, making them walk in nervous circles, until the pack leader identifies the noise with the boy, and the others follow suit.
“A coyote is just as capable of attacking the oppressed as is the oppressor. Give them music, not beatings.”
He tells the people hidden behind the mountains where no one can ever see them, give them food, stop them from being afraid of you, play the jukebox for them, so they won’t be so scared, then take them down to the town so they won’t be afraid of cars, get them used to the noise of the port, the smell of the tourists, one day let one go into a hotel lobby and see what happens …
Desperate, I cling to my mother’s oviduct.
2. The Holy Family
The traditions of all past generations weigh like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
1. Later my father and mother emerge from the sea
Later my father and mother emerge from the sea and put their ears to the sand as if to listen for something far off, to listen through walls, depths, to listen for the earthquakes that are coming, to listen for the growth of the grass and the creaking of the graveyards, the noise El Niño makes moving over the sea and the trot of the coyotes coming down the mountains.
I’ve been hearing noises since the beginning — they resound. I dream that: wherever I am I shall be covered, masked, but still resounding, hearing, dreaming, perhaps one day I shall be listened to, but for now I only listen, listening to them through my prenatal filters, like this:
“This is my second question: what will the boy’s name be?”
“Christopher.”
“Don’t be a jerk. I already know that: What else? Which last names!
“Palomar.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know what your other names are. I named you Angeles. Angel and Angeles sound good.”