Well, when the two officers arrived to investigate her show of paranoia, I showed them the receipt I’d just been handed as well as the equipment, which was already placed in the bag she gave me. So, how could I know that she was selling me stolen goods? They examined her hand-written receipt carefully and saw with their own, crusty brown eyes that everything was accounted for and that no extraneous materials were included in the bag. That insane, demented old bitch was clearly feeling guilty about her illegal activities and was deflecting the crime upon me with all of her yammering, but her actions had just put the last straw on me with respect to my tolerance for the imbecilic yokels. We had a terrible argument match right in front of the bemused police, who ended up doing nothing, and it degenerated into a screaming match with all the Mexican expletives one could think of at the moment. This, by far, was the closest I got to being discovered for an illegal alien.
I was so overwrought with anger and sadness afterwards that nothing could calm me down. I had taken aspirin already, several Tylenol, and this blue pill that was supposed to knock me out, but my tachycardia was getting worse. I could feel the bile seeping into my blood, I just couldn’t calm down. This undue experience brought my late-great Aunt Carmela (Fulgencio’s mother) to mind. She had reputedly been attacked by her drunken brother, Damiano, and died just from such a condition; her blood sugar shot up and no amount of medication could calm her down, and her heart just pumped away madly until she passed away a month later.
I thought I stood on the precipice of a similar disaster. I kept thinking, how dare that old hag accuse me, after all I had suffered in this country? I could have been exposed to the Federales right then and there!
Damn! All she had yelled at me just left me sleepless that evening. She made me feel like a fucking leech, and put the fear of deportation right back into my gut. I mean, it was an ugly exchange, and, of course, I didn’t miss a chance to scream at her, that she was a “miserable spicko who will wallow in your own filth for the rest of your years!”
I may have left her sleepless as well.
Nevertheless, the wretched exchange inspired me too. I would trudge on despite my doubts. I would realize my goal despite the threats to my safety. Yes, it is finished, practically, between me and Mexico. I want to get out of this country, and the sooner the better. I thought to stay till Christmas, but I felt really fed up by now. I would go on just long enough till things got better for me. I needed to divorce myself from this creeping dementia. It was not a case of my health withering away. I still had enough of my resolve to trudge on and had always to remain on guard against atom-brained street crooks, con-artists, shysters and swindlers, always craftily concocting ways of getting at one’s honestly earned dinero. Damn! was all I could scream regarding these evil demons I felt were lurking about and making it their business to screw with my rotten life, using native simpletons as their agents of damnation. I was in serious shit here, and didn’t know to whom to turn this time around. I could not get over it.
Not 8 days had past since I’d left Durango and traveled through Aguascalientes, and already the people and local environment had sent my soul plunging into the depths of Hell! And, with the heat, 102 degrees and rising, again I was wondering what I could do to forget the pitfalls of this quest of mine that now seemed like a waste of time. These Potosinos finished me off emotionally (or so I thought at the moment), rendering my purpose vile and untouchable. I was so sick to my stomach, always figuratively and now literally, and thought I would vomit on the police.
The next day, Mexican Independence Day preparations were evident throughout the city. I called some local acquaintances, the Aguilars, who I did not know very well, and they couldn’t answer any of my family questions nor even knew who Fulgencio San Roman was, but they invited me to a pleasant luncheon. They were very nice to me, but their conversation left me a bit tearful. They’d recently lost their mother, so they were seeking solace from whomever would give it. I supposed, at the time, that I didn’t mind, but the sight of me offering condolences was pretty mawkish in retrospect. Yes, it was very pleasant but sad as well. Moreover, The pre-celebration activities left me wistful for Old Glory. I missed my country and all of its distractions, most of all on this day of remembrance for patriotic values. My friends were sorry that I was going through such hell with the Federales, and there did not seem to be a way out before I’d accomplished my goal.
Would I survive for a couple more months down here until I’d reached my goal? If they did catch me before doing so, I could ask my cousins back home to help in bringing me back. Even if I were to suffer more confrontations with native officials of any type until this business had been settled, it would have to be better than living in the Hell of failure and self-defeat for the rest of my life. I reflected upon those fears of leaving before I had finished, and they just didn’t make sense anymore. All I wanted was some affirmation. All I wanted was some human vindication. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing ever really mattered.
On a few occasions, I briefly thought to take a bus or train back. Others encouraged me to do so before the Federales caught up with me. If I got back to California, I could re-apply for an extended visa until things got more settled. Hell, I could go on just as I was, get drunk and forget my woes for a spell, cry to the American embassy... anything, so long as I could find closure to this journey and return with vindication in hand. This cat and mouse game I was playing with the Federales and the uncooperative natives, in the streets or on the road, was wearing me thin. I had had enough of the contemptuous attitude and mortal threats that greeted me in almost every city. And yet, I couldn’t be worse off than I was.
I wouldn’t give up till the puzzle had been solved.
INDEFENSIBLE ... IRRESISTIBLE
My stay in San Luis Potosi ended up quiet and without glad recollections. I prepared myself for the journey to Guanajuato, the cradle of my mother’s ancestors. It is also one of the finest colonial architectural treasures in the whole Western Hemisphere. It is also a bastion of Roman Catholicism, even though most of its residents are secretly anti-clerical; this was especially true of my maternal relatives. The bad news for the Church didn’t end with the cases of abuse, and Bernardo was good enough to inform me of the newest developments. Thus, in Guanajuato and elsewhere, the Catholic orders responsible for abusing Mexico’s poorest children whined that they were struggling to come up with funds to help their pathetic dupes. Yet some vituperative sleuthing on the part of anti-clerical groups into their net worth painted a very different picture ~ that of nuns and monks with billions’ worth of carefully sheltered assets worldwide. Jesus! And here I was giving alms to help them!
Mexican government leaders said that week they’d expected the 18 religious orders involved in mistreating children in workhouse-style schools to pay a much greater portion of recompense to 34,000 state-recognized victims. They also exacted from the secretive orders the truth be revealed about their wealth for the first time in face-to-face deliberations with the government, which seemed shocking because of so many anti-church laws on the books. The average folk didn’t like what they were hearing, so they had to ascertain how rich they really are. The government was adamant and determined that they would make an appropriate contribution, but to many it seemed like one crook was demanding an accounting from another.
The pressure followed the previous week’s publication of a ten-year investigation into the widespread sexual, physical and psychological humiliation of children in Church care from the 1920s to the 1990s, when the last of the special schools, reformatories and orphanages had been scrutinized.
Some days before, about half of the 18 orders agreed they would meet with the federal officials. All reiterated excuses along with half-hearted apologies for their part in harming children, but none said they would “donate” more than promised in a 2002 deal with the government that left Mexicans paying practically all of the settlement to conciliate the abuse claims. Under their proviso, the orders received a s
tate indemnity from civil lawsuits by the victims in exchange for a preposterous contribution. Church leaders reluctantly admitted, though not before protesting, they hadn’t given the Mexican government all that money yet, because their earmarked donations were largely in properties they were not supposed to accept, some of which still remained in church hands, and most suffering heavy falls in valuation amid Mexico’s recession.
The orders had ruled out paying more compensation that week, even though the impeachment found them principally to blame and guilty of far greater abuses than they admitted to in past years. Instead, the orders have offered unspecified contributions to a new victims’ compensation fund.
The Conference of Religious Orders in Mexico, an umbrella body, reported the 18 orders were planning a private strategy session in Guanajuato to decide on a common approach to the outstanding claims. Insiders in the global resistance against abuse claims said the orders won’t shed light on their finances voluntarily.
First off, no one could trust anything they said. The claimants needed a champion of abuse victims’ rights. And they had to be prepared to follow up the urging for voluntary donation or contribution with some form of force, which really got the priests and nuns shaking under their cassocks and habits. The Mexican orders had to be forced by a power greater than themselves, and that was the courts and the Mexican government, to make sure the payments for damages come, even to the point of forcibly divesting them of their goods.
The order most deeply implicated in the unfolding scandals, the Christian Brothers, was founded two centuries ago but has spread across the globe. It has the biggest property empire and is vulnerable to exposure to abuse claims ranging from the United States to Canada, Australia and other countries.
The order still owns hundreds of boys’ schools in 20 countries worldwide. But, the Mexican lawyers who expected to win multi-million-dollar sex-abuse cases against the Christian Brothers accuse the brotherhood of making itself appear as destitute as possible by transferring school ownership to individual members, trusts, corporations or offshore bodies ~ just like the rottenest of crooks.
Bernardo commented, “Their assets and how they hold assets is of Byzantine complexity. They have unlimited financial resources to mount litigation, and they have absolutely no shame in doing so.”
I couldn’t agree more. Previously, A bust by Mexican broadcasters (circa 2000) into Christian Brothers’ mounting legal fights world-wide estimated the order’s global property assets, including its Rome headquarters, in excess of billions of dollars.
A spokesman for the Christian Brothers in Mexico estimated the previous month that its approximately 100 schools in Mexico alone are worth billions of pesos.
Last year the order allegedly transferred control of its Mexican school network to a Guadalajara-based trust. The same priests insisted the trust was designed to defend the long-term credibility of the order’s schools, not protect the order from lawsuits. They further insisted the order was ready to relinquish Mexican assets but was struggling financially to care for its 300 mostly elderly brothers in Mexico. Other apologists came forth to say the order would try to beg more money to placate the victims, but weren’t sure that was feasible. At this point in time, I didn’t believe they could either.
Still others commented that the Christian Brothers often sought to negate their hold over particularly fat assets that could be handed over to, or awarded, in any judgment in favor of the aggrieved.
Nothing of this surprised me, it’s what corporations do when they feel like they’re in deep shit. The question was whether it was lawful.
I spoke later on with a local journalist who really hated the Church and had exposed church abuse cover-ups in Mexico, and he said Christian Brothers’ leaders in Australia and Canada behaved the same way during 1990s abuse scandals in those countries as they were doing now in Mexico.
None of this made much sense to me. They denied the abuse, accused the victims of lying, and set about ensuring that their assets were protected from survivors and lawsuits by either creating trusts or splitting various schools and assets away from central control, and still acted as though they were innocent and beyond judgment.
Disgraceful, like Nicolas would say, just disgraceful!
Other Church orders, like the Legion of Christ founded by the pederastic priest Marcial Maciel, exposed as serial abusers have big footprints overseas. Others, like the Sisters of Mercy who run scores of girls’ schools in Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, have ruined a few lives in Mexico as well. The Sisters of Mercy also own key hospitals in Mexico.
Their nuns were identified as serial abusers of girls, chiefly in the form of beatings and humiliation rather than molestation. Like the Christian Brothers, they have vowed to cooperate with the Mexican government, but made no promises to give more money for victims.
The Mexican Press urged the government to go harder after the orders, which was not surprising considering their liberal leanings.
Many journalists agreed with me that their foolish and self-serving efforts to guard their greedy interests were rapidly aggravating whatever little support they had. This is how institutions perish. The gross imbalance which left the hapless people paying 90 percent is indefensible ... yet following the scandals was so irresistible.
Some victims want the government to hold a national referendum to amend Mexico’s constitution, which is already very hostile to the Church, so it would permit seizures of church money and property.
Some people couldn’t wait to divulge their own experiences with brutal monks and cruel nuns. A certain Gabriel Cisneros, 72, I’d spoken to confided that he’d been separated from his seven brothers, sisters and cousins when they were placed in separate church-run residences in the 1940s. He suffered repeated rapes and beatings from age 8 onward in an industrial school run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate order in a town of Oaxaca.
Cisneros electrified many viewers that week by denouncing a government minister on live television, detailing the degradations and terror he endured as a boy and demanding a constitutional crackdown on church rapacity. He exclaimed, “Don’t say you can’t change it! You are the government of this state. You run this state. So, for God’s sake, stop cagando el palo (shitting the stick) because I am sick of it! All of Mexico is sick of it!”
Well, the week ended on a sizzling note, and I would have plenty to fret over while I made for Guanajuato. Poor Mexico, I thought. If this sad country didn’t have enough to worry about, now the Church, their only spiritual solace, was eroding about their knees as the faithful genuflected to receive communion or a blessing from the very men who’d soiled their hands with the blood or sexual excretions of their victims!
... Disgraceful! Just, disgraceful!
A SEASON OF EVIL AND HATE
After inquiring of the local cinema museum about the works of Fulgencio San Roman, I was privileged to attend a late night viewing of Memories of Ghosts to Come, which proved quite prescient considering the unfolding church scandals.
Once going about the town and exploring the mystical charms of Guanajuato, which seemed more like some Renaissance town in Italy or Spain, the glaring paradox of the place standing as a metonym for the whole country somehow made sense for the first time since my arrival several moons before. I then hunkered down to catch up on my journal and iron out the riddles that withheld my comprehension from the resolution I sought. I don’t know, but with everything that was going on, the infinite distractions served the very essence of abstraction. I had to trudge on in a season of doubt and anxiety. I would conclude this during a season of evil and hate.
First, all that I was going through, Jesus Christ!
And now, what? Malcontents decide they want to set the house ablaze, figuratively speaking? Mexico was the edifice that would be consumed in the inferno. Specifically, today, this morning, the 13th of September, I woke up and felt like it was going to be a fabulous day, but I noticed that others were looking at
me suspiciously (actually for a couple of days now, especially after I’d interact with the natives, express my conclusions about what was going on, and related my needs to them). I couldn’t pay much mind to them. Nevertheless, these ignorant wretches have been harboring suspicions about all strangers, and they probably thought I was a drug smuggler or something like that. I couldn’t let these yokels impede my way, so I went straight for the ancestral home of the Riveras on Pocitos Street. It was quite a homecoming, and an eerie one at that. Things would never be the same afterwards.
I knocked on the rustic door, and a maid with Indian hair-locks opened and meekly presented me to Micaela Rivera, a great aunt of my mother. She was very gracious and curious about my particular branch of the family. She hardly remembered my mother, but knew very well how I fit into the family tree. She invited me to an old fashioned Spanish breakfast, and after we’d sat down to eat, her son and daughter entered. After we’d exchanged pleasantries, they excused themselves and went ahead, almost in cold blood and right before my eyes, and accused their mother of stealing. Yes! of charging many of their property’s expenses to the family account. Aunt Micaela cried, and complained that after scrupulously managing the tenuous account all this time without touching it, they should come forth with such a spurious accusation. The fact that the others were always complaining and crying about how their mother withheld money from even herself should have been proof enough that she was not guilty of malfeasance, let alone stealing by charging expensive stuff to the damned account. Only a prisoner who has no freedom or can’t do anything to help him/herself, as I saw it, is always complaining and crying. My distant cousins regarded themselves as prisoners. Furthermore, I was later to find out that she still had over $4 Million Pesos in her private account, acquired from the dowry she kept after her husband Rodrigo had died. She had every right therefore to buy anything she wanted, with or without the approval of her ungrateful children.
A Wetback in Reverse Page 35
