by Mark Fishman
Coyuco was tied up, not a cord but Flex-Cuffs, the plastic stuff the army and police use nowadays, or just plain rough rope binding his wrists but not his ankles—you can walk around but I don’t want you guys jerking off or getting yourselves into trouble—pacing the room where he was held with almost thirty others, not much air and what there was of it he couldn’t breathe, it was the piss and shit from nerves, students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa, evacuating what’d turned liquid in their guts, a real scare that emptied the bowels, bladders letting go in a closed room like a big cell, or a garage, José Ángel, a voice of experience on account of his age, a father of two, sitting on a dry spot on the concrete floor, his back against the wall, and José Ángel, take it easy, ’mano, we don’t know what they’ve got in mind for us yet, but thinking to himself, we’ll never get out of here alive, no more wife and kids for me, José Ángel calling him brother after what they’d been through, keeping a steady gaze, Coyuco looking at José Ángel, giving him a if-you-weren’t-here-to-give-me-a-little-confidence- I-don’t-know-what-I’d-do smile, a forced smile, but a smile just the same, a look of appreciation, really, and José Ángel, a song’ll bring you out of it, compa, remember on the bus, you were listening, hearing music, I could see it in your eyes, and it’s the time for something to get you out of the fear you’re in, I do it myself, I’ll do it myself, Coyuco hearing a canción-vals written by Marco Antonio Velasco, “Jardín de las flores,” Flaco Jiménez playing a 3-row button accordion, Max Baca, Jr. on bajo sexto, the words swaying in triple time in Coyuco’s heart, Flor de las flores, flor de una flor, bien de mi vida, dame tu amor, “Flower of the flowers, flower of a flower, love of my life, give me your love,” Coyuco, not knowing what José Ángel was hearing in his head, José Ángel, no longer a steady gaze, not quite a look of relief on his face, eyes glazed by melancholy, or a kind of dreaminess, maybe a tear forming in the corner of an eye, his eyes, they were moist, both of them, Coyuco could see José Ángel’s eyes in the glaring light, fluorescent tube lighting above them, eyes saying, what you see is where you are and where you are is nowhere, mis amigos, José Ángel, feeling a pair of sympathetic eyes looking down at him, turning his head, looking up at Coyuco, and José Ángel, Las Jilguerillas, Coyuco, that’s who I’m listening to in my head, Amparo and Imelda Higuera Juárez singing “Una Palomita,” by Felipe Valdés Leal and Ramón Ortega, accompanied by Los Alegres de Terán, can you hear it? a short song, but tears to my eyes, ’mano, a sad waltz:
Una palomita que tenía
Su nido en un verde naranjo
Lo dejo solito porque su palomo
La estaba engañando
Yo y esa paloma sentimos iguales
Los mismos pesares
Con lágrimas mias y lágrimas de ella
Llenamos los mares
Hay palomita
Como le vamos hacer
Si a ti te hirió tu palomo
Y a mi me hirió su querer.
What do you say, a killer, isn’t it, a heartbreaker, and Los Alegres de Terán, I know you love them, because I remember everything people tell me, but this song, “Una Palomita,” algo especial, it’s something special, and it’s burning a hole through my heart, and Coyuco Cisneros, a wound for the rest of our lives, mi maestro, and that’s if we live through this, but who can tell? and in the closed room like a big cell, an empty garage, fluorescent tube lighting above them, it was hard to see what the roof was made of, and the impression of a great stain of gold hanging on the horizon, even if they couldn’t see beyond the concrete floor and walls, no windows, and for a moment, a breath of fresh air, imagined not real, but it was giving way slowly as storm clouds rose in tin plumes, surrounded by whirling orange-colored veils veiling the stain of gold that might’ve been the sun if they could see it, but it was night and the students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa with their piss and shit, a real scare that emptied the bladders and bowels, no matter what song any one of them was hearing in their head, what remained was just a stain, not the sun, and the stench of a filled-to-capacity closed room like a reinforced-concrete hangar, but a lot smaller than a hangar, more like a garage, a stainless steel security door rolled down, sandwich steel panels with foamed-in-place chlorofluorocarbon-free polyurethane core and surrounding seals, U-form bottom seals, keeping out freezing air, humidity and water, and shutting them in good and tight, maybe automatic, maybe not, José Ángel and Coyuco, a silent where-the-fuck-are-we? you can dream up what you want to but here we are and here we’ll stay, the music to soothe them evaporating, long gone and nothing left, faded solace, and José Ángel and Coyuco Cisneros, at the same time with a single voice, that was quick! it was a thick solid iron door only wide enough to let one man in at a time, single file, that kept them confined in a cramped room.
Coyuco and his father, Ernesto, on the same wavelength, communicating thoughts, from the living to the almost dead, and so a little wrestling in Coyuco’s mind, as the others fell asleep, even José Ángel, a normalista, he was tipped forward like a sack of flour, head resting on his raised knees, not snoring but asleep, exhausted, and the other students, too, but Coyuco and El Santo, a team, Coyuco replaying Santo contra las bestias del terror, or Santo in Atacan las brujas, he liked it for the women, Ofilia the blonde, Elisa the brunette, and for Santo’s courage, but most likely seeing Santo contra cerebro del mal by Joselito Rodríguez, made in Cuba in 1959, the first appearance of El Santo in movies, not called Santo in Cerebro del mal, but El Enmascarado, playing a masked police secret agent, no wrestling just fighting, and Santo looking slim, featuring Joaquín Cordero as Dr. Campos, with Fernando Osés in the role of El Incógnito, a police sergeant, Coyuco remembering the line, “They are citizens of the world—their duty has no frontiers—they hide their identities behind a mask to do good for humanity,” then growing sleepy, his wrists burning, Santo contra cerebro del mal didn’t lift him out of the misery he felt, a nightmare since the bus station in Iguala de la Independencia, Coyuco going back to Atacan las brujas, 1964, absurd but fear bringing all kinds of fantasies, ways of escape, El Santo driving a Porsche, Lorena Velázquez playing Elisa, María Eugenia San Martín playing Ofilia, and a great wrestling bout in an arena against a character played by Fernando Osés, with Corona Extra, Bacardi, and Radio 660 Música Deportes advertising on the walls, Coyuco finding courage in the dialogue at the end, “I don’t understand, Santo,” and Santo’s reply, “When a cross destroys a witch, her evildoing disappears with her,” a grin tinged with disbelief and sorrow on Coyuco’s face, his eyes were growing heavy, lids drooping, heavy-lidded leaden eyes coated with ash and wet with tears even as he was falling asleep, facing death, his own ashes falling from the sky into his eyes, and his shoulder touching José Ángel’s shoulder, they were sharing a dry spot on the concrete floor, their back against the wall.
A noise waking up the students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School, more than twenty, almost thirty students, including José Ángel, plus Coyuco, all of them hearing an industrial stainless steel door rolling up, or it was the weight of a man heaving himself against a solid iron door, the guy behind him saying, pinche puto pendejo, hijo de tu rechingada madre, put your fucking weight into it! but none of the students hearing the voice, just the creaking hinges, and the heavy door scraping against the concrete floor like fingernails on a blackboard, a grating sound that finally woke them up, and the rattling keys, too, four armed men coming into the room, a suffocating room with a concrete floor and walls, no windows, a reinforced-concrete garage, or a fortified private hangar, the four men in uniform, dark blue or black, no hoods, no insignia, no names, One Two Three Four, moving like dark phantoms in the blurry vision of almost thirty pairs of bloodshot eyes, counting them one at a time, maybe as many as fifty-four, and four shadows in the ghastly glow of light, fluorescent tube lighting taking the color out of their skin and clothes, out of everything, even the piss on the floor, and the students, their skin almost white
with fear and no fresh air, blue veins, and the smell, everybody wide awake now, their noses and mouths breathing in the odious odors of more than twenty, almost thirty young men packed into a small space, closer to thirty, and Coyuco, but who could count, and one of the four men dragging something heavy across the concrete floor, a dark green cylinder, and two of the other three, a couple of metal folding chairs, and a large roll of plastic sheeting, the fourth man dragging a square metal folding table and a wooden straight back chair made of poplar, he was bigger and stronger than the other men, setting up the table and chairs, one of the four armed men in uniform taking the roll of plastic, laying out a sheet like an enormous heavy-duty shower curtain covering the floor not far from the iron door, the only entrance or exit from the room, the students watching them, but their eyes couldn’t focus or didn’t want to see what it was because they knew, another sense added to the five others, numb as they were right now, telling them it wasn’t any good whatever it was and they’d better start praying, and a voiceless voice replying, as if we ever stopped, mis amigos, and right next to José Ángel, but standing up, not leaning his back against the wall, Doriam or Saúl or Jorge, Coyuco couldn’t put a name to the face, not right now, possibly never again, panic erasing his memory, wiping it clean, having temporarily no knowledge or understanding, his stomach aching, and whoever it was that was standing there was vomiting what was left of the contents of his stomach which consisted mostly of acid that was burning tiny holes in the stomach’s lining, liquid streaming down the wall looking almost transparent blue, almost colorless in the fluorescent light.
And Coyuco Cisneros, to himself, they haven’t got scissors or knives to cut the cuffs, so they’ll use an acetylene torch, it’s a B-size forty-cubic-foot tank, and it looks like it weighs a lot, Coyuco wanting to rub his eyes with his closed fists but they were tied behind his back, Jorge Manuel, Doriam or Saúl, no longer sick, trying to wipe his chin on his left shoulder, moving like he had a twitch, José Ángel humming a canción, thinking of his wife, Blanca, and his two children, América and Gabriela, but interrupting himself from time to time, and José Ángel, it just doesn’t get much worse than this, Coyuco and the others not hearing his voice, their eyes fixed on the four armed men in uniform, trying to figure out where they’d seen a uniform like it before, and watching without realizing what they were seeing, No. 1 setting up the acetylene torch next to the square table, the straight back chair made of poplar two feet in front of it with its back to the students, No. 4 putting a notebook and ballpoint pen on the tabletop, No. 1 loosening his belt, unbuttoning the collar of his shirt, making himself comfortable, Nos. 2 and 3 drawing up the metal folding chairs like they were getting ready to watch a few reels of home movies, No. 4 leaning with casual indulgence on the palm of his hand flat against the surface of the metal table, standing next to No. 1, then straightening up, whispering in No. 1’s ear, nobody else could hear him, and not a sound in the room, a pin could’ve dropped, No. 1 nodding his head, No. 4 going for one of them, and the first tortured student of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa screaming so loud it nearly broke the eardrums of all the others with their eyes shut tight unable to look at what was happening, Antonio or Jonás or Christian or Adán, whoever it was, a howl rising from his guts, fingers shriveling and crisp like burned sausage before what was left of his hands, all ash and bits of bone, bound by melted Flex- Cuffs, parts of his hands, scraps of cooked meat, dropped to the concrete floor, Coyuco and José Ángel, opening their eyes at the same moment, their jaws set with a grimace they didn’t know they were making, and Coyuco Cisneros and José Ángel, the two of them saying through clenched teeth, I must be going crazy, chúntaro motherfuckers, and tears in their eyes that didn’t fall, just burning them, Nos. 2 and 3 getting up from their folding chairs, dragging the unconscious student across the concrete floor to where they’d laid out a plastic drop cloth not far from the narrow door, then two shots fired, a Jericho 941, a couple of 9x19mm rounds, one in the chest, one in the head, leaving the body where it was, the two men wiping the spray and a bit of brain from the legs of their trousers, and Nos. 2 and 3, we’ll have to burn these, too, when we’re through, wiping off their uniforms, and Coyuco Cisneros, asking himself, what else are they going to burn? and No. 1, the man with the torch in his hand, you better have a change of clothes, jotos, and Nos. 2 and 3, the same voice at the same time, who’re you calling faggot with that pointed nozzle in your hand, No. 1 doubling up with laughter, then waving at another student, and No. 4, right this way, asshole, a few students retching, gasping for air, vomiting nothing, Nos. 2 and 3 looking at their leader, and No. 1, lighting the torch, mumbling vete a la madre to the two men returning to the corner of the room, sitting on their folding chairs, hands folded, not praying, but ready and waiting for the next reel of film that wasn’t a movie, No. 4 taking one of the students by the sleeve of his shirt, pulling him across the room by the sleeve, tearing the fabric, and No. 4, repeating, right this way, shoving the student until he was standing in front of No. 1, and the student’s knees trembling, finally giving out, the student crumpling to the floor, pissing himself, No. 1, the leader, a voice like tearing a phone book in half, leaving ragged edges, and No. 1, where do you want it, pajero, fucking dickhead, holding the torch’s flame away from himself as he scratched his nose, and more than one of the students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School huddled together as close as they could get, the room like a reinforced-concrete garage or a fortified private hangar, as far away from the men in uniform as they could stand, more than twenty, almost thirty students, and Coyuco, saying to themselves, worse than a nightmare! cursing God’s name, then looking up, heavenward, for an angel there, any sign of life that wasn’t the kind of life they knew on earth, right here, but they couldn’t see one, no sign of a miracle regarded as evidence of supernatural power, not anything but the ceiling and those awful lights polluting the air, and at once, a prayer of contrition, and their voices, Señor mío, Jesucristo, Dios y Hombre Verdadero, Creador, Padre y Redentor mío, por ser vos quien sois, bondad infinita, y por que os amo sobre todas las cosas, me pesa de todo corazón haberos ofendido, también me pesa porque podéis castigarme con las penas del infierno. Ayudado de Vuestra Divina Gracia, propongo firmemente nunca más pecar, confesarme y cumplir la penitencia que me fuere impuesta, and they all said, amén, and the four men in uniform, an automatic response, saying amén along with the others, not out of fear, not them, No. 1, adjusting the flame on the torch, while No. 4, unsheathing a military-style knife, a Kershaw or a fixed-blade Gideon Tanto, and No. 4, let’s have a slice, like pizza in New York, a grin on his sadistic face, an animal, but an ape was a lot prettier than No. 4, an ape was a real human being if you put him next to No. 4, Coyuco shaking his head no without moving it, and Coyuco Cisneros, silently, they can’t do it they can’t do it, but knowing they’d do whatever they wanted to do right before their eyes if the students were brave enough to look at them, and José Ángel, the world as he’d known it slipping away, no song could stop what was happening to another student of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School, maybe Marcial, Jonás, José, Doriam or Saúl, nobody could focus on his face, if it wasn’t one, it was another, but a long strip of skin sliced off his back, then roasted while stuck to the knife point by the flame of the acetylene torch, the smell making them choke, not the men in uniform, not One Two Three Four, but the others, gagging, the nearly thirty-students-minus-one right now—the corpse leaking blood on a plastic drop cloth near the narrow door—that’d been taken prisoner and held in the reinforced-concrete garage or fortified private hangar.
And Ernesto Cisneros, like I said, I can hear my voice echoing, it’s a big empty world, nothing out there, listen, a vacuum, but each life counts, so what the fuck! and you’ve heard it before, it isn’t just Coyuco and the forty-three, it’s every death and disappearance from the beginning of time, and so there’re dead people everywhere, centuries of them—there aren’t enough finge
rs on our hands, check out your fingers, a pair of hands makes ten at best, you’d need a city of them—and the ghosts of the dead, wandering without a place to rest, no peace of mind or body, you can hear them, it isn’t just furniture scraping the floor, a malediction, and more than a jinx, a real curse, a noise that’s rasping the fatty sheath off my nerves, and it hurts, my nerves are killing me, they’re really painful, it makes me shiver, right to my fingertips, and Lupita, too, arctic, glacial, we’re freezing without being cold, shivering because we’ve got a chronic case of raw nerves, and think of Irma, what’ll she say, she’ll be a widow before they’re married, and Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Land of the Dead, a skeleton with bloody spots, or a plain skull, an obsidian knife through his nose, and his wife, Mictlancihuatl, but it’s Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the dead land, sending owls out into the night, calling for those destined to join him, to live in his world, Mictlan, but I didn’t hear an owl, Lupita didn’t hear a thing, a sound sleeper, not a screech, nothing, no wings, no announcement, maybe Irma heard it, I’ll have to ask her, if she can stop the flood of tears for a minute, never easy, like stemming the flow of blood, a hemorrhage of sorrow, the damage their disappearance has caused, listen to it, disappearance, in coded political language, but let’s call a spade a spade, being killed, that’s what it means, and it’s derived from a phrase in classical Greek, so all of them, the forty-three students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School, and Coyuco, probably dead, and a suffering that extends beyond any measureable distance, why were they taken away from us, a crime on a mountain of crimes, Mictlantecuhtli, the Head-Downward Descender, and Mictlancihuatl, a hideous woman with a bare skull for a head, the god and goddess of death and the underworld, waiting to care for the souls of the dead if only the souls themselves find their way to their restful silent kingdom in the Aztec world, Mictlan—life in Mictlan wasn’t unhappy—the underbelly of the Earth, a belly full of souls, stretched wide, the place of the dead beneath the Earth, where the soul was thought to retire quietly in the Land of the Dead, and the souls of missing missing students of the Raúl Isidro Burgos Normal Rural School weren’t infants who’d died still nursing, if they were they’d go to El Chichihuacuauhco, meaning “in the wet-nurse tree,” and they weren’t soldiers who’d fallen in war, nor mothers who’d died in childbirth, going to Tonatiuh- Ilhuicac, the Heaven of the Sun, and their deaths weren’t related to water, a journey to Tlalocan, the paradise of the rain god, the place of the nectar of the Earth, if they’re dead, better make it forty-three victims, and Coyuco, but why stop there? forty-four, forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, a hundred, a thousand? and the worst nightmare we could’ve imagined, if they’re no longer living they’re in Mictlan, a region of uncertainty and mystery, one of the four stopping places of the soul, but in life, in the Aztec world, all happiness came from hard work and suffering, we know it now, too, and the struggle for growth, followed by a faltering step with the passing of time, we all get old, there’s no escape, and at last death, certain, sure and fixed, it was good enough, not bad, and wholly acceptable because it was inevitable—the only possible offering to God in return for life, was life, but now I’m talking about sacrifice, and that’s something else—their view in the Aztec world wasn’t fatalism, but a true recognition of the nature of human life, so nod your head, because it’s true, now as then, then as now, take a look at yourself, and be honest, what do we know about it, the reality of this life is like that of a dream, and in an Aztec poet’s words, “Let us consider things as lent to us, oh friends; / only in passing are we here on earth; / tomorrow or the day after, / as Your heart desires, oh, Giver of life, / we shall go, my friends, to His home,” death, word-perfect, after which we enter the world of the beyond, the region of the dead, there wasn’t a clear picture of hope for a life after death, except after a stay in Mictlan, that’s what I’ve read, the soul might reach a central fire, becoming a part of fire from which new souls are born, according to Cottie Burland, “the heart of everything was fire, and fire to them was the symbol of life,” and before all that, to reach Mictlan, the dead were required to undertake a long journey filled with treacherous natural obstacles to be overcome in nine separate phases, first having to cross the Apanohuaia River, or Itzcuintlan, in Nahuatl, “place of dogs,” donde se pasa el río, donde se pasa el vado del río, through which the river passes, through which the river valley passes, accompanied by a small mute dog, or riding on the back of a little dog, donde está el río caudaloso y los muertos lo cruzan sobre el lomo de un perro, where the river is deep and the dead cross it on the back of a dog, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I don’t want to think of Coyuco there, not a wandering soul, either, we’ve done enough crying and there’s always time for more, we don’t know if he’s dead or alive, Ernesto, almost stumbling on a paving stone, or it was the curb, a heel caught on a crack in the sidewalk, not watching where he was going, walking along Reforma against the traffic in the direction of the distant hills, not heading back to his car, and to catch his breath, leaning against a wooden telephone pole in front of Depósito Flores, or farther on at the corner of Guillermo Prieto and Reforma, looking up at a leafy palm behind a beige-colored wall, Ernesto, worn out by an emotion that’d siphoned off his energy, almost failing, and no more gas, and Ernesto Cisneros, they’ve vacuumed up my determination, so they’re not only criminals they’re vampires, too, but he felt a tingling in his skin and the growing presence of something within him, maybe the Prince of this World, Tezcatlipoca, Mirror that Smokes, the trickster spirit, worshipped by warriors and magicians, Ernesto missing only the black obsidian mirror for scrying into the future, but acquiring the strength of Tezcatlipoca, he felt it, Tezcatlipoca, who’d replaced Quetzalcoatl in the later Toltec times, Mirror that Smokes, the shadow side of the human personality in a very clear form, and Ernesto Cisneros, I can almost see him, but seeing isn’t what’s important now, “I yam what I yam, and that’s all what I yam,” a quote from Popeye, Ernesto breathing his own words, and Ernesto Cisneros, Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Surface of the Earth, his symbol’s a mirror with flames coming from it, Ernesto’s legs holding him upright like pillars of stone, hands grasping the telephone pole for support, and Ernesto Cisneros, the Prince of this World had another title, Titlauacan, “he who is at the shoulder,” the god standing beside the shoulder of every human being, whispering thoughts into his mind, suggesting violence and trickery, diverting every action towards his own direction of darkness and cruelty, and it’s this voice I’m hearing, Tezcatlipoca’s, a terrible deity, leaving a footprint in the night sky that’s the group of stars we call the Great Bear, Ernesto straightening his bent shoulders, rising to the situation with a greater strength of body and mind than he’d felt since he’d left Chihuahua for Iguala de la Independencia in Rubén Arenal’s Ford F-150 Lobo pickup, and then the words that Titlauacan whispered in his ear, not for everyone to hear, definitely not a child, no one under the age of eighteen, a few sentences more useful to him now than youth itself and the energy that went with it, Titlauacan, or Tezcatlipoca saying, I’ll give you the strength to find him, your son, Coyuco, and it won’t cost your soul a centavo, a little bloodshed, that’s all I ask, because in all my forms, I’m the patron of warriors and of war, Ernesto trembling, unaccustomed to the fiery coursing of blood through arteries and veins weakened by mental or emotional strain, tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances, and Ernesto Cisneros, it’s impossible for me to walk anywhere without being inundated with pain and suffering because of death and tragedy, so whatever you are, whoever you are, Tezcatlipoca, Titlauacan, the Prince of this World, Smoking Mirror, I’ll take what energy and courage you’re giving me, it’s an offer I can’t refuse, not now after all that’s happened, then Ernesto, a flutter, an itch, his right hand letting go of the wooden telephone pole, Ernesto looking down at a figure standing next to him, Ixtlilton, the Little Black One, there for an instant before he disappeared, looking up at Ernesto, becoming part of him, n
ot physically, but incorporating himself as only a god can do into the spirit of a living human being, Ixtlilton, Tezcatlipoca’s lieutenant, who visited children in their beds and brought them darkness and peaceful sleep, it was this god, and Tezcatlipoca himself that made the blood in his veins boil, Ernesto, sharing without knowing it, going fifty-fifty with Tezcatlipoca, straight down the middle from head to toe, everything on his left side, including his face showing an expression of surprise if he could see it, sensing his disjointed body, fingers of one hand not matching the fingers of the other, and Ernesto Cisneros, which side is mine, and what does it mean? he was sure that something had happened and he wanted to give himself the once-over, Ernesto hurrying to a window pane, the light was just right, looking at his reflection, seeing half a mask of Tezcatlipoca, an iron pyrite eye in a ring made of shell, half his nasal cavity lined with bright red, thorny oyster shells, alternate bands of turquoise and lignite mosaic built over half his own skull, the left side of his face straight out of the Mixtec Nahuatl codex, the face of Tezcatlipoca, representing one of the two sides of the human mind, the other, Quetzalcoatl, Feathered Serpent, representing conscious intelligence, was nowhere to be seen, and Ernesto Cisneros, one half me, the other half Tezcatlipoca, and that side of my face isn’t looking too good right now, Ernesto examining the features of his face, a fixed expression and frightened, because it was the unconscious shadow he was looking at in the window pane, the terrible Tezcatlipoca, wizard god.
