by Mark Fishman
Con el alma herida por un mal cariño
Que sin condiciones le entregué mi amor
Llevo ya dos días en esta cantina
Dos días, encerrado tomando licor.
Un mariachi toca, yo sigo tomando
Y vuelvo a pedirles la misma canción
Esto que me pasa no es nada envidiable
Ni al peor enemigo se lo deseo yo.
Tóquenme mariachis otra vez la misma
Esa que me llega hasta el corazón
‘El Abandonado,’ tóquenla de nuevo
Tóquenme diez veces la misma canción.
Aquí esta su cuenta, me dice un mesero
Ya me debe mucho, pégueme señor,
El mariachi dice, ya estamos cansados
Y yo sólo contesto, háganme un favor.
Pa’ variar un poco tóquenme la misma
Esa que me llega hasta el corazón,
El Abandonado, tóquenla de nuevo
Tóquenme diez veces la misma canción.
With my soul wounded by a failed love
To whom I unconditionally gave my heart
I have been drinking in this cantina for two days now
Two days holed up drinking liquor.
A mariachi group plays, I keep drinking
And I ask them again to play the same song.
What’s happening to me is nothing enviable
I don’t wish this on my worst enemy.
Mariachis, play the same song again
The one that reaches deep into my heart
Play ‘El abandonado’ again
Play the same song ten times for me.
‘Here’s your tab,’ a waiter says to me.
‘You already owe me a lot, sir.’
The mariachi says, ‘We’re already tired.’
And I just answer, ‘Do me a favor.’
‘For a change, play the same song.’
The one that grabs my heart.
Play ‘El abandonado’ again,
Play the same song ten times for me.
Vicente Fernández’s voice fading, but the words of the song tallying so well with Rubén Arenal’s experience of an evaporating La Pascualita and Ernesto’s image of Coyuco gone up in flames, no smoke, a perfect synchronicity, two men in a bath of empathy, an extraordinary episode in the otherwise and previously quiet lives led by two childhood friends, one in love with a ghost, the other who, along with his wife, Guadalupe, and a brokenhearted Irma, Coyuco’s fiancée, longed for the son and future husband, respectively, who’d more than likely already become a ghost, parallel worlds crossing paths in Rubén Arenal’s pottery studio and ground-floor apartment, and Rocket, drink drink, and what about Coyuco’s disappearance, who on this earth could’ve benefited from the missing forty-three? and Ernesto Cisneros, when I’m not thinking about myself, the change I’ve gone through, that’s what’s on my mind, questions about the role of multinational companies in economic plunder, political domination—because political domination requires other kinds of domination, other accomplices and victims—asking myself what part was played by which parties in the disappearance of Coyuco and the other student teachers, the Alacrán and the first lady, the Queen of Iguala, for example, at a thinly veiled pre-campaign party for the woman hoping to succeed her husband in office, yes, they’re responsible, but they’re not the only ones, an individual carries his or her own responsibility even if the orders come from a higher authority, a boss, a gang, an institution, an officer, the government, or just a sick fucking brain, María of the Angels and the mayor of Iguala didn’t carry the shovels, but one way or another the city and state government provided them, spades and shovels in the hands of the ministerial police, the Policía Federal, the municipal police, the 27th Battalion, maybe the Guerreros Unidos, who’s digging whose grave and who’ll end up being the landfill, murder, torture, persecution, prison, successive hells, brother, if I had a map of the world in front of me I’d draw red circles around almost every place I could see, houses neighborhoods cities countries, it’d look worse than measles, chickenpox, smallpox, a world with a fever and a red rash, itchy inflamed blisters, or pustules leaving permanent scars, that’d be one lousy landscape, and if you look out the window you’ll see we’re already living there, and Rocket, your face is at it again, I mean the mask, always almost transparent and still plenty colorful, Esto, you’ve got your own case of magic skin, and Ernesto Cisneros, you’re telling me? so what’s its latest incarnation? I can’t see it and don’t feel a thing, and Rocket, you’re stretch silver and blue lamé with red and white applications, a strange model representing a volcano in Japan with a red sun above a snowy peak, and on one side the word “Fuji,” the other “Japan,” not bad at all, I like it, Mil Máscaras is big in Japan, and Ernesto Cisneros, I know it, and you know I know it, I’ve got Noboru Ohkawa’s photo book, and Rocket, now you’re telling me? who do you think gave it to you, and Ernesto Cisneros, the power of memory is formidable and mysterious, but what I see right now is an image of my son, our Coyuco, Lupita’s and mine, just as plainly as the last time I saw him, hand in hand with Irma, we weren’t far from the city university, heading for Teatro de los Héroes on Avenida División del Norte, standing near the statue of Manuel Gómez Morín, founding member of the Partido Acción Nacional, a party that’s not my favorite not my choice, you remember, don’t you, brother, because you almost drove past us, but you pulled over, no accident no traffic, got out of the truck, and shook hands with Coyuco like you hadn’t seen him in years, Rubén Arenal nodding his head, taking a couple of swallows of hibiscus drink, Ernesto sipping from his straw, and Rocket, sure I remember, ’mano, the world is wrong, and we don’t accept it, not you, not I, and not a lot of others, when you lose your son and can’t find him, who’ll help you, not the same people who made him disappear, and “for every man who has money there are a hundred who have nothing, it shouldn’t be that way,” and Ernesto Cisneros, “you’re right, it shouldn’t be that way, but that’s the way it is,” and Rocket, “why can’t the one who has it give some to the other hundred now and then?” and Ernesto Cisneros, “yes, why can’t he?” but let’s stop quoting from a book, my eyes are drained of tears, my unexpected resurrection of memory is a desperate act of the will to live, a final gesture in the face of the inescapable, which brings me to the question of what I’m going to do, there’s a kind of reparation to be made for the wrong I’ve done, not to the victims, but help for those who need it, the sum of my actions in this and previous states of existence, deciding my fate in future existences, and Rocket, following as effect from cause, it’s good deeds that must be done for the living, but what about me, what am I going to do about Little Pascuala? and Ernesto Cisneros, you’re going to look for her, and when you find her you’re going to ask her to marry you, because that’s what you want, isn’t it? to have a wife and make pottery and live from what you earn by selling your tea cups, coffee mugs, sets of bowls, plates, hidrias, vases for flowers, and now and then an urn, an ashtray, with the insomnious passion of a craftsman, a creator of exquisite objects, sublime handiwork, yes, Little Pascuala, she’ll raise you from artisan to artist, it’s been said before but we know it’s true, Rubén Arenal nodding his head, a little embarrassed, a smile with a hint of pride on his lips, and fueled by self-respect, a delight in dignity, Rubén Arenal swallowed the contents of what remained in his glass, set it down with a thump, and Rocket, Centro Comunitario Vistas del Cerro Grande, proposed in 2011, a community center near Parque Revolución between Calle Tercera and Calle Séptima, and if it isn’t finished—who knows what’s there or one day will be at that location—there’s a social center on Calle Zubiran, east of Barrio de Londres, between Calle 33 and Calle 35, and Centro Comunitario Niños Alegres in Colonia Las Granjas, another in Colonia Ponce de León, Centro Comunitario Nombre de Dios on Avenida Heroico Colegio Militar, Triunfo Centro Comunitario Los Pinos on Avenida Buenavista, there’s División del Norte, El Saucito, Todo por Chihuahua, San Jorge, Quédate
Amigo, Mi Familia es Todo, Tierra y Libertad, take your pick, you can work at one of them, ’mano, and it’ll do the trick, Rubén Arenal clapping his hands not more than once, Ernesto’s eyes in his masked face rising from the surface of the table, a pair of peaceful eyes, a mild-mannered mouth, each neatly defined by strips of matte-blue antifaz, Ernesto looking straight at Rubén Arenal, having found something valuable in his words, an effectual suggestion, and Ernesto Cisneros, it’s not our fault that life is shorter than we expect, that not even pain stops it from being ordinary and opaque, and Rocket, don’t look at it like that, this is a second chance, can you smoke with that face of yours? and Ernesto Cisneros, just light ’em up, a cigarette’s not wider than this straw, Rubén Arenal getting up from the table, opening a drawer, taking out a white and green and black pack of Aros, and Rocket, I’m out of Faros, Rubén Arenal lighting two cigarettes, passing one to Ernesto, who put it between antifaz lips, his face suddenly illuminated, revealing a bemused gaze caused more by the light of a thought than the cigarette’s glow, and Ernesto Cisneros, a social center, what’ll I do? and Rocket, they’ve got workshops for boxing, why not wrestling, too, you look like a wrestler of considerable renown, teach wrestling to kids who’ve got nothing to do and nowhere to go when they aren’t in school or don’t bother to go, kids who end up on the streets, living to the beat of agonizing violence, with the smell of roasted rats, with fear in their eyes and the reek of narcotic solvents permanently stuck to their noses and palates, searching for victims whose wallets full of plastic squares they steal, dreaming of guessing the four secret code numbers in a stolen card and straightening out their lives at an automatic teller machine, those are the kids that you can help, it’s our future if we’re going to have one, residents, inhabitants and the yet unborn of our Mexico, Mil Máscaras is a folk hero, like Blue Demon and El Santo, El Enmascarado de Plata, symbols of justice symbols of hope, and Ernesto Cisneros, I haven’t got a Tope Suicida or La Plancha up my sleeve, not a double underhook suplex, and I never revolutionized a flying cross chop, and Rocket, you’re never too old to learn, Esto, let your unexpected behavior in Iguala guide you reassure you confirm for you that you’re capable of unpredictable almost operatic conduct, you can learn to wrestle, then show them some moves, or teach the routinely ragged, sometimes sniveling, and through-no-fault-of-their-own hungry but bright-as-stars victims of the life they’ve been born into to climb out of their difficult situations, make strides, and grow up with at least a handful of values and an earful of the kind of advice—that’s all it’ll take—held sacred by the likes of Mil Máscaras, El Santo, Blue Demon, the best revenge you could ask for, and Coyuco’d be proud of you, he’ll speak to you at night, a faraway voice but clear as a bell telling you to stick with it keep going soldier on, Ernesto standing up, stretching, sure of himself now, a changed man with a changed face, and Ernesto Cisneros, your enthusiasm’s electrifying, a wonder, urging me to move forward long before I’m behind the wheel, more than I hoped for and just what I need, fill my glass, will you, brother, and give me another cigarette, I won’t be spending more time here today, my heart’s full of hope, I’ll start right away, it’ll be one of the centers that you pointed out, they’ll accept my face and lack of wrestling experience, but it’ll take all of my clout, I’m wearing an adapting mask of Mil Máscaras, that’s got to help, there was a long silence, followed by the sound of Ernesto sipping from his straw, and Rocket, the things that used to be true aren’t true anymore,’mano, that’s all finished, “if all of us don’t find a way forward, and when I say us I’m not talking about the slick intellectuals the elites admire so much, I’m talking about you and me and millions of men and women all over the planet,” we won’t forget what they did to the forty-three—not including our Coyuco—that’ll never change, we’ll keep on fighting to find out what happened to them, mourning and a decent burial’s our goal, but your sorrow and crime are going to turn to good deeds, Ernesto felt like floating clear through the ceiling, Rubén Arenal, perceiving at the same moment the voice of La Pascualita calling him from a thousand miles away, thought he heard the phone ringing, or it might’ve been the doorbell.
The next sound you hear will come from the combined vocal folds, or vocal cords—composed of twin infoldings of mucus membrane projecting into the cavity of the larynx—wound together into a single bundle, even now with twin infoldings, otherwise it doesn’t work, and speaking as one voice on behalf of the ghosts of Iguala, and your girlfriend and her mother, are you paying attention? Ernesto listening, Rubén Arenal listening, attentive allies, a moment of monologic magic before Ernesto left Rubén Arenal’s ground-floor apartment and pottery studio, neither big nor small, more than adequate, and before Rubén Arenal precipitously launched himself into a city-wide search including the picturesque environs of Chihuahua for Little Pascuala and her mother, Pascuala Esparza, how strategically synchronous were the feathery voices of the dead:
Using our tee-nie wee-nie lungs, reduced to ash in some cases, forty-three to be exact, and bloodless in the case of two, a woman and her daughter, pushing with all our might, projecting our voices past as-white-as-a-sheet lips, if we’ve got lips, to express the shared sentiment of our vast unified souls, spread out like a fingery fog fanning out over all of Mexico, don’t deny us a little playfulness, after all, we’re dead, lively language is our only contrivance, good natured but with sad shriveled roots reaching deep into the earth in which we’re buried or adhering to the riverbed where they’ve thrown our ashes—forty-three and a pair, with roots that’re supposed to be attached to the ground, conveying water and nourishment, but that never took because they’re the roots of two wandering souls—you know perfectly well who we’re talking about, having good intentions, but not always the ability to carry them out, a voice speaking for all of us, speaking as one, a combined forty-three and two, together, listen listen, and with one vibrant voice, we want to thank you for not forgetting us, it’s early still to forget the forty-three, not six months or a year has passed by, but for the mother and daughter, it’s another story, they’ve been wandering this earth of mankind for a long time, some of you might not remember them, well, it’s never too soon or too late to say thank you, to remind you, too, that we’re still here, innocents in the eyes of God, what did we do wrong? nothing, but forty-three monstrously murdered, and a daughter who died from the bite of a black widow spider—who’s fault is that!—accompanied in the afterlife by her mother, and by the way, who would condemn a mother for wanting to find long-lasting love for her daughter—yes, a mother, and for my part, I’d like to say a few words, an unprecedented moment for the living dead, I’d like to say that the forty-three are right, don’t blame me for wanting my daughter to be happy even if we’re permanent residents of a territory between life and death, neither part of one nor the other, what I mean is do you know a mother of a child, or a father and mother, for that matter, who doesn’t want the best for her offspring, and as a single mother, no longer of this earth, I want my child, a grown woman, to have a man of her own, and I’ll do anything to get her one, to find someone for her with an abundance of insight, a wagonload of warmth, a ton of talent that thrills, and a true heart, what I mean is that I’ll do whatever’s in my power, and those of you who aren’t here with us, the forty-three, and my daughter and I, well, you don’t have a clue what we’re capable of accomplishing, power that shocks, a stupendous strength of an unearthly energy, we’re life members of the dead, not yet buried and some of us still walking around, not as aimlessly as you might imagine, we’ve all got our purpose, the forty-three will soon have theirs, having left their world under lamentable circumstances, today they’re new to the game, but let’s get back to the single voice of the forty-three normalistas and two women, mother and daughter, I’ve had my say, so it’s all together now, we can’t shed tears, our ducts are dry, but our tee-nie wee-nie lungs, reduced to ash or bloodless, forcing out our feelings of gratitude, showing a heartfelt and powerful intensity, with a voice
of cautionary conscience, a sense of right and wrong, saying watch out! don’t fail to appreciate someone or something that’s very familiar or obvious, don’t assume that something’s true without questioning it—straight out of the dictionary—and we offer you a genuine bona fide enthusiastic expression of our thanks, our ardent appreciation and an unaffected acknowledgment for the fact that you haven’t forgotten us, and never will, when the details of our faces are no longer vivid in your mind, you’ll taste our former existence in every bite, you’ll smell our skin with every whiff, you’ll feel our presence, not see it, with every glance, okay, we know, you get the picture, we’re long-winded souls exercising our right, we’ve got the green light because we control the traffic and the signals at the same time, our luxury, our gift, after all, we’re dead and you’re not, maybe you get the picture maybe you don’t, but we count on you to take what we’ve said, scratch your domes, use your noggins, all you’ve got to do is add it all up, and come to a conclusion.
