• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1002 0

movie, realize what is happening, get off their motorcycles, attack the devils of the murdering gang with their fists. They can’t subdue them. Four boys with shaved heads shoot the young North Americans. They fall down dead. The forest is inundated with blood. The Chihuahans smell the blood from a distance. They have an ear for violence. They have suffered it for centuries at the hands of whites and mestizos. It is their inheritance to be suspicious. They don’t approach the train. They take another road to the border. They win the competition. In Indian dress, they are right in style to take a Caribbean cruise. “We’ve never been to the ocean,” they declare when they are awarded the prize. Alma Pagán turns off the television. She doesn’t know when she’ll turn it on again. In any case, she feels better informed than her parents. They are very ignorant. And without information, what authority can they have over her and her brother, Abel? She thought this and didn’t understand why she felt more vulnerable than ever.

THE SON. Abel Pagán walks along the avenue, its walls heavily painted with graffiti. On wall after wall, the Mara Salvatrucha gang announces that it will bring the war to the city. They are young Central Americans displaced by the wars in El Salvador and Honduras. Abel feels sad looking at this graphic violence that makes the city so ugly. Though making Mexico City ugly is a tautology. And graffiti are universal. Abel saw and felt the immense desolation of the broad gray street. There was nothing to be done. He reached the metro station. He decided to jump the gate and board the train without paying for a ticket. Nobody saw him. He felt free. The train, filled with people, pulled out.

THE BOSS. Leonardo Barroso shows no emotion at all when he reads these lines. Or rather, his lack of emotion is the most eloquent statement of his disdain. “Look, Abel. There are no indispensable employees here. Wise up, boy. With modern technology, production increases, and the worker goes down. If I ever offer you something, consider yourself privileged. Here you have a secure, steady job. What I don’t tolerate are stupid whims. Personal rebellions in exchange for the privilege of working with me. With Leonardo Barroso. Understand? It’s up to you. You’re either in or you’re out. I don’t need you. The business will grow with or without you. If you want the truth, it’ll do better without you. You should always feel that a job is a privilege, because you, Abel, are turning out to be superfluous.”

THE FATHER AND MOTHER. I don’t describe Elvira because in my eyes she’s always the same girl I met one day singing the bolero “Two Souls.”

Chorus of the Street Gossips

Exita gave birth in the street

Half the girls on the street are pregnant

They’re between twelve and fifteen years old

Their babies are newborns up to six years old

A lot of them are lucky and miscarry because they’re given a beating

And the fetus comes out screeching with fear

Is it better to be inside or outside?

I don’t want to be here mamacita

Toss me in the garbage instead mother

I don’t want to be born and grow dumber each day

With no bath mamacita with no food mother

With no nourishment except alcohol mother marijuana mother

Paint thinner mother glue mother cement mother cocaine mother

Gasoline mother

Your tits overflowing with gasoline mother

I spit flames from the mouth I nursed with mother

A few cents mother

On the crossroads mother

My mouth full of the gasoline I nursed mother

My mouth burning burned

My lips turned to ash at the age of ten

How do you want me to love me mother?

I don’t hate you

I hate me

I’m not worth dog shit mother

I’m only worth what my fists deliver

Fists for fighting fists for stealing fists for stabbing mother

If you’re still alive mother

If you still love me just a little

Order me please to love me just a little

I swear I hate me

I’m less than a dog’s vomit a mule’s shit a hair on your ass an abandoned

Huarache a rotten peach a black banana peel

Less than a drunkard’s belch

Less than a policeman