Happy Families_ Stories - Carlos Fuentes [69]
Marcelino Miles returns with pleasure to the sierra in Guerrero. He loves the plants and birds of the mountains. Nothing gives him greater pleasure than identifying a tropical almond from a distance, the tall lookout of the forests, catching fire each autumn to strip itself bare and be renewed immediately: flowers that are stars, perfume that summons bumblebees, yellow fleshy fruits. And also, close up, he likes to surprise the black iguana—the garrobo—looking for the burning rock of the mountain. He counts the five petals of the basket tulip; he’s amazed that the flower exists outside a courtyard and has made its way into the dense growth. He looks up and surprises the noisy flight of the white-faced magpie with its black crests, the long throat of the social flycatcher and its spotted crown, the needle beak of the cinnamon-colored hummingbird. The clock-bird marks the hours with its dark beak, conversing with the cuckoo-squirrel with its undulating flight . . . This is the greatest pleasure of Marcelino Miles. Identifying trees. Admiring birds. That is why he loves the mountains in Guerrero. He doesn’t search for Andrés. He has forgotten Roberto. He is in the army because of his passion for nature.
Chorus of the Suffering Children
why did we run away?
because my papa wouldn’t let me be with other children nobody could come to play
with me I couldn’t go anywhere
because my father hit us both my mama and me
because my mother was afraid and so was I
because locked in my room I hear the insults the blows
because I have nightmares
because I don’t sleep
because my father doesn’t respect my mother and if he doesn’t respect her he can’t respect
me
because my papa makes me take a freezing-cold shower so I’ll behave
because my papa makes me watch porn movies with him on TV
because if my papa insults my mama why can’t I?
why did we run away?
because they abused us they whipped us they threatened to cut us
because they threw us out of the house
papa and mama, abusive father, single mother, father and mother divorced, addict fathers, drunken fathers, unemployed fathers because papa and mama have no other mirror than
us their lost youth
because papa and mama resent their lives and
they ruin ours so we won’t dare
to be better
because we don’t have grandparents and our grandparents have no
grandmother
because my husband wanted a male heir and
he made me get an abortion when the doctor told him
that my baby was a girl like me
ultrasound ultrasound there are no fetal secrets anymore
mountains of fetuses
more fetuses than garbage
a little girl is undesirable she’ll wind up going off with her
husband she’ll lose the father’s name
educating a girl is throwing water into the sea the husband
will have the benefit of the education we gave her with so much
sacrifice
ungrateful the two of them
(the sex of a fetus is no longer a secret)
(the garbageman baptizes the sex)
save yourself from happy families
look at your parents: only violence settles things
look at your parents: don’t respect women
look at your parents: your father killed you because he
wanted to kill your mother and you were near at hand
and now where?
escape your dumbass family the school that makes you stupid
the suffocating office the loneliness of
the streets
kid, become a cycleboy! they give you a motorcycle you
laugh
at the traffic lights the curses
the police the endless delays
zigzag cycleboy kill pedestrians freefreefree
fastfastfast
adrenaline express
bulletcycle cycleboy urban cowboy
though you’re the one who regularly dies every day
the only one among a thousand cycleboys who are
saved one day to die smashed up one by one
in the following days
and now where?
join the flashmobs the lightningrace find out
where’s the hookup today
escape: arrive and join in leave no more than two
minutes at a time this is the fiesta of
passing friendship of impossible communication
of instantaneous flight
suck up the coke and run
there’s no way out
run before they play taps for you
they throw you