The Revolutionaries Try Again (22 page)

—

What's Rafael doing out there?

Filing grievances to the
DJ
for the dearth of techno?

Don't call him Mazinger because he no longer . . .

Mazinger!

He heard you.

–Aren't you too old to be hollering nicknames at people, Antonio?

Wasn't me.

Good to see you, Rafael.

Too old for nicknames but not for hugs, right?

Rafael turns away from Antonio to ask the
DJ
about cable types or wattage. Typical Mazinger.

When are you going to Zumbahua? Where is Zumbahua? Facundo would have a field day with that word.

The Drool has forgotten where everything is.

–I thought Antonio was dead.

Where is Zumbahua?

Cotopaxi.

Chanfle.

–Why are you back, Antonio? I mean what for? To heap ancient monikers on those who were once your friends?

Antonio explains Leopoldo's plan to run for office.

If we succeed of course we would invite you to be minister of robotics or . . .

–That is simply not the way to change anything.

But cloistering yourself in Zumbahua is?

My sincere apologies on behalf of the Snivel.

–To gain the support of those you wish to help you must first purge yourself of yourself.

What about El Loco he hasn't purged . . .

He's the cloaca already so he doesn't need . . .

–How are you different from El Loco or León, Antonio? You've always behaved as if you . . .

No craters on my cheeks, no glass eyes, horses, money.

–You are not an alternative, Antonio. Even if you would have stayed here you would have never been an alternative. No change will come from any of us.

Why are you being like this, Rafael? I called you as soon as I arrived and . . .

–If you run for office I will denounce you. Both of you.

—

We were worthless to him, Rafael thinks. Antonio boarded a plane to Florida and we became chaff to him. All those hundreds of hours the two of them spent together, riding their mountain bikes to San Javier through Victor Emilio Estrada and the overpasses of Miraflores and the highway to Salinas, their yellow headphones blasting the same Depeche Mode songs they'd recorded with his father's stereo, riding their mountain bikes on what now seems like an implausible distance between Rafael's house on Victor Emilio Estrada and San Javier, not minding the interprovincial buses, the wayward pickup trucks, the lunar craters inundated by rain, Antonio ringing the bell to Rafael's house and his mother saying Rafi, please, be careful around that troublemaker, although his mother never forbade him from spending time with Antonio because no one came to see him except Antonio and his mother knew that, that is the truth, riding their mountain bikes and sneaking inside San Javier while it was closed for the summer and Leopoldo would be there, Facundo, Bastidas, everyone ready to clock in hundreds of hours of soccer on the cement soccer field upstairs because the soccer fields downstairs were a landfill of mosquitoes and mud. After a few sprints Facundo would have to catch his breath and stand still so the soundtrack to their soccer matches was often that of Facundo cursing at the mosquitoes in his version of everyone's whiny voices. What does it matter if Antonio remembers any of it? And what could Antonio possibly say if Rafael asked him? I remember our time together but not enough to write to you, Mazinger? My memories of you can coexist with my indifference toward you in those memories? Such that Antonio wasn't compelled to call him and ask him why are you so angry at everything still, Mazinger? If Antonio was so determined to save the poor why didn't he return periodically to check on them? It embarrasses Rafael to know so many of these conceited people at Julio's party. And conceited about what? About their parents swindling the country so that their children could one day mingle inside mansions protected by three layers of tall walls? Antonio used to sermonize about their responsibility to the poor but he spent as much time here, trying to befriend these people, as he did in Mapasingue, catechizing
the poor. Why would anyone vote for someone so easily tempted by wealth? And why is Jennifer here? To remind him their hundreds of hours together were worthless too? During their senior year at San Javier, Antonio introduced Rafael to Jennifer, a girl from the Liceo Panamericano, at Antonio's insistence. How is Antonio doing in the United States, Jennifer would ask? Have you heard from Antonio? You never asked me why they called me Mazinger the Robot, Jennifer, because, perhaps, it was obvious? Don't come near me, Jennifer, I wouldn't know what to say to you now. My memories of you have coexisted for too long with too many dialogues between us that never occurred and I don't want to add more exchanges to this jumble. Don't have the wherewithal to parse imaginaries. What did Antonio say to Rosita at the hospice Luis Plaza Dañín? I did not know what to say to the elderly, Rafael had told Jennifer, years before she left him. How to reply to their soft litanies of pain? I would watch Antonio and Rosita on the farthest end of the corridor and wonder what they were so animated about. Even then I didn't believe our visits to that hospice were of any use to anyone except maybe us. To our purpose in life. I heard through Melissa's mother that Antonio was accepted to Stanford, is that true, Rafi? Jennifer wasn't familiar with tact so she never stopped asking me about you, Antonio. Many of the songs at Julio's party are the same songs they used to hear at San Javier but with a new dance beat. No one's dancing because that would ruin the ridiculously expensive clothes their parents bought for them with the proceeds from their corruption. Does Antonio remember the melancholic songs they used to sing at Kennedy Park? Park rules, Mazinger, you have to drink. Yesterday I lost my blue unicorn / left him grazing and he disappeared / the flowers that he left haven't wanted to talk to me. What was the blue unicorn supposed to represent? Endlessly they conjectured and joked about the meaning of Silvio Rodríguez's unicorn. After being in the same classroom with the same people for six years most of our interactions turned into skits, Jennifer. First Facundo would spot me on the other side of the school, second Facundo would yell Mazinger, third Facundo would pretend to escape from me, fourth I would sprint toward Facundo
and catch him almost instantly, at a robotic speed that delighted my classmates lounging in the shade by Don Alban's cafeteria. Antonio boarded a plane to Florida and I never heard from him again. And now Antonio wants to talk, to hear me revisit what I don't want to revisit, or at a minimum, not with him? One night at Kennedy Park, after we'd barely won our semifinal match for the academic quiz show on Channel Ten, I finally relented and drank from their bottle of Popov. You forget about the lack of letters and phone calls, twelve years without a word from you, Antonio, no, you don't forget. According to Antonio I drank too much Popov that first time and embraced everyone, the Robot in love, everyone said, the Robot rebooted. Can't go home like this, I said to Antonio, my parents can't see me like this, I've never allowed my parents to see my imperfections. Staggering to Antonio's house, where I vomited in his kitchen sink. I had never told anyone that I've never allowed my parents to see my imperfections and he didn't relay that confession to everyone else like he did with the rest of it: the vomiting in his kitchen sink, the borrowing of his cologne to cover up the smell, the excessive amount I poured on myself. You guys know I can't smell anything but I could definitely smell the peculiar mix of cologne and vomit, Antonio told everyone. Can't use that cologne anymore. Antonio didn't relay my confession about my parents but asked me about it in private, like a doctor concerned about his healthiest patient. I didn't listen to him just as he didn't listen to me when I warned him against his Who's Most Pedantic. Isn't this precisely the kind of demagoguery we should be avoiding? Don't be such a robot, Robot. Antonio and Leopoldo would often avoid me because they knew I didn't approve of their schemes. Just as they are avoiding him tonight. Everyone here knows he's leaving to Zumbahua and he knows they're smirking at him, look at that robot, another fanatic from the apostolic group. Only a fanatic will escape from this kingdom of schemes and change this country, Antonio. After Jennifer left me, toward the end of my fugitive years in Lima, Bogotá, Madrid, it occurred to me that Jennifer was similar to you, Antonio, the same animated predisposition, the same irrational impulses, the crying and the hurling of whatever was at hand, but because she was gone and
you were gone and I was gone, this realization, if indeed it was a realization instead of a thought I had succeeded in avoiding for years, did not exist in me as something I should react to. No. Rafael doesn't care that Antonio's back. What could they possibly talk about now? What could Antonio say to redress everything?

—

–Here they are. The distinguished scholars of San Javier. Again.

Not as distinguished as you. Give or take a hundred A pluses.

–How are those A pluses working out for you?

Ever heard of Stanford? Of course you haven't.

Everyone's heard of Harvard, on the other . . .

–Your mother never stopped reminding my mother about it. Congratulations. I didn't expect any less from you, Drool.

Cristian turns to Leopoldo and smiles benignly, as if the put-downs he has assigned to Leopoldo aren't amusing enough to dispatch here.

–Hey we were just talking about Harvard, Maraco. Join in. These two were classmates of mine at San Javier. Maraco was a classmate of mine at La Moderna and he's going to be my economic adviser. He was an intern at the International Monetary Fund.

So you are running for office?

Studies have shown that countries that did what the
IMF
told them were worse off than those that . . .

–The Americans and the Europeans know what they're doing. Our economists should learn from them. Maraco has learned well from them.

Many of the economists at the
IMF
are from Stanford and Harvard and . . .

I read somewhere that when the Bolivians said we're not paying this foreign debt because we need the money to feed our people the head of the
IMF
called the head of Bank of America to complain. You know the head of Bank of America, right?

–This guy's mother used to do my mother's nails. Nice shirt by the way. Versace, isn't it?

Leopoldo and I are running for office, too. We're tired of seeing this country run by the same old thieves. How's your grandpa by the way? Is his buddy still running Babson? How was Babson, by the way? I heard you actually managed to graduate from there.

Maraco restrains Cristian.

–I'm canceling my manicure with la puta de tu madre.

Leopoldo restrains Antonio. A fistfight at Julio's would be too much of a spectacle so Cristian and Antonio don't mind being separated.

Fat piece of crap.

Come. Let's go look for Julio.

Oligarch conchadesumadre.

—

I'll tell you about that duo of thieves, Cristian says. Wait hold my Chivas for a second. You moron. Why are you holding my Chivas? Don't ever hold anyone's glass of anything, Maraco. At least that's the rule if you want to work for me. I'll tell you about the Microphone Head and the Pothole Face — ha — that's what we used to call that duo of nerdos. You should've seen Leopoldo's afro head and Antonio's pockmarked face. You should've seen those two abominations at our graduation ceremony, prancing on the coliseum's stage with the medals they scored by swindling an academic quiz show on television. No, I'm not kidding you, Maraco. Why would I kid around with you? Everyone else from San Javier will parrot you the usual drivel about their so called academic achievements and their amazing victory at that quiz show that no one remembers anymore but I'll tell you about the sleaze they pulled to win it. I'll tell you what kind of hypocrite that African Microphone really is, lecturing us at our graduation ceremony about the future of our country, as if he was going to have a future in this country, let alone a post bending over for my grandfather, without a recommendation from me. That's right. For six years that ingrate groveled after me, handing me his physics homework the night before it was due, and whenever the faggoty Argentinean pseudo Jesuits at San Javier pretended they were
about to suspend me for spitting at Esteban or some other engendro, the African Head would surreptitiously grovel after the Jesus Loves You people on my behalf, as if I needed that African for anything besides his homework, which of course I could've aced on my own but why bother if I knew he'd done it already, for six years that African would bend over whenever I strolled by because at least that cholo was smart enough to know that no matter how stellar his theology scores were, no matter how much volunteer work he supposedly did in the filthy slums of Guayaquil — that African must have known teaching those poor bastards about jesus was pointless so why else did he trek there except to ingratiate himself with the priests? — yes, that's what I've often said, Maraco, teach those poor bastards how to fish instead of teaching them about some fisherman's son who allowed himself to be crucified — that's what I said, Maraco, a carpenter's son — he would never get anywhere in this country without a recommendation from me. I'm surprised he's even allowed here. Doña Esteros detests him. I'll introduce you to her if we have the misfortune of running into her. Just don't hold her drink. You should hear the stories about her. That she was an illiterate washerwoman who bewitched the dumb heir to the largest tuna fish empire in South America. That would explain why she's such an ostentatious witch. And why she has had all those plastic surgeries. Nothing she can do about that skin color of hers though. My mother can't stand her. The Plastic Sardine, my mother's friends call her. When we were sophomores Julio showed up at school with a brand new nose, courtesy of his bagre of a mother. The whole Esteros family except the tuna heir himself has had a nose job. Who Knows Knows: that was the name of the show they swindled. It used to air on Sundays on a channel owned by the Bucarams or the Adums or one of those Turcos who were part of El Loco's clan of smugglers who later founded the Partido Roldosista Ecuatoriano, a so called populist party that used to promise free housing for the poor but instead smuggled millions out of the country in coffee sacks. Everyone here remembers the coffee sacks story because soon after they fled my friend Pili said she spotted them at the Versace store in Miami Beach. Apparently
they were stocking up on those turquoise silk shirts embroidered with gardenias or hyenas or mythological suns or whatever, the kind only Turcos and Mexican narcos wear, and what Pili told us is that after they were done bursting out of those tacky embroidered silk shirts, and after they approached the cash register as only those people can, snapping their fingers for service and flaunting their hairy chests just as they used to do in their political ads promising free housing for the poor, the Italian salesgirl scowled at them as if they had just crapped on the sheep rug and refused to touch their sweaty wads of cash that reeked of stale coffee beans. Cheap Ecuadorian coffee beans. Apparently she buzzed the security guard and asked her pit guard to count the cash from these so called populists that used to broadcast their so called populist shows on Channel Ten for the maids and the bus drivers who ended up voting for that tracalada of Turcos who then sacked whatever stupid hopes those poor bastards had of getting free housing or free milk or whatever else those crooks promised them. Haga Negocio Conmigo was the name of their most vulgar show. Ever watched that crap? With Polo Baquerizo? Remember the theme song? If something I owe you / with this I repay you. This clan of thieves then tried to appear educated by sponsoring a national academic high school quiz show called Who Knows Knows. What a joke. When it first aired, three or four years before the Afro / Drool duo swindled it — the Drool's the Pothole Face, yeah — the San Javier team had clunked so bad on the first round that the homo jesus troglodytes never allowed anyone to enter the contest again because the best, the most prestigious, the most egalitarian school in the nation — ha — the one where parents register their newborns for the entrance exam the minute they are born, an impossible entrance exam that's of course easier to ace if your math and history tutors are the same math and history teachers that are in charge of drafting the impossible entrance exam — of course those teachers were my tutors, Maraco, why wouldn't they be? — and whether you are rich or poor, the jesus people used to repeat and likely still repeat to the newest batch of hopeful parents, if you manage to pass our impossible entrance exam, you too can attend San
Javier — what a joke — although in our class we did have the son of the school janitor and the son of a bus mechanic who used to brag about raping his maid in the shower. Facundo Cedeño. That was his name. You should've heard his toll collector's voice. Facundo was the one who told me how the Afro / Drool duo swindled that television quiz show and bribed our physics teacher. Apparently they booked an appointment with him in one of the small chambers built for the parent / teacher conferences next to the principal's office. Now these chambers have glass walls for a reason, you know, to minimize the risk of grade looting on the premises, but our top nerdos had nerve so in view of everyone they sat down with our physics teacher and their long, dull speech, as performed by Facundo, let's see if I can replicate his toll collector's chicken shriek, went something like, we've reached, “reached” pronounced as reeee / ched, as you probably know, the semifinal stage of Who Knows Knows, and up next we're scheduled against Rocafuerte, one of the strongest contestants this year, and of course we've been preparing ourselves because we just can't let the school down, we've made a commitment and that's why we're here to ask for your help in winning this thing because, you see, unfortunately we don't have the time to study for the physics final, although, hey, let's speak the truth here, no lies, you know us, have known us enough to know that if we were to study for the final we would ace it as we always do so you know we really aren't asking you for much, the rest of the teachers have already agreed to help us take it all the way and we brought you a little something, not as a gift, no, we have too much respect for you to insult you like that, but as an expression of our deepest appreciation for helping us take it all the way, “deepest” pronounced deeeeee / pez. The Afro Head was of course the one in charge of the speechifying. And what did they bring to our teacher? Those abominations claim to have imagination but they have no imagination or only have imagination for masturbation and defalcation because they brought him a bottle of Johnnie Walker, which is what everyone else always brought him. A counterfeit Johnnie, I'm sure. Now our physics teacher, Emilio Turdecox, a lowlife who used to carry a laminated copy of his diploma inside his
wallet, was already infamous for his graft. One year he said to our class do you all think I'm a drunk? Quit it with the bottles, people. I need a bicycle. Ha! A bicycle! I never asked Facundo the Maid Killer if he was pranking the Cox, but one year, on the day of our final, he brought the Cox a live turkey. Turdecox couldn't take the turkey home right away, and he couldn't leave it in the teacher's room either, so he had to walk it to our classroom and tie it to the leg of his desk. Good one, fatty! What a sad looking turkey that was. I wonder if it was actually a buzzard. Of course the Afro / Drool duo didn't show up to the physics final. They were too busy celebrating their so called slyness at some park. That's how the Maid Killer heard all about it. A group of them used to station themselves at parks around the city to drink and sing along to the songs the Maid Killer performed on his guitar. On one of these outings they were so drunk that they started bragging about their flatulence and their fraudulence and their so called slyness. What the Maid Killer told me is that they told everyone there that after the Afro Head convinced the priests to allow them to enter the television contest, and after they easily won the first few rounds against some nappy schools, they almost lost to some rural municipal school from Manta or Tungurahua or whatever so they got worried, probably never considered the possibility of losing. Plus the Afro Head had convinced the weary Jesuits to allow them to reenter the contest by assuring them that he had a winning team. Their next rival school was one of those charity nun schools from way over in the, whatever, let's say Esmeraldas. Facundo told me he chatted up one of those prim cholitas before the show, trying to score at least a skirt lift but couldn't, those girls were too studious and serious. Apparently those girls were the proverbial dirt poor orphans with that spunky seriousness of intent you often see in marathon runners. They had over-prepared by memorizing all the books available to them. Had actually gone to a library. So after their three day bus trip across Manabí, our orphans arrived at Channel Ten and there, on the patio overlooking the Guayaquil airport, Facundo and the rest of my so called classmates saw them doing calisthenics and singing their battle songs and reciting passages from our famous poets. Our team didn't even know
we had famous poets. The deed had been done by then so the Microphone and the Drool must have felt like the abominations they were. They were about to cheat those poor girls from the one thing they were likely to ever win in their lifetimes. Or maybe they didn't feel like abominations. Business as usual, you know? This guy we used to call Mazinger, another one of those nerdos who was part of the Afro / Drool team, demanded that they shred the answers they'd stolen. But it was too late. They had already memorized them. The week before, they'd gone to the office of the quiz show and sweet talked the
TV
host's secretary. She had a young son and she told them she'd always dreamed of enrolling him at San Javier. So guess what they did? They told her that they had solid connections at San Javier. That they could help her get her son into San Javier no problem. You can imagine this poor woman's excitement. Her son! At San Javier! What a joke. By the time the orphans arrived, the hopeful secretary had already bolstered two of their three consecutive wins. And you know what's worse? That the orphans almost won. On the Drool's segment, the orphan girl was so quick at the buzzer that he had to push the buzzer before the question was even asked so of course then it became evident that something was rotten in the San Javier camp. The host could've stopped the show. He could've drafted new questions and simply retaped that segment. Of course he didn't. Afterward, the Afro Head and the Drool and the Maid Killer and the rest of them saw the orphans sobbing angrily on the patio. Some of my classmates at San Javier will object to me running for office, sure, but at least I don't steal from the poor. Between those two swindlers and me, who would you choose? Don't be such an ass kisser, Maraco. If you're going to work for me you can't be such an ass kisser. Come. Let's head back to my nightclub. Let's refill our Chivas and get the hell out of here.