Carlos Fuentes - Christopher Unborn

“Here you are, sir, awzom chewing gum.”

“Yo, I’m the kool kat wit the winning ticket.”

“I swear man, dese cigs is the real thing.”

“Take a look, lady, genuine humongous bras.”

“Check it out, man, look at these galoshes here.”

“Wanna learn to French kiss, got da bes’ book right here, man.”

Angel and Angeles stared at the rows of young people with no future, the long rows of bored people on guard before the nothingness, expecting nothing from the nothingness, Mexico City, decrepit and moribund and the street theater set up on tubs and broken-down trucks representing everything, reason and unreason:

AFTER THE FIESTA THE SIESTA

Step inside, step inside, just see how the oil prices plummeted

THE OPEC-AND-ONE NIGHTS

Step inside, step inside, see how the border was closed to wetbacks

TALES FROM THE TACO CURTAIN

Right this way to see how Mexicans bred until they exploded demographically

NO SECTS PLEASE WE’RE CATHOLIC

Right here on the big stage, ladies and gentlemen, events in Central America, or how President Trigger Trader made the worst prophecies come true just by saying them out loud

WELCOME TO SAIGONCITO

Ladies and gentlemen, don’t miss these scenes of virile violence in which President Rambold Rager widens the war to include Mexico and Panama

IF I PAY THEM THEY ARE MY FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Step inside, don’t miss the extraordinary comedy about the rise in import duties

IS THAT A GATT YOU’RE CARRYING OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?

Right here on the big stage: in 3-D and Cinerama, back up your optimism with the complete history of our foreign debt, or how we beat out Brazil and Argentina in the race to disaster!

AFTER THE FIESTA THE SIESTA

and from car to car along the Beltway, the shouts of the city of gossip, the nation of rumors:

“The peso’s dropping to thirty thousand per dollar.”

“Did you hear that Mamadoc got fed up and is quitting tomorrow?”

“What I hear is that it’s Mamadoc and the President.”

“No, what Mamadoc wants is for Colonel Inclán to fuck her.”

“Get out, man, where’d you hear that?”

“I’ve got a brother-in-law in SEPAFU.”

“He’s lyin’, man.”

“That minister Don Ulises is a wife-beater.”

“They say he broke his wife’s legs.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Ask the lady herself, there she is coming out of Sanborn’s.”

“They say President Paredes took a billion pesos to Switzerland.”

“Who told you that?”

“They say it came out in the Gall Street Journal. ”

“Since when do you know English?”

“I’ve got people to translate for me. But it’s box populi, box dei.”

“Didya hear that Mamadoc had a copy of the Petite Trianon built for her in El Pedregal?”

“Some people saw Don Ulises López in Las Vegas.”

“Yeah, and he lost three million dollars in one shot playing baccarat.”

“And we don’t even have enough for a trip to Xochimilco.”

“I hear Robles Chacón can’t get it up, and that’s why he loves power so much. Just like women.”

“Colonel Inclán’s really a queer.”

“And Mamadoc’s a transvestite.”

“No, man, she’s supposed to be Julio Iglesias wearing a wig.”

“Wrong, man. It’s that old group Menudo under one big skirt.”

“Yeah, I hear she only likes to sleep with dwarfs.”

“Robles Chacón’s a junkie.”

“Apparently the Minatitlán wells went dry, but nobody’s saying anything.”

“Wheredya hear that?”

“My brother-in-law has access to Pemex.”

“Well, someone told me that Guatemala just occupied the entire state of Chiapas and nobody even noticed.”

“No way. My nephew was just drafted and he says the real war is with Australia over the Revillagegedo islands.”

“Right. It’s about that nodule thing.”

“Whatsat?”

“Instead of oil, it’s nodules now, didn’t you hear?”

“Never heard of it.”

“With these manganese nodules, man, we’re gonna take off again.”

“All have to do is administer our wealth!”

“But President Jomajeezus wantsa sell the islands to the Vatican.”

“No way. Who toldya?”

“I got an uncle who’s a sacristan in the Basilica.”

“I don’t believe anything anymore.”

“I’m telling you tomorrow they’re gonna announce another nationalization.”

“But there’s nothing left to nationalize.”

“There sure is: the air.”

“But who wants it?”

“They’re gonna make a window tax, just the way Santa Anna did.”

“Tomorrow they declare a moratorium.”

“You’d better get your savings out while you can.”

“Sell everything.”

“Spend it all.”

“The whole thing’s going down the tubes.”

“How many people are here?”

“Enough.”

and along Emita — Ixtapalapa an army of impostors and con men besieged each other, besieged each other trying to make deals, if you want to get into Los Pinos / I was just named superintendent of the Tuxpan refinery / I’m on my way to be ambassador to Ruanda-Urundi / I’m writing Mamadoc’s memoirs / the President has commissioned me to / the IMF has ordered me to / I have the job of bringing Dr. Barnard to operate on private individuals, just sign here / I’ve been offered a corner on the U.S. corn crop / the Rockerfeller Foundation has assigned me the job of distributing scholarships in Mex / would you be interested in spending a month free at the Ritz Hotel in Paris? Just sign here / I’m selling a condo in Beverly Hills at a hundred Mexican pesos the square yard: just sign here / the New York production company PornoCorno would be very innarested in offering you a contract, baby: just sign here /

The women selling shrimp tacos in the snack bar for Churubusco Studios note:

“Look here now, Sadie, my only contribution to the crisis of confidence we’re suffering is, as Don Paul Volcker declared recently, the U.S. deficit undermines confidence there, too.”

“Can you imagine, Frannie, the U.S. is asking for loans of $100 billion out of foreign savings accounts every year now, isn’t that incredible?”

“Well, Sadie, all I know is that when the dollar’s high it means high interest rates.”

“Frannie, you just said a mouthful. Gimme another shrimp taco / and the Van Gogh plods along the Tlalpan causeway, where the dwarfs, eccentrics, and scribes the provinces export in large numbers to the capital in order to raise cash meet and offer their services to their urban clientele. The van stops in the little plaza of the San Pedro Apóstol Church, about one hundred and fifty feet from the house of bright colors. The seashell-shaped coach drawn by horses also stops there: the meeting place was their own house, it was here the Bulevar was to be today, they’d gone around a big old circle, everyone making a sincere effort to keep up a certain style, to restore the romantic image, make dark suits, high hats, feather boas, crinolines, Nankin trousers, embroidered vests, ostrich feathers, suffocating chokers, and Derbys fashionable, today they’re parading here, they can’t avoid all the urban gangrene, but they do avoid some of it, yes, the carriage doors open and out tumble the Orphan Huerta (very much changed), Hipi Toltec (with a tiny electric fan in his hand), and Egg asking Baby Ba not to get left behind, now baby, we’re almost there, look: Angel and Angeles, our buddies …

“Serbus!” shouted the Orphan by way of greeting.

“In ixtli, in yóllotl!” said Hipi Toltec.

“Animus intelligence,” answered my mom.

“Buffalo,” synthesized the Orphan.