Carlos Fuentes - Happy Families

high as an eagle

cool cool cool

but he’s bored

he comes from a decent family nice fine

he has manners

he has servants

his mom and dad call them rude coarse untrustworthy trash bums

indians

but would never say it

his mommy and daddy feel more than disgusting

disgust: mexica louts

that’s why he organizes the group of pissers

to water the roses for them and give enough to their vegetables

the ones who are unfailing the nice ones the crème hey hey

now guys we fly over the wall

don’t fly over it, better aim at it

wanna see who has better aim hey?

no Fito my friend, hold on a little, drink another magnum all by yourself and when you can’t

hold it anymore we’ll aim at the wall but just remember that first we drink

until we die and before we die we aim at the wall to see who pisses more and better

because Fito got bored with sunday afternoons with the society girls at the cool

parties where he’s very good-looking and superfine

where everybody has a terrific time

except him

he wants strong sensations

to tell all the nice people like him to go to hell

all the society girls

and that’s why he comes to pee on his father-in-law’s wall

with his golden buddies

aiming at the wall

whoever pees the farthest wins a trip to las vegas with babes who make you stand up and salute hey hey

and that noise?

and that noise ay?

and that ay — dammit!

naco guys with their knives and machetes assaulting the children of good families

hey where’d they come from?

from penitenciaría and héroe de nacozari and albañiles and canal del norte

how did they get here?

by subway my fella citzens

since there’s been a subway we come out like ants scorpions moles from the black holes

of the siddy

with knives and machetes to assault

come to cut

in one slice the ones that have stopped

to slash the ones that are sleepy

to cut cock you bastards

now get them together

the pigs

let the boars in and the dogs

let the animals eat sausages

let them bleed

look at them vomit

look at them covering the wounds

look at the blood running down their thighs

look at them look at them look at them

sunday afternoon what a handsome birthday boy in the show on the tube everything very lively

a terrific time

an unbelievable time

at the father-in-law’s wall

and whoever shouts put his own chile in his mouth

you never thought about that bastard

about sucking yourself bleeding bastard

and now what will your girlfriends say a bunch of rich fuckers

and now how will you father more fucking children rich castrated fuckers

sons of mufuckin

it’s a dream right?

it’s a nightmare isn’t it?

seal off all the subway exits

let’s go with the cute girls for the weekend

let’s run away

to get married have children go to the club fly to nuyor

send the children to school

fondle their nursemaids

and now the only children will be ours

fucking children

there are millions of us

nobody can stop us

1. Don Luis Albarrán had his house in order. When his wife, Doña Matilde Cousiño, died, he was afraid that as a widower, his life would become disorganized. At the age of sixty-five, he felt more than enough drive to continue at the head of the construction company La Pirámide. What he feared was that the rear guard of that other security, Doña Matilde’s domestic front, would collapse, affecting his life at home as well as his professional activities.

Now he realized there was nothing to fear. He transferred the same discipline he used in conducting his business to domestic arrangements. Doña Matilde had left a well-trained staff, and it was enough for Don Luis to repeat the orders of his deceased wife to have the household machinery continue to function like clockwork. Not only that: At first the replacement of the Señora by the Señor caused a healthy panic among the servants. Soon fear gave way to respect. But Don Luis not only made himself respected, he made himself loved. For example, he found out the birthday of all his employees and gave each one a gift and the day off.

The truth is that now Don Luis Albarrán did not know if he felt prouder of his efficiency in business or his efficiency at home. He gave thanks to Doña Matilde and her memory that a mansion in the Polanco district, built in the 1940s when neocolonial residences became fashionable in Mexico City, had preserved not only its semi-Baroque style but also the harmony of a punctual, chronometric domesticity in which everything was in its place and everything was done at the correct time. From the garden to the kitchen, from the garage to the bathroom, from the dining room to the bedroom, when he returned from the office, Don Luis found everything just as he had left it when he went to work.

The cook, María Bonifacia, the chambermaid, Pepita, the butler, Truchuela, the chauffeur, Jehová, the gardener, Cándido. . The staff was not only perfect but silent. Señor Albarrán did not need to exchange words with a single servant to have everything in its place at the correct time. He did not even need to look at them.

At nine in the evening, in pajamas, robe, and slippers, when he sat in the wingback chair in his bedroom to eat a modest light meal of foaming hot chocolate and a sweet roll, Don Luis Albarrán could anticipate a night of recuperative sleep with the spiritual serenity of having honored, for another day, the sweet memory of his loyal companion, Matilde Cousiño, a Chilean who had until the day of her death a southern beauty with those green eyes that rivaled the cold of the South Pacific and were all that had been left to her of a body slowly defeated by the relentless advance of cancer.

Matilde: Illness only renewed her firm spirit, her character immune to any defeat. She said that Chilean women (she pronounced it “wimmen”) were like that, strong and decisive. They made up for — this was her theory — a certain weak sweetness in the men of her country, so cordial until the day their treble voices turned into commanding, cruel voices. Then the woman’s word would appear with all its gift for finding a balance between tenderness and strength.

They had a happy love life in bed, a “carousing” counterpoint, Don Luis would say, in two daily lives that were so serious and orderly until the illness and death of his wife left the widower momentarily disconcerted, possessed of all obligations — office and home — and bereft of all pleasures.

The staff responded. They all knew the routine. Doña Matilde Cousiño came from an old Chilean family and was trained in ruling over the estates of the south and the elegant mansions of Providencia, and she inculcated in her Mexican staff virtues with which they, the domestic crew of the Polanco district, were not unfamiliar and normally accepted. The only novelty for Don Luis was having, when he returned home, elevenses, the amiable Chilean version of British afternoon tea: cups of verbena with teacakes, dulce de leche, and almond pastries. Don Luis told himself that this and a good wine cellar of Chilean reds were the only exotic details Doña Matilde Cousiño introduced into the mansion in Polanco. The staff continued the Chilean custom. Given Mexican schedules, however (office from ten to two, dinner from two to four, final business items from four to six), Don Luis had elevenses a little later, at seven in the evening, though this sweet custom cut his appetite for even the monastic meal he ate at nine.