Mauro Cardenas - The Revolutionaries Try Again

—

Don Alban!

Muchachón!

Leopoldo didn’t tell me we were meeting at your restaurant. I didn’t even know you had a restaurant. What a wonderful surprise, Don Alban. Looks great.

De a poco we jumpstart the franchise.

Now that I know your place’s here I’ll be coming back every day.

My restaurant is your restaurant, niño Antonio. Leopoldo lunches here daily. My sopa de bollo he loves. One time when your classmates were here he stood up, you know Leopoldo, always the speechman, and delivered his Ode to Don Alban’s Sopa de Bollo. The bollo here does have heft, niño Antonio. I ask Hurtado, Economista, where’s your friend? Ah Don Alban, he says to me, still hooked on blondes up north. Your other friend I still see on Saturdays.

Mazinger?

Rafael, yes. That’s the one.

He’s not going to Mapasingue still, is he?

To Mapasingue and to the dumpster, too. The apostolic group never ended for him. Every Saturday before sundown he and Father Cortez head to the city dumpster to deliver antibiotics and bread. That boy used to be quite the kicker.

Had that robotic speed.

See him sometimes on the soccer field on Sundays. Your classmates still play together.

Rafael’s still kicking the ball into outer space? Monkey Shooter we used to call him, remember?

We’re out of monkeys, muchachón. How about you, niño Antonio? Did you show the Americans how it’s done?

I stopped playing soccer when I got there and. .

I remember your fast finta dribble. You would grab the soccer ball and bolt. Unstoppable. Staying for good?

For a little while. Longer, maybe.

Let me clear a table for you. Sit, niño Antonio, sit.

I’ve called Rafael a few times but he hasn’t. .

I remember driving you and Leopoldo and Rafael to Mapasingue every Saturday, remember?

The apostolic group bus. How could I forget?

—

DROOL

:

First we raise their salaries.

MICROPHONE

:

Can’t. Inflationary.

DROOL

:

Enforce a minimum wage.

MICROPHONE

:

Cost goes up, can’t compete, factories shut down and reopen in Colombia.

DROOL

:

We pact with the Colombians.

MICROPHONE

:

Shut down and reopen in Perú.

DROOL

:

Pact with the Perúvians.

MICROPHONE

:

Remember Paquisha?

MAID KILLER

:

Paquisha / es historia / saaaagraaadaaa.

DROOL

:

Screw borders. Petty maps.

MICROPHONE

:

The impact of cartography on the onanistic tradition. Let us. .

MAID KILLER

:

Ona what?

MICROPHONE

:

Nistic.

CHORUS

:

Chanfle.

DROOL

:

Tax incentives. For factories to stay.

MICROPHONE

:

Excellent.

MAID KILLER

:

He’s got you now, Microphone.

MICROPHONE

:

Time?

MAID KILLER

:

Two till.

MICROPHONE

:

We can be late for Berta’s class.

MAID KILLER

:

Bobeeeeerta.

MICROPHONE

:

Drool wants to keep his milk program?

DROOL

:

That’s a bovine question.

MAID KILLER

:

Bovine! What is?

CHORUS

:

Your mom.

MICROPHONE

:

Your tax incentive just holed our budget. We’ll have to axe your milk program.

DROOL

:

You wouldn’t do that.

MAID KILLER

:

Seen the Microphone do worse, Drool.

MICROPHONE

:

Milk for the kids or jobs for the parents. You decide.

MAID KILLER

:

With León it can be done?

DROOL

:

Don’t have to decide. Both.

MICROPHONE

:

No problem. Just cover our hole, sir.

MAID KILLER

:

Nasty girl.

MICROPHONE

:

Privatize the phone lines.

DROOL

:

Free milk for a year. Then what?

MAID KILLER

:

Think of the children.

DROOL

:

Privatize electricity.

MAID KILLER

:

Bulb Head, powered by Torbay.

MICROPHONE

:

Then what?

DROOL

:

Privatize water.

MICROPHONE

:

Then what?

—

According to Rafael the Mazinger, Father Villalba founded the apostolic group, a volunteer group that visits the elderly at the hospice Luis Plaza Dañín and teaches catechism in Mapasingue, soon after his appointment to San Javier, an appointment that Father Villalba abhors and that, according to Facundo the Maid Killer, was forced on him by the Vatican after they removed him from his parish in Ambato, where he’d been rallying the flowerpickers against the landowners just as the international flower market was booming, typical of this backward country, those indígenas should be grateful instead of grousing against the hand that feeds them, although, according to Bastidas the Chinchulín, Father Villalba was actually removed because of his diatribes against John Paul II at some conference in Puebla, diatribes that probably resemble the sermons Antonio used to hear from Father Villalba during the Sunday alumni services he used to attend with his grandfather years before he was admitted to San Javier, angry Sunday sermons that would irrupt against the school’s alumni, as if the alumni were to blame for him being exiled at a Jesuit school where for decades the same landowners I’ve been battling against have studied theology, where the sons of the same landowners I’ve been battling against have studied and will continue to study theology, although, according to Esteban the Pipí, Father Villalba has slowed the inflow of oligarchs by successfully lobbying to axe the school’s tuition and hike the difficulty of the entrance exam, and as Antonio approaches Father Villalba’s office to request permission to join the apostolic group he’s thinking about those sermons in which Father Villalba asks how are we to be Christians in a world of destitution and injustice, how is it possible for a single instant to forget these situations of dramatic poverty, insofar as you did it to one of these least brothers of mine, insofar as you exploited or ignored or mistreated these least brothers of mine, you did it to me, and as Antonio waits for Leopoldo at Don Alban’s restaurant he remembers Father Villalba saying that at the supreme moment of history, when your eternal salvation or damnation will be decided, what will count, the only thing that will count, is whether you accepted or rejected the poor. Antonio knocks on the door.

Yes? What is it?

Father Villalba, I. .

You’re interrupting the music, Olmedo. Sit and keep quiet.

On Father Villalba’s desk a portable cassette player is transmitting music that follows no distinguishable pattern, roils, seems to progress in a scabrous direction, climbing to an altiplane to toll a bell, and then Father Villalba’s music’s over and someone in the recording coughs, someone scrapes a chair, and everyone’s clapping.

What do you want?

I want to join the apostolic group.

That’s for second year students.

I want to join this year.

Next year. You’re too young. Next year.

What does age have to do with helping the. .

You won’t get any perks from joining, Olmedo. Let’s make that clear. From me or any of the other priests. Or at least not from me. Now go. Shoo.

From his shirt pocket Antonio pulls a page he has ripped from one of his arithmetic notebooks, the white fringe from the ripped page sprinkling on his lap, a sign of some kind, Antonio probably thought back then, just as his abstruse calligraphy, which his classmates will spoof on the blackboard for the next six years, was kind of a sign, too, emboldening him to read out loud what he’d handwritten on the page the night before.

All the efforts of human thought are not worth one act of charity.