Mauro Cardenas - The Revolutionaries Try Again

Check, check, the Drool to the Not Funny Mic. Microphone?

Yes dear?

See you Sunday?

Yes dear.

Bring that piece of Drool if he hasn’t turned too much into a blip, blip, I’m alien robot from gaytown, blip.

Facundo kicks the chain on the floor as if trying to score a goal and then slams the door on his way out.

What’s Sunday?

Leopoldo explains Sunday’s their monthly barbeque soccer gathering at San Javier.

Will Rafael be there? I’ve been calling him but he hasn’t. .

Your husband had a rough time for several years after Jennifer ended their relationship, Antonio.

How did you end up working for León?

Long story.

Apparently we have time. Because it might be a while before our candidate arrives. What do you do for León?

Chief of staff.

Secretary to mini Reagan. Who would’ve thought.

I believe the Drool used to be a staunch supporter of mini Reagan? I believe the Drool received a recommendation to Harvard from mini Reagan?

Decent schooling has turned me into a staunch opposer. What happened at the Central Bank, Leo?

Leopoldo picks up the chain from the floor and restarts the business of locking the door.

Who’s running for León’s party? You?

No one. Cristian Cordero might be running on his own.

The Fat Albino?

León doesn’t want him to run though.

León doesn’t want his grandson to ruin the franchise? What about El Loco’s son? Jacobito has girth, too. What’s Facundo up to these days?

Leopoldo tells Antonio that Facundo works as a security guard and sings sad songs at La Ratonera.

Facundo came to visit me one day and asked to borrow my dictionary. What for, Facundito, I said. Apparently he thinks his audience finds it funny when he uses big words.

The legacy of Who’s Most Pedantic continues. Even back then he loved misusing big words to entertain us. Julio’s having a party at his house tonight, by the way.

Is he?

If he doesn’t show we can talk to him then.

Don Alban comes back with his son, Rolando, who’s carrying what looks like obsolete radio equipment.

Look who’s here.

Both of them feign excitement at seeing Rolando.

Rolando!

It’s been a while.

Rolando’s been busy starting his own radio station.

That’s awesome. What kind of music? Are you a cumbia man?

I love cumbias. La del Garrote. You know that one?

That’s Lisandro Meza, no?

No, no, but Lisandro Meza’s fun.

He’s the one who sings about the Antichrist?

Ahora sí les llegó la hora. .

. . y si tú no estás preparado. .

— Shut up.

Rolando, please.

— Shut the hell up, you thieves.

Antonio and Leopoldo look over to Don Alban for help.

— Goddamn thieves. Get out of here.

Come. Let’s. .

— I don’t have to go, Dad. They do.

Ya, Rolancho. Come.

Don Alban grabs Rolando gently by the arm and guides him to the back door.

What’s wrong with the Gremlin?

How would I know?

Rolando wanted red flyers — blood red — sickle red with red captions and etchings of veins promulgating the rebirth of Radio Rebelde on the hills of — No Rolando no one wants blood or veins and here the sickle never tickled — why did Eva always have to undermine him with silly rhymes? — which he thought but didn’t say — Besides the name of your radio’s too Cuban — how did she get the Cuban reference? — because she’d claimed she didn’t care and had therefore never read about Castro and Guevara and the pointless gore they’d craved for the continent — it was only pointless because they failed! — Look at us now — Boys with guns — ugh — Boys who ended up dead — And those who didn’t had boys who had boys who now peddle lettuce for a living is that a life? — and he could have continued and said how about your mother what she had to go through? — and Eva would have probably punched him in the shoulder — which wouldn’t have hurt — okay maybe a little — or tell him again — no she wouldn’t have told him again about the night she danced to ABBA with her mother in her single room house with the forkable floor — the rain thundering their tin or thatched roof — her mother’s skirt like a blanket — a carousel — and Eva interrupting her ABBA story to ask Rolando if she’d ever told him about the night her mother took her to see the amusement park on the esplanade of the Estadio Modelo — about that night abloom in aqua and crimson lights — the Scrambler Mama — the bouquets of inflatable rabbits and felt giraffes — the Skydiver — the game of matching the waves of surprise with the right roller ride — imagining the whir of the cotton candy machine even from afar — holding hands with her mother as they danced — as her mother lifted her and spun her around — the Flying Dumbos — the Teacups — and then the tape player crunched her mother’s tape but her mother said doesn’t matter chiquita we’ll hum the songs — the vapors of something boiling in the kitchen — mi chiquitina — rabbit broth? — rainwater flowing underneath the door like lava — the plague! the plague! — mi chiquitolina — knowing me / knowing you — quick the lamb’s blood — Yes it is a life Rolando and no one wants it coiled with veins or stained with blood — and so the flyers Rolando and Eva are handing out as they climb the stairs to Mapasingue aren’t blood red but grass green.

Rolando distributes the flyers but Eva does all the talking — We’ll have a recipe hour at noon Doña Flores — ugh — Good afternoon I’m Rosado Sibambe how powerful is your station? — Rolando here’s the expert — Thirteen kilowatts — A lucky station? — A mile and a half of signal — How much for a minute of ad? — This isn’t that kind of station — We’re just starting out we’re open to ideas I’m Eva by the way this is Rolando forgive him he’s constipated what do you have in mind? — To promote my business — which consists of a telephone booth she has installed inside her living room and which she rents to her neighbors — Paneled it myself — but she wants to expand her business and add another booth — How much for a minute of ad I can record it myself — Doña Rosado I think your business counts as a service to the community — Call me Rosie — We can advertise your business for free Rosie — For how long? — As long as you want — What do I have to buy? — Absolutely nothing — Soundproof booths / come and call / your cousin Mooch — We can help you come up with a catchier jingle yes — Let’s use your voice we could sell eggs to the chickens with that voice — Thank you so much Rosie — What does that mean? — What does what mean? — Could sell eggs to the chickens because here the chickens can’t afford to buy anything if someone swiped the chicken’s eggs that’s it no more eggs for that chicken — Maybe no one swiped her eggs — Right maybe she’s just a business chicken who wants more eggs — Or maybe her eggs were lonely — And even if she had no money the business chicken could barter for them — Warm four keep two that sort of thing? — Maybe the chicken wants more eggs so she can feel more motherly — Or maybe the chicken just wants to impress the leader of the hencoop — Or maybe the chicken just wants to eat someone else’s eggs — Forgive him he’s — I’m not constipated! — In any case Eva you have a beautiful voice — Thank you so much Rosie — Come let me show you the first booth in the booth chain — No we don’t have time — Ah come on Rolandis it’ll take a minute — and already she’s hurrying along with Rosie down a dusty path — goddamnit — among the cement boxes that the people here call homes — and why shouldn’t they? — Speaking of eggs this is Felix Cervantes’s home from where he wholesales his eggs — and through the window Rolando sees a room full of eggs — hundreds of them — rows of them on trays stacked atop each other almost to the roof — green and red trays but mostly gray — and amid the eggs a white plastic lawn chair next to a barrel sealed with tape — How does he keep the eggs fresh? — but neither Rosado nor Eva answer him so he hurries behind Eva who seems to be enjoying the neighborhood tour — greeting the people who are slurping caldo de salchicha — at least that’s what it smells like — the intestines and plátanos that Rolando likes — waving at the people standing under a parasol by a cauldron of caldo de salchicha — That’s Lucila’s food stand we’re here come inside — Oh Rosie I love your plants — full heads of plants hanging from the ceiling — so many of them that vertically the room looks halved — the kingdom of the plants is above us — and even the walls here look halved — red above the waist and gray below — gray like the crossbars on the window and the clouds of cement smudged around the window but not like the incredibly well crafted phone booth which has been paneled with birch and has been framed with metal as resplendent as the silver doorknob — the words Booth One carefully stenciled on the plexiglass — Just the beginning my booth chain will spread hundreds of them all over town one day you’ll see — Look at that garden — Come I’ll show you — and through the crossbarred window Rolando sees a puny semicircle of land outside enclosed by a tilted fence of wire mesh — and there’s an old woman dressed in a white sheet that’s either her pajamas or a ghost costume and she looks radiant there with her long white wet hair to the waist — and she seems to be talking to the plants or petting the plants as if trying to console them — That’s my grandmother she’s apologizing to the tomatoes and the potatoes because we’ll have to eat them soon.