Mauro Cardenas - The Revolutionaries Try Again

That week they wrote down ideas for potential plays dealing with unemployment — with subemployment — with privatization — with lack of sustentation — with the return of El Loco — with the partial demise of León Martín Cordero — with the rumor that an American transnational was partnering with a local consortium to construct a fake snow sky resort on the hills of Mapasingue — which of course meant leveling what currently exists — and that’s the plot they decided upon which begins with the local magnate advising the Americans to hire elements from the local police to evacuate the people of Mapasingue who live there illegally — all of them squatters Mister Kissinger — and since the people of Mapasingue resist the local magnate advises the Americans to hire paramilitary squadrons to squash those cockroaches — and since the people of Mapasingue fight back the local magnate equips his people with crowbars and rifles — and since the Americans don’t like to hear about crowbars or rifles the local magnate tells the Americans not to worry — I’ll take care of it Mister Kissinger — not telling the Americans about the armed paramilitaries who are approaching Mapasingue and are raising their rifles and are aiming at the crowd but they remain frozen like that — Yes that’s it with their rifles raised like that — And now the audience has to decide what happens next — and hopefully the audience will clamor for the paramilitaries to lower their rifles and think differently — for one of the paramilitaries to shout stop — everyone stop — these are our brothers and sisters — we cannot open fire on our brothers and sisters — and after Rolando delivers a moving monologue the paramilitaries see the light and put down their arms and join the people of Mapasingue in their fight against the local magnate and the Americans — Ladies and gentlemen do we have a show for you this Saturday — Come to Roldós Plaza and help us decide what will happen to Mapasingue — Need help locating Roldós Plaza? — Call now!

On the night of their first show Rolando’s surprised to see so many people in the audience — some of whom are sitting on the foldable chairs and some of whom are standing behind the foldable chairs — and some of them are unwrapping the humitas that the Humita Lady has sold them from a wicker basket and others are improvising a circus show for a newborn who’s being burped and others are arguing jovially about something Rolando cannot hear — and on the tree by the stage the Christmas lights are flickering steadily as if to reassure everyone Christmas will come as it always does — and the generator’s burring and the night’s hot and humid like every other night — Ladies and gentlemen Los Guapayasos and Radio Nuevo Día present Snowflakes in Mapasingue — and the crowd applauds too effusively — as if they’re fans of the playwrights already — which in this case include Rolando Alban Cienfuegos and Eva Calderón and the people of Mapasingue — which means they’re partially applauding themselves? — and then a clown sporting a blue business suit that has been spraypainted with the word Pig enters the stage holding up what looks like blueprints — and next to him there’s another clown that’s dressed in the same kind of suit but without the sleeves and with shredded pants who’s obviously the Pig’s servant because the words Pig Servant have been spraypainted on his suit — and the crowd’s booing and jeering and yelling out with that Pig — Down with the Pig! — Hog! — Swine! — I do like pork chops though — Shut up Ramiro! — and the Pig clown approaches the edge of the stage by the angry audience and the Pig clown hesitates as to whether he should go on — looking askance at Rolando who from the side of the stage nods reassuringly — although Rolando isn’t sure if he should go on especially because next to him Eva looks worried — and then Rolando signals the Pig clown to please go on and the Pig clown cups his hand like a visor — Hmm this place looks dangerous — Nevertheless it will do for fake snow — We’ll just have to make these people disappear — Do you like magic? — I do — Enough about me — Yes patroncito that’s an excellent idea that way I won’t have to worry about feeding my pig wife and my pig kids anymore — Puff all gone from Mapasingue — Down with the Pig! — Toss him out! — The audience has spoken! — and some in the audience are hurling their humitas at the Pig and the Humita Lady is clutching her wicker basket to her chest as if afraid the people are going to raid the humitas in her basket but she doesn’t leave — and Eva’s hands are covering her face to not see but she does see — and Rolando’s ashamed he’s staring at Eva when she’s clearly in a state that doesn’t allow her to yell stop staring at me — and Rolando hopes she’s not thinking that he’s thinking I told you so Eva — nothing changes without violence — and as he reaches out for her hand she flails her arms and yells por Dios Rolando do something — and because the crowd seems ready to jump on the makeshift stage the Pig clown exits the stage so all that’s left on the stage is the Pig Servant — who has no idea what to do next — and then Rolando enters the stage and says ladies and gentlemen tonight you decide what happens next and you’ve decided to have no Pig — That’s right mosco — But we can’t have a play without a Pig — Improvise something you clown — And get off the stage — Yeah we don’t want clown paramilitaries on the stage — and then Rolando exits the stage and the crowd tells the Pig Servant to take off his suit — and thankfully the Pig Servant is wearing boxers without holes though his undershirt does have what looks like moth holes — and the crowd seems unsure about whether to laugh at his puny arms and what looks like a burn mark on his shoulder — as if someone had pressed an iron on his shoulder just for fun — and someone in the crowd throws him a white guayabera shirt and says put it on and pretend you’re El Loco — Yes be Loco — Loco! Loco! Loco! — and the Pig Servant looks grateful for the part and turns into El Loco shouting I’ll never allow those oligarchs conchadesumadres to take over our land — and someone hands him a glass of water which he pours over his head as if to cool himself just like El Loco used to do during his rallies — smudging the white paint on his face — and as he dries his face with his fingers the red paint of his nose spreads to his cheeks — and as he holds a humita from the floor as if it were a live trout he’s about to swallow the crowd goes wild — Bring in the Pig! — I’m not going back there — You’re making it worse they’re going to come get you — which is exactly what the crowd seems ready to do so the Pig enters the stage but stays on the side of the stage — and of course El Loco runs over and brings him center stage as if to present the people with evidence of how ridiculous his opponent looks — Loco! Loco! Loco! — and the Pig clown complies with the role assigned to him and tries to ingratiate himself with the crowd by impersonating León Martín Cordero who’s shouting at El Loco you savage only prostitutes and junkies voted for you — Loco! Loco! Loco! — You disgusting uncultured beast — Loco! Loco! Loco!

That night at Eva’s house — on Eva’s bed — Rolando doesn’t know whether to say that was a disaster or that was amazing — either way they’re both trying to pretend nothing much happened at Roldós Plaza — At least now we know what the people want — to which Rolando doesn’t reply by saying yes Eva the people want to trounce the same old stories — Yes Eva the people want a swine for president — You misunderstand them — Diagram it for me then — I’m not your schoolteacher — Ever tell you about our grammar teacher at San Javier named La Caballero? — Oh boy stories from boys’ school — Everyone pined for La Caballero because she was the only human resembling a female in a three mile radius and during class some of my classmates would install their mothers’ makeup mirrors atop their sneakers and when she walked down the rows of desks — That’s disgusting — What’s disgusting is that swine what’s the point of our radio if we live under a system that allows El Loco to run for office again and again? — which is the wrong thing to ask — already he can feel his irritation coursing through his voice — The point is to inform them — already he’s angry at how unconvincing she sounds when she says that the point is to make their lives better — that the point is to stop asking what’s the point all along the hypotenuse of our lives — Hypote what? — Nuse — Chanfle — That’s right — Hypotenuse of our — No Rolando it’s annoying and you still have clown paint on your ears — White at last — Not funny — Not even a tiny bit? — It’s annoying and it’s tiring — Isn’t it counter to our idea of ourselves not to question what’s the point? — Nothing’s ever going to change — Ugh — We both know all of this is futile leave the people alone Rolando — I didn’t do anything — No one wants the apocalypse here — I didn’t say anything — You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? — Radio Nuevo Día / la radio de tu — You think people here don’t talk? — I don’t know what you’re — You’re a terrorist — You’re exaggerating a little — You think the acts of vandalism you’re planning are going to help anyone here? — No one Eva — What do you think you’re accomplishing? — Nothing Eva but probably more than your stupid little plays — which unfortunately he does say — not unfortunately okay I’ll say whatever I want — and after Rolando says whatever he wants Eva shoves him out of bed — and she seems to resent that Rolando isn’t taken aback despite almost falling off her bed and that Rolando knows she knows there’s nothing she can say to rebut him — we’re conscientizing the people — she doesn’t say — we’re veering the discourse toward a truth they will willingly accept as just — she doesn’t say — through art we will transcend our condition — she doesn’t say — Get out — she does say — Go away — she does say — Fine — Okay — and he’s putting on his boots and storming out of her room and imagining how he will slam her front door and drive away and not talk to her ever again and then change his mind after a few days and call her three and four times a day until she picks up but she won’t pick up and his frustration at not being able to know if her anger has irreversibly ended their relationship will likely be greater than his frustration at her unwillingness to concede the pointlessness of their plays so he doesn’t storm out of her house but instead remains in her kitchen — hearing her switch off the lamp on her nightstand — although he knows she won’t be able to sleep — at least he likes to think she won’t be able to sleep — and after a while he likes to think she’s not asleep — although the room’s still dark and he hasn’t heard Eva shuffle even once — and after a while the sound of trucks speeding by and the crickets remind him of nothing — and after a while he thinks about El Loco — about his radio — about the radiant woman who reassured her plants — about silence giving the impression that one has no opinions — that one wants nothing — about his first day at the Universidad Estatal — about waking up on the morning he was to graduate from San Javier and finding that his scuffed black shoes had been miraculously polished — returning to Eva’s room and sitting quietly on the chair by her bed and thinking about the morning he found a soccer ball under their Christmas tree when he was five years old — When I was five my father gifted me a doctor’s kit and I would go around the house tapping the cement walls with my tiny hammer — to which Eva doesn’t reply — and after a while he thinks about his father changing his mind about opening the school cafeteria on the day he was to graduate from San Javier — okay Rolandazo go on and take your seat at the coliseum you’re in the first row — And in that short interval between my father’s day jobs at San Javier administering the school magazine and the school cafeteria and his night jobs hauling boxes at the harbor he would doze off in his armchair restlessly like a watchman who knew something was up which in most cases meant me not doing my homework — And when it was time for him to leave he would enact the same skit that included my sister until she left — My hair’s a mess he would whimper — As if the armchair wouldn’t let him out of its grip until someone fixed his hair — And then my sister would rush over to him gleefully — Pretending she was fulfilling some portentous duty — My sister and I both loved Topo Gigio by the way — When we were little she would put me to sleep by singing a / la / camita — Do you know that song? — According to my father on my sister’s first day of first grade I propped myself by the living room window and cried inconsolably after she left — And because that week and the week after I didn’t stop crying my father had to beg the director of the school to take me in too — And then my sister would comb my father’s hair — And then one evening when my sister was no longer with us my father wouldn’t wake up from the couch despite me banging my ruler on the kitchen table — Which is the kind of thing my sister would have scolded me for — And I could hear my father mumbling words at random — Nikon — Formica — Un solo toque — My hair’s a mess — And while he mumbled words at random I searched for my sister’s comb and found it under his pillow — Red with teeth like toothpicks — Which I’d seen my sister trying to soften with her fingertips — And which no longer smelled like her strawberry shampoo — In any case I combed his head while he was asleep — And as I did so my father opened his eyes and looked at me as if thinking the same thing I was thinking — This isn’t what men do — But my father doesn’t wave me away — He closes his eyes and pretends he hasn’t seen me — That he’s still asleep — And I go along with him — I go on — Back then my father was already bald by the way — but Eva doesn’t comment on what he just shared with her — Eva doesn’t move — and after a while the room is still silent and he thinks about finding a new white dress shirt on his father’s armchair on the morning he was to graduate from San Javier — about how years before he was a freshman at San Javier his father had included pictures of him in the school magazine — about how during his six improbable years at San Javier there had been more pictures of him in San Javier’s magazine than of any other student — about his father changing his mind about opening the school cafeteria on the day he was to graduate from San Javier so that Rolando wouldn’t have to serve empanadas to his fatuous classmates — so that Rolando wouldn’t have to serve chorizo to that Opus Dei woman whose plastic surgeries couldn’t conceal her contempt for everyone who looked as aboriginal as she used to look and who happened to be the wife of a tuna fish magnate — that would be Julio Esteros’s mother — and before his father changes his mind again Rolando runs out of his father’s cafeteria and runs past the soccer field that will never see grass and what does he care about grass not growing on a field where new batches of conchadesumadres will continue their awkward dribbling unlike his quick dribbling on the mini basketball court — which he’s passing now and on which he once scored eight points in less than ten minutes — the outdoor basketball court by the garbage cans that he’ll never have to empty again — and as he crosses the forest of eucalyptus and birch trees his tie doesn’t flutter because of his new tie clip — which according to his father belonged to his grandfather — and although his sprint from the cafeteria to San Javier’s coliseum doesn’t last long year after year he returns to this memory just as he returns to his radio — to the radiant woman who reassured her plants — to the first day he arrives at the Universidad Estatal — where by the entrance smoke is still rising from a tractor wheel — where by the entrance the gates are locked but bent enough for crossing inside — where the streets look as if decades ago trucks had dumped the belongings of a slum onto them and no one had bothered to clean up the gnarled tricycle — the spray cans — the tin or thatched roof — the broken glass still attached to rum labels — the rocks everywhere — as if someone had icepicked the moon and here was the detritus of that absurd effort — the metaphysical rebel declares he’s frustrated by the absurdity of the universe — the pamphlets glued to cracked bricks — and in its widest sense rebellion goes far beyond resentment — the emptied tear gas canisters — the rocks everywhere — Yankees Go Home — the smell of tear gas — My father used to fumigate the cornfields of a Polish American landowner in Portoviejo and sometimes Mister Henrik would ask my father to wear a brown body suit with tanks like in those movies about chemical warfare — And before heading to fumigate Mister Henrik’s land my father would always repeat the same phrase — He loved the sound of Mister Henrik’s words by the way — Try to say maaaska — Try to say tlenooowa — Goodbye children I’m off to do the monster he would say — Why are you telling me all this Rolando? — oh — so you were not asleep — he doesn’t say — what is he supposed to say? — I’m sharing all these tender memories with you so you’ll know — what? — that I am not what I am? — Rolando doesn’t say anything and she does not press him or turn toward him — Maaaska — she murmurs — Tlenooowa — and then she does fall asleep — and then he tries to fall sleep on the chair by her bed and he’s dozing off and he’s running past the basketball court at San Javier and past the line of station wagons heading to San Javier’s coliseum — as fast as a chicken in Ethiopia — Rolando being both the fowl and the hungry Ethiopian — good one Facundo! — neither good nor bad señor — approaching the coliseum where Facundo Cedeño and the rest of his classmates are loitering outside and look Satan’s here — Guillermo Maldonado says — what’s up empanada — Antonio José says — yo empanada — Leopoldo says — looking good chorizo — Cristian Cordero says — empanaaaaaaaaada — Facundo Cedeño says — diavolo — Carlos de Tomaso says — gremlin — Giovanny Bastidas says — le empanada — Stefano Brborich says — with beef — Juan Lopez says — and cheese — Rafael Arosemena says — and molto chorizo — Jacinto Cazares says — shut up Jacinto! — everyone says — Rolando hurries inside the coliseum — the clanking of chairs — the crowds gathered around León Martín Cordero — empanada — gremlin — diavolo — gizmo caca — with beef — and chorizo — hey.