co-a´güila*

The smallest street ever built enough to let two cars on different directions pass very carefully, filled with the oldest cantinas and all of them have other kind of businesses on their second and third floors, from people living there and having some sort of black market deals behind doors, to hotels, and offices of the cantinas below, the street is overcrowded all the time, feels like everything is pulled in together, very compressed, nothing but scum walks these street, in that area the lowest chain piece of society frequented that two way street, Carlo and Daniel jumped over a drunk man covered in his own vomit on the sidewalk while another man took his bottle and whatever money he could find in his pockets as we passed beside him.

How did we get here? Carlo questioned himself as he followed Daniel. As Daniel seemed to be following the girl with the cheekbones and voluptuos lips. They were both on their way over to meet up with Adam on the other side: in Downtown San Diego to take the bus together up to hillcrest and spend the afternoon looking for records; that all changed when those cheekbones grabbed Daniel´s attention, his mind is always plotting different stuff up, a kid as bright as him should be passing all his classes, I don´t understand -how? or -why? he dropped out of high school, he would never admit it, but I know that in his own way he´s only doing it to rebel the system, by him dropping out of society like that, gives him assurance and validation with his punk friends.

The girl with voluptous lips was on her way to work, dressed with a long black rain coat and white stilettos, her eyes looked Japenese mixed with some latin flavor in her, phenomenal gorgeous anomaly of nature, with tanned skin and dark black hair, almost feline, came from Acapulco bay months ago, after she had decided to become independent from her family. Attention is more than expected, she walks with confidence knowing she will turn heads of some men.

One of those men caught in her shine was Daniel, when he saw her, something clicked upstairs and told Carlo:

-Come on, let´s go this way.
-What?

By following, I had now become part of his scheme and sooner than I knew it, we had become stalkers of this beautiful girl walking on the other side of the street. She noticed she was being followed and her step speeded up, and so did ours, when she turned a corner, so did we, and somehow ended up in this street where decadence is all around you and the smell of low life is barely a choice or option. I told Daniel:

- Come on man, we shouldn´t be here, this isn´t right, let´s go!
He replied as anyone who wouldn´t give a fuck would:
- you chicken? What the fuck?

She turned left at the far corner across the small street, we had now began to wonder expecting only to get mugged or come across any crazy shit someone could pull on us, knowing we didn´t belong there. In the next corner there was a small hidden cantina where she went into, and I kept insisting to get out of there; when we walked in there to our surprise, there were many of them, and he had told one of the security´s in there, security then came to us asking for identification, that´s when Daniel said: ° I don´t have one, fuck off° security used that as an excuse, took him from his jacket and threw him out like I´ve never seen someone thrown out before, almost flying back to the street where we had turned that corner. I did show him my I.D. but that did not matter because I got kicked out as well with the same disregard.

Daniel landed beside a trash container face down, scratching all the right side of his face, got up to lean over on that trash can, and touch what damage had been done to his face, returning his hand to his eye sight covered in asphalt and blood, using that same hand he gave the security the finger with a tight stroke.

That security laughed at him and returned to his job inside the cantina, twenty minutes later he got called into his office upstairs by the boss, his face-indicated something was wrong, the seriousness of the matter leaked out with his first question:

- What´s your name?
- What do you mean? You know my name...?
- No, ... what´s your real name?

This co worker had come from Guatemala on the other border of Mexico, and had bought false documents from somebody who lived in mexico City, on his fake documentation he appeared to be a twenty year old young man, when in fact was an overgrown very tall and strong seventeen year old teenager; the boss told him he was not going to report him to the authorities, but could no longer work there, his intentions were not to deport him, because he was a minor and wanted no legal problems. Deciding it would be best to overlook the incident, and never to file it in his office; somebody who altered his age through another´s persons identity, had never happened at all ...

-What are the odds of the security and Daniel being the same age?; Daniel was taken to Carlo´s house to clean the roughburn on his face and apply a gauze at what now soon would be a scar on Daniel´s face; they forgot all about going to San Diego and Adam was stood up. He waited for twenty five minutes and then left ...

excerpt from (am-big-u-ous´): by paulo bravo

Copyright © 2004 by paulo bravo.

dos corbatas/dos lenguas

Me he convertido en uno de mis personajes de los cuales enjuiciosamente describia la monotonía de su vida cuando ¨checaba¨ su tarjeta en la entrada y la salida. La sobrevivencia aveces te empuja a hacer cosas que no te visualizas haciendo en el futuro inmediato, ahora que debo pagar renta y trabajar duro todos los dias para poner alimentos sobre mi mesa recuerdo al personaje -gerente- con fea corbata que dentro de mi historia contrata a Adam. El impacto que puede causar una corbata no lo conocía hasta que yo comenze a usarla diario, ademas de bien fajado (acto odiado con rabia desde siempre, se me hacia antes nefasto, desde la primaria) ahora es parte de mi atuendo rutinario, mis alumnos me miran con respeto y se dirigen hacia mi con mucha educación, en cierta forma la didáctica es satisfactoria porque se siente bien cuando ves el progreso reflejado en ellos. En la Universidad me enseñaron técnicas para aplicarlas en *Didáctica de la comunicación* ahora creo que inconcientemente las aplico y trato fuerte de no ser el ogro inaccesible que siempre odié, ¨ese profesor el que nunca se olvida, el que te parte la madre, sabiendo que puedes alcanzar el seis, y aún así te reprueba¨.

Retomando la importancia de la corbata, me da mucha risa cuando ellos me ven como un ejemplo a seguir cuando en realidad siento que estoy engañando a todos jugando a ser un adulto responsable, apenas el año pasado era un alumno con tennis y mochila igual que ellos. Quizá las cosas estan cambiando.

Nadie sabe en la escuela que soy escritor de profesion y profesor de inglés de oficio... no les voy a decir, para que? mejor sigo pretendiendo que me gusta apegarme a las reglas y no me gusta salirme de las rayas; creo que mi supervisor ya se dió cuenta que pienso afuera de la caja, porque nunca sigo sus indicaciones al pie de la letra, le doy avión y continuo con mis cosas. Debo irme tengo clase... las unicas dos corbatas que tengo son Perry Ellis, ya les estoy encontrando cariño... Paulo.

bailable

Macorina pon, pon

Macorina,

ponme la mano aquí ...

-Palabras sabias de Chico Ché

(mientras viajo en autobus al centro de la ciudad.)

El amigo mexicano

Me han dicho alguna vez o leí en alguna parte -lo recuerdo ahora- que durante la infancia nos hacemos treinta y tres preguntas por hora y que, con el paso del tiempo, cada vez, nos preguntamos menos cosas, porque las respuestas están ahí, pensadas en otros y dispuestas a ser adoptadas por nosotros antes de que ni siquiera se nos ocurra cuestionar el cómo y el porqué de lo que nos rodea y nos tiene acorralados. De este modo acabamos conformándonos con la seguridad de las respuestas ajenas sintiéndonos vencedores cuando en realidad deberíamos luchar por mantener el riesgo constante de las preguntas privadas.

AÑO 0. Rodrigo Fresán Mantra. Mondadori.

La Orgía

Antes del triunfo del cristianismo en Europa no existía el concepto de compasión o de amor al prójimo, a nadie se le habría ocurrido tampoco que el sufrimiento físico fuera provechoso para el alma. La idea de negar el placer con el propósito de desarrollar un estado superior de conciencia ya se había formulado, pero no tenía gran aceptación popular. La filosofía espartana basada en la severidad y la disciplina sólo tuvo adeptos entre guerreros. Epicúreo representaba mejor la tendencia de su tiempo. La tierra y lo que contiene fueron creados por los dioses para el uso y goce de los hombres... bueno, a veces también de las mujeres. En las culturas griega y romana el placer era un fin en sí mismo, en ningun caso un vicio que luego fuera necesario expiar. Las clases altas vivían en el ocio, ajenas por completo al sentido de culpa, puesto que el trabajo no era virtud sino fatalidad, indiferentes a la suerte de los nuevos afortunados y rodeados de esclavos a los cuales podían atormentar a su antojo. En las fiestas romanas, que solian durar varios dias, se derrochaban fortunas en una competencia inacabable por superar las extravagancias de otros anfitriones: desfilaban unos tras otros los platos mas exquisitos y novedosos, regados por los mejores vinos; los esclavos cubrian los suelos con capas renovadas de pétalos de flores frescas, rociaban perfumes sobre los comensales, limpiaban los vómitos y ofrecian baños -a veces en tinas de vino espumante- masajes y túnicas limpias, músicos, magos, cómicos y danzarines divertían a los participantes; enanos y monstruos hacian piruetas; animales exóticos se exhibian en jaulas antes de ir a parar a las ollas de los cocineros; gladiadores se batían a muerte entre las mesas y hermosas esclavas drogadas se sometían a toda suerte de infamias. Al final exhaustos y a menudo enfermos, los invitados regresaban a sus casas a purgarse, sin sospechar que en las cocinas, en los patios, en las calles, en todas partes, los esclavos propagaban en susurros una extraña fe que habría de acabar con el mundo tal como ellos lo concebían. pp. 82-83

Afrodita. Isabel Allende.

Plaza Janés.