The Revolutionaries Try Again

by Mauro Javier Cardenas

  Try again, Microphone. We’re at a crook . . .

  Someone rattles the door. Hangar te sésamo, someone shouts. Putative puerta del carajo.

  Leopoldo’s blocking Antonio’s view of the door. As soon as the chain drops Antonio recognizes the poultry voice.

  I reckoned you’d be maggoting here. You Pharisee piece of crap.

  Leopoldo steps aside so that Facundo can see Antonio.

  Why so miffed, Facundito? The Microphone didn’t share his homework with you?

  Drool?

  Maid Killer!

  Antonio jumps up and hugs him. Facundo seems taken aback and does not reciprocate the embrace. Even with his broken nose Antonio can smell sardines and motor oil on him.

  What boomeranged you back to the village? Missed the smell of garbage?

  A garbologist of folklore, indeed.

  Garrrrrboooologiz.

  Missed the smell of guayaba, ceviche de concha, your mother. What’s with the bloody elbows, Facundito? Getting potatory on me so early?

  Pota what?

  Tory.

  Chanfle. That’s a good one. If potatory means betrayed by your potato headed pal over there then the answer’s affirmative.

  Indignantly Facundo tells Antonio what happened earlier at the municipality.

  Leopoldo listens to Facundo’s story as if it’s simply vaudeville, although every time Facundo raises his voice Leopoldo eyes the door uncomfortably.

  You’re working for León? I thought you were chief economist at the Central Bank. How come you didn’t tell me this? How come no one told me this?

  The gringa wanted daily updates?

  I think so.

  Why’s he dressed like a narco?

  To harrumph the natives?

  To collect funds for his goodwill foundation?

  Against droolitis.

  Droolcephalitis.

  Droolnorreah.

  Facundo and Leopoldo shake their heads at Antonio. Facundo punches Leopoldo on the shoulder. Leopoldo pretends to be injured and then slaps the back of Facundo’s head.

  Don’t turn on me again, capullo.

  Next time coin me for the newsflash, sorullo.

  Check, check, the Microphone to the microphone.

  Enough of this nonsense, children.

  I have to run, fellows.

  Off to clock the maidens?

  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?

  PART TWO

  —

  ROLANDO & EVA

  VIII / ROLANDO & EVA

  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 Ev
a 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.

  Rolando wanted apocalypse in the dial — 666 AM — to cry out over the airwaves how long will we let this go on? — how long will we let them profit from our poverty? — let us descend on a city that’s repulsed by us — let us smash the gated communities that we’ve bricklaid for them — that we’ve barbed with wire for them — and for what end? I ask you — and for what purpose? — to protect them against us ladies and gentlemen — let us drag them to Mapasingue — to El Guasmo — to La Perimetral — to El Suburbio — to where according to León Martín Cordero only swindlers and rapists and prostitutes live — and yet unfortunately for Rolando his Ecuadorian apocalypse not only reminds him of the speeches he’s been rehearsing since he was a freshman at San Javier but of The Exorcist too — to Las Orquideas — to El Fortín — of being twelve years old and sneaking out to the video store with his cousin Eduardo to rent The Exorcist because Rolando’s father had forbidden it — the devil here? — no sir — to the video store by that steep hill where he and his cousin once skateboarded like acrobats — speed down Rolandazo no stopping — scraping the whole of his back on the asphalt after a pebble catapulted him down the hill — and at night before going to sleep he would pick the scabs on his back and think about nothing — absolutely not about The Exorcist — which frightened Rolando and his cousin so much they couldn’t even finish watching it — is the sin of watching it sin enough to be possessed? — oh please Mother it burns — Rolando and Eduardo alone in his uncle’s bedroom and although the curtains were drawn the room was awash in shadows and the bed looked like Regan’s bed — the sheets shaped like snakes look — stop that Rolando — it burns — and then his cousin folded the bedspread and switched on the desk lamp — which was shaped like the beard of our lord jesus christ — stop that Rolando — the devil here? — yes sir — for months Rolando’s dreams not dreams but reenactments of Regan’s slimed impieties — the impotence of the priests against evil — strike terror into the beast lord — the power of christ compels you — you faithless swine — let our voices terrify them — let our voices deafen them — and one Sunday afternoon Rolando’s sister arrived home early and refused to return to the Esteros’s house where she had been working as a domestic — and when his father pleaded with her she said nothing — and when her Aunt Celia pleaded with her she cried and said nothing — and after Doña Esteros showed up at their house flanked by three policemen who seemed to be protecting Doña Esteros from her surroundings — and after the three policemen informed his father that a gold pendant encrusted with diamonds had disappeared from Doña Esteros’s house — exactly at the same time your daughter disappeared from the Esteros’s residence isn’t that a coincidence? — and after the three policemen wrecked their house in search of Doña Esteros’s pendant — why did you take off missy? — we can’t find it these people must have sold it already — and after Doña Esteros shook her head at them in disgust and covered her nose with her handkerchief as if their room reeked of mold or bug repellent — a misunderstanding Doña Esteros my daughter would never steal from anyone — and after his father pleaded with his sister — please Almita — it’s not about the pendant it’s about the principle — god’s commandments — I hope you people go to church — after all I’ve done for your family Don Alban — and after the policemen said we’ll have to take her in for further interrogation — his sister screamed at the policemen — at Doña Esteros — at their father — but not at Rolando because he was hiding in his bedroom — I wasn’t hiding! — yes I was — I left that house because Doña Esteros’s son forced himself on me — what? — that lowlife is lying — please Doña Esteros — Rolando go back to your room — Doña Esteros reappearing at their house again a week later but this time with Father Ignacio and Doña Esteros said she had sought spiritual advice from Father Ignacio and they had concluded — after a night of vigil — a night of prayer — that the only explanation for your daughter to be lying like this — to be blaspheming like this — is be
cause she’s been possessed by the devil — what? — Rolando go back to your room — and then Father Ignacio blessed a vial of water and Rolando’s father allowed Doña Esteros to sprinkle water on Alma — out Mephistolo — a misunderstanding Doña Esteros it will never happen again — No Rolando no one wants the apocalypse here no one wants cataclysms or uprisings leave the people alone — and so the dial on the flyers isn’t 666 AM but 535 AM and Rolando’s radio isn’t called Radio Rebelde but Radio Nuevo Día.

  The radio equipment has been set up in the living room of Doña Luz — an acquaintance of Eva’s grandmother who has been proselytizing for her comrades at the Movimiento Popular Democratico since the times of Assad Bucaram — Check — Check — Is this thing on? — Welcome to Radio Nuevo Día — The station of the people — What would you like to hear? — Call now! — Good morning in the news today the interim president — Or whatever you want to call him — What would you like to call him? — Call now! — Whoever comes up with the best presidential appellative wins — Appella what? — Tive — Chanfle — What do you win? — Another package of economic packages — Ha ha ha — That’s not funny folks — What’s economical about these packages anyway? — All they do is skyrocket our fares to cork their bungles — We should call these emergency packages the — What would you like to call them? — Call now! — Oh but what’s this? — Two of our neighbors are dropping in at the station folks — Radio Nuevo Día / la radio de tu tía — Guessing Doña Luz isn’t home — She isn’t but — Are you her grandson? — No but you’re on the air — I’m always on the air — Good one — Neither good nor bad señor it just is — There’s a song by Mecano about aire / soñé por un momento que era / aire — I don’t think Aurora here is saying she’s dreaming of air — That’s right don’t patronize us we’re always on the air but no one listens — Oh no Auroris don’t melodramatize us just because you’re on the radio this isn’t the Betrayal of Lola Montero — Don’t pile on poor Lola she already has enough with knowing she’s going to betray someone someday — What makes you think Lola knows? — It’s in the title of her soap opera bobita — Don’t change the subject I listen to you been listening to you since — Since? — Since before the plane for your president crashed against the Huayrapungo — He was just so young — Everyone’s still saying that the Americans blew him up because of his hydro gas laws — He was so handsome too — What with those giant eyeglasses like snow globes? — Remember how on election day the voting lines for the women were so much longer than the men’s? — Nothing to do with Jaime Roldós Aguilera being handsome the women just happened to dislike the dictadura more than the men — Remember that woman in line who told us about her sewing a replica vest for her husband like the ones Roldós wore and her husband complaining about it looking like a corset? — Don’t change the subject I listened to you after Pancho disappeared on you — Don’t bring up that botarate — I’m sorry — Apology refused — I’m sorry I was sorry — I thought you came over to listen to me because you were lonely — What? — Sometimes an inrush would come over me like a teakettle and I would close my eyes and see you all alone in that house and I would talk to you in my head ay Leonorcita I would say if you’re feeling lonely come knock on my door — Aurora Castellanos / psychic or loca? — And Doña Leonor would knock on your door? — Yes she always did — What else do you see when you close your eyes? — I see a squalid radio commentator asking me what else do I see — Ay Aurorarora sometimes you’re such a — No cursing on the air please — What? why not? — I thought La Luz de America said this was our radio — You know Luz hates it when you call her La Luz de America — You’re censoring us on our own radio? — Absolutely no censorship here ladies but children might be listening — Ah that’s true okay ay Aurorarora sometimes you’re such a — Teakettle? — That’s it — I boil all wrong mamacita — Come here viejita — No you come here — and Aurora and Leonor are embracing and Rolando’s handing Aurora the microphone that he’s been holding up to them and Aurora’s singing to Leonor la gallina turuleca / está loca de verdad — Remember that song? — Aurora la turuleca — Ha ha ha — Leonora la desodora — Aurora la encantadora — Ladies that’s the perfect segue to our contest about what would you like to call the interim president? — Puppet of the oligarchy — Very nice Doña Aurora — Pompous pajorreal — We’re warming up folks — Bestia con terno — Keep them coming comadres — Radio Nuevo Día / la radio al día — Up next how to cook a seco de chivo without the chivo — Baah — Speaking of chivos — El Loco is said to be returning from his exile in Panamá — Who’s voting for that thief? — If you tell me you’re voting for that Loco I’ll go loco — Has anyone seen the mansion of this leader of the poor? — Call now! — Speaking of crazy goats — Here’s a family friendly version of La Cabra — la cabra / la cabra / la loca de la cabra / la madre que la cuidó — Want to feature your goat on our show? — Call now!