The Revolutionaries Try Again

by Mauro Javier Cardenas

  PART THREE

  —

  DISINTEGRATION

  X / ANTONIO AND THE PROTESTERS

  What ever happened to Bastidas the Chinchulín, Antonio thinks, Bastidas the entrepreneur who at San Javier, along with Rafael, had been Antonio and Leopoldo’s closest friend, studying together for the academic quiz show Who Knows Knows, teaching catechism in Mapasingue, sitting at the back of the classroom for six years like a mafia of nerdos who would swap or sell answers to tests — remember that math test where no one knew the answer to the last question and Bastidas became so agitated he started shouting someone hand me the answer for heaven’s sake please someone? — yes and that time he was caught with a polla taped to his leg? — or that time La Pepa asked him who wrote The Veil of Queen Mab and he stood up and said that wasn’t part of the assignment, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about? — for years everyone asking Bastidas hey where’s The Veil of Queen Mab? — I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about — bowling together during the summer when they couldn’t play soccer because of the mosquitoes and rain, bribing their teachers together (without Rafael though since Rafael didn’t approve), drinking in Kennedy Park and somehow a prank ending with a rusted nail inside Bastidas’s leg, which they disinfected with Patito, and although Bastidas wasn’t keen on performing verbal pyrotechnics during Who’s Most Pedantic, he had always been there, their wry audience, their older brother who was amused by them but already suspected neither Antonio nor Leopoldo would amount to anything, although at the same time he wished they would amount to something, yes, Antonio should have asked Leopoldo about Bastidas, what ever happened to his good friend Bastidas.

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  After his meeting with Leopoldo at Don Alban’s restaurant, Antonio doesn’t call the private Taxi Amigo that his mother recommended for safety reasons but ambles through downtown Guayaquil instead, thinking about Julio, Bastidas, Rafael, even Esteban, all his classmates whom he hasn’t seen since he graduated from San Javier. A protest at the corner of Rumichaca and Sucre interrupts him. The people, united, the protesters are chanting, will never be defeated. Antonio grew up with that song. At Edge Fest in Berkeley, he’d also heard Rzewski’s thirty six variations on that same song. The protest seems endless, at least ten blocks long, though he cannot see that far back. They’ve paralyzed all traffic around him. Smoke clouds hover above the protesters. Something had been off with the performance of Rzewski’s piano variations, though he did not know what that had been. The protest advances in a tumult of students, plumbers, domestics, fruit carriers, street vendors. And while they march they clap, scream, blow whistles. Rattling their cardboard signs as if warning of a cataclysm or a mattress closeout or the second coming, and as they scream they distend their mouths so wide they look as if they’re about to swallow the back of their heads, although of course that’s only possible in movies like Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Onward they march. United they shout. Not to be defeated again. While he lived in Guayaquil he had witnessed many protests, but only from afar, mostly on television, where at the forefront of the screen a commentator interpreted the meaning of their protest. Never witnessed a protest this close. Unless he counts the protests in San Francisco, where he had often seen the American crowds waving their flags of self importance and gorging themselves with organic cucumbers before returning to their placid homes, diluting in his memory the protests of his compatriots, who on these streets look visibly strained. Protesting to exist. And what is literature which does not save nations or people? Songs of drunkards, Miłosz said. Readings for sophomore girls. Despite the virtuosity of Rzewski’s piano variations, despite the transpositions, the inversions, the complex paraphrases, the shouts of the pianist, the song sounds more powerful when sung by these protesters. Rzewski’s variations are redundant diversions. Olives on a howl. Three shoeshine boys near Antonio spring from their stools. They’re drumming the wooden part of their shoe brushes against their toolboxes, parodying the protesters’ hymn. The shoeshine boy who has camouflaged his face with tan polish climbs on his unsteady stool and pretends he’s a marionette. The other two, circling him, clap their hands and sing, the people, defeated, will never be united. Antonio watched Pink Floyd’s The Wall at the Policentro movie theater on the day a band of paratroopers kidnapped President León Martín Cordero. The ticket woman and the ushers, glued to the apocalyptic news flashes on their portable radios, did not notice he was underage, although perhaps they did notice but did not care. The program notes for Rzewski’s performance mention that the complete protest song had been written after a Chilean composer heard a street singer outside the palace of finance shouting the main chorus. Three months later, on September 11, 1973, Pinochet’s thugs, financed by Kissinger, bombed La Moneda. A reign of terror swept through Latin America. That defeat doesn’t seem to have registered with these protesters, although perhaps the lyrics are beside the point and the singing is what counts, the filling of their lungs, the euphoria of the stadium, meaning as collective noise. At first the protesters passing by the shoeshiners smile and clap along with them. Then some of them realize they’re being mocked. Don’t they know why we march? The onward push of the crowd dissuades the protesters from running over to the sidewalk and caning those conchadesumadres. Instead they rejoin the soothing sounds of their old hymn. The people, united, will never be defeated.

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  What ever happened to Rafael the Mazinger, Antonio thinks, Rafael the Robot who’d programmed himself to ace every test, to rocket toward anyone who called him Mazinger, no zits on his metal plates, misbehavior set to neutral, unless you pressed the Call Him Mazinger button, devotion to god set to outperform, so he taught catechism at Mapasingue with Antonio and Leopoldo and had followed the logic that led Antonio to conclude he should become a priest — remember all those hours during recess at the San Javier chapel praying to our Madre Dolorosa? — who’s this? — and yet the Robot had been drawn toward Antonio the Drool, Antonio the troublemaker, as if the Robot had wanted to compute what it was like to hurl his calculator against a wall, as Antonio had done, what it was like to fistfight the Fat Albino after school, to advertise their rosary prayer from class to class without feeling embarrassed by the sneers and the shouts of lambón, lameculo, but of course the best moments with the Robot came during accidentals, for instance when Rafael would kick the ball into outer space during their soccer tournaments — baja mono — or when Rafael ingested Popov vodka for the first time and couldn’t contain his torrent of brotherly love for Antonio and Leopoldo at Kennedy Park, or when Antonio introduced him to Jennifer, a girl from the Liceo Panamericano who guffawed at the formality of the Robot and pulled him to dance corro / vuelo / me acelero with her, and perhaps upon leaving Guayaquil Antonio must have decided Rafael had served his purpose because it never occurred to him to write to Rafael, to call him and acknowledge all those years at San Javier when, overflowing with uncontrollable impulses — watch it, the Drool poured gasoline on our desks — let’s burn down the school, why shouldn’t we — Rafael’s presence would calm him, just as it still does now, even though Antonio hasn’t talked to him or seen him in twelve years.

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  Some of the protesters seem revolted by the pickup truck near Antonio, painted with the bright yellow color of León Martín Cordero’s party. Inside the pickup truck the driver is reading the paper indifferently, as if he’s grown used to these protesters, just as seasoned drivers grow used to sheep on country roads. His passenger seems less fond of the crossing. He’s pounding on the horn and shouting move, roaches. Scram. Behind them, on the flatbed, an old man is standing by two signs promoting the presidential candidacy of Cristian Cordero (hey, is that the Fat Albino, his classmate from San Javier?). Cristian’s obvious attempt at looking tortured by the suffering of his people can’t conceal his smirk, and no doubt this is what some of the protesters are glaring at, those signs, and no doubt this is what makes them squirm, the same damn smirk of the same damn oligarchs. On the o
ther hand Antonio can’t help imagining himself on those signs: Antonio José for President. On a white horse returning to solve the problems of transportation, alimentation, lack of sustentation. But what have you done for your country so far, Antonio? Even some of your American classmates at Stanford have already done more for Latin America than you have. The old man in the flatbed seems to be appraising Antonio’s black suit. The old man powers the megaphone atop the roof, banging on the passenger window so they can quit it with the honking. The old man amplifies his voice with the megaphone and proclaims bread, roof, and employment, with Cristian Cordero it can be done. Cristian Cordero for president, vote for Cristian Cordero for president.

  A scrawny protester (hey that’s the Gremlin!) steps out of the march and plants himself by the pickup truck. Down with the oligarchy, he screams. Twice. Even amid the chanting and the megaphone and the banging of stew pots, some protesters behind him actually hear him. They’re joining him by the pickup truck and shouting down with the oligarchy, down with the oligarchy. Encouraged by the shift in the chanting those who have already passed the pickup truck turn around abruptly, colliding against the onward current and exacerbating everyone’s anger, signs and sweat clashing, a mob forming around the pickup truck.

  —

  Every weekend or almost every weekend of their last year at San Javier Antonio the Drool, Facundo the Maid Killer, DeTomaso the Norro, Bastidas the Chinchulín, Leopoldo the Microphone Head, Lopez the Monster, and Rafael the Mazinger would gather at Kennedy Park to guzzle cheap Popov vodka and wail whatever songs Facundo knew how to play on his guitar, and sometimes they howled popular songs like es más fácil llegar al sol / que a tu corazón, and sometimes they whispered rock ballads like quiero que me trates / suavemente, and always toward the end of the night they sobbed along to Silvio Rodríguez’s mi unicornio azul / se me perdió, and as Antonio ambles through downtown Guayaquil he wonders if all of them knew that, if it hadn’t been for their six years at San Javier, Antonio’s mother would have probably scoffed at Antonio’s friendship with Facundo, who was dark skinned and lived in La Atarazana, and Rafael’s mother would have probably balked at Rafael’s friendship with Lopez, who wasn’t dark skinned but lived in La Floresta, and Julio’s mother would have probably, ah, no, despite sharing the same classroom at San Javier for six years, Julio’s mother did balk and scoff at Julio’s friendships with all of them, dark and light alike (Julio’s family lived in a compound enclosed by tall white walls that couldn’t be jumped, except perhaps with a firefighter’s ladder — would Doña Tanya Esteros have even allowed firefighters on her premises? — probably not — this place will burn down before I let those lowlifes in here —), not that they saw Julio that much since Julio was always out on his own, picking up loose women at dubious nightclubs or off the main streets in the marginal neighborhoods of Guayaquil, and as their graduation neared, the frequency of their gatherings at Kennedy Park increased and the intensity of their singing grew feverish, knowing that after San Javier was over the Drool was flying to the United States, that Mazinger was studying political science in Spain, that the Microphone Head was going to be too busy working two jobs to afford the Politécnica, that the rest of them didn’t have the grades or the money to go anywhere except the public university in Guayaquil, and although they knew or at least suspected that their differences would eventually disband them — remember the first time Mazinger got drunk? how he hugged that shriveled tree trunk? — the Robot in love ha ha — they had allowed themselves to believe those differences did not matter because they had spent six years together in the same classroom and had grown to love each other, yes, there was no other way to put it, they had grown to love each other although Antonio wouldn’t have put it that way to anyone in the United States — do you still remember Kennedy Park, Leopoldo? — of course I do we used to call ourselves Los Chop do you remember why? — how many years have to pass before the memory of who we were together dissipates, Leopoldo? — too many — nor did Antonio ever recount to his acquaintances at Stanford that he once had all these great friends in Guayaquil whom he missed until one day out of necessity or callousness or because that’s what everyone does after high school — quit making such a fuss about high school, Drool — he didn’t miss them anymore, and a week or two after they graduated from San Javier they gathered one last time at Antonio’s house, singing songs till dawn and passing out everywhere, as if a wave had washed us up in the living room, look, there’s the Maid Killer on guitar, there’s Leopoldo on the maracas, Lopez on keyboard, singing songs at the Guayaquil airport the next morning until Antonio boarded a plane to Florida and never saw them again.

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  Would rather be home by now, Ernesto Carrión thinks, undisturbed on his front porch, listening to his grandson Manolito singing along to Eydie Gormé and Los Panchos inside his house instead of listening to these protesters from the back of this yellow pickup truck, y qué hiciste del amor que me juraste / y qué has hecho de los besos que te di, those old boleros that Manolito slips into the tape player because he knows Grandma still suspires to them, singing along to Eydie Gormé and Los Panchos while he flattens plantains with Grandma’s rolling pin, and somehow grandma and grandson feel more real to him this way, unseen, as voices from the kitchen like ghosts from the beyond, although of course less spooky. Someone had told him that back in eighteen hundred and something the Catedral De La Inmaculada Concepción had been scheduled to become the biggest cathedral in South America until the builders discovered they had bungled their measurements so that, in the end, they had to shrink it or else the whole thing would collapse, and that, my friends, Ernesto would often say, is why I rarely venture inside that immaculate disorganism, any day now it could still collapse. Even from the courtyard outside La Inmaculada, he’d often told Manolito, while I sold guachitos, I could hear their sad amen canticles. Manolito wanted a guitar for Christmas. Next year, Manolito, next year. More protesters are glaring at Ernesto, likely because he’s working for, as his neighbors have warned him, as if his neighbors have the right to warn him against anything, especially about getting a job, not too many of them these days, the country’s too unsteady to be refusing a job, even if it’s a job working for the one male descendent of the greatest oligarch of them all, León Martín Cordero. A young man on the sidewalk is also staring at him, although he’s not glaring at Ernesto but instead seems to be researching him? The young man is wearing a black suit, dressed either for a bank function or a beach house funeral, his moccasins awfully pointy, handy for kicking poodles. The driver of the pickup truck told him that Cristian Cordero had just hired a team of foreign advisors. That they’re already scattered all over town, watching the natives for clues. It is not unlikely that the young man in the black suit is one of these foreign advisors and that he’s wondering why Ernesto is just standing there instead of spreading the news of Cristian Cordero’s candidacy. The old man, asleep at the mic. Ernesto powers the megaphone atop the roof, banging on the passenger window so they can quit it with the honking. Ernesto amplifies his voice with the megaphone and proclaims bread, roof, and employment, with Cristian Cordero, it can be done. Cristian Cordero for president, vote for Cristian Cordero for president.

  —

  I’ll pick you up soon, Julio would say, and when he didn’t show up at Antonio’s apartment on Bálsamos Street, which happened often, Antonio would call him again and sometimes one of the domestics in the kitchen downstairs would answer and spend ten, fifteen minutes searching for Julio in that immense compound, calling out niño Julio, telephone, niño Julio, asking the other domestics if they had seen niño Julio anywhere, and sometimes during the search for Julio the domestic would put the cordless phone down without hanging up, and either because she forgot about it, or because she was summoned to a different task in a faraway wing, or because she figured the odds of Julio answering the phone were the same whether she searched for him or put the phone down on a side table, she would just put the phone down and leave
, and sometimes Antonio would wait and listen to the sounds of Julio’s compound, hoping to catch proof that Julio was still there, imagining Julio’s invertebrate double floating above the white piano in the living room because according to Julio he’d mastered the art of lucid dreaming, just as according to Julio he’d mastered the art of speed reading, womanizing, piano playing after he’d heard Antonio was learning to play the piano in San Francisco, imagining Julio waiting for his parents to fall asleep and then sneaking outside, putting one of their cars in neutral, and slithering out of their garage in one of their ancient Mercedes Benzes, the kind you still see as evidence that time hasn’t passed in La Habana and which the Esteros family preferred so as to not alert thieves that they were one of the wealthiest families in Ecuador, although one time Julio did eschew his parents’ cars and borrowed his uncle’s Porsche 911 Turbo, and due to the rain and the high speed and Julio and Antonio not knowing how to switch on the wiper washers, they crashed and spun against a small bridge in Urdesa — we’re not dead? — verga my uncle’s going to be pissed — and later Julio would fabricate the most amazing tales as to why he hadn’t been able to pick up Antonio, but of course back then Antonio would believe anything by Julio the Popcorn, Julio the nephew of Father Ignacio, the principal of San Javier, who in the middle of their sophomore year magically admitted Julio to San Javier, ha, Antonio still remembers Julio on his first day, wearing a white tee shirt with a reflective spider on the back he couldn’t have possibly purchased in Ecuador, already convincing Esteban, the most studious of them all, whom they called Pipí because he happened to look like a penis, to let him copy his homework, and soon after Antonio called Julio and invited him to attend a heavy metal concert at Colegio Alemán Humboldt, and Julio said why not, and so while a band called Mosquito Monsters or Dengue Dwarfs blared their angry music, Julio screamed like a vulture or a hawk, so loud that the audience, taken aback, turned toward Julio, who pretended it wasn’t him, and when the audience wasn’t looking he tossed his soda at them, nope, it wasn’t him, because Julio had already perfected his look of stunned innocence, as if he couldn’t believe you thought he had, for instance, stolen your identity to open a credit card in your name, as Julio had done to Antonio while Julio pretended to study in Atlanta, Georgia — my dad cut down my allowance I had no choice I was about to pay it in full of course I’ll pay you back, Antonio — but that was too many years after their first heavy metal concert at Colegio Alemán Humboldt, where Antonio, emboldened by Julio, a better looking, better dressed reflection of himself, tossed his soda at the audience, too, and so Julio and Antonio became good friends, and so one night, a school night, way past midnight, while Antonio’s mother slept upstairs, Julio knocked on Antonio’s living room window downstairs and said let’s get out of here, driving them to downtown Guayaquil, where Julio began searching for streetwalkers by the post office, picking up two of them although Antonio passed on his for religious reasons so Julio and his streetwalker entered a motel while Antonio, who didn’t know how to drive, raced Julio’s ancient Mercedes Benz past multiple red lights, angry at himself for almost sinning with a streetwalker who looked like a vocalist from Warrant or Mötley Crüe or Ratt, one of those hair bands whose tee shirts were banned at San Javier for being satanic, eventually stopping for the police car that had been chasing him — I’m so sorry my parents beat me, officer, I’m confused about life, etc. — quit it with the sob story, how much money do you have on you? — and when Julio exited the motel he was livid because apparently his streetwalker was a man, ha ha ha, yes, that night had been a watershed in Antonio’s teenage life not only because it was the first time he’d seen a streetwalker up close but because his mother discovered he had snuck out with Julio and, thinking he was out doing drugs with this Julio, who according to her already had a reputation for frequenting nightclubs in the red light district even though he was only fifteen, seemed ready at last to ship Antonio to military school, as she had threatened to do for years, but of course Julio and Antonio continued to cause trouble, like for instance during their senior year, when Rosendo, Julio’s driver, told Julio’s mother that Antonio had stopped their ancient Mercedes Benz on the way up the hill to San Javier and had convinced Julio to skip school with him, and so Julio’s mother called her brother, also known as Father Ignacio, the principal at San Javier, and she also called Antonio’s mother and said yuck you lowlifes stay away from my family, and so Antonio was expelled for a week and Julio wasn’t, and so both of their mothers forbade their sons from seeing each other, which made it all the more fun since that meant Julio had to sneak Antonio into his compound, hiding him in the closet on those rare occasions when his mother or one of the domestics would knock on his door, and of course when Antonio would call Julio he would have to say his name was Leopoldo or Esteban, and sometimes one of Julio’s younger brothers would chance upon the phone one of the domestics had put down on a side table and say, as if bemused by the encounter and yet annoyed it required him to speak, hey who’s this, or sorry I need the phone, call back later.