Fri Apr 6—19:07
But what if there is no hope? And what if your patience runs out the same as water? You know what kept this Pablo Valencia alive all that time, besides the dream of drinking? The dream of putting a knife in Jesús who abandoned him. And what if he is right—that hate is stronger than hope?
Maybe you did something once and when you looked at it after, you could not believe you were so stupid. Or that someone could do such a thing to you. I cannot believe Lupo can just throw us to the coyotes. I cannot believe I owe money to be in here and that my father may have to pay Don Serafín, the same man who sent his son to die. I cannot believe Don Serafín is partly Zapotec and has lived in Oaxaca his whole life and that my father looks up to him like he is on God’s right hand. For this I condemn Don Serafín—for taking all our money and sending us, his own people, into such a disaster. I condemn Lupo and I condemn those coyotes whose names I don’t even know. What if hate is stronger than death and I live to find them all, one by one like that killer in The Godfather, my father’s favorite movie.
But even if I find them, even if I could kill them, it will not begin to pay for what they did to us in here—so many chingaderas in one small place. Now those maletóns made me their compadre, their accomplice—just by living so long in this situation you will not wish on your own enemy. For this I condemn them all. I condemn myself and I condemn César. This was César’s idea to go in the truck—to stand up at the wrong time, to give me his phone and all that it holds.
15
Fri Apr 6—19:29
In Altar there was a lot of waiting—for me and César almost two days. Most of the time, César stayed in Lupo’s choza and spoke to no one, only writing things into his phone. In the evening we sat outside Lupo’s garage drinking beers and talking until it got too cold. At first we talked about nothing—cantinas we knew, old ones like El Farolito where they used to have the best pechuga before they renovated it for the tourists, and La Casa del Mezcal where they serve green oranges on the side with the gusano and pass the bottles through the air, and he told me about a knife fight he saw once. When I asked him about newer places like Nuevo Babel or La Biznaga he said he’d never been there. This was strange to me because that is where an educated person like him would go, especially if he had money. This is when I understood better that the accident with the taxi was simply one more story in César’s house of misfortunes. I pressed him then. “You’re hiding from someone,” I said. “That’s why you came back to Oaxaca.”
César picked at the label on his beer bottle. “Let’s get over the line,” he said. “Then maybe I’ll tell you.”
But already I think I knew the reason—the problem for César was knowing which god to serve. Because in Mexico there are so many, even in a little town like Altar, and each one demands a different kind of sacrifice. Besides the church of Guadalupe, there are other shrines and chapels made by the people for all these pilgrims. I saw one for Jesús Malverde who is a real man—our own San Narco. Dead now, por supuesto. He tells the gospel from the New World and many people pray to him, especially los narcotraficantes. But San Narco is not as popular as la Santísima Muerte. I must tell you, AnniMac, in these days there are many saints who are giving up on God—and even life—and going into business. You know why Guadalupe and Juquila are so important to us indios? Because they are morenas too. Well, Santa Muerte is no color at all. She is only bones so she looks like everybody—everybody who is dead, and I can tell you she is the only virgin you’re ever going to see smoking a cigar. She has Death’s big scythe in one bone hand and in the other she is holding the world like an Aztec priest holding your heart, but someone painted this one big like an eye looking right back at you. There were many offerings at Santa Muerte’s shrine—flowers and seeds and fruits and tequila and candy and incense like you see at shrines all around Mexico, but here also was a small knife, some bullets, a Cadillac medallion, a bloody T-shirt, a can of Red Bull—and lots of money. People give money to saints all over Mexico, but in Altar, Santa Muerte is the only one who does not accept pesos. Maybe the coyotes learned it from her.
Santa Muerte is new for these times, AnniMac—new for NAFTA. You can say she is our Santa NAFTA Muerte because many people turned to her in the nineties when the dying started in the pueblos—so many leaving and never coming back, and then the maquiladoras closing down because the jobs went to China, and the fence is being made and the laws are being passed, and the narcos killing more and more and more until it is like a war down here. It was the same for us when Cortés came—the distance between Hope and God and Death growing smaller and smaller until it is impossible to tell one from the others. This happens, I think, when new gods battle the old and too many prayers go without an answer.
I told you of some saints who have given up on God and gone into business, but in Mexico now there are also businessmen who are becoming saints. Right in our own cathedral is a shrine to San Charbel, the patron saint of Mexico’s richest man, Carlos Slim. Many Oaxaqueños believe he is getting some special assistance from San Charbel, and if Charbel is making such billions for Carlos Slim maybe he can make a little something for the rest of us too. Charbel’s statue is only small and must share a chapel with Guadalupe, but you should see the offerings there now. Some people say it is not San Charbel the people are praying to but the billionaire San Slim, and this is his great cleverness—not only is Slim the faithful servant of San Charbel, he is also the faithful servant of Telmex’telcel, the Aztec god of communication. We all worship him here. I was worshiping him myself until I ran out of minutes. These are the times we live in, where the Spanish god of Jesus and the ancient gods of Mexico and the modern gods of business are harder and harder to tell one from another. But I’m telling you, AnniMac, it has always been this way. And maybe this is the other half of our destiny together—not only to be the United States of Améxica, but to be One Nation Under Gods.
You can add your own.
If we asked César what god he would add, I’m sure he would say Juquila, but he must also say SantaMaize and this is the problem for him. SantaMaize is a big and powerful seed company with shrines all over the world. Their specialty is the corn and they are sending their hallelujahs everywhere these days. But hasn’t it always been like this, new gods coming in to challenge the old? Because that’s where the real power is—in the old gods—water, lightning, fire and war. SantaMaize understands this very well and it is why they are so interested in the corn. It is not only the Spanish god performing miracles now, SantaMaize is doing it too. And one of these miracles—el Milagro de SantaMaize—is even in the Oaxaca Codex, a story for these times. Ever since the strike, pieces of it have been appearing around el centro on the walls and buildings. Our Governor Odiseo calls it graffiti, but it’s not. It’s the story of our people and of the gods they serve and the battles they must fight again and again for all time. Odiseo and his men try to clean it off and paint it over, but the story keeps bleeding through.
The first time I saw el Milagro de SantaMaize in the Oaxaca Codex was last fall on Calle Cinco de Mayo near the intersection with Chapultepec. How could those artists know, but they told the story of César’s situation and just like all of us here, his story begins with the corn—one beautiful stalk painted on the wall with the ears fat and ready for picking. It is not only Chia Pets and bobblehead saints and megachurches and migrantes that come from Oaxaca. All that corn you have up there for your sugar and whiskey and cereal and gasoline? That came from us too, and César told me this himself—corn is the most valuable crop in the world, but not everyone values it the same way.
It is this knowledge and the proof of it that César carries with him. For César and for all of us this journey is more than going to another country. Many of us fail and some of us die. Even if you make it you may never see your home again, and that is another kind of dying. Not all of us understood this, but I think César did. On that last night before we got in the truck he bought two singles of tequila
and six Tecates and he told me about el Milagro de SantaMaize. It was the last time we talked and I wonder now if he saw this coming, that those things he said were for him some kind of confession.
Lupo’s garage was set back from the highway in a sandlot with cement walls and broken glass on the top. On the side facing the road was a solid metal gate wrapped with concertina wire. Lupo told us we would be leaving around midnight so me and César waited outside by ourselves against the wall of the garage, sharing a piece of cardboard for a seat. César had his jacket zipped to his chin and I had my sweatshirt, but even with the hood it was not enough so I sat as close as I could to César without him knowing I was doing it for the heat. The moon was growing smaller and now it was just a crooked smile in the dark, hanging over the lights in the parking lot. On the edge of town where the desert began, tall cypress trees stood out against the sky and beyond them rose the mountains of America, la via dolorosa where migrantes found and lost their way. I had been looking at them for two days. In the afternoon those sharp ridges turned from brown to red and a blue haze gathered at their feet, but now all that color was gone and in its place stood a black sawblade with stars twinkling between the teeth.
As we sat there drinking and talking, we watched people like us coming and going in trucks and vans, many more than in the day because on the border, night is the time for travel. Here and there against the walls, groups of fifteen or twenty migrantes stood waiting, shuffling their feet, a couple of them smoking or looking at their phones. There were even some children, standing with their colored backpacks like they were waiting for the bus to go to school. Every few minutes a truck or van would pull in for gas and sometimes Lupo would come out and talk to the driver. You could tell by how the vehicles rolled from side to side in the potholes that most of them were filled with people or other heavy things. Sometimes an empty truck would pull in and one of the groups would get in and drive away, heading for the Sásabe crossing and the long walk into America. All around us was dusty and busy and everyone was for sale to somebody. Except for a sex club, never before was I in a place that felt so empty and so full of wanting at the same time.
César opened his single of tequila so I opened mine, and after raising our bottles to el Norte we drank them down. “What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we get across?” I asked.
“Fuck my brains out,” said César. “Which reminds me—I’ve got more time on this.” César reached into his back pocket and pulled out a phonecard. “You can have it.”
I took the card from him and I wondered who he had called. “It worked OK?” I asked.
“Worked for me.” He was smiling.
“You look happy,” I said.
“I haven’t seen my girlfriend in a long time and she’s coming to meet me.”
“Where?”
“What, you want to watch?” He laughed and slapped my knee. “Get your own.”
I was missing Sofía very much, but things had been difficult for us since I left the university. She was still there studying for her degree and she already had a job in a hotel. The last time I called her she said, Maybe next week, but I knew what she was really saying.
“OK, OK,” I said to César. “But where are you going after we get across?”
“It’s better if you don’t know.” César let out a long breath and leaned his head back against the wall. “Just a few more hours.”
I must say to you, AnniMac, that I wonder if César’s girlfriend is you. I searched in his phone, but there is no Anna or Anni or AnniMac anywhere but the directory.
In all the time we were in Altar, César went outside in the daylight only once—that last morning to the church of Guadalupe, which was three blocks away. “With all the Oaxaqueños coming through here you’d think there would be a shrine for Juquila,” he said. “This is where we need her most.”
“You really believe in her?” I asked. “Or are you just lighting candles for your mother?”
“My father taught me that in every kernel of corn is the Creation. For me,” said César, “Juquila is the face of that mystery. When I look at a kernel of corn, that’s who I see.”
“They always looked like teeth to me,” I said.
“Maybe you didn’t look close enough.”
César finished his beer and opened another with his belt buckle. I was on my second and trying not to shiver. César took a sip and looked off to where the stars faded into the glow of Nogales and Tucson. “You know in the Sierra on a clear night when the stars seem so close? Did you ever imagine you could reach up there with your finger and move them around?” César snapped his bottle cap across the parking lot. “That’s what they taught me to do at UNAM.”
“With the corn?”
“They aren’t just studying it up there,” he said. “They’re taking it apart, one gene from another, and putting it back together in a different way and saying it belongs to them, like they invented it. What would God say to that, I wonder. It is the reason I still pray to Juquila. I am the first Zapoteco to see these things, to understand what our ancestors understood without seeing. But we’re like children playing with the master’s tools.”
“How do you do it?” I asked. “Move the genes around.”
“For corn you use a gene gun.”
“No mames,” I said. I thought he was playing with me.
“¡Animal! Es verdad. This gene gun is a real thing, and it fires golden bullets—”
“No estés chingando.” I turned away then because I was cold and had no patience for jokes.
But César said, “No, Tito, I’m not shitting you. This gun is powered by CO2 and the bullets are tiny grains of gold. Each one is coated with DNA, with the transgene, and you fire it into the cell of the plant you wish to change. This is how it’s done. In the lab we call it transformation, but into what? That’s the question, right? Because you don’t aim a gene gun, you point it in the general direction and shoot. The bullets come out like a shotgun blast and the genes go everywhere. They’re like spies, you know? Or assassins—working from the inside. And once they’re in there, they can do things you didn’t plan on. They can mutate, they can sterilize themselves, they can make food with less nutrition or none at all, and the bugs they’re supposed to kill can become resistant. And what happens when these transgénicos pollinate the native corn? Nobody knows yet.
“But what I know for sure is that the ritual of corn—the cycle of planting, harvesting, saving and planting again—this is the rosary of our existence, unbroken, every kernel a bead touched by someone’s hand, and we are telling those beads, and they are telling us, who we are, over and over, season after season, year after year—not in a circle, Tito, but in a spiral, a double helix. Can you see this? One side is us and the other is the corn. In that DNA is the oldest man-made codex. I have read it myself and in every kernel is a message from the past to the future—the story of us, and that’s what I’m trying to understand.” He looked at me to make sure I was listening. “It is the story of how teocintle, the grandmother plant of all the corn, was transformed by our ancestors, generation by generation, from a wild grass into our closest companion, more loyal than any friend, sweeter than any milk.”
“My father doesn’t give a shit about the corn,” I said. “But you would have liked my abuelo. When he saw a few kernels spilled in the road, he’d pick them up and say, ‘Would you step on your mother too?’”
But César wasn’t having a conversation. “For eight thousand years this has been happening,” he said, “since long before the Zapotecs or even the Olmecs. Corn is where civilization comes from—from here—not only from Babylon and China. Güey, the corn made possible everything we do and are—pyramids, writing, astronomy, art. It happened here first, and we’re part of it—all that time we spent as kids stripping the corn and sorting it and putting it in the sack—some to eat, maybe some to sell, always saving some to plant next year. Sometimes I’d get bored doing this and I’d sort the kernels by size or color o
r shape, like candy or precious stones, because there are differences, you know, if you look close enough and long enough. When I was about ten, I counted how many kernels were on a single ear and the first one I counted had six hundred and sixteen so that was my lucky number. After a while I noticed that the rows were paired, always even numbers. I could see there was an order to it, but I didn’t know what it meant.” César was smiling as he talked, but he wasn’t looking at me. It was more like he was remembering for himself.
“One day, my father got some other corn from our cousins across the valley, from Santa Magdalena. It was mixed up in a bag with ours, but as soon as I held it I knew something was different. I was twelve then and I said this to my father—that there was something funny about this corn. He asked me how I knew and I showed him the kernels, the shape of the ear. He went and told the padre and the padre said, ‘Maybe he will be a scientist.’ It is thanks to my father and that priest that I went to Guelatao for schooling, and I do this work for them—for my family because for us corn is family.”
He took another sip of his beer and I could hear him swirling it around in his mouth before he swallowed it. “You know the young corn,” he said, “when it’s still sweet? I like to take a kernel of that and roll it around on my tongue until the shell dissolves and you get to the sugar inside. When I was younger I might be thinking about a girl and she would mix together somehow with that sweet taste in my mouth and I’m telling you . . .” He was laughing and I wondered if he was a little bit drunk. I never heard someone talk about the corn like this before so I just listened, and you know if you talk to César, mostly you’re going to be listening because you never met someone so full of words as him. “Back in school when you borrowed my copy of The Savage Detectives—you read it for the blowjobs and those crazy sisters, right?”
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