Not to defy our God, our Father, in these our cruelest hours, but I find myself gripped by the anxieties of a child during Mass. I twist and groan inside my awful suit, hot in my chest, but the release of concluding rites only lingers on the horizon. If only I had but a pew to kick, or Mother to clasp her hand over my mouth, but instead I can only draw faint breaths of respite knowing I'm but a departing, "Thanks be to God," tucked in a bottle, drifting toward his far shore.
I could have fled, but I refused. I've no fool's pride, my duty insists I force them to take it from me. "Snatch the goblet from my very hand," I would growl at my men. Pound the table, send my cup against the wall; a little painted theater for the devoted. I could have limped off to lands where our family name still carries its shadow, but I would have been just that: a shade. An old dog with no tail pissing in the corner. I chose to spare myself the whisper stained palace walls. Their servants would scrub, and the dirt would chirp like canaries, "coup, coup, coup." My people's hatred for me is true love. And when they shed my blood, it will flow in return.
I'm not a prideful man, but if He can fit one more failure in his mercy, I'm a man of singular vanity: If I'm to be cast into the great book, I insist the painter paint his brush red instead of grey. Will the soldier know if his is the bullet in my heart? Who is the young boy that will recall for his entire life the perfect joy of my head falling away? Will I taste the ebullience of their cheers as I'm rent in twain? Oh God, forgive these selfish vulgarities! Our hour of repentance, and I fantasize like a wet mouthed sinner.
I puff my chest only to disguise my chagrin. I left my people so little man to topple. For their sake, I hope they find the empty treasury after I'm hung on the pike. In this war, what victory is the death of another pauper? My final days I didn't even have servants, all of them sent away. Save the boy, he was to prepare my suit. A frivolity, admittedly, but the boy is a poet. His manner with a suit is high above my ugly words.
I allowed myself to revel in the master's finale. Sat upon a three legged stool, I watched him toil, consumed by the suit. I was but the length of my arm from him, and he was far away. Each button face love worn, every dark blue fiber doted on, his tedious care like a worried mother. He set into my boots with his whole arm. Up to his shoulder in dress boot, his free hand polished the leather in tender circles.
I'd been good to this boy. I'd been kind to the people of my house. Would the servants of my house drink and get drunk and talk of cutting my throat? Not this boy. Or, perhaps him the most? He is the closest, and I respect him as a man.
He used his tiny fingers to affix medals won from wars of which I'd only heard stories. As custom dictates, he finished with my trousers. White and crisp, he took his finest brush and whisked away a layer of filth only perceptible to his refined artistic temperament.
"My father taught me to admire fine dress as a boy," I clumsily spurted out.
The boy looked up at me with no expression. He understood better than I we had no reason to speak. As quickly, he returned to his work. When he was finished, I chose to give him all the money I had in my purse. It was a considerable sum, especially for a child of his station to see all at once. I held it out to him, and he took it with the quiet precision he had done everything else. His hands didn't tremble, nor did he thank me, he simply left my chamber. I was never cruel to that boy.
I coiffed my hair and washed my face. I put on my suit, jacket unbuttoned, God awful thing. I climbed inside my boots, careful not to blemish their impeccable shine. I looked on the mirror, and my reflection was ready to accept a head of state. As is instinct on such occasions, I was overcome with a considerable thirst. The regal cabinet set behind my father's desk opened her generous arms, I pinched a bottle of brown, and plucked the cork from her mouth. Three fingers into a tumbler, I tipped the glass on its side and drenched my open throat.
In the stillness, I found unfamiliar silence. A frenetic quiet crackled through the air, far too certain to be a simple dirge in battle's woeful harmony. Cold and solemn, I poured another.
An hour passed, perhaps two, but enough time to grow content. I lit a cigarillo I found in the desk. I played a waltz on the phonograph. I sneaked another drink from my father's liquor. I slouched in my high backed chair, and for the first time in many lifetimes, I was a man of considerable power. But how the chamber door of El Presidente's are made to fall in. Uncountable panels of wood splintered across all of time by the boots of those forever peasants. Wild eyes poured into the room. Boys playing as men, farmers swaddled in bandoleers, and at their heart, the magnificent rebel.
Our hero, my people's hero, his name is Ciro. I knew him as a boy. We went to the same academy for privileged children in the South. His father built significant wealth as a merchant, and was intent on his son raising the family name. I was older than Ciro, but I remember him, how dark he was. His father was born of the men with one name, so we called him "El Indio," to be cruel. Never to his face. He was rather sturdy, and fine sportsman, so he was left alone, but he understood. The name was hissed behind him so often, it hung like fog about the poor boy. At least if one of us had been man enough to say it to him, he could have smashed us in our mouths. Instead, he had to be there, our unspoken insults his only genuine companion.
Now my people call him "El Indio," because his crooked nose and brown face is like theirs. Those beautiful ideas his father purchased parade around in common man's clothes and rouse my people. From the jungle boy, a son who has inked his bloodstained name in the great book. There is no place higher for a family name, it's a legacy proud enough for my own.
If only as a boy he had pushed me off the roof, or drowned me in a river. We would have saved so many men and bullets, but no one cares about one body. Men like El Indio and I, we need many bodies between us before it counts for something.
My chamber breached, the revolution won, El Indio stared at me, his gun aimed at my heart. I sat in my high backed chair, and breathed a puff of smoke.
"Stand," he said. He motioned with his revolver.
So I stood. I swallowed the last of my drink, and extinguished the cigarillo on the desk--an unthinkable act. I crossed the room to him and made sure to position myself in front of his gun. We matched eyes.
"You have been taken. The capitol has fallen. Our people and our country are now free. And now you will pay for your treachery."
I remained quiet.
"Have you nothing to say?" He asked.
"I hope you are the man who kills me."
El Indio smashed his pistol across my face, and I fell to my knees. Tears filled my eyes. Blood filled my mouth. I choked on the acrid taste of sea and iron. His men grabbed me, arms behind my back, and raised me to my feet. As they began to lead me out, El Indio stopped, took me in, and barked, "Button his jacket!"
Unsure, his men and I exchanged appropriate glances. Servants to the end, a peasant meekly came forward and began to button my suit. Within a hair's breadth of the wicked man, and he dressed me like a doll. Blood poured from my nose, and he fumbled with the buttons, and I finally gave to fits of churlish laughter. My blood coated teeth, what a hideous sight. The man buttoned my coat all the way up, the collar clutched round me like a vice, and El Indio lead me out victorious.
How happy they were, the people in the streets. They shouted and cheered and clapped their hands as I was lead away. The tyrant had been undone! What a celebration there would be. The singing and love making alone will count for half a volume of poems when this day is remembered. Loot the mansion down to its foundation and sow the fields with salt. Empty the casks of wine until every plank has been licked clean. Glut your bellies on the pigs and chickens down to bone and tripe alike. Steal away to our highborn beds and spill the stink of drunken passion.
If He, the King of Kings, can forgive a man one small pity for himself: It causes me unspeakable regret to know I cannot celebrate with my people. If I could drink to my demise and sing songs of my defeat for one day and night, I'd swear to kiss my own gun. Open mouthed, tongue in the barrel. Like a whore.
The streets echoed with revelry. Children ran around my feet and pointed their sticks at me, firing again and again. Men cheered and raised their meager weapons in the air. An old woman shrieked at me. Wagged her finger at me and screamed names like, "murderer," and "devil," and I could recall being both. I fixed my gaze, unbroken, on El Indio's back as we marched. It was straight and muscled and made to bear the weight of such adulation. Then I felt profound sadness for him. Breathless, my eyes heavy and wet, I wanted to cry out for El Indio. I mourned for my people's hero. At least no man ever expected a single good deed from me.
He does give wonderful speeches. I had heard them second hand and read transcriptions, impressive enough, but thin imitations of the orator bathed in torchlight. He makes fabulous words and motions his hands about. He speaks of his triumphs as theirs and their burdens as his own. He spoke of my despotic reign. He would turn to me, both hands outstretched, eyes to mine, and speak of my horrific deeds--as if I needed convincing. My role clear, I stood like a proud fountain cherub, with my sorry blood covered face, and my fine jacket, and my hands tied behind my back. Haughty to the end, in my donkey cart fitted with bars and locks, a palanquin fit for the unruly beast off to slaughter.
El Indio motioned towards me again, "He will be taken to the new capitol, the people's capitol, where he will be punished for his crimes." It was a wonderful hurrah.
We've traveled for many days, and I have seen the carnality of our land. The ravages of this wild earth are perverse and beautiful. Spires of dirt stretch toward the sky. Mountains drawn in ghoulish blue lines advance into the desert's obscenity. Storm clouds sit like fat ticks on tabletop mountains, their tendrils sweeping the desperate earth. From my cell, bound in my jacket, wrists chaffed and mangled behind me, I've humbled myself before this savage place.
My people thrive throughout this cruel land. We have passed through many villages and towns. People cheer El Indio and his men and take me in like a visage cleaved from their demon dreams. Celebrations never cease as each town ensures the band of rebels have enough song and drink to sustain them across one thousand deserts. Wild grown village beauties dance with the men and awe in their fabulous tales. Old mothers stuff them until their guts come unhinged. Old fathers confer with the rebel in shadowed corners, and El Indio, like Wotan, carves treaty after treaty into his rifle stock.
Some old mothers have even stolen away a cool drink and food for this rotten corpse. They feed me like a child. One even put her fingers on the button made to loose my collar's brutal jaws, but the guard chided her away. For all the war making, my people's greatest act of defiance might be so much modesty and kindness in the face of this, our decadent regime.
There was a bad thing in one town. As our procession rolled through, and people lined the street to cheer and sing songs, there was an old man. He was stooped and gray with age, and as we approached the center of town, from his spot in the line of singing peasants, he lunged at my cage.
During our journey, much to the contrary of my assumptions, people do not approach me. A brave boy might inch toward my cage while his friends look on. A farmer, brazen on liquor, will occasionally come by to spit and curse my name. Where I dreamed of ravenous peasants out to claim their piece of the fallen, there were curious glances and novel grins. I was an attraction, some vague notion of their fears caged and toothless. Up close, it's not frightening at all. So you can imagine my surprise as I watched this old man seize on my cage.
With the last of his apparent zeal, he grabbed the bars and shook and babbled indecipherable cruelties at me. I could see the spark pop in them, one by one. You watch the first foot step forward, the hesitation, another peasant jerks his shoulders, then like wildfire, the mob was upon me. A slur of faces enveloped me. They gnashed their teeth at me and befouled me with their fervid breath. The cage shook on its meager axle, and then a woman reached in with her arm. Unsure if it was a slap second guessed or a claw meant for my eye, the nails of her fingers caught but the tip of my nose.
An anonymous arm shot in from another side, then another arm from a different side. I shifted and ducked, but the living bonds writhed about me. As I began to slide across the cage floor, I whipped my head around and met the savage face above the arms with my leg in tow. I launched my other leg like a cannonball and smashed his damn fingers. As the man recoiled, an older fat boy, mouth filled with odious rot, grabbed hold of my kicking leg. Pinched it out of the air! We heaved in opposite directions, and the fat bastard tumbled back with my boot in his piggy fingers.
I pushed my weight against my swollen hands, and scrambled to my feet. Hands snatching in at me, cage swaying to and fro, I wrenched my arms outward. The length between my arms slacked, and the lengths around my wrist tightened their fibrous grip.
I stepped over the slack like a clumsy foal. The peasants gnarled and frothed and the cage shuddered, and in a gesture of gratitude, I stomped on their hands. I growled at them to come for me and I kicked their war wounded faces. I put my boot heel into their mouths will all of my thanks. I had but my spit to swallow, and I gobbed it in their eyes. My parting gift, I raised my arms above me and hoisted myself to the ceiling. I hung, my feet, one in stockings, one in a boot, entwined in the bars, a loving reminder I always remain just above their reach. Indulgent, bathed in their din, I heard a woman's shriek.
"El Mono! El Mono!"
A shower of rocks and horse dung pelted me. Some threw handfuls of dirt. "El Mono! El Mono!" they echoed, a broken chorus scattering through the frenzy.
A rifle smashed a peasant face. A truncheon clubbed a peasant skull. A pistol fired into the air. El Indio's men menaced the throng into horrified retreat. Rebel soldiers brutalizing a free people to defend the life of a dead man. What a wondrous age, this dawn of our enlightenment.
El Indio's soldiers signaled, and the caravan leaped forward. I fell to the floor, pinned down, as we bolted through the town. Peasants fled in every direction. Frightened shrieks filtered through the veil of dust. A mother reached for her child. My cell lurched, almost off its broad wooden wheels. As the desert heat curtained the city behind us, I could see her. She wailed, prostrate in the street. One more life on my hands. And as a cruel reminder, the men stopped to ensure they remained tied behind me.
Will the fat boy keep the boot? I'm merely a servant in the eyes of our Lord God's glorious name, but in this life, that boot belonged to a once great and terrible man.
Amid the vast nothing, I saw a man, alone, who lived in a tumbled down house. Out there, at night, the sky opens herself, the lust of stars smeared across the sky.
We came upon a confession hidden in the rugged land's sinfulness. A blue hole, deep and filled with pure water. One of the men said it was named after a Saint. He couldn't remember which one. El Indio's men were joyful. They shed their stinking clothes and bathed in the water. I watched them as they clamored across the sapphire plane pouring riches into their mouth. One unfortunate soldier was left to watch over me. Instead, we watched the other men the way sinners look upon heaven's splendor from the fires of hell. His compatriots splashed in the water, and called out, and drank from the coolness, but he was left with the rotten corpse.
The sun mocked us, vomiting sheets of fire. I could feel his indignation harden in him. He'd swing his eyes in resentful glances across the entire scene. As his fury was about to split his guts like a bayonet, El Indio approached.
"It's better out here, brother!" He called out to the man, gleeful in his shimmering broadness and wet black hair.
The soldier softened and smiled dutifully at El Indio's playfulness.
"I'll know the despair of the desert's heat anew, and you never have to taste the bittersweet kiss of relief." El Indio teased through his jagged teeth.
The beautiful rebel approached the poor farmer, put his hand on his shoulder, and shot me a sidelong glance.
"Take this man out of his cage. I'll take him to the water. You can bathe with the men."
His farmer eyes widened, dirt creased across his brow
"I can attend to one man, soldier," El motioned to me. "My hands have slain things God made. Bold creatures. The things this coward could only dream of being"
With the lock open, the poor farmer looked again to El Indio who nodded. The farmer raised himself into the cage and stood over me.
"Get up! Get up you bastard!"
He grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me onto my trembling knees. Like a precious relic, the men lowered me to the ground. El Indio pulled a knife hung casually in his waistband. He set blade on the coarse braids burrowed deep in my wrists, flesh and rope entwined. The soldier spoke in measured tones.
"El Indio, please..."
El Indio smiled at him and put his knife away. "You're a loyal solider, brother. A good soldier."
I staggered across the shore and the men broke their revelry to stare. El Indio walked behind me in silence. As the water's beckoning overcame me, I stooped and hurried my step. Her sumptuous currents spilled over the rocks and cooled my stocking foot, and like an overeager lover, I fell headlong.
Water rushed into my mouth. Water penetrated the grasp of my suit and washed over my filthy body. I've urinated on myself, but her cool redemption can forgive even my debasement. Water closed in over my head and the world was quiet. Eyes shut, jaw clenched, I pointed my body to descend into the frigid dark, and I rocketed back to the surface with my collar in El Indio's clutch.
I gasped for air and I could taste the rivulets of sweat and filth pouring off my face. El Indio laughed.
"Not like that, my friend."
He pulled me through the water and set me in the waist deep waves. I reclined, cradled in the shallows pull. Water kissed the edge of my eyes and filled my ears. The horizon fell away in infinite lines of mountain ramparts, the sky's broken pieces fractured on their silent peaks. Desert floor writhed against the heat's rapacious grasp. Birds with tails like crescent moons would dive, and kiss the water's curved surface, and ascend heavenward again.
I watched El Indio. Sun glinted off the water's facets and illuminated him in a bronze glow. His scars pursed their lips, saving their stories for a maiden's touch. Regal set against his band of farmers and peasants, he was the graven image of the common king. I wish the learned men and their languid books and quill pens could see my vision. Their ink pots would cry out from thirst.
I raised myself out of the water. "What happens when you kill me?"
El Indio turned and raised his eyebrows at me.
"Not to be impudent, I'm simply a curious man."
El Indio chuckled, and stabbed his chipped obsidian eyes into mine. "When I kill you, our people's ills are undone," his plain words unwavering. "When I cut off your traitorous head, barrels of wine will fall out, and ingots of gold for every man, and storm clouds to feed the farmer's lands will scatter across the plains. We will rebuild every house in the land with bricks made from your bones. Together, the people of our country will rise to be the greatest nation on earth." He sneered at me, "Your only memory, the tale of a malformed, lecherous demon used to scare children in their beds."
His molten glare unbroken, my eyes fixed in kind, we both seized, crowing with laughter.
"You wonderful bastard!" I belted through my guffaws.
"You understand these things," he said through his wry smile. "I'm not sorry for your death, but it means nothing."
"My death is not for you and me," I replied.
El Indio looked away from me and into the grim expanse. His men, curious, peeked over their shoulders.
"Do you remember Maria Elena," he broke the silence, "from our school?"
As El Indio said "school," he nodded into the distance like our school, with young Maria Elena inside, lay just over the rise.
"Of course," I replied. I knew Maria Elena well. She had married into an important family.
"What a potent memory, that girl and her high collared dresses..." El Indio made a wistful coo. "That is a woman carved by the ancient gods, my friend. Her fullness is far too vexing for this charmless age."
I nodded. Her husband was often unfaithful to her.
"Ah, but..." Perhaps my tone echoed with the unkindness of the years, or the burden of children, but he charged in before I could utter a further breath.
"Presidente, please. I cherish my recollection of her shape, higher than most things." He closed his eyes and opened his face in the grin of so many erections well spent. "Her bosom will always be..." hands out, he said a word in the old tongue. The word means "mother," but this is too crude an explanation of its weight. It is the mystic and sensual thing which is both mother to all, and all mothers. Noteworthy praise for a pair of breasts.
I had always remembered Maria Elena as a fat girl, and poorly mannered. Today, I can only picture the beleaguered mother: rosary in hand, child on her teat, home alone while her drunken husband cavorts with painted girls.
I lowered myself into the water. My suit floated just apart from my flesh. The little birds dove from the sky, nicked the water, and coasted upward on their scissor tails.
Today I woke to unspeakable joy. A band of rambunctious boys raked their sticks across the bars of my cage. I shot awake, and as I turned my weary scowl to disperse my assailants, my eyes met the throng. Dawn's scarlet eyes peered over the black mountain crags, and the citizens of the free city had gathered to march home with the conqueror. My people were dressed in their best clothes and some men were already swilling from jugs. Hosannas to His omnipotent reign, this was the dawn of our hero's hour.
As the sun climbed into the sky, the procession slowed, and the crowd grew. I did little to hide my joy, overcome with the festive mood. I'm a sun sick madman, what difference is a foolish grin? A few people cursed and spit. A strange witch babbled and shook things at me. A priest in the crowd blessed me.
A group of men walked behind me and sang a song. It was a song of my father's regime, a ballad of victory and glorious men, but they had changed the words. El Indio now stood victorious. His name and deeds so deftly woven in, it took me two choruses to recognize the song. I know the words to this chorus like it was a prayer:
Kindle the hearth and liven the jug
Flowers grow red near the river
Protected by the length of his shadow
He returns with the flame o'er head
If the sun and the wild wind
Speak of Liberty
If the sun and wild wind
Speak of Escape
Remember...
We crawled through the violent, jubilant city streets. Filth rained down on me. Dissonance droned on all sides. Unified in hunger, gaunt and ravenous, my people were famished for death. I rose to my feet, and stuck my chin toward heaven. The animal crowd howled. El Indio waited on a platform made ready for our final alliance.
And with these our mortal breaths, I make my last confession.
Oh God, Our Eternal Father, sat on high, benevolent in your mercy, and resplendent in your righteous glory, please hear my pleas. As I arrive at your throne on bended knee, I want my raiment unsullied, and I have spoken all but one iniquity. I, in my baseness, did a prideful thing. I stole a glance at my name in the great book before it was time. The desert's licentiousness upon me, my frailties exposed, I uttered a prayer for death, and as though the fragile pages were in my very hand I read what shall be written. Through this arrogance I found resolve, and I recite you these boastful words so no transgression goes uncounted:
I could have fled, but I refused. I've no fool's pride, my duty insists I force them to take it from me. "Snatch the goblet from my very hand," I would growl at my men. Pound the table, send my cup against the wall; a little painted theater for the devoted. I could have limped off to lands where our family name still carries its shadow, but I would have been just that: a shade. An old dog with no tail pissing in the corner. I chose to spare myself the whisper stained palace walls. Their servants would scrub, and the dirt would chirp like canaries, "coup, coup, coup." My people's hatred for me is true love. And when they shed my blood, it will flow in return.
I'm not a prideful man, but if He can fit one more failure in his mercy, I'm a man of singular vanity: If I'm to be cast into the great book, I insist the painter paint his brush red instead of grey. Will the soldier know if his is the bullet in my heart? Who is the young boy that will recall for his entire life the perfect joy of my head falling away? Will I taste the ebullience of their cheers as I'm rent in twain? Oh God, forgive these selfish vulgarities! Our hour of repentance, and I fantasize like a wet mouthed sinner.
I puff my chest only to disguise my chagrin. I left my people so little man to topple. For their sake, I hope they find the empty treasury after I'm hung on the pike. In this war, what victory is the death of another pauper? My final days I didn't even have servants, all of them sent away. Save the boy, he was to prepare my suit. A frivolity, admittedly, but the boy is a poet. His manner with a suit is high above my ugly words.
I allowed myself to revel in the master's finale. Sat upon a three legged stool, I watched him toil, consumed by the suit. I was but the length of my arm from him, and he was far away. Each button face love worn, every dark blue fiber doted on, his tedious care like a worried mother. He set into my boots with his whole arm. Up to his shoulder in dress boot, his free hand polished the leather in tender circles.
I'd been good to this boy. I'd been kind to the people of my house. Would the servants of my house drink and get drunk and talk of cutting my throat? Not this boy. Or, perhaps him the most? He is the closest, and I respect him as a man.
He used his tiny fingers to affix medals won from wars of which I'd only heard stories. As custom dictates, he finished with my trousers. White and crisp, he took his finest brush and whisked away a layer of filth only perceptible to his refined artistic temperament.
"My father taught me to admire fine dress as a boy," I clumsily spurted out.
The boy looked up at me with no expression. He understood better than I we had no reason to speak. As quickly, he returned to his work. When he was finished, I chose to give him all the money I had in my purse. It was a considerable sum, especially for a child of his station to see all at once. I held it out to him, and he took it with the quiet precision he had done everything else. His hands didn't tremble, nor did he thank me, he simply left my chamber. I was never cruel to that boy.
I coiffed my hair and washed my face. I put on my suit, jacket unbuttoned, God awful thing. I climbed inside my boots, careful not to blemish their impeccable shine. I looked on the mirror, and my reflection was ready to accept a head of state. As is instinct on such occasions, I was overcome with a considerable thirst. The regal cabinet set behind my father's desk opened her generous arms, I pinched a bottle of brown, and plucked the cork from her mouth. Three fingers into a tumbler, I tipped the glass on its side and drenched my open throat.
In the stillness, I found unfamiliar silence. A frenetic quiet crackled through the air, far too certain to be a simple dirge in battle's woeful harmony. Cold and solemn, I poured another.
An hour passed, perhaps two, but enough time to grow content. I lit a cigarillo I found in the desk. I played a waltz on the phonograph. I sneaked another drink from my father's liquor. I slouched in my high backed chair, and for the first time in many lifetimes, I was a man of considerable power. But how the chamber door of El Presidente's are made to fall in. Uncountable panels of wood splintered across all of time by the boots of those forever peasants. Wild eyes poured into the room. Boys playing as men, farmers swaddled in bandoleers, and at their heart, the magnificent rebel.
Our hero, my people's hero, his name is Ciro. I knew him as a boy. We went to the same academy for privileged children in the South. His father built significant wealth as a merchant, and was intent on his son raising the family name. I was older than Ciro, but I remember him, how dark he was. His father was born of the men with one name, so we called him "El Indio," to be cruel. Never to his face. He was rather sturdy, and fine sportsman, so he was left alone, but he understood. The name was hissed behind him so often, it hung like fog about the poor boy. At least if one of us had been man enough to say it to him, he could have smashed us in our mouths. Instead, he had to be there, our unspoken insults his only genuine companion.
Now my people call him "El Indio," because his crooked nose and brown face is like theirs. Those beautiful ideas his father purchased parade around in common man's clothes and rouse my people. From the jungle boy, a son who has inked his bloodstained name in the great book. There is no place higher for a family name, it's a legacy proud enough for my own.
If only as a boy he had pushed me off the roof, or drowned me in a river. We would have saved so many men and bullets, but no one cares about one body. Men like El Indio and I, we need many bodies between us before it counts for something.
My chamber breached, the revolution won, El Indio stared at me, his gun aimed at my heart. I sat in my high backed chair, and breathed a puff of smoke.
"Stand," he said. He motioned with his revolver.
So I stood. I swallowed the last of my drink, and extinguished the cigarillo on the desk--an unthinkable act. I crossed the room to him and made sure to position myself in front of his gun. We matched eyes.
"You have been taken. The capitol has fallen. Our people and our country are now free. And now you will pay for your treachery."
I remained quiet.
"Have you nothing to say?" He asked.
"I hope you are the man who kills me."
El Indio smashed his pistol across my face, and I fell to my knees. Tears filled my eyes. Blood filled my mouth. I choked on the acrid taste of sea and iron. His men grabbed me, arms behind my back, and raised me to my feet. As they began to lead me out, El Indio stopped, took me in, and barked, "Button his jacket!"
Unsure, his men and I exchanged appropriate glances. Servants to the end, a peasant meekly came forward and began to button my suit. Within a hair's breadth of the wicked man, and he dressed me like a doll. Blood poured from my nose, and he fumbled with the buttons, and I finally gave to fits of churlish laughter. My blood coated teeth, what a hideous sight. The man buttoned my coat all the way up, the collar clutched round me like a vice, and El Indio lead me out victorious.
How happy they were, the people in the streets. They shouted and cheered and clapped their hands as I was lead away. The tyrant had been undone! What a celebration there would be. The singing and love making alone will count for half a volume of poems when this day is remembered. Loot the mansion down to its foundation and sow the fields with salt. Empty the casks of wine until every plank has been licked clean. Glut your bellies on the pigs and chickens down to bone and tripe alike. Steal away to our highborn beds and spill the stink of drunken passion.
If He, the King of Kings, can forgive a man one small pity for himself: It causes me unspeakable regret to know I cannot celebrate with my people. If I could drink to my demise and sing songs of my defeat for one day and night, I'd swear to kiss my own gun. Open mouthed, tongue in the barrel. Like a whore.
The streets echoed with revelry. Children ran around my feet and pointed their sticks at me, firing again and again. Men cheered and raised their meager weapons in the air. An old woman shrieked at me. Wagged her finger at me and screamed names like, "murderer," and "devil," and I could recall being both. I fixed my gaze, unbroken, on El Indio's back as we marched. It was straight and muscled and made to bear the weight of such adulation. Then I felt profound sadness for him. Breathless, my eyes heavy and wet, I wanted to cry out for El Indio. I mourned for my people's hero. At least no man ever expected a single good deed from me.
He does give wonderful speeches. I had heard them second hand and read transcriptions, impressive enough, but thin imitations of the orator bathed in torchlight. He makes fabulous words and motions his hands about. He speaks of his triumphs as theirs and their burdens as his own. He spoke of my despotic reign. He would turn to me, both hands outstretched, eyes to mine, and speak of my horrific deeds--as if I needed convincing. My role clear, I stood like a proud fountain cherub, with my sorry blood covered face, and my fine jacket, and my hands tied behind my back. Haughty to the end, in my donkey cart fitted with bars and locks, a palanquin fit for the unruly beast off to slaughter.
El Indio motioned towards me again, "He will be taken to the new capitol, the people's capitol, where he will be punished for his crimes." It was a wonderful hurrah.
We've traveled for many days, and I have seen the carnality of our land. The ravages of this wild earth are perverse and beautiful. Spires of dirt stretch toward the sky. Mountains drawn in ghoulish blue lines advance into the desert's obscenity. Storm clouds sit like fat ticks on tabletop mountains, their tendrils sweeping the desperate earth. From my cell, bound in my jacket, wrists chaffed and mangled behind me, I've humbled myself before this savage place.
My people thrive throughout this cruel land. We have passed through many villages and towns. People cheer El Indio and his men and take me in like a visage cleaved from their demon dreams. Celebrations never cease as each town ensures the band of rebels have enough song and drink to sustain them across one thousand deserts. Wild grown village beauties dance with the men and awe in their fabulous tales. Old mothers stuff them until their guts come unhinged. Old fathers confer with the rebel in shadowed corners, and El Indio, like Wotan, carves treaty after treaty into his rifle stock.
Some old mothers have even stolen away a cool drink and food for this rotten corpse. They feed me like a child. One even put her fingers on the button made to loose my collar's brutal jaws, but the guard chided her away. For all the war making, my people's greatest act of defiance might be so much modesty and kindness in the face of this, our decadent regime.
There was a bad thing in one town. As our procession rolled through, and people lined the street to cheer and sing songs, there was an old man. He was stooped and gray with age, and as we approached the center of town, from his spot in the line of singing peasants, he lunged at my cage.
During our journey, much to the contrary of my assumptions, people do not approach me. A brave boy might inch toward my cage while his friends look on. A farmer, brazen on liquor, will occasionally come by to spit and curse my name. Where I dreamed of ravenous peasants out to claim their piece of the fallen, there were curious glances and novel grins. I was an attraction, some vague notion of their fears caged and toothless. Up close, it's not frightening at all. So you can imagine my surprise as I watched this old man seize on my cage.
With the last of his apparent zeal, he grabbed the bars and shook and babbled indecipherable cruelties at me. I could see the spark pop in them, one by one. You watch the first foot step forward, the hesitation, another peasant jerks his shoulders, then like wildfire, the mob was upon me. A slur of faces enveloped me. They gnashed their teeth at me and befouled me with their fervid breath. The cage shook on its meager axle, and then a woman reached in with her arm. Unsure if it was a slap second guessed or a claw meant for my eye, the nails of her fingers caught but the tip of my nose.
An anonymous arm shot in from another side, then another arm from a different side. I shifted and ducked, but the living bonds writhed about me. As I began to slide across the cage floor, I whipped my head around and met the savage face above the arms with my leg in tow. I launched my other leg like a cannonball and smashed his damn fingers. As the man recoiled, an older fat boy, mouth filled with odious rot, grabbed hold of my kicking leg. Pinched it out of the air! We heaved in opposite directions, and the fat bastard tumbled back with my boot in his piggy fingers.
I pushed my weight against my swollen hands, and scrambled to my feet. Hands snatching in at me, cage swaying to and fro, I wrenched my arms outward. The length between my arms slacked, and the lengths around my wrist tightened their fibrous grip.
I stepped over the slack like a clumsy foal. The peasants gnarled and frothed and the cage shuddered, and in a gesture of gratitude, I stomped on their hands. I growled at them to come for me and I kicked their war wounded faces. I put my boot heel into their mouths will all of my thanks. I had but my spit to swallow, and I gobbed it in their eyes. My parting gift, I raised my arms above me and hoisted myself to the ceiling. I hung, my feet, one in stockings, one in a boot, entwined in the bars, a loving reminder I always remain just above their reach. Indulgent, bathed in their din, I heard a woman's shriek.
"El Mono! El Mono!"
A shower of rocks and horse dung pelted me. Some threw handfuls of dirt. "El Mono! El Mono!" they echoed, a broken chorus scattering through the frenzy.
A rifle smashed a peasant face. A truncheon clubbed a peasant skull. A pistol fired into the air. El Indio's men menaced the throng into horrified retreat. Rebel soldiers brutalizing a free people to defend the life of a dead man. What a wondrous age, this dawn of our enlightenment.
El Indio's soldiers signaled, and the caravan leaped forward. I fell to the floor, pinned down, as we bolted through the town. Peasants fled in every direction. Frightened shrieks filtered through the veil of dust. A mother reached for her child. My cell lurched, almost off its broad wooden wheels. As the desert heat curtained the city behind us, I could see her. She wailed, prostrate in the street. One more life on my hands. And as a cruel reminder, the men stopped to ensure they remained tied behind me.
Will the fat boy keep the boot? I'm merely a servant in the eyes of our Lord God's glorious name, but in this life, that boot belonged to a once great and terrible man.
Amid the vast nothing, I saw a man, alone, who lived in a tumbled down house. Out there, at night, the sky opens herself, the lust of stars smeared across the sky.
We came upon a confession hidden in the rugged land's sinfulness. A blue hole, deep and filled with pure water. One of the men said it was named after a Saint. He couldn't remember which one. El Indio's men were joyful. They shed their stinking clothes and bathed in the water. I watched them as they clamored across the sapphire plane pouring riches into their mouth. One unfortunate soldier was left to watch over me. Instead, we watched the other men the way sinners look upon heaven's splendor from the fires of hell. His compatriots splashed in the water, and called out, and drank from the coolness, but he was left with the rotten corpse.
The sun mocked us, vomiting sheets of fire. I could feel his indignation harden in him. He'd swing his eyes in resentful glances across the entire scene. As his fury was about to split his guts like a bayonet, El Indio approached.
"It's better out here, brother!" He called out to the man, gleeful in his shimmering broadness and wet black hair.
The soldier softened and smiled dutifully at El Indio's playfulness.
"I'll know the despair of the desert's heat anew, and you never have to taste the bittersweet kiss of relief." El Indio teased through his jagged teeth.
The beautiful rebel approached the poor farmer, put his hand on his shoulder, and shot me a sidelong glance.
"Take this man out of his cage. I'll take him to the water. You can bathe with the men."
His farmer eyes widened, dirt creased across his brow
"I can attend to one man, soldier," El motioned to me. "My hands have slain things God made. Bold creatures. The things this coward could only dream of being"
With the lock open, the poor farmer looked again to El Indio who nodded. The farmer raised himself into the cage and stood over me.
"Get up! Get up you bastard!"
He grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me onto my trembling knees. Like a precious relic, the men lowered me to the ground. El Indio pulled a knife hung casually in his waistband. He set blade on the coarse braids burrowed deep in my wrists, flesh and rope entwined. The soldier spoke in measured tones.
"El Indio, please..."
El Indio smiled at him and put his knife away. "You're a loyal solider, brother. A good soldier."
I staggered across the shore and the men broke their revelry to stare. El Indio walked behind me in silence. As the water's beckoning overcame me, I stooped and hurried my step. Her sumptuous currents spilled over the rocks and cooled my stocking foot, and like an overeager lover, I fell headlong.
Water rushed into my mouth. Water penetrated the grasp of my suit and washed over my filthy body. I've urinated on myself, but her cool redemption can forgive even my debasement. Water closed in over my head and the world was quiet. Eyes shut, jaw clenched, I pointed my body to descend into the frigid dark, and I rocketed back to the surface with my collar in El Indio's clutch.
I gasped for air and I could taste the rivulets of sweat and filth pouring off my face. El Indio laughed.
"Not like that, my friend."
He pulled me through the water and set me in the waist deep waves. I reclined, cradled in the shallows pull. Water kissed the edge of my eyes and filled my ears. The horizon fell away in infinite lines of mountain ramparts, the sky's broken pieces fractured on their silent peaks. Desert floor writhed against the heat's rapacious grasp. Birds with tails like crescent moons would dive, and kiss the water's curved surface, and ascend heavenward again.
I watched El Indio. Sun glinted off the water's facets and illuminated him in a bronze glow. His scars pursed their lips, saving their stories for a maiden's touch. Regal set against his band of farmers and peasants, he was the graven image of the common king. I wish the learned men and their languid books and quill pens could see my vision. Their ink pots would cry out from thirst.
I raised myself out of the water. "What happens when you kill me?"
El Indio turned and raised his eyebrows at me.
"Not to be impudent, I'm simply a curious man."
El Indio chuckled, and stabbed his chipped obsidian eyes into mine. "When I kill you, our people's ills are undone," his plain words unwavering. "When I cut off your traitorous head, barrels of wine will fall out, and ingots of gold for every man, and storm clouds to feed the farmer's lands will scatter across the plains. We will rebuild every house in the land with bricks made from your bones. Together, the people of our country will rise to be the greatest nation on earth." He sneered at me, "Your only memory, the tale of a malformed, lecherous demon used to scare children in their beds."
His molten glare unbroken, my eyes fixed in kind, we both seized, crowing with laughter.
"You wonderful bastard!" I belted through my guffaws.
"You understand these things," he said through his wry smile. "I'm not sorry for your death, but it means nothing."
"My death is not for you and me," I replied.
El Indio looked away from me and into the grim expanse. His men, curious, peeked over their shoulders.
"Do you remember Maria Elena," he broke the silence, "from our school?"
As El Indio said "school," he nodded into the distance like our school, with young Maria Elena inside, lay just over the rise.
"Of course," I replied. I knew Maria Elena well. She had married into an important family.
"What a potent memory, that girl and her high collared dresses..." El Indio made a wistful coo. "That is a woman carved by the ancient gods, my friend. Her fullness is far too vexing for this charmless age."
I nodded. Her husband was often unfaithful to her.
"Ah, but..." Perhaps my tone echoed with the unkindness of the years, or the burden of children, but he charged in before I could utter a further breath.
"Presidente, please. I cherish my recollection of her shape, higher than most things." He closed his eyes and opened his face in the grin of so many erections well spent. "Her bosom will always be..." hands out, he said a word in the old tongue. The word means "mother," but this is too crude an explanation of its weight. It is the mystic and sensual thing which is both mother to all, and all mothers. Noteworthy praise for a pair of breasts.
I had always remembered Maria Elena as a fat girl, and poorly mannered. Today, I can only picture the beleaguered mother: rosary in hand, child on her teat, home alone while her drunken husband cavorts with painted girls.
I lowered myself into the water. My suit floated just apart from my flesh. The little birds dove from the sky, nicked the water, and coasted upward on their scissor tails.
Today I woke to unspeakable joy. A band of rambunctious boys raked their sticks across the bars of my cage. I shot awake, and as I turned my weary scowl to disperse my assailants, my eyes met the throng. Dawn's scarlet eyes peered over the black mountain crags, and the citizens of the free city had gathered to march home with the conqueror. My people were dressed in their best clothes and some men were already swilling from jugs. Hosannas to His omnipotent reign, this was the dawn of our hero's hour.
As the sun climbed into the sky, the procession slowed, and the crowd grew. I did little to hide my joy, overcome with the festive mood. I'm a sun sick madman, what difference is a foolish grin? A few people cursed and spit. A strange witch babbled and shook things at me. A priest in the crowd blessed me.
A group of men walked behind me and sang a song. It was a song of my father's regime, a ballad of victory and glorious men, but they had changed the words. El Indio now stood victorious. His name and deeds so deftly woven in, it took me two choruses to recognize the song. I know the words to this chorus like it was a prayer:
Kindle the hearth and liven the jug
Flowers grow red near the river
Protected by the length of his shadow
He returns with the flame o'er head
If the sun and the wild wind
Speak of Liberty
If the sun and wild wind
Speak of Escape
Remember...
We crawled through the violent, jubilant city streets. Filth rained down on me. Dissonance droned on all sides. Unified in hunger, gaunt and ravenous, my people were famished for death. I rose to my feet, and stuck my chin toward heaven. The animal crowd howled. El Indio waited on a platform made ready for our final alliance.
And with these our mortal breaths, I make my last confession.
Oh God, Our Eternal Father, sat on high, benevolent in your mercy, and resplendent in your righteous glory, please hear my pleas. As I arrive at your throne on bended knee, I want my raiment unsullied, and I have spoken all but one iniquity. I, in my baseness, did a prideful thing. I stole a glance at my name in the great book before it was time. The desert's licentiousness upon me, my frailties exposed, I uttered a prayer for death, and as though the fragile pages were in my very hand I read what shall be written. Through this arrogance I found resolve, and I recite you these boastful words so no transgression goes uncounted:
Gaspar Augustin "El Mono" Mesta-Orendain, with one boot on, and one foot in stockings, stumbled to his death. He slobbered on his face crying out to his God, and wept tears from his eyes. Ciro Infante "El Indio" Ixtal-Jaramillo, the hero of the free people, stood before him. El Indio made grandiose speeches, and with the people's lust for blood gorged, he condemned him to die. El Indio cut loose his hands, and tore the clothes from his back, and forced him to his knees, and he went to his death laid bare before God, his jacket upon another man's back.
