THE BEST REASON

PHANTOM



Even in idagay they had never been able to share a certain twin shame. Each one thought the rot was hers alone. Now, sitting on the floor braving the body´s treason, with everything and nothing to lose, they let the phrase take them back once again to a time when innocence did not exist because no one had dreamed up hell.
It is 1940 and they are going by themselves to play at the beach. L has packed a picnic lunch for them and as always they will eat it in the shade and privacy of Celestial Palace: a keeled-over row-boat long abandoned to sea grass. They have cleaned it, furnished it, and named it. it contains a blanket, a driftwood table, two broken saucers, and emergency food: canned peaches, sardines, a jar of apple jelly, peanut butter, soda crackers. They are wearing bathing suits. Heed is wearing one of Christine´s, blue with white piping. Christine´s braids are slippery; Heed´s are not. They are walking across the hotel lawn when one remembers that they have forgotten the jacks. Heed volunteers to get them while Christine waits in the gazebo and guards the food.
Heed runs into the service entrance and up the back stairs, excited by the picnic to come and the flavor of the bubble gum. Music is coming from the hotel bar -something so sweet and urgent Heed shakes her lips to the beat as she moves down the hallway. She bumps into her friend´s grandfather. He looks at her. Embarrassed -did he see her wiggle her lips?- and in awe. He is the handsome giant who owns the hotel and who nobody sasses. Heed stops, unable to move or say "Excuse me. Sorry."
He speaks. "Where´s the fire?"
She doesn´t answer. Her tongue is trying to shift the bubble gum.
He speaks again. "You Johson´s girl?"
The reference to her father helps and her tongue loosens. "Yes, sir."
He nods. "What they call you?"
"Heed, sir." Then, "Heed the Night."
He smiles. "I should. I really should."
"Sir?"
"Nothing. Never mind."

He touches her chin, and then -casually, still smiling- her nipple, or rather the place under her swimsuit where a nipple will be if the circled dot on her chest ever changes. Heed stands there for what seems an hour but is less than the time it takes to blow a perfect bubble. He watches the pink ease from her mouth, then moves away still smiling. Heed bolts back down the stairs. The spot on her chest she didn´t know sha had is burning, tingling. When she reaches the door, she is painting as though she has run the lenght of the beach instead of a flight of stairs. May grabs her from behind and scolds her about running through the hotel. Orders Heed to help carry sacks of soiled bed linen through to the laundry. It takes only a minute or two, but May Cosey has things to tell her about public behavior. When she is finished telling Heed how happy they all are that she and Christine are friends and what that friendship can teach her, Heed runs to tell Christine what happened, what her grandfather did. But Christine is not in the gazebo. Heed finds her behind the hotel at the rain barrel. Christine has spilled something on her bathing suit that looks like puke. Her face is hard, flat. She looks sick, disgusted, and doesn´t meet Heed´s eyes. Heed can´t speak, can´t tell her friend what happened. She knows she has spoiled it all. In silence they go on their picnic. And although they fall in the routine -using made-up names, arranging the food- the game of jacks cannot be played because Heed doesn´t have them. She tells Christine she could not find them. That first lie, of many to follow, is born because Heed thinks Christine knows what happened and it made her vomit. So there is something wrong with Heed. The old man saw it right away so all he had to do was touch her and it moved as he knew it would because the wrong was already there, waiting for a thumb to bring it to life. And she had started it -not him. The hip-wiggling came first -then him. Now Christine knows it´s there too, and can´t look at her because the wrong thing shows.

She does not know that Christine has left the gazebo to meet her friend at the service entrance. No one is there. Christine looks up toward the window of her own bedroom, where Heed would be looking for the jacks. The window is open; pale curtains lift through it. She opens her mouth to call out, "Heed! Come on!" But she doesn´t because her grandfather is standing there, in her bedroom window, his trousers open, his wrist moving with the same speed L used to beat eggs whites into unbelievable creaminess. He doesn´t see Christine because his eyes are closed. Christine covers her laughing mouth, but yanks her hand away when her breakfast flows into her palm. She rushes to the rain barrel to rinse the sick from her yellow top, her hands and her bare feet.

MORRISON, T. Love. Vintage Books. New York; USA. Second Edition. 2005.

Esta semana, la inspiración fue femenina. Aunque les iba a introducir el... post de otra manera, la primera quiso ser de último minuto mi mujer.

_ How is that those politicians are so sickly being showed on TV, here? -my wife told me, and she seems genuinely surprised.
_ I dunno -le contestó encogiendo mis hombros, but suddenly the switch is on again, and I must take advantage right now. Is it not like that in your country, babe?
_ Of course not. No one does appear so often, because it would be unfair -she said really having had enough of the spots broadcasted during the half-time of the match.
Nice, pero recuerden que mi ardilla ya se despertó.
_ It is not that you have lived abroad for so long? -le preguntó de bote pronto.
_ No, but I still keep in touch with the most important national issues, darling -aligerando un mucho la carga de mis preguntas.
_ Maybe in satellite TV is the same like here, luv -insisto tratando de indagar un poco más.
_ Perhaps, but not in the normal, open TV. The only possibility there is to have an agreement among all the candidates to have a debate broadcasted to everywhere.

As it is lunch time, I decided that is enough.

The reference to a healthier use of the screens in her country (as usual, I challenge one of our buddies to check what she said), remind me one shot in one of the documentaries of Oliver Stone, when the director asked "El Comandante" on the reports of Amnesty International about the Human Rights state in "La Isla"; and he calmly answers: "You do believe those words as the Holy Spirit would have dictated them". I firmly think that is what is happening in our country about the polls, right now.

No es tan difícil demostrar la "inconsistencia" del panorama que, hasta en la sopa, nos muestran diariamente las encuestas. Reto Peksi: vayan corriendo ustedes y hagan un conteo express de la gente que está asistiendo a los mitines, y notarán la aplastante diferencia en la capacidad de convocatoria entre los candidatos. Recién leí que al "papirringo" también se le escabullen los acarreados antes del pitazo final. Uchales, cuando menos debería ofrecerles un kit de maquillaje pa´que aguanten "la calor", myth*.

Cuando de compromiso y pasar de la palabra a la acción, we usually are outnumbered by the them. Es aquí que aparece aquella que verdaderamente contribuyó con la idea y el título de este post.

_ Oye, Marco. ¿Estás muy ocupado?, es que me urge -me dice después del riguroso saludo cibernético de ocasión.
_ No tanto, diga usted pá que soy bueno. What you need? -le contesto intrigado por el motivo de tal desasosiego.
_ Oye, fíjate que estamos pensando en la forma de convencer a tanta gente pa´que se ponga las pilas, y vayan a votar por ya sabes quién. Así que necesito, tú que andas siempre navegando y buscándole, varias razones, no muy rebuscadas, ¿eh?, pa´tirarle el rollo a los que de plano están muy desinformados. ¿Cómo la ves?

Esa noche me sentí más empequeñecido de lo que soy, y le estuve dando vueltas al asunto, al porqué, pues. Y aunque encontré un escrito de un camarada confiable (no le iba a recomendar a cualquier burro, como en estos días suele ocurrir, en que los indecisos bombardean my mailbox, con artículos de líderes de opinión. que ya han sido bastante ventaneados recibiendo donativo$ de a mes, hasta de "quienes han sustituido al estado en labores de gobierno", a los que les bastan tres líneas pa´vaciar sus fobias contra ese que ya estaba ya acabado "dendenantes" de la cotienda realmente comenzar), no me satisfacía del todo salir de la petición nomás así.

Hice entonces un ejercicio, que los que aplican ciencia todos los días, conocen muy bien. Si tienen varios métodos, modelos, o esquemas, para abordar un problema que no tenga solución exacta, ellos evalúan y escogen el que se acerque con mayor atingencia lo que pasa en la realidad.

Recordé entonces que los mejores simuladores del clima global van perfeccionándose en base al tiempo y al número de corridas (haciéndose con cierta regularidad "ensambles" de varias de ellas con diferentes condiciones iniciales, por decir algo que no suene tan rocket science).

_ Ya te tengo la respuesta le digo muy fufurufo al día siguiente -seguro de que mi explicación la iba a alegrar más.
_ A ver viene, viene, quebrándose, papá -me pica el buche la muy.
_ Pues bien, fuera de ese mundo de juguete que han construido quienes desean las presentes condiciones conservar. He aquí que, un "pequeño" grupo de obstinados resistió, contra viento y marea, todos los "marrulleros" ataques, y como los árboles, se mantiene de pie después de un sexenio tirado al caño de la historia tricolor. ¡Ah, pero no creas que se queda ahí! Hemos pasado la prueba del añejo, pero también la del número y calidad. Yo sostengo que, contrario a lo que se afirma por aquí y por ahí donde estás tú, somos en este momento suficientes para la elección presidencial ganar.

_ ¿Y la de la calidad? -me reta antes que se me olvide la otra idea.
_ That´s easy, babe. Organizados somos más. Entre toda esa aparente caótica moción, existe una coherente estructura dispuesta a dar la batalla en caso de que se presente la ocasión... y ya -con eso terminó porque he perdido fuelle en la última exhalación.

Indeed, ya para terminar, quiero recordarle compa que, tal como lo hicimos con esa otra superstar en extinción, juimos nosotros, de carne y hueso, quienes lo sustentamos en este lento proceso de construcción de un movimiento nacional, y seremos nosotros quienes hemos de dar la cara en las calles en caso de que se altere nuestra "soberana" decisión. Con esta rebelde lengua que se han de comer los gusanos, sin temor a equivocarme, le digo: no ha usted de obtener usted respaldo en las universidades privadas, en las cúpulas del poder terrenal con disfraz de divino, o en el club de Tobi empresarial, cuando lo necesite más. Para defender un sueño se necesita resilencia, y esa solo se encuentra entre todos nosotros, quienes hemos sobrevivido bajo las más arduas circunstancias (aguantar hasta el final un mitin bajo un aguacero es una prueba menor), señor. Tal vez no existan recetas mágicas, pero desear un mejor legado a quienes sooner or later han de sustituirnos en este perro mundo, nos parece, para arriesgar la vida si así se requiriera, suficiente razón.

SPECIAL REQUESTS:

*Btw, ¿sería mucho pedirles que organicemos "una parada" en el Zócalo, antes del primer IFE debate para mostrar el... músculo. Contrario a lo que afirman algunos mala leche, nosotros sí podemos llenarlo cuando se nos hinche. Además es plan con maña, porque ya me urge "mercar" un güen cafecito de Veracrú, un DVD, tres librillos de jodido, y un quesillo de "shihuahua", je, je. Porque machaquita nunca han llevado los compas, por ahí, ¿o sí?