Barefoot in a Cascade of Flowers

When we first moved to Mexico in 1952 poverty was ubiquitous. After years of vaunted programs and progress it is still ubiquitous but not quite in the raw and shocking way it was then.

We lived in las Lomas, then the most exclusive neighbourhood in the city. But on the corner, up the street from us, catty-corner to the new-fangled Sumesa supermarket and various boutique shops, sat a group of homeless leperos pathetically extending their deformed hands, begging. No one thought to move them away.

Americans would come down and say, "How can you stand living next to such poverty?" "Oh," would come the casual reply, "one gets used to it." As if we took turns sleeping on the hard, chill ground... or wherever these miserable people parked themselves when they weren't importuning us, in the name of the Blood of Jesus or his Blessed Mother.

But the truth is, one does get used to it. Humans, no better than dumb, mute animals, will get used to anything especially when that thing requires no effort.

As a not yet five year old I was profoundly disturbed by such scenes and in particular by little boys, just like myself, walking around in rags, barefoot. I would stare at them through the safety glass of the automobile, and wonder what it was like to be so humiliated and defenceless. Shoes were a sign not only of class but of invulnerability, a fact driven home by the more than a few friezes, prints and oil paintings of Cuauhtémoc getting his feet burned before an imperious and impervious Cortez.

What the fuck place had I come to with its exotic fruits, gorgeous skies, refreshingly crisp mornings, languid afternoons graced with cascades of shocking pink bouganvilla?

Cascade of flowers
,
gladness of song.

Above the flowers

the resplendent pheasant
 sings

His song unfurls 
from within the waters.

---Netzahualcoyotl (1402-1450)

But I remained troubled. America's trite, liberal near narcotic post-war "arrangement" didn't quite square with this space I was in.

I had long forgot until many years later my aunt Marguerite reminded me that at Christmas that year someone had sent me five dollars as a gift. That was a lot of pesos.... When asked what I planned to do with the money, I said I wanted to give it away to the poor people. I wanted it turned into 60 silver peso coins which I could then distribute. This was nothing I had read or heard about. We didn't go to church so it was not talked about in some sermon. It was simply a childish impulse born of a disquiet.

My parents thought this was a sweet idea but excessive. One had to be "reasonable" about such things. Just give away a few, no more than 10 and keep the rest for yourself. After all, charity need not inconvenience.

Well... my parents held the strings here. I could hardly go to the bank myself much less downtown where most beggars were. As I recall, I walked around our toney neighbourhood and gave away maybe four or five pesos before giving up. I had learned to be reasonable.

And to get used to it. By the time I left Mexico I was as indifferent to poverty as everyone else. It was the government's responsibility and, after all, what can one do? Yes... we, as well as everyone else, had "our" beggar who came to our door every afternoon for his scraps from our dinner; but that was the extent of our commitment and, most importantly, it was done without feeling. One needs deadness of heart in order to live, right?

And San Francisco or Los Angeles or for that matter anywhere else? How many people in houses there even have their own dinner time beggar? It seems to me that Americans who were so judgemental and appalled have gotten quite "used to it" "Oh," they agonize, "something must be done!" "We need a program." But nothing will get done because the only solution is divestment and no one wants to go around barefoot.

©2019

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El Volador

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In the opposite direction from the toy vendors on Insurgentes and over by Avenida Amsterdam there was a park - officially christened Parque San Martín but which everybody called Parque México. Built in the late 20’s it had an open air theatre and water fountains in the art deco style. In a clearing of sand colored dirt surrounded by foliage and palm trees there was a children’s playground with a spiral shaped slide and a girating swing, which everyone, in Mexico at least, called a volador.

The playground was somewhat in disrepair. The slide lookd very intriguing, far more so than simple ramp slides I was used to. But not only was it rickety and unsteady, its rusted holes and cracks had been repaired poorly with bolted on tin plates that didn’t make for a very smooth slide. In fact, the end of the slide was broken off several inches before where it should have ended with a nice rounded lip.

More intriguing was the “flying pole” which at first appeared to be nothing more than a pole with a bunch loose chains hanging from the top. I soon discovered -- perhaps with the help of the lodging house maid who was detailed to look after me -- that one could grab hold of the chains, take leaping runs and fly around the pole.

It was called a volador after the Totonac fertility ritual when, seeking to get the rain god’s attention, the indians hewed the tallest tree they could find into pole from the top of which they “flew” down and around dressed as beautiful birds, blowing high pitched flutes.



Following the Conquest, on festival days when the Spaniards would hold rodeos and tourneys the Indians would erect their pole and play at being voladores. After a while the Church got suspicious and tried to ban the practice, but the new gods themselves loved to watch the perilous climb and dramatic descent of the human birds.

There had been nothing like this at Peter Cooper Village, and as all the other children were apparently at school, I had the volador to myself. I knew nothing of the Totonacs and their rain god Xipe Totec but I liked playing airplane and kicking up clouds of dust as I landed... until the maid got tired of watching and said it was time to return home.

Volador at the American School

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Iacta Est Alea

After Ten Years in the Babel of Iron, Newsman Daniel C. Manjarrez Returns.

“After an absence of ten years, the distinguished journalist is once again among us, now transformed into a formidable practitioner of the most advanced radio and television techniques....”

“....Manjarrez is still the young man whom we saw depart in 1943 for what we can only consider to have been a most advantageous sojourn in the gran urbe de acero (great steel metropolis).... Notwithstanding the obstacles which always confront a Latino in tierras norteamericanas ... it could be said of Manjarrez, that he came, he saw, he conquered!”

In successive and frothy crescendos, then as now so typical of mexican journalistic poetics, the article progressed onward to relate father’s accomplishments at the War Department, CBS and lastly the United Nations, before descending to confess the deplorable state of Mexican television which -- on top of all else para colmo! -- owing to the age old habit of treasonous malinchismo preferred utilizing “inept” Europeans over domestic talent.

“On this occasion we shall see if it is possible for a Mexican, who has triumphed in New York, can triumph as well in his homeland, especially at this time when Mexican television abounds in false values that at best do not surpass the mediocre.”

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El Globero

Of more interest to me than over-sized grime-covered canvases hanging in gloomy hallways were the the rubbery tarantulas, miniature toys and wire puzzles hanging from the stick trees carried by the street vendors on Insurgentes Avenue. Some of the vendors also carried helium filled balloons of different colors that bounced off one another whenever a truck or bus passed by.

It’s difficult to keep track of one’s toys, and so I don’t remember whether I got the dangling tarantula or the plastic motorcycle or a rubber monkey or something else. Whatever it was, I put it on the night stand, next to the water decanter, and remember possessing it -- my first Mexican toy.

Some vendors specialized in balloons alone, blowing up and twisting sausage-like latex into the shape of a hat, or an airplane or a donkey or boat. Sometimes the hat itself was in the shape of a swan. As much as the shapes themselves I was fascinated by the balloon masters’ technique.

Que desea el jovencito?

One would point to the hat or the donkey or the airplane or boat.

The balloon master would nod and pull out a yellow or red strip or green strip of latex which he would put to his lips and blow up faster than any pneumatic pump or so it seemed. Thwooluhp! The balloon would be blown up and with a seamless gesture tied shut. But no sooner had this been done than another balloon would be taken out and ---thwooluhp! -- blown up, tied shut and now twisted around the other one in some fashion, their skins making squeaky sounds as they rubbed together. And again, thwooluhp - squeak - twist -- squeak .... and before you knew it you had a hat you could wear or a donkey you could stand on the table. As far as I was concerned actually getting the balloon was just the reward for the performance.

Maybe for this reason, I don’t remember getting one of these balloons much less whether it was a hat or donkey or boat. The only balloon I remember from this period in my life was an ordinary red one that stuck to the ceiling of the dank, dark rectangular dining room, which eventually lost its helium and died slowly in the concrete court yard.

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Fue Fusilado

We were having coffee after dinner in the living room, many years later. Mother was sitting on the couch with her legs tucked under and her left arm draped over the back. She shook her head and let out a snort. “The only ones that end up doing well in Mexico are the damn foreigners,” she said with a slight squint in her eye.

She paused. “You remember when your father took us to el Castillo?” “I remember that it was hot and I was thirsty,” I replied. Mother let out a short laugh, “Yea-ha.... and I thought I was so chic..." She looked at the picture, shook her head and chuckled again. “You know, my feet were hot and I was perspiring under my arms.”

“Well ... you know, your father had taken it upon himself to ‘explain the country” to me.” I did know, which is why it seemed we were always getting dragged off somewhere to get an explanation. I am sure father felt that Chapultepec Castle was the logical place to conduct a panoramic orientation.

In those days, the Castillo’s National History Museum was more like the National Attic -- a poorly arranged hodge-podge of historical bric-a-brac and scrounged up antiquaria in search of a theme and bespeaking years of post-Revolution neglect. Aside from the bric-a-brac and Juarez’s port-a-government black carriage, most of the museum was taken up with portraits and immense oil canvases depicting some one or another heroic scene.

“Well then," mother continued, "you remember all those big canvases they have hanging there... Hidalgo, Guerrero and the others. So, we were going down the halls and as your father was explaining to me who was depicted, the significance of the scene and so on, I began to notice that all these paintings had a scripted legend at the bottom that invariably ended with “...fue fusilado” followed by some date. She arched her eyebrows. “Who knows... huh? I thought it must be some kind signature or something to do with when the painting was finished. So I asked your father, “Daniel... what does fue fusilado mean?” He said, “It means he was shot.”

“My god, Daniel, was anybody not shot?”


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A Simple Contrast

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Perhaps the greatest contrast between New York and Mexico was the simplest. A film clip shows mother, father and a couple of friends standing on the steps of our Brooklyn Heights brownstone holding the recently arrived me. Gusts of a late Fall wind flap the hems and lapels of their coats. They are braving smiles.

The camera pans away to catch the tail end of a passing car, past which, on the other side of the street, a neon “Ballantine” beer sign blinks forlornly in a pub window. Everything is grey and sooty.

The clip abruptly ends and the next frame shows mother and father standing under an arch in a halo of bright light. Everything is warm and clean and light and white. How could one not want to go back?

Of course, New York was not all-grim and it would be several comfortable and cheerful years after that first home leave before the final move. But the allure of Mexico must have beckoned like a premature taste of heaven.


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