Si Fuera La Juarez

"Si no fuera ciega, no podría ver" - Mi abue told me talking about her cataracts disease. Never really knew what she meant.

Es Lunes y me quema the cold sun. I’ve never been interested in knowing the reason behind what people do in these streets. I just see them on my way to school, seven de la madrugada, mi Má prepares a speech on the first three corners we turn, picking up the pace ever so slightly, pushing our eyes up front and tall, going cotracorriente to our naive curiosity to observe and find out if we can notice a sign of hope, or if we can spot El Chamuco, the devil sucking a life away. But we don’t not to be rude to them. They whom own souls, but whom my abue considers “olvidados,” the forgotten. Ma starts talking sometimes with anger, sometimes is pity what I read in between the lines, but it always seeks to reach inside our guts and make us feel guilty even considering how would it feel to sleep dizzy. We are speeding to get past them, and slowing down to make time for Ma’s sermons. The sidewalk we walk everyday is irregular, some chunks are wider than others so we can go the three at a time. But most of the times there is a tree here, a car there, a bulk, a leg… so we have to be sleek y dodge effortlessly. If we struggle to much we would contradict the initial efforts of pretending not even to acknowledge them. But all that was irrelevant that day.

Mi abue is blind, and that had filled me with ideas on how can I go around without looking. Sometime yesterday when we went to a mercado, “chedraui,” I witnessed for the first time the way she could compete such a complex errands as choosing fruits and vegetables that were good and not podridos, being consistent on the brands she picked, or even not crashing the market’s cart into other seño’s who were too busy to help her, or to deal with cart crashes. “Mira hijo,” look son, I now think is ironic, but then it was natural to the ear. “Ver es una perdida de tiempo, si no sabes a donde.” She repeated that ever so often, I would even call it her slogan. In that occasion, we were walking down the greatest street de Puebla de Zaragoza. We stretched both our arms to her walking stick, and although she told me to keep my eyes open por si acaso, I would make sure to close them when possible. Comic. To think of a blind abuela with so much confidence she allowed me to believe this was still in the parameters of safety I was use to: the safety my Ma made sure I had, or at least felt. Like inside a womb.

By the time we hit Juarez I was blind. The sidewalk was wide enough to spare some confidence. I held into my sister’s hand, and although I did not trusted her fully — that is the way amor apache works — I closed my eyes, so I was protected from the diablo who begged and who I had to fight so often. Fight him not to give up to them, not to come close to one of them and check their breathing, or to kick their leg in search for any response, or to simply throw them my allowance quietly so they could fix the wholes in their clothes; ”diez pesos is enough for patches,” I thought; But that was not an option. Apparently my intentions were good, but he would take advantage such vulnerability to drag me with him. Exposure was too high of a risk for a mother to bare. M brows pressing down my cheek were the only method I knew how to really keep my eyes close. I knew self-will was stronger than any other drive to accomplish something. I smelled burnt rubber from the bicycle repair shop around the corner, mixed with the sweet smell the Italian Coffee in the other end of the intersection we were so patiently waiting. I heard some person’s high heels knocking down the pavement, bringing with them and even sweeter, majestic scent. A heavy grassy muff interrupted everything and in it came with a noise that was very loud from the long machines I recently learnt held two plastic strings that spin so fast no plant could survive. We turned right after the MCBrokers building that also held an English School at its lower level. That building smelled like leather and what people announced as “Loción para hombre” men’s lotion, and the contingent but suave sound of adults working came from the magic doors that opened politely when someone came close, letting the bare voices out, and then muffled them. The road that led to my primary school was diecisiete sur, and then we turned to tres poniente number one-three-three, where it was located. We turned the diecisiete but we stoped. I felt a strong smell, like the one I find after my abue uses the bathroom to empty her urinary catheter, but stronger. We walked down to la dieciocho sur and up la tres instead. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was dedicated in keeping my eyes close.

Bushes and branches hit my face a couple of times, nothing that could distract me from my curious odyssey. I heard the big and loud whistle from the “camotes” and contained myself so my Ma didn’t realize I was playing blind. I knew we were close because the cart hadn’t crossed us, the señor always ran out of camotes in the doors of schools, where parents are still concerned enough about their children to accompany them to school in the morning and wait for them to step inside the school, all hungry. “Great source of fiber!” he always said in a cheerful 19 tine. But he was never taken seriously by the parents, they saw him as a performer, and them, the givers. — We were on the right side of the street, same side where the school was. I noticed we crossed the street when a smell of beer approximated and our steps began to crunch. We didn’t make it all the way to the other side before my mom finally kissed our heads and did the cross to each of us: en el nombre del padre, del hijo, y del espiritu Santo, amen. I kept my eyes close, she never suspected why, as she always told me to shut my eyes to receive my “angel de la guarda.” I turned and kept holding my sister’s hand. I felt the smell of lunch boxes, filled with gentle food and juice, entwined with hair gel, mustela, suavitel and the smell of ash. That was maybe from the Popocatepetl, our own volcano that smoked to let us know he was awake. The ash became bitter and the bitterness became pungent, almost unpleasant. Glass began to disintegrate disintegrate in my steps, and I finally tripped. I looked at my hands, bright red.

My sister was waiting for the laughs. She had been tricked by the Chamuco. That’s what I thought had made her do it, she was younger and naive, so made sense she would’ve fall in tentative, but that was before I saw evil for the first time a few seconds later; I learnt something about religion that day, I saw what we pray to la Virgencita de Guadalupe to protect us against. It took a minute after I heard the faint growl from the lost soul. The smell of urine, or wine, or thinner was never so strong, maybe it was in my head. I didn’t see it then, only a missing look, not only until I heard the kick — just the same sound that the feet of my Tae Kwon Do teacher makes when it hits the cushion— followed by a dry short exhale and a drained pant.

“Viejo marrano!” — “You old fuck,” El diablo said.

“Saquese de aquí!” — “Go away!” Pure evil emanated, insisted. He even had the courage to call him “Pervertido!”

I brought up my eyes, stunned. I feel mi Má pushing me from the floor, and I saw him to the eye. Leather boots with spurs, denim pants and a belt with buckle, plaid shirt, and an excessive amount of hair gel. I look at my Ma to find some comfort. I hear the drained voice spit a cry for help. Her hand immediately reaches her mouth, like holding a breath. El diablo runs 20 back to strike even harder this time. The lost soul spits something out of his mouth and reaches evil’s jeans. My mom later described them as blood coagulates. Bloodied, el diablo unnerved a last strike, directly to the lost soul’s nape. I closed my eyes. “Maybe is better to be blind” I thought. My Ma hugs us tightly and turns us away from the scene. A few minutes of nothing but the devil’s truck followed by some whispers. My eyes can only see the shadows of the buildings as I feel the soul that “wasn’t lost anymore” she told me. She rested on Avenida Juarez, where she would never get lost again.