Scream!
It is better to scream than to be screamed at,
So go ahead and scream!
Scream for every kernel on every ear of corn in every cornfield in Iowa.
Scream for a time when gold doubloons are no longer necessary for the short-term rental of a phosphorescent tree house in a virgin wood.
Scream for all the catatonic pilgrims on the road to nowhere.
Scream for Christopher Marlowe.
Scream for Philip Marlowe.
Scream for the amoebae, the protozoa, the paramecia.
Scream for all the juke joints in all the emergency rooms of all the papier-mâché palaces.
Scream for the glen plaid-clad elocutionists who come knocking at your door.
Scream for all the dead pet turtles flushed down the toilets of New York City by indifferent children of the sixties.
Scream for the plumbers.
Scream for the right to whimper.
Scream for brushes, and bobby pins, and carburetors, and noodles.
Scream for the sad, abandoned clam diggers.
Scream for the wall-eyed pike, because if you don’t, who will?
Scream for an end to calcified beginnings.
And scream for those who’d rather you didn’t.
Just get out there,
Open your mouth as wide as you dare,
And scream!
Peter Cherches’ next collection, Things, a mix of prose and poetry, will be published by Bamboo Dart Press in April. He has published widely since 1977 and boycotts all journals that charge submission fees.
a sense of calm
it's bad art
on muted
walls
carpet meant
to lull you
into a sense
of calm
as long as
you don't
mind being
fucking crazy
the chairs
might as
well be a
bed of nails
and not the
kind of nails
you would
like leaving
marks on
your back
----------------------------------------------------------------
much better off
i gave up smoking
nearly fifteen years
ago
my doctor says i
should be happy
that my lungs are
much better off
i laugh and say
the weight gain
and the bitter
asshole deep
within killed
happiness
years ago
i'm sure one day
he’s going to tell
me to take some
pill
he knows currently
i'd sell them
----------------------------------------------------------------------
searching for a vein
i'm losing
my interest
in life
all the
beautiful
women
have
already
said no
hell, even
the ugly ones
aren't interested
anymore
pretty soon,
i'll be alone
and searching
for a vein
but i know
my luck
the first one
won't kill me
my soul likes
the taste of
agony
---------------------------------------------------------------------
enjoy it while they can
the winter doom and gloom
piled a few feet high in
every parking lot
we haven't seen it like
this in years
the kids seem to love it
at least the ones that are
too young to have to shovel
the driveways and sidewalks
i give them the look that
means to enjoy it while
they can
enough years in this place
and you'll understand why
i have a bad back
-----------------------------------------------------------------
that first kiss
snow showers
in the morning
turn the ac back
on by the weekend
getting lost in the
memories of the
first love
that first kiss
the first time
fooling around
under the bleachers
life was a problem
for everyone else
back then
and now you realize
you haven't seen each
other in over a decade
time doesn't heal
it eliminates
breaks every soul
one second at a time
J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) was raised by wolves but graduated high school with honors. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at Yellow Mama, Terror House Magazine, The Beatnik Cowboy, Horror Sleaze Trash and Cajun Mutt Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
Transparent Men and Women
Yuan-Hongri
Tr. By Wit lee
Transparent men and women
Men and women more beautiful than colored butterflies
Maybe really a group colored butterflies
Dancing from Zhuangzi ‘s big dream
But I see cities, crystal transparent cities
Like city’s dream, city’s love
Through the walls could reach the other shore
Light, may transcend time
Above the sea surface of time, boats of light are flying
On a little island
I see other men and women
This calendar tells us a window
After days are still another days
It is the illusion of days that besiege us
Just as my flesh is my own shadow
Yesterday’s leafs and water drops
Pebbles I played with in my childhood
The sun I see for the first time
Those all things are smiling in a house of light
Eyes of men and women
Eyes more charming than the rainbow
On vibrant morning
In intoxicating dusk
Flying water drowned men and women
I found one sun in my own chest
I discovered cities in my head
The water of the past turned into crystal, diamond
There are stars sailing in my bones
Ah, a young girl in dream
Maybe came from some day a hundred years ago
Still I miss that moment
That vision disappeared when I wake up
That momentary smile, how warm it was
Who made you appear in my dream?
I believe in dream, as I believe in the sun
And in dreamland I saw another me
Shadows of Phoenix and Unicorn
Once in dream came down
On the mountain top
I dreamed a house of heaven
Blood is another river
Blood in my body also has its own dream
I set foot on a ladder of days
But on the other mountain
Leisurely I’m flying
Shadows of men and women
Blooms in a smile
The seasons of men and women
Days are like pieces of stones
I opened an photo album sealed for many years
I saw Yellow Emperor rambling in the city
One shadow is among many shadows
On another wild field
Ancient years are shouting and fighting
On grassland all kinds of flowers are laughing
Living in glass I
Don’t know their names
Water of yearning, water of sweet and fragrant spring
Fly from inside rocks
A girl is like a colorful flying phoenix
Only dream tells us the illusory of time
Outside time's gate
There is another sun
Who was playing games inside ancient rocks
Igniting gold piece by piece
On pieces of transparent boulders
Drawing seas and cities
I was sitting in a house filed with light
With a picture album hold in my hand
In the buildings of ancient times
Caught sight of the future emperors
Who’s blood was the plum flower drinking
Which girl’s song was it singing
When I got up
I saw a white jade, glittering its smile
In the age when rock drifted fragrance
Queen Mother of the West was a witch
Tow eyes have intoxicated the handsome and strong MU Tianzi
This is a gold sculpture
But I don’t know
Am I in times of heaven or mundane?
On days when Goddess stepped on auspicious clouds
Where am I?
On which star
Still preserves my house of past?
Form east to west
There is a road of gold
Perhaps there is a blonde
To be my companion of tomorrow
The earth is a crystal jade
In lover’s mouth
Atmosphere is as sweet as wines
And in one dreamland
I'm still a baby
Every city and county I passed by
Have all left my shadow
Thousand years after they will still be golden and shining
Bread that I eat was my own blood
A girl that I loved once loved me a thousand years ago
I saw in the arms of the rocks
Girls were lying down, cheeks fresh and red
Skins were as transparent as jade
Hieroglyphs and letters
Were glittering and shining on the sun
God is holding a brush in his hand
Waving a pen in heaven
Those cities of gold and silver
In an eye's twinkling flew toward the human world
On the edge of a big river bank
There was one house of mine
A garden yielded full of golden fruits
On the other mountain, red plum blossomed spreading the top
My shadow turned into a Kylin
In the house built with white jade
I wrote down a volume of poetry
Each line of verse is a star in the blue sky
A tortuous, quite and secluded path
Walked through from a garden
The sun shed its golden drizzle
Golden spiral ladders
Was in another crystal sky
I opened my own head
There are more suns
Spinning ,singing
Girl of light, petal of smile
On a lake green-jade-like
Reflecting the red houses
A cluster of green leaves transmit bright red lips
Smiling faces of the alley paved by stones
To where shall it lead me?
Blooming peach tree of early spring
Upon the hillside ,bees of sunlight are buzzing
Through the street of trams and crowd
In front of the glorious and magnificent mansions
Look up forward a piece of crystal blue sky
In the thoughts of white clouds
Is the city beautiful?
Along the street of billboards and neon lights
Big trees covered with green hair
Enable me miss the distant mountains and the clear springs
Children’s smiling faces are no unfamiliar
Black jade eyes, pink lips
At this moment, men and women flow stream endlessly
It was fashion and vanity that noised the street
I planted myself here
Left a thousand shadows
To cultivate a thousand gardens
To pave the gold onto road like the stones
Let every stone melt into crystal
In wind language there were sounds of stars
Rocks and pine trees of distant mountains
Poetry rhythm of the sea
There were underground buried dreaming words of ancient people, blooming red flower
And there were remote poems I eager to go back
Every single green tree beside the street loves us
Under the hot sun, wordless green shade
Every flower has its own language
People with crystal eyes
Will see flower's smile
Ah, every time the sun rises
We all woke up from death
The dead us,where have been kept?
Do not belittle a stone
It hummed the song of universe
The young girl's smiling face of the very days
Turned into a white cloud
Upon the mirror face of the sky
All the saints could be seen
I was silent in the fire, went through
The flame of men and women
In the high streets and back lanes of cities
Wind of time blown colorful flags
Under the blue sky, river of life is flouring and rushing
I tried to open the memory door
On another planet
Leisure and happy time
The night of death subsided
And on the red clouds of dawn
Golden smile face of the sun
The initial men and women
Men and women without names
Men and women created God
The initial poets were a couple of lovers
When the blood started to sing
I heard the language of the sun and stars
On some wonderful and joyous occasions the sun smiled outside the window
A young girl walked into your window
Her eyes are two stars
Came from ancient space
How transient this prosperity in front of us
This street, city of labyrinth
The old man sitting on the street playing with chess
Still missing the house of gone away
The young girl of that very year was still walking past the street
Only turned into a transparent shadow
Tomorrow is in white clouds' hometown
Tomorrow’s sun is still smiling and silent
Every moment of mine is departing me
Big birds of time were darting in the sky
Brightly coloured feathers
Glitter in the sky, knowing nowhere to leisurely fly down
In a palace
I’m an old man, sitting on golden chair
Missing me
I walked into a stone
Saw another sky
On a vast sea
There was an island of peach flower
Days of riding a Phoenix
Where are my companions
Walking on the street of Wangfujing
I miss the Yellow emperor riding a dragon up to the heaven
Light is my only food
Light of the sun, moon, and stars
Became my bones
Ancient Greek and Rome
Is now in front of me
Poems of Homer and Sappho
Turned into my sweet spring
Many countries I travelled
Flying in the space-time of words
A thousand years and ten thousand years
Made me lament: transience
And now every drop of blood today
Is all a ruby
Every inch of the land I've stepped on
Is all ancient gold
Whose jade body am I walking on?
Ancient sweet and beautiful songs
Enables me fall in love with the ancient girl
In a transparent jade
Will your laughter be preserved?
Sometimes on one star
I saw your beautiful face
Ah, golden words
Stars of east and west
How many poets’ kingdom they have entered?
Strings of shining glorious names
Engraved on the chest of the sun
Upon the ocean of the sky
How many happy gardens are there?
I'm just fluttering away
Making a temporary farewell from the mundane world for a millennium
When Sappho returns again
A new song must be chanted
Days of labyrinth in front of us
Time played the strings of the sun and the moon
Words flied from the stars
I walked into the days of phantom overlapped
I can’t tell the past from the future
Now I’m alone and unconventional
And under the sun I lost the shadow
Is this body accompanied me
The narrow boat of time?
Above the waves of the Three Gorges
I galloped forward
Understand the songs of green shade
Drink a wine of silent time
A golden daisy
During my mid nap
Turned into a girl
Poplars and willows on lake shore stand by each sides
Are they still waiting
The lovers strolling in the evening?
The sunset is waving a handkerchief of twilight
The light of love
Is soaring in the clean breeze
Pairs of star eyes
Where are they twinkling today?
On whose forehead they are inlaid
Singing and chanting to me now?
I stepped across the gates of light
Having no idea where to wake up from drunken sleep
In the labyrinth weaved by the light
Drink up the sweet wine of words to my heart’ content
Those golden smiling faces
Come from east and west
In the kingdom of poetry
Bosom friends and partners everywhere abound
I lingered about in day times
Opened doors and windows in the wall of light
Had a sweet deep sleep in the white jade case
Dreaming of my own footprints
Radiating golden light in the sky
Loneliness became God
Will loneliness hear the words of sky?
Swim across the long river of shadow
I’m a shadow forgetting himself
In a house by the street
What kind of time there have been ?
Every day on the earth
Flame of time, burns endlessly
Let red lips of lovers fade
Black hair run into dust
Smell the fragrance of the mud
Whose love do you think and recollect?
Everything is colorful and transparent
Every stone keeps its own memory
A pile of shattered stone statues
Smile at me in the sun
Maybe we'd known each other a thousand years ago
Blood of stone is golden and transparent
Time flower is gold and precious stones
Where are the charming figures today?
Left rolls and volumes poetry of light behind
Those shadows are still brilliant
Vivid and bright-colored as ever in transparent words
A withered flower has a beautiful memory
An instant bloom embraces eternity
Memory walks to memory, where shall we go?
The first drop of water turned into an ocean
All things I witnessed come from the past
Tomorrow will born in my palm
By whom the chess pieces of the stars are driven?
In whose eyes the earth is also a chess piece
I watched my own life on the earth
Drinking water, having meals, heart full of yearning
Another me perhaps always keep me accompany
Only he knows my secrets
Words I said may have been said
Roads I traveled may have been traveled
I seem to be repeating one by one the me of the past
On my tired days, eager for fall down and die
Like zhuang Zi, became a free butterfly
As soon as I wake up, I see the sun
Auspicious clouds spread their fragrance beside me
Rivers flowed out from the embrace of the mountain
Again back to the ancient sea
My memory ocean maybe is just ahead
Where is the time hidden exactly?
Come with no sign and go with no trace
Upon the mirror surface of time
Only see my own shadow
My songs can be heard by the stars
Walk on the city street
White clouds walk with me
I walked into a church
Caught a sight of Jesus holding a baby in his arms
God stands in heaven,waits and watches us
My god is myself
I sat in the heaven, looked at myself
A big seven-colored bird
Spread the wings of sky
Watched me walking on the earth
Death' black night curtain
Covered heaven of gold and silver
At this moment where do I live on earth?
Drink up all this glass of wine
Blood of time is brewed into nectar
No time for hesitation and hovering
Not to be sad in the face of heaven
What cannot be retained is the shadow one after another
My songs are a paradise that will not wither
Who is not hungry and thirsty in city desert?
Colorful sand and gravel accumulated into time
Flame refined out transparent bones
Drink the bright jade body
More brighter and glorious than diamonds
In pavilions of sky,read volumes of golden books
In time and space labyrinth,write volumes of poetry
In the world of mortals, who is my bosom friend?
Caress a street tree, listen to the whisper of the green leaves
Transparent crystal world, countless brilliant smiling faces
Open the wall thus can walk into
A house full of laughter
Tomorrow is just a landscape
Long has been hanging in the balcony of sky
The sun walked forth and back in the sky
Made tomorrow’s lunch prepared
Let me sit down and caress the time’s silk
Cut it to make you a new dress
Walk into the bosom of the sun
Through the flame
And turn into a beam of pure light
Glass of the blue sky, melted in the flame
You will see the young girl singing on the star
Garden of earth blossom once again
The human world is full of transparent butterflies flying all around
Labyrinth city, colorful river
Wind blows flags of dream
In whose blood the ancient song is sounded?
The Hurrying footsteps beat the drum for an expedition
Those eyes glistering starry bright
Seems contain ancient sweet spring
A seed of gold
Is sprouting on your palm, full of bloom
Beijing, August 1998
I Dream
I dream that I breathe peace
into everyone to whom I speak,
that my smile unties the knots
that their frowns have knitted on their faces,
that my eyes emanate warmth,
an antidote to whatever the deadly frost has glaciated,
that my unfettered feet can walk upon water
like Jesus’,
that my mind accommodates every fragrance
that flowers and roses exuded,
that my hands can free all the creatures
imprisoned within cages,
that my ears are attuned to the sighs of leaves
fluttering to breezes,
to the orbit of stars,
to the mystic rituals of true believers,
to the silent prayers of children,
to the whispers of souls in a congregation.
The Land of Broken Glass
I see everywhere massive amounts of broken glass.
Some are of smashed bottles,
some a symptom of domestic wrath.
I marvel at these splinters that decorate our grass,
our pavements,
and car wheels like diamond studs.
A rough boy sits on the edge of a cart of trash,
scavenging for little treasures such as morsels of food
and plastic bags to trade for coins.
I see him contemplate an empty bottle of orange juice,
which he abruptly brings down with a bang,
like a judge pronouncing the irrevocable verdict,
his eyes dilating with delight
at the dexterity of his hand,.
the startling soundtrack,
and the harmful littering of a pedestrian path.
In Enslaved by Civilization
No wonder D.H. Lawrence assimilated the school
to a very elaborate railway system
where tractable, well-behaved boys
are persistently instructed
to adhere to good tracks
until they reach their teens
when into life they are shoved.
The habit of adhering to lines
has already become an ingrained trait
and now the boy is an adult,
he runs on a new set of ways,
a life-long slave
to rails.
Free
It is the usual tune I constantly play
as I drive up our very steep mountains,
my father reclining in the front seat,
my German Shepherd, extremely excited.
The labrosones that herald this piece
bring to my father’s eyes joyful tears,
to my dog, an aesthetic hypnosis.
Free is the title that was given
to this unparalleled jazz fusion.
The birds that orchestrate in pine trees
hearken to the interplay of metal and strings
as George Michael and Chris Cameron create
a rapport of concordant resonance.
From the Pound Cantos: CENTO XXXVIII
The prefaces, cut clear & hard, bread
to the liberal arts. No mere succession
of strokes, sightless narration, but proofs
cast on a natal paper, set with an exegesis.
'Pretty green bank,' began the half-lost
poem, 'but is a substance differed from
intellect, weaving an endless sentence
with a touch of rhetoric in the whole.'
City of patterned streets; again the
vision. I stepped back; &, out of no-
thing, a breathing. Beasts like shadows
in glass. I have seen what I have seen,
I cried in hurried speech. Thus the
light rains, thus pours, e lo soleills plovil.
Three Postwoman Poems
Today the post-
woman brought
me the fifth
& last movie
in the much-
loved franchise —
Indiana Jones &
The Walking Frame.
*
Today the post-
woman brought
me the third
issue of the
series Patterns
of War. This is
the one I
have been waiting
for. It shows me
how to knit
a hand-held
missile launcher.
*
Today the post-
woman brought
me a prose-
lytizer with an
add-on fitting
so it can do
poetry as well.
tectonics
turn
spin
turn-
stile
spin-
drift
resile
resolute
dissolute desolate
relate
relocate
spine
spurn
stern
re-
turn
terminate
My name is Susana Silvia Siciliano. I teach language and literature at the Noble Wood Preparatory School, a coeducational, secular, bilingual institution that charges staggering tuition, located in the Belgrano R neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
Yasmín Magalí Corbatta, one of my fifth-year students, was a contestant on a certain televised quiz show based on questions about Hispanic American literature. The girl, despite being saddled with her parents’ original sin of punishing her with god-awful names, had always been an excellent student, and as such, had enjoyed my highest esteem.
The following conflict arose:
Standing before the TV jury, Yasmín Magalí was asked to cite any three works of her choice published by the Ecuadorian author Juan Montalvo. Being especially well-prepared (in great part, it must be said, thanks to my pedagogical skills), she declared, without the slightest hesitation: Catilinaries, Moral Geometry, and Seven Treatises. According to her, the three members of the jury (a bunch of good- for-nothing bestseller writers) exchanged glances, shuffled some papers around, and mumbled inaudibly. At last, the head of the tribunal announced that the answer was incorrect because, according to his data, Montalvo had never published any work with the title Moral Geometry.
And with that, Yasmín Magalí was eliminated from the contest and unable to proceed to the next round.
But that was not to be the end of it.
On my advice, Yasmín Magalí, accompanied by Dr. Tomás Toledano (who, in addition to being a lawyer, has been my husband for eons), arrived at the television station a few days later in a litigious mood, fueled by a healthy amount of righteous indignation and armed with an A4-sized envelope containing two photocopies, described below:
1) Page 162 of A History of the Literature of Hispanic America and Argentina, by Fermín Estrella Gutiérrez and Emilio Suárez Calimano; 2) page 211 of Authors of Hispanic America, by Rodolfo M. Ragucci. Both of them confirmed that Juan Montalvo had indeed written a work entitled Moral Geometry.
The three dim-witted bestseller writers deliberated among themselves, and having not the slightest idea what in the devil to do, lobbed the whole mess at the television station’s administrators, who promised to “review the situation and proceed accordingly.” What the higher-ups did next was to “take a corner kick,” as my husband described it, using a soccer metaphor. In other words, they tried to wash their hands of the problem without seeking a solution.
Motivated by the circumstances (that is, by the five threatening registered legal documents drafted by Tomás, my above-mentioned lawyer-husband), the director general of the station met with him and Yasmín Magalí. He argued, with malicious sophistry, that the question referred to works published by Montalvo and that Moral Geometry had been published in 1902, long after the author had left this earth in 1889. Therefore, the contestant’s answer could not be considered correct.
Tomás told me that at that point he stopped the insolent executive (who was attempting to ensnare him in a game of words) in his tracks, and threatened to take punitive action ipso facto against the program, the station, and the multimedia company that owned it. While he was at it, he let it be known that the fearsome Tirso Toledano, union boss at the Bulldozer and Borer Operators’ Guild, was none other than his big brother.
Then—this is all still according to Tomás—the executive was quite intimidated, and in an effort not to further escalate the conflict, proposed a compromise solution that would do double-duty as a kind of “cultural promotion”: Yasmín Magalí would need to obtain the written opinion of an Argentine academic, who would certify that, in their view, there was not now nor could there ever be any difference between a work published during an author’s lifetime and one published after his death. On this simple condition, Yasmín Magalí would be reinstated in the contest and automatically advance to the round that she had previously been denied.
2.
Being the excellent teacher that I am, I made it my business to procure the exculpatory document.
Because I have never been a mother, I feel that all of my students are, in some way, the children I never had (with the exception of an insufferable few who would have driven me to infanticide).
I described the situation in the teachers’ lounge, where my colleagues (the vast majority of them ignoramuses) provided a variety of insipid opinions that were of no use to me at all.
Gabriela Irene Laguna, even though she teaches incomprehensible subjects like math and physics, is a good friend of mine (in spite of certain defects that need not be mentioned here).
“No problem, Su,” she chirped. “Benito Benvestiti, the academic, lives right around the corner from me. He’s a frail, slightly senile old man who does his shopping at the corner market and bakery. He’s a friendly fellow, always laughing and saying hello to everyone, although that’s never happened with me. I don’t think he’d mind drafting and signing the requested document. I live on Picheuta Street, and the old codger lives on Barco Centenera.”
I thought it a good sign that we had already found the right person to put our plan in action, even though, despite being exceedingly well-versed in literature, I had never even heard the name Benvestiti.
Indeed, the very next week, Gaby informed me by phone that she had already arranged a meeting with the “renowned scholar” (as she hyperbolically referred to him). He would be expecting us on Saturday the 18th at 11:00 a.m. at his sixth-floor apartment on Barco Centenera street in the Parque Chacabuco neighborhood.
The news inspired a mix of joy and irritation in me; joy because our goal was well on its way to being met, and irritation because, since I live in Olivos — on Catamarca Street to be more precise — it’s nothing at all for me to drive to our school on Estomba street in Belgrano R, but I loathe having to travel to other neighborhoods galaxies away like Pompeya, Soldati, Lugano, or in this case, Parque Chacabuco.
Nonetheless, after consulting a map of Buenos Aires and with a brief geography review with my husband (who knows the city streets quite well despite being useless for many other things), I got in my car (we have two of them, a white one and a black one, same make and model), gripped the steering wheel, and with the help of the GPS, headed toward the apartments on Picheuta Street. I arrived with little time to spare, at ten minutes to eleven. Gabriela was waiting for me on the sidewalk.
She said:
“Want to come up for a cup of coffee?”
What a completely useless and counter-productive invitation. Why would we waste time drinking coffee when, just two blocks away, the academic was expecting us at eleven o’clock sharp?
By way of a reply, I tapped my wristwatch three times with my index finger, and with that we set out for Barco Centenera.
Gabriela and I, without any previous discussion, had both groomed ourselves to look at once attractive, yet at the same time, deep and intellectual. I had done so with my customary restraint and taste.
Gabriela had overdone it. I had never seen her wearing glasses before, but now she was sporting a pair with thick black frames that gave her the unmistakable air of a left-wing sociologist, made all the more believable by her lack of lipstick and her slightly spiked hair. Nonetheless, the combination of her long Chanel skirt and a rather rigid jacket, riddled with pockets and zippers, made her look a little like a nun with aspirations of joining the volunteer fire department. When all was said and done, poor Gaby, with all of her limitations, was actually a good person, but with a great propensity for the ridiculous.
I was used to my Scandinavian-style chalet in Olivos, and the ugly grayish grey building on Barco Centenera, typical of a downwardly mobile middle class, struck me as particularly unpleasant. It had eight storeys, according to the apartment intercom. Since Gabriela was from the neighborhood, it made sense for her to be the one to ring apartment 6A’s buzzer.
She did so with her thumb, not her index finger. After an eternity of at least three minutes, we heard a muffled voice:
“Who’s there?”
In an attempt to show how poised she was, Gaby, ever histrionic, smiled theatrically, and in a singsong soprano voice, trilled youthfully:
“We’re the school teachers, here to discuss the Juan Montalvo matter with you!”
At the sound of the buzzer, we pushed open the door and entered a hallway that smelled like chicken noodle soup. We stepped into the elevator—where someone had scrawled WHOEVER READS THIS IS A PUSSY on one of its walls—and arrived at the sixth floor.
The academic was waiting for us, dressed in a shabby robe the color of a sewer rat, smoking in the doorway of his apartment. He was a short man with a head of messy white hair and a poorly groomed, unattractive beard. A dreadful stench of cigarette smoke wafted out into the vestibule.
He extended a pallid hand resembling a cod fish fillet and gestured for us to have a seat on a threadbare sofa.
The old man was smoking what appeared to be his eleventh cigarette of the morning. There were at least ten brown-filtered butts crushed in an ashtray shaped like a tractor tire. Next to it sat a framed photograph: the author in his Paleolithic period, standing next to a woman with an evil expression on her face, possibly his deceased wife.
Both Gabriela and I were “reformed sinners”: we had been heavy smokers when we were young, but now, having quit the vice for good, could not bear even the slightest whiff of cigarette smoke within fifty feet of us. And it was even worse in that cramped, undoubtedly very dirty, and one might even say squalid apartment that we navigated about in the gloom.
Gabriela started to cough, albeit timidly, so the man would not think that the smoke from his cigarette was bothering her.
“Well then, ladies, what brings you here? I’m all ears,” he said, gazing severely at us.
As the literature professor, I felt it was my job to explain:
“We are both teachers at the Noble Wood Preparatory School…,”
“Yes, I know that. The person who rudely interrupted my naptime and made me get out of bed to answer the phone told me so.”
“That person was me, I’m so sorry,” Gabriela admitted.
“I have merely named the sin. I have no interest in the sinner. Carry on with the story, I don’t have all day to waste on piddling details!”
“Well, as I was saying,” I resumed, a little frightened now, “I am a teacher of language and literature at the Noble Wood Preparatory School, and Gabriela here teaches math.”
The academic waved his right hand around:
“Hurry, hurry, get on with it! I haven’t the slightest interest in autobiographies, much less in professional resumes, which tend to be riddled with lies and falsehoods.”
I swallowed hard:
“What happened was that one of my students participated in the well-known Who Knows It Best? quiz show on channel 73, Your Gratification Station…”
“I don’t know why the contest is considered ‘well known,’” said the academic. “I’ve never heard of it. As if I had time for the kind of low-brow stupidity so attractive to the ignorant, disgusting hoi polloi.”
For a moment, there was silence. Mustering superhuman strength, I continued:
“…and then they asked her for three works by Juan Montalvo and, because there was some kind of discrepancy between my student’s response and the jury’s criteria, they recommended a compromise solution in the form of a validating document be presented, that would certify, if not precisely, then approximately, the authenticity of that answer, which was in conflict with the facts gathered by members of the jury from perhaps dubious sources, but…”
The old man rose to his feet and, for a few seconds, covered his ears with both hands:
“What makes you think I can possibly understand this insane nonsense, this labyrinth of students, juries, and documents? Since you call yourself a teacher of literature the very least one could ask is that you express yourself with a modicum of clarity.”
My cheeks stung as if they were on fire, and a torrent of sweat poured from my armpits. Gabriela’s face, on the other hand, had been overtaken by a corpse-like pallor.
“In short—” This, in a massive effort to regain control of the conversation, “what we need is for you to graciously provide us with a document that certifies that Juan Montalvo…”
“Enough!” he exclaimed. “This must be some kind of terrible joke, and let me tell you why. In the first place, the only thing I ever tried to read by Montalvo was a dense and stultifying book wherein he made up god-knows-what absurd new adventures for Don Quixote. I found it so awful that I stopped reading it on page ten. As you can see, I have nothing to say to you about that insufferable author.”
“We’re so sorry,” interjected Gabriela, “we did not intend to upset you. We’re just a couple of teachers who…”
“In the second place, I do not think for an instant that the two of you are “teachers”. You’re swindlers, quite possibly with an international warrant out for your arrest. And if you are teachers, given your manifest ignorance and your ridiculous appearance and clothing, my heartfelt sympathies to your students, who will never learn a thing from you!”
“Well, in that case…”
“In that case, nothing! The best thing you can do is remove yourselves from my house and never, ever return with all of your idiocy and tall tales and claptrap about contests, montalvos, and noble wood.” Flabbergasted, frightened, and outraged, Gabriela and I clutched our respective handbags like rugby balls, and then, running as if to score a try, we exited stampede-style from the building on Barco Centenera.
We made it half a block away. Gabriela’s face had regained its color, and her hands were balled into fists with her fingers dug into her palms.
“Let’s go back,” she said. “I forgot something.”
She didn’t say what, but I had an inkling of her intention. I know from experience that Gaby can be a force to be reckoned with.
Using her thumb, she pressed at length on the buzzer for apartment 6A. After another eternity of at least three minutes, we once again heard the muffled voice:
“Who’s there?”
In a display of confidence for my benefit, Gabriela smiled, once again as if she were on stage, and in a melodious voice, baritone this time, she said:
“Is this Mr. Benvestiti?”
“Speaking. What can I do for you?”
“What can you do for me? Here’s what! You, your whore of a mother and the horse she rode in on can all go to bloody hell, you lousy old goat! You decrepit, senile, half-dead son of a bitch!”
We don’t know if the object of her ire did as requested because, instead of responding, he put down the intercom receiver.
We went back to Gaby’s apartment, which, by the way, was tastelessly furnished and filled with atrocious decorations on the walls and shelves — basically a cosmic bordello. But the last thing on this earth I would ever do is speak ill of Gabriela because, despite her shortcomings, she is one of my best friends.
“Héctor and the boys went to a Papi futbol tournament,” she informed me as we went inside.
“Ah, what a shame. I would have loved to see them again,” I replied, thinking: Just as well they’renot here! That husband of hers is a crashing bore and her kids are a pain in the ass.
The humiliation that the abominable Benvestiti had subjected us to had a diuretic effect: seized with the overwhelming need to pee immediately, Gaby rushed to the bathroom. I was right behind her. I noticed that the toilet paper in the little refuge was of appallingly low quality and that the four toothbrushes had long outlived their usefulness.
We went to the kitchen (sky blue tile, some of it cracked) to recover from our battle with the old man, and had coffee with slightly damp cookies (no doubt because they were not properly stored).
Then, with a kiss on each cheek, I bid her farewell until the following Monday when we would meet again at school.
3.
On the morning of Monday the 20th, I explained to Yasmín that Benvestiti the academic, a very charming man, had treated us with the utmost kindness and courtesy, but had politely declined to draft the requested document because that very same week he was going in for a delicate surgical procedure, which he preferred not to discuss in detail.
Yasmín did not appear to be overly concerned:
“Well,” she said, “surely he’s not the only academic alive. We could look for another…”
“Of course we could,” I replied. “But, in any case, you take over the matter. I am very busy now and I don’t have any time to pay visits to academics.”
4.
That same Monday afternoon, I was sipping my yerba mate and leafing distractedly through LaNación when I came across the following notice:
Benito Benvestiti, A Cultural Titan
The academic and intellectual communities are in deep mourning following the sudden death last Saturday of Dr. Benito Benvestiti, the Latinist and Hellenist scholar deep with roots in the classics. The cause of death was a heart attack. Dr. Benvestiti passed away at home in his storied Parque Chacabuco residence, a gathering place for leading artists and writers who would frequently come to hear the master speak.
His unfortunate demise was a great shock to all. At the age of eighty two, he was at the height of his physical and mental capacities. A true Porteño, he was born in Buenos Aires in 1938 and raised in the bosom of a family of poets, painters, and musicians.
His expansive, rich body of work originated in 1965 with the publication of his book of essays Latin Poetry and its Influence on Hispanic-American Lyricism. He went on to publish over forty works, including his most important and defining book, the classic An Overview of Juan Montalvo: Poet, Author of Prose, and Essayist for All. It is the most comprehensive and exhaustive survey of the prolific Ecuadorian author, for which Dr. Benvestiti was named an honorary member of the Montalvian Literary Society, headquartered in Quito.
This was followed by a list of author’s honors and recognitions, ending thus:
There will be a viewing at the Argentine Authors’ Society, followed by burial tomorrow at the Cementerio de Flores at 10:00 a.m.
I immediately picked up the phone and called Gabriela. She barely had time to say “Hello?”, before
I blurted:
“Gaby! Listen up, I’ve got something interesting to read you.”
I read her the entire La Nación obituary, from A to Z.
“Well, well,” she replied. “It goes to show you the power of words. Looks like the old goat took my advice and went right where I told him to go.”
“That’s exactly what it looks like.”
“And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. May he rest in peace.”
