Hunger's Brides (193 page)

Recall it now so well so
sharply
under these stars—Shriek, Memory—as I sit in cool night sand and write racing my subway penlight down to a yellow death. Remember the fret of hightop laces, how it plumps like string loosened on a spool, see the one big hand turn on its heel as he swift/sits without quite touching me, not raising his eyes. Snailtrack of mucous gloss trails into the soft black lipdown. Black T-shirt—guitarists in clown masks. Dirty jeans, cracked leather belt … see the loose end's skinny sprout and dangle. Still he doesn't look he cranes his neck, head half-turned away—cringing hound abandoned to the cryptic future of the master's hand—my brutal slap or mercy scratch.

Couldn't
. One word. Repeated. Coul'nt? Warning, plea, accusation—what? Still he won't look. Cou'nt. Is this English is he Cockney what is he saying to me? Hangdog headswivel to look at my jeans, thighs, up. What does he want IS HE GOING TO PUSH ME OFF? launch our death pact without even asking?—wait wait I haven't signed yet—what is he saying—‘couldn't'
what
—jump alone? I scramble up shuffleturn to take the ledge the other way, feel his hand—pigknuckle snout—root between my thighs rooting in my ass.

Cunt
.

Welcome to English class. Say
cunt
. Pronounce it clearly now. Rooting with the back of his hand in my cunt why is this somuchworse than fingers? Cunt. He follows. Little pork grunts. Cunt. Cunt. Welcome to Tulum let's tour the ruins. Up the Oratory steps. Cunt. Walk faster don't run don't run. Cunt—Temple of the Diving God. Over to the Snail Platform, is he still behind right behind me all root and snout past the House of
Cunt
Columns. Temple of the Frescoes.
Cunt cunt cunt
feel the taut coil winding winding up behind my eyes—hear it whisper into copper wire—comes a new word penny-bright to mind—
murder
—see Jacinto at the exit oasis of calm talking to two guards.

Murder
.

Walk don't run.

Murder
.

Cunt.

You stalk ME pathetic dogboy braindead protosimian. I am not your prey—
you stalk me? why didn't I slaughter you like a pig grunting cunt cunt—why didn't I push
you
off—wanna get off PIG? here you want cunt? sticky your skinny gristle into this—VAGINA DENTATA MOTHER CUNT TOOTH God I want you dead. I AM NOT YOUR PREY I am the COBRA you are the dimwit dream of a mongoose. What I hate—loathe more than anything in this holewidesplayed world—it's the condescension / their PRESUMPTION—that we are the flighty herbivores and they the great meateaters. Who made them the fuckhunters? Drool from their noses snot drooling from their withering cocks / little testicular tear ducts all so quickfucked-out—so soon great hero of fuck? I could have done a hundred like you and read a book—sucked your whole fucktribe to dry salt tears—ground their little marble bags down to sand to glass dust—

How could I let him herd me like a cow?

I am not your meat you are MINE—protosimian dangling on the deadest branch of the evolutionary tree. Dead as your dead eyes
.

I

    
am

      not

        
your

          prey

    
FREAK
.

Ah,
señorita
, I see you are curious after all. What did you think of the frescoes? Maybe a little dark at this hour. Is everything alright you're not ill is that one there bothering you?
Oye, muchacho, párate alla. ¿Qué diablos estás haciendo? Ya te avertí. Vete a casa—¡ahorita mismo! Vete…. Hablaré con tu padre
.

Get home boy. I will speak with your father
.

You are trembling. He did not hurt you. No? I am surprised you have not met him. He is here every day. Like you. You need not worry. He hurts no one—but very annoying, yes. He is not like us.

Not
Maya?
—Mayans aren't like that—wouldn't
do
that?

It's true his father is Mexican, but no not that.

What
, then.

Soft wave of Jacinto's small white palm in the dusk. Taps a finger to the high-broad forehead.
Glue
. You have this problem too in your country, no?

Wait, miss. Please. Do not leave our holy city this way. There is so much here of beauty. I am leaving tomorrow. Let me show you some of the treasures of the
Dioses
exhibit. You will not be sorry.

Quickflare glare of guards, We're closing up, as don Jacinto knows.

No te preocupes
, Ignacio. I will lock up. Glares that fade, soft gutter of macho complicity. Yes, better stay with don Jacinto.
El loco
might still be out there in the dark. Waiting.

Come in please. Let's not stand out here with these idiots.

M
USE
W
AR
        

D
EEP NIGHT
. A breath of wind rattles high in the palms behind the beach … paring of moon between the shy fronds. There are patches of stardust over the night sea. Now and then a crab scuttles boneshadows across the cool pale sand. My subway penlight dances in the palm thatch, parasol turned petticoat of light.

Jacinto Ek Cruz, I'm sorry for how I acted. Why didn't you just walk away from me? I am such a
child
, I can hardly bear to remember. Write it. Take it all, get it all down….

Deserted anteroom, ticket counter. Press clippings aflutter on a tack-board:
World Famous Dioses Exhibit!
come one come all. Follow the little guide in white, follow meek and mild. Simmering. He called him a
boy
. Twice his size, twice mine. Two-metre gluepot stuck on cunt. And this tiny animal tamer halts the madbull elephant charge with the soft wave of a whiteflag palm. Little traffic cop, mighty Maya hunter.

Part the theatre curtain. Prepare to Enter the Haunted House….

Walls of deep blue midnight. Side-lit and from below a limestone serpent, jaws split wide. The head of a Maya prince emerging from the dragon jaws of night. Eighth century. Temple of the Magician, Uxmal.

Sala Azul
, the Blue Room. Soft chirrup of crickets. Pools of tracklight. Glass cases. Statuettes of bare terracotta …

Draw breath.

You did not expect it to be quite so beautiful,
señorita
. I told you, one of the great art exhibits anywhere. How much money do you think the Mexican government spent. To bring such pieces from all over the world? But there is never much left for our Maya Cultural Centre down south. No … it is impolite to bother a visitor with all this.

But I want to hear.
Pass the hat for the Centro Cultural
.

The Mexican government understands this bond of culture and power. As have the Maya. I have been to conferences in Washington and Austin Tejas. They understand also, but not so well. For them money is power and culture is money. But this is not quite the same, I think.

We begin down the hall.

Spine of interlocking doorways. Past the Green Room. A little fountain. Another room, Wine-Red. Into la Sala Siena. Faint throb of drums … a long line
of light-tables down the near wall, glow of frosted glass. Carved flutes, whistle figurines
.

See the carving on this flute, here is one of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu. He pipes now to the Monkey Scribes, to entice them from the jungle. These instruments could be venerated as divinities themselves.

Like the Tecpatl.

Why yes, this is true,
señorita
. The FlintKnife is a very old god. But Mexican. Look, here—one of my favourites, this shell trumpet. Today it is kept in the Maya territory called Fort Worth Tejas. See where the surface of the conch is worn smooth by the trumpeter's lips. The carver of the king's image on the front has political opinions. Look how he has used the shell's taper to give the royal profile an overbite. See these traces of
cinabrio
they rubbed in, to bring out the lines. How do you say this word in English? I would like to learn more of this language one day.

Cinnabar.

Seenabal …
cinabrio
. Beautiful in either way. It is a pleasure to speak such words, no? Do you play an instrument?

What's this hole.

For a thong to hang from the trumpeter's neck. Some of these rites could last many hours.

What rites.

We see from the smoking
ahau
here in the king's chinstrap a connection to God K. Look, the same VisionSerpent in his headdress is also in this abalone shell over here.

Quickchange of subject to the concave shell, waxen sheen of palest blue, incisions traced rust-red … What was it you didn't want me to see?

I ask if you play an instrument because I wonder some days—what if the first meeting of Maya and Spaniards had been a
conferencia
of musicians?

Is this it, Jacinto Ek Cruz, your guide-style? Whimsy's dog and pony show …

The Maya, did they use obsidian or flint? For the heavy blows to the sternum—

A more musical History would be a very different one, would it not?

Obsidian shatters on solid bone, isn't that so?
Maya man, temple mask I will make you crack
.

But you too want to talk about sacrifice. For a tourist with no curiosity you know a lot about
los Mexica
. But think a moment—in this other History knives would be for slicing vegetables, and our mariners might
have taken us to Europe during our Classic Period. To give concerts, for instance. In your Dark Ages they might have mistaken
us
for gods.

They'd have burned you in the ninth century too.

Come, let us visit the Sala Verde now.

Sala Verde. Burble of a fountain lit blue and green. Faint crash of NewAge waves on a primordial shore, synthesized, soothing. In the Beginning …

This is the room of our cosmology. Here on this stela is carved the World Tree, the axle on which everything turns. Its roots are in the underworld, it flowers in the heavens. Souls are its sap, they flower and fall.

For the Aztecs, there were nine underworlds. Nine levels….

Yes,
señorita
, I know this.

So a question—

I am not an expert on the Mexicans. I am barely a student.

But you're my guide.

For a few minutes more, yes I will try.

They called the seventh level Place of Waving Banners.

They were not a people without poetry.

Sacrificed children were called waving human pennants.

We are not Mexicans,
señorita
.

But you sacrificed children, too.
So calm, so calm, Jacinto Ek Cruz, what does it take to make you walk away?

I know you are still upset, but please do not say ‘you' in quite this way to me.

The ancient Maya then.

We sacrifice them still. I think you have seen this yourself just today. I wonder if it so different where you come from. Or is glue only used to glue?

Waving pennants, like for a sports team—were they flayed, Jacinto Ek Cruz? Is that why they fluttered?
Show me how much you want it, Buddha man, just ask—not even nicely
.

Tell me,
señorita
, what interests you so much about the Mexica?

A lot of things.

Yes?

Los ixiptla, por ejemplo
.

Ah.

You know about this don't you, Jacinto.

The god's substitute.

His stand-in, his stunned double
.

How many did the Maya have? The disheartened the flayed the riddled with arrows—?

May I ask your name?

Lightly scorched then hooked from the fire while the heart still beats—
Fifty-seven ways of killing god
.

You are some kind of scholar.
Oh yes some kind of scholar
.

Yet you do not visit the site. You hardly look at these things I show you.

Here's a good one. Four Aztec warriors with flint axes, a captive tied by an ankle to the gladitorial stone. Armed with an axe of feathers to defend himself.
Beautiful sphinx in white cotton, what will it take to make you scream to make you leave just how great is your need? Show me your need
.