Adam in Eden

Chapter 11

You know that strip of land underneath the bridge, Mr. Gorozpe? You ought to pay a visit. I bet you’d recognize some of the people camping there. Some of them, they used to go to parties or even get their picture in the newspapers, you know, the style pages. Graduations. Saint Days. Sporting events. Vacations in Acapulco, Tequesquitengo, or at the very least, in Nautla. Now look at them in their tents. See how the wind lashes the canvas. See how the rain leaks through. Just look at them now. Thank goodness they brought portable toilets. Just look. Chamber pots, they’ve always been around. Before, only people on their last legs wound up out here. Now people live here who used to vacation in Acapulco, or at the very least Nautla. They all used to be in the newspapers; now they lie down on gutted sofas. They used to chill cans in their fridges. Now they collect cans, supposedly for recycling, but they sell bags full of cans for scrap. Same difference. You ought to see for yourself. Gutted sofas. Remember that family? Now they’re all alcoholics. Out of total desperation. To numb themselves. To forget. To. . But not everybody lets themselves go to seed, you know? Even down there, some of them show a little initiative. They defend themselves with kidnapped dogs, pit bulls mostly. Spiked collars. Chained beasts. Set free only to defend them. The more enterprising ones built a fence out of chains. They try to defend themselves and all those who have also fallen. Old colleagues. Family. Friends. Then one day: poor. Camped out here, you know, in Taco Flats? That’s what they named the place: Taco Flats! They put up the chain barrier to defend themselves, to maintain the illusion that, although they’re down, they are defending themselves behind a chain barrier, just like the old days when they built walls around their houses. They couldn’t, Mr. Gorozpe, they just couldn’t put up any resistance. They thought they could keep out others who were even more downtrodden than they were, mark the boundaries of their own exclusive community of misery, misery reserved for them alone. But Mr. Gorozpe, they couldn’t, they just couldn’t pull it off. Yesterday’s poor were already there. Only today’s poor didn’t notice them. They just arrived. They drew a line around a zone of misfortune. They set up tents, toilets, dogs, gutted sofas. But they didn’t look carefully. The people who were already down and out were already there. But the new poor, the new down-and-out, didn’t even look at them, and only after they locked themselves in behind their chain barrier with their dogs did they realize that none of their initiative would do them any good. Because the old poor were already there. Only the new poor hadn’t seen them. They were already inside, do you follow me?”

“Why are you talking in the plural?”

“Why am I what, sir?”

“Yes, of course, you are. You sound like you’re talking about a lot of people.”

“It’s just that—”

“It’s just that nothing. I only gave you orders to ruin the family of—”

“Of course, I’m talking about them.”

“Don’t tell me that you broke more than one family?”

“It’s just that—”

“What?”

“It’s just that one can’t be too discriminating in that—”

“So you threw out the baby with the bathwater?”

“Mr. Adam Góngora doesn’t discriminate. So what happened is that the entire block ended up in Taco Flats, the entire block of rich folks. . Mr. Góngora says that ought to teach them a lesson.”

“Oh.”

“And I said that Taco Flats was gringo-lingo. Better they should call them Gorozpevilles.”

“How’s that?”

“Like in honor of you.”