Authors: Juan Pastor
woman
says.
The woman is old, but very very pretty. Kind of
Mediterranean.
Her hair is very white and very long. At least it
would have been except that the woman wears it in braids,
and the braids are coiled with silver roping into a regal
arrangement on top of her head. I know this because I see
what Yeshua sees.
"Yes, Mother." Yeshua says.
"Either they both have to die, or one of them has to die
while
the other lives, or they both have to live." Yeshua's
Mother says. "But you have to decide! You can't play with the
asynchronicity too much longer ‐ not here."
Yeshua and his Mother talk about us. I know because I
can
see through the eyes of Yeshua's Mother, and Yeshua.
And what Yeshua's Mother and Yeshua see is two young girls
lying in the sand, on the desert floor.
"The
Salvadorian is already dead." Yeshua says. "She
has been dead for some time now."
Yeshua is quite handsome. He has long hair pulled into
a pony tail. He has a beard. His eyes are blue with flecks of
gold in them. He has a suntan. He wears his coveralls with no
shirt. He has a tattoo on his left bicep. The tattoo is three
crosses. The middle cross is larger. He wears no shoes, not
even sandals. I can feel the lust welling up in me even though I
am dieing.
"You know how to beat death now." Yeshua's Mother
says. "Bring the Salvadorian back."
Yeshua raises his right hand. He touches his index
finger to his lips. He seems uncomfortable with his Mother's
insistence. I see the stigmata on the back of his hand. It makes
me uncomfortable to think who I've been lusting over. I feel
ashamed. I wonder if Maria Magdalena felt such shame.
"I've never meddled." Yeshua says. "I'm not going to
start now. The Guatemalan will live. The Salvadorian will have
to be her spirit guide."
"I don't like this at all." Yeshua's Mother says. "If
anyone has the power to do anything about this sad state of
affairs, it is us. I don't understand why we don't just get more
pro‐active. Honestly, one of these times I'm just going to lose
my patience."
"I don't know how many times we have to discuss this
Mother." Yeshua says. "But if things are a certain way, and not
another way, there must be sufficient reason, without us, why
they are that way."
"Oh, for crying out loud, Son." Yeshua's Mother says.
"Please don't give me that tired old Principle of Sufficient
Reason. It didn't really work for Anaximander, it didn't work
for Spinoza or Leibniz, and it isn't working for me now. It
never has worked. If something exists, and this thing is evil,
the sufficient cause of that evil is that no‐one has done
anything to prevent it or get rid of it. Will you give your old
mother one last wish?"
"I've heard that one before." Yeshua says. "You are
never going to die, so there will never be one last wish."
"May I have one more wish then?" Yeshua's Mother
asks.
"About how many wishes do you think I've granted for
you since the first one?" Yeshua asks.
"What was the first one?" Yeshua's Mother asks.
"The water into wine thing." Yeshua says. "At the
wedding."
"Oh yes." Yeshua's Mother says. "But what about all
the times when you didn't listen to me?"
"Like when?" Yeshua says.
"When I told you to stop talking to the Romans."
"What else?"
"When I told you to stop talking to the Pharisees."
"What else?"
"When I told you not to turn over all the money‐
changers tables in the temple."
"Is there any way I can make it up to you?" Yeshua asks.
"You can grant me one last wish." Yeshua's Mother
says.
"What is this wish?" Yeshua asks.
"It has to do with sufficient reason." Yeshua's Mother
says.
"And, Mother," Yeshua says, "what is this wish that has
to do with sufficient reason, and which I'm pretty sure I'm
going to regret fulfilling."
"I want you to arrange a meeting." Yeshua's Mother
says. "The meeting will take place in a crappy bar on the north
side of the border. I want the pequeña María to be there in
body and soul. I want Rosaria to be there in spirit. I want all
the men who shot at those two to be at the bar. I'd like all the
coyotes who abandoned the two girls to be there, but I'm sure
that's too much to ask. It is too much to ask, isn't it?"
"It isn't too much to ask, Mother." Yeshua says. "But
we are kind of getting away from sufficient reason for them to
be there. Wouldn't you agree, Mother?"
"Is it okay for me to be there?" Yeshua's Mother asks.
"Yes." Yeshua says.
"Can the old hermit be there?" Yeshua's Mother asks.
"The one pequeña María calls Sin?"
asks.
"The situation necessitates our taking action soon."
"I agree." Says the President. "But it's not like the old
days,
when you could take care of a nuisance situation, and
no‐one would be the wiser. Nowadays, there's always the
potential that someone will get at the truth, and then the
truth will go viral."
The
table was long, and finished with a shiny black
lacquer that reflected the chandeliers above. El Presidente and
the President sat at opposite ends of the long black table.
Each could see the reflection of the other in the table, but not
the reflection of themselves.
Waiters
with white pants with a long black stripe down
the outside of each pantleg and short white jackets trimmed
with black edging served the dos Jefes.
The
President’s name is Almon Abhorson. He is a very
wealthy man. He made most of his wealth from MammonInc,
which
buys
up
companies
and
then
sucks
them
dry.
MammonInc borrows money to buy a company. Though
enough money is borrowed to pay for the company, the
purchase is leveraged, and most of the money gets funneled
through
MI
and
into
Abhorson’s
pocket.
The
new
management then declares that the company is in bad debt
and must start cost cutting procedures, most notably by laying
people off. More money is borrowed in the “hope” of reviving
the company, and most of that winds up in Abhorson’s
pocket. Much of the company’s equipment is auctioned off,
and then what is left of the company is usually sold to some
overseas venture capital firm that still thinks there is some
more blood to suck out of the company. And most of that
money winds up in Abhorson’s pocket. The reason Abhorson
is now President is because Abhorson, and the associates he
fronts for, intend to do with the United States what they do to
all the companies they take over. Abhorson is devoutly
religious. Many of his detractors use the now famous phrase,
“See, you can serve God and Mammon.”
El
Presidente’s name is Braulio Sepulvida. No one
knows how he got his wealth, or if he even has any wealth. He
is a very good looking man, and women seem to go wild over
him when he appears in public. He and his wife are often
called “the two most beautiful people in politics”. Most likely,
his power base is the military and the policía.
The
President calls el Presidente "el Pretendiente", but
not out loud, and never to anyone outside his circle of power.
El Presidente calls the President "Humpty Dumpty",
but only in his mind and in his dreams, while he waits for that
great fall off the great wall.
"Couldn't you just send a couple of Halcone Negros
down to destroy the Clinic?" El Pretendiente asks.
"Couldn't you just send a team in to kidnap her?" The
President asks. "Just raid her casita in the night, silence her,
make her disappear?"
"Like her followers couldn't figure out who was behind
it." El Pretendiente says. "Just what we need, another martyr.
Care for a drink?"
"You know I don't drink." The President says.
“I know you say you don’t drink. At least in public.” El
Pretendiente says. "Not even a beer?"
"Not even a beer. At least not right now." The
President says. "And that martyr thing. It's never stopped you
before."
"This isn't a matter of raping and killing some do‐
gooder nun, and then dumping her body in the desert." El
Pretendiente says. "There are thousands who think La
Pequeña will be canonized as a saint."
The
older
waiter
looks
up
at
the
fans
of
el
Pretendiente's palace. There is air conditioning, but it never
seems to work very efficiently in the old palace. Moisture is
forming on the faces of the dos Jefes, but it has not quite
turned to beads of sweat that will trickle down to their collars.
The old waiter stands placidly waiting for a hand signal. The
old waiter thinks about the sign he saw outside, just before
the policia beat the man that was holding it.
SU PERRA ES
NUESTRO
DICTADOR
It was a message about el Pretendiente meant for the
President.
The older waiter thinks about the barbed wire outside,
and the concrete barriers, and masks that hide the faces of the
policia. His face is calm and dry. He is very used to the heat.
The
protests outside had not turned violent. The President
and El Presidente had gone to the library to discuss politics. In
the U.S. it would be highly unlikely for the husbands and wives
to part company. But this is Mexico. And in Mexico, things are
done the old way. El Presidente asks the President what he
would like to drink. Although the President claims to not drink,
and really only likes beer, and his favorite beer is Labatts, for
some reason dating back to his college days, he will ask El
Presidente what he is drinking, and El Presidente will say that
he is having Tequilla, and not just any tequilla, but a very
particular Tequilla from his friend, Miguel, in Jalisco.
"Do you know how they make Tequilla?" El Presidente
asks
the President.
"No I don't." The President answers. The President has
been
staring at the tequila bottle. It occurs to him there is no
worm in the tequila bottle. He's not sure there really is
supposed to be one in there, but he is under the impression
that there should be.
The
President asks El Presidente.
And so begins a too‐long exposition on the art of
making
Tequilla. It starts with the explaining that the tequila
worm is not an indication of a higher quality product, and it is
not added to mellow the taste of the tequila. It is really just a
marketing gimmick. The worm is the larva of Hypopta agavis
moth which lives on the agave plant. Originally, finding one on
a plant during processing meant an infestation and, therefore,
a
potentially
lower‐quality
product.
But
the
worm
misconception lives on as a semi‐glamorous myth about
tequilla quality, and Mexicans aren't in any hurry to destroy
the myth.
Before
El Presidente gets too far into his explanation,
he asks the President if he would like to smoke.
The President does like to smoke, a fact that has
remained nicely undiscovered and undiscussed by the Press,
and what he likes to smoke are cigarettes from tobacco grown
in Virginia, at least he thinks it still comes from Virginia. His
favorite brand is Lucky Strike, which he not only thinks is the
best cigarette, but because he has many good memories with
his smoking of this brand, and because he does seem to have
had much luck come his way, especially his wife, since he's
been smoking it. He keeps promising his wife he will give it up,
but he is lieing. He has his Diplomat to Switzerland pick up 30
cartons at a time, because Lucky Strikes are only made in
Europe now, and the Swiss ones are better than the Central
EU ones. Yes Virginia, Lucky Strikes are still made, just not in
the U.S. They do use your tobacco though.
"What do you recommend?" The President asks El
Presidente.
"I like these hand rolled cheroots that come from
Guatemala." El Presidente says. "I don't know how they cure
the tobacco, but it is very dark, and they don't have any kind
of filler, or paper that has been treated to make it resemble
and taste like tobacco. I don't care what anyone does to
paper, there is no way on earth you can make it taste like
tobacco, especially when it burns."
So El Presidente holds the wooden box out to the
President. The President notices that there are two rows of
cigars, each cigar is only about four inches long, and tapers
from narrow at one end to slightly wider in diameter at the
other end. Within each level of each row, and there are five
levels in each row, the cigars are arranged alternately, so that
a slim end always touches the fatter end of its neighbor, both
horizontally and vertically.
This is a new box, and the President regrets having to
disturb the artistry of the arrangement. But then, he doesn't
want to slight his host in any way. He takes on cheroot, the
furthest row, from the top and very left.
"I always like watching where people take the first
cigar from." El Presidente says. "Sometimes I repack the box
just to make it look like I've just opened it."
El
Presidente
does
not
take
the
next
cigar
in
progression, but one near the center of the closer row.
"Fooled you, didn't I?" He asks the President. " I always
find Americans a little obsessive‐compulsive. I like to do things
a bit more haphazardly."
El Presidente sits down in a big comfortable well worn
leather chair. It smells a little like old dog. But then, almost
every old chair that has had thousands of contacts with rear
ends smells a little like old dog. He takes a large wooden
match with a blue tip out of the box that says OHIO BLUE TIP
MATCHES on it. He strikes it on the metal plate at the toe of
his cowboy boot.
"Strike anywhere matches." El Presidente says. "Got to
love them. Ought to make that my motto. Strike anywhere to
light a fire!"
He lights his cheroot, gets up out of the chair, and leans
over to light the one the President has chosen.
"I'm glad you lit yours first." The President says." I
honestly didn't know what end I was supposed to put in my
mouth and what end was supposed to get lit."