alt=""/>Taimado had ensured that unusually large orders were placed separately with two of the chief Lolitos, who, to cover the cost, borrowed money from their mothers on some school-related pretext. The mothers failed to note the strangeness of this one-off charge during the school holidays. The Lolito suppliers arrived at the party, walking on air from the weightlessness of the powders stashed in their pre-torn jeans.
When they didn’t find their supposed buyers, they attempted to keep cool, but their edginess slowly began to affect earlier clients. Two girls who had a crush on one of them bought a couple of bags from him, only to later flush them down the toilet. When one Lolito found the other closing a deal, he realized that he’d been set up: his comrade had put in the order just to bring about his ruin. He decided to confront him. They exchanged accusations until one of them lashed out. Biting and hair pulling followed. The struggle reached an impasse: one had an arm around the other’s neck and was twisting his nose with his free hand, while the other had four fingers in his opponent’s groin, squeezing. They were tangled up in a cloud of groans when the Black Paunches burst in on the party and threw a Cuba Libre in their faces to separate them. The Lolitos were kneading their stinging eyes when they were dragged out.
The Black Paunches gathered the two Lolitos and their mothers in the Chamber of Murmurs. The boys couldn’t speak for sobbing. Their mothers had never before seen those pills, powders, herbs, and strips of liquid-smeared paper, much less in such large—albeit diminished, after Taimado’s guys had taken their cut—quantities. Amid frenzied anxiety, overflowing love, demented cackles, and visions of two-headed mothers, the Black Paunches looked on as the domestic drama unfolded. The mothers came up with the idea that their sons should work to pay back their debt to the community. The following day, they were handed over to Juana Mecha, who gave them each a baggy beige overall, the uniform they would wear during their temporary membership of Villa Miserias’ cleaning squad. They didn’t even try to understand her words of welcome: “First they pamper you and then they don’t like you being soft.” The other Lolitos watched their fallen comrades carrying banana skins between two disgusted fingers: they were thankful not to be in their place. The gang had had its day.
In the case of the
While onstage, during a massive, mud-soaked concert, the musician had produced a product symbolizing the empty consumerism of his native land. It was a pet rock—eyes dangling on a spring and a red rubber mouth—launched onto the market amid a great deal of hype, but which had achieved little success. After questioning the meaning of its existence, the rot it represented, the harm it would do to innocent children, the star had—to the delight of his devoted fans—annihilated the pet rock with blows from his guitar. From then on, they came to his concerts carrying one of the inert pets. During a particular guitar solo of his hit “When Goth Became Pop,” they would shatter the stones. As a consequence, sales of pet rocks soared into the millions. So far, the story was true, testified to by hundreds of eyewitnesses, videos, and photographs of fans, forcefully castigating the pacific rocks.
The apocryphal article revealed a secret agreement between the controversial rock musician and the company that had contracted him to express public hatred of its stone pets. The most loyal fans, who went to many of the concerts of what turned out to be his farewell tour, shattered a great number of the stones that—when the star was extinguished with two bottles of barbiturates—were left as a symbol of the social norms that had caged him. The incriminating piece, written under the byline of Stanley Higgins, even claimed that the musician’s family continued to receive royalties for many years. The occult nature of the icon was clearly proven: it was one more product of that corporative machine his songs yearned to destroy. Orquídea printed out the article on newsprint and left it in the sun for hours to obtain a tone corresponding to the supposed date of publication. The torn edges were her final touch. Perdumes was amazed by the result. The sham clipping was anonymously left in the mailbox of one of the
The high point of the Marginals’ annual festivity was the moment when a piece of volcanic rock, with paperclip eyes and Styrofoam lips, was dissolved in strong acid. The
No one had anticipated the schism that was about to occur. With a true sense of drama, the puppet
By the end, he’d triggered a theological debate that would divide the few who could still think into two bands. Those who didn’t want to believe him said it was a conspiracy: Why had no one else reported this? It was corporate interests trying to cast a slur on honest resistance. In contrast, their opponents had always known it was true, but hadn’t dared to say so because of the prevailing fanaticism. The powers that be had made sure that Higgins was silenced, somehow or other, and that was why the story had been buried. Did they really think a newspaper like that would risk its reputation publishing unverified information?
Doubt continued to gnaw at the fraternity, until the sacrifice of the leader put an end to it. Lost for words, the members would read the article over and over, as if expecting that the next time it would say something different. The arguments put forward by the two sides had reached unbearable levels of abstraction. At that time, they were discussing whether the rock star’s outfits were in fact his own or part of the stage set. Only a grand gesture could avoid a confrontation. The leader crumpled up the clipping and put it in his mouth. To help him swallow, he took a swig of the blackish acid that had finished off the stone. A few drops stuck to the paper and charred
