33 Revolutions by Howard Curtis, Canek Sánchez Guevara Page B
Authors: Howard Curtis, Canek Sánchez Guevara
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synthetic polychrome clothes, talks to herself as she leafs through yesterdayâs newspaper. Four pages, all the same, with the same tone, the same glibness, the same old song, the words, the anger.
The woman grumbles.
He sits down at the bar, orders a rum, lights a cigarette, and rambles to himself; the universe is a scratched record with no relativity or quanta, full of grooves down which this life of cosmic dust, industrial grease, and common tar passes, he thinks. He takes a swig of his drink, makes a noise with his throat, and tilts his head, nauseated and grateful.
Rum is the hope of the people, he thinks.
7
T he moon is full when he comes out of the bar, but its light barely filters between the buildings. He walks, avoiding narrow alleys and dark corners. On the avenue, thereâs a concert; the crowd is like a tide, moving to the rhythm of congas and trumpets, and he melts into it. He dances alone in the midst of a commotion that isolates him as it surrounds him, and he wonders what it means to belong, to be united. Is the communion of other peopleâs bodies merely the alienation of the ordinary? In any case, he thinks, here again is the scratched record of fortuitous encounters or failed encounters, anonymous and indifferent (without forethought or calculation: pure nocturnality), on this avenue where sensuality, equality, and the urge for human solidarity converge. The only thing that works here, he thinks, is partying, promiscuity, phallocentrism, an obsession with sex (erotic materialism). The rest is speechmaking to confuse the masses. Sex is the beginning and the end: History as one big fuckfest, he thinks.
And there, amid the music, the sweaty bodies, and the cans of beer, he remembers his ex-wife, always sick with frigidity. The marriage didnât last long: a scratched record of arguments and grievances whose gradual deterioration ended in rigor mortis. Her asexuality led him to impotence, blackened his mood, poisoned his already limited optimism. At first, he thought it was reserve, shyness, and that time and trust would put an end to these blemishes. But it was something deeper. Far from improving, the situation got worse. They spent weeks with no more intimacy than you get in a meal you eat by yourself, until sex disappeared entirely from their lives (along with caresses, smiles, and words). He made up his mind to leave her after a disturbing dream: fed up with her, and taking advantage of her sleep, he slashed her to death with a machete as she lay in bed, spattering the walls of the room. He woke with a start, realized that he had ejaculated, and the following morning, very early, left home and never went backâmonths, maybe years later, they negotiated a divorce, when the resentments and grievances had faded away.
Still dancing, he reaches the seawall, buys a bottle of diluted rum, sits down facing the waves, and compares their movement with the movement on the wall, which is full of couples feeling each other up, groups causing a ruckus, and loners like me, he thinks: Watching time pass is the peopleâs favorite pastime. Not wasting it, which would imply that they had it to waste. The years remain, he thinks: Time always passes . . .
He looks down at the sea again and drinks straight from the bottle. Behind him, the dirty, beautiful, broken city; in front of him, the abyss that suggests defeat. It isnât even a dilemma, let alone a contradiction, but the certainty that itâs this abyss, this isolation, that defines and conditions us. We win by isolating ourselves, and in isolating ourselves we are defeated, he thinks. The wall is the sea, the screen that protects us and locks us in. There are no borders; those waters are a bulwark and a stockade, a trench and a moat, a barricade and a fence. We resist through isolation. We survive through repetition.
8
G radually, the seawall empties. Itâs nearly dawn and he thinks about going home. He proceeds along an
The woman grumbles.
He sits down at the bar, orders a rum, lights a cigarette, and rambles to himself; the universe is a scratched record with no relativity or quanta, full of grooves down which this life of cosmic dust, industrial grease, and common tar passes, he thinks. He takes a swig of his drink, makes a noise with his throat, and tilts his head, nauseated and grateful.
Rum is the hope of the people, he thinks.
7
T he moon is full when he comes out of the bar, but its light barely filters between the buildings. He walks, avoiding narrow alleys and dark corners. On the avenue, thereâs a concert; the crowd is like a tide, moving to the rhythm of congas and trumpets, and he melts into it. He dances alone in the midst of a commotion that isolates him as it surrounds him, and he wonders what it means to belong, to be united. Is the communion of other peopleâs bodies merely the alienation of the ordinary? In any case, he thinks, here again is the scratched record of fortuitous encounters or failed encounters, anonymous and indifferent (without forethought or calculation: pure nocturnality), on this avenue where sensuality, equality, and the urge for human solidarity converge. The only thing that works here, he thinks, is partying, promiscuity, phallocentrism, an obsession with sex (erotic materialism). The rest is speechmaking to confuse the masses. Sex is the beginning and the end: History as one big fuckfest, he thinks.
And there, amid the music, the sweaty bodies, and the cans of beer, he remembers his ex-wife, always sick with frigidity. The marriage didnât last long: a scratched record of arguments and grievances whose gradual deterioration ended in rigor mortis. Her asexuality led him to impotence, blackened his mood, poisoned his already limited optimism. At first, he thought it was reserve, shyness, and that time and trust would put an end to these blemishes. But it was something deeper. Far from improving, the situation got worse. They spent weeks with no more intimacy than you get in a meal you eat by yourself, until sex disappeared entirely from their lives (along with caresses, smiles, and words). He made up his mind to leave her after a disturbing dream: fed up with her, and taking advantage of her sleep, he slashed her to death with a machete as she lay in bed, spattering the walls of the room. He woke with a start, realized that he had ejaculated, and the following morning, very early, left home and never went backâmonths, maybe years later, they negotiated a divorce, when the resentments and grievances had faded away.
Still dancing, he reaches the seawall, buys a bottle of diluted rum, sits down facing the waves, and compares their movement with the movement on the wall, which is full of couples feeling each other up, groups causing a ruckus, and loners like me, he thinks: Watching time pass is the peopleâs favorite pastime. Not wasting it, which would imply that they had it to waste. The years remain, he thinks: Time always passes . . .
He looks down at the sea again and drinks straight from the bottle. Behind him, the dirty, beautiful, broken city; in front of him, the abyss that suggests defeat. It isnât even a dilemma, let alone a contradiction, but the certainty that itâs this abyss, this isolation, that defines and conditions us. We win by isolating ourselves, and in isolating ourselves we are defeated, he thinks. The wall is the sea, the screen that protects us and locks us in. There are no borders; those waters are a bulwark and a stockade, a trench and a moat, a barricade and a fence. We resist through isolation. We survive through repetition.
8
G radually, the seawall empties. Itâs nearly dawn and he thinks about going home. He proceeds along an
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