The Revolutionaries Try Again by Mauro Javier Cardenas Page B

Microphone do worse, Drool.
MICROPHONE :    
Milk for the kids or jobs for the parents. You decide.
MAID KILLER :    
With León it can be done?
DROOL :    
Don’t have to decide. Both.
MICROPHONE :    
No problem. Just cover our hole, sir.
MAID KILLER :    
Nasty girl.
MICROPHONE :    
Privatize the phone lines.
DROOL :    
Free milk for a year. Then what?
MAID KILLER :    
Think of the children.
DROOL :    
Privatize electricity.
MAID KILLER :    
Bulb Head, powered by Torbay.
MICROPHONE :    
Then what?
DROOL :    
Privatize water.
MICROPHONE :    
Then what?
    â€”
    According to Rafael the Mazinger, Father Villalba founded the apostolic group, a volunteer group that visits the elderly at the hospice Luis Plaza Dañín and teaches catechism in Mapasingue, soon after his appointment to San Javier, an appointment that Father Villalba abhors and that, according to Facundo the Maid Killer, was forced on him by the Vatican after they removed him from his parish in Ambato, where he’d been rallying the flowerpickers against the landowners just as the international flower market was booming, typical of this backward country, those indígenas should be grateful instead of grousing against the hand that feeds them, although, according to Bastidas the Chinchulín, Father Villalba was actually removed because of his diatribes against John Paul II at some conference in Puebla, diatribes that probably resemble the sermons Antonio used to hear from Father Villalba during the Sunday alumni services he used to attend with his grandfather years before he was admitted to San Javier, angry Sunday sermons that would irrupt against the school’s alumni, as if the alumni were to blame for him being exiled at a Jesuit school where for decades the same landowners I’ve been battling against have studied theology, where the sons of the same landowners I’ve been battling against have studied and will continue to study theology, although, according to Esteban the Pipí, Father Villalba has slowed the inflow of oligarchs by successfully lobbying to axe the school’s tuition and hike the difficulty of the entrance exam, and as Antonio approaches Father Villalba’s office to request permission to join the apostolic group he’s thinking about those sermons in which Father Villalba asks how are we to be Christians in a world of destitution and injustice, how is it possible for a single instant to forget these situations of dramatic poverty, insofar as you did it to one of these least brothers of mine, insofar as you exploited or ignoredor mistreated these least brothers of mine, you did it to me, and as Antonio waits for Leopoldo at Don Alban’s restaurant he remembers Father Villalba saying that at the supreme moment of history, when your eternal salvation or damnation will be decided, what will count, the only thing that will count, is whether you accepted or rejected the poor. Antonio knocks on the door.
    Yes? What is it?
    Father Villalba, I . . .
    You’re interrupting the music, Olmedo. Sit and keep quiet.
    On Father Villalba’s desk a portable cassette player is transmitting music that follows no distinguishable pattern, roils, seems to progress in a scabrous direction, climbing to an altiplane to toll a bell, and then Father Villalba’s music’s over and someone in the recording coughs, someone scrapes a chair, and everyone’s clapping.
    What do you want?
    I want to join the apostolic group.
    That’s for second year students.
    I want to join this year.
    Next year. You’re too young. Next year.
    What does age have to do with helping the . . .
    You won’t get any perks from joining, Olmedo. Let’s make that clear. From me or any of the other priests. Or at least not from me. Now go. Shoo.
    From his shirt pocket