Month: April 2014

Seven Murdered Miners

Posted on by sterlingbennett

Yesterday, April 22, 2014, I watched as many as 600 men in their thirties and forties march down the middle of Hidalgo, Guanajuato’s one road in the bottom of the canyon that holds the small city. They were robust young men, and for that reason I guessed they were miners. I remarked to my partner that what we were seeing meant there must be something like a general strike in the surrounding mines—at least for that day. My partner read a banner and said, “They are commemorating seven miners, from seventy-seven years ago,” and then I knew what it was about.

To explain, I have summarized an article by Alfonso Ochoa in the Guanajuato newspaper Correo, from April 22, 2013.

Seventy-seven years ago, on April 22, 1937, seven labor organizers left the Cubo mine—an area I have visited several times—drove across the treeless ridges toward Guanajuato and were stopped by another car. Gunmen got out and shot the organizers down, finishing them off with a single bullet to the head, un tiro de gracia, a coup de grace. The names of the murdered men were: Reynaldo Ordaz, J. Jesús Fonseca, Juan Anguiano, Antonio Vargas, Simón Soto and Antonio García y Luis Chávez. The official story was that roving bandits had done it. The miners’ companions said the mine manager, a Mr. Quinn, had ordered it.

One source repeated what his grandmother Jovita Salazar had told him: that a certain “El Cojo” Severiano was in her store with a group of rough-looking men, watching for the departure of the labor organizers. When “El Cojo” saw the organizers leave, he told her something like “Ahora sí ya nos vamos, yo creo que ya va a estar el mole,” something like “Things are going just the way we want them.” And then they left, too, following the organizers’ car.

While the organizers were being murdered, a truck with men, women and children drove by, witnessing everything. The mine management wanted to crush efforts at organizing, an activity that was necessary because conditions in the mine was terribly dangerous because of unnecessary cave-ins and the lack of ventilation—which meant miners suffered terribly from silicosis by breathing particles hanging in the air.

Some time later, a miner by the name of Vicente Uribe managed to murder Mr. Quinn at the Dolores Mine. The union whisked Uribe off to Mexico City and hid him there, protecting him from the authorities—who, it was said, accepted the murder of union organizers but not of American mine managers. As the story goes, American President Roosevelt complained to Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas that miners had murdered an American mine manager, and Lázaro Cárdenas had replied that the American-controlled mine had murdered seven Mexicans.

If you go to Cubo today, in the town’s modest plaza you can see the mounted seven bronze busts of the   murdered miners. Conditions have not changed a great deal in the intervening years. The new owners are Canadians, not Americans. Miners still work long hours with low pay. Ventilation has improved but miners still suffer from dust particle illnesses. They still wear soft-toed rubber boots that expose them to crushing injuries. The mine owners do not equip them with emergency breathing kits that should be hanging around their waists. One day a year, the Día de las Flores, the mine owners serve free ice cream to the miners’ children. And year after year, the miners march down Guanajuato’s main street, Hidalgo, refusing to forget what happened to their fathers and grandfathers seventy-seven years ago.

Update: My former Spanish teacher, the wonderful Carolina Rodriguez, told me yesterday what her cousin’s grandfather told her cousin: that the seventh man—who was not a miner—had hitched a ride in the doomed car and was murdered along with the rest of the men.

For more on Guanajuato’s mining culture, please read my short story “Underground Amphibians” on this blog. Simply go to the search box on the front page of the blog and write in that title.

Enrique, the Highway Bandit

Posted on by sterlingbennett

We had been walking around San Miguel de Allende on Good Friday. Cars had been excluded, and the streets were filled with happy strollers. When we got back to the car, on the north side, near Vía Orgánica—a good organic restaurant and produce market—and got in, the car’s engine did not catch, even though the battery was strong and the Honda CR-V had shown no sign of ailing.

Something had happened that I could not explain.

I got out of the car and headed to a car shop not a hundred feet kitty corner from where the car stood. A man intercepted me.

“Puedo ayudar?” he asked. Can I help?

He was unshaven, wearing a soiled shirt, dirty shorts and worn out running shoes. A simple canvas bag hung over one shoulder. I dismissed him with a curt, probably classist “No, gracias.”

I continued on to the workshop. I explained that my car that had mysteriously decided it couldn’t start. The man in charge pointed behind me. I turned to see the raggedly man that had offered to help me.

“He’s a car electrician.”

I apologized to the man in the dirty shorts, and accepted his help and the mechanic’s implicit recommendation. We also have our own saying about Mexico: when you’re in trouble, especially with cars, help seems to materialize out of thin air.

I remembered the electrician had been sitting on the curb with his back against the corner building, when we returned to the car. Strange things happen in Mexico, so I accepted his position as within the range of normal or different.

I lifted the car’s hood. He took tools out of his satchel. He took the lid off the black casing that held all the Honda’s relay switches. He touched each relay with a current tester and the tester’s light lit up, except for one. He announced that there was a sensor problem. I had no idea what that was, but he seemed to be experienced, plus the shop had said he was a car electrician.

I asked whether he could fix the problem. He said he could, but he would need three hours. I asked whether he could get parts. He said he could. I said it was the first of three days of holiday. Would the parts store be open? He said it would. I accepted that, as well.

He had certain irregularities, limbs a little out of line. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. A neighbor came out of a door ten paces away to offer any advice that might be needed. Sotto voce I asked whether he knew Enrique. “Very reliable,” he said.

After poking at this and that, Enrique mumbled something about a sensor that impulsaba something. That was already too technical for me. Three hours is what he needed. We exchanged cell phone numbers and tested them, getting a reassuring ring out of his. We said our goodbyes. He assured us everything would be fine. We withdrew to Vía Orgánica, went up onto their azotea, their roof, and ordered soup and salad. Then it was the siesta hour and, in the shade of nearby trees, two of us stretched out on wooden benches and slept a wink or two.

Sitting up again, I remarked that we were conducting an experiment in trust. A complete stranger had our car keys and our phone number. We began to compare observations, and the questions that arose from them. Why, for example, had Enrique been sitting on the curb at the corner? I began to remember that he had already been sitting there before we set off on our stroll hours earlier. Why this satchel of tools? Worry began to override trust. I gave my mouth a final wipe for signs of soup and said I was going to go check.

The Mexican owner of Vía Orgánica was sitting at one of the tables downstairs with—I learned later—the store’s accountant. I said I was sorry to bother them but did they know a certain Enrique that appeared where cars mysteriously refused to start. They didn’t know Enrique, but they knew about other incidents. The owner got up and said she would go back to Enrique with me. He was sitting on the curb again, across from the car, enjoying the shadow cast by an east-facing wall. He saw us coming and got up and went to attend to the car again, as if there were still much to do.

The owner of the store asked him what was wrong with the car. She said there had been other incidents. She asked him whether it might be a good idea to call the police. I asked him where the new part was. He said it was coming.

“But why is it taking so long?” my new supporter asked.

He replied that the store was some distance away. Five blocks, she said. She brought up the topic of the police again.

I asked to see the old part. He showed it to me. It was a metal plug with a plastic hat that had broken off. He handed it to me in two pieces. Maybe a rock had done it, he said, because it came from an area under the engine supposedly exposed to the road.

There were three connector holes in it. The piece meant nothing to me, except for the fact that it could be plugged and unplugged into the car’s electrical system.

My supporter went off.

A couple and their two Swedish visitors came out of a door that was nine paces away. The woman in the couple was also Swedish. She and her American husband had lived there forever and swore by Enrique’s dependability. They had never heard anything negative about him. A representative from the car shop—that was now serving mainly as a parking area for the Easter weekend—approached. A short interrogation ensued. Enrique explained the problem. I watched the representative’s face. I could not read it.

The Swedes left, showering me with reassurances.

Enrique walked off and turned a corner, perhaps to meet the person that was bringing the new part.

I stayed and chatted with Jovani, who said he was Enrique’s son. He was a likeable kid of eighteen or twenty. He had turned up about when I began asking doubting questions. I wasn’t sure what his purpose was. My partner and a writer friend from California came to check on me. They had been talking with the owner of Vía Orgánica. They asked a few questions. I caught them up on what appeared to be happening or not happening. They went on a few doors and began talking with an American friend that runs a fine boutique for women’s clothing. I went to join them. For a moment of two I was out of sight of the car. When I emerged from that woman’s courtyard door, I saw movement around the car. I approached. Enrique was already under the car, clanking with a small wrench.

“I want to see the part before you put it in,” I said.

He continued clanking.

I repeated my request. “I have to see the new part first,” I said.

“Okay, just a moment,” he said.

I was looking down through the engine. He was bolting something to the engine. I repeated my request. This time it was more like a demand. I told him I couldn’t confide in him if he wasn’t going to show me the clean part. I may have mentioned the idea of calling the police, if that was the way it was going to be.

“Okay, you want to put it in yourself?” he said

“No,” I said. We needed to get home. There seemed to be no one else that was going to get the car going again at the beginning of a three-day holiday.

Again I said I needed to see the part. He started unbolting the same part—the one I wanted to see in its pristine state. It had a metal plug and a cap with wire leads. The metal plug was covered in oil, so that I could not tell whether it was new or not. I told him so. He tossed a small box out from under the car—presumably the box the part had come in. It box was dirty and battered, as if it had kicked around in his satchel for a year or two. The broken part he had given me earlier would not fit in it. I said as much. He said the plastic hat came off. I could not detach the plastic hat.

He asked Jovani to start the car. It sprang to life, as good as new. He crawled out from underneath. He asked Jovani to test the headlights and the turn signals—as if they might have been affected by the defective part. Inside, Enrique clipped the plastic cover back over the wiring behind the steering wheel, as if he had been trying to trace the problem there with his current meter.

He removed an old t-shirt he had been sitting on to protect the driver’s seat while he worked there. Just the way the dealership removes the paper protectors from the front seat of your car when they pass it over to you after servicing.

I asked him how much he wanted. He said one thousand one hundred pesos for the new part, four hundred pesos for his labor. I handed him fifteen hundred pesos, or roughly $120. He said I should call him if I had any problems in the future; that he was there for us if we needed him. I even shook his hand. His hand and arm were deformed by large swollen bumps, possibly from gout. He gripped my hand awkwardly.

He and Jovani left quickly. The owners of Vía Orgánica approached. They asked me how much Enrique had charged me. I told them. I also told them he had refused to show me the new part, the box hadn’t fit the broken part he had originally given me, the box was dirty and there was no receipt. I said I thought he had disconnected something and then simply reconnected it. They said I should come back to the store, they were going to reimburse me for the 1,500 and that we were good customers and that we shouldn’t have pay this kind of penalty for parking and shopping at Vía Orgánica. I said they weren’t responsible. They said, okay, how about we pay half. I said okay. They said they were going to do something about Enrique. They said they had learned that Enrique had been dismissed from the nearby automobile shop four months earlier—for irregularities.

There are three reasons a modern car doesn’t start, I have since found out through the world of Google.

First, if there is no spark. Enrique had had no access to the under-the hood part of the engine, hence to the spark plugs.

Second, no fuel is getting to the engine. The fuel pump has to be functioning. What I saw Enrique moving his wrench around was not a fuel pump.

Third, if the timing has been disabled. Enrique had had access underneath the engine to the Camshaft Position Sensor.

When he showed me the loosened the Camshaft Position Sensor, it was fairly dripping with dark engine oil. If the broken part he had originally given me had come from my engine, then there would have been at least the smell of fresh oil on it and perhaps traces of oil on the ground underneath the engine. There was neither. He had unbolted the real Camshaft Position Sensor probably for the first time when I asked to see the new part.

There had never been a new part, and the old part he handed me, I realized later, could not have come from my car, because it was badly damaged, with broken wire connections. The engine would have stopped running long before we arrived in San Miguel de Allende. Rather, what he had done was simply unplug Camshaft Position Sensor’s electrical connectors, a condition impossible to ascertain without a technical knowledge of cars and a clear view of what happens underneath the engine. It had never occurred to me to crawl under the car and get as soiled as Enrique.

Enrique had diagnosed the problem from the very start. He had said it was a sensor before even getting under the car. He had also correctly diagnosed me as the unwary traveler and technical idiot. Also as a man more privileged than he was. He had chosen the beginning of a three-day holiday when there would be no other recourse for getting the Honda going again, and had profited nicely. What is remarkable is how hard I had tried to believe that he was not lying to us, how hard I had tried to behave in a non-classist way and be respectful of his knowledge—and not as the suspicious type my partner sometimes accuses me of being.

Enrique is part of a long tradition of Mexican banditry and shows the bandit’s sense of entitlement to share some of what those with more money have. He had correctly chosen us as the people with more—people who were going to shop at an organic food market and restaurant where things are not cheap—and he had played me well the whole way. I had gotten away at half price, thanks to the impressive responsibility assumed by the owners of Vía Orgánica. In the end, I still felt grateful to be the victim of a bandit in Mexico, rather than, for example, in the U.S., because it seemed more culturally interesting and comprehensible to me here south of the border.

Well done, Enrique, but beware, my friend. The concerned people at the store are on to you—even if the rest of the street retains their unshakable faith in you.

Chaos in Michoacán—but why?

Posted on by sterlingbennett

A Mexican friend of mine argues that there will be nothing but social chaos if the self-defense groups of the Mexican state of Michoacán are allowed to retain their weapons—now symbolized by the plentiful and much photographed AK-47s. In many regards, he is right. After all, how would the U.S. government react if armed citizen militias began to form and openly patrol towns and neighborhoods they considered insecure?

I asked him why the State was not equally as worried before, when the drug mafias ruled freely in Michoacán, and in many other parts of the country, with their extortions, kidnappings and killings—certainly definitions of social chaos.

He returned to his point. The self-defense groups have to be disarmed.

I replied, “Won’t the cartels just sweep in a kill every single one of them, in revenge and to reestablish their reign of terror, and their control?”

“They are breaking the law, the self-defense groups. There have to be laws to prevent social chaos.”

I replied that Mexico has very good laws, exemplary laws—but that the State has failed to enforce them, failed to protect the citizens of Michoacán.

I drew diagrams, I brought in my thin knowledge of Hobbes and Locke, I asked whom the laws were for and where laws came from. I said there was another category, in addition to la ley, the law. There was also el derecho, a person’s rights.

My friend said you had to have laws and they had to be followed in order to have a stable society. I said, in the case where the State does not enforce the laws, then rights had to supersede laws—as in the case of the right to self-defense, not to mention the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

My friend said the laws were there to prevent social violence and, again, chaos.

I argued that chaos already reigned, the moment the State failed in its responsibility to enforce the laws, especially those conceived for the protection of the citizens.

My friend had calmed down. He asked how I would solve the problem. I said I had no solution. The problem, I said, had to do with cultura, the culture of considering the law as something that applies to the other fellow, but not to oneself. Culture, I said, could only change through education. And that that was my position.

In the meantime, if Mexico is to prosper, so investment comes and there are jobs and education, the government must decide who is the enemy in Michoacán: the drug cartels or the self-defense groups? And apply the law equally. And if it can’t do that, then it needs to examine itself and see why it is not enforcing existing law equally.

Some things seem to have changed. It is likely the federal government wants to change the topic away from admission of past failed policies. And so, they say, the mafias are not the real problem; the self-defense groups are.  At the same time, to its credit, the government has begun to make arrests of some mayors and some politicians who in fact appear to have been aiding the criminal cartels. It is too early to tell whether this is show or not.

They have also arrested a few self-defense leaders and some of their self-defense foot soldiers, accusing them of murder and putting them in jail. There are complaints that some of the latter have been mistreated and abused by federal police: for example (Proceso): “…evidence of injury around the neck, air pipes,  and the inner ear…” of a leader of the self-defense forces in Yurécuaro. Defense lawyers claim the men are being framed, as a way of removing self-defense leadership.

It is also not entirely clear to what extent government is thinking about and making distinctions between the three elements in the triad: the law, individual rights and the underlying culture of impunity. What is needed, of course, is years of education on the merits of social responsibility.

In the midst of all this, ninety percent of the self-defense groups say they have no intention of disarming or being disarmed. At a recent meeting of CAM, the General Council for Self-Defense of Michoacán, self-defense leaders have given the federal government the same deadline the government had given them. Federal Commission Alfredo Castillo had given them May 10 to respond to disarmament demands. CAM has now given him May 10 to respond to their counter-proposals: 1) Legalization of the self-defense groups; 2) Release of self-defense forces imprisoned by the government; and 3) Putting an end to the entire Knights Templar structure in Michoacán.

Un Conte de Noël, A Christmas Story

Posted on by sterlingbennett

(My second attempt at translating one of my short pieces into French, as a language learning exercise, with much help from my tutor, whose name I will not mention—to protect him from scandal if the translation is just too horrible, to the extent that it would make French cows fall over dead.)

~

Dans un conte de Noël, il s’agit parfois d’un respect pour la neige, de joues froides jusqu’à une sensation de brûlure, de chausettes mouillées, de l’odeur de punch à la goyave, avec aussi des pommes et de la cannelle, de la chaleur du poêle à bois qui se mêle à l’odeur de pain d’epice qui cuit dans le four, des poignées en tissu à moitié brûlées, avec des corbeaux imprimés, pour protéger les doigts, d’une tante qui joue des chansons françaises au phonographe et, se pâmant à moitié, qui se couche ses mains écartées juste au-dessus sa poitrine semblable à celle d’une colombe, poitrine qui sent un tant soit peu la poudre de talc et la naphtaline.

Elle était catholique, moi protestant dilué, et c’était à cause de l’Eglise qu’elle restait seule, disait-t-elle, parce que les hommes d’Irlande n’avaient jamais appris à aimer les femmes, seulement la Vierge, et avaient tendance à s’abuser d’elles, et d’eux memes aussi, à cause de la mise en garde des religieuses de ne toucher personne, même pas avec le coeur.

Je n’avais aucune idée de ce dont elle parlait, sauf que je me demandais comment cela serait de la toucher, peut-être quand elle dormirait et ne serait pas si triste. J’avais 15 ans et j’étais curieux des corps, pas le moins du monde du mien. Dans un moment de confiance discutable, j’ai dit à mon père que je me interrogeais sur le corps des femmes. Il ôta sa pipe de sa bouche y me dit que c’était bien et assez naturel comme ça, et puis il grommela que je ne devrait pas mettre personne enceinte.

Cette remarque m’a causé un certain embaras et je crois que je rougis beaucoup—ce qui faisait qu’il était plus difficile de me voir comme l’homme qu’était mon père, ce que je voulais être. Il avait percé sans effort mon secret le plus profound, qui avait massivement à voir avec la conspiration de la nature pour susciter des bébés.

Le nom de ma tante était Georgina, et je suppose qu’elle n’avait pas plus de 25 ans à ce moment. Elle avait déjà une réputation dans notre famillie de ne pas être responsable de soi-même ou de toute autre chose. Avec régularité, elle oubliait de retirer des choses du poêle, ou de reserrer les couvercles des pots. On devait veiller à ce que le contenu—des flocons d’avoine, par example, ou du pop-corn—maintenu par son couvercle, ne glisse ni ne s’écrase sur le plancher de la cuisine, un sol en pin douglas à grain droit, créant ainsi deux gâchis au lieu d’un.

Georgina aimait le punch à la goyave de ma mère—un fruit qui était expédié de Floride chaque hiver par son frère Antonio et qui arrivait à moitié pourri. Georgina aportait sa tasse vers notre salon non chauffé et la-bàs y ajoutait du Sherry. Elle me laissait le goûter et je pensais qu’il avait un goût horrible, sauf qu’il la rendrait moins préoccupée pour les jeunes hommes d’Irlande qui à leurs 40 ans vivaient encore avec leurs mères et passaient trop de temps dans les pubs en buvant de la Guinness et en écoutant les violoneux torturer leurs cordes avec des gigues et des reels pleins de colère, se plaignant tout le temps que l’Irlande devrait se battre aux côtes les Allemands.

Un soir, vers Noël, à travers la neige qui tombait, mes parents ont conduit leur Ford break 1943 à un cocktail à la fin d’une route sombre de Nouvelle-Angleterre, où vivaient deux célibataires allemands, Herbie et Hans Wanders, qui ne parlaient jamais allemand en public à cause de la guerre. Cela nous laissa, Georgina et moi, seuls dans la maison. Un pot de punch à la goyave était posé, pensif, au borde du poêle. Georgina le poussa avec une poignée aux corbeaux brûlés là où il se réchaufferait, pendant que je la regardais. Puis elle se versa une tasse et se dirigea vers la salle de séjour. Je la suivis, parce que à bien des égards elle était mon guide. Elle cliqua le phonographe, dont l’oeil d’orange s’illumina, le bras plastique prit vie et laissa tomber l’aiguille sur “C’est lui que mon Coeur a choisi” d’Edith Piaf.

Je ne comprenais pas un seul mot de cela et j‘en suis assez sûr, elle non plus. Nous étions assis à côté l’un de l’autre, à la lumière d’un réverbère lointain, sur un petit canapé couvert de fleurs pâles, si proches que nos hanches se touchaient presque et la tasse faisait le va-et-vient entre nous, maintenant enrichis avec le Sherry bon marché de ma mère et j’essayais de ne pas regarder les genoux de ma tante, qui d’une certaine manière s’étaient glissés vers l’avant à partir du bord de la jupe et je pense que je me souviens qu’ils brillaient comme touchés par le clair de lune.

Plus je buvais le breuvage terrible, plus je pensais à des choses—que moi aussi je vivais encore avec ma mère, ainsi qu’ avec mon père, et qu’il était en quelque sorte mal d’être attiré par les genoux exposés de ma tante. Le punch m’avait donné chaud partout, en même temps je me sentais perché sur le bord de la nausée. La chanson était une valse et très sentimental, et juste à ce moment elle m’a pris par le menton, m’a tourné vers elle et m’a donné ce qui a dû être un baiser très anti-catholique directement sur les lèvres.

Sous le choc, je l’ai regardée dans les yeux qui à ce moment ont été illuminés par les phares de la Ford de mes parents, leur voiture qui, revenant plus tôt, faisait crisser la neige et s’arrêta devant la maison. Le pont sur Prospect Creek vers chez les Wanders s’était effondré et mes parents avaient vu le trou béant juste à temps et ils étaient restés assez longtemps pour trainer des branches sur la rue, pour mettre en garde les autres automobilistes qui viendraient. De retour dans la cuisine, tandis que ma mére nous a étudiait, soupçonnant possiblement des couvercles desserrés, mon père a marché vers le téléphone accroché au mur, a dit aux voisines indiscrètes de racrocher leur putain de téléphone et a appelé la police a propos du pont écroulé.

Il s’est fait, que Georgina est partie à New York par le train du matin et est retournée en Irlande par bateau, qui a zigzagué tout le chemin, écrivit-elle, afin d’éviter les torpilles des sous-marins allemands. Et je suis allé vers une vie seulement de temps en temps attirée vers le Sherry et plus souvent vers les goyaves sous toutes les formes à cause de leur odeur enivrante. Je ne vis plus avec ma mère et j’ai souvent pensé à Georgina et à ses genoux, jusqu’au moment où j’ai rencontré mon premier amour et puis, comme les hommes de l’Irlande, je l’ai oubliée.

L’achèvement de Moi et Mon Chien

Posted on by sterlingbennett

(My first attempt at translating one of my short pieces into French, as a language learning exercise, with much help from my tutor, whose name I will not mention—to protect him from scandal if the translation is just too horrible, to the extent that it would make French cows fall over dead.)

 

Quand mon chien est mort—combien d’histoires commencent comme ça?—j’ai renouncé à essayer de trouver des nouvelles façons de vendre mon roman. Je pleurais par vagues, tandis que je creusais le trou, un endroit où un oranger avait vécu pour autant d’années que mes fils. J’enveloppai le vieux dans ma veste Harris préférée et je le glissai dans sa tombe.

J’ai pensé que j’aurais appris quelque chose de lui sur la mort, mais c’est plus difficile en n’étant pas le chien qui meurt. Je caressais sa tête et je lui disais, combien il me manquerait. Je tenais sa tête au moment où le vétérinaire s’est approché par derrière, en le touchant sur son épaule vers le haut, cherchant la place pour l’aiguille. Les yeux de mon ami étaient chaleureux et pleins de confiance, même lorsque l’aiguille entrait, et pendant encore quelques secondes après.

Son regard se reposa sur moi, même s’il m’avait déjà quitté.

L’homme qui est assis en face de moi, mon partenaire d’écriture, est en train de bricoler avec les sons que son téléphon peut faire, quand des appels et messages arrivent. Mon défunt ami ne m’appelle pas. Ni ma mère ou mon père le font. C’est l’âge et pas l’aiguille qui les a interrompus. Mais je peux voir l’avantage de la chose pointue. Ton amour te caresse le front avec une main qui n’est plus jeune, mais encore chaude et lisse, comme quand elle avait 34 ans.

“Es-tu prêt?” demande-t-elle.

“Non,” dis’je, avec un gémissement gâté et irrité, à la pensée d’être éteint pour toujours.

Ses yeux sont humides. J’ai accéleré ma respiration, j’ai durçi mon ventre pour l’effort qui venait.

“Es-tu sûr que c’est ce que tu veux?” dit-elle.

“Non,” lui dis-je avec, le meme ton désagréable. “C’est une decision impossible.”

Je sanglotai une fois, ensuite j’essayai de sourire. Je l’aime et la vie aussi. Je suis trop intelligent pour ne pas savoir ce qui va se passer.

“Alors, restes, si tu veux,” dit-elle.

“Combien de temps?” je demande.

“Tant que tu veux.”

Son sourire est chaleureux, ses yeux bruns, aussi profonds que ceux de mon chien.

“Quelques jours, une semaine tout au plus. L’aiguille marquera le moment,” dis-je.

Elle me regarde.

“Les deux aiguilles marqueront,” dis-je.

Nous avons toujours eu nos blagues. Un ami médecin a apporté l’aiguille et la potion fatale. Il s’approchera par derrière, en me touchant sur mon épaule supérieure. Je n’ai qu’à donner le signal.

Nous avons déjà deux fois atteint ce point. J’ai chaque fois choisi le sursis, incapable de tout quitter, d’entrer dans l’oblitération.

Mon vieil ami remuait la queue et il m’a fait confiance, sachant peut-être ce qui se passait, peut-être pas. Il ne pouvait pas me dire comment faire. Si l’acceptation est une sorte d’intelligence, je ne l’ai pas. Je pense que c’est Karl Gustav Jung qui a dit que l’inconscient ne peut pas imaginer sa propre extinction. Il a peut-être eu raison pour mon chien. Peut-être que c’est une bonne raison pour attendre jusqu’à ce que l’inconscient—la mer dont nous venons—se soit glissé plus près. Ou que nous soyons descendus vers lui.

Comme je l’écrivais: Peut-être que c’est une bonne raison pour attendre, mon amour aux yeux bruns, elle que j’ai déjà mencionnée, apparut sur les marches du deuxième étage de ce café deglingué où nous écrivons—chose qu’elle n’a jamais faite dans les dix années dans lesquelles j’ai rèncontré mon partenaire d’écriture, à qui je vais lire prochainement ce freewrite, selon notre coutume.

Je suis quelqu’un qui croit—plus ou moins—en la synchronicité, la théorie que les choses se passent en coordination les unes avec les autres, c’est à dire, pas tout à fait par hasard.

“J’ai besoin d’argent,” dit-elle.

Je sortis mon porte-monnaie.

“Je n’ai pas beaucoup,” dis-je, en observant qu’il se pouvait en fait qu’aucun de nous n’ait assez.

“J’ai juste besoin d’assez d’argent pour Donna,” dit-elle.

Donna es notre personal trainer. Nous disons chaque fois ces mots-là avec ironie, conscients de leur sonorité prétentieuse. Au lieu de rétrécir et nous ratatiner, mon amour et moi nous avons décidé de nous remuscler et pratiquer l’équilibre.

“Et pour le gymnase,” dit-elle. “Trente pesos.”

Je lui passai mon argent. Mon partenaire d’écriture tend la main, il veut sa part. L’ambiance a changé. L’océan s’est éloigné. Il ne faut plus pleurer mon chien imaginaire—au moins pas maintenant. Il est parti au trot par le champ de mes pensées d’automne. Et je suis assez heureux s’il ne revient pas tout de suite. Mon amour marche vers la salle de gym, un endroit aussi branlant que le café ou j’écris. Je suis encore la, tout seul.

Pas encore prêt.

Is Abortion Legal in Mexico?

Posted on by sterlingbennett

Abortion and the Mexican Constitution
Reforma: Diego Valadés
Translated by Brittany Doss
April 1, 2014

Summarized and expanded:

Here’s what’s confusing.

According to Diego Valadés article, you can get a legal abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in Mexico City (approved by the city’s legislature in 2007).

But the same procedure has been criminalized in 17 other states in Mexico—even though the Supreme Court of Justice (at the federal level) has declared its constitutionality.

The trouble—plus the confusion—may be that the court did not establish a jurisprudence, i.e. binding written law.

This left a legal vacuum that local legislatures rushed to fill with all kinds of restrictions, in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling and led by the federal Attorney General’s Office and the federal National Human Rights Commission—both located in Mexico City.

Hence, there is plenty of room for confusion and the fog of ambiguity that weakens the rule of law in Mexico.

In 2011, the name of the first chapter of the Constitution was changed to “Of Human Rights and Their Guarantees.”

Article 1 of that chapter speaks of the inviolability of the human rights laws, which should be interpreted following the Constitution—for the protection of the people by applying the principles of interdependence, indivisibility and progressivity—alas, in my opinion, words to vague to count as law.

The same document talks about 3 concepts that shall apply throughout the country: pro persona, universality and progressivity.

That is, with legal protections first and foremost for persons exercising a right (as opposed to protection of the legal whims of bureaucrats and politicians); everyone shall be granted these human rights; the protections are open to evolution toward progressivity, i.e. to greater—not fewer—protections.

But, in reality, there is no universality if women outside of Mexico City do not enjoy the constitutional protections granted to women inside the city.

Here is the rub: “According to the 2011 reform of penal law, it’s unconstitutional to prosecute an action as a crime in one part of Mexico when it is protected as a right in another.”

Supposedly, women outside of Mexico City can seek redress through amparos—appeals or injunctions—when accused of criminal abortion.

Women accused of aggravated murder (abortion, stillbirth and misscarriage) in reality find little legal recourse once the indictment begins.

In my city of Guanajuato, and in the entire state of Guanajuata, women are regularly accused of murder by vengeful neighbors, (ex)husbands, in-laws and busybodies in cases of miscarriage or stillbirth. A local Women’s Rights Group, Las Libres, fought for and got the release of six women accused of murder in this state, in instances of stillbirth and miscarriage. Some of them had already served years in prison and faced the prospect of many more.