Pyramids and Lechery


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North America » Mexico » Distrito Federal » Mexico City
October 15th 2009
Published: November 2nd 2009
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Tired and a bit hungover I resolved to fulfill the day's plan with a trip to Teotihuacan, an ancient site of pre-colombian pyramids. P. was understandably out of commission so I headed out on my own. The site is about one hour away from the city's North Station by a direct bus. I once again reveled in the efficiency of this city's public transportation as a local bus took me to the station. While waiting for the bus I met two friendly girls: a Norwegian and Dutch, both living in Mexico City. The three of us spent over two and half hours traversing the huge archeological site, home to the most popular tourist destination around Mexico City. It was a nice clear day that even a large number of indigenous touts, selling anything from necklaces, blankets, pipes, or statues, could seem to sully. If anything, I personally thought the presence of the touts and their ceaseless onslaught added to the dynamism of the locale. The site itself was altogether impressive but it does require you to put down the camera, sit still, and soak in its otherworldly undercurrent. Pyramid of the Sun, the largest one, is 200 feet tall, while the total number of steps is about 250, which gives you an idea of the steepness. Watch your step, young one.

Tired of walking up and down the steps and observing the murals we decided to head back to the city, find a nice place to watch the forthcoming football match between Mexico and El Salvador. The place ended up being an Irish pub in Polanco district, rich and westernized. Ordering a fettuccini with seafood (I'm sorry), we watched the boring first half. The second half picked up quite a bit with well to do Mexicans politely screaming obscenities at the screen. Later on, the girls joined me at the hostel for a round of drinks. Even though it was an off night from usual madness, after all no one attempted to scale the bar with a bottle in one hand, we had a great time downing the national drink and chatting about the peculiarities of Scandinavian mannerisms. After they left, P. and I decided to continue the party despite general waning of interest in the rest of the populace resulting from further reduction of female to male ratio.

It was probably around 1 am. when we decided to venture out into the streets. The night was clear and full of promise. We walked around asking various people where the party was at. Nobody seemed to send us in the direction that we ended up going. That's usually for the better: a good hunter knows the route of his prey. We stopped at a taco stand and had the best quesadillas that both of us ever had, garnished with sautéed whole green onions with juicy round ends. As usual, we talked nonsense with the cooks for some time: laying women, laying women of different nationalities, and laying them often--the usual. After paying we engaged in the ancient art of following the crowd. Finally, seeing something with lots of action we stopped to finish a cigarette. While nonchalantly chatting I noticed that the men were standing way too close to each other. Turning to P. I saw that he was as perplexed as I was. Eye contact indicated, "let's jet", and that we did, faster than a burned out bulb makes it dark. Moments later we were at, what seemed like a quite cantina. We decided to make an entrance. The lone waiter in a pink shirt asked me what we wanted, after much gibberish I nodded to a bucket of 6 beers. We sat for a while talking about Baudelaire, Kafka, traveling, India, trespassing on US National Park grounds, international law, philosophy of debauchery, and actual debauchery. But while we were talking our eyes were out wandering. Something was slightly off key. Either a missing piece or an extra one was waiting to be discovered. What we determined, after much cognitive dissonance, was that at this place there was a piercing reversal of gender denotation. The women were actually men, and the men women. We took in the scene with anthropological interest, drinking, watching the social dance that was unfolding. At some point some character offered to take P. to the restroom, probably to elucidate on the finer points of this establishment's unique utilization of the facilities. After the dancing, came the songs. Mind you, I was still reeling from the night before and already privy to a healthy intake but this is how I saw things unfold. The singer came on in an elegant night gown to an excited, though restive, adulation of the crowd. She, or rather he, was on the bulky side though the strides and movement were executed with the precision of a surgeon. The mannerisms were exaggeratedly feminine yet not mocking, theatrical yet natural. The music came on and then the song. I'd probably glide over a performance of this sort on any other day but with this crowd it was impossible. All eyes were raptly fixed on the performer. Here and there lips were moving with the song. One unexceptional looking Mexican man sang every single word of every song as if he was on the stage himself. His mustache bristled with a slight hue of sweat. With a blissful unawareness he belted out every syllable with shocking exactitude, adorned with movement of the hand, and uncontrolled jerks of the head when the volume of air in his lungs seemed on the verge of turning negative. The singer took plenty from the crowd and doled it back out in volumes, exponentially raising the emotional factor with each song, until finally, on the very last song, letting out a small tear that drooped out of the fake eyelash onto the left cheek where it was gracefully picked up on descent by the small finger of the left hand. This whole evening began as an arbitrary curio, perhaps even with a tinge of derision, but at the end of the performance I couldn't help but give, albeit a carefully disguised, nod of respect.

And this is where things began to take an interesting turn. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Not content being a passive observer of this spectacle I decided to take action. Can't really say what my thought process was like, you know how it is, on nights like this things always happen on their own accord. But all of a sudden I decided that tonight I'm going to be an American journalist in town to capture a segment on Mexican subcultures; and I'm going to interview this singer to get a first hand account of the situation. I quickly proposed this to P., my student assistant, who thought that it was genius idea. We discussed this for a few minutes, mainly, giggling like school girls at the idea. My assistant asked me if I knew what I was going to say, without a moment’s hesitation I exclaimed, "Of course!" Man, you're talking to a professional here.

The second floor of the cantina contains the bathrooms and another party room, dark and full of black lights, which was now empty. Walking up the narrow stairs I began to get nervous. I kept thinking how this was possible considering the amount of alcohol that was in my body. Before I knew it, I was introducing us to the singer, and his cross-dresser friend, who were chatting at an empty table. I gargled out in broken Spanish that I was a journalist, here with my assistant, wanting to get an interview from the esteemed performer. "Sientate, sientate," came the reply. We sat down. Our interview took a little over 15 minutes--I was counting on two, maybe three, at the onset. Our subject was genuinely friendly and pleasantly talkative. Perhaps it helped that we were quite respectful and courteous. He was eager to tell us everything we wanted to know and, perhaps this is my personal delusion, was almost honored to. I did see a twinkle of self-satisfaction. Anyways, I didn't understand anything that we talked about. At least not to the degree that my professional code requires me to. Between answers, instead of listening I intermittently thought about what question I'm going to ask next. This usually gave way to thoughts of: "Oh shit, this is going on youtube!" Satisfied that we got plenty of tape I cut the interview and everyone shook hands. As we were walking away, thanking each other and saying goodbye, the singer, whose name I never understood, told me: "I'm going to come down as a boy now." I nodded and we walked away in happily delusional ecstasy.

The waiter downstairs, who saw us doing the interview, brought us an extra bucket beer on the house. He became more animated, emerging every time one of us reached for the pack, in order to light our cigarettes. We continued to watch the show, laughing and talking. P. kept telling me how professional I was the whole time. I took this as a great compliment. At some point, a stocky man in a football jersey approached the table and began to tell us something. I thought this was another solicitation for a joint bathroom visit until eventually I distinguished the words: "I told you I was going to come down as a boy."

The singer, now in street clothes, sat with his buddies appearing quite ordinary in the crowd. I sent two beers through our waiter to their table. When the present arrived at the destination and the waiter pointed in our direction we all raised our bottles in the air in a salute across the room. We sat around some more, drinking, but it was late, maybe 5 or 6 in the morning. There were about five more beers in our bucket so P. and I took them out and walked over to leave one last parting gift. I thanked the singer once again and was about to walk out when the drunkest guy from their group told me something about salute and beer and me. I picked up one bottle into my right hand and two in the left. Using my right hand as a prop I popped open the other two handing one to him and taking one myself. The bottles clinked and I took mine up to my lips. As I took big gulps out of the corner of the eye I saw the other man doing the same; eyeing me. Everyone else was watching us. Right away I sensed some tension. There was something here at stake. I eased up my throat muscles and tilted the bottle up more towards near vertical and in seconds the bottle was empty. Swiftly but not slamming I put the bottle back on the table. The room got louder but I didn't understand any words. Moments later we were walking the empty streets of Mexico City--back to the comfort of our hostel.


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3rd November 2009

Haha
This is real good. The second part really picks up.

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