El Grito en La Alameda
Mexico City, June 2016
Friday nightlife on La Alameda, the city’s central park, is very rich, muy rico, particularly on the west end. Legions of food stands and open grills surround the cultural hall, although the free Jose Marti Galeria Libertad inside is void of art admirers. Enthusiasts are too busy practicing their own culture outside. Chess tables are packed with old masters and young students. Skateboarders perform stunts for each other, children splash at the fountains, lovers cuddle on park benches, while ladies in brown shirts with home-made brooms gather at the trash wagon and chat. Altogether it is a grand chaotic dance that academics refer to as the informal service economy.
I order an overdose of fried plantains but cannot intervene fast enough to avoid the sweetened condensed milk. The cook pours it on liberally. 25 pesos seems steep, but this is the Alameda weekend premium. She frowns at my bill and hurriedly reaches for a valve before finding my change. The gas tank has apparently gone empty, and the line of hungry customers is only growing. She suddenly swings her spatula like a machete, but it is only to point to her distracted teenage son, with stern instructions to find more gas at once.
Stepping away with my bowl of greased fruit and dairy, I practically trample a small man on a longboard, at reckless speed. He has no legs, and barely any hip, but a lot of attitude. “Cuidado!“ he roars as he passes me, waving a gloved hand, which causes heads to turn and the plantain lady to laugh at my carelessness. At least I did not spill the condensed milk on the diminutive boarder. Now I suppose I’ll have to eat it.
I notice the flashing red and blue lights of police on Avenido Hidalgo, in front of La Iglesia de Santa Veracruz, the scariest of 16th-century churches. I get the creeps every time walk through this lopsided funhouse, particularly those darkened alcoves that feature facsimiles of bloody martyrs. The building fell down when the ground shifted in 1985, but it was quickly reassembled. Indeed, the blocks are numbered for the task, as earthquakes are a way of life in this valley. Meanwhile, the pews of Santa Veracruz lean toward Hidalgo, and the tiled floor to the altar descends like a ramp, as the city continues to sink into its dry lakebed.
I approach the church and see flames and smoke, coming from behind. The flashing lights on Hidalgo create a newsreel effect to the commotion in progress, as a stream of newly homeless people rush from a camping community behind the church. The back alley is on fire, perhaps some impromptu kitchen mishap in tight quarters, and dozens of people have just lost what little they had. Survivors cough, and Spanish orders are shouted over the clamor, but I hear no primal scream that might indicate the loss of a dear one.
Revelers in the park gradually realize what is happening, and the braver ones rush across Avenido Hidalgo to meet victims as they emerge from the smoke and ash. One woman is carrying a baby. Her barefooted husband shepherds the older children away from harm. Onlookers offer bottles of water and pull out their phones. Police with nightsticks clear a path for an approaching yellow firetruck, past the brightly lit dome of Palacio de Las Bellas Artes. The lettering on the truck, “Bomberos“, alarms my American eyes. The deafening siren causes bystanders to cover their ears. The Church of Santa Veracruz may just fall down again. I realize I am standing in the way, still holding my plantains and sweet milk.
From the edge of the conflagration, Father Miguel Hidalgo himself appears to inspect the carnage. I have seen this guy before. He makes appearances downtown at festivals and parades, posing for pictures in his black clerical robe and purple sash, leather riding boots, and golden cross. Tonight he is only a witness to the terrible spectacle, like the rest of us, but I see others watching him intently, hopefully, that he might yet deliver Mexico’s most iconic speech, El Grito de Dolores, the Cry of Pain. No one knows exactly what the Padre said on that hopeful night in 1810, at the angry birth of independence, other than “Viva Mexico.“ As if Hidalgo’s words alone could heal these brokenhearted ones.