Jorge Toca July 12, 2022
It is always a pleasure to receive a visit from Patricia, “La Marxista Guadalupana,” as her professor used to call her. In particular, it allows us the chance to meet another one of her intellectual comrades from those heady days of the Movement of ’68. Today the friend we meet is named Jorge, a teacher and musician from the nearby hill town of Etla. Like the formative Movimiento, he too has 68 years.
Jorge has a rich repertoire of Mexican ballads, especially Corridos that commemorate events from the Revolution and the ongoing struggle. In this respect, he and his wife Isabel are true believers. When the Zapatistas launched their rebellion in 1994, he immediately jumped in his car and drove to Chiapas, where he met none other than Subcomandante Marcos himself, and he pledged his commitment to the cause by donating his vehicle to the EZLN.
Fortunately for me, Jorge is a revolutionary with a generous sense of humor. He does not shy away from criticizing the transgressions of my native country, although he does not blame me for them either. I oblige his zeal by crying “Otra!” after each of his songs, for what choice do I really have? Isabel, Patricia, and Vanessa know all the words and sing along, while I need only play discrete support with those chords familiar to all—Em, D, C, and B7—so intuitively Spanish, so passionate, so doleful, so real.
For my own part in this performance of musical diplomacy, I choose to de-emphasize my Americana roots in favor of an Irish lilt, singing ballads about how the lads of yore suffered terribly under colonial tyranny, even after escaping the British subjugators; how they were conscripted by the Yanquis to fight against those “Black Catholics” south of the border; and how they deserted to form the Saint Patrick’s Brigade, only to be humiliated and branded with D’s at the foot of Chapultepec Hill. Thus, I cunningly transform myself from aggressor to aggrieved, to the applause of everyone. Please, comrades, do not call me a hero! Vive Los Niños!
Of course, in truth, I am fooling no one with my obvious charade. I am merely being polite and accommodating, which is accepted as a distinctly Mexican gesture. My presence in general, despite any protestations to the contrary, is exactly what afflicts these special cities of southern Mexico. As evidence, Jorge and Isabel and their daughter Mora are being offered strangely herbed cheeses in a contemporary-styled apartment that looks like it was designed for a Star Trek episode, with a monthly rent beyond the means of any genuine reformist. I hope that guitars and a token of humility might bridge the disconnection, but this may be asking too much.
It is well past 2 in the morning, my fingers are starting to sting, and Jorge is hankering for some real food. He knows a good spot nearby for some greasy late-night Tlayudas, but I ask for a raincheck, which means absolutely nothing in any pertinent language. So the gentleman who is my guest plays one more for the road. It is a sentimental song by Oaxaca’s favorite songwriter, Alvaro Carillo, entitled “La Mentira,” or The Lie:
“Se te olvida, que me quieres a pesar de lo que dices,
Pues llevamos en el alma cicatrices, imposibles de borrar.”
You forget that you love me despite what you say,
Well, we carry scars in our souls, impossible to erase.