El Bautismo y Los Gallos The Baptism and The Cockfight

                                                

                                            El Bautismo y Los Gallos


     Little Marco, a Mexicano with eskimo eyes was baptised that day at La Trinidad, an uninspired church in a barrio of the same name. My wife was a Padrina so she had pledged to buy the adorned baptismal candle, conch, and the white basket in which to place all these items. The morning before the baptism was spent buying gifts of diapers and baby shoes. It was already late when we encountered Abuelita, walking in her manner briskly down Moctezuma towards the church. We gave her a lift in my van that the family nicknamed "La Cajita de Zapatas". The mass was near ending when we entered and peculiarly we took a pew near the middle. I say peculiarly because my wife usually marches to the front and Abuelita likes the rear so she can leave before the "peace handshake". Following the mass came the sprinkling of holy water and a new group of fresh souls was incorporated into the church.
     The entrance of La Trinidad was decorated with an enormous arch of colorful dried flowers, some of which looked a little crestfallen after last night's rain. The flower patterns radiated upwards like feathery waves of chocolate floating on a bed of cream in a fancy dessert. A floral pastel para Dios.The same two dogs I always see at La Trinidad,, who I call Thomas and Paul, because they are so physically different, watched half-interestedly from the rectory roof. There are many roof top dogs in Mexico (perros del tercer piso) who hang over the edge barking safely at passersby. I imagine the roof covered in dung heaps like an obstacle course. Roof dogs seem to possess longer legs then their street counterparts who roam helter-skelter about the streets in town with rummaging eyes raiding garbage in search of something meat-like but settling for discarded tortillas or gelatinas stuck with napkins, or god knows what for dogs are no conoisseurs. They know where to look though.
     Inside the church Abuelita immediately spotted the low cut dress of Lupita, mother of Marco, the boy to be baptized, which stirred her deep seated prejudices for morenas who came from the fringes and all those that dwell a few yards beneath her class. I looked up at the ceiling trying to lose myself in the characteristics of the construction. After all La Trinidad was a neighborhood project, built by the donations and work of the people of one of the poorer barrios in Tenancingo. Their funds and taste were limited yet their effort translated into a focal point for the community.  

     I thought how class prejudice preserves distances.Those that think they possess moral worth because they have achieved economic success make themselves distinct from the lowland rookeries that produce people incompetent in social grace and self control. There could be just be a few grains of truth in Abue's social rancor, I mused. After all the poor seem to place pleasure on a higher plain than sober sacrifice,,,  then I quickly regained my balance. Social merit has nothing to do with class. With more prejudice comes wider brushes able to paint broader swaths of discrimination over the social landscape. And here I was, in the house of God, juggling my own bigotry,,, and there was Jesus, the great humble acceptor, suspended up there over the altar for all to see, his knees bleeding and scraped to the bone. Comforting myths do prevail here and everywhere. The trick is to pick the one that suits you.  

     Abuelita began voicing her concerns in whispers about Lupita’s outfit and about Marco's baptismal dress, (mameluca),  which I later found out to be hand-made by Lupita's mother. The christening outfit was loosely crocheted in a natural color. I thought Marco looked like a perfect little bundle of joy in a macrame string bag complete with a cap perhaps more like a macrame yamulke.      

     I began to stare at Lupita's black dress which plunged down her back, the fall interrupted by horizontal straps that only added to the appeal of the reveal. The dress in front and on the sides emitted sartorial flares. The bodice of the dress allowed a peek at the form of her breasts might take. The loose cut of the sides of the bust revealed how they would lay upon her chest. For Abuelita this was not the proper attire for the house of God, but for a cocktail bar. Perhaps, given Mexico’s strict rule,, that you are what you wear,, and that you had better leave your house in jeans that have an ironing crease and freshly shined shoes,, or you will be taken for a bottom feeder,,, so perhaps Abue’s universe was real.

     I glanced up at Jesus again and found the courage to accept this prejudice in silence because really there is little that can be done about it. No one is going to crack Abue’s carapace and wrench her in another direction. That would be like a butterfly caught in a sudden wind. Just can't fight it so let it take you. Her perception was filtered through a thick baleen of apartheid and that had become her steadfast truth. I preferred, as I often do in church, to stare, not towards a creator, but to the architecture or in the case of The Trinidad, I amused myself trying to turn the reddish veins in the shiny floor to ceiling marble into figures. At once I began to feel as if I had won a battle of courtesies. 

     To be fair to Lupita I wanted to know the reasons she chose that outfit. After all I was in church so I hoped to absolve her of her sins. The real basis for absolution is not a string of Hail Marys but understanding.  Lupita was occupied 99% of the time with little Marco. She came from extreme poverty so her options were reduced by an accident of birth. She was never ushered into the salons where role models put on fashion shows to teach the proper codes for the occaision. Her youth was stolen by pregnancy, her husband, even if he was Abuelita's grandson, was chauvanistic and irresponsible, more like Abue's perception of the lower classes. Perhaps Lupita's presentation was formed by want. She might not have been able to conceive of the proper etiquette for the occaison, yet she knew she would be a focus of attention being the mother, so she decided to shine a little in the moment. Like a light smear of sequins.

     Speaking of taste, and class consciousness, what better way to celebrate the baptism of your son than with a cockfight. After the mass we made our way to Tepetzingo to see Los Gallos. Big Marco is a gallero as is his father. The fight took place at the home of Big Marco's mother, Caro,, who is also Abuelita’s daughter. There would be lots of tequila, tacos, beer, and betting,,,, and the aroma of poultry.

     Cockfights draw the antipathy of all the modern middleclass liberals in the world who seem to froth at the mouth at the very thought of this bloody profane peasant ritual, which for all its brutality thumbs its nose at upper case decorum. The cockfighters have created an edgy world where they control the events in their bubble and in that bubble their taste is set free.  

     Spectators schmooze and drink and ponder bets as the impresarios slowly prepare their birds for battle,, like foreplay. The atmosphere is not festive nor too sombre either but when the match starts there is a silence and apparent lack of emotion that stands out. It is a spectator sport,, a theatre of life and death without the cheers. However this drama is quite serious because the loser dies,,, and sometimes the winner as well. The fascination with the great void is always a theme in this groundling ampitheatre-barn, masked by everpresent sexually charged virility,,, man fighting for the love of a good woman but a beast, substitutes for his sword. Little Marco was a virginal creature and the celebration of his innocent birth was all about a world he had yet to experience.