Mari Martinez
An Aztec in Spain
Somehow, I’m here again.
Technically, I haven’t been here before — a crowded black room with neon pop-art squiggles on the walls that’s blasting house music in Málaga — but I have been here in the same way that I’ve been to hell before.
When I studied abroad in Spain for the first time 10 years ago, I resolved to myself and God in the airport bathroom that I would never come back. Over the decade, as friends, colleagues, neighbors posted Instagram stories of their greasy tapas and cloyingly sweet sangria, my eyes found their usual position in the back of my head. I’d still hit “like” on their yellow-toned photos in Sevilla or Madrid or San Sebastián, knowing they too would have sworn off the country — nay, the entire peninsula — had they experienced the trauma I had.
Trauma is a strong word, but the dictionary describes it as a “deeply distressing or disturbing experience,” and that seems to align quite nicely with my five months in Madrid. Look, I’m not usually one to stand out. I’m one of the palest members of my family, I dress pretty decent, and I don’t smell, but to The Spanish, I was Cuauhtémoc, the descending sun and a complete alien. Growing up in the city, I’m used to the occasional double takes from the Dominican store owners or Puerto Rican tías during brief interactions, but nothing in New York had prepared me for Spanish exasperation.
And every time I spoke to a waiter or cashier — people in customer service, mind you — I got A Comment. Either someone didn’t understand me, or they did, but I was speaking “incorrectly”, and they were called by God to inform me what real Castellano sounded like. Sometimes, The Spanish would try to switch to English when they couldn’t place my accent (as though theirs wasn’t excruciating to hear) but I’d be damned if they took away the language they made my ancestors speak all those centuries ago, so we’d just angrily go back-and-forth, exaggerating the intensity of our words and muddling our own accents until the transaction was finished and we were both out of breath. Efficiency wise, these fights were a complete waste of
my time. But each argument won was me chipping another plank off the Niña, Pinta or Santa María with my bare hands.
The Spanish always have another trick up their sleeve. These small victories throughout my winter semester were consistently undone by a European version of Monteczuma’s Revenge that besieged my stomach, courtesy of my host family’s home-cooked meals. Because I was too broke to eat out every day like the other cohort members — with the state of my bank account at the time, even going monthly was a stretch — I choked down the mother’s soggy croquetas, bitter coffee, bland baguettes, and fried eggs dyed green with olive oil with a pained smile on my
face. Once, she served me a soup made with ground sausage, water and leftover drippings from the aforementioned fried crumbles. With my budget, I could hardly afford to be bulimic, but I’d rushed straight to the baño (I’m sorry, “aseo”) after that one. Every night, as I lay in my twin bed alone after their incredibly late dinners while my gastrointestinal system burned in agony, I reminded myself: a constant flow of acid reflux is a small price to pay for avenging my people. One battle, one war at a time.
To this soldier, daily xenophobia and dietary terrorism counted as trauma, OK? And my steadfast promise to avoid my biggest trigger and never return to Spain stayed strong for nearly a decade until I heard a familiar WhatsApp ding in May.
Kelsey had texted the long-dormant chat for other Syracuse students who survived (or “enjoyed,” in their eyes) studying abroad all those years ago: “GUYS! It’s been sooooo long, still looking back fondly on our intercambio days —” See? “— and long story short, I would love for you guys to join me back in Spain for my WEDDING! Yes, I, Kelsey Williams, am getting married. Tell that to all the guys I snogged in Kapital back in the day LOL!! Anyway, I’m marrying a Spaniard, he wants to have the wedding in Málaga, and I said ‘Done!’ But it wouldn’t be the same without my study abroad bitchesssss so please come jaja thanks! Details to follow — pay attention to your SU emails!”
I’d laughed out loud at the bold-faced desperation of the request. Kelsey was rich with plata, not friends, during our time abroad, and I’m not too proud to admit my rare times eating out of my homestay were sponsored by her Visa when I’d “forgotten” my wallet at the apartment. If she was reaching out three months before her wedding to our otherwise-dead group chat, she must be very worried about the appearance of empty pews in front of her parents’ friends.
And my streak of never stepping foot on the Iberian Peninsula ever again would remain broken to this day if Tony hadn’t sent his confirmation text. As evidenced by the WhatsApp group’s member list, guys were rare participants in study abroad programs, especially back then. Most of the Cuse men I knew wouldn’t have missed football season for their own weddings, even for a crappy team like ours. The four other guys who attended my year were Isaiah, who did it because his girlfriend went; Pablo, who was A Spanish himself and ignored us most of the time; Leon, who clearly wanted to hook up with a new subset of foreign women who hadn’t yet rejected him like the rest of America’s female population; and Tony.
We first connected over both being from the city — me from Park Slope, him from Flushing. Close in the only ways guys could be, we’d watched soccer matches together in dimly lit and empty bars, or dipped into department stores to attempt to override our fashion before heading back to New York. Everyone else traveled out of the country most weekends — if I could have afforded it, I’d take any opportunity to leave Hell as well — and Tony was nice enough to hang with me when he wasn’t doing the same. He was the only one I’d drunkenly told about my nearly empty savings account, recently drained of its meager work-study dollars for my mother’s insurance bill. The only one who made me hesitate to complain to the group about how the store attendant’s ignorance had pissed me off that day.
The only one who could get me on a 10:30pm red-eye flight to Madrid and subsequent four-hour train ride to Málaga, without even an individual text asking me to come.
If only it were harder for me to make the arrangements. Everyone else’s RSVPs were written with love, familiarity and updates: “Got a babysitter! So excited to see you and Javi!” or
“Moved around my work trip just for this, Kels. Can’t wait,” or “My family wanted me to visit anyway, super pumped that this worked out.” I spent two hours trying to create an imaginary obstacle that I, too, had overcome. My message, “Ignoring a decade’s worth of #trauma just for this,” did not receive the same heart and clapping emoji reactions, but no matter. I got on the plane, didn’t I?
Today’s travel journey reminded me of how arid and beige and devoid of life the countryside is here. In Mexico, the mountains sing. The cacti and ice caps and blue shadows all ask me to roll down the car window and stick my head out like a dog, much to my cousins’ eye rolls. No matter. American me drifts; Spanish me fights; over there, you’re a part of something. The weight of generations past — Cuauhtémoc, Tenoch, Itzcoátl — are magnets finding metal shards in your blood, pulling you back, back, back until your body has merged with the tierra and you are consolidated. Upon seeing their Iberian counterparts again, it struck me: I’d also want to pillage Latin America’s lush landscapes. The Spanish would never admit it, but Columbus’s main driver must have been envy over our ancient green thumbs, not gold.
But in novel form, I released my thoughts as soon as they came to me on that Renfe train. Tony liked Spain. He did not like negativity. Somewhere between Córdoba and Lucena, I decided that these would be the guiding principles of my brief return to this cursed country.
So now, I have found myself in a club in downtown Málaga. It took three shots of whiskey from a cheap bottle I got at the liquor store around the corner — having successfully warded off the urge to fight the cashier, who loudly announced to the room that the machine wasn’t accepting my credit card — but I texted Tony a demure, “hey, man, would love to hang before the big day tomorrow and catch up. what’s ur evening looking like,” and shoved my phone under my pillow. I refused to check it until I heard the ringtone I had saved for him back then (”Boing,” aptly named).
“Sounds good. The rest of us just finished hanging. This place seems to be a good spot, want to meet there soon” and a Google Maps link to a random tapas place with 4.5 stars.
Still high from his response two hours ago, I take another sip of my third gin and tonic to balance my nerves. I’d popped into Sala Gold to wait since it seemed more anonymous to be alone in a club than a bar. Some of the condensation from my glass drips onto my guayabera — another fuck you to The Spanish, though they’ve probably claimed that garment as their own invention, too — and it blends in with the sweat that’s accumulated all over the front. The house music gives way to some top reggaetón hits, and I attempt to loosen up my hips that are severely locked from stress and age, in that order. Then I pause. Before I see him, I need to calibrate my vibe: hot or straight. Hot guys dance well, straight guys do not. Which was I?
“Andrés,” I hear myself tell the rail-thin blonde girl who has appeared in front of me moments later, looking at me with what I can only describe as a doe-eyes technique I’ve seen briefly described on TikTok before scrolling away. Universe has decided “straight” tonight.
“Me llamo Irene, encantadaaaaaa,” Irene slurs, taking a sloppy sip of her brown drink out of a tiny cocktail straw. The DJ switches to an old Wisin y Yandel song. She grabs my hand
with her free one and turns to face the crowd as she bends back towards me.
Over the last seven hours of being back here, I can admit that I admire the extent to which The Spanish lack the burden of shame that plagues the descendants of their Latin victims. They stare, cut in line, make faces at you when they don’t understand your accent, talk loudly on the phone in public, refuse to wear deodorant, yell at innocent pedestrians trying to jaywalk to the point of spit coming out of the back of their throat. I could not imagine living life so freely, without the ever-present gaze of your mother or Jesus or somebody, anybody, that holds you back from being yourself. Even when that self is an asshole who believes being Spanish means you’re God’s gift to the planet.
What if I could?
This nationally mandated lack of shame has given Irene the audacity to grind her nothing of an ass into my crotch as I, departing tipsiness for something worse, half-heartedly try to follow her lack of rhythm. She doesn’t seem to mind — or realize — how bad her dancing is, or how unwilling of a participant I am, given that she whips around when the song changes, hugs me tight, and asks if I wanted to fuck her in the bathroom. I politely decline. There’s the obvious barrier between us, but her initial bony dancing had also been incredibly and concerningly sexless. Imagine finishing the affair.
I could tell her. For all their faults, Spain was the third country in the world to legalize gay marriage. In Madrid, a simple “I love Chueca!” is the fastest way to identify yourself as an ally to friends of Dorothy. Rainbow flags fly alongside the yellow Spanish ones all the time now. In my winter semester, I didn’t see any men holding hands on the street. Running from the
airport to the train station today alone, I saw four such couples.
But I don’t.
She twists her face in disgust (I told you! No shame!) and storms off, probably to find another brown victim before night’s end, and I tilt the rest of my drink into my mouth. Where is Tony? Regret and the rush of chugging the dregs flood my face. I run outside the club and throw up on the brick wall, the resulting color all too reminiscent of my ground sausage soup days. Wiping my mouth off with the back of my hand, I stumble backwards into an incoming group of guys, one of whom pushes me to the side, hissing, “pero cuídate, maricón, ostia” in my direction before spitting a foot in front of me. His friends roll their eyes and laugh, entering the club without a second look.
My confrontations with The Spanish obliged them to see me for who I believe I am: a Mexican American from New York who can scrap with the best of them. When I got back to Syracuse, I’d regaled my few friends with the stories of my heated exchanges, ending my accounts with punchlines that should have sent everyone into rounds of applause, if they had just been there to see how ridiculous these people are! The way I told them off! Even when I ran out of people with whom I could play bard by the start of fall semester, my resolve to fight had served its purpose. Every interaction fortified me, new collage materials plastered over weakness, until I left the country a hardened man.
Ten years later, maybe they still see me for who I really am.
Blowing chunks did not stop my head from spinning. I round two corners and collide with the wall of a church. Blurry letters spell out “Plaza de los Martires” on a chiseled sign. Surprisingly, the iron gate is ajar at this hour, so I trip up the two steps and enter. The hall is bathed in darkness, but candlelight catches the glint of gold adornments on the bleached walls. I count a few dozen prayers by their flames.
I don’t need to closely peruse the inside to know what types of decorations it holds, having frequented many a Catholic church. There’s plaster statues depicting various saints in various states of physical distress or anguish, with gold and silver headplates that call to mind a maximalism I only associate with Mexico. A confessional box in the center of the right wall, stained with secrets. And pews, their kneeling benches already unfolded and ready to bear weight.
I make out one other person in here with me in the darkness, several rows up. A woman with a black lace veil faces the main statue, a withering Jesus on the cross. She’s whispering, hands clenched around an invisible rope she’s holding for dear life, though her Andalusian accent obscures her prayers from my ears.
I drop to my knees too, swallowing the layered ironies of me choosing to be in a Spanish church right now. I haven’t entered one in years, always telling Mamá that I’m too busy with work on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, when I just want to avoid the priest’s pointed homilies, exponentially intensified since the June I returned from being abroad.
I don’t remember what I’m supposed to say.
I start with blessing Kelsey’s upcoming wedding, apologizing for shrouding it with my earlier negativity. Then I throw in all the times I’ve lied to my mom — about her cooking, my affinity for marijuana, my bank account balance, who I expect to stand next to me at my wedding, that there could ever be a wedding at all.
But the hardest prayer won’t leave my tongue. The papier-mâché project of arguments won that currently encases my heart isn’t real courage. A modern Aztec battling The Spanish is doomed to follow the same history, where only one side has ever cared what happens. And Tenoch wasn’t solo, to boot.
The buzz concentrated in my head from six drinks, jet lag, and a touch of religious psychosis spreads through the rest of my body. Is this freedom? Is this what They feel like all the time?
I wipe the sticky saline from my face, sniffling back my mucus. After all this time, this country remains about the fluids — tears, snot, bile — and I am now emptied of such excess volume. Two familiar figures fill the blank space behind my still-swollen eyelids: Cuauhtémoc and Jesus. Both executed alone, martyrs ready to die for their causes, but surrounded by their people in the moments before glory. Who am I to liken myself to them?
The pews creak rudely as they release my weight. I nearly forgot I was supposed to meet Tony. Maybe, just maybe, he is the first person with whom I can share this newfound clarity — a jarring but resoundingly refreshing cape around my shoulders.
I feel a rap on my shoulder. A priest? My mom? Jesus? No, it’s the old lady, who hisses that my tears are too loud. I open my mouth to respond with something biting, but through my squinted vision, I see twin salty tracks on her own face. And I say nothing.
Technically, I haven’t been here before — a crowded black room with neon pop-art squiggles on the walls that’s blasting house music in Málaga — but I have been here in the same way that I’ve been to hell before.
When I studied abroad in Spain for the first time 10 years ago, I resolved to myself and God in the airport bathroom that I would never come back. Over the decade, as friends, colleagues, neighbors posted Instagram stories of their greasy tapas and cloyingly sweet sangria, my eyes found their usual position in the back of my head. I’d still hit “like” on their yellow-toned photos in Sevilla or Madrid or San Sebastián, knowing they too would have sworn off the country — nay, the entire peninsula — had they experienced the trauma I had.
Trauma is a strong word, but the dictionary describes it as a “deeply distressing or disturbing experience,” and that seems to align quite nicely with my five months in Madrid. Look, I’m not usually one to stand out. I’m one of the palest members of my family, I dress pretty decent, and I don’t smell, but to The Spanish, I was Cuauhtémoc, the descending sun and a complete alien. Growing up in the city, I’m used to the occasional double takes from the Dominican store owners or Puerto Rican tías during brief interactions, but nothing in New York had prepared me for Spanish exasperation.
And every time I spoke to a waiter or cashier — people in customer service, mind you — I got A Comment. Either someone didn’t understand me, or they did, but I was speaking “incorrectly”, and they were called by God to inform me what real Castellano sounded like. Sometimes, The Spanish would try to switch to English when they couldn’t place my accent (as though theirs wasn’t excruciating to hear) but I’d be damned if they took away the language they made my ancestors speak all those centuries ago, so we’d just angrily go back-and-forth, exaggerating the intensity of our words and muddling our own accents until the transaction was finished and we were both out of breath. Efficiency wise, these fights were a complete waste of
my time. But each argument won was me chipping another plank off the Niña, Pinta or Santa María with my bare hands.
The Spanish always have another trick up their sleeve. These small victories throughout my winter semester were consistently undone by a European version of Monteczuma’s Revenge that besieged my stomach, courtesy of my host family’s home-cooked meals. Because I was too broke to eat out every day like the other cohort members — with the state of my bank account at the time, even going monthly was a stretch — I choked down the mother’s soggy croquetas, bitter coffee, bland baguettes, and fried eggs dyed green with olive oil with a pained smile on my
face. Once, she served me a soup made with ground sausage, water and leftover drippings from the aforementioned fried crumbles. With my budget, I could hardly afford to be bulimic, but I’d rushed straight to the baño (I’m sorry, “aseo”) after that one. Every night, as I lay in my twin bed alone after their incredibly late dinners while my gastrointestinal system burned in agony, I reminded myself: a constant flow of acid reflux is a small price to pay for avenging my people. One battle, one war at a time.
To this soldier, daily xenophobia and dietary terrorism counted as trauma, OK? And my steadfast promise to avoid my biggest trigger and never return to Spain stayed strong for nearly a decade until I heard a familiar WhatsApp ding in May.
Kelsey had texted the long-dormant chat for other Syracuse students who survived (or “enjoyed,” in their eyes) studying abroad all those years ago: “GUYS! It’s been sooooo long, still looking back fondly on our intercambio days —” See? “— and long story short, I would love for you guys to join me back in Spain for my WEDDING! Yes, I, Kelsey Williams, am getting married. Tell that to all the guys I snogged in Kapital back in the day LOL!! Anyway, I’m marrying a Spaniard, he wants to have the wedding in Málaga, and I said ‘Done!’ But it wouldn’t be the same without my study abroad bitchesssss so please come jaja thanks! Details to follow — pay attention to your SU emails!”
I’d laughed out loud at the bold-faced desperation of the request. Kelsey was rich with plata, not friends, during our time abroad, and I’m not too proud to admit my rare times eating out of my homestay were sponsored by her Visa when I’d “forgotten” my wallet at the apartment. If she was reaching out three months before her wedding to our otherwise-dead group chat, she must be very worried about the appearance of empty pews in front of her parents’ friends.
And my streak of never stepping foot on the Iberian Peninsula ever again would remain broken to this day if Tony hadn’t sent his confirmation text. As evidenced by the WhatsApp group’s member list, guys were rare participants in study abroad programs, especially back then. Most of the Cuse men I knew wouldn’t have missed football season for their own weddings, even for a crappy team like ours. The four other guys who attended my year were Isaiah, who did it because his girlfriend went; Pablo, who was A Spanish himself and ignored us most of the time; Leon, who clearly wanted to hook up with a new subset of foreign women who hadn’t yet rejected him like the rest of America’s female population; and Tony.
We first connected over both being from the city — me from Park Slope, him from Flushing. Close in the only ways guys could be, we’d watched soccer matches together in dimly lit and empty bars, or dipped into department stores to attempt to override our fashion before heading back to New York. Everyone else traveled out of the country most weekends — if I could have afforded it, I’d take any opportunity to leave Hell as well — and Tony was nice enough to hang with me when he wasn’t doing the same. He was the only one I’d drunkenly told about my nearly empty savings account, recently drained of its meager work-study dollars for my mother’s insurance bill. The only one who made me hesitate to complain to the group about how the store attendant’s ignorance had pissed me off that day.
The only one who could get me on a 10:30pm red-eye flight to Madrid and subsequent four-hour train ride to Málaga, without even an individual text asking me to come.
If only it were harder for me to make the arrangements. Everyone else’s RSVPs were written with love, familiarity and updates: “Got a babysitter! So excited to see you and Javi!” or
“Moved around my work trip just for this, Kels. Can’t wait,” or “My family wanted me to visit anyway, super pumped that this worked out.” I spent two hours trying to create an imaginary obstacle that I, too, had overcome. My message, “Ignoring a decade’s worth of #trauma just for this,” did not receive the same heart and clapping emoji reactions, but no matter. I got on the plane, didn’t I?
Today’s travel journey reminded me of how arid and beige and devoid of life the countryside is here. In Mexico, the mountains sing. The cacti and ice caps and blue shadows all ask me to roll down the car window and stick my head out like a dog, much to my cousins’ eye rolls. No matter. American me drifts; Spanish me fights; over there, you’re a part of something. The weight of generations past — Cuauhtémoc, Tenoch, Itzcoátl — are magnets finding metal shards in your blood, pulling you back, back, back until your body has merged with the tierra and you are consolidated. Upon seeing their Iberian counterparts again, it struck me: I’d also want to pillage Latin America’s lush landscapes. The Spanish would never admit it, but Columbus’s main driver must have been envy over our ancient green thumbs, not gold.
But in novel form, I released my thoughts as soon as they came to me on that Renfe train. Tony liked Spain. He did not like negativity. Somewhere between Córdoba and Lucena, I decided that these would be the guiding principles of my brief return to this cursed country.
So now, I have found myself in a club in downtown Málaga. It took three shots of whiskey from a cheap bottle I got at the liquor store around the corner — having successfully warded off the urge to fight the cashier, who loudly announced to the room that the machine wasn’t accepting my credit card — but I texted Tony a demure, “hey, man, would love to hang before the big day tomorrow and catch up. what’s ur evening looking like,” and shoved my phone under my pillow. I refused to check it until I heard the ringtone I had saved for him back then (”Boing,” aptly named).
“Sounds good. The rest of us just finished hanging. This place seems to be a good spot, want to meet there soon” and a Google Maps link to a random tapas place with 4.5 stars.
Still high from his response two hours ago, I take another sip of my third gin and tonic to balance my nerves. I’d popped into Sala Gold to wait since it seemed more anonymous to be alone in a club than a bar. Some of the condensation from my glass drips onto my guayabera — another fuck you to The Spanish, though they’ve probably claimed that garment as their own invention, too — and it blends in with the sweat that’s accumulated all over the front. The house music gives way to some top reggaetón hits, and I attempt to loosen up my hips that are severely locked from stress and age, in that order. Then I pause. Before I see him, I need to calibrate my vibe: hot or straight. Hot guys dance well, straight guys do not. Which was I?
“Andrés,” I hear myself tell the rail-thin blonde girl who has appeared in front of me moments later, looking at me with what I can only describe as a doe-eyes technique I’ve seen briefly described on TikTok before scrolling away. Universe has decided “straight” tonight.
“Me llamo Irene, encantadaaaaaa,” Irene slurs, taking a sloppy sip of her brown drink out of a tiny cocktail straw. The DJ switches to an old Wisin y Yandel song. She grabs my hand
with her free one and turns to face the crowd as she bends back towards me.
Over the last seven hours of being back here, I can admit that I admire the extent to which The Spanish lack the burden of shame that plagues the descendants of their Latin victims. They stare, cut in line, make faces at you when they don’t understand your accent, talk loudly on the phone in public, refuse to wear deodorant, yell at innocent pedestrians trying to jaywalk to the point of spit coming out of the back of their throat. I could not imagine living life so freely, without the ever-present gaze of your mother or Jesus or somebody, anybody, that holds you back from being yourself. Even when that self is an asshole who believes being Spanish means you’re God’s gift to the planet.
What if I could?
This nationally mandated lack of shame has given Irene the audacity to grind her nothing of an ass into my crotch as I, departing tipsiness for something worse, half-heartedly try to follow her lack of rhythm. She doesn’t seem to mind — or realize — how bad her dancing is, or how unwilling of a participant I am, given that she whips around when the song changes, hugs me tight, and asks if I wanted to fuck her in the bathroom. I politely decline. There’s the obvious barrier between us, but her initial bony dancing had also been incredibly and concerningly sexless. Imagine finishing the affair.
I could tell her. For all their faults, Spain was the third country in the world to legalize gay marriage. In Madrid, a simple “I love Chueca!” is the fastest way to identify yourself as an ally to friends of Dorothy. Rainbow flags fly alongside the yellow Spanish ones all the time now. In my winter semester, I didn’t see any men holding hands on the street. Running from the
airport to the train station today alone, I saw four such couples.
But I don’t.
She twists her face in disgust (I told you! No shame!) and storms off, probably to find another brown victim before night’s end, and I tilt the rest of my drink into my mouth. Where is Tony? Regret and the rush of chugging the dregs flood my face. I run outside the club and throw up on the brick wall, the resulting color all too reminiscent of my ground sausage soup days. Wiping my mouth off with the back of my hand, I stumble backwards into an incoming group of guys, one of whom pushes me to the side, hissing, “pero cuídate, maricón, ostia” in my direction before spitting a foot in front of me. His friends roll their eyes and laugh, entering the club without a second look.
My confrontations with The Spanish obliged them to see me for who I believe I am: a Mexican American from New York who can scrap with the best of them. When I got back to Syracuse, I’d regaled my few friends with the stories of my heated exchanges, ending my accounts with punchlines that should have sent everyone into rounds of applause, if they had just been there to see how ridiculous these people are! The way I told them off! Even when I ran out of people with whom I could play bard by the start of fall semester, my resolve to fight had served its purpose. Every interaction fortified me, new collage materials plastered over weakness, until I left the country a hardened man.
Ten years later, maybe they still see me for who I really am.
Blowing chunks did not stop my head from spinning. I round two corners and collide with the wall of a church. Blurry letters spell out “Plaza de los Martires” on a chiseled sign. Surprisingly, the iron gate is ajar at this hour, so I trip up the two steps and enter. The hall is bathed in darkness, but candlelight catches the glint of gold adornments on the bleached walls. I count a few dozen prayers by their flames.
I don’t need to closely peruse the inside to know what types of decorations it holds, having frequented many a Catholic church. There’s plaster statues depicting various saints in various states of physical distress or anguish, with gold and silver headplates that call to mind a maximalism I only associate with Mexico. A confessional box in the center of the right wall, stained with secrets. And pews, their kneeling benches already unfolded and ready to bear weight.
I make out one other person in here with me in the darkness, several rows up. A woman with a black lace veil faces the main statue, a withering Jesus on the cross. She’s whispering, hands clenched around an invisible rope she’s holding for dear life, though her Andalusian accent obscures her prayers from my ears.
I drop to my knees too, swallowing the layered ironies of me choosing to be in a Spanish church right now. I haven’t entered one in years, always telling Mamá that I’m too busy with work on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, when I just want to avoid the priest’s pointed homilies, exponentially intensified since the June I returned from being abroad.
I don’t remember what I’m supposed to say.
I start with blessing Kelsey’s upcoming wedding, apologizing for shrouding it with my earlier negativity. Then I throw in all the times I’ve lied to my mom — about her cooking, my affinity for marijuana, my bank account balance, who I expect to stand next to me at my wedding, that there could ever be a wedding at all.
But the hardest prayer won’t leave my tongue. The papier-mâché project of arguments won that currently encases my heart isn’t real courage. A modern Aztec battling The Spanish is doomed to follow the same history, where only one side has ever cared what happens. And Tenoch wasn’t solo, to boot.
The buzz concentrated in my head from six drinks, jet lag, and a touch of religious psychosis spreads through the rest of my body. Is this freedom? Is this what They feel like all the time?
I wipe the sticky saline from my face, sniffling back my mucus. After all this time, this country remains about the fluids — tears, snot, bile — and I am now emptied of such excess volume. Two familiar figures fill the blank space behind my still-swollen eyelids: Cuauhtémoc and Jesus. Both executed alone, martyrs ready to die for their causes, but surrounded by their people in the moments before glory. Who am I to liken myself to them?
The pews creak rudely as they release my weight. I nearly forgot I was supposed to meet Tony. Maybe, just maybe, he is the first person with whom I can share this newfound clarity — a jarring but resoundingly refreshing cape around my shoulders.
I feel a rap on my shoulder. A priest? My mom? Jesus? No, it’s the old lady, who hisses that my tears are too loud. I open my mouth to respond with something biting, but through my squinted vision, I see twin salty tracks on her own face. And I say nothing.
Mari Martinez is a writer from Chicago. When she’s not covering politics, she’s finding new languages to learn and cuisines to cook.
