The Jaguar's Children by John Vaillant Page B

César’s wallet turn to look at the truck. His partner in the cab holds up the radio and nods toward César. The officer puts César’s wallet into his shirt pocket and reaches for his handcuffs. I can see César shifting his feet, turning his head toward the taxi. At first I think he’s looking for me, but he’s not, he’s looking for his keys with the medallion of Juquila. Maybe he’s saying a prayer, I don’t know, but in this moment there comes an interceding.
    It begins with a screaming sound and then, farther down Juárez, an explosion. All the federales—who do not forget the possibility of an ambush—drop to one knee with their guns up and pointing around. César is too scared to move and so am I when around the corner of Hidalgo, one block down, comes a giant puppet—a lady with enormous chichis and yellow hair, and then another one looking like Benito Juárez, and another with a big bandana and long hair like Axl Rose, and each one is tall as a house and dancing all around. Behind them is the sound of a band starting to play and this comes around the corner too—ten musicians with trumpets and trombones and drums, also a tuba, and they are playing dance music. There is another scream and another explosion and now it is clear it is only the coheteros with their skyrockets for waking the gods. “¡Otra calenda!” shouts the woman federale, and all of them can see it now because this is what is coming up the street—una calenda por Santa María, por la Fiesta de la Anunciación. It was the congregation from a local church so it wasn’t a big procession, but along with them and the giant monos and the band and the coheteros are las chinas oaxaqueñas—ladies dancing in their fiesta clothes—long skirts and ribbons in the hair with sexy blusas and red red lips, each one with a big basket on her head filled with flowers and special decorations. But in their baskets are also secret things you cannot see—bricks and stones—because the heavier your basket and the longer you dance, the greater your devotion to the Virgin. My mother does this also, especially por la Virgen de la Soledad. You will not believe what she carries—and for so long because most calendas start at eight or nine at night and don’t stop until the morning. In between, they go all over the city in a big circle that finishes only when they come back to the home church. All this time, the monos and the ladies are dancing and the band is playing and the coheteros are sending up rockets like flares from a sinking ship. To you it might look like a party, but really it is the dance of hope in the darkness, our way of saying, “¡Virgen, Santo, DIOS, por favor! We are down HERE! Can’t you SEE us? Can’t you HEAR us? Please do not FORGET us!”
    It is the same what César prays to la Virgen de Juquila by the broken taxi.
    But the calenda can’t go all night without a little rest and some food, and this is what happened—around the corner from us is where they stopped for some time on Hidalgo with no music or dancing or rockets. Of course they are tired by now, and all along the way there are friends and family, maybe other churches, who know this and feed them tortas con queso y frijoles, also beer and soda, to keep them going. And always there is mezcal.
    Maybe you can imagine it—a hundred people, sometimes many more, drinking mezcal and dancing half the night already. Zapotecs have been praying this way for two thousand years, and this is maybe why, when they finish resting, they turn north on Juárez to meet the federales. They can see now what is happening there, and it is a story they know very well—everyone has a brother or a father or an uncle who has troubles with the police. No one likes them, especially this kind—and don’t forget these are Zapotecos. Some of their pueblos were never conquered by the