Into the Beautiful North(14)

The house was filling fast. Nayeli, Tacho on her arm, paid her respects to Father Fran?ois, as ever in the front row. “When are you coming to church?” he asked Tacho.

“?Por Dios!” Tacho said. “We would all be hit by lightning.”

La Vampi was hanging out with two girls from the Secundaria Carlos Hubbard.

“?Qué onda, morra?” Vampi called.

“Orale, rucas de la Secu Carlitos,” Nayeli shouted back.

Yoloxochitl was with her mother and her grandmother.

There was Garcí a-García, sitting with four of his five females. The shrimpers from the crabbing day at the lagoon had come with their wives. Tiki Ledón sat with her mother, one of Chava Chavarín’s conquests, the vivacious Do?a Laura. Tía Irma studiously ignored her—after forty years, she remained an archrival.

Everybody was there, even Pepino, the town simpleton, who seemed to be selling sodas on a tray. Nayeli and Tacho took a seat behind La Osa, who turned around and warned, “Don’t be saying stupid things while I’m watching my movie.”

She turned back around and lit a cigarette.

“What’s her problem?” Tacho asked.

Irma snapped, without looking back, “What did I tell you, cabrón!”

“The movie didn’t even start yet!” Tacho bleated.

Nayeli signaled Pepino and bought each of them a soda.

“Nayeli”—Pepino giggled—“marry Pepino!”

“Maybe tomorrow,” she replied.

“?Ay! ? Ay-ay-ay!” he enthused, then stumbled down the steps to deliver a Coca to Father Fran?ois.

Nayeli leaned against Tacho’s arm.

“I hate Yul Brynner,” she whispered.

“I know,” Tacho whispered back. “?Viejo feo!”

The lights went down.



Uproar. Much clapping. Nayeli knew how to stick two fingers in her mouth and blow, unleashing a wail as loud as a passing train whistle.

Garcí a-García had a treat for them: cartoons!

He sat back and laughed out loud at the Roadrunner.

The laughter was so loud that the startled bats launched from their perches and did a quick strafing run above the crowd—Aunt Irma simply set her lighter on high and blasted two feet of flame over her head.

Westworld. The title in Spanish was Robot-Terror of the Psychopathic Bandido. Nayeli groaned. Tacho whispered, “I’ve seen this one on TV. They have sex-robots.”

Irma turned and glared at him.

“Sorry,” he said.

Nayeli and Tacho giggled when Aunt Irma’s silhouette clearly fidgeted every time Yul “El Mexicano” Brynner appeared onscreen.

She turned at one point and said, “Do you hear that accent? You can hardly tell he’s Mexican!”

Nayeli snorted.

It was over quickly enough. La Osa was obviously displeased that Yul had been shot down and had his face blown away by the gringo bastards in the movie. She was thinking: I would buy that robot!

Intermission.

Nayeli abandoned Tacho and made the rounds of all her girlies. They lounged and slumped in the aisles. A cumbia band hired by Garcí a-García entered the theater and revved up another mindless vamp about a handsome black-skinned girl whose dancing broke the bones of all the men watching her. The chorus was: “?Calienete! ?La Negra está caliente!”



During the intermission, Father Fran?ois told Nayeli, “Of course you know that The Magnificent Seven is based on Kurosawa’s classic sword-fighting epic, The Seven Samurai.”

Hearing “epic”—epopeya—Yolo quipped, “Oh! Popeye is in it?”

Angry, Father Fran?ois continued: “The villagers are beset by bandidos. Overwhelmed and outgunned, they resort to a desperate plan—they go to Los Yunaites —”

“And work at Burger King!” Yolo blurted.

Father Fran?ois returned to his seat. If he couldn’t teach these idiots catechism, what made him think they could be taught about world cinema?

Nayeli followed him.

“I’m listening, Padre. Ignore them.”

He huffed.

“As I was saying. They send a group of brave peasants north to Los Yunaites.” He cast an evil eye at Yolo and her homegirls.

“What do they do there?” Nayeli asked.

“They find seven gunmen. The magnificent seven, you see? Seven killers that they bring back from the border to fight for them.”

In spite of herself, Nayeli felt tingles.

“Chido,” she said.

She hurried back to her seat to whisper to Tacho.

When that music started, she got tingles again.

The insanely picturesque color, the gigantic landscapes, even the pathetic Mexican village and the chubby gringo bad guy making believe he was a Mexican bandido, she loved it all.

Tacho yawned. “I want to see a car chase,” he said.

Irma: “SHH!”

“I don’t like horses,” Tacho added.

Irma: “SHHHHH!”

When Yul Brynner strode into the picture, wearing the same outfit he’d worn as the killer cowboy-robot in Westworld, Nayeli nudged Tacho.

“Oh, my God!” he said. “Can’t he afford new clothes?”

Aunt Irma growled.