Signal to Noise(5)

It was not like anything exciting was going to happen in Arts and Crafts. They were supposedly making papier-maché sculptures that week—alebrijes, bizarre creatures from Mexican folklore, part bird, part lizard and part whatever you wanted—but Professor Ortega liked to drone on about Art and quickly lost his train of thought, which meant they did precious few crafts. At least it wasn’t Home Economy.

Meche went down the stairs, crossing the patio. Like any decent Mexican school, Queen Victoria had an interior square where the students could gather for recess. Most of the classrooms were located on the north side of this square in a structure that resembled a big box of Kleenex with holes, which some idiot with a desire to create prisons had built in the 70s. To the east there were the great metal double-doors which allowed access to the school and Don Fermin—the school guard who made sure nobody left the premises—sleeping on his stool. There was really very little need for Fermin. If any students wanted to escape the school they could follow the wall towards the west side and climb it at an angle hidden by a clump of trees, which passed as their version of nature among the cement.

Also to the west was another, smaller gate which connected the junior high and high school to the primary school.

To the south was what had once been the original Queen Victoria in the 1940s: a great, old Mexican house, three stories high. It had housed an all-girls contingent before mixed education became fashionable among the middle class. Now it was where the school’s offices sat. This was also where the Arts and English classes took place.

Meche trotted up the stairs and slipped in the back, sitting next to Sebastian. He was drawing a skull on his desk, carefully decorating the teeth with his black marker. The teacher had begun to talk about form and meaning, which meant they could whisper in peace for at least another fifteen minutes.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Did I miss something?”

“No,” Sebastian said, snorting.

“I had a close encounter with Frankenstrada,” Meche said. “She thinks I shouldn’t pee.”

“How are you supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. Carry a bottle around with me and just go in there?”

“She told me I have to cut my hair again this morning or she’ll cut it for me.”

Sebastian had a pseudo-punk aesthetic going and he liked to style his black hair with an obscene amount of hairspray. It was still pretty tame compared to what real, hardcore punks did with their hair, but then again the Queen Victoria didn’t smile too kindly on any of that stuff so you really couldn’t try a mohawk. Plus, punk was a bit lame.

Rich Mexican kids who could visit the USA and England imported this wild aesthetic, but it was all show and no substance. Sure, some good bands had emerged from that primordial ooze, like Atoxxxico and Ritmo Peligroso, but Meche was pretty tired of the studded belts and bracelets, patches, and junk which supposedly went with being punk.

The only reason why Meche could stomach Sebastian was because he was pseudo-punk. He knew, or cared, little about punk music or punk culture in general. But he liked sci-fi and horror movies and had watched Mad Max obsessively, to the point of using a couple of old car tires to build himself what he termed a “rubber exo-skeleton” on top of his leather jacket. For him it was the aesthetic thrill of the whole thing.

“You should get a tattoo and really piss her off,” she said.

“Sure. Then I’ll get kicked out by my mom.”

Meche leaned her chin against the back of her hand and looked at Sebastian’s skull with its wide grin.

“Hey, can you come to my place after school? I want to show you something.”

“It’s meatball dinner.”

“So go home later and have the meatballs.”

“They’ll be cold. Plus, my brother will eat them all if I don’t show up.” Sebastian paused. “What’s your grandma making for dinner?”

“I dunno. Green beans with egg.”

“Gross.”

“Come on, what are you going to do all afternoon by yourself? Homework?”

“Read and draw,” he muttered.

“Come on over. Dani’s coming.”

Meche had not even told Daniela she was invited, but she assumed Daniela would tag along. Dani was as different from Sebastian as night was from day, always dressed in pink, her Barbies still lined up on her shelves, an Easy-Bake oven in her room—even though the three of them were fifteen—and a predilection for soap operas. She liked listening to Lucerito, which made Meche want to barf, and thought Luis Miguel was the hottest man in the world, which was a double-barf. As far as Meche was concerned the only way she would listen to Ahora te Puedes Marchar was if someone tied her hands and feet with duct tape, then pushed a rag into her mouth to drown her screams.

But hey, Daniela was a good listener and of the three friends she was the one with the most money, which meant a chance to have free tickets to the movie theatre and loads of pop courtesy of her father, the accountant of a small furniture store.

“Mmm,” said Sebastian. “You’re not going to play boleros, are you? That shit’s so old.”

Meche punched him on the arm and he turned to stare at her with his usual stiff, offended face.

“You’re talking about Agustin Lara, you idiot. One of the greatest Mexican songwriters of all time.”