The headless mariachis are playing the corrida again. You know the one. Snippets are on the lips of every hollowhipped beamish boy who’d make the run. Mule or jackass? They need the respirocytes, the horse and the guns. How do you live without respirocytes, the horse and the guns? They’ll grind you boy, beat you and shake you out like you was papier mache.
This is still, in spite of that, my favorite corrida. Let the pulque take you, kid, we ain’t doin’ shit tonight. And listen to the fucking corrida. You aren’t enjoying yourself. Do I need to buy you a dance? I can buy you a dance. This place is nice, kid. You don’t even know what buying a dance means in a place this nice. Ain’t no fault of yours. I will teach you about class. The corrida will teach you about class.
You listen good to the corrida and you listen good to the things on her lips. Come a little bit closer, you’re my kind of man. You remember that song? Of course you fucking don’t. Time was, there weren’t tigers out there, time was there was kings in this town. Better or worse, there was kings. And they kept the tigers fed and they kept the tigers caged.
Listen good to the corrida and it will tell you what commitment means. I want you to take this cigarette. You dumb shit. I want you to take this cigarette. And I don’t want you to smoke it. I want you to take this cigarette and I want you to put it out in your lap. We’re gonna sit here until you do. You seem to think, when you hear the corridas, that they’re some kinda reward.
Fuck yourself, pobrecito. You’re dead already. You’re dead already if you can’t take that fucking cigarette and put it out in your lap. If it ain’t the federales and it ain’t the greys and it ain’t the Martian mob, it’ll be the tigers. You think you’re as hungry as a fucking tiger? You’re not. You will never be hungry as a fucking tiger. Get out of my sight. You ain’t him.
How’s that working out for you? How’s the sizzle? How’s that smell, maricon? Not good. Looks like you aren’t conditioned. That’s good. The dullboys get their ass caught. Cause they can take it. They get their ass caught and they die. And they don’t even know they’re bleedin’ out. You’re gonna know when you bleed out and you’re going to do your fucking goddamnedest to make sure you don’t find yourself in the back of some mean sumbitch’s van. Have another shot. You’ve earned it.
This corrida, maricon, is about a man we just call HIM. The tigers were fat when he first made the runs. The feds and the greys and the martian mob were at their thickest. They cared. It hasn’t gotten any easier since they started caring less but it was harder when they gave a fuck. Time was, you could buy a dance and it meant the one thing.
Who the fuck am I kidding? There was never a time when anything meant the one thing. I don’t want you to think that I’m upset. I am upset. I had brothers once, not cause we was family but because we was kin. There’s a thing you don’t get ’bout corridas. They never remember the last line, the line where he never stops running or maybe he stops and he’s gone. But at the end of the corrida, he disappears.
We don’t this to to get big. This is all about small. This is about shrinking into atoms, blowing into the wind. Then all of a sudden…you’re everywhere. If the song fades out and you wish you were the song, then you’ve come to the right place.
The Imperial Youth Review 