Quesadillas by Neel Mukherjee Rosalind Harvey Juan Pablo Villalobos

proactive Socrates.
    The drinks arrived and the waiter opened them in our presence, as if to let us know we shouldn’t worry about this part of the meal, that he was saving the best for later. I held the bottle up to the light, remembering that my grandmother had once swallowed a cockroach while confidently drinking a Coca-Cola. The tie man didn’t bother verifying the quality of his drink, on the surface of which there floated a thin film that grew denser towards the bottom. Actually, this description isn’t valid from a scientific point of view. The position of the film in the liquid depended on its density; at the bottom it was denser than the Coca-Cola and so it was sinking. This was Archimedes’ field, but back then I was yet to be introduced to him. Being such a distinguished person, the tie man had been assigned the cask-aged Coca-Cola, which he began drinking in long gulps.
    ‘Who did you run away with?’
    ‘My older brother.’
    ‘Where were you trying to get to?’
    ‘Mesa Redonda.’
    ‘The hill? What for?’
    ‘To wait for the aliens.’
    ‘OK, damn it. Do you want to learn or not? Where were you trying to get to?’
    ‘Learn what?’
    ‘What do you mean “what”? To speak!’
    ‘I already know how to speak.’
    ‘Oh yeah? Well, you speak total shit that’s no good to anyone.’
    ‘And I can recite poetry too.’
    ‘Seriously? Go on, then.’
    And I began:
‘ Patria, I love you not as myth
    but for the communion of your truth
    as I love the child peering over the rail
    in a blouse buttoned up to her ear-tips
    and skirt to her ankle of fine percale … ’
    ‘You’re fucking kidding me! Let’s just leave it there, shall we? So, where were you trying to get to?’
    ‘To Disneyland. We wanted to go to Disneyland.’
    ‘At your age? Don’t lie. Where were you trying to get to?’
    ‘Poland.’
    ‘Poland is nowhere. Don’t fuck with me.’
    ‘To Guadalajara.’
    ‘That’s more like it! Why?’
    ‘To live.’
    ‘To study.’
    ‘To study.’
    ‘What did you want to study?’
    ‘High school.’
    ‘Don’t be stupid, after that. What do you want to be when you grow up?’
    ‘A teacher.’
    ‘And starve to death? Don’t you want to stop being poor? Why not say a doctor.’
    ‘A doctor, I want to be a doctor.’
    ‘Very good – but you’re not studying.’
    ‘No. I left my brother behind and now I have to beg.’
    ‘Why did you leave him?’
    ‘We had a fight.’ I pointed at the scar criss-crossing my cheek; the vileness of the gesture brought a few little tears of shame to my eyes.
    ‘Very good! Now you’re getting it. People love this sort of thing. What was the fight about?’
    ‘A quesadilla.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘We only had money for one quesadilla.’
    ‘And didn’t you share it, like good brothers?’
    ‘We beat each other up to see who would get to eat it.’
    ‘Excellent. Do you want to work for me?’
    ‘What do you do?’
    ‘I’m a politician.’
    ‘Do you earn money?’
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘My dad says politicians are stupid.’
    ‘That’s part of the deal, letting people think we’re idiots. Where’s our damn food? That bastard’s fucking with us.’
    At the same time as the tie man was preparing to end all relations with the waiter, the supreme creeper blossomed: on the TV a photo of my parents appeared. It was a recent picture, as you could see quite clearly that their sadness had acquired an aristocratic look, as if they’d been sad for generations. The sound on the TV was turned down, but at the bottom of the screen you could read the headline: PARENTS LOSE 7 CHILDREN.
    I pressed the red button and picked up the tie man’s Coke to show him the shit he was drinking. The movement was complicated enough in itself: putting my right hand into my pocket to press the button, while at the same time picking up the bottle with my left. There was an additional difficulty: I was the one performing the movements. Our motor coordination might not