Corrido

Corrido Philip Garrison Corrido . . . afolk composition recited or sung—andfrequently anonymous—inspired by something that provoked astonishment. FranciscoJ. Santamaría, Diccionario de Mejicanismos Meche A skinny traüer-court kid with perfect features, Meche grew up expecting to be one ofthose women that guys knife each other for. But when adolescence overtook her, aU fingernail kit and mascara, she got nowhere. Now she lay at age twenty-four bleeding half-naked in an emergency room, her face beaten shapeless and three kids at home asleep, her legs unshaved and a thing in her head that the doctor called a subdural hematoma. Certain that only a fist could've done what the x-rays revealed, the doctor put an interpreter to shouting into her ear. What happened? ¿M'ija, quién te hizo esto? She shuddered, sighed. The doctor shouted for her to teU him what year it was. Bloodstained brassiere and T-shirt in the corner, she wore only underwear. Both eyes puffed shut, lip split, her head loUed against a plastic neck brace. She slumped and clenched, nipples erect. She probably was dying; the doctor appeared to fight for control ofhis voice. Onto a dab of asphalt out back, a helicopter quivered down. Doors flew open. Estela and Candelario Some kind of police officer interviewed Meches boyfriend Gustavo. Yes he had driven her here. No he didn't know what happened to her. A phone caU—in a woman's voice—had awakened him with news that Meche had been drinking after her night shift ended. She needed a ride home, the voice said. She looked like this when Gustavo found her, he swore, though 124 Phillip Garrison125 he was vague about exactly where he found her. Otherwise he sat there dryeyed , calm, self-deprecating even, a short wiry guy with stubby fingers, pointed features, untamable hair. Gustavo ordinarily radiated energy. He walked around with a certain awed glee that he was here in el norte earning doUars. Gustavo, after all, grew up in backwoods Guerrero, with uncles taken by Preventive Police. Three or four campesinos burning a stubble field, and Gov. Figueroa's men would appear. The interrogation was simple. They had the guys dig a deep hole, then threw one in and made the others bury him alive. They drove their tinted-window van back and forth over the dirt and started the questioning. Back home, there was no work. Only seasonal hitchhiking down the coast to cut cane. Back to the hiUs to put in a crop. Police and merchants and landowners—people muttered—they don't feed us, and they won't let us die ofhunger. People coUected at the bus depot with a change of clothing and headed north. Gustavo once spent fifteen minutes—the cop remembered—with a court-appointed attorney, and came out bouncing on the baUs of his feet with relief that someone had believed his alibi. From then on, Gustavo was convinced the legal system was fair, that a man could get along in el norte. Gustavo wouldn't even drive when his license expired. He didn't so much as jaywalk. But now he gave a resigned shiver when the officer raised his T-shirt to check for signs of a fight. The drop ofblood on his shirt, that smear on the side of his shoe? It came from when he lifted her limp body into the car. The officer told him to wait outside and turned to the interpreter. Wasn't this feUow's story about finding his girlfriend hard to believe? The interpreter shrugged and foUowed Gustavo out the door, only to back-pedal before a taU wide woman with henna hair and tiny features. Meche's mother Estela glanced at her daughter, then coUapsed face down on a gurney and howled. Her husband Candelario foUowed her into the room and buried his face in his hands. He said excuse him please, he needed to make a few phone caUs. When he reappeared in ten minutes and whispered in his wife's ear, both stiffened and eyed the cop. Have them detain her boyfriend, Candelario hissed at the interpreter. Candelario Don Cande favored huaraches woven from thick...