He is tired.
Though he has been away for four years, after he determined that the coming storm could not be met with folksongs or planchas, he still sighs as he brushes against the máscara and the fedora (or is it a trilby? He keeps thinking he should look that up). He knows that a time will come, and may be here already, when the cause of justice and nuance will call him out of retirement to battle in the public encordato again.
Retirement is the wrong word, for 2016-2020 have been anything but retiring. He has fought throughout Northern Mexico, sometimes under his own name, but usually as his alter ego (what is the name for the alter-ego of an alter-ego?) Pájaro en un Alambre. Did pretty well, too, amassing a record of 83-15 (and would have been 85-13, were it not for the scandal in Juarez…I’m sure you know about that, it was in all the papers). On alternate years, he spent in The Greek Isle of Hydra, writing belated tributes to Charmain Clift, drinking tsipouro, and continuing the ill advised love affairs that drown his life in anxiety and pathos. He was a busy boy.
He could have done that forever, followed that dichotomous life, unified only by his burning pursuit of irony and pity. But then, he always knew he couldn’t. The pain was too great, the voices too loud…children in cages, one would think that that would be a smug closing argument, a quebradora, the “Hitler de grace” not a starting immodest proposal.
The final straw happened last Wednesday, when he saw on CNN the final affront to modern life, and to costumed advocacy. The asshole with the painted face and Buffalo (or was it bison…he needs to look that up…no, the time for looking up is past) assaulting the Capitol building with the excitement of a naughty puppy (if the naughty puppy were pure evil). He was the ultimate rufián, and there could not be justice or nuance in a world where he and his type are allowed to stand.
He went to the closet and took down the mask and hat, the black coat and t-shirt, the worn trousers and scuffed shoes, “ My traje de luces,” he thought, “no, wait that’s bullfighting…maybe I should look that up.”
So a warning out there to all who though vincible ignorance would promote their agenda of selfish hate, El Cohen is back, and he’s climbing the ropes about to deliver his familiar final curse to all his enemies, “So long Marianne!”