Spicaresque:

A Spanglish blog dedicated to the works, ruminations, and mongrel pyrotechnics of Yago S. Cura, an Argentine-American poet, translator, publisher & futbol cretin. Yago publishes Hinchas de Poesia, an online literary journal, & is the sole proprietor of Hinchas Press.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

CLANDESTINE DEPTO.

My mother's apartment had not been "marked" by the police for increased surveillance; word had not come down for an unmarked Ford Falcon to circle her block like a bull shark. No order came down for her to be shadowed.

Her address had not been registered at the cuartel, nor had it been the added to the lists the police were constantly smashing together. In a word, she was a nobody, and that suited her fine because of the anonymity being a nobody afforded her.

But, she had gotten to know people in the movement, and she sometimes feigned being a reporter so she could get into lectures for free. She was known to carry a tape recorder as a prop; shortly thereafter, it became her talisman. And once or twice, she even offered up her tiny departamento as a venue for lectures or presentations.

One time she hosted two Cuban compadres from the Administración Postal de Cuba. Because they called my mother, Negra, the two Cubans could pass for her brothers, cousins, or kin. The three of them together raised less eyebrows than my mother alone, somehow.

She had run away from Tucumán to Buenos Aires at 14, home being one of the thickest and at times remote provinces in Argentina's 23-stared province-diadem. On her own, my mother, stood out like a sore thumb; also, she had a mythological pair of gams she liked to flaunt in mini-skirts and boots.

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