Carcacha Y Se Les Retacha

Somewhere in the mean streets in the Federal District of Mexico City, the Chilangos are running their shell games where the coppers are the robbers and the taxistas are the storytellers, and they speak their own language. A subculture, Chilangos sometimes speak Caliche (or Caló they sometimes call it), which is very loosely based on Spanish and Mexican slang. They have a saying there, a saying I’ve adapted for myself, to keep me sane in times that insanity insists on trying to harsh my mental sweetbread.

Carcacha y se les retacha, which loosely translates as bounces off of me and sticks to you.

After about three years of being miserable on and off, I am happy every day now. I wake up and make coffee and write. At ten o’clock, I get a beer from the refrigerator and write. In the afternoon I go to the store, then I start dinner. Then I write some more after dinner, sometimes until three in the morning.

On Tuesdays, I go down to Centro and see Jody and Scott and we drink Cuban coffee and speak in English. Sometimes I go on Friday night, we meet at the Dandy del Sur. Mostly, I have been staying home and writing and cooking. My stress level, which must have been off of the charts a month ago, is at a wonderful flat-line, now that I don’t have to cross the border every day.

I’m going to try to make it last forever.

* * * *
The only thing I miss, really miss, is my cab ride to the border. Miguel took me and Anna for a long time, we dropped Anna off at school and continued on from there. Miguel had a passport, he crossed the border at least once a week for groceries or clothing or parts for his taxi. He spoke some English.

Ten dollars a day.

We would talk about baseball, football, soccer, anything. We would see a large dark vehicle with tinted windows and make out the silhouettes inside, carrying automatic weapons, screaming down the road on their way to somewhere.

"Good guys or bad guys?" Miguel would say.

"Cops or Criminals? What’s the difference?" I would answer.

We would laugh about that a lot.

And even when I got to work I was good, but sometimes it only took an hour until the pressure became too much. In the end I was even running machines. I wasn’t even supposed to know how to run some of the machines, but there wasn’t anyone left to do it.

"She doesn’t want me here anymore," I told Rick, about a year ago.

"You’re wrong, Dave, how can you say that?"

"Trust me, she has other plans, and they don’t include me. I know when I’m not in my bosses future plans, I’ve been through this a few times, I’m telling you it’s just a matter of time, so be prepared."

Rick shook his head.

"Why?" he asked.

"I don’t know why, Rick. But I know."

Of course, a year ago I didn’t have the magic words I now have.

Carcacha y se les retacha.

* * * *
I gave two weeks notice nearly a year after my boss, for reasons that I’ll likely never know, carved her intentions for my lack of a future with the company into the planks of the floor I walked on. I saw it every day, in so many different ways, until one day I finally called her on it in a meeting with the owner of the company; subtly, but firmly enough to illicit her true intentions. The company, for lack of sales, was struggling.

"It will get to a point where you might not be able to afford me, you need to keep that in mind," I said, even though my pay had already been cut significantly.

"If you lay off some of the younger guys, they’ll get another job quickly, but with me you have a better opportunity to get me back once the company is back on its feet," I offered.

Knowing that she would never lay me off and give me the satisfaction of possibly collecting unemployment, I knew that her reactions to my statement would hold the key.

"Then, who will run the router? I don’t have anyone else to run the router," she countered.

So, I knew, then, that the only likely reason in her mind that I wasn’t entirely expendable was for fear of not being able to run a machine. I trained Rick, and I waited, and sure enough she decided to make it unbearable, it didn’t take long.

One morning not long after that meeting, I came into work and the pressure was immediate, another day of trying to do the impossible with no resources. Then my boss, obviously sensing that I was at a breaking point, pulled the stress trigger.

I calmly walked into my office and sent her an email.

It was short, sweet, and to the point, but it might have well said this:

Carcacha y se les retacha.

* * * *
Here’s another comforting thought I’m enjoying at the moment:

Whatever happens next, happens next.





Music by Café Tacuba

Interpreted from a song by Juan Jaime López

(My translation into English is not direct; it is loose in order to provide a better feel for the song.)


CHILANGA BANDA

Ya chole chango chilango (I’ve had enough of you Chilangos)
que chafa chamba te chutas (what bad jobs you have)
no checa andar de tacuche (your uniform doesn’t suit you)
y chale con la charola! (and you bring your ugly badge)

Tan choncho como una chinche (so fat, like a blood-filled flea)
mas chueco que la fayuca (more crooked than the contraband)
con fusca y con cachiporra (with a gun and a wooden club)
te pasa andar de guarura. (you like to think you’re a bodyguard)

Mejor yo me echo una chela (better, then, I’ll have a beer)
y chance enchufo una chava (and try and find me a girl)
chambeando de chafirete (working as a driver)
me sobra chupe y pachanga. (leaves me enough to drink and to party)

Si choco saco chipote (If I crash into another driver)
la chota no es muy molacha (the cops don’t bother me much)
chiveando a los que machucan (they extort the one with the money)
se va a morder su talacha. (then they’ll bite the hand that feeds them)

De noche caigo al congal (At night, I go to the club)
no manches dice la changa ("Don’t be ridiculous," she says,)
al choro del teporocho (to his drunken propositions,)
en chifla pasa la pacha. ("Just buy me another drink.")

Pachucos, Cholos y Chundos, (Wise-guys, gangsters and robbers,)
Chichinflas y Malafachas (pimps and delinquents)
aca los Compiras rifan (this is where the thieves are)
y bailan Tibiritabara. (dancing to the tropical sound)

Mejor yo me echo una chela (better, then, I’ll have a beer)
y chance enchufo una chava (and try and find me a girl)
chambeando de chafirete (working as a driver)
me sobra chupe y pachanga (leaves me enough to drink and to party)

Mi ñero mata la vacha (my partner smokes marijuana)
y canta la cucaracha (and sings "La Cucaracha")
su choya vive de chochos (his head taken over with pills)
de chemo, churro y garnachas. (and glue and joints and junkfood)

Pachucos, Cholos y Chundos, (Wise-guys, gangsters and robbers,)
Chichinflas y Malafachas (pimps and delinquents)
aca los Compiras rifan (this is where the thieves are)
y bailan Tibiritabara. (dancing to the tropical sound)

Transando de arriba abajo (Covering every part of town)
ahi va la chilanga banda (that’s how the Chilangos are)
chinchin si me la recuerdan (they’ll pay if they try and screw me)
carcacha y se les retacha (It will bounce off of me and stick to them)