Los Monstruos of Coyoacán
I was as skinless as the skeletons that paraded above our heads on sticks. Paper mâché calaveras and Lady Catrinas assaulted us as soon as we stepped out of the taxi onto the cobblestone streets of Coyoacán. It was Día de los Muertos, give or take un día, and we’d finally ventured away from our centrally located airbnb in Mexico City. Sean and I had split what I’d misremembered as a low dose mushroom chocolate, only to discover the cobblestones undulating beneath our feet, the marigolds swirling hypnotic, and sprays of castanets firing at our heads. It was entirely too much stimulation for our feeble brains, so we did what any White American couple would do in our situation. We smeared ourselves on the nearest empty bench, joined hands, and closed our eyes to meditate. It was all we could do to shield ourselves from the kaleidoscope of papel de muerte and sugar skulls. My mind was on the cusp of resettling when my fragile concentration was interrupted by “¡BOO!”
The curtains of my eyes shot open to find that I was nose-to-nose with a mime. He was not quiet at all, as his outfit had promised. He had descended upon us hoping we’d be easy consumers to whom he could pedal the plastic jugetes and neon chupetes that filled his dolly. I recognized the plastic toys from El Mercado Sonora. Vendors such as he could buy them wholesale for fractions of pesos. El Mercado Sonora had been one of the more disturbing stops on our tour. Once we peeled through the layers of stalls of cheap whizzbangs and doodads that choked the sidewalks surrounding the market itself, we soon discovered the true nature of the commerce, and the question shifted from a cheerful, “¿Quieres comprar jugetes?” to a sinister, “¿Qué buscas?” As if to say, ask me for anything…and I mean anything. I believe there to be dos or tres actual portals to hell within the mercado walls. They’re located somewhere between the exotic animal corrals, the droves of brujería paraphernalia, and whatever else one may be looking for. But the toys and treats were all part of the same dark trade, symbolic of some characteristically 3rd world disease in which the locals rot their teeth out on the cheerful bulbs of lollipops and trash their very own streets with future landfill debris while the gringo weekenders stumble around like drunken mosquitos.
I wanted to tell the vendor everything I was thinking, but I could hardly find the words in English, let alone Spanish. I wanted him to know that we were feeling vulnerable and needed espacio. That we’d taken too many drogas by mistake, but not the bad kind, just the kind that make it really hard to be startled by a Mexican Mime in the middle of a crowded park on a holiday. I wanted to tell him that I understood his need to hustle, but what did he think we wanted with cheap figurines and dulces? Couldn’t he have targeted tourists who at least had their eyes open?
But what came out instead was, “¡Déjame!” Simple, understated, effective. And when he did finally fuck off, I counted to ten and looked over my shoulder for more mimes before closing my eyes to resume my fraught attempt at inner peace amid outer chaos.
I did not find peace. Instead, what I saw there in the back of my eyelids was a chubby red dragon, adolescent but enormous, writhing in anguish. He was in wet hot hysterics. Tears poured from his eyes, and his shoulders heaved with sobs as he sat on his butt with his stumpy legs outstretched in front of his slumped scaly potbelly. My dragon - I guess he was mine - had completely fallen apart. Like a child lost in the grocery store, his composure voided, he sought to comfort himself with the last-resort salve of rage-crying.
What I saw there in the back of my eyelids was the gatekeeper of my boundaries in archetypal form. The line between Self and World had been disturbed, the perimeter breached, and in the scramble to find my words - first in my native tongue, then in a foreign language all while psilocybin coursed through my veins - this gargoyle threw a tantrum that I will never unsee. He’d been caught off-duty. The mushrooms put him down for a nap, so when he was startled awake, unable to defend the castle with his claws and fire, all he could do was crumple pitifully against the orange wall of my mind’s eye.
Though the mycelium eventually showed mercy, our nervous systems implored us to escape the potent nucleus of the chaotic celebration of death. We linked arms and slid by groups of middle-aged women in colonial dress swaying in a slow synchronized line dance. We fancy-footed our way through children chasing each other around the coyote fountain. We said, “¡no gracias!” to ten more vendors before finally hitting a quiet street.
I told Sean about the dragon. I was struck by this unexpected discovery that such a creature existed at the port of my consciousness. As we meandered around the neighborhood, an unusual facade caught our attention: A red stucco wall with white ornamental tracery in the repeated shape of a whimsical clover topped with a balustrade. The reason we noticed it is because it seemed to go on forever. The wall fortified an entire block at least.
The wall was low enough that we could see the Spanish tile roofs of a few different structures. We followed the wall until we ran into an open door. Above the entrance hung two small flags, one European Union, and one Italian.
We entered to find a beautifully manicured courtyard. Nothing gave us the impression that we weren’t allowed to be there, so we strolled along the brick footpaths and admired the small sculptures on the pristine patches of lawn. The symmetry of the courtyard was the unscrambling elixir our brains were craving. The birdsong quiet, the gurgling of a damask-shaped water feature, the gentle smiles of other visitors. Restoration was on the horizon.
We stopped abruptly, our attention caught by a sculpture no taller than three feet. It was simple, ceramic-like. Our gaze was transfixed on the piece, our mouths muttering our shock.
It was a young woman next to a dragon. The dragon was much bigger than the girl, but he belonged to her. He sat on his butt with his stumpy legs outstretched in front of his slumped scaly potbelly. Within the serene order of the garden fortress, they sat contented and tearless.
