{"id":48753,"date":"2020-01-05T04:49:51","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T10:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=48753"},"modified":"2020-01-05T18:09:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T00:09:01","slug":"michael-mejia-matanzas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/michael-mejia-matanzas\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Mejia: Matanzas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"READ LOCAL First\u00a0boasts Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of accomplished writers who practice fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This month we bring you\u00a0Michael Mejia, author of the novels TOKYO\u00a0<\/em>and Forgetfulness<\/em>, both published by FC2.<\/p>\n

Mejia’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including AGNI<\/em>, DIAGRAM<\/em>, The Collagist<\/em>, and\u00a0Seneca Review<\/em>. Mejia is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. He serves as editor-in-chief of Western Humanities Review<\/em>, co-founding editor of Ninebark Press, and is a professor of creative writing at the University of Utah.<\/p>\n

The following excerpt (from a work-in-progress) imagines a period in the life of Gonzalo Mex\u00eda, prior to his participation in Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s’ expedition to conquer the Aztec empire in 1519.<\/p>\n

By some accounts, including that of Bernal D\u00edaz del Castillo (The True History of the Conquest of New Spain<\/em>, 1568), while returning to Hispaniola from a failed attempt to colonize the coast of Venezuela in the early 1500s, Mex\u00eda was shipwrecked on the island of Cuba and held captive by indigenous Ta\u00edno for as long as ten years.<\/p>\n

Matanzas<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In the first days, you listened to the waves on the shore, through the forest\u2014what they called arcabuco<\/em>\u2014knowing how close it was\u2014the sea\u2014how far you’d come\u2014again\u2014though not quite how far you remained from\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

The absence of certainty and home\u2014thinking of yourself as a seed on the wind\u2014taking shallow root\u2014loosening, surrendering your hold by your own will and moving on to richer soils\u2014black and damp\u2014awash in metals\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

You left the catastrophe of Darien to return to Hispaniola\u2014to start again\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Tilling their garden now\u2014alongside other slaves\u2014watched by guards\u2014repeating certain sounds of theirs as your own slip away\u2014receding into your inner silence\u2014gua<\/em>\u2014gua\u00ad<\/em>\u2014they say\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Guarda<\/em>\u2014guantelete<\/em>\u2014that sound\u2014theirs\u2014already there in your own words\u2014your language\u2014your pronunciation\u2014planting the seeds of who knows what\u2014guerra\u2014guerrero\u2014<\/em>words you’ve known your whole life\u2014words of that other world\u2014and now this one\u2014words you brought with you\u2014not objects, but the works of your body\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

A few more days, weeks, and you\u2019re attempting to mimic their pronunciation\u2014gua<\/em>\u2014or gua\u00ad<\/em>\u2014the name of the lizards penned at one end of the village\u2014gua<\/em>\u2014higuana<\/em>\u2014guey<\/em>\u2014the rising sun\u2014guana<\/em>\u2014the name of some other people\u2014real or imagined\u2014a superstition or an explanation\u2014living in another place\u2014as if they\u2019re real\u2014and not these slaves toiling beside you\u2014captives, like yourself\u2014who seem like enough to your captors\u2014your saviors\u2014to be the same, though they have a different name\u2014ciboney<\/em>, they say\u2014yours, your Indians, pointing\u2014ciboney<\/em>\u2014and the others, poking seeds in the soil, take no offense\u2014don’t lift their eyes from the task\u2014no insult, but their name\u2014Ciboney<\/em>\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Gua<\/em>\u2014there it is again in the name of their man, their lord\u2014who is also cacique<\/em>\u2014simple enough\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Guayaba<\/em>\u2014a fruit\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Ja<\/em>, they said, when they rescued you from the shipwreck\u2014cemi\u00ad <\/em>as they touched your face, your chest and shoulders\u2014but that talk dried up\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

In a few seasons, once you’ve given up on escape\u2014but how hard have you tried since they don’t seem inclined to slaughter you?\u2014you’ve earned a new name: Baracutey<\/em>, the same as a long, toothy fish they sometimes eat\u2014you eat\u2014and from whose teeth they make jewelry\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

A smile or frown accompanies the term, but you’re not sure why\u2014except that one or two others of them you’ve seen referred to the same way\u2014either for their recent catch, you suppose\u2014or because of their behavior\u2014baracutey<\/em>\u2014their nature which seems somewhat consistent with yours\u2014sullen and quiet\u2014removed from others\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Though you have a reason\u2014not being one of them\u2014your skin\u2014and no reason to change\u2014even as they come to you now with fewer demands\u2014with more invitations\u2014two years have passed and perhaps you’ll die here\u2014be buried like other men\u2014beneath the plaza\u2014renamed like them\u2014renamed again: op\u00eda<\/em>\u2014a spirit they feed and water\u2014that they celebrate\u2014that they fear\u2014the corruption and sickness you could bring from beneath the stones\u2014superstitious brutes\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

You work alongside them, nearly as an equal now\u2014planting and harvesting\u2014catching fish for your family\u2014the ones who took you in\u2014li<\/em>and lu<\/em>\u2014lucaia<\/em>\u2014another people across the water\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

So you take one as a wife\u2014and she bears a child\u2014and now you, too, are called ta\u00edno<\/em>\u2014with an ironic tone\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Guanahatabey\u00a0<\/em>is the name of those people to the west\u2014you hear it all now\u2014make the name easily with your mouth\u2014the place where they live: guanahacabibe<\/em>\u2014and you hear even more at night, in the quiet\u2014the breath of your family\u2014two children\u2014three\u2014a fourth on the way by a third woman\u2014the chitter and whoop of birds in the morning\u2014something scuttling in the arcabuco<\/em>\u2014bayoya<\/em>, his spiraling tail\u2014aon<\/em>, barking as you approach\u2014sucking the small bones of guimo<\/em>\u2014maja<\/em>, the big snake\u2014each of them distinct to your ear\u2014a taste\u2014an image\u2014a sensation\u2014you have touched everything\u2014and your nose is full of this place\u2014your feet cool on the damp earth\u2014your body\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

But\u00a0Baracutey<\/em>, it is so hard to be alone\u2014so you climb, looking out for snakes, find a sturdy limb and sit still\u2014how the place you were resurfaces at night, early in the morning\u2014that name, Gonzalo, that they have shortened to Zalo, or Salo, or ignore altogether\u2014You are Baracutey<\/em>\u2014Bara<\/em>\u2014Bara<\/em>\u2014Bara Bara<\/em>\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

That other place: a world of metal tools, farms, cities and roads\u2014clothing shops and markets\u2014wheeled vehicles and fences\u2014ships lost at sea\u2014one God, your parents, the bishop who wore eyeglasses\u2014the lenses ground in Sevilla\u2014glass\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

But this world here\u2014of hands\u2014of fingers and toes and tongues\u2014shark’s teeth and stone\u2014however brutal and random\u2014ignorant\u2014unfortunate\u2014you have come to embrace it\u2014perhaps because that’s all it requires of you\u2014like the dirt floor of your home\u2014that simplicity that could, nonetheless, easily be upset by someone\u2019s carelessness\u2014by the whim of a powerful man or another tribe\u2014even by your own family\u2014a petulant son\u2014a sickness\u2014a flood\u2014the storms they call hurac\u00e1n<\/em>\u2014just the same that shipwrecked you\u2014most of the crew and passengers drowned\u2014and those slaughtered after\u2014murdered by these people, you used to think\u2014later coming to accept that it was a matter of protection\u2014what you yourself would do for them now when armed men arrive\u2014for your family if not for your neighbors\u2014and isn’t this, too, the possibility of this life, why you’re here?\u2014why you crossed the ocean?<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

The tales told by those first men\u2014yours\u2014the Sp\u2014Spanish\u2014of the lives of these people\u2014the people\u2014ta\u00edno<\/em>\u2014narratives layered with disgust and pleasure\u2014with avarice\u2014those same men\u2014that other tribe you listen for now, so early in the morning\u2014knowing as your village can’t\u2014their verminous nature\u2014spreading and relentless\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

How limited this pleasure is\u2014a doom for which there is still no word\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

These people\u2014your people now\u2014ta\u00edno<\/em>\u2014won’t have the same advantages as the tribes in Darien\u2014of the invaders’ distance from supplies and reinforcements\u2014of leaders lacking competence\u2014of dissolute men with no furor of purpose\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

You sit still and the arcabuco\u00a0<\/em>grows over you\u2014a trail of insects on your arm and belly\u2014a ticklish scurrying\u2014a small bite\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Maybe you’ll die before they arrive\u2014but what’s taken them so long?\u2014and aren’t you at peace lying down exhausted, intoxicated in the dark?\u2014the body of this or that woman pressed against you\u2014don’t you feel the pleasures of this life as you’d never known or anticipated from the instruction of home or chapel? Wasn’t exactly this the reason you came across the ocean in the first place? This pleasure of home\u2014those children with your eyes\u2014<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Those Indian slaves in Santo Domingo\u2014strung up and burned for sport\u2014<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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