A Study of Two Towns
Though we’ve yet to feel it, in other towns are lives
to which we’re not so much participants as fabulists.
One town, for example, isn’t a town but a city,
the difference being if you look around, you’d see
how alive rot is, how forty-degree nights sizzle in it
and smell. Concrete barracks left vacant by the GIs,
rusted-over cargo planes, gaudy hotels with peeling paint.
And winding around an avenue of neon and piss
are power lines: like the twigs of a nest, they hide
centimeters of sky. The entire city’s a fucking brothel,
says the white journalist to the local she quotes from.
Though in this city children also makeshift games
of throwing slippers at empty tin cans, their faces
are paler, eyes blue, green, borrowed, and hazel;
in our town are children made of sinew and leather.
Though we’re better at worship, we don’t receive
fathers who name their babies after thoroughbreds.
In this other city are go-go bars where finger food
is a euphemism for girls. Every hand’s a pastime,
every mouth a machine. In our town we’ve drawn
the latest savior out of a stone, waited for his divine
kingdom, knowing it must in time collapse. We don’t,
we only know how to milk a miracle or two. In both
city and town stand cathedrals, our virgins swathed
in the unreliable light of votives, our fingers animals
on walls. Aren’t we all sick of the shadows made-up
warnings make? We share enmities and by extension
the same unamazing hopes. God, of course, and money–
we’ve traded knockoff truths for money—and salvation.
Salvation’s no original idea: we’re promised it so often
it’s familiar as rain or blame, and every day we get to peddle
shame we cave into ourselves until rubbled into place.
Miracle Town, a Timeline of the Twentieth Century
| 1904 | Bops its heads to the music at the plaza, every major street has formed a band, never mind if its members can’t tell the difference between an arranger keyboard and a workstation synthesizer. American soldiers, in an effort to limit their battalion’s body count, make small talk with the townsfolk during intermissions and applaud with unconditional eagerness. |
| 1907 | Decides that cockfighting is the best pastime. While the men groom the feathers of their gamecocks, fickle reds gleaming with virility, their sons sharpen the metal spurs. The cockpit grows as popular as the church, each developing an ill-concealed contempt for the other. |
| 1910 | Rejoices upon hearing that the national railroad system would be extended up to its province and a station built three blocks from the primary school. Not the best choice of location, almost everyone agrees, but a necessary sacrifice, much like the tobacco farm the government would have to seize because the tracks would cut through it. |
| 1912 | Elects as mayor the former revolutionary who led the town’s only major battle with the Spaniards. The Americans approve but keep a close watch, the parable proving that it’s not about being good but about being ready. |
| 1917 | Stifles its character-altering disappointment when the railroad station is built two towns away. |
| 1923 | Experiences terror when it sees a hovering drone. Though the townsfolk try killing it using slingshots, the drone continues its insistent buzzing, mocking them for missing the point. |
| 1934 | Points fingers at each other but in secret when three of the fairest-skinned children disappear. Public conjectures include the soldiers taking them, though this is quickly discarded, you mustn’t say that again, and a man with a flute leading them into the ocean, a theory that’s given credence when along the shore a fisherman sees a stray sandal wedged between two rocks. |
| 1937 | Ignores a few disgruntled men and overwhelmingly votes in favor of women’s suffrage. |
| 1942 | Is chased up the mountains by the new invaders. Having in the past exercised admirable servility with its foreign masters, the town never forgets this slight. |
| 1943 | Ambushes a Japanese patrol and, stealthing from house to house, punishes the local collaborators. In retaliation, the mayor, who belongs to the town’s most prominent family, executes suspected guerrilla members. Fury ricochets off among the three sides. |
| 1946 | Continues making soft brooms, sweeping the dust off its pants with its hands. Burns down the garrison. |
| 1954 | Almost dies from a typhoon, shrugs its shoulders though it wants to spend more time weeping. After the requisite prayers, walks into the forest in search of roofing. |
| 1961 | Elects a lawyer known for his oratorical skills, his hands precise when he gesticulates. In gratitude, the new mayor sponsors a merienda for everyone, right before the annual beauty pageant. |
| 1964–68 | Experiences what feels like an endless summer, the crickets in the evening interrupted by occasional gunshots. Enters the era of the videoke, never leaves it. |
| 1967 | Grieves when all the roosters die from a mysterious disease, ending the town’s first of three enduring love affairs. The parish priest who initially claims the plague is divine intervention makes a retraction when the poor boxes remain empty for seven straight weeks. |
| 1972 | Is taught the value of strategic cruelty. |
| 1973 | Enters an era of more than average prosperity, thanks to the dictator’s provincialism. Thinks of reciprocating by naming its university after his father. |
| 1975 | Gets wind of the virgin’s regular visits to a male acolyte at the local monastery. Consumes a lot of candles, used during nightly vigils. The parish priest, out of caution and exasperation, asks him to leave the monastery. |
| 1977 | Gladly spends money on water from the miraculous hill, tumors supernaturally excised, faith rewarded. In lieu of developers who are still two decades away, constructs makeshift shelters at the foot of the hill, singing Marian songs as it hammers a nail or trips over the roots of a dead tree. Doesn’t yet realize when the better prophet is born. |
| 1980 | Takes leisurely walks at the park commissioned by the mayor who prefers, according to well-placed sources, “surrounding himself with beauty.” The park, built close enough to the plaza, survives in its location for three decades before it’s replaced by a strip mall without a movie house and its name is relocated to the outskirts, right next to the water reservoir. |
| 1980 | Reiterates its commitment to neighborly concern as a means of legitimating its love of gossip. |
| 1981 | Questions, when a homegrown priest is shot four times in the back, the difference between strategic cruelty and cruelty. Decides which lord to be a slave to. |
| 1982 | Decries its status as a generic town and attempts to control its destiny by erecting a monumental eagle at the mouth of a highway also named after the dictator. The eagle inspires joy among the townsfolk, causing them to keep dancing even as the country further collapses. |
| 1986 | Grows restless as the virgin stops appearing to the old prophet, despite his denials. Rationalizes that if the virgin were still with him, would he almost die of a heart attack, walk with a limp, suffer in all the other normal ways everyone without money suffers. |
| 1989 | Laments anti-smoking campaigns but momentarily recovers when the better prophet is visited by the virgin, this time under a different title, cherubs singing Latin hymns as she makes her way down from heaven. |
| 1990 | Feels the earthquake. Though the belfry collapses on two sacristans, the bronze bell itself is unscathed and needs only a good polish, leading the parish priest to call it a miracle. Agrees with the priest. The virgin shakes her head when the prophet tells her this. Disagrees with the priest. |
| 1993 | Balloons to a million to witness the prophet’s tête-à-tête with the virgin at the new apparition hill. Sells balloons at the hill to distract the children, hijacks the first-person plural. |
| 1995 | Brushes off the findings of the investigative team, which rules that the apparitions are inauthentic because the virgin’s messages are clearly plagiarized. If she were indeed divine and present, wonder the visiting priests, wouldn’t she have been able to say something different this time around. Mildly disagrees with priests. |
| 1999 | Attends the ceremony renaming the highway after the dead dictator’s dead underling, his body buried in the minor basilica’s catacombs for having made sin offerings throughout his bloody government tenure. Continues to refer to the highway by the dictator’s last name. |