The Town of Babylon

by Alejandro Varela

Rosario and Álvaro had come to make a life, as they saw it, on someone else’s land. It was incumbent upon them to proceed humbly, to work tirelessly, and to enjoy themselves quietly.

I don’t know if I was aware of how hard I was trying, but somewhere in me, I sensed that if I ever stopped performing, even for a moment, the audience would leave; so, in a way, I left first. It never occurred to me that they’d remained in their seats.

He might not have realized it or admitted it if he had, but he wanted his skin and eyes to be lighter, his hair to be straighter, his nose to be narrower. But more than that, he wanted the attention and the value that seemed to correspond to them. The beauty, the camaraderie, the self-worth.

And so was seeded a lifetime of contradiction: Stay out of the midday sun. Avoid bright colors. Cover up. Lower your voice. At the same time: Be yourself. Be proud. Be the best. Be. Succeed while hiding in plain sight. Be better in order to be equal.

Who, after all, willingly relinquishes their upper hand? White, in a way, remained right. White was safe. White was clean. White was quiet. White was attractive. White was next door. White was on TV. White was on the cover. White were the teachers. White were the doctors. White was the president—all of them. White was the Lord and Savior. White was on top. White was everything. Black was different. Black was loud. Black was brash. Black was funny. Black was angry. Black was unsafe. Black was the mugshot on the news and the anti-drug PSA. Black was homeless. Black was Eddie Murphy. Black was Jesse Jackson. Black was Michael Jackson. Black was Janet. Black were the Jeffersons, the Winslows, the Bankses, the Cosbys. Black were Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, and O. J. Black was terrible or glorious, but nothing in between.

She’s radiant and vibrating, like something carbonated that’s been shaken.

I worry about how aging makes humans conservative. I think it has something to do with fear. Fear for one’s own safety, fear of damage to one’s property, fear of new and unknown things. Adult-onset conservatism is also just exhaustion. A lifetime of being optimistic about life’s unsolved problems fosters disappointment and, eventually, pessimism. But no one wants to believe they’re pessimistic, so they switch perspectives and move the goalposts.

We are, after all, a society that mistreats people to the point of damage so that we can then use the damage as a pretext for more mistreatment.

It had never, not for one moment, occurred to me to steal anything, but the clerks made me self-conscious. I began monitoring my movements. Eventually, unzipping my jacket or reaching into my pockets became a test of courage.

You just said all cops were evil. And I gave you an example of two good guys.” “Even the good guys are ruined eventually. You can’t have a two-tiered system of power in society. People walking around with a license to kill. That’ll corrupt anyone, especially in an uneven society that uses the pretext of poverty to legitimize racism.”

I nodded without much conviction. My bladder was about to burst, and I couldn’t focus on a future farther than my bathroom.