Lumpen: horrible forms of beauty

I had finished teaching a long class in Mexico City, I felt exhausted.

There the displacements are cyclopean and can take hours.

Nothing I didn't know – I've been many times – but the accumulation of transfers always produces a worrying tendency towards ostracism and confinement.

When night begins to fall, Coyoacán, my place of lodging, retreats, acquires a provincial character full of calm, so that, although it was late, I went out and walked looking at the street vendors who kept their merchandise, the squirrels in the garden of a very old house, the damp bougainvillea.

I went south, towards the Plaza de la Concepción.

There, a husky and several cuzcos ran after a ball.

It rained skillfully, gently, as if to calm the area.

The speed of the dogs did not disturb the stillness.

Next to one of the benches were two men.

One played the ukulele, the other a beat-up guitar.

They wore blue jackets that could have been a uniform.

They interpreted a pounding melody in a mechanical and sensitive way, which had the circularity of children's circles and Andean couplets.

A few simple and resplendent notes that meekly pierced the sunset.

The one with the guitar began to sing.

The voice entered the music like a stiff but enthusiastic body, with modest violence.

He had a ragged, innocent voice, a hypnotic bark that tumbled into an enchanting detune.

It was something playful and precious, of poor quality, that folded on itself and could go on forever.

When the song ended, they would pause briefly and, without speaking, start a new one whose melody was identical to the previous one.

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