by Maximiliano Guzmán
I learned to play dead and pretend I don’t give a damn about anything.
How did I do it?
I started my classes in Body Inexpression after violently arguing with my boss at the Arcor factory.
He told me:
"Óscar, stop acting like an idiot."
Because I had thrown a handful of contraceptive pills for pets—stolen from San Vicente Veterinary—into the chocolate mix for the puddings.
He didn’t understand that I was favoring the chemical castration of the town.
"But we’re not animals!" my boss said, and suspended me with a request for therapy to control my impulses.
***
It was the psychologist at Liborio Forte Hospital who, in the first session, analyzed my thirty-two years of life and told me with a tender, calm voice:
"You need classes in Body Inexpression."
"What?" I asked.
"They’re classes to keep you under control," she replied, and gave me the phone number of the theater teacher, María Alejandra.
I sent her a message:
I WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN THAT OTHERWISE I WON’T BE ABLE TO RETURN TO THE FACTORY.
The teacher replied:
Ten thousand pesos a month.
You’ll be a leaf in autumn, Óscar.
And she sent me her transfer number.
I needed those ten thousand pesos but I also needed to work. I hadn’t been fired. I had to change.
***
I was willing to change, and the following Tuesday the classes began.
At Club Unión Sportiva, Alejandra was waiting with other people, neighbors who perhaps suffered the same problem as me.
As if we were strangers, we didn’t look at each other or say anything. There was the butcher from Carnes del Sur, an employee from Sabri, a girl from Cordiez, two teenagers with their father supervising, a rough guy from the mattress shop.
I breathed deeply, worried. I expected the worst. I felt we were going to fight hand to hand until our blood stuck to our clothes. I was afraid.
Because I still couldn’t know what “Inexpression” meant, they could leave me in assisted coma with my face smashed. Inexpressive.
But luckily…it was simpler.
The teacher said:
"Breathe slowly, stretch arms and legs."
I did it at the same time as the others.
"Close your eyes and imagine you’re a cloud."
"A cloud?" I said aloud, confused.
"Yes…a cloud floating in the blue sky," she added.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was a cloud. And no…it was hard to imagine.
I tried.
After two minutes the teacher said:
"Now start screaming like crazy!"
That was hilarious!
Everyone there started screaming, letting out what was stuck in our souls.
When the screaming ended, the teacher pulled a Bolivian marijuana cigarette from a small bag.
She lit it while we watched, astonished.
And she took a drag without exhaling.
"This is the second part," she said, and the cigarette passed from hand to hand, even reaching the teenagers.
The father grabbed it and smoked, telling his kids:
"This is poison," and passed it on until it returned to the teacher.
With spirits lighter from the marijuana, my thoughts turned liquid.
"Relax, friends…" said the teacher, approaching the butcher and slapping him.
"Piece of shit," she said.
She went to the girl from Cordiez.
"Bitch," she shouted, pulling her hair.
We were truly shocked.
She insulted each of us. To me she said:
"Smelly pig."
I wanted to tear her head off, but she explained aloud:
"Now that you hate me, that your bodies are tense and ready to attack, control the rage."
It didn’t go perfectly.
A girl from the bakery tried to punch her in the face. We had to intervene.
The rough guy from the mattress shop left the class.
The teenagers cried and punched the wall of the club.
"Some fail," said the teacher when things calmed down.
I felt good, strangely good. I hadn’t reacted to the provocation. I was progressing quickly.
The teacher pulled out another marijuana cigarette. I hoped to keep smoking, but the class was over.
I wanted to ask her out for coffee or beer. She didn’t answer, looked me up and down, picked up her bag, and left the club.
***
I went home.
Made a lousy dinner of rice with butter and watched gang bang porn without masturbating until I fell asleep.
***
The second class was different, very different from what I expected.
She paired us in twos and asked us to humiliate each other. To say the worst things we could think of.
The magic was in not responding to the insults. Staying calm.
I shouted at the Correo Argentino employee that he was a failure, that I made more money than him.
He told me I was a disgusting fat man and that my last girlfriend had killed herself after having sex with me. That wasn’t true, but it hurt.
Angry and furious, we tried to control the impulse toward violence.
And the teacher said:
"Kiss each other’s lips."
We all looked, curious.
"Everyone is failing!" she shouted, and ended the class.
***
In the third class I understood what she wanted. Most arrived at Club Unión Sportiva having reflected on the previous classes.
The teacher greeted us and approached each of us.
She touched our genitals.
(Luckily the teenagers were no longer there.)
And while fondling my balls she looked me in the face.
I stayed silent, expressionless, enjoying it.
She stopped touching me and went to the girl from Cordiez. Kissed her lips and touched her tits. She responded with a kiss. It looked like they would make love. But the teacher pulled away and slapped her.
"I don’t want to see that giraffe face again," she told the girl from Cordiez, who burst into tears. "You should take pills, friend. You’re not cut out for this," she added as the girl left, anguished.
"Life is hard, friends. There’s a lot of shit in this town and in the world. And it has to suck our dick or our pussy," she continued, gesturing, walking, staring at us. "If you can avoid expressing pain, fear, rage, or love and happiness, you can conquer the world!" she said, raising her arm high. "Just like the powerful do at the top of the social pyramid."
I fell completely in love with that woman.
My heart pounded and I repeated:
"Conquer the world!" And I felt stupid when no one joined me and the teacher said:
"You’ve failed, Óscar. You also need pills and a good psychiatrist."
My world collapsed in that instant.
"What are you saying?" I asked, sad and furious.
"You’ve failed," she said. "You can leave…" she added.
"But I’m doing it right," I replied.
"I won’t refund your money," she added with a smile.
I clenched my fists, but a superior force lowered my adrenaline.
My body softened.
And I stood there, not moving a muscle, not showing frustration or dissatisfaction.
The teacher came close, kissed my cheek, and whispered in my ear:
"You won the prize, friend."
And I kept my composure, unmoving, without expressing feelings or emotions.
"Nobody cares what we think, do, or believe. To the world we’re disposable. And our victory is that we don’t care what they think or say about us either."
She was right.
And I stayed there watching until the class ended.
The teacher congratulated me and told me not to come back. That she would never go out with me, that I could die and be just another number among millions of people, and nobody would remember me.
And I said nothing, did nothing.
I had learned and was making natural the process of turning a deaf ear, ignoring, losing interest. I felt myself maturing as a man and a human.
I was the leaf in autumn.
***
And when I returned to the factory two weeks later, I beat my boss unconscious after arguing again about the pet contraceptives I had thrown this time into the caramel mix.
What did you expect?
END
______
Maximiliano Guzmán (b. 1991, Recreo, Catamarca, Argentina) is the author of the novella Hamacas (Zona Borde Editorial) He serves as an editor for the digital magazine La Tuerca Andante (Argentina) and has published short fiction across magazines in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Cuba, Croatia and the United States.
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