Hot Sur Read Free Page B

by side of the road, like a banner or a poster; this act was deliberate and premeditated, and it’s clear that if whoever did it had wanted to hide the crime all they had to do was dump the body in the pond. But instead, they set up everything so whoever passed by on the road could see it, perhaps even so that we, my dad and I, couldn’t miss it, since not many people live around here. Who knows what their motivation was? Generally, you disfigure a victim when you don’t want the authorities to identify him. You take someone’s face off, or cover it, when you want to make them vanish from life. Someone without a face is no one, anonymous, a zero. Like the disappeared during the dictatorships in the Southern Cone: a black hood prevented them from being identified or identifying others as they were taken away and left in limbo. Pro wrestling stars in Mexico hide their identities behind masks, making them into mythic creatures before the eyes of the fans as has happened with Silver Masked Man, Blue Demon, and Son of the Saint. The worst damage a rival can inflict is to rip off the mask and expose his opponent’s true identity to the crowd, because this robs the wrestler of the aura of a hero and makes him mortal again. Subcomandante Marcos does the same thing with his ski mask and more or less for the same reasons, given the occupational hazards that necessitate his clandestine business. The Man in the Iron Mask, a twin of the king of France, was forced to wear it all his life so that no one would find out that the king, by nature the only one, had a double who eventually could replace him. And so on, to take off a face, to become someone else, or become oneself, invisible or nonexistent. Although it is also true that the consequences could be exactly the opposite, because the issue brings with it its own contradictions. Eagles’s murderer knows this well; instead of hiding what he did, his action made it evident. Subcomandante Marcos, in the jungles of Chiapas, became famous and visible in Mexico and the world mostly thanks to the stocking with holes that hid his face. Not to mention the case of V, my idol, the super anarchist in V for Vendetta : the mask that hides his face today has become the visible face of millions of young people around the world. Mr. Eagles’s face, always modest and inconspicuous, was never more visible than when it was ripped off and displayed. It brings to mind a photograph, like that famous one of Einstein, with the white hair floating around his head, or another one, also very well known, in which Picasso looks at the viewer with his eagle eyes. Or one of Marilyn Monroe, radiating seduction as she plunges into a stupor, as if she were on the brink of an orgasm, or of sleep, or death. Or Che—what about the face of Che Guevara?—the most significant scapegoat of modern times with a black beret as a crown of thorns and a trancelike expression as he offers himself as sacrifice. What are those pictures, those icons, but faces taken from their owners? Faces detached from their bodies. Saved from the physical and the circumstantial in a way that they’re worthy as themselves, they become eternal, their symbolic weight so powerful that decade after decade they reappear on walls and on the T-shirts we wear. And so is the case with the good Mr. Eagles. There is a rumor spreading that it was an isolated case of brutality by kids on drugs, strangers to this place who must have been passing by and who became deranged because of some chemical. I think that version is just another mask, so that the residents can feel at peace and the authorities can begin washing their hands. As for me, I can’t stop thinking about it, turning the questions over. I’m intrigued by the theatricality of the murderer, gluing the face to a rag, making sure the rag was red, and putting it on display for passersby on a tree trunk: a quest with purposeful theatrical effects. This was a ritual, my friend. Like in ancient