Читать книгу Ringside Seat to a Revolution - David Dorado Romo - Страница 11

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Downtown El Paso, ca. 1919. (Aultman Collection, El Paso Public Library.)

made this ludic zone even hotter. Today it’s still a

place of business for pimps, drug pushers, bar own-

ers, coyotes, sex tourists, smugglers, street jugglers,

judiciales, musicians, strip dancers and those who sell

photographs of Pancho Villa.

One afternoon I was taking pictures of some

Norteño musicians walking into a bar. I snapped a

photo of their bass player; he looked like an old rev-

olucionario. Suddenly two men wearing large gold

medallions of the Virgin Mary around their neck came

up to me in a state of agitation.

“Why are you taking pictures of us?” they asked.

I told them I was aiming my camera at the musi-

cians, not them.

They insisted I show them the photos on my dig-

ital camera and erase any pictures where even their

backsides were showing.

I agreed and erased most of my photographs.

“Órale pués. We’ll let you go,” they said, “but

don’t take any more pictures, all right?”

I was beginning to realize that psychogeographi-

cal research on the border could be a dangerous

occupation, especially when you’re not sure where

you’re going or what you’re looking for.

MY MAPMAKING EXCURSIONS took me to

several zones; but almost everywhere I went, Pancho

Villa had been there before me.

I ordered an elote en vaso and a lemonade near

a Korean-owned store on Mesa and Texas Streets

where everything costs a dollar. It had once been the

Elite Confectionary. Villa and General Pascual

Orozco, who headed Madero’s troops during the

Battle of Juárez, had been there in 1911. Pancho and

Pascual didn’t like each other very much, but they