Luscious Skin, in a rooftop room on Calle Tepeji, Mexico City DF, May 1976. Arturo Belano never liked me. Ulises Lima did. A person can sense these things. María Font liked me. Angélica Font didn't. It doesn't matter. The Rodríguez brothers liked me: Pancho, Moctezuma, and little Norberto. Sometimes they criticized me, sometimes Pancho said he didn't understand me (especially when I slept with men), but I knew that they still cared about me. Not Arturo Belano. He never liked me. I used to think it was Ernesto San Epifanio's fault. He and Arturo were friends before either of them was twenty, before Arturo went to Chile, supposedly to join the Revolution, and I'd been Ernesto's lover, or so they said, and I'd dumped him. But the truth is that I only slept with Ernesto a few times, so why should it be my fault if people got all worked up over nothing? I also slept with María Font, and Arturo Belano had a problem with that. And I would've slept with Luis Rosado that night at Priapo's, and then Arturo Belano would've kicked me out of the group.

I really don't know what I was doing wrong. When Belano heard what had happened at Priapo's, he said that we weren't thugs or pimps, but all I'd done was express my sensuality. In my defense I could only stutter (sarcastically, and not even looking him in the eye) that I was a freak of nature. But Belano didn't get the joke. As far as he was concerned, everything I did was wrong. And it wasn't even me who asked Luis Sebastián Rosado to dance. It was Luis, who was totally wasted and came on to me. I like Luis Rosado, is what I should have said, but nobody could say a thing to the André Breton of the Third World.

Arturo Belano had it in for me. And it's funny, because when I was around him I tried to do things right. But nothing ever worked out. I had no money, no job, no family. I lived off whatever I could scavenge. Once I stole a sculpture from the Casa del Lago. The director, that asshole Hugo Gutiérrez Vega, said it must have been a visceral realist. Impossible, said Belano. He probably turned red, he was so embarrassed. But he stood up for me. Impossible, he said, although he didn't know it had been me. (What would've happened if he had known?) A few days later Ulises told him: it was Luscious Skin who stole the sculpture. That's what he said, but without really thinking, like it was a joke. That's how Ulises is. He doesn't take these things seriously, they just seem funny to him. But Belano blew up, saying how could this happen, saying that the people at Casa del Lago had arranged for us to give several readings and that now he felt responsible for the theft. Like he was the mother of all the visceral realists. Still, he didn't do anything. He acted disgusted, that's all.

Sometimes I felt like kicking the shit out of him. Luckily, I'm a peace-loving person. Also, people said Belano was tough, but I knew he wasn't. He was eager, and brave in his own way, but he wasn't tough. Pancho is tough. My friend Moctezuma is tough. I'm tough. Belano just looked like he was tough, but I knew he wasn't. Then why didn't I let him have it some night? It must have been because I respected him. Even though he was younger than me and looked down on me and treated me like dirt, deep down I think I respected him and listened to him and was always waiting for some sign of recognition from him and I never lifted a hand against the bastard.

Laura Jáuregui, Tlalpan, Mexico City DF, May 1976. Have you ever seen a documentary about those birds that make gardens and towers and clearings in the bushes where they perform their mating dances? Did you know that the only ones that find a mate are the ones that make the best gardens, the best towers, the best clearings, the ones that perform the most elaborate dances? Haven't you ever seen those ridiculous birds that practically dance themselves to death to woo the female?

That's what Arturo Belano was like, a stupid, conceited peacock. And visceral realism was his exhausting dance of love for me. The thing was, I didn't love him anymore. You can woo a girl with a poem, but you can't hold on to her with a poem. Not even with a poetry movement.

Why did I keep hanging out with the same people he hung out with for a while? Well, they were my friends too, my friends still, although it wasn't long before I got tired of them. Let me tell you something. The university was real, the biology department was real, my professors were real, my classmates were real. By that I mean tangible, with goals that were more or less clear, plans that were more or less clear. Those people weren't real. The great poet Alí Chumacero (who I guess shouldn't be blamed for having a name like that) was real, do you see what I mean?, what he left behind was real. What they left behind, on the other hand, wasn't real. Poor little mice hypnotized by Ulises and led to the slaughter by Arturo. Let me put it as concisely as I can: the real problem was that they were almost all at least twenty and they acted like they were barely fifteen. Do you see what I mean?

Luis Sebastián Rosado, lawn party with lights in the grass at the Moores' house, more than twenty people, Colonia Las Lomas, Mexico City DF, July 1976. Against all the odds of logic or luck, I saw Luscious Skin again. I have no idea how he got my phone number. According to him, he called the editorial department of Línea de Salida and they gave it to him. Despite all the precautions dictated by common sense (but what the hell! aren't we poets supposed to do these things?), I agreed to meet him that same night, in a coffee shop on Insurgentes Sur where I sometimes used to go. The possibility of not showing up certainly passed through my mind, but when I got there (half an hour late), ready to turn around and leave if he was there with someone else, the sight of Luscious Skin alone, writing almost sprawled on the table, made a great warmth suddenly spread through my chest, which until then was icy, numb.

I ordered a coffee and told him he ought to order something too. He looked me in the eyes and smiled in embarrassment. He said he was broke. It doesn't matter, I said, get what you want, it's on me. Then he said he was hungry and he wanted some enchiladas. They don't make enchiladas here, I said, but they can bring you a sandwich. He seemed to think it over for a moment and then he said all right, a ham sandwich. He ate three sandwiches in total. I was supposed to call some people, and maybe see them, but I didn't call anyone. Or actually yes, I called my mother from the coffee shop to tell her that I'd be home late, and I blew off the rest of my plans.

What did we talk about? Lots of things. His family, the town he came from, his early days in Mexico City, how hard it had been for him to get used to the city, his dreams. He wanted to be a poet, a dancer, a singer, he wanted to have five children (like the fingers of a hand, he said, and he raised the palm of his hand, almost brushing my face), he wanted to try his luck at the Churubusco studios, saying that Oceransky had auditioned him for a play, he wanted to paint (he told me in great detail the ideas he had for some paintings). Anyway, at some point in our conversation I was tempted to tell him that I had no idea what I really wanted, but I decided to keep it to myself.

Then he asked me to come home with him. I live alone, he said. Quivering, I asked him where he lived. In Roma Sur, he said, in a room on the roof near the stars. I answered that it was after twelve now, really too late, and that I should go to bed because the next day the French novelist J.M.G. Arcimboldi was arriving in Mexico and some friends and I were going to arrange a tour of the sights of our chaotic capital. Who's Arcimboldi? said Luscious Skin. Those visceral realists really are ignoramuses. One of the greatest French novelists, I told him, though hardly any of his work has been translated, into Spanish, I mean, except one or two novels that came out in Argentina, but I've read him in French, of course. The name doesn't sound familiar, he said, and he insisted again that I come home with him. Why do you want me to come with you? I said, looking him in the eyes. I'm not usually so bold. I have something to tell you, he said, something that will interest you. How much will it interest me? I said. He looked at me as if he didn't understand and then he said, suddenly belligerent: how much what? how much money? No, I hurried to clarify, how much will what you have to say interest me. I had to stop myself from tousling his hair, from telling him not to be silly. It's about the visceral realists, he said. Oof, that doesn't interest me at all, I said. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, and don't take it the wrong way, but I couldn't care less about the visceral realists (God, what a name). What I have to tell you will interest you, I know it will, he said. They've got something big in the works. You have no idea.