A Zero-Sum Game. Eduardo Rabasa

him once again with requests, he openly shunned them, sending out a veiled message that something was going to happen.

      To clear up any doubts in the communal mind, Juana Mecha repeated to anyone interested: “The speckled cock’s about to stretch its wings.” Maso was waiting for Taimado to raise the checkered flag.

      The first step was to weaken the groups from within, stealthily placing explosives to bring about an implosion. Contact was made with the most corruptible elements: a talent scout in a linen suit promised the Lolitos places on the catwalk of a coming fashion contest, a sure springboard to stardom. They went excitedly home to consult the faithful mirror that never lied. Due to their sinuous ethical principles, the s were more difficult to bribe. A handful was persuaded that the group had sold out. The cancerous cells had to die before they contaminated to rest: those who survived could head a new cult. Comparisons with characters from their favorite fantasy sagas were used to convince them. They were commissioned to produce an illustrated book, a compilation of the maxims of their deformed idols called The Wary Warrior’s Manual. The dissident s saw it as a foundational document in the regeneration of the Marginals.

      The coopted members of both gangs provided Taimado with precise information on the structure of their organizations. They were also asked to plant rumors about the quality of the goods, already dangerously poor due to the wars. Each gang accused the other of cutting their wares with fertilizer and powdered gelatin. Stories of blindness and other secondary effects were rife. Consumer confidence plummeted.

      To assure a simultaneous, two-pronged attack, the turncoat Lolitos were asked to organize a megaparty on a specific day: every year the s got together to commemorate the anniversary of the death of a famous guitarist—responsible for uncountable moments of acid-fueled depression—where they spent drugged-out hours listening to his albums under a strict rule of silence. They would gradually fall into a gummy-eyed, drooling trance, before collapsing unconscious. This was the most long-awaited date in the calendar and it was an unmitigated provocation for the Lolitos to play their plastic music on that day.

      Taimado had ensured that unusually large orders were placed separately with two of the chief Lolitos, who, to cover the cost, borrowed money from their mothers on some school-related pretext. The mothers failed to note the strangeness of this one-off charge during the school holidays. The Lolito suppliers arrived at the party, walking on air from the weightlessness of the powders stashed in their pre-torn jeans.

      When they didn’t find their supposed buyers, they attempted to keep cool, but their edginess slowly began to affect earlier clients. Two girls who had a crush on one of them bought a couple of bags from him, only to later flush them down the toilet. When one Lolito found the other closing a deal, he realized that he’d been set up: his comrade had put in the order just to bring about his ruin. He decided to confront him. They exchanged accusations until one of them lashed out. Biting and hair pulling followed. The struggle reached an impasse: one had an arm around the other’s neck and was twisting his nose with his free hand, while the other had four fingers in his opponent’s groin, squeezing. They were tangled up in a cloud of groans when the Black Paunches burst in on the party and threw a Cuba Libre in their faces to separate them. The Lolitos were kneading their stinging eyes when they were dragged out.

      The Black Paunches gathered the two Lolitos and their mothers in the Chamber of Murmurs. The boys couldn’t speak for sobbing. Their mothers had never before seen those pills, powders, herbs, and strips of liquid-smeared paper, much less in such large—albeit diminished, after Taimado’s guys had taken their cut—quantities. Amid frenzied anxiety, overflowing love, demented cackles, and visions of two-headed mothers, the Black Paunches looked on as the domestic drama unfolded. The mothers came up with the idea that their sons should work to pay back their debt to the community. The following day, they were handed over to Juana Mecha, who gave them each a baggy beige overall, the uniform they would wear during their temporary membership of Villa Miserias’ cleaning squad. They didn’t even try to understand her words of welcome: “First they pamper you and then they don’t like you being soft.” The other Lolitos watched their fallen comrades carrying banana skins between two disgusted fingers: they were thankful not to be in their place. The gang had had its day.

      In the case of the s, the plan for dismantling them by means of ideological discord functioned to perfection. Perdumes had a new mission for Orquídea López that he would use to check if she had what it took for another project, still in its infancy: the editorship of the first local newspaper, The Daily Miserias. For the moment, her task consisted of creating an apocryphal piece of reportage: an invented article, apparently published years before in an influential foreign paper. It would relate a scandal involving the mythical rock musician whose death the Marginals commemorated.

      While onstage, during a massive, mud-soaked concert, the musician had produced a product symbolizing the empty consumerism of his native land. It was a pet rock—eyes dangling on a spring and a red rubber mouth—launched onto the market amid a great deal of hype, but which had achieved little success. After questioning the meaning of its existence, the rot it represented, the harm it would do to innocent children, the star had—to the delight of his devoted fans—annihilated the pet rock with blows from his guitar. From then on, they came to his concerts carrying one of the inert pets. During a particular guitar solo of his hit “When Goth Became Pop,” they would shatter the stones. As a consequence, sales of pet rocks soared into the millions. So far, the story was true, testified to by hundreds of eyewitnesses, videos, and photographs of fans, forcefully castigating the pacific rocks.

      The apocryphal article revealed a secret agreement between the controversial rock musician and the company that had contracted him to express public hatred of its stone pets. The most loyal fans, who went to many of the concerts of what turned out to be his farewell tour, shattered a great number of the stones that—when the star was extinguished with two bottles of barbiturates—were left as a symbol of the social norms that had caged him. The incriminating piece, written under the byline of Stanley Higgins, even claimed that the musician’s family continued to receive royalties for many years. The occult nature of the icon was clearly proven: it was one more product of that corporative machine his songs yearned to destroy. Orquídea printed out the article on newsprint and left it in the sun for hours to obtain a tone corresponding to the supposed date of publication. The torn edges were her final touch. Perdumes was amazed by the result. The sham clipping was anonymously left in the mailbox of one of the s who was already questioning the authenticity of the movement.

      The high point of the Marginals’ annual festivity was the moment when a piece of volcanic rock, with paperclip eyes and Styrofoam lips, was dissolved in strong acid. The s would sing the emblematic song just as the rock was about to completely disappear, with those who were still capable automatically gathering in a circle around the flask of acid. The current leader would raise the container to demonstrate that the solid might vanish but the spirit never. The others would nod to the rhythm of drumbeat, their faces hidden by their flowing locks. This was often the last image some of those present had of the evening.

      No one had anticipated the schism that was about to occur. With a true sense of drama, the puppet