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mallorys_cameraI first heard about the god from a guy named Genaro whose Potrero Heights garage was kind of a halfway house for Mayan-inspired artifacts looking to make a fresh start in some currency speculator's pre-Columbian art collection.
"The one they got at the botanica ain't the real one, but not a fake either," Genaro told me. "I think maybe they pick him up in Guate. But you should see the real one. It's wild, man. Like a Vegas act, Howdy Doody on acid."
"A god, huh?" When you were with Genaro, you never paid attention to anything he said. You were too busy watching his hands. "So – what? You mean like one of those Mexican folk saints?"
"Fuck, no. Maximon don't sit in no church, man." Genaro grinned, showing yellow, uneven teeth. "Maximon smokes and drinks. Havana cigars, rum, raw cane alcohol. The Indians sacrifice chickens, goats and shit. The rucas bounce on his lap." He hunched over a joint with a book of matches and almost succeeded in lighting a strand of his greasy, graying hair. Genaro did a lot of work with blowtorches. Often he would forget to close the valve to the acetylene tank when he lit up and this was one of just many reasons why I liked to keep a respectful distance from him at all times.
"They tell the Maximon their secrets, ask him for advice," Genaro continued. "Then they smear themselves with blood, do the hoochie-coochie and trance out flat on their faces. It's a real scene."
"Beats writing to Dr. Phil," I observed mildly. "So this Maximon is a statue?"
Genaro frowned. "More like a wooden dummy. They dress him up in real old clothes. But he's cool, man. He's cool. He's got shades. Wears the colors around his neck."
I picked up a small stone bird effigy off the tool shelf and examined it. If it were real, the piece would command a good twelve grand. We'd still get twenty-five hundred for it.
"How much would something like that be worth?" I asked casually.
The glint in Genaro's eyes turned shrewd. "Depends. Depends. For someone who knows what it is, maybe a lot. Maximon is the last of the Mayan gods."
I had to laugh. "Quetzacoatl's idiot cousin?"
Genaro shrugged. "Believe what you want. No skin off my ass. I know what I know. My abuelo belonged to the brotherhood. The year I was born, the Maximon lived in his house. My mother had me blessed."
I laughed again. "Did it work?"
Genaro shot me a dark look, sucked on his joint. After a minute, he said, "You wanna watch that mouth, Hazard. I'm here, ain't I? My grandpa ain't. You know why? The government soldiers killed him.
"My dad ain't here neither. The government didn't have to waste a bullet on him. No, man, he just wasted away after they built the big dam and his village got buried under a mile of water. The government don't give a shit so long as those tourists in Antigua can flush their toilets in those big hotels. Rabinal. That was the village's name. Nobody remembers it anymore. Except me." He spat.
"Yeah, you wanna watch that mouth. Now me, I'm a mellow dude. I think: Hazard's an asshole, but he's young, he's white. He don't mean no disrespect. But not everybody you meet is gonna see it that way. Not in this line of work."
I didn't mind the lecture. After all, people had been delivering variants on it almost from the moment I'd been born, some twenty-five odd years before. I never took it personally which is probably why it never pissed me off and also why I continued to say whatever the hell I wanted to whenever I felt like it.
"What happened to your mother?" I asked.
"When my dad died, we moved to Guate. She didn't have no fuckin' job skills." Genaro compressed a lifetime of rage into those two words. "So she worked the streets. You white guys have dirty minds especially after you get old and fat. She saved her money. When there was enough, we came to California. San Francisco! Land of opportunity." He grinned wolfishly. "This was a place where I could make money! Today she lives like a fuckin' queen. I'm still around too. Lotta people would like it better if I wasn't, but fuck 'em."
In the three years since I'd been kicked out of the University of California at Berkeley's art history department to commence my professional association with forged relics, I'd heard a lot of different versions of the Genaro creation myth. Every story was different though certain thematic elements remained the same – the mother who worked as a hooker for example. I suspect Genaro has unresolved issues with women.
This was a new one though: salvation through the miraculous intervention of a wooden dummy. I liked it. I liked it almost as much as the version in which Genaro – a homeless street urchin in Xela – got knocked out by a Federales bayonet only to regain consciousness when an over-zealous feral dog began nibbling at his scrotum.
Sometime during his long, uneasy association with contraband materials and the San Francisco building code, Genaro had installed a plexiglass porthole in the rear of the garage. I wandered over to it now and peered out. Twilight. The streets that snaked up over the jagged hillside were empty of traffic, the houses clustering alongside it lit from within by the comforting blue flicker of multiple televisions tuned to variations on the same subliminal programming. Civilization's embers, I thought. Look out for flying insects.
When I finally turned around again, Genaro was back at work, blow torch in hand, putting the finishing touches on a large piece of statuary: a man caught in the jaws of a jaguar.
"Piece of shit," Genaro grumbled. "Fuckin' Sigfried and Roy. Pisses me off, desecrating my heritage."
"Pays good," I pointed out cheerfully. "But maybe, you know, you can make money without having to desecrate your proud Mayan heritage. What was that wooden dummy's name again? Moshymon?"
"Maximon, ass wipe. Sometimes they call him St. Simon. Or Mam. But mostly they call him Maximon."
"Maximon." I tried to say it but my tongue was not up to the clicks and sibilances of the ancient Tsutuhuil language. "And you saw it at the botanica?"
"Yeah. You know the place. Off Valencia? Behind the Pink Palace?"
"What's it doing there?"
"Magic," said Genaro. "Same as anywhere else."
"But it's not the real one?"
"Oh, it's real," said Genaro. "But not as real as the real one."
"What does that mean?"
Genaro was losing patience. He put down the blowtorch, raised his goggles. Gave the jaguar a last angry kick. "I told you, man. Every village had one. Every village in the highlands or around the lake anyway. A lot of those villages aren't there anymore so the Mams aren't there either. But the real Maximon is in Santiago where my mother was born."
"That's on Lake Atitlán, right? A little off the beaten path as far as the treasures of the lost civilization go. No ruins there."
"Plenty of ruins there," said Genaro. "The human kind."
The private market for folk art had begun to heat up. Not as lucrative as the museum trade perhaps, but given how rigorous enforcement of the various prohibitions against the import and export of so-called Cultural Property had become, considerably less risky.
In a small Coptic village just outside Karnak, I'd recently come across a crude statuette of St. Botros. Dubious antiquity, but the villagers attributed all manner of small miracles to it, chief among them the ability to transform sour milk into fresh. I spray-painted the figure with a water-soluble red lacquer and shipped it from the FedEx office in the Cairo airport to the Zurich airport's duty-free zone. A soap manufacturer from New Jersey forked over a sum in the high five figures. "If you ever run across any more like this one, give me first refusal," he begged.
I was shocked. Who knew the soap guy had such a hard on for dairy products?
Whatever superpower, Maximon was hustling, someone would want to buy. It was only a matter of haggling down the price with the present owners.
"It's a lovely evening," I said to Genaro. "How about we go for a drive?"
© 2007 p.a. dilucchio
"The one they got at the botanica ain't the real one, but not a fake either," Genaro told me. "I think maybe they pick him up in Guate. But you should see the real one. It's wild, man. Like a Vegas act, Howdy Doody on acid."
"A god, huh?" When you were with Genaro, you never paid attention to anything he said. You were too busy watching his hands. "So – what? You mean like one of those Mexican folk saints?"
"Fuck, no. Maximon don't sit in no church, man." Genaro grinned, showing yellow, uneven teeth. "Maximon smokes and drinks. Havana cigars, rum, raw cane alcohol. The Indians sacrifice chickens, goats and shit. The rucas bounce on his lap." He hunched over a joint with a book of matches and almost succeeded in lighting a strand of his greasy, graying hair. Genaro did a lot of work with blowtorches. Often he would forget to close the valve to the acetylene tank when he lit up and this was one of just many reasons why I liked to keep a respectful distance from him at all times.
"They tell the Maximon their secrets, ask him for advice," Genaro continued. "Then they smear themselves with blood, do the hoochie-coochie and trance out flat on their faces. It's a real scene."
"Beats writing to Dr. Phil," I observed mildly. "So this Maximon is a statue?"
Genaro frowned. "More like a wooden dummy. They dress him up in real old clothes. But he's cool, man. He's cool. He's got shades. Wears the colors around his neck."
I picked up a small stone bird effigy off the tool shelf and examined it. If it were real, the piece would command a good twelve grand. We'd still get twenty-five hundred for it.
"How much would something like that be worth?" I asked casually.
The glint in Genaro's eyes turned shrewd. "Depends. Depends. For someone who knows what it is, maybe a lot. Maximon is the last of the Mayan gods."
I had to laugh. "Quetzacoatl's idiot cousin?"
Genaro shrugged. "Believe what you want. No skin off my ass. I know what I know. My abuelo belonged to the brotherhood. The year I was born, the Maximon lived in his house. My mother had me blessed."
I laughed again. "Did it work?"
Genaro shot me a dark look, sucked on his joint. After a minute, he said, "You wanna watch that mouth, Hazard. I'm here, ain't I? My grandpa ain't. You know why? The government soldiers killed him.
"My dad ain't here neither. The government didn't have to waste a bullet on him. No, man, he just wasted away after they built the big dam and his village got buried under a mile of water. The government don't give a shit so long as those tourists in Antigua can flush their toilets in those big hotels. Rabinal. That was the village's name. Nobody remembers it anymore. Except me." He spat.
"Yeah, you wanna watch that mouth. Now me, I'm a mellow dude. I think: Hazard's an asshole, but he's young, he's white. He don't mean no disrespect. But not everybody you meet is gonna see it that way. Not in this line of work."
I didn't mind the lecture. After all, people had been delivering variants on it almost from the moment I'd been born, some twenty-five odd years before. I never took it personally which is probably why it never pissed me off and also why I continued to say whatever the hell I wanted to whenever I felt like it.
"What happened to your mother?" I asked.
"When my dad died, we moved to Guate. She didn't have no fuckin' job skills." Genaro compressed a lifetime of rage into those two words. "So she worked the streets. You white guys have dirty minds especially after you get old and fat. She saved her money. When there was enough, we came to California. San Francisco! Land of opportunity." He grinned wolfishly. "This was a place where I could make money! Today she lives like a fuckin' queen. I'm still around too. Lotta people would like it better if I wasn't, but fuck 'em."
In the three years since I'd been kicked out of the University of California at Berkeley's art history department to commence my professional association with forged relics, I'd heard a lot of different versions of the Genaro creation myth. Every story was different though certain thematic elements remained the same – the mother who worked as a hooker for example. I suspect Genaro has unresolved issues with women.
This was a new one though: salvation through the miraculous intervention of a wooden dummy. I liked it. I liked it almost as much as the version in which Genaro – a homeless street urchin in Xela – got knocked out by a Federales bayonet only to regain consciousness when an over-zealous feral dog began nibbling at his scrotum.
Sometime during his long, uneasy association with contraband materials and the San Francisco building code, Genaro had installed a plexiglass porthole in the rear of the garage. I wandered over to it now and peered out. Twilight. The streets that snaked up over the jagged hillside were empty of traffic, the houses clustering alongside it lit from within by the comforting blue flicker of multiple televisions tuned to variations on the same subliminal programming. Civilization's embers, I thought. Look out for flying insects.
When I finally turned around again, Genaro was back at work, blow torch in hand, putting the finishing touches on a large piece of statuary: a man caught in the jaws of a jaguar.
"Piece of shit," Genaro grumbled. "Fuckin' Sigfried and Roy. Pisses me off, desecrating my heritage."
"Pays good," I pointed out cheerfully. "But maybe, you know, you can make money without having to desecrate your proud Mayan heritage. What was that wooden dummy's name again? Moshymon?"
"Maximon, ass wipe. Sometimes they call him St. Simon. Or Mam. But mostly they call him Maximon."
"Maximon." I tried to say it but my tongue was not up to the clicks and sibilances of the ancient Tsutuhuil language. "And you saw it at the botanica?"
"Yeah. You know the place. Off Valencia? Behind the Pink Palace?"
"What's it doing there?"
"Magic," said Genaro. "Same as anywhere else."
"But it's not the real one?"
"Oh, it's real," said Genaro. "But not as real as the real one."
"What does that mean?"
Genaro was losing patience. He put down the blowtorch, raised his goggles. Gave the jaguar a last angry kick. "I told you, man. Every village had one. Every village in the highlands or around the lake anyway. A lot of those villages aren't there anymore so the Mams aren't there either. But the real Maximon is in Santiago where my mother was born."
"That's on Lake Atitlán, right? A little off the beaten path as far as the treasures of the lost civilization go. No ruins there."
"Plenty of ruins there," said Genaro. "The human kind."
The private market for folk art had begun to heat up. Not as lucrative as the museum trade perhaps, but given how rigorous enforcement of the various prohibitions against the import and export of so-called Cultural Property had become, considerably less risky.
In a small Coptic village just outside Karnak, I'd recently come across a crude statuette of St. Botros. Dubious antiquity, but the villagers attributed all manner of small miracles to it, chief among them the ability to transform sour milk into fresh. I spray-painted the figure with a water-soluble red lacquer and shipped it from the FedEx office in the Cairo airport to the Zurich airport's duty-free zone. A soap manufacturer from New Jersey forked over a sum in the high five figures. "If you ever run across any more like this one, give me first refusal," he begged.
I was shocked. Who knew the soap guy had such a hard on for dairy products?
Whatever superpower, Maximon was hustling, someone would want to buy. It was only a matter of haggling down the price with the present owners.
"It's a lovely evening," I said to Genaro. "How about we go for a drive?"
© 2007 p.a. dilucchio
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-27 11:45 pm (UTC)Aloha,
Jeff
no subject
Date: 2007-11-28 04:39 am (UTC)As a matter of fact, I went and saw the "real" Maximon on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, though later when mentioning it to locals in other towns on the lake, they once or twice inferred that what I had been shown was NOT the real Maximon after all... And I have always been fascinated by that, the idea of a god so special that you would go through the trouble of creating a fake one to throw people off, or even creating the IDEA of a fake one...
It's all mysteries...
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 10:00 pm (UTC)