The Revelations of El Chato

El Chato says, "Down there I believe in magic. Up here I believe in the law of big numbers. See, there's always a possibility, a function, if you string enough instances together. Because no matter how many numbers there are, it's never infinity." He is referencing magic ceremonies in Mexico, fourteen hour peyote sessions, conversations with coyotes, and being in "the presence." But that's not where we begin.

Where this begins is with a toilet that smells of its own accord. No matter the cleansing, no matter the lack of use, it smells like a downtown parking garage stairwell in the afternoon sun. Richard Martinez, the plumber, is here to alleviate the stench. But it turns out that Richard has no sense of smell, resulting from a bad pnemonia attack. "I haven't smelled a fart in ten years," he says. He explores the sealings of the toilets, examines the back of the toilet, and asks to look underneath the house. "Sometimes the pipes underneath will leak and seep through cracks in the floorboard. It's especially bad with any wind."

The pipes beneath have no leaks. We walk back into the house and Richard notices a painting on the wall, a frivolous attempt of mine. "Are you an artist?" he asks, his eyes newly alight. He takes a postcard from his pocket and hands it to me. On the postcard is an intricate tiny painting with images of Einstein, Hindu gods, cats with Taoist symbols on their foreheads, all intertwined amongst a mahogany starlit sky. Scrawled at the bottom right of the card are the words "El Chato."

"What's that mean?" I ask, "El Chato?"

"Means bulldog. I've been called that since I was very young; it's a family name. When I was four, I had an orange in my hands and an older man, not sure if he was family or not, grabbed it out of my hands as a joke. I lunged at him and sunk my teeth right into his calf and wouldn't let go. My uncle was right there and he yelled 'El Chato!' and from then on, that was my name. Amongst friends."

Once this heritage has been revealed, El Chato opens up with declarations about the meaning of his art. As we stand near a fetid toilet, he discusses the connectivity of atoms, the illusion of time, the shamanistic tradition of cultures in the Southern hemisphere, and about the purity of ceremonies involving the plants of divinity. I suggest that we relocate into the living room, where I show him some literature I've read about these subjects. I offer some trite announcement regarding the possibility that children should know more about such international insight. El Chato reflects, "I used to work with children, teaching art. And it's about the age of nine, eight or nine, that children's art becomes inherently more functional, more conceptual. It starts to use words. It becomes less free."

Huxley explained this phenomenon in The Doors of Perception. His idea was that we have the ability, generally through the enabling of ego-inhibiting substances, to be conscious of the total nature of existence. However, this awareness is too much for us to handle, it's vastness terrifying in possibility and power. Therefore, we pare down our consciousness into containable avenues of thought in order to function throughout the ordinary day. El Chato says he crossed metaphysical paths with Huxley, receiving mushrooms from the same witch Aldous had met years before. This witch was renowned for her medicinal powers to cure disease, ennui, envy, hopelessness. El Chato says, "She told me my pain came from my pathlessness. She said I must reunite with my roots and abandon the wandering life." And nine months after his meeting with the witch doctor, El Chato's grandmother fell prey to terminal disease. He returned home and took the helm of de-facto patriarch for his grandmother, mother, aunt, wife, and daughter. In his words, "Redemption was there for me in being needed."

On a yearly basis El Chato voyages into the heart of Mexico for pilgrimages of the soul. He eats naturally growing plants and then sits alongside them and waits for visions. This is where the magic lives, he says. On one occasion his grandmother, long since passed, appeared to him in the form of a tree, her presence sparkling. "She had the face of her youth, and her eyes were contented. She said nothing, but it felt connected to my heart like a string. A coyote appeared next to the tree - real or imaginary I don't know - and it spoke to me, not with words but with some universal kind of energy. It said 'She is at peace.' Then two snakes appeared in the dust near the base of the tree, and everything was gone, my grandmother, the coyote, everything. My vision was complete."

After he finished this story, El Chato resealed the base of the toilet with caulk and gave me the postcard. Then he left. Later on we replaced the toilet, but the magic remained.

posted by ZHorton at 8:49 AM