WEBVTT

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[SIGHS]

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How can Pedro-as-Pablo love
anyone when he can't even

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love himself?

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Ay, Dios mío, the temperature
inside El Colón is 90 degrees.

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The main floor and
the balcony are

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packed with people of all
ages, families hovering

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close to each other, young
lovers, older couples resting

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like torpid flies
near the water cooler.

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Outside, it's hotter.

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The married men wander down
to the concession stand

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to get a Coke and to stare hard
at the young girls, chiflando,

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whistling in that soft,
appreciative way--

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[WHISTLES]

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[LAUGHTER]

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[WHISTLES]

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--while their wives slink
down in their seats,

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grateful for a
little peace as they

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pull down their
bunched-up panties.

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Somebody takes out a
much-used plastic bag

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full of tortas, someone
else a crinkly paper bag

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full of ripe mangoes.

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The floor is testimony
to the fierce hunger

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that the darkness arouses.

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Candy wrappers
stick to the floor

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with chewed-up
stalks of sugarcane

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that nobody wants to
look at too closely.

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Crumpled soft drink
cups and popcorn boxes

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are tucked underneath the
seats with wads of tired gum.

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Voices call out
incessantly in the darkness

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to the actors on the screen
without any hesitation

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or embarrassment,
as if we knew them,

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as if the audience knew them,
were even friends or family.

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Ay, te quiero, Pedro.

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The woman is getting
on my nerves.

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She knows all the
lines to the movie,

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and she repeats them out loud.

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I know all the lines, but
I'm not saying them out loud.

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In the darkness of El Colón,
Pedro Infante could do it all,

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and he did.

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He sang, he rode horses,
motorcycles, cars, buses,

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and he walked away from
tragedy, unlike anyone else.

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No one strode away from
all those women, those men,

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their selfish attachments, like
Pedro Infante in the movie La

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Vida No Vale Nada.

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"Oye, comadre," I
whisper to Irma.

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"Popcorn!"

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She motions that the tub
is down with Nyvia Ester.

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Both of us know
that we're not going

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to see it for a long
time, and somebody

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is going to have to go
down and get the refill.

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And it's not going to be me.

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The popcorn at El Colón
is greasy and salty,

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the way it should be.

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Irma says that it smells
of hot corn, of maíz,

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of sweaty hands turning
tortillas in small,

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obscure villages, of present
lives lived in the past tense,

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of ancestral struggles, of the
humid breath of small children,

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of old, dying animals resting
near crumbling adobes,

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of too many lives struggling
for a modicum of hope.

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Oh, Dios mío, leave it
to La Wirma to understand

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the sociological and
cultural meanings of popcorn.

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[LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE]

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Yeah, I say it's the
way they do the butter.

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Now, don't give me a
bag of day-old popcorn

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that isn't warm
enough to melt butter.

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There is nothing that I love
more than something greasy

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and salty, unless,
of course, it's

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something greasy and salty and
hot, or fruity and crystallized

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and so sweet that
your teeth curl in.

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Now, I have got simple tastes,
ordinary needs that become

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extraordinary in the darkness.

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What do I know of
ancestral yearnings?

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And yet, this is what Irma
says that we are doing here,

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years after Pedro's death.

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Tere, we are fulfilling
the destiny set out

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for us by those
who came before us,

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the multitudes whose black
and white dreams have

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allowed us to dream in color.

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"Oh, whatever you say, comadre.

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I am OK with that theory.

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But ay, mujer, look at Pedro!

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Look at that man.

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I don't care how many
years he's been dead.

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I still want to taste him."

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"Oy, don't," Irma says.

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But she knows what I mean.

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And I know that she knows
that I know what she means.

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When I watch Pedro
Infante's movies,

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I am watching the lives of
my people past, present,

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and future parade
in front of me.

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Pedro Infante could
have been my father.

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He was my father's
age when he died.

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He is the man we
want our men to be.

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He is the man we
imagine ourselves

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to be if we are men, the man
we want our daughters to marry.

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He is the beautiful
part of our dreaming.

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And his looks have the power to
make my woman's blood heat up

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like sizzling manteca in
an old but faithful sartén,

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a frying pan.

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And just watching
him on the screen

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makes my little sopapilla start
throbbing underneath the folds

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and the tucks of cloth on the
old and creaky theater seat.

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Just give me some honey.

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Oh, the man had
a beautiful body.

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He lifted weight, which
most Mejicanos do not do.

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He lifted weights.

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When I think of
Mejicanos, I hardly

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ever think of them
with barbells.

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We are not the exercising type.

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We're too we're busy working
outdoors, fixing the techo,

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or cleaning, or working out--

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working in Los Feliz,
or running after our own

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or somebody else's chamacos,
or planting vegetables.

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But when you saw Pedro boxing
or riding in a motorcycle,

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you knew that he was a
man ahead of his time.

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He was very physically robust.

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He did all of his own
stunts, whether it was

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fighting with Wolf Ruvinskis--

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you remember that hunky
actor, that Mexican actor--

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or hanging on for
dear life on the top

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of that old bus that
took him to La Capitale

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and into Cruz's waiting arms.