Tavo’s main gift in life was his pico. He wasn’t quite a raquetero, but he could tell jokes, twist words, and tell tales. What brought him the most fame was his ability to talk endlessly without meaning anything at all—purposely. It used to be a celebrated art form that even made it to radio and television in the mid-1900s. But then it waned, and Tavo was a stellar last keeper of this art form.
It also caused trouble.
One New Year’s Eve night in Los Montoyas, Tavo launched into one of his aimless tóricas just before midnight, when the crowd on the little dirt plaza was revving up to celebrate the new year.
“There was once a vato who was very picudo…,” he started, raising a beer can.
He did this because he saw he’d attracted a large enough crowd by telling brief jokes and wisecracks, not because he was counting down to midnight.
The sonsos who’d gathered around him were surprised and now regretful they’d hung around too long. They were trapped.
“This picudo could seduce a nun, bargain a salesperson out of a profit, and even convince everybody that a small loss was actually a big win. He even had powers over animals and inanimate objects. You could say the reason the moon takes as along as it does is because…,” Tavo proclaimed.
The crowd outside of the people who were gathered around him looked over to Tavo and his razita and grew concerned. There were only a few minutes left in the year, and they wanted a raucous celebration. But it seemed this razita was gonna stay separate and ruin things.
“Pos one day the world began to end, and the vato ran to the last place on earth, Palomas, thinking for sure the end of the world would not reach there…,” Tavo went on.
“10, 9, 8…,” the crowd began to count.
“Pos the end of the world came there, too…,” Tavo said.
“…7, 6, 5…,” the crowd continued counting.
“…and he saw a big chunk of the world break off and drift off into space...,” Tavo continued.
“4, 3, 2…,” the crowd was now screaming.
“So then he thought he’d coax time to go backwards…,” Tavo added.
“…1,…,” the crowd said and stopped, everybody looking at Tavo’s razita.
“Hey, you’re holding up the New Year, mamones!” somebody yelled.
“Yeah!” many others yelled.
Tavo paused, took a long pull from his birria, slowly turned to look out at the crowd, then swallowed. Then he raised his beer can again. Everybody in the plaza looked on in silence.
“Y pos time stood still, and the picudo escaped the end of the world,” Tavo announced.
“Happy New Year!” his razita shouted in relief.
“Happy New Year!” the crowd answered, a little less enthusiastic than when the count started.
