Crossing The Border #2

San Miguel #2

During the weekdays, they’d begin their work at 7am, with seven clean chimes shattering the slumber of dawn silence. They repeated this throughout the day, adding a chime for each hour, until 10pm, when they would rest for nine hours, in sympathy with their congregants. With one exception: they skipped the three o’clock hour, in observance of the afternoon siesta. On Saturdays and minor holidays, they worked harder, keeping quarter time, just one timid chime on the quarter hour, two slightly louder tones on the half, three happier notes at the three-quarter hour, then that unambiguous series of sharp clangs informing each hour. My favorites were Sundays and major holidays, where they worked overtime. Twenty to thirty (depending on the relative importance of the holiday) even rings marked the commencement of a service, a calling to the faithful. The true show of force, however, came at the end of religious services: here the bells would clang wildly, sometimes revolving end over end in nothing short of reckless jubilation, and lasting an unpredictable, even indiscriminate, number of minutes.