¡La Leyenda de El Super Pobre! or, What happened to Marco Zavala.

Picking up from where page 18 left off…

As the men, clad in their best orange surgical wear, turned their attention away from the smoking heap of miniature machinery and towards Marco, one of them noticed the supine body jolt.

“Did you-”

He couldn’t finish his sentence.

Marco shot up and looked around. The room he was in bore a peaked green light and was cold. A thin air of lifelessness passed fluidly over his skin. In several increasingly natural motions he removed the sheet that rested on his legs and went to stand.

“Water…” the sounds coming from Marco’s mouth were nothing more than cliffs crumbling in an undersea trench.

“What did he say?” Alfonso el Arbol, the tall and oaken capo in a shimmering mother-of-pearl mask, asked for clarification.

“He needs water. Fetch it,” Xavier, The Man with the burro-on-a-rope, stood in the doorway.

With utmost haste, Alfonso retrieved a glass from a mounted metal cabinet and filled it from a pink water-producing orchid that grew out of the wall nearby.

Marco accepted the glass and felt vitality return with each anxious gulp.

“More.”

Xavier nodded.

Alfonso provided.

“Can you fight?” Xavier, utilizing his infamous tobacco-crisp voice, wasted no time.

Marco finished his second glass of enlivening water and took a breath. His memory and his senses were clunky and misshapen, but they were there. Somewhat.

“…I think so,” Marco felt his body metabolizing and participating in the minimum actions necessary to remain extant. But he also felt a new, detached, middle ground where his consciousness now seemed to reside. His body was his, and he could still command every extremity; there was now simply an entire extra layer.

“Padron, what about…” Alfonso tapped on the right half of his skull, indicating the hunk of flesh missing from Marco’s head.

“Hm, if you’ll notice, ‘fonso, there is no bleeding,” Xavier was right. Marco now touched the open wound near his crown and noticed no pain, no cold clotting redness.

“This is El Sueño Real. Marco here, cannot die,” Xavier cleared his throat and took out a jade and gold cigarette case from his inner jacket pocket. From his outer pocket he slid out a cylindrical butane torch lighter. The others in the room had no choice but to be content with waiting. Utilizing his right thumb, the nail painted a luminous chartreuse, he activated the microtorch. Alfonso, standing diagonally across from Xavier, focused on the hi-hat clicking away in the low music that hung around like a nervous fog. The constant drum-n-bass rhythm kept his heart rate in check. Enrique “La Lluvia Plaga” Fuentes-Patel never set down the enormous hypodermic needle he routinely used to extract spinal fluid. He stood opposite Alfonso El Arbol in a sickly spinach and day-glow yellow mask. The color scheme did an excellent job of concealing the sweat born from a healthy fear of both Xavier and the dark sciences.

“More accurately,” Xavier resumed after a deep initial draw. “He is now unkilled. The old woman on the omnibus bestowed this ‘gift’ upon him. The wound will heal, and Marco, you will fight.”

The men other than Xavier all digested the new information.

“…Is it a curse?” Marco asked.

“No, there is no magic here. This is the product of Ciencia Negra: Nanobots that work by consuming and replacing the host’s synapse at the moment of death. It is at that point where the electrical impulses in the brain become weak enough for the bots to usurp and then modify them with their own signals. Their signals are then amplified to a higher degree, which in turn enables total, and endless, organ reconstruction facilitated by the host’s own stem-cells.” Xavier paused to take another drag.

The weight of the information bore down on three of the four minds in the room for several seconds. The thought of being snatched from death only to live on as an ever-regenerating vegetable only bolstered the imposing dread Xavier was emitting.

“That old woman,” Xavier casually continued, “dropped out of La Academia after being caught with the corpse of her lover and several regulated chemicals in a compromising position.

“Now she wanders the Americas, turning people like Marco here into the non-dying… attraction he has become. My husks are not illegal and they provide the globe with needed crops; plus they all signed the contract. But her… she preys on the unsuspecting and afflicts them with an unending existence.”

The words echoed in Marco’s mind. He remembered the mosquito-like face and the jangling sound of her charms as she walked towards him. Her scarlet shawl and green eye shadow were burned into his memory.

Just then, Marco realized it had been over 24 hours since he last ate.

“I’m… I don’t feel hungry…”

“Ah, yes,” Xavier continued to convey his expertise in between belches of smoke. “You will now only require water. I captured and opened one of her zombies that had run afoul of my men. Essentially, all of your organs have been reprogrammed and food simply has no place left to be processed. The water keeps things lubricated and oxygenated, but that’s about it.”

Marco instantly missed, but felt no hunger for, his mother’s samosa tacos.

“Now, I return to my original query: Can you fight?”

Marco finally noticed his reflection. His skin was a grayish-brown. The wound on his head closed as he gawked. When he raised his hand to feel it once more, Xavier spoke again.

“Yes, you will heal uncomfortably fast.”

“My family…”

“Thinks you died trying to provide for them. You poor man…” Xavier quietly withdrew to his mind for a matter of seconds. “That will be your ring name: El Super Pobre.”

“El Super Pobre…”

For a time, all four men stood in the morgue/necrotic surgery center in silence.

“Your first match will be in Otompan, tomorrow,” Xavier broke the silence as if it were a hardboiled egg. “I’ll take care of your transportation, but because of your condition, you’ll have to fight in the tent only from now on. I simply cannot have paying customers behold such a spectacle as the one you will be expected to put on.”

The tent? Marco thought. His own boyhood memories of Xavier’s infamous free tent shows had been clear up until his arrival into his current condition. Now all he could remember about the shows was the raucous and feverish din of the crowd. The more he thought the more items trickled back into existence.

The ring was wooden and unforgiving.

The ‘ref’ was usually inebriated.

There was no security, doctors, or weapons scanners beyond the spiteful eyes of Xavier’s Brazeros, Capos, and husks. The men fortunate enough to still have their sentience were only on duty at these shows as a means of atonement for some sin committed against Xavier.

In short, the shows were more a controlled riot than a public exhibition of a heritage sport.

Marco nodded in silence and fixed his gaze on another dead luchador on a slab nearby. This man had died in the match before his; the man, a general manager, was caught red-handed, stealing from the register at a Slick Saxon franchise Xavier happened to own. He was kidnapped in the middle of the night, from his own bed, forced to sign The Contract, given a dirty lucha libre mask, and sent to the ring. His organs were in Aztec themed jade canopic jars. The macabre and beautiful vessels all faced the man and served as a mute audience to his conversion.

Marco now noticed a cold unctuous feeling in the rear of his sinus. His eyes felt like they nestled in sand.

“You’ll never sleep again, either,” Xavier calmly informed Marco. The donkey, silent for the entire exchange up to this point, continued his soundlessness.

“So what do I-”

“You’ll figure something out. Tonight, I have something you can occupy your time with.”

“Okay,” Marco felt something he couldn’t define slowly slipping away from him. It was in the rear base of his brain. It was a tremendous pool draining through a little red cocktail straw; slow, but certain. He felt he should care about just occupying his time, but the more he tried, the faster the pool drained.

*

When Marco next decided to speak, he was being led through a field, barefoot. A chain jangled and clanged. He looked down, and discovered it was connected to him. To his neck, to be specific. Link by link, he followed his tether until he saw its mooring.

Marco was leashed to a heaving mountain of a hippopotamus. The stinking loaf trotted through a field of wild and randomly placed agave. On its back, a little person, afflicted with eyebrows like sea cucumbers, held the reigns.

An agave frond viciously raked Marco’s leg.

He didn’t care anymore.

The moon was titanic in its opalescence.

“W-where…” Marco tried to speak. His throat was tar and rayon.

“Callate muertido…”

Marco never figured out that, when Xavier said he’d take care of his transportation, and that he had something to occupy his time with, he meant the current situation.

The hippopotamus relieved herself in-stride and Marco trod through it.

His feet were now cold and muddy, but his energy was unceasing.

“Water… w-water…”

The hippopotamus came to a stop. The little man swore and motioned for Marco to approach. At the fourth behest, Marco lurched forward, his mouth agape behind the opening in his lucha libre mask. The little man unscrewed the cap from a metal canteen and poured the mineralized water directly into the slit.

Everything gained a few values in color.

“Orale, vamanos…”

The little man overcame the burden his eyebrows placed on him and clicked his tongue. The hippopotamus grunted and resumed a brisk pace.

Fifty-five kilometers.

Dawn broke over the horizon and the sliced grapefruit sky dethroned all that ruled Marco’s consciousness.

*

When he next had a trace of wit, he was no longer behind the odious behemoth.

Instead of a halved ruby red grapefruit, the sun was now a hot and pernicious egg yolk.

Marco did not sweat.

Yolk… Yoke?

Marco was pulling a cart.

No, it just felt like it. His body was heavy, but his engine showed no signs of let up.

A massive bluebottle fly collided with Marco’s forehead before buzzing off, absconding with Marco’s attention.

Hours passed.

Marco came around at the end of the day when he was led by a roadie to a heaving H2Orchid. Marco gulped and inhaled the water gushing from the large and unusual bloom. The sun disappeared, but twilight remained.

Marco was pulled from the growth and led to the tent he had unknowingly helped to erect. He was eventually deposited in the dressing area: several folding chairs and crates behind a makeshift curtain wall. He was sat down and sternly told to stay put until his match.

A thin glaze formed over Marco’s eyes. From his post, he had an excellent view of the ring and the entrance flap.

The construct filled with revelers. The other luchadors also appeared and began their warm-ups. Each fighter was alerted beforehand to Marco’s condition and responded accordingly; he was left completely, and entirely, alone.

The matches began.

In between, a local comedic duo consisting of an obese yet sharp-witted husband bantering with his near-deaf wife kept things wet.

The time came for Marco to make his entrance.

The same roadie who had been tasked with leading Marco from odd job to odd job arrived.

“Your entrance is special…”

Marco was led outside, where he caught a glimpse of himself in a puddle of unknown liquid. He was shirtless and bore a noose that dangled down to around his navel. He was still barefoot, but at least he had filthy knee-length trunks on. His mask was dingy and reminded the roadie of a dumpster stain.

Outside the tent, the wind picked up and distorted the emitting sounds.

“…El Super Pobre!…”

“Show time…”

The roadie kicked Marco into the tent, where the entire assembled mass broke into a chorus of boos.

“Disgusting!”

“Vile!”

Rotten fruit and vegetables bounced off of him. A man stood and slapped Marco across the face, knocking him to the ground. He was pulled back up only to be spit on, laughed at, cursed, and then shot by an elderly woman.

The needling and gnarled crone had shrieked from behind a black veil as she squeezed the trigger of the .38 Saturday Night Special.

The bullet lodged itself in his AC joint, disabling his left arm. He felt no pain, bled no blood, but resented the loss of function as best he could.

The shock of lead-based penetration caused a wave of confusion to wash over him. The roadie swore and rolled him under the tired ropes and into the wood and canvas contraption that served as a ring.

The bell rang.

His opponent, another local by the name of Inocente, immediately suplexed Marco, much to the delight of the crowd. He sprang back up and basked in the cheers.

Marco rolled onto his knees, only to catch a leg-drop-bulldog to the back of his head. The ring floor was hard and unyielding.

Inocente hauled Marco to his feet, slapped him, chopped his chest several times, then sent him to the ropes via an Irish whip. He wound up and delivered a punishing clothesline. Marco did a complete flip and landed on his back.

The crowd was in fits.

Inocente grabbed Marco’s noose and tightened it. His eye’s bulged and he temporarily lost his hearing.

Marco was paraded around the ring like a dog for several seconds.

Inocente scooped up Marco, raked his eyes, then sent him to the turnbuckle. With Marco safely corralled, he then began a vigorous and outlandish showboat display.

Marco, from his anchorage in the corner, decided he was done with the match. Exactly how he could express his concise desire for cessation would not manifest. Only the will for it to stop could be felt.

Marco stoked the flames of this will. He had no idea, not an inkling, of how he could fight back with a dead arm and a mind full of steel wool.

But the will was palpable.

Inocente blathered on about his virility.

This match… will stop!

The ropes shook.

No… more!

Marco was catapulted forward onto his face.

All four top turnbuckles popped free. Their potential energy now kinetic, the turnbuckles silently flew into Inocente. The metal clasps that ultimately gave the top ring rope its tension all came smashing into his skull.

With both men down in the ring, the short and fear-soaked referee began a wobbly ten count.

“Diez…”

“Nueve…”

“Ocho…”

Marco stirred.

“Siete…”

“Seis…”

The deep and meaningful boos from the crowd intensified.

“Cinco…”

“Quattro…”

“Tres…”

“Dos…”

Marco squirted from his spot on the mat and landed an arm across Inocente’s chest. The referee abandoned the ten-count, fell to his knees, and with his petite hand, he gave the match-ending three-count.

Marco, El Super Pobre, was victorious.

The people, were furious.

The roadie appeared again. He grabbed Marco by the only means he could, his noose.

The crowd was attempting to rush the ring, but Xavier’s beautifully suited men were keeping them in the stands.

“That was some trick you pulled with the ropes! How did you do that?” The roadie asked, halfway knowing that Marco wouldn’t be able to articulate a satisfactory answer.

“I… wanted it to happen…” The words fell out of Marco’s mouth like a slow vomit.

The roadie was silent, miffed by the response. In the decade he had been handling these muertidos, as they were called, he had witnessed similar events and had been given similar explanations. Two years earlier, he watched in horror as a muertido killed a popular county luchador by making the ring collapse inward. Just nine months before meeting Marco, the roadie ran from an eerie white fire that a muertido survived without a singe.

Whatever that haggard old woman who rules the routes of the Mexico City omnibus uses to unkill these men apparently came with a range of telekinetic side effects. The roadie, Jose Cervantes Chong, sent a pigeon to Xavier, explaining the events. In response, Jose was told to let the legends grow; the more fantastic the accounts, the stronger Xavier’s own mythos became.

As time would go on, Marco, unlike the other muertidos, somehow managed to keep little bits of his mind and personality intact. The ring blowing apart in his first match was no fluke, and Marco honed this new ability. During moments of wakefulness, he would fix his gaze on, say, a fence, and marvel as the wood and metal components would spring into pieces. His abilities stopped there, however. If an object is made of metal and wood, he could cause it to come undone, but that was it.

As of the Mataluchadores murders, Marco was still spreading the Xavier doctrine in the Latin American countryside and winning matches by destroying parts of the ring each time.

He never gets cold.

He never hungers.

He’ll never die.

Marco ‘El Super Pobre’ Zavala reigns as both king of County Lucha Libre and the unkilled.