Una aparición americana en Simón Bolívar en Pittsburgh/ Theater version

Israel Centeno

Nota hallada en reverso de Pedro Páramo

transcrita sin corrección ni comentario editorial

Lo que sigue apareció escrito a lápiz, con trazo grueso y desesperado, en el reverso de una edición deteriorada de Pedro Páramo.

El libro fue encontrado por un estudiante en Polish Hill, dentro de una bolsa plástica que también contenía un guante de boxeo zurdo, una cajetilla de Camel vacía y una nota que decía simplemente:

“You don’t need to win. Just finish the round.”

No se han podido verificar ni la autoría ni la fecha exacta del texto. Algunos afirman que es parte del diario inédito de Ismar Arias. Otros dicen que es una visión inducida por fiebre o falta de hierro.

Su título, escrito a mano en la primera línea, es:

STALLÓNIDAS

STALLÓNIDAS

“Not victory. Staying upright.”

Stage: half dream, half Pittsburgh. A ring with ropes made of pen lines. Red corner: Ismar Arias, jacket torn, holding a copy of “La Región más transparente.” Blue corner: Sylvester Stallone, wrapped in a hoodie of myth. Overhead: a cracked bell. Below: the city sleeps.

ISMAR (to himself):

Where am I? Is this Oakland? Is this Bolívar?

Who wrote these lights into the sky? Who edits this dream?

VOICE (offstage, gravel-mouthed, divine):

You think the story writes itself?

(Enter STALLONE, barefoot, limping, carrying a typewriter slung over one shoulder. His face glows like a bruised saint.)

STALLONE:

I was broke, man.

They called me dumb.

Slurred mouth, crooked eye, brain full of bricks.

But the plot, kid.

It was always there.

Guy gets hit.

Guy doesn’t fall.

They don’t teach that in the academy.

ISMAR:

Are you real? Are you the ghost of American plotlines?

Did you know Aristotle? Or Chávez?

STALLONE (laughs):

I knew the steps of the Philadelphia Museum before I knew the Pythagorean theorem.

You want to understand America?

Learn to lose beautifully.

(He throws Ismar a script—coffee-stained, dog-eared.)

STALLONE:

That’s me. All of me. 84 hours.

A typewriter.

No pasta.

Sold my dog to pay rent.

Bought him back with the story.

ISMAR (reading):

“Southpaw fighter. Meat locker. Doesn’t win. Doesn’t fall.”

That’s it?

STALLONE:

That’s all.

That’s everything.

A plot is a prayer without gods.

A fight is a sentence.

You don’t have to win.

You have to get up.

That’s the twist. That’s the character arc.

That’s the Gospel of Rust.

(The ring dissolves. A bell rings not for victory, but for persistence.)

STALLONE (fading):

You, Arias, you’re a fighter too.

Your gloves are syllables.

Your punches: paragraphs.

You write. You survive.

Same thing.

ISMAR (whispers):

And what happens to the hero?

STALLONE (already mist):

He becomes myth. Or janitor.

Sometimes both.

(Lights down. A pigeon lands on the typewriter. Ismar wakes. The sun is falling. A river breathes somewhere offstage.)