Merry Ferdinand

Fernando Ortiz Rubio, playboy son of rich ex-President Pascual Ortiz Rubio, was back in the clink again last week under the fanciest charge yet.

It all started three months ago at an ordinary enough little party. The guests of honor, several Federal District Supreme Court Justices, had been fashionably late. But the other guests of Colonel Alfredo Zarate Albarran, Mexico State* Governor, hadn't minded: they had whiled away the time from noon till the Justices' three o'clock arrival with torrents of convivial cognac. After the honor guests departed, the banqueters were able to settle down to some really serious drinking. By 8 p.m. 40-odd willing gullets had gurgled dozens of bottles of hard liquor.

Maudlin affection nourished: tall, hulking Fernando Ortiz Rubio threw himself on Governor Zarate's neck, kissed his hand, blubbered: "You have been a real father to me." Then the conversation turned to futurismo. In Mexico futurismo is no esoteric art-cult; it is the highly practical question of who is going to succeed whom in political office. Only seven months in his job, Governor Zarate thought the choice of topic indelicate. He moved resentfully over to the bar. Equally hurt, Fernando followed him, relieved his offended feelings by drawing his pistol on his political papa. The one-yard range compensated for poor visibility: Zarate slumped with six fatal slugs in the belly. Fernando fled. Later he was caught and jugged. The gun used on Zarate conveniently disappeared from the Federal District Police Chief's office while Fernando lolled in jail awaiting a whitewashing.

Last week he got bored. Slipping out of prison in what State Prosecutor Luis Angel Rodriguez termed "an inexplicable manner," Fernando tossed off a few tequilas with some friends, then vaulted the garden wall of the widow of the man he had killed and set about earnestly serenading her. He was finally collected, plopped back into jail under an additional charge of trespassing. Senor Rodriguez further announced that, in addition to serenading the woman he had widowed, Fernando Ortiz Rubio had written "improper expressions" on the wall of her house.

* "Mexico" can mean 1) the country; 2) the Federal District, whose heart is Mexico City; 3) Mexico State, which adjoins the Federal District.

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