Roll Out the Barrel

Under the stress of such 20th century imperatives as industrialization, swift-flowing traffic and civic cleanliness, many fine old institutions have been erased from the Mexico City scene. Gone are the dog sellers of Madero Avenue, the guitar-strumming trios who once worked the suburban bus lines, the evangelistas (professional letter writers) who held forth in a plaza near the presidential palace. The mosaic-tiled promenades in the parks, where boy met girl in evening roundabout strolls as stylized as ballet, are deserted; nowadays, boy blows auto horn summoning dark-eyed beauty to drive off to the nearest cabaret or lovers' lane.

"Anybody Can Play . . ." Last week, in a backs-to-the-wall gesture against the relentless onslaught of modernity, Federal District authorities took steps to remit all taxes and licensing fees for the capital's remaining hundred hurdy-gurdy men. "The best in popular entertainment," cried an official, "is represented by the cilindrero." The cilindreros, lugging their 80-lb. hand organs along Mexico City's farthest-flung streets, are still favorite visitors in the poorest barrios. "Anybody can play an organ, but not everybody can carry one," is a standard all-purpose joke in Mexico.

The organ grinders of Mexico City are to be seen and heard from noon till midnight's last serenade. They work in pairs, taking turns toting the barrel, winding the crank and passing the hat. Their instruments, invariably German-made, are rented (for 5 pesos a day) from old Maestro Gilberto Lazaro, whose enormous, crumbling house in Tepito, the thieves' market, is the hub of the hurdy-gurdy business. Lazaro places the notes on the wood-and-wire cylinders of his organs, first mastering the tunes by listening to records, then beating them out on a piano.

"Do We Make a Deal?" On a lucky day, an organ grinder may make as much as 20 pesos from such notoriously open-handed patrons as drunks, lovers and tourists. But his steadiest customers are the poor. When the shoeshiner's family takes a trip on the second-class bus, the cilindrero plays Las Golondrinas at the sendoff. He performs at dances for those who cannot afford to hire mariachis or fancy bands. When at midafternoon he shuffles into the big patio of a working-class tenement, children shriek, dogs bark, chickens scurry around, and women drop their housework to listen to his loud, lively songs. Then coins drop from some of the windows, and his partner scrambles for the centavos. Late in the day, dusty and tired, he finds his way to a corner cantina. "Do we make a deal?" he asks the barkeeper. "Why not?" says the barkeep, and pours out a liter of pulque. Wiping the milky froth from his lips, the organ grinder then reels off three numbers that have the hod carriers at the bar singing at the tops of their voices.

For all the walking and lugging, say the cilindreros, it is not a bad life. They get food at many kitchen doors in exchange for their music. They can usually make a deal at the saloon. And many a pretty lady's maid has succumbed to such seductive boleros as Even If You Kill Me, I Love You. Says Hurdy-Gurdy Man Angeles Reyes: "My cilindro gives me food, pulque and love." The tourist bureaus, hotelkeepers and the poor all agree that motorized Mexico must save a place for the strolling cilindrero if the country is to keep its soul.

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