Wear Your Home Like a Scar, page 20
Gustavo didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t. The jukebox played some generic honkytonk.
“That can’t happen again, güey. I need someone beside me who has my back.” Richard looked at him long and hard. “I need you.”
And there it was, laid bare before Gustavo. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but it was more than he’d heard in more than ten years. And that admission aside, the thought that Richard would be betrayed and taken from him, that was more than Gustavo could bear.
Gustavo finally nodded, said okay, and Richard pulled him in for a hug. It was only then that Gustavo felt the pistol in Richard’s jacket.
In the garage, Gustavo moved his bound hands, testing the plastic zip-tie that held him. It was still tight, but felt slightly looser than before. Loose enough, he hoped.
“So you pegged me at first sight?” he said to Nazario, back on his phone. “You smart like that?”
“Smart enough when I need to be.” He spat on the floor.
Gustavo nodded, cleared his throat. “Smart enough to know that Richard is meeting with Zetas?”
Nazario laughed to himself. Then Gustavo saw his whole body tighten when it registered.
“What are you talking about, marica?” Nazario jumped to his feet, looming over Gustavo. He slapped his meaty palm hard across Gustavo’s ear.
“He said he was tired of disrespect, didn’t feel like he was valued by Tuerto.” Gustavo’s voice sounded cloudy, far beneath the ringing in his skull. “Said he was going to find someone who would appreciate him.”
Nazario whipped out his phone, slamming his fingers on the screen. “You better be lying, marica.”
Gustavo didn’t cringe at the word, not anymore. He just arced blood on the floor and smiled. “El Tuerto not answering?” Gustavo shook his head. “Who is it, just him and Ángel? I hope that’s enough hierro. Not the kind of place I’d want to roll up to outnumbered.”
Nazario paused a moment, considering Gustavo. “Why you telling me this? You and Richard have something going?” Gustavo flinched. “You trying to pull Heriberto out into the wild so you can ambush him?”
“I’m just trying to make things right.”
Nazario spit on the floor, double-checking his piece as he hurried out of the garage to get reinforcements for his teniente. He barked into the phone, “Ten minutes? Nah, malparido. You get here now to guard the marica.”
Gustavo waited for a moment to make sure Nazario wouldn’t return, then planted his feet on the ground and pushed hard, toppling himself over backward. The back of his head slammed against the cement, white stars floating across his eyes. He blinked them away, then shimmied himself over to the metal column supporting the catwalk above them. He worked himself to his knees, then feet, taking a wide stance before cocking his hips to the side, then slamming the metal chair against the column, over and over, until the back began to bend, then crease, then break.
Gustavo slumped down on the ground, out of breath and drenched with sweat, but nearly free. The next part would be the hardest. He rolled to his back, allowing his bound wrists to pass beneath his butt then legs, rolling himself backward again and bringing them around his feet. The pressure in his aching shoulders dissipated, but the pain remained. He had to push through it, though, before the replacement came. He crossed the garage and rifled through every drawer and table around, but found nothing to cut the plastic tie. No utility knife, no wire-cutters, not even a pair of scissors. He’d already yanked on it, which only succeeded in cutting through his flesh. He wouldn’t be able to get them off by himself. Then his eyes fell on the battery. He stared at it a moment, then took a deep breath, knowing he didn’t have time to think too much. Dear god, I hope this actually works.
He grabbed one clamp and set the teeth on the plastic between his wrists, then grabbed the other one, taking great care to keep them apart.
Apparently not enough care. The metal touched and sent a current through his arms. He dropped the clamp immediately and shook his body, trying to rid it of the sensation.
“Don’t think, just do,” he said to the empty space. One clamp went on. He grabbed the other one, tilted it around in his hand and rested the metal teeth on the zip-tie. The plastic smoked and burned, but within a few seconds Gustavo could pull his hands apart, a blob of melted plastic flying free and landing on his forearm. He yelped, swatting it away, then rolled his arms around to regain mobility.
A car door slammed out front of the garage. Gustavo hurried out the back door, easing it closed. He ran.
Richard watched the two Zetas pull back into the parking lot, get out of the car, and amble back toward the motel room. Richard was in the same spot physically, though he’d been miles away mentally. He couldn’t help running over the last few weeks, how he’d asked Gustavo to roll with him and how quickly Gustavo had agreed. He wasn’t built for this game, but he still agreed. Because of Richard. In some way, Richard knew Gustavo would without even asking. They’d always been that way.
Which made Richard feel even worse about how it’d all gone down.
Gustavo riding shotgun with coke and money in the trunk.
Gustavo jumping whenever someone slammed a door, asking if this was okay.
Gustavo blanching when they got back to Richard’s apartment two nights ago and he casually tossed his piece and wallet on the table before grabbing two beers for them. Richard had just told him about his idea to make the jump to the Zetas.
He came over to Richard, took the beers from his hands and set them on the table on the opposite side from the piece, as if it would jump up and bite him were he to go too near. Then he leaned in and took Richard’s hands in his, his hands strong but soft, a combination that didn’t make sense if it wasn’t on Gustavo. He looked him right in the face with those big, beautiful eyes, his full lips pressed together in that way they always were when he wanted to ask Richard something—but not that something that always seemed to float beneath the surface—and asked him to leave. Said this wasn’t the life for him, that he wasn’t a killer.
“Nothing’s going to happen. Tuerto knows better than to mess with the Zetas. It’s just for protection,” Richard said. “You know about protection, right? Or don’t you?”
Gustavo’s face burned red, his teeth worrying his top lip. Richard had the urge to bite it but immediately pushed that away. “You know what I’m saying,” Gustavo said.
“You don’t have anything to worry about. I can handle it.”
“Which is why you came to me when you needed someone watching your back? Jesus Christ, Richie—”
“Don’t call me Richie. I told you that in, what—seventh grade?”
But Gustavo held tighter, pulled Richard closer. Close enough that he could smell the sweat beneath Gus’s cologne. Could see the chip in his front tooth from where they’d collided in eighth grade while jousting on their bikes.
“You can do better than just driving around handing off shit from one asshole to another. You can do better than being the asshole some asshole orders around.”
And Richard felt his insides flame. He pushed Gustavo back, slapped his hands away. “What do you know, you pinche marica?”
Gustavo’s head flinched to the side as if the word had been a fist, connecting with the spot where jaw meets skull, turning everything black immediately.
But Richard couldn’t take the word back, so he doubled-down. “I’m not someone’s asshole. I’m proving myself. With them, I’ll be running my own crew within six months, and you’ll be back to rolling on Molly and oiling up your bondage tops for the club.”
Gustavo squinted his eyes shut so tightly Richard though his skull would crack. He wanted to reach out and grab Gustavo’s hand, to apologize, to talk through it, but he couldn’t. That shit was behind him. All of it. There was no place for that in this game.
Before Richard could even open his mouth, Gustavo said, with all the hushed fury he could manage, “Fuck you, Richie,” and left the apartment.
Richard looked up now as the Zetas stepped into his motel room, two silhouettes blocking the light from outside.
“The man says you’re in,” the scrawny one said.
Richard felt pressure lift off his chest. He knew it would work. If only Gustavo had believed him. But he’d explain it soon. Maybe. In time. What he had said was shitty, but Richard knew Gustavo would forgive him. That’s what best friends did. Besides, he was going to have a crew to run soon.
He stood up to shake hands with them when he caught a glimpse of a bright red Monte Carlo waiting in the parking lot across from his room.
Richard froze. “What did you do?”
The Zetas hesitated, tensed. Richard could see the scrawny man’s pulse pounding in his throat. The big one caught Richard’s gaze and spun around, just as el Tuerto and two sicarios stepped from the Monte Carlo.
The scrawny one looked from Richard to the outside, yelled, “Soplón!”
Everyone reached for their pistols at the same time.
Gustavo leaned against the front door of the bar, catching his breath. He’d run until he couldn’t, then walked another couple of miles. It felt like millennia as he focused solely on putting one foot in front of the other, felt the residual pressure in his shoulders from being restrained, the ghost electricity in his chest from the car battery. He didn’t have any specific place he was headed, weaving in and around blocks, instead searching for someplace that just wasn’t there.
After an hour, he came around a corner and saw the sign for the bar Richie had taken him to earlier, and despite the fear that his body would rattle itself to pieces, Gustavo could not stop laughing. Doubled over with his arms wrapped round his gut, mouth desert-dry but tears flowing down his filthy cheeks, he stood on the corner and laughed for a solid few minutes. He was sure that any minute someone would think he was a homeless schizophrenic and call the cops.
Finally, he went inside the bar, heading straight to the bathroom to put himself back together.
“Brandy again?” the bartender said to Gustavo as he plopped down at the bar, face damp but mostly clean. The bartender did a double take, just now getting a good look at Gustavo.
“Water first, please.” Gustavo grimaced as he leaned to the side and pulled a knot of bills from his pocket, hoping he didn’t reek of gasoline. Laying one-fifty on the table, he said, “Then as much Whistlepig as this buys, minus a good tip for you.”
The bartender hesitated, so Gustavo peeled off another fifty and laid it to the side.
“Please,” he said. “It’s been a really shitty day.”
The bartender nodded and went to fetch the water first, which Gustavo gulped down, resulting in a splitting headache.
On the TV hung above the bar, a local news reporter stood before a nondescript motel, cordoned off with yellow police tape. Blankets covered at least four bodies in the parking lot, with more halfway visible inside the room. Gustavo chewed on his lip.
“This is all you.”
Gustavo flinched, looked up and saw the bartender brandishing a half-full bottle of Whistlepig.
“Left a couple extra shots in here. Looks like you could use them.”
Gustavo filled a tumbler with the whiskey.
The bartender leaned an elbow on the bar top, shaking his head as he watched the screen. “What a shitty thing to do,” he said. “I never understood what drives people to do what they do.”
“Who can tell.”
Gustavo took a mouthful of the whiskey he’d coveted since that night in Richard’s apartment.
All he tasted was gasoline.
Back to TOC
His Footsteps are Made of Soot
Her skin parts like wet silk under a razor, and even with a gaping hole in her face, I think she’s quite beautiful. El Búho blots sweat from his ridged brow with the bandana cinched around his crooked wrist. The scent of iodine and disinfectant hangs so heavily in his basement, it’s almost visible. At least it covers the mildew tang usually present.
“Knife,” he grunts, stained palm extended.
“Filet or paring?”
He chews on the inside of his cheek, debating, then looks up at me. “What do you think?”
Adjusting the clamp light above the table, I lean over the girl, probe her opened cheek with a modified barbecue fork. After a minute, I shrug and suggest the paring knife, and say, “But you’re the doctor.” He mutters something in Quechua that doesn’t sound complimentary. Another brief contemplation, then he snatches the paring knife and goes to work.
She came to us for many of the same reasons other women—not even women: girls—do. She was on the hunt for love. Not the kind of love that leeched into your bones, that you’re unable to shake, but the kind that narcotraficantes could offer. Money. Power. Stability. In a country like Colombia, where your fate might change depending on which street you chose, which bar the wrong person walks into, making yourself pretty enough to be noticed by a narco offered a respite, an escape.
And so they come in for TLC: tetas, lipo, y culo. Because all those narcos want are big tetas, a round culo, and a tiny waist.
This girl, she thought her smile was uneven and it put her at a disadvantage. As if some narco would overlook her ample TLC because of an uneven smile. Why this girl thinks she still needed surgery anyway is beyond my payscale, but I’m not in any position to pass judgment. We all do what we have to in order to take care of those who depend on us. Case in point: El Búho had his leg mangled by a car bomb during the early 90s, yet he still takes in narco dolls such as her, with a name that is probably just as beautiful as her lips, something that could turn your knees to water as you shouted it across the bus terminal, begging her not to leave. There’s a market for it, so we help fill it. Isabel, our pseudo-secretary, keeps the clients anonymous, for their security and ours. Sometimes things happen here in la ruta negra, the circuit of clandestine surgeons dotted around Medellín—sometimes in garages, sometimes in retrofitted cafés—and it’s easier to be objective when the body doesn’t have a name, an address, a certain way they take their coffee. Not that the policía or políticos would do anything, but everything’s easier when history is malleable.
El Búho nudges my arm. Isopropyl alcohol slops over the side of the cup in my hand.
“Fishing line. Please.” His tone says he’s asked this more than once and I was far away.
I help him close the girl’s face, holding the knot with a finger while he ties the line. It makes me glad that Mamá bought me Velcro shoes as a kid, but I can’t fall down that wormhole right now. For having fingers as thick as salchicas, El Búho is surprisingly nimble. He once told me he was a boxer, back where he came up, but I’ve never known if that was a joke I didn’t understand.
El Búho snips the line and takes an appraising look, pursing his lips. He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. I nod.
“Wake her,” he says, then limps away, pivoting on his bent right leg. He drops the mixing bowl of cutlery and flatware in the laundry sink.
Her eyelashes are delicate spider legs. Pallid eyelids flutter as she dreams of ethereal places. I brush the back of my hand across her good cheek, warm with blood. Curls of her hair pool behind the soft slope of her skull like a puddle of coffee. Her lips twitch as if they’re hoping for a kiss and I startle when El Búho coughs. He’s bent over the sink, scrubbing at a pair of tongs.
I fidget with my hands—as if nothing unusual had happened—then move toward her feet. She’s the most beautiful creature to lie on our table and, as I see a bracelet featuring santos—all of them Santo Niño de Atocha, a favorite of narcotraficantes—I whisper a quiet prayer for her, that she’ll get out alive. I know she won’t but I feel it’s only appropriate.
Us ladies have to stick together.
Two quick jabs on the bottom of the feet wake her. She jerks to the side, blinking away the haze. I wait for the disorientation to pass before giving healing instructions and sending her to Isabel in the other part of the portioned brick basement.
“Pretty girl,” El Búho says, head down in the sink.
“Mmhm.” I double-check the nitrous valve and make sure it’s closed. A few months ago, I didn’t twist it far enough. El Búho thought it was funny at the time, for obvious reasons, but proceeded to berate me for an hour, once the drug wore off. Cartoon animals bounce around the tank in various joyful positions. It’s a wonder people will still lie under our knife after we offer them off-brand anesthetic. Then again, at least we clean our tools between clients.
“Do you have time to get food tonight?”
The big hand relentlessly follows the little hand around the face of my watch. Mamá will need to eat within the hour.
“Next time?”
He’s already nodding before I answer.
“Leave the clean-up for me. You’ll miss your bus.”
The bus winds through the city, snaking around the circulars and transversals of comuna Laureles-Esatadio. Above us, houses pile on the walls of the valley that cup Medellín like a shattered prism sprinkled along the mountainside. Bright blues contrast with vibrant oranges, yellows, and greens and reds like a great parrot shed its feathers over the barrios. Cutting vertical lines through it all are the escaleras, the long system of escalators that crawl skyward, beneath the line of funiculars that float through the air above the city.
Sitting on the top of the hill is San Javier, or comuna 13, whose location gave the paramilitaries and guerillas a good view of the city and control over what flowed in or out. Back in the bad days, the comunas were insulated from the policía because they were isolated from one another, and passing from one to the other meant passing a checkpoint of young sicarios. It didn’t help that officers were afraid to go into these barrios—comuna 13, especially—as el Patrón had offered to pay well for every policía scalp brought to him. My brother’s longtime girlfriend Paty, her brother Pedro was a sicario for el Patrón and was gunned down in comuna 13 during a gunfight with the police. The government has since raided the comuna—and in the process become the murderers they were trying to get rid of—and built the escaleras. Now people are able to move freely, reconnect with the rest of the comunas.
