Wear Your Home Like a Scar, page 3
El Chili and two of his men popped up, yelled “El Bloque!” and leveled their pistols, firing off shot after shot at the police.
“Pirobos hijueputas tombos,” Eduardo said under his breath as he reached his arm around the corner and shot blind. It would’ve been bad enough if they were regular tombos, uniformed police. But the Bloque de Busqueda was an elite police squad tasked to eliminate the cartels using whatever means needed. Eduardo called to Topo, who was hunched behind a car, “Cover me!”
The pinche Bloque fired. El Chili and his men fired back.
When Topo didn’t respond, Eduardo called out again, then wagered a look around the corner.
The shots rang hollow in his ears. Shattering glass tinkled faintly. Eduardo felt his grip loosen, the handle of the pistol slip through his palm.
Topo lay face down, slumped over the hood of the car, a pool of blood dripping over the edge.
Eduardo felt his mouth open, felt air leaving it, felt his throat tearing—felt a bright white pain radiate through his shoulder, the escapulario kissing his chest, then felt nothing at all.
The lights flickered overhead as if they were on the verge of going out, the taste of sulfur and dirty cotton lingering in Eduardo’s mouth. He blinked his eyes, felt like they were covered in goo and sand. He lifted his arm to clear them away and a searing pain tore through his shoulder. By instinct his other hand cupped it, felt the swath of bandages and tape beneath his palm. A rush of images crashed toward him.
Topo and his finger. The Bloque raiding their stash house. The shots. Topo dead on the car.
Topo, his best friend, his family, lying dead on the car.
Eduardo swallowed the fist in his throat, not willing to let himself cry. Regardless of whether any of his people were around, he wouldn’t let those hijueputas maricas make him cry.
A groan inside the room startled him. He glanced to the right, saw another man lying in a hospital bed. A knot of stained bandages covered the right side of his chest.
Eduardo ignored him, stared up at the water-stained ceiling tiles instead, and rubbed his thumb against the escapulario, whispering please come back, mi Topito, please come back to me, Pedro over and over as the day dragged the sun across the ceiling. He pushed away every thought of Topito’s dead body or what Nina and Paty would do. Between he and Topo, they could barely keep their shitty apartments. The narco-life had promised money and power, but between paying for school for their sisters—because they sure as hell weren’t going to let them go to public ones and get shot or kidnapped by a rival cartel as payback—and clothes and food, there was barely any left over. What would they do now, with Topito dead and—
Eduardo coughed out a sob, then bit down on his tongue, his teeth piercing the skin, clutching the escapulario while waiting for the sensation to pass.
“You can have these if you need,” the roommate said.
Eduardo swallowed blood, said, “What?”
The roommate held up a small cup with his good hand and shook it, pills rattling around inside. “She left them in case I need them but they make me sick. No reason for us both to be in pain if we don’t need to be.” He adjusted himself and grunted in pain. “What happened to you?”
Eduardo cleared his throat, said he went down the wrong block at the wrong time. He laid his arm over his eyes to block out the man and watched tiny, colorful blobs flit across his vision while he continued to rub the escapulario and whisper quiet prayers to the holy child.
“You really like farming or something?” the roommate said.
Eduardo sighed hard and swung his head in the roommate’s direction. “What?”
The roommate nodded at Eduardo’s arm, just below the shoulder, only visible now because of the hospital gown. “Why else would you have a goat tattoo on you?”
Eduardo glanced down at his arm, at the lines that had once been black but since faded to something closer to moss. Topo had done it in his bedroom. They had broken a pen in half then wrapped a piece of thread around a needle and dipped it in the ink before gouging each other’s skin with it, tracing a pattern they’d drawn on with marker. Two goats—the mascot of their favorite football team, C.D. Guadalajara, known as Chivas—in places they could hide if needed. Not like someone would’ve shot them over it, but people have fought for dumber things than not supporting Atlético Nacional or Independiente Medellín. And, it didn’t help that the boss of their boss, Pablo Escobar, was a huge supporter of Nacional—and laundered millions and millions of pesos through the club. Keeping it discreet was usually the best approach.
“Something like that,” Eduardo said. They hadn’t been able to follow the team as closely as they’d wanted—the club was in Mexico, they lived in Colombia, and they didn’t have a TV—but they’d stood outside a bar and watched Las Chivas play Copa Libertadores matches whenever possible. Once, they tried to sneak into a match between Chivas and Nacional but were thrown out before they got more than ten meters in, and even though they were forced to stand across the street, they sang along quietly to the supporter chants inside.
The roommate nodded his head, as if he were evaluating Eduardo. After a moment, he said, “¿Dale Rebaño?”
Eduardo froze on hearing the Chivas chant, his fingers wrapped around the escapulario. “What’d you say?”
The roommate smiled with the side of his mouth. Eduardo noticed then that his right eye drooped in the corner, as if an invisible finger were pulling it down toward his bushy mustache. Eduardo felt an automatic jealousy on seeing it, then realized where that came from. The roommate started rolling up his sleeve but winced and laid his hand on his heavily bandaged right hip. After the pain passed, he revealed a tattoo on his arm, red and white stripes with a blue circle around it, the club’s shield. “I never tell anyone either. Especially not these days.”
“Ave María.” A warm feeling rushed over Eduardo, a familiar comfort. He kissed the escapulario then gave him a little wave, like he was meeting a long-lost friend along a dirt road. “Dale Rebaño. I’m Eduardo.”
“Pedro Alavera Jaramillo. De Guayabal.”
Eduardo laughed at hearing the name—it was too perfect—then recoiled in pain. It turned out he was from the next comuna over from Eduardo and Topito, before they ended up in Comuna 13, the worst in Medellín and epicenter of narco-trafficking. “We’re from Belén, right across the line.”
Pedro laughed. Before he could say anything else—like, they grew up on the same street or their sisters went to school together—the nurse entered the room, readying him for another x-ray or something.
“Chao, Pedrito,” Eduardo said.
He gave a curt wave as she wheeled him out of the room.
Eduardo looked around the room, looking for his clothes—and within his clothes, his wallet, money, and gun. He assumed he’d dropped the gun on the street—as he hadn’t awakened with a tombo looming over him—but didn’t see anything else, either. No bag holding his things on the old chair. No closet for his belongings to hang in. They’d probably thrown away his clothes because of the blood. But if the tombos hadn’t rifled through his pockets before leaving him on the street to die, whoever had brought him to the hospital likely had. That was the price to pay for a Medellín ambulance—meaning, whatever citizen happened to be passing by who took mercy on him and loaded him into the car to take to the hospital. But he still had el Niño around his neck. And what really mattered was that Topo had sent him an angel so he wouldn’t be alone.
Eduardo fell back into the pillow, sinking down deep, falling asleep with a smile on his face.
The door to the hospital room opened, stirring Eduardo from a light sleep. His eyes were heavy and his head felt unevenly weighted, threatening to tip off his neck and hit the floor with a thud. He heard the echo of Topo’s voice, the muted concussion of bullets denting a metal car door.
“Eduardo?” Nina’s voice cut through the fog, snapped Eduardo to attention. “Querido.”
She rushed across the room, heels click-clicking on the tile, and wrapped her brother tight in her arms. He felt threads of electricity shoot through him, radiating from his wound, but ignored it, pulled her in with his good arm and focused on the smell of her leather jacket, of knowing his sister was here and safe. For now.
She pulled back and Eduardo saw Paty standing in the doorway.
“Venga, amor,” he said.
She shuffled across the room, a clutch of tissues pressed against her face like a macabre bouquet, her cheeks streaked with makeup that had run then dried then run again. She joined their group embrace and Eduardo whispered reassurances to her, that they’d be okay, that they’d figure it out. Over and over, time stretching and contracting, their world reduced to this single space.
Paty finally burst out, words slippery with tears. “What are we going to do?” she cried. “What do we do without Topito?”
Eduardo wanted to tell her Topito had sent someone to help, but the girls were far more skeptical than he and Topo, and would never believe it. He’d figure something out.
“It’ll be okay, amor.” Nina shushed her, smoothed her hair back, separating the strands between her fingers.
“Okay?” she shrieked, pulling back. “Okay? My brother hasn’t been dead a day and el Chili shows up at my door this morning saying we need to pay for the lost product because Eduardo and Topo couldn’t stop the tombos. If we don’t pay, he’ll kill me then go down the hall and kill you. What are we going to do?”
The warm feeling that had filled Edo dissipated.
“Patica, cálmate. No te grites.” Nina pulled her back in and Paty broke down again, sobbing hard, her forehead banging on Nina’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.” She looked up and locked eyes with Eduardo. “We’ll figure something out, no?”
He thought about what they might’ve lost from the stash house, what he had in his pocket, how much another gun would cost—because there was no way he was going back to the barrio, even just to negotiate, without hierro. He thought about life after that, an apartment for the three of them—because they couldn’t all fit into either apartment without sharing beds—food, school, protection, and how he’d find money. But first they had to pay el Chili.
Eduardo swallowed hard, held tight to el Niño de Atocha. Ayúdame, he thought.
“We’ll figure something out.”
Eduardo saw the surgeon’s lips moving but had trouble focusing on her words. All he could hear was el Chili threatening Nina and Paty.
“Señor Arango,” she said, “do you understand what that means? If you elect against surgery, you’ll need to be vigilant with physical therapy. For an extended period of time.”
“Right, but then I can leave today, right?”
She released a frustrated breath and tilted her head back. Eduardo noticed a yellow spot on her sport jacket, as if she’d eaten something with aji amarillo for lunch.
“You can leave as soon as we get the infection in your shoulder cleared up.” She leaned forward, knitting her fingers together. “But I feel like you’re not taking this seriously. If you do not stay with the physical therapy, you will lose all function in your arm. That’s why I’m recommending you opt for surgery to fix the damage now.”
Eduardo nodded. “I understand.”
The surgeon sighed then waved him away with a flick of her wrist. The orderly wheeled him back to his room and turned on a TV that had been placed on the dresser the day before so they could watch Colombia’s match against Uruguay in the CONMEBOL qualifier, South America’s division for the World Cup. He climbed into his bed using his good arm, then sat staring at the match for several long moments, replaying the surgeon’s warnings in his head. He didn’t even know where to find a physician or whatever she’d said, much less how he’d pay for it or how he’d explain he needed to take time off the corner to go to a pinche doctor’s appointment. But what he did know was what would happen if he didn’t get out of here in time to pay el Chili.
“¿Todo bien?”
Eduardo startled in his bed, saw Pedrito leaning on his elbow, studying Eduardo.
“Fine. Just…it’s fine.”
Pedro nodded, but Eduardo could tell he was skeptical. Eduardo returned to the match instead.
“You’re full of shit. You know that, right?”
Eduardo turned his head slowly, feeling his pulse pound against his temples. He wasn’t used to being talked to like that. “¿Cómo?”
Pedro swung his legs over the bed with considerable effort and hobbled over toward Eduardo, favoring his left, uninjured hip. He slapped Eduardo’s leg to move it aside then lowered himself gingerly, releasing a long breath when he could finally relax. “You’re also terrible at hiding things. I can see it all over your face.”
“See what?”
“Worry.” He flicked his head at Eduardo. “Cuéntame. What’s up?”
Eduardo had no way to explain how comfortable they’d become with each other; he’d never been that outgoing with people in the comuna. Sure, he knew most everyone just from being around, but there was always a note of fear that rang through when they greeted him as he passed by.
Something about Pedro, it set him at ease, made him feel as if he didn’t have to keep his guard up in the same way as he did while walking around the comuna, and so the words began pouring out, filtered only by instinct, the second-nature way he spoke in code to avoid giving away information or getting pegged as a narco. First that he had no idea how he’d support Paty and Nina, then the surgeon’s warning about his arm. At one point he found himself cursing his father.
The whole time, Pedro just sat there listening, eyes locked, and Eduardo realized this was the first person he’d actually talked to since Topo. Not spoken at, but talked to.
“I never really knew my father,” Pedro said after twenty minutes of Eduardo emptying himself. “He was killed during a FARC raid, out in some shithole in the jungle. I don’t even know if the place has a name.”
“I’m sorry.”
Pedro shrugged. “He was a piece of shit. Apparently, he had another family, which was why he was out there. Cheap, too. Refused to pay FARC protection so they killed the whole family.”
“Ave María.”
“Feel worst for the kids. They didn’t deserve that. But hey,” Pedro gestured around the room, “would you expect anything else in this country?”
Eduardo breathed out a laugh. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a terrible job.”
Pedro flicked his head toward the television. “Watch el Pibe,” he said, pointing at Carlos Valderrama, the Colombian midfielder with a legendary head of springy blond hair. “How’s he get through? Defender stops him, he pulls back, looks to pass it. Defender gives him a step, he’s past him before the guy knows what happened. He sees open areas where others see nothing but defenders.” Pedro rested his hand on Eduardo’s chest. “You’ll find a way through. It might be terrible. It might hurt. But you’ll figure out how to take care of those girls.”
Eduardo didn’t know what to do other than nod. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had seen potential in him. El Chili, sure, but that was also a business transaction. Pedro had nothing to gain here—nothing but a friend.
Pedro grunted as he sat up. “That’s assuming, of course, that this food here doesn’t get you first, because llave, I would murder for an arepa right now.”
Eduardo laughed despite himself, his entire being lightened. “Actually, I know of a place not far from here. When we get out—”
A knock on the door interrupted him. Eduardo turned, expecting to see another nurse, or possibly Nina and Patica again. But his skin turned cold when he saw three tombos standing in the doorframe. His first instinct was to reach for his gun, but he’d lost that. The second was to run, but he was injured and the three of them would overpower him without much effort. So Eduardo sat there, back straight, jaw set, ready to take them on.
But instead of rushing him, smothering him with a pillow or stabbing him with a hidden knife, they just ambled in, not even glancing at him. Instead, they made their way over to Pedro, arms out. They all embraced and Eduardo felt the air suck out of the room.
His new friend, the one he connected with, his angel sent by Topito, was a cop.
Two days later, Eduardo was lying in bed, tracing with his eyes the watermarks that branched across the ceiling like the Amazon as he waited for orderlies to return with wheelchairs to take them out. Patica had stopped by that morning with clothes from Topo’s room. Nina had forgotten to give her a key to their apartment before leaving to look for after-school work, doing anything they could to make money, so Paty wasn’t able to get Eduardo his own clothes. The jeans were a little tight and the shirt wasn’t a color Eduardo would’ve chosen, but they were better than the hospital gown he’d been wearing for nearly a week.
In the background, the radio played a song by Ruben Blades and Willie Colón.
Eduardo heard footsteps and sat up in bed, ready to get the hell out of here. The footsteps passed. He lay back down.
“You think we’ll make it?” Pedro said.
The question cut through Eduardo. “¿Cómo?”
“¿El Mundial?” Pedro said, holding up a copy of El Espectador.
“Oh, right.”
“Right?” He folded the newspaper in half and dropped it on his night table. “Llave, we haven’t been to the World Cup in almost thirty years. Best thing we’ve had is a tie with Russia in, what, ’62? A tie! That’s not even a win! We’ve got referees killed after matches, carro-bombas on every corner, presidential candidates assassinated at campaign events, and all we have to cheer about is a pinche tie?” Pedro opened up the paper, muttering to himself.
The radio repeated the song.
“Do you think we’ll make it?” Eduardo said after a long moment.
