Saint Death

by Marcus Sedgwick

  —I admit that that in itself is not a bad thing; it is perhaps the one true benefit of religion. Religion is a collective delusion, a collective madness that ironically prevents madness for the individual, and I have to concede that’s of benefit to all of us, even those of us outside of the group, for whom the religion has no power. ¿But within the group? ¡O God! ¡There is power, yes! And this Santa Muerte … she is something else. I would guess that very soon, as many Mexicans will pray to her as to the Virgin. So she has power. And the narcos pray to her, and the army, and the police, and the politicians and the prostitutes, and the prison guards and the prisoners, and the poor. The Church is scared of her, you know. ¡They have tried to ban her! You heard what the Pope said. ¿But do people care? No. They do what they have always done, they worship who they want to worship, and anything that the Catholic Church cannot control must be very powerful indeed. ¿But dangerous? No, I don’t think so. What I think is dangerous is what is tattooed on our friend’s other arm.

  Arturo has only been half listening, but this gets his attention.

  —¿You saw?

  —A glimpse. And I don’t know which gang he has joined, and I don’t want to know. And it doesn’t matter. Whichever one it is, that’s what’s dangerous.

  Arturo lets out a long, slow breath. He knows this already. He thinks, hesitating, for a second, knowing that Faustino will be back any moment.

  —¿Siggy, you remember Eva? She’s had a baby, with Faustino. He’s paid some coyotes to get her across to El Norte. Tonight.

  Now Siggy looks worried.

  —¿She’s taking the baby with her?

  Arturo nods.—¿You think it’s dangerous?—he asks.

  —So many people want to go to America. To escape the poverty, the violence. But maybe you’re asking the wrong person. I was the one who came the other way.

  Arturo thinks about that for a moment.—They’re going to Los Angeles. ¿Isn’t that where you’re from?

  Siggy holds Arturo’s gaze for a moment, then he seems to disappear somewhere. His eyes look into the past, the distant past of things seen and done a very long time ago. He doesn’t speak, and Arturo stares around the bar, awkwardly. He knows how Siggy gets sometimes, everyone does. The darkness in his eyes, bottomless. But it’s something else to have it happen to you, and because of something you said.

  —Let me tell you something—Siggy whispers, rubbing the corners of his eyes with thumb and forefinger up under his glasses.

  Arturo nods.

  —Forgive me—Siggy adds—but it’s about myself.

  —That’s okay—says Arturo. He even finds a smile. He could listen to Siggy all day, though it’s hard to hear what he’s saying, he speaks so quietly.

  —No one here knows who I am—he says, but he gets no further because Carlos is wandering over, chiding at the top of his voice.

  —Siggy, I told you not to—he’s saying, but then realizes his friend is barely speaking at all, never mind bending Arturo’s ear. He puts his hand on Siggy’s shoulder.

  —¿You okay?—he asks.

  Siggy grasps Carlos’s hand and holds it firmly. He whispers more.

  —Only my good friend Carlos knows who I am. Only Carlos. ¿Right, my friend?

  Carlos smiles but Arturo can see it’s forced. Carlos pats his friend’s shoulder, gently.

  —Siggy—he says—we need some more beer. Bring a couple of crates from out back, muchacho. I think Arturo’s heard enough today. ¿Right?

  Siggy nods his head, as if he’s very, very tired. He stands. He looks old, older than fifty. His face is lined and his hair straggly and gray; the long stubble on his chin is white. He blinks, smiles at Carlos, then he sees Faustino coming back over to join them, and he leans down so that only Arturo can hear, before whispering—I hope Faustino chose his coyotes well.

  Then Faustino is there, and Siggy smiles and slaps him on the back.

  —I gotta get to work. Good to see you.

  Faustino nods, then downs his beer in one go.

  —And we gotta get to work too—he says, looking at Arturo—Leave your beer, vato. Or drink up. It’s time to go.

  Carlos watches them leave, Arturo following his friend into the start of the night, El Alemán’s words ringing in his head.

  I hope Faustino chose his coyotes well.

  * * *

  :-PorMiMexico22 wrote:

  Monday afternoon, 160,000 liters of meth precursors found in 800 200-liter drums in warehouse in Comitán, Chiapas, near southern border. The shelves contained election propaganda for the recently elected mayor.

  “When the system’s corrupt, what can you do but run?“

  :-beelucky151 wrote:

  I have sympathy. I do. But it’s just how things are, right? What are you gonna do?

  :-PorMiMexico22 wrote:

  Just because it’s how things are doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do something about it. That it can’t change. No? Perhaps this is the modern version of Faust; that we sit around writing stuff or wringing our hands saying, yes, yes, but what can we do about it?

  :-beelucky151 is typing:

  You think you know everything? You ever even been there? Anyway, life’s cheaper down there, right? So it doesn’t matter if they don’t earn as much as …

  * * *

  CIUDAD JUÁREZ

  In front of the car in which Arturo and Faustino journey through the night, down the long, dark hill, Juárez waits, haunting their futures, and ours.

  Juárez: the ultimate goal, our final destination; the inevitable end to the path we are taking, the inescapable culmination of the world we are making. We might look away, but whether we look away or not, it’s there. It lies at the bottom of the road down from the sierra, a hot beast in a cold world of night, from which streetlights can be seen, and where a fire rages over near the border and now, across in some colonia or other, muzzle flashes of gunfire pierce the darkness. Juárez is what occurs when greed makes money by passing things across the border dividing poverty and wealth. Things like cars, like electronics, like machines. Things like drugs, things like people.

  Arturo feels his gut squirm. All he has: in his right pocket, seventy dollars, in his left, his Catrina knife. That’s all. That’s not quite all.

  Three lampposts in a row painted pink, bearing fading black crosses: symbol of the missing women. Arturo watches Faustino’s face as they pass under the lights, the orange glow that grows steadily then vanishes quickly as each lamp goes by. He cannot make out his friend’s face clearly, in this soft slow strobe, and he is struck by a horrible feeling: that he is sitting next to a stranger.

  ¿Why did you leave me? he thinks, then it seems that maybe he said it out loud, for Faustino turns to look at him. That anger is still there, challenging Arturo, daring him to say the wrong thing, to do the wrong thing, whatever that might be.

  Faustino fishes behind his back as he drives, and wriggles the gun out of his pants, sets it on the dashboard.

  —¿What are you doing?—Arturo asks.

  —¿See that?—Faustino says.—I want to explain something to you. So answer me a question: ¿Where did I get that from?

  Arturo doesn’t want to answer the question. He wants an answer to his own. ¿Why did Faustino just go? ¿Why didn’t he say what he was doing, why didn’t he keep in touch? Because he just went, leaving Arturo with …

  —¿Where did the gun come from?—Faustino says, sounding edgy.

  —I don’t know—says Arturo.—¿The gang? I guess someone in Los Libertadores gave it to you. Yeah, you told me that.

  —Yeah. ¿But where did they get it from?

  —No idea, vato—says Arturo.

  —It came from El Norte.

  —Yeah. Most guns do. ¿Right?

  —Yeah. ¿Except you know how this one got here?

  Arturo sighs. He doesn’t like the game that Faustino is playing because he doesn’t know the rules. He also doesn’t like the way Faustino has been changing his mind about things
all night. But he makes a guess at Faustino’s question.

  —Some narco gave money to a straw buyer in Texas or New Mexico and he went to a gun dealer and then either smuggled the gun over the border himself or the narco went to get it.

  —Very good—says Faustino and Arturo wants to hit him, but Faustino doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

  —But this is where it gets weird—he says.—¿You know who the straw buyer was really working for?

  —I don’t—mutters Arturo.

  —The ATF. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Fireams. The Americans. ¿And you know what’s even weirder? The money that the narco gave to the straw so he could buy guns that would be brought over here for the cartel to use—that came from the CIA.

  —¿What? ¿They stole CIA money?

  —You’re not paying attention. The CIA gave the cartel the money to buy the guns.

  —No way, cabrón. That’s messed up. ¿Why would they do that?

  —¿Why? They did it to arm the Sinaloa cartel to the teeth so they could wipe out the CDJ. They gave the Sinaloans a quarter of a million dollars to buy guns and then let them walk those guns over here to use against the cartel here. That’s why.

  Arturo is shaking his head.

  —¿When was this?—he asks.

  —Years back; the turf wars were bad then, when we were kids. When the women were going missing.

  Arturo ignores that last remark.

  —¿And who told you all this? ¿You believe it?

  —El Carnero himself told me. Told me how the Sinaloans moved into Juárez, right into CDJ territory. They were fighting for control of the bridge, the drug route to El Norte. Things are different now, now it’s just total anarchy. But the guns are still here, and mine is one of them.

  Arturo doesn’t really understand, let alone believe what he’s hearing.

  —¿El Carnero told you this? ¿Why?

  —He told me for the same reason I’m telling you, pendejo.

  Faustino starts shouting. From nowhere, for some reason, that anger has welled up again and bursts out.

  —¡I’m telling you because you are a dumb little kid! ¡I’m telling you because nothing in Juárez is what you think it is! That’s what El Carnero told me: do not trust anything, not even what your own eyes show you. Everything is chingada, and the only way you stay alive is by being faster and smarter than everyone else. ¿Got it?

  Arturo says nothing.

  —¿You got it?—Faustino shouts and then Arturo snaps.

  —Yeah. I got it. Faster and smarter than everyone else. Just like you. ¿Right?

  Faustino curses. He presses his bad foot to the gas pedal and they speed into the belly of the city. It swallows them.

  * * *

  So, we are all god-killers. We kill the gods that came before us and we put up new gods in their place. We erect a new totem to be worshipped, just as, in some unknown distant past, we erected the first totem, after we committed the first murder, the primal killing.

  In that distant past, we killed what came before us, and then, erecting a totem in its name, we made that murder taboo, we made murder itself taboo.

  We handed the right to kill to that thing we call civilization. Civilization does our killing for us, and we can wash our hands of it. This is the management of death.

  But the blood will not wash off. We live with the blood of that first killing on our hands, eternally.

  * * *

  LA CIVILIZACIÓN Y SUS DESCONTENTOS

  They are on the outskirts of the city now, crossing thresholds. Ahead lie totems: at a Pemex station the hill levels out and they pass half-built homes from which weak lights shine. The road climbs for a while, until, passing an ugly, modern church, it drops down more steeply to the city itself. Here, a tall yellow monument dominates the traffic circle, and Arturo knows they are beside the river, just to their left, though here its banks are made of concrete, the river funneled through the city to suppress the force of water and the attempted crossings of immigrants. A fence broken in places lines the Mexican side; on the far bank there’s a much higher fence topped with razor wire. Beyond it is America, the unknown land.

  They move on.

  Faustino guides the car around streets that he seems to know well, streets that Arturo has never seen before.

  They swing this way and that, making slow turns at lights, and Arturo sees that Friday night in the city is well underway. Sirens wail. Neon burns on all sides, bodies come and go, people standing on street corners, heading out of bars, heading into bars. Without exception, they are all seeking something; few know what it is they seek.

  Faustino makes a couple more turns and they leave the hubbub behind. These are narrower, darker streets.

  —This is Chaveña—Faustino says quietly.

  A few buildings have two stories, most have only one. All have bars across every window, some have razor wire on their fences and gates, at the edges of roofs.

  At a crossroads, Faustino pulls the car onto a vacant piece of ground, and stops the engine.

  —Calle Libertad—he says.—I can’t go any closer, in case someone sees me.

  Arturo stares out at the street, half lit by orange streetlights. He doesn’t like the half he sees.

  —Go up this way—Faustino is saying.—Turn left on Insurgentes. There’s a big junction, with a fountain in the middle. Take the second street on your right. Halfway down on the left, you’ll see the bar. It’s called El Alacrán.

  Arturo does not move, does not speak. He stares out through the windshield at the near-deserted street. He’s having trouble understanding that Faustino wants him to leave, go out into the night, walk into a rough bar in a rough part of the city, and play cards to save his life. But that is exactly what Faustino seems to expect him to do.

  —The big money starts to go down soon—Faustino is saying.—But you don’t have big money. So you need to catch the tail end of a game where they’re still playing for fives and tens.

  —I know how to make money—Arturo says.

  —¿So what’s the problem?

  Faustino seems to think he’s asking Arturo to go buy some groceries for him.

  —Listen—says Faustino.—I’ll wait here. No matter how long it takes. I’ll wait here. ¿You see that place, right opposite? That’s my place. I mean, it belongs to El Carnero but he’s been letting Eva and me stay there since her mother chucked us out. When you have the money, come back here and I’ll get you out. ¿Right?

  When I have the money, thinks Arturo. ¿When? ¿Not if?

  He looks across the dimly lit street to the building that Faustino calls his place. It’s a one-story building of cinder block, painted green in parts. There’s a battered red door with bars over it, with the number 965 in peeling white paint.

  —Here—Faustino says.—Take this, buy a beer with it. Don’t use the dollars for that.

  He puts a small wad of pesos in Arturo’s hand.

  —That’s half of what I’ve got left in the world right now—Faustino says.—Be careful with it.

  Arturo finds that he is nodding his head. He finds that he is saying okay to Faustino. He finds he is slipping the pesos into the pocket of his shirt. He even finds that he has one hand on the catch that opens the car door, though he does not remember putting it there.

  —Just one thing—Arturo says.—Tell me this one thing, and then I will go.

  Faustino appears to relax a little. Maybe just the sign that Arturo is going to go is enough to allow some of his anger to evaporate into the night.

  —Sure. ¿What?

  —Tell me why you left me.

  Faustino shakes his head. He sighs, but he doesn’t seem angry.

  —¿Really?

  —Really.

  —Truth is, vato. I don’t know. I mean, I know I’d had enough. Of having no money, of nothing to do, nothing to live for. And we wanted more, Eva and me. We both did. And things were okay till her mother chucked us out. Then the only thing I could do was …

  He
trails off, and Arturo knows he means how he joined the gang.

  —But you could have told me—Arturo says.

  —I could have …—Faustino says.—But something stopped me. I missed you. Yeah, I did. I missed you a lot. I had Eva, of course, but …

  —¿So why didn’t you come and find me? ¿Tell me what you were doing?

  Faustino shrugs.

  —I don’t know. Like I said, something stopped me. I didn’t want to get you into anything.

  —¿Anything?—asks Arturo, almost left speechless by how dumb his friend is.—¿Anything like this, you mean?

  He pops the door open.

  —Wish me luck, pendejo.

  He steps out of the car, and is about to shut the door when Faustino calls out.

  —¡Hey, Arturo! The candles at Doña Maria’s. ¿Which one did you light?

  Arturo is confused.

  —¿Which one? I don’t know. The nearest one.

  —No, I don’t mean that. ¿What color did you light?

  Arturo thinks for a second. He sees all the candles around Santa Muerte’s feet, the ofrenda: the money, the cigarettes, the glasses of water. He sees the slips of paper; the prayers left to the impartial saint, a universal warrior.

  He sees himself pulling the lighter from Faustino’s hand, sees himself scratching a flame from it, and sees the color of the candle he chose to light.

  —Black—he tells Faustino.—¿Why?

  Faustino shakes his head, mutters under his breath.

  —Maybe it’s for the best—he says.—Good luck, Arturo.

  —¿Why? ¿What does it mean?

  —Get out of here, cabrón. Someone’s coming. We shouldn’t be seen together. Not here.

  Arturo sees two young men walking on the other side of Libertad.

  —¿What does it mean, Faustino? Tell me.

  Faustino is getting mad.

  —It means a bunch of stuff. Protection. Now get out of here. Go and be a god.

  —¿Protection? That’s good. ¿Right?