THE NARCO-BANDIT
The Chef—the protagonist of this essay—is no wet cat caught in the rain. I imagine you’ve realized that by now. His particularity is this: if he loves you, he’d be willing to go to prison for killing for you. I mean this seriously. He wouldn’t hesitate to pull a gun and let happen whatever needs to happen. But let me clarify: when an average citizen pulls a weapon, we lose all our composure. The Chef, in those moments, was the exact opposite. If he doesn’t love you, or if you are his victim, any human word is wasted.
Ever since they locked him up—given the violence of the raid and the weight of the charges—it’s clear to me that drugs were the last thing they were looking for. In fact, they seemed angry to have only found that. It’s obvious they were after many things but could only prove one. Looking back at the previous paragraph, I find only one constant: extremism. Extremism in loyalty and affection; extremism in violence.
But when I think of the Chef—his situation, his life, his suffering, and his actions—I cannot help but see a brother. Different blood, same codes. And an uncomfortable question arises: Is the only difference between him and me a personal cowardice that always held me back? Trying to answer that would be a strike against the truth. But I am sure of one thing, an irony we all face: your family, or a large part of it, will eventually cast you aside. You won’t matter to them much at some point. And in that long, sustained moment, this man—the Chef—was the one who gave me the warmest “familial” support (aside from my mother, of course). To put it better, I’ll quote Gangs of New York: “It’s a funny feeling being under the dragon’s wing.” All that extremism that drives him is motivating, encouraging. I remember him saying things like: “You don’t know what you could become,” or “You have to keep going, fight for what’s yours.” Of course, we shouldn’t expect high-flown rhetoric, but the intention was there.
EXTREMISM. I return to that when I speak of him. His father abandoned him, among other impact forces I’ve already mentioned. There was never anything or anyone to soothe that extremism that hit his life every few years. Now he’s living through another one: prison.
Make no mistake: the “narco-bandit” is a dangerous figure. Dangerous for you, for me, for everyone. He isn’t the typical stupid dealer driven by women, lacking codes, ready to snitch on anyone, letting addicts into his room. But he isn’t dangerous solely because of the violence he might exert. His danger lies in his intuition and his hidden intelligence.
Everything in the bandit’s criminal operation—even if they can barely read or write, as is the case with the Chef—has a prior intelligence. It is the crucial difference they use to categorize a rastrero (a bottom-feeder who steals a cell phone or ties an elderly couple to a chair) from a “real” bandit. The real one can pull off a handcrafted tactical hit on a higher-ranking dealer, or clear out a ranch in record time without hurting anyone, or why not, rob an armored truck and vanish with the loot. Think about it: this requires coordination, scenario forecasting, defined roles, guesstimating time, and escape planning.
I’ve seen these “plans.” I don’t know how they ended, but the planning was there. I’ve walked past them on my way to the bathroom just as they were preparing these actions in a circle, guns in hand. And following the rule of this place: I didn’t hear a thing. I didn’t even try to.
And here the question returns: that intelligence, that management of tension, that planning—what if he had seen that possibilities existed? What if another life were possible? If someone had walked him to school? If someone had asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up? A vet, an astronaut, a doctor?” Surely his life would have been different. When you talk to these “bandits,” you realize they know. Internally, they have a small fissure of pain propped up by the “What could I have been?” The eyes don’t lie. When I talk about these things with these men, that sadness is there. Because even if they can’t see the full extent of their intelligence, they notice they see much more than the rest. And I ask myself again: besides cowardice, was the difference between the Chef and me just luck?
This is where I inevitably return to the forces that push us toward different paths—real, physical forces that shape existence, regardless of whether the origin is objective or subjective. Here, the State’s irresponsibility becomes even more massive: trying to measure the complexity of existence with basic addition. It isn’t a mistake; it’s intentional. Using the best minds to prevent this would require intervention, and the State only saves itself.
How can a person without tools counteract such a trend if they have nothing to stop it? If everything they see on TV are idolized personalities talking like hitmen and dressing like hitmen (music is a point of inspiration and belonging here; it is the glorification, the “Great Why”)? It’s clear that a hollow culture is vital. Those inside the trend, heading toward crime, see nothing. And the others—the “good citizens”—see nothing either.
When I say I feel the Chef is my brother, I am telling the truth. And I want to highlight something about the codes: they are real. They even keep you out of certain things. Once, because I needed more economic stability, I proposed using my technical skills to start encrypting their communication network—both for his “soldiers” and his bosses. He wouldn’t let me in. Today I see it was a way to protect me. This sector I call “bandits” protects and respects the “good people”; it doesn’t want to drag them down the same path.
As for the codes: in the nearly four years I’ve lived here, the police and prosecutors have taken away about fifteen people from the neighboring lots. How do you tell a bandit from a coward? I’ve seen people who bragged about their “mafia” status only to snitch on everyone to save their own necks, trembling before a prosecutor. The real ones don’t snitch. If someone gets caught with drugs and gets out quickly, I guarantee they sold out all their “friends.” It makes me think: the word of a “bandit” has more value than that of your own coworker who would sell you out just to earn an extra 200 dollars a month. Which one is the true ethics?
Everything in the Chef is extreme. The first extreme blow was his father’s abandonment, then the abuse of his siblings. And I wonder: if the father had stayed, if there were a penal punishment for those who wash their hands of their children, would this Chef be the same? I am convinced he would be different. Which leads me to conclude that the first criminal is the father who abandons. The only real criminal is him—the one who unleashed the chain of events.