Tag: testimonial

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.

THE WHOLE WORLD AND CHILDHOOD

Ever since the raid came for the Chef—even though we all got swept up in the dragnet and ended up with a submachine gun pointed at our heads and a boot crushing our chests against the floor—I suspected, and still suspect, they were going to get him one way or another. His sentence was the minimum for what they managed to find (had they raided on a different day, the sentence would have easily been double digits). However, in my own hierarchy of crimes, he doesn’t fit; he is still innocent. I may not be right, and I don’t have to be, but it’s a necessary scale.

After four years of living here, the things that used to be done in secret or hidden from the eyes of my mother, my partner, or myself, stopped being hidden. They were simply done in the yard. Yes, I’ve seen bricks of marijuana stacked up while I was heading to the bathroom (the bathroom was, and still is, shared, located at the back of the lot). I’ve seen guns. I’ve talked to—and some even worked for my cleaning company before I closed it—guys who were responsible for shootings, threats, or drug-related debt settlements. I knew all the secrets; I saw them because it’s inevitable when you live on the same lot. Even if you don’t participate, you step out to the yard and find a group of guys handling exactly what I mentioned.

What would you do, “good citizen”? Would you call the police, you, the paragon of virtue? Would you report them? Those guys willing to “battle” for you? The Chef, who would answer for you if you hit a rough patch and had nothing to eat, who would lend you money or bring you food without expecting favors in return or rushing you to pay him back? Someone who would invite you to his table for Christmas and New Year’s, even if you don’t like it or don’t want to be a part of it. If you report someone like that while living on his land, let me tell you: you probably no longer have a soul or a reason to justify your existence as a human being, as a species. Though, of course, the System would be delighted with you.

Knowing everything also led the Chef to open up to me, and his wife to open up to my mother. That’s how we learned about the Chef’s childhood (remember that when we moved here, they were both 21 years old with a child). If we look at his life, we see a boy who was probably abused (though he never said it explicitly). But his sister, as a child, was raped by her stepfather, as was his brother. As if that weren’t enough to ruin any future—having to keep living with the rapist—his mother, starting when the Chef was six years old, forced him to stand at traffic lights to beg for coins. He had to come back with money, or the punishment was a beating. Later, at thirteen, when he could no longer get money at the lights so easily, he became “useless” and was kicked out onto the street. What I’ve told you so far is more than enough to manufacture a ruthless killer. Instead, we have a man with the sensibilities I’ve already mentioned.

After living on the street for a while, the State did not take him in; it never even knew he existed until he decided to become a criminal. As if that were something one simply “decides.” Regardless, the only social circle that gave him shelter was some poorly organized, precarious gang. He was a “cook”—of drugs first. And then, who knows out of what curiosity, he wanted to be a Chef. A suffering, helpless child, cooking cocaine, wanting to be a Chef in a restaurant. A situation that is, at the very least, interesting to witness. And even more curious: he actually became a Chef. He managed to graduate. So, there was effort and capability. Of course, all that ended when he decided to pull an “inside job” at the restaurant where he worked (no one suspected him). I don’t judge that action; it feels like an inevitable act. There was no foundation, no control, no chosen path other than his own.

Later, he began butchering whatever field animals crossed his path; that’s how he fed himself and lived for a couple of years. Meanwhile—listen to this, “honest” citizen—according to what he told me, and later confirmed by other testimonies: he cooked for the Gendarmerie (Border Patrol) and was in charge of keeping the business’s books. All of it endorsed by the police, the gendarmes, and a prosecutor. I don’t know if a judge was involved too, so they’re off the hook for now. Of course, I cannot give names.

Who would be the guilty party in this case? The Chef, who struggles to read, or all those with formal education who are part of that criminal ring? If we put the blame on the dark-skinned Chef who looks exactly like what society calls a criminal, there is something seriously wrong with our heads.

Later, when all of that had to stop due to changes in government, prosecutors, and officials—and others were going to take over that part (make no mistake, that dirty State business never stops; don’t be naive)—his path in street-level drug dealing began.