by Don Winslow
Ever.
Mudo Juan, as he’s come to be called, mostly just sits there. He eats, he goes to class, he sometimes even plays basketball, but he has nothing to say.
Ni una palabra.
Mudo Juan is huge, well over six feet and he has to go two hundred pounds. There are all kinds of stories about him, but who knows what’s true, because of course he isn’t saying. Some of them go he was just born that way, others go that he saw his baby sister burn up in a fire, others that he had to watch his mother get raped by a gang of mareros.
Mudo Juan isn’t saying.
Nico has tried to get him to talk, practically has made it his mission in life to get Mudo Juan to say something. Will pull up a chair right in front of him and ask him questions, or tell him jokes, call him every dirty name he can think of, say very bad things about his mother, anything to get a reaction from him, but nothing.
“Give up,” Santi told Nico.
“Never.”
Once a week, every Tuesday, Mudo Juan goes and sees the “mental health professional” who comes in, but that guy hasn’t made out any better than Nico.
One day, Nico just went off.
Started yelling at Mudo Juan, “Say something, Mudo! Anything! One fucking word! I’ll give you anything! I’ll give you all my snacks for a week, I’ll suck you off if you want, just for the love of God, say something!”
Santi was rolling around on the floor he was laughing so hard.
Mudo said nothing.
Nico doesn’t give up.
So sometimes it’s funny in there, other times it’s crazy, other times it’s just sad; most of the time it’s all those things at once.
More and more it’s just sad.
Nico feels sad.
Sad he’s in there.
Sad his aunt and uncle haven’t come to see him.
Sad he talked to his mother.
It was two days ago they finally put it together, when his mother could get hold of a phone for a few minutes and they could find Nico and bring him in the office and he heard her ask, “Nico?”
Like she couldn’t believe it.
“Yes, Mami, it’s me.”
“Nico . . .”
And then she started to cry.
And cry and cry and cry.
That was most of their phone call, her crying, between sobs asking him if he was all right, telling him that she loved him, loved him very much, loved him so much . . .
“Can I come home, Mami?”
“No, m’ijo.”
“Please, Mami.”
“You can’t, m’ijo. They’ll hurt you.”
“Can you come here?”
“I’ll try.”
“Please, Mami.”
“Be a good boy. I love you.”
That was it. The phone went dead.
He handed it back to Norma.
“All done?”
“Yes.”
“Already?”
“Yes.”
Nico knew she couldn’t come here, he knows it now, knows that she doesn’t have the money and couldn’t survive La Bestia. He thought talking to his mother would make him feel better, but it just made him sadder.
Now he walks to class.
ESL.
Nico thinks it’s crazy they’re teaching Mudo Juan to say nothing in two languages.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
All the boys are waiting.
Waiting for their threat status to be changed, waiting for their sponsorships to be approved, or just waiting for their eighteenth birthday when, as adults, they’ll be put on a plane and flown back to wherever they came from.
So they wait.
Go to classes, play checkers, play cards, play fútbol, watch TV, go to breakfast, lunch and dinner, talk shit, take showers, go to bed, get up, go to classes, play checkers, play cards, play fútbol, watch TV, go to breakfast, lunch and dinner, talk shit, take showers, go to bed.
Day after day after day.
The only change is who’s doing the waiting, because the population changes. A kid gets sponsored and leaves, another one has his threat designation removed and goes to a foster home or a regular group home, another blows out a candle on his cupcake and then is taken away. A few who committed serious felonies in the United States while they were minors turn eighteen and are transferred to the big leagues—a prison in America.
Those guys look bad going out, Nico thinks. They try to look all macho, like they’re happy to be going, it’s no big deal, but Nico can see that they’re scared.
“He should be scared,” Santi says, watching one of them go. They’ll all be lining up to jump his ass. A Mexican, he’ll have to clique up to survive, which means deciding if he’s sureño or norteño, and whichever he chooses, the other gang will be out to do him. “He’s totally fucked.”
Santi, he knows he’s just killing time until his eighteenth, because there’s no chance in fucking hell of getting reclassified or sponsored. He’s a threat because he was sexually trafficked, and when the American doctor asked him if that made him angry and want revenge, he said hell yes on both counts.
“They thought that meant I wanted to fuck some little boy,” Santi says. “I said no, it means I want to kill the people who fucked me.”
He got a glimpse at his file and it said, Sexual deviance with homicidal tendencies.
“So I’m not going anywhere,” Santi says, “until they ship me back. Until they do, I’m going to milk it, Nico. Most of the idiots in here don’t realize what we have—a bed, food, clothes, shower . . . a clean fucking toilet? Flat-screen TV? Snacks? Come on, ’mano.”
Santi gets a lot of snacks.
The reigning board game champion of the Southern Virginia Youth Detention Facility, he beats everyone at chess and checkers and wins their Skittles, their cookies, their M&Ms, their Snickers. Santi is literally getting fat in secure detention, and he uses these winnings to gamble on anything—the fútbol games on the court, fútbol games on TV, which way the judge is going to decide.
What Nico doesn’t understand is how Santi always gets the other guys to play or bet. They almost always lose, but they do it anyway. Santi can even get Mudo Juan to play chess and to bet on the judge by pointing his finger at the plaintiff or the defendant.
“You know what I like about Mudo Juan?” Santi has asked Nico. “When he loses, he never complains.”
And Santi finally explained to Nico how he sucks guys in. “It’s about hope, Nico. Most of these kids hope for things they know, deep in their hearts, they’re never going to get. They hope for their status to get changed, they hope for a sponsor, they hope they’re going to live happily ever after in America. They know none of that is going to happen. But they always have the hope they can beat Santi. That isn’t going to happen, either, but they hope. I give them hope, Nico.”
Fermín is Santi’s most reliable victim.
He always plays and he always loses.
Fer has an uncanny ability to pick losers, and Nico has tried to argue the logic of this with him.
“Make your pick,” Nico said, “and then bet the other way.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you always pick wrong and lose,” Nico said. “So if you go the other way, you’ll pick right and win.”
Santi watched this conversation with condescending amusement. “Knock yourself out, Nico. It won’t make a difference.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t you get it?” Santi asked. “He wants to lose. It gives him a reason to bang his head against the wall.”
“Is that true, Fer?”
“No! I want to win.”
“He never does,” Santi said calmly. “He never will.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Tell you what,” Santi said, “for a Snickers, without even hearing the case, you pick the plaintiff or the defendant, I’ll pick the other one.”
“That’s just a coin toss,” Nico said.
“He’d lose that, too,”
Santi said. “So what about it, Fer? A Snickers?”
“You’re on.”
“Fer!”
“Shut up, Nico,” Fer said.
He picked the plaintiff.
Case dismissed. The judge found for the defendant.
Fer handed Santi his Snickers and went and started banging his head into the wall until Gordo came in and hauled him away.
“I did him a favor,” Santi said. “He got everything he wanted—a good head bang, and good drugs.”
It goes on like this.
Day after day.
Nico becomes an old veteran himself.
He watches kids come and watches them go.
Becomes very helpful to the fresca, the new meat. Walks them through the drill, clues them in on the staff—who you can get over on, who you should avoid—gives them the same dope about the other kids.
Some listen to him, some don’t.
Nico doesn’t care.
Santi loves new meat. “I don’t see obnoxious little newbies who fuck everything up. I see Snickers.”
Actually, it’s Nico who comes up with what the staff comes to refer to as “Fermíngate.”
Nico is sitting against the fence, taking a breather before going back into the fútbol game, when he says to Santi, “What if Fermín beat you at checkers?”
“What if Becky G blew you?” Santi asks.
“Think about it,” Nico says. “Everybody is going to bet on you, but I put my snacks on Fermín. Think of the odds we can get. You lose and we clean up.”
“Everyone will see right through that.”
“Not the fresca.”
“You realize that what you’re suggesting is fraud,” Santi says. “Morally and ethically reprehensible.”
“Yes.”
“I’m in.”
It takes some setting up because everyone knows Nico and Santi are cerotes. So they stage a little falling-out in the dayroom. Nico is trying to get Mudo Juan to talk, saying horrible things about his mother and a goat.
“Why don’t you leave him alone?” Santi asks.
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Nico says.
“It is my business,” Santi says. “You’re pissing me off.”
The dayroom starts to take notice. Boys look up from what they’re doing, or away from the television. It’s something different—Nico and Santi are friends, and neither one of them is aggressive, Nico’s Judge Marilyn meltdown notwithstanding.
“So what?” Nico says.
“So knock it off.”
“So make me.”
Santi gets up and walks over, but not so fast that Gordo can’t come in and get between them. “Settle down.”
“He’s bothering Juan.”
“Since when doesn’t he bother Juan?” Gordo asks. “Go back to your seat. Watch TV.”
Santi gives Nico a bad look, then goes back to his seat.
Nico goes back to Juan’s mother and the goat.
In minutes, it’s all around the facility that Santi and Nico are beefing. They play it up—stink eyes at each other in the hallway, a rougher-than-called-for bump in the fútbol game.
Two days later, Fermín challenges Santi to a game of checkers.
“Two Snickers,” Fermín says.
When Santi accepts, Nico says, “I want a piece of that.”
“A piece of the Snickers?” Santi asks.
“A piece of the bet,” Nico says. “I’ll take Fermín.”
“Are you crazy?” a kid named Manuel asks. “Fermín always loses.”
“You want to bet on that?” Nico asks.
“Yeah!”
“Okay, but you have to give me odds,” Nico says. “Fermín has to be, what, a million-to-one long shot? Give me three-to-one.”
“If Fermín wins, you get three Snickers,” Manuel says. “If Santi wins, I get one.”
“Yeah, that’s what three-to-one means, genius.”
“Okay.”
It spreads quickly. By the time the game starts, Nico has covered eleven three-to-one bets on Fermín. There’s only one hiccup—
Rodrigo says, “Wait a second . . .”
Nico is scared Rodrigo has sniffed out the scam.
Then—
“. . . does Nico have enough Snickers to cover these bets?” Rodrigo asks.
“If I lose,” Nico says.
“Oh, you’ll lose,” Santi says.
“Tell you what,” Nico says. “I’ll take a punch in the stomach for every Snickers I’m short.”
“Oh, I’ll take the punch,” Rodrigo says.
Nico quickly does the math—if he loses, he’s going to get punched in the stomach ten times. But if I win, he thinks, Santi and me share thirty-three Snickers. Which we can trade for other goods and services, or lend out at interest.
We could be rich.
It’s worth the risk.
The game starts.
Everyone in the dayroom, even the nongamblers, are watching.
At first, Santi plays a risky game, making his usual sharp moves, and Fermín . . . well, Fermín makes mistakes that can only be described as “Fermínesque.” It looks like the everyday Santi v. Fermín mismatch, and kids start taunting Nico, making moans as they enjoy their putative Snickers, Rodrigo punching the air with vicious digs into the belly.
Nico plays it out, his face a study of anxiety and regret.
“I’m going to hit you so hard,” Rodrigo tells Nico, “your mother will feel it.”
Nico lets it go.
Then the game begins to turn.
Santi moves a checker and Fermín double-jumps him. A ripple of doubt goes through the room.
Shrugging it off, Santi moves again.
Fermín jumps him again.
“What the fuck?” Rodrigo asks.
Santi sits back, looks perplexed. Then he leans forward and engages in what will doubtless be a ruthlessly efficient counterattack that will finish the game.
It’s close.
Way too close, as far as Nico is concerned.
Santi comes way too close to winning twice as he struggles to offer openings that even Fermín can see, sets up traps that even Fermín can spot in advance.
It’s not easy.
The usually unflappable Santi breaks out in a sweat.
So does Nico.
Then he hears Fermín say, “King me.”
It’s over. Fermín has won.
Dramatically, Santi sweeps the checkers off the table. “Shit!”
“Fermín, you won!” Nico yells.
Fermín can’t quite believe it himself. He sits staring at the board as he hears curses rain down on him.
For winning.
“Everyone hates me,” he says softly. “Everyone hates me because I’m so stupid. So fucking stupid.”
He walks over to the wall.
Bang. Bang.
Nico doesn’t notice, he’s too busy collecting Snickers and insults. A few kids can’t pay, so he lets them write IOUs. “You know there’s going to be interest, though?”
“What?”
“What, güerito, you think Snickers are free?” Nico asks. “Time is money, man. You pay tomorrow, you owe four, the next day it’s five . . .”
“How are you going to collect?” Santi asks him later.
“Huh?”
“If some kid tells you to go fuck yourself, he isn’t paying,” Santi says, “how are you going to make him pay? No one is afraid of you, Nico.”
Santi has a point.
Nico is the smallest kid there, and his fight with Jupiter wasn’t exactly impressive. He thinks about this problem for a minute, then goes over to Mudo Juan.
“Mudo,” he says, “if someone gives me a problem, you take care of it, and I’ll give you a Snickers. You understand? Just nod.”
Mudo nods.
“So we have a deal?”
Mudo nods again.
“Okay,” Nico says. “Here’s a two-bar retainer. Call it good faith.”
Santi watches
this transaction. When Nico walks back over, he says, “If you’re here long enough, you and me, we could own this place.”
Rodrigo sees them talking.
He’s pissed.
Looking blood at Santi, he says, “You threw that game.”
Santi’s look of hurt innocence could fool a middle-school nun. But not Rodrigo. “You two little fuckers. I want my Snickers back.”
Nico smiles at him. “Tell it to Mudo.”
Yeah, Rodrigo isn’t saying shit to Mudo.
Like the rest of them, he saw Mudo, on one of the rare occasions he got mad, snap a mop handle in half with just his hands.
Not over his leg, just with his hands.
Rodrigo’s eyes narrow as he looks at Nico. “I’ll kill you, you little fucker. I’m not messing with you this time, either. I’m going to kill you.”
But he walks away.
“Fuck him,” Nico says. Rodrigo isn’t so bad now that his wingman Davido has moved up to the bigs.
This is the beginning of Fermíngate.
It comes up at the next day’s group meeting, when Chris says, “I sense some tension in here today. What’s going on?”
Nobody says anything.
Because snitches . . .
Chris is on his game, though. “Would it have anything to do with the incredible stash of candy bars Ramírez has in his room? Have you guys been gambling? Because you know that gambling is against the rules.”
Nothing.
Someone must say something, though—probably one of the frescas—because Canela calls Nico and Santi into her office. “You boys have something you want to tell me?”
“How pretty you are?” Santi says.
“Because if you tell me,” she says, “before I find out, it would be better for you.”
They don’t say anything.
“Be that way,” Canela says. “I’m going to interview you separately, and, I promise you, one of you will break.”
She starts with Nico. “Where did you get all the candy bars?”
“Kids gave them to me.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re nice.”
“It wouldn’t have something to do with a checkers game,” Canela says, “between Santi and Fermín?”
“I don’t know.”
“Some kids are saying you cheated.”
Nico shrugs.
“Here’s the deal, Nico,” she says. “The first one of you who talks to me doesn’t get a write-up. The other kid does. You think Santi is going to have your back?”