Saint Death

by Marcus Sedgwick

  He plays on. He plays on and loses and he’s done. He’s lost almost everything. He scrapes together enough for a bank of twenty and loses that too, and then El Carnero says something about lending him some money to keep playing. The people standing around the table go silent and still and one of them even wants to pull at Arturo’s sleeve and tell him to get up and run, run hard, but everyone is scared of El Carnero, everyone except the White Sister, and she, it seems, has disappeared.

  Arturo borrows a hundred from El Carnero, and sees it walk straight back across the table to where it came from. So he borrows two hundred, and the same thing happens to that.

  He plays on and he plays on and the old gods are interested now and sit up and take notice, for they know sacrifice when they see it, and they can see bloody sacrifice coming. They erupt from the ground and circle the table, grinning. The world rips apart around the calaverita and Arturo plays on and the little skull laughs at him as he borrows and loses, borrows and loses again, until suddenly someone says—That’s enough.

  It’s El Carnero who’s spoken.

  Arturo lifts his head.

  —That’s enough.

  El Carnero sits back, and stretches.

  —I’m tired. Game’s over. Niño, you owe me four thousand dollars. But I’m a generous guy. You can have till tomorrow night to pay me back.

  Arturo reels, feels the world turn over and crumble around him. He sits among its shattered pieces. He came here to play cards for Faustino’s life. Not only has he lost, but he has paid with his own.

  * * *

  We wanted to belong. We needed to. To the world, to each other. But our greed and our fear have led us down a different path, the path to isolation. Our greed has fed our fear and our fear has fed our greed and now look where we have come: the end of the road.

  It may not be the case that we are at the top of the mountain now; that we are at the pinnacle of human existence. It occurs to me that the highest point of global civilization may not be now, nor lie in some idyllic future. It may have passed, slipped by one day, unnoticed, as the world was as good as it ever will be and though we may strive to find our way back to the top of the mountain where such wonders await us, we’re too late. The descent to the end has come.

  * * *

  GROUND ZERO

  Unlike Faustino, who rode the beast from far to the south, Anapra is all Arturo has ever known. His parents came with the thousands who fled north from Durango after three years of drought. They kept moving north until, in Anapra, they slammed up against El Norte. There was no fence then; there were just concrete markers in the ground. A year later, men from America came and started to build a fence. It was primitive at first, but over the years it got bigger and stronger, yet still the fence runs out just beyond Arturo’s shack.

  It’s been his home for about a year. Before that, he and Faustino lived in the shell of an old yellow school bus, cut off just above the wheel arches, half-buried in the ground. And before that, they lived with Arturo’s parents in a jacal. If Colonia de Anapra is bad now, it was worse then. Everything was just cardboard, and scrap wood. Fires were common, but they, like everything else, fell into the pattern of life and death.

  In November and December, thousands of kilometers to the south, the drugs were harvested, following which they worked their way north, and killings came with them as disputes arose and scores were settled. Through Christmas and New Year’s, people hanged themselves. The first few months of the year brought death in other ways. Faulty gas heaters might poison silently in the night, with leaks of carbon monoxide, or they might explode, causing fires to rage. The spring saw fights over ground in the colonias, and, in the absence of sewer systems and good water, outbreaks of disease. In summer the water nearly ran out entirely, and there would be sporadic drug murders by the pandillas. The cool autumn would see more fights over land, and rapid building of shacks. Fires were common then too, as people stole electricity from the grid, causing short circuits that could ignite a town made of cardboard in seconds. A neighbor of Arturo’s electrocuted himself trying to rig up a line; his blackening body hung from the wires for a day before men came and cut it down. Finally, winter would return, the shootings, the hangings.

  This is the center of the world. It is ground zero. It is the world Arturo was born into.

  His mother had to stop working in the Lear Corporation maquiladora when she became too pregnant to avoid detection, and was fired. Once Arturo had grown a little, she found work in a different factory. It was easy enough; with hundreds of the foreign-owned factories chewing their way through workers rapidly, she found a new position quickly. Every day, she would join the other workers walking to meet the company bus to the maquiladora. Often this meant leaving before dawn, while Arturo still slept, but he was old enough to look after himself by then. He was six.

  Arturo’s father, meanwhile, might go to work or he might not. That depended on many things, and one of those things was how stupid he was feeling. Or how brave. Or how desperate. On days like those he would join some of the other men in the colonia and wander across into America to wait for a train to roll by. There, they would clamber aboard the moving train and use crowbars to lever their way into the boxcars, throwing down whatever looked most valuable and vanishing before the police showed up. They rarely did. For a while, the train robbing was made easier when someone found that if you connected enough car batteries to the rails it made the train’s brakes fire, but the railroad got wise to that and changed their emergency systems.

  It was not without its dangers. More than once, someone would fall under the train, and die. A friend of Arturo’s father lost his foot, a good friend. And that was why, when skinny little Faustino turned up in Anapra one day, hobbling down the main street, begging, Arturo’s mother took pity on him. For a while, things were good. Arturo had a kind of brother, his mother was working, his father wasn’t drinking much. It was only when she went missing that things went wrong, and that his father went missing too, in his own way.

  * * *

  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  WHAT IS A MAQUILADORA?

  A maquiladora is a Mexican assembly or manufacturing operation that can be subject to up to 100 percent non-Mexican ownership. A maquiladora utilizes competitively priced Mexican labor.

  ARE MAQUILADORAS REQUIRED TO INCORPORATE MEXICAN COMPONENTS?

  No. Maquiladoras are not required to use any Mexican components in assembly processing or manufacturing.

  WHAT ARE THE MEXICAN TARIFF/DUTY POLICIES RELATING TO THIS PROGRAM?

  As long as the imported components brought into Mexico are destined for export, no Mexican import duty is levied on them.

  WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF THE MAQUILADORA PROGRAM?

  Low labor costs

  Trainable workforce

  Proximity to US market and distribution centers

  Cooperative, nonunion workforce

  Fine quality of life for US managers living in El Paso

  * * *

  THE DELIVERER

  No one looks at Arturo.

  He staggers away to find the bathroom, to clean himself up. The water splutters out into Arturo’s hands, and he splashes it over his head, takes a long drink from the tap. The bathroom door opens and Raúl walks in, props himself against a filthy sink. His sleeves are rolled up. He is covered in gang markings, and there, just as on Faustino’s arm, is the tattoo of Santa Muerte.

  —¿You weren’t thinking of going no place?

  It’s not really a question. Arturo sees Raúl nod at the little window, which is covered with heavy bars.

  —I’m kidding—says Raúl.—You can go any time you want. Only, El Carnero wants to see you first. ¿Right?

  Arturo wipes his face on his sleeves, straightens.

  He nods and not, making eye contact, passes Raúl, heading toward the door.

  He’s almost there when Raúl speaks again.

  —Hey. One thing. You know he’s messing with you. ¿Right?r />
  Arturo doesn’t understand.

  —¿What do you mean?

  —He knows you don’t got four thousand dollars. No. Anyway, four thousand dollars is nothing to him. It’s just a game, pendejo. It’s just a game. And you’ve already lost.

  Arturo fights the urge to run and walks back into the bar, which is emptying out. It’s late. There’s still music but it’s old-time mariachi now, incongruous. El Carnero is still sitting at the table, alone. He sees Arturo and beckons him over with a finger, points to the chair.

  —¿You said you’re from Anapra?

  Arturo nods. He cannot look at El Carnero; it is like looking at the face of the sun. He could be burned to a cinder just by trying it, the power is so great. Arturo knows that if he looks at this man then he will be looking at his future, and it is not good.

  —Yeah, I thought so. Anapra. So I can do you a little favor. Give you a ride home.

  —No—says Arturo.—No, I have, I mean, I can—

  El Carnero cuts him off.

  —It’s no trouble. You see, Raúl has some business that way anyway. Tonight. He’s bringing his truck around right now. And then I thought, I’ll come with you too. Give you a lift home. So I know where to come and get my dollars, tomorrow. ¿Right?

  No, thinks Arturo. No. No, no, no. Faustino is waiting in his car on Calle Libertad. But he cannot say that, he just has to get away from here somehow.

  —No—says Arturo.—I’ll tell you where I live, but—

  —Good—says El Carnero, taking absolutely no notice of him at all.—There’s Raúl outside. Let’s go.

  El Carnero gets up, pulling a jacket from the back of his chair, which he slings over his shoulder.

  —The nights are cold now—he says.—¿Right?

  Arturo nods, noticing that El Carnero limps as he walks, just the same way Faustino does. They leave the bar, the heavies on the door nodding to El Carnero as he passes.

  The red pickup is outside. There are three men in the back, narcos. One of them has tattoos all across his face like Rául does, only these are even stranger: he has had his face turned into a skull. The tip of his nose has been blacked out, his eyes are blackened skull-like sockets; skeletal teeth have even been tattooed across his lips. Arturo pulls his gaze away from this man as El Carnero gives him a soft shove in the back, pointing him toward the cab of the truck. Raúl’s in the driver’s seat. El Carnero walks up to the door and opens it.

  —I’m driving—he says.—The kid’s up front with me.

  Arturo thinks that maybe Raúl hesitates, just for a moment. Not enough to really see, not enough to upset El Carnero. He climbs down from the cab and walks to the back of the truck, where he climbs up into the bed using the wheel as a step.

  —Get in—El Carnero says, and Arturo clambers into the cab, and as he does so, he makes the mistake of glancing back through the small rear window. He sees the three men looking at him, and Raúl saying something to them. Something about him. He notices they all have guns. Two of them have small folding automatic rifles. But he sees something else, something worse. It’s dark, there are few lights in the street, but it seems that lying on the bed of the truck, between the four men, is a shape; long and bulky. Motionless.

  El Carnero fires up the engine.

  He turns to Arturo.

  —¿You hear something? I don’t. Raúl is like a mother with a baby. This damn truck. There’s always something wrong with it. Only it’s all in his head. ¿You hear something? I don’t, but maybe you do. You’re a mechanic. ¿Right?

  Arturo shakes his head.

  —No, I’m not a mechanic. I just haul stuff around the yard.

  —Okay, okay, but tell me what you think. ¿It sound okay to you?

  Arturo nods.—Yes.

  El Carnero pulls away.

  —Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna drive you to your place. And on the way, we’re going to have a chat. ¿That sound good?

  Arturo nods.

  —I said, ¿Does that sound good?

  There’s a touch of irritation in his voice that scares Arturo.

  —Yeah—he says quickly.—Yeah. Sounds good.

  They drive.

  El Alacrán may have been winding down, but Juárez is only just getting started. They tear through the streets. As terrified as Arturo is, the world looks different from inside the cab of a truck like this, a powerful truck, with tinted windows and black leather seats. They’re high up, level with or above the heads of most people in the streets, and it feels good somehow. Arturo is too scared to think about why it feels good, he just senses it, sensing something that thousands of other weak, poor young kids before him have sensed, and been attracted to. For there is a drug here. It’s a different kind of drug than the one that El Carnero and his like make money from, so much money, by selling to the users of El Norte. This drug, which Arturo barely senses, is the leather seats of the truck, it’s the tinted windows, it’s the guns in the narcos’ hands, it’s the rolls of dollars in their pockets. This drug is the most powerful drug of them all; its effects are both fast and powerful. Arturo looks through the tinted windows of the truck; he sees people in the streets taking great care not to look at them, pretending that the truck doesn’t exist. That was him until a very short time ago.

  There is no room for such thoughts right now. All Arturo can think is how stupid he’s been, how dumb. How he got greedy, how he broke all his rules, how wrong this all is, when he didn’t ask for it to happen. It was Faustino. Faustino marched back into his life with his bunch of problems, and made them his own. A year ago, Arturo wouldn’t have blinked before helping, he would have done anything for his friend, his brother. But that was before Faustino left. He didn’t owe Faustino anything, Arturo thinks, So why has he let himself get into this mess?

  On top of all this, El Carnero is speaking to him, easily now, calmly, chatting away like he’s Arturo’s uncle, about this, and that, and then he says—¿You know a kid called Faustino?

  —¿Faustino?—Arturo asks, desperately trying to play innocent.

  —Yeah, Faustino. He’s one of mine. He’s from Anapra. I mean he was. Not anymore, but he’s about your age. I thought maybe you know him.

  —No, I don’t know anyone called Faustino.

  —¿No? ¿You sure? It’s a common enough name. ¿Right?

  —Yes, I guess it is. But I don’t know him.

  Arturo’s mind tries to speed ahead of the conversation; to seek out the gaps; spot the pitfalls, watch for the traps that El Carnero is setting for him, and all the time it’s doing that, Arturo’s mind is also thinking that El Carnero cannot know they know each other. Faustino and him. Unless maybe Faustino’s spoken about his past, about his friends, back in Anapra. Maybe he—

  —¿What’s your name, niño?

  So now Arturo has a split second to decide whether to tell the truth, or not, but before he can decide, he finds that he has opened his goddamn mouth and spoken anyway.

  —Arturo.

  Arturo waits for the killer blow. He stares through the windshield, waiting for El Carnero to reach over and slam his head into the dash, or shove him against the door and put a bullet through his face. Just for lying.

  —Oh—says El Carnero.—Arturo. I like that name. Like the king. ¿Right?

  Arturo does not have the faintest idea what he is talking about, but he knows that he is still alive, and that must mean that Faustino never mentioned him. He feels both relieved and hurt. So Faustino walked out of their life and into a new one and never once mentioned his best friend?

  * * *

  Juárez passes by, and here, at once both safe and in appalling danger, Arturo sees the city as he has never seen it before.

  It is alive, writhing and strong. On every corner, on every street, in every bar, deals are going down. People with blank faces that nevertheless reek of their desperation push their way through the world, hunting for what they need, what they need, what they know they really need. Questions are asked and
people greet each other, flirting, laughing, crying, shouting. Money changes hands, drugs change hands. Guns are being loaded, guns are being used.

  As they reach Azucenas, at the corner where the bridge to El Paso is just meters away, they hear the sound of shooting. Arturo looks and sees a car doing a U-turn and then screeching away, heading out of sight. People are standing around something on the ground, outside the drugstore.

  There are shadows in every alley, every doorway, and the lights of shops and bars and signs and cars dazzle and blind and make the shadows darker still. In those shadows lurk the fierce gods of our past, the desperate gods of our future who know we have been running away, simply trying to escape them, for all these hundreds of years. They know that time is running out; that it will not be long, and Juárez is the proof of that.

  * * *

  As they turn a corner, one of the men in the back knocks on the glass and shakes his head, shouts something through the window that Arturo doesn’t quite catch. He’s shaking a walkie-talkie, showing he was just told something over the radio.

  El Carnero takes a turn, puts them on a different street.

  —Las Panteras down that way.—he says, nodding toward where they’ve come from.—And we don’t want trouble tonight. Any other night, we might want trouble, but not tonight. Tonight we just want to get you home safe. ¿Right?

  Arturo stares and stares and the city smears its way past his eyes.

  —This town …—says El Carnero.—I’m old enough to remember when there was some kind of order here; the cartel ruled everyone, and that was that. No one controls these streets anymore. Now it’s just anarchy; total and all-out war between all-comers. It’s Hell, plain and simple, and that’s funny because you know what they say—“Even the Devil is scared of living in Juárez.” But not me. It doesn’t matter where you go; you have to die somewhere. ¿Right?