Whenever I looked up from my manuscript to check the news from a country that had fascinated me since childhood, I’d see graphic photos of people my age lying dead at the hands of corrupt police or shadowy cartels, and I’d feel queasy that I’d had so much luck and they’d had precisely none.
This contrast haunted me all the way to graduation and beyond, but so did the contrast between the book I wanted to write and the one that I was actually writing. The films and books I’d felt drawn to were by people who documented the way power can steamroller so many individual lives, and there I was, focusing on two men trying to fall in love. Love, fulfilment, happiness seemed like such small words beside history, tragedy, politics.
That’s most of why I gave up trying to write fiction and moved to Mexico City, a year or so after graduating, working as a freelance reporter, pushing for the kind of stories I felt there needed to be more of. Although I can’t vouch for the worth of what I produced, my conscience was easier knowing that I was a bit closer to the action.
Or so I thought at first, anyway.
But you really can get used to anything. In Mexico, just about everybody has a tragedy near or in or next to their lives. Sure, those people’s stories are heavy to witness, but you’re never more than a flight and a taxi away from the comfy expat cocoon paid for by your job as a journalist. You can shut your door, you can talk it over with your friends; when the story comes out, you count up the Likes and the Shares, you wait for your paycheque, and you let the experience of reporting become a kind of currency with which to buy a sense of your own coolness, or worth, or daring.
For a long time, I was at best dimly aware of that pattern, and felt even more dimly guilty about it. But then, on July 31, 2015, four women and one man were tortured, raped, and shot in an apartment two blocks away from my flat. Two of the victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time – that’s to say, their own home. Another was their cleaning lady. The other two were the activist and writer, Nadia Vera, and her friend, the photojournalist Rubén Espinosa: both had given interviews in the weeks before their death alerting viewers to the threats against their lives, which they believed emanated from the state of Veracruz, where both had worked until their forced exile to Mexico City.
Even through my lagging of privilege, the story chilled me. Although I’d worked a lot in Veracruz, nobody had ever come after me. Although I’d struggled financially, I’d never feared for my life.
After the murder of my neighbours, I started to lose faith in what I was doing. Two colleagues and I had found a big story in Veracruz, about how a brutal organised crime group known as Los Zetas were engaged in a campaign of terror against the indigenous Totonac people living around the crumbling oil capital of Poza Rica. Since an Irishman had struck oil in 1898, the area’s history had been one long chronicle of displacement, pollution, and violence, in an ever-rotating cast that told the same story: police versus union, Zeta versus Totonac, state versus reporter, profit versus people.
My friends and I figured that the companies operating in the region couldn’t not know what was happening. The people we spoke to who worked for those companies only confirmed that impression. The story seemed huge. Jesus, I mean, it should have been huge. But nobody would go on the record, and, if there ever had been paper-trails, they’d been destroyed long ago. As with so many interviews in Mexico, the best stuff was off the record, uncorroborated, relayed under oaths of total secrecy, so outlandish it could have been a rumour, so detailed it could only be true. As with so many stories, that old chokehold of crime and corruption and capital had itself locked around the truth.
In those days, putting together maps and stats and transcripts, I’d look down from my desk and back at the drawer where that old novel still lay – the one from 2008, the one about two men whose love was a hurting thing. Then I’d look back up at the news and I’d feel like something had run its course, and I’d wonder what the point of being a foreign correspondent even was. I’d gone to Mexico to be close to the action, and find some catharsis for my own guilt, but that same decision had wrapped me even tighter in my own privilege: the murder of my neighbours had exposed me to my own lies, and nothing I wrote would ever get me off the hook.
And so I took out that old manuscript, and I gave its central couple new names, and new wardrobes, and a whole new address. They were still an ‘opposites-attract’ couple – just like me and the man that 2008 book had been based on – except now one of them was Mexican, the other foreign; one was a photographer, the other a journalist; one of them was committed to his work, the other committed to his lifestyle; one of them unfortunate, the other one lucky in ways he couldn’t even see.
Then I put myself and my privileges on trial, and the transcript of that trial became Call Him Mine.
That text – the book you have in front of you now – isn’t quite a nonfiction novel, and it’s most certainly not news, but it’s not quite fiction, either. In Mexico, there’s a strong tradition of the crónica, a hybrid form that owes its subject-matter to reportage, its questioning of objectivity to autobiography, and just about everything else to fiction. Given the dangers of telling the truth in Mexico, it’s easy to understand why the form has taken such strong root here. But those limitations bring benefits.
With the crónica, you mightn’t get the capital-‘T’ journalistic truth, as veteran photographer Keith Dannemiller puts it, but you do feel the small-‘t’ teem of what it’s like to be in a time and a place and a situation. Read the best crónistas – like Fernanda Melchor, or Juan Carlos Reyna, or Federico Mastrogiovanni – and you’ll learn as much as you would from any dispatch or feature or wire report.
Think of Call Him Mine as either a thriller in crónica form, or a crónica in thriller form. Think of it as a way to tell the truth, but tell it slant. Think of it as a tribute to all the real-life Carloses and Mayas out there, both alive and dead. Think of it as a capital-‘T’ journalistic truth hiding inside a small-‘t’ fictional one.
Finally, think of its figures as characters, but try to imagine them as real people, too.
Tim MacGabhann, October 2018
Loreto, Baja California
About CALL HIM MINE
1 – ‘Veracruz se escribe con Zeta’, Fernanda Melchor
Although Mexican intelligence services believe that Los Zetas have been operating in and around Poza Rica since about 20041, their first major foray into the public eye came sometime in 2007, when a convoy of black SUVs roared into the city, driven by armed men on a mission to exhume the body of a fallen comrade, who had been shot dead at a horse-race.2
Although the cartel’s large-scale defection from the Mexican special forces – partially trained by the United States3 – had probably come about sometime in the late ’90s4, this open show of force was new, and heralded a split between the Zetas and their Gulf Cartel paymasters that would lead to years of serious violence and economic crisis in the Chicontepec region, home to over fifteen billion barrels of crude oil – one of the largest onshore hydrocarbon deposits remaining in the world.5
2 – Unclean Fuels
Those large deposits come with a price, though. Most of the oil is locked inside irregular shale formations, requiring heavy-duty fracking equipment to be used to get out every last trace, but poisoning everyone’s water in the process.6 The technique is so controversial that it’s billed as ‘fracking lite’ or else the practice is denied entirely, even though locals have flown enough drones over the wells and compared them with other fracking sites around the world to know what’s really happening.
With the beginning of Operation ‘Safe Veracruz’ in 2011, a high-visibility, low-impact security strategy launched by the Calderón administration, the Zetas found themselves forced into extortion, human trafficking, and fuel theft, since their revenue and manpower streams were coming under pressure from federal security forces.7
From that point on, it’s become common to hear whispers of collusion between Pemex and organised crime
groups,8 with the former paying the latter to terrorise indigenous populations, activists, and journalists – according to locals – in order to allow controversial fracking hydrocarbon extraction methods to be used in the locality.9 Frequently, members of the Zetas have either been recruited from the Veracruz State Police force10, or else have masqueraded as police officers, since the sale of cars and uniforms is an important potential income stream for underpaid law enforcement.11
3 – A Jaguar and Some Missing Billions
The above isn’t the only example of Zeta infiltration within the state of Veracruz. Sociologists, journalists, and locals are united in alleging that former governor Fidel Herrera, whose term ran from 2004 to 2010, invited the Zetas to operate in the state, as compensation for their $12m-dollar financial backing to his political campaign.12 Herrera has denied the allegations, denouncing the attempts to ‘stain the name of a servant of Veracruz’ as ‘unheard of, atrocious, and inconceivable.’13
His successor, Javier Duarte, was launched into office by another landslide of dirty money in 2010.14 During his term, seventeen journalists were killed and three disappeared in the state. Death squads partially made up of security forces and Zetas have been implicated in at least fifteen disappearances, localised around the Lencero Police Academy, whose basement housed a James Bond-style zoo of exotic carnivores and whose back field is a mass grave15 containing the bodies of alleged criminals tortured to death without trial. A chief of the State Police, nicknamed El Jaguar, faces trial for the fifteen verified disappearances16, alongside thirty-one of his own officers.
After stealing $3.2bn of state funds, Gov. Duarte went on the lam to Guatemala some fifty days before the end of his term in 2016, where he was arrested at a lake resort, faced trial in Mexico17, and was later sentenced to nine years in prison.18
4 – The Game Doesn’t Change
As Mexico’s economy stagnates in a climate of global austerity, so, too, does the oil industry around Poza Rica, with foreign companies either withdrawn from the region or their activities suspended until the market appears more viable. After 2014, with the liberalisation of extraction permissions in the Chicontepec region, the Veracruz state government began to sever its ties with the Zetas19, through large deployments of a better paid unit of the Veracruz State Police, called the Fuerza Civil (renamed for the novel as the Guardia Civil).20
Although their tactics are brutal and off-target, the deployment of the Fuerza Civil is widely regarded as having dismantled Zeta operations in the area. However, the dismantling of one cartel has only left the field open for the entry of a new one21, and the entry of a new police force has led to the same accusations of forced disappearance and wrongdoing as dogged its predecessors,22 leaving Poza Rica and the Chicontepec region locked in the same cycle of unemployment, pollution, and crime as ever.
* * *
1 ‘Guerra entre cárteles deja 500 muertos’, El Universal, 4 Sept. 2015
2 ‘Comando armado exhuma y roba el cadáver del Z14 del cementerio de Poza Rica’, Al Calor Político, 7 March 2007
3 Chris Arsenault, ‘US-trained cartel terrorises Mexico’, Al Jazeera, 3 Nov. 2010, ‘El origen de Los Zetas: brazo armado del Cártel del Golfo’, Expansión, 5 July 2011
4 Ioan Grillo, El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency, London: Bloomsbury, 2011, pp.94–8
5 José Ignacio De Alba, ‘Poza Rica, Veracruz: la ciudad que pasó de la abundancia con el oro negro a vivir una crisis’, Animal Político, 11 Sept. 2016
6 Rubén Albarrán, ‘Fracking y ecocidio, la triste realidad que vive Veracruz’, SinEmbargo, 25 March 2018
7 Will Dunham, ‘Thirty-two bodies found in Mexican Gulf state’, Thomson Reuters, 7 Oct. 2011
8 Seth Harp, ‘Blood and Oil: Mexico’s Drug Cartels and the Gasoline Industry’, Rolling Stone, 6 Sept. 2018; Gabriel Stargardter, ‘Uneasy Energy: A Reuters Special Report’, 28 June 2018; Ana Lilia Pérez, ‘Crimen organizado somete a Pemex’, 25 July 2010
9 Paul Sapin and Verity Oswin (Dirs.), ‘Crude Harvest: Selling Mexico’s Oil’ – Feature Documentary (Al Jazeera English, 29 Dec. 2014); Interview conducted with Gumercindo González, agente municipal for ejido Emiliano Zapata, May 2014, by Jonathan Levinson (NPR), Charles Levinson (Reuters), and I
10 Arturo Ángel, Javier Duarte: el PRIista perfecto, Mexico: Ediciones Grijalbo, 2017, pp.86–8; Ricardo Raphael, ‘De cómo el narco financia la política’, El Universal, 19 Oct. 2017; Fabiola Rocha, ‘Vinculan a mando policial de Veracruz con los Zetas’, 16 March 2018
11 Ioan Grillo, El Narco, p.210; ‘Por 1,500 pesos se puede adquirir un uniforme de policía en CDMX’, Noticieros Televisa, 15 May 2018
12 Arturo Ángel, El PRIista perfecto, pp.103, 141; Rafael, El Universal, 19 Oct. 2017; Jaqueline Ángeles, ‘Los Zetas dieron dinero a campañas de Veracruz y Coahuila: estudio Universidad de Texas’, 6 Nov. 2017
13 La Jornada, 7 Nov. 2018, ‘Fidel Herrera niega tener nexos con “Los Zetas”.’
14 Ángel, Ibid., pp.62–3, 65, 164
15 Nathaniel Janowitz, ‘Code Name Jaguar: How a Top Police Official Carried Out a Reign of Terror in Mexico’, The Intercept, 20 May 2018
16 Ibid
17 David Agren, ‘Mexico: “worst governor in history” sentenced to nine years for corruption’, Guardian, 27 Sept. 2018
18 David Agren, Guardian, ‘Mexican governor accused of embezzling billions detained in Guatemala’, 16 April 2017
19 Arturo Ángel, El Priista Perfecto, pp.61, 85, 103; Oscar Balderas and Nathaniel Janowitz, ‘What It’s Like to Lead a Team of Cartel Hitmen in One of Mexico’s Bloodiest States’, Vice News, 2 June 2016
20 Paul Sapin and Verity Oswin (Dirs.), ‘Crude Harvest: Selling Mexico’s Oil’ – Feature Documentary (Al Jazeera English, 29 Dec. 2014); Interview conducted with Edgar Escamilla, reporter for La Jornada de Veracruz, May 2014, by Jonathan Levinson (NPR), Charles Levinson (Reuters), and I; Edgar Escamilla, ‘Enésima demostración de fuerza en Poza Rica’, La Jornada de Veracruz, 19 May 2016
21 Arturo Ángel, El PRIista perfecto, p.85; Noé Zavaleta, ‘La sangrienta batalla por la plaza de Veracruz’, Proceso, 16 Jan. 2018
22 José Martín, ‘Acusan a la Fuerza Civil en Poza Rica de levantar a tres’, Imagen del Golfo, 25 April 2016
Glossary
cabrón bastard, idiot, someone who’s either cheated on their partner, or (confusingly) someone who’s been cheated on
D.F. el Distrito Federal, another name for Mexico City
chela, güerito? beer, white boy?
chingue a su madre fuck it anyway
no chingues don’t be fucking around
que chingados what the fuck
chinga, güey fuck’s sake, pal
cholo a northern gangster ‘look’, usually involving a Gothic blackletter chest-piece, vest, and a shaven head
mire, güey ‘Look, man’
vato ‘friend / pal’, but also ‘bandit’ or ‘thug’
Acknowledgements
Call Him Mine wouldn’t have happened without Lourdes Pintado Gallardo, who helped me get the job that first brought me to Poza Rica. Without Jonathan Levinson, who insisted we go back to Veracruz as many times as it took until we had something like a story, this novel would have remained nothing more than a pitch in my Drafts folder. Without Fabio Barbosa, Érika Ramírez, Edgar Escamilla, and Nancy Flores Nández, Poza Rica would have looked to me like just another crumbling oil town. To all I owe a great debt.
Alfredo, Amy, Azam, Béne Caf, Cristy, the Three Daves, Diego, Donovan, Dudley, Duncan, Keith, Luises Orozco y Kuryaki, Lucía, Mara, Nathaniel, Rafa, Robin, and Steve: your fingerprints are all over this thing. Thank you.
My tutors and fellow students at UEA all left a helpful mark on the initial manuscript, but I need to single out Giles Foden for making this book what it could be. Still amazed by your help. Senica, Tom W., James, Sophie, Philly, Alan, Cara, Grace, Deepa, Joe, Mónica, Sumia, Timothy, Kathy, Kunzes, Laura, Harriet, Tommy K., Alake, Naomi – tha
nk you all for getting me through that year in different ways. Also, I’m sorry for all the vape.
Sincere thanks to Sally and Oisín for helping me to turn a very baggy first draft into something I could be proud of; to Cathal, Chloe, Hannah, Karl, Kevin, and Roisín for helping me keep my head up when it was all going a bit pear-shaped; and to John the Shed and Tom M. for making sure I got here in the end.
Jools and Rose gave me a home away from home for far longer than any of us expected, and always with such grace and kindness. Thank you both, truly. The Autumn Meal is on me.
The other members of Legends Club and the Earthen Cat Tree have kept me fuelled with encouragement, careful notes, and reading / watching recommendations for absolutely ages. Only a policeman would mention you by name, but you know who you are.
For always being there with pep-talks and a protective eye, I’m grateful to Sam Copeland in a way that football banter can’t fully express. Even so, if writing were the Premier League, he’d be Jürgen Klopp. Natasha and Max helped me out so much with early drafts of Call Him Mine, while Eliza’s patience seems to know no bounds: thank you all so much.
For taking on the project, for making the book better than I believed it would be, and for making me a better writer, Federico Andornino has my endless thanks. Thank you to the whole Weidenfeld & Nicolson family and the wider Orion Publishing Group, for taking a punt on a story I never thought would see the light of day. I want to thank Jo for her sniper’s eye in spotting all the typos and continuity errors also – knowing me, that wasn’t easy.
I want to gratefully acknowledge the Arts Council of Ireland, whose support was crucial in completing this project, and particularly the assistance of Jennifer, Kate, and Ben.
My mother, my father, and my sister, Beck, have always been behind me with their unstinting support. My partner, Jany, believed in me long before I ever did. Everything we do and talk about makes me a better person as well as a better writer. She’s the best driver, reader, and hype-woman that I’ve ever come across. To her I owe just about everything. My love and gratitude to this family of mine is boundless.
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