There were a few televisions in the place and as it was to be expected they were tuned to the channel giving the election results. He ordered a hamburger and studied while waiting for it, a few minutes later his food was ready and delivered to his table. He started eating, but just a few minutes later the results were announced. Jesus Cabrera was the winner and as it was common all the other candidates showed up yelling every way they could, saying the elections were rigged. It was just like looking at a group of children that lost the lollipop they had been licking for the past few years.
As soon as the results were announced the majority of the coffee's customers stood up screaming in excitement and went toward the televisions as if they wanted to touch Jesus Cabrera through the screen, it was as if they saw a saint or something like it, a lot of them were crying of happiness. The group was conformed by the worst of the faculty's students, drug addicts, known troublemakers and thieves, whores and vagrants, he even saw the sisters holding hands in happiness as if they were doing some sort or ritual. Most of the people celebrating had at least 7 years in college and were still very far away from graduating, having said that, most of them had a proven expertise in avoiding the law since most of them were minor criminals. So huge was the amount of people that came in to try and see the televisions that they surrounded Guillem's table completely blocking his view of them. He grabbed his food and got away from the group as much and as quickly as possible, finding finally a few empty spots in the most farther away tables, as soon as he got there he noticed that the few people out of the crowd had a very sad and pessimist look in their eyes. Finally he managed to sit down at an empty table and continued eating and studying for his test which was about to start and for which he still had not had enough time to study properly.
From the table he could still hear the television through the crowd, so he was able to hear when Cabrera started his speech.
“Comrades! Now I can call you all my Bolivarian comrades! You will see! Now we are going to convert this country in an egalitarian society. Let's forget about democracy, that is a concept created by gringos to steal our resources from us, it was imposed by the empire of USA! Now we are going to convert Great Colombia into a socialism, a socialism of the XXI century! From now on anyone that has a car shall share it, if you see someone in a car you can demand him to take you, what is that about having a 4 seater car for only 1 person? No! We cannot let that happen any more! Houses? How is it possible that there are people in the city's east living in those huge houses? Everyone without a nice house go on an reclaim that which is yours! You built those houses! And they are enjoying them! Let's go and invade those rich people's properties! Everything will be returned to the people with my government! Not to the oligarchs of the empire! With me you will be able to recover everything that they did not allow you to have! Because they are greedy and bad! They are the devil...” And so he continued.
It was really insufferable to hear him talking, so he rushed eating his food and got up to go study somewhere else where he could not hear such nonsense. As soon as he got up he heard many people from the crowd yelling revolutionary slogans.
“Let's go! Let's take the college for ourselves! Let's kick the rich people out of our place of study! They should be in rich people colleges! Not here!”
“Out with the oligarchs of the USA!”
“Return your places in our college! Give those positions back to the people!”
“Let's kill the oligarch teachers that want to make us fail! They do not want us to graduate!”
“Let's take over the college! It belongs to the people! We have rights!”
Guillem went out of the coffee shop as quiet as possible and began walking to the faculty of science, in the way he took his mobile phone out and called Tom's number.
“Tom, things are getting quite ugly around here, some of the worst students are getting together and yelling very aggressive things, I am now going to your faculty, get everyone together and let's leave this place as quickly and silently as possible. It seems like my mother was right after all.”
“Yeah right, we are at the usual tables playing. Come on in and then we can leave.”
On the way he saw other crowds forming, they were growing and getting more aggressive by the second and had already started to yell and threaten students physically, things were going to get worst very soon.
Finally he arrived at the faculty's pedestrian entrance which was on the inside of the college grounds, facing the rest of the college, but the gate was locked with a padlock. Immediately he started walking towards the main entrance which was on the outside of the college grounds so it required for him to leave through one of the college entries and then back again in through the faculty's main entrance. At most a walk of a couple of blocks.
While approaching the college exit he saw yet another crowd blocking it, it was composed by the informal traders that always placed their dirty little shops outside of college and usually helped thieves by hiding or reselling their stolen items, there were a lot of other people arriving there including more students of the college. Since the college guards were not allowing them to come in they started throwing rocks, food and anything they could find to the guards and to any car that went through. It was not hard to notice that the guards were losing ground there, it was too much aggressive people.
When he saw the crowd closing him, Guillem went back to the locked gate and started trying to climb the wall, it was quite irregular and should have been easy to do, but the weight of his books kept dragging him down. Then he noticed that from the inside of the college grounds there was a second crowd closing in, a group of the guards left their main group and went to try and control them, but between both crowds they were leaving the guards highly vulnerable and he was in the middle of the confrontation. In the middle of his desperation he dropped his bag and made one last try finally making it to the other side of the wall and falling quite noisily on the other side. He hid for a little while inside the faculty, looking through the gate at the fight outside. The students were keeping their distance and were throwing everything they could to the guards, in the few minutes he was there he saw cans, rocks and bottles thrown at the guards, on their part the guards were trying to get close using some old shields like the ones used occasionally by the police to protect themselves, while others were using trash lids or the cars and columns to hide while throwing back the stuff thrown at them. After staying for a while there he started running towards the tables and his friends. The tables were located at the back of the faculty, in theory they were supposed to be used to study, but the reality was quite different, they were used by drug addicts and couples without money for a hotel every evening and night and during the day there was a quite large group of people playing cards and role playing games. He noticed that the faculty was quite empty and silent that day.
When he arrived to the tables he found his group playing cards as if nothing was happening. The table they had chosen was very close to a vehicular entrance on the back of the faculty which faced the faculty of business administration and was closed by a huge gate.
In one of the tables he saw Francisco and the group of youngsters that idolised him playing one of their crazy role playing games, hiding behind him was the little girl that he called his girlfriend. Some time ago Francisco tried sharing more time with Guillem and his group, but he could never fit with the others because of his personality, always trying to live someone else's live and creating adventures to see if others would admire him. But it was good that he finally found an appropriate group for him, these youngsters really loved him and looked up to him. In the group playing with Francisco that day was Efrem, he was a very good guy, quite energetic and who loved exercising, he even had a lot of training in sword playing. His problem was that every time he had the opportunity he would play in a role game, this had caused him to lose quite a lot of friends an even some girlfriends, so much was his fanaticism that he would go and play in any game even if that m
eant breaking a date with his loved ones.
In another table he saw Carmelo, Jorge and Patricio trying to sell some of their usual cheap merchandise to a group of new students. They always seemed able to find and sell any object or service in existence. The sad reality though was that nobody really appreciated them but even then, there was always somebody wanting to use their services so they always hanged around the tables waiting for someone to fall on their crappy trap.
“But, what are you doing?, didn't I say that there are problems in the college grounds? We have to go! And we have to do it now!” Guillem told his group very frustrated.
“Come on, this sort of thing has happened before. A group of idiots manifesting and complaining is quite common, in fact, they must be just trying to get free stuff, favours and what else using force, the police will take care of it. Did you know that every week there are many manifestations like this all over Caracas.” Xavier said.
“This time it is different, Cabrera told them they could do it! The president himself gave them license to take or destroy anything they wanted!”
“Well, crazy guys come and go. It does not matter, it will go away by itself, when was the last time you saw a good president? Let alone a successful one. He will come, steal all he wants and then leave through the back door leaving the country the same way he found it. Anyway, what can we do? From what we have heard, things are dangerous everywhere, to take the cars or the train now would be way more dangerous than staying here protected within the faculty.” Said Roberto.
“Hmmm, ok. But we leave as soon as possible.”
“Hey Guillem, do not worry. I will take care of you if they come! You just hide behind me little boy” Said Cristobal as he grappled Guillem and gave him a few playful punches.
Guillem called home and explained his mother about the situation and that they had decided to stay for a while until everything calmed down.
All of them kept calling every hour their homes to check how the situation was evolving, but it was just getting worst all over the city. There were already a few deaths, burned cars and houses and there was a huge group of troublemakers going to the city's east where usually the more wealthy people lived. There were armed groups formed by parents that lived in the wealthy suburbs patrolling their homes and guarding their families.
Occasionally a guard would pass by the tables to see what the group was doing and then he would go on his way.
It was close to 7pm and the situation was as bad as it had been the whole day if not worse. Some groups of scared people were congregating in the class rooms, sport courts and offices, they were getting into any place with a lock where they felt secure. By the tables in which they were playing they had not seen anybody the past couple of hours except guards, all of which looked very scared.
While they were playing, Xavier suddenly made them a signal to keep quiet. He got up and walked very slowly to the car gate that was close to the table. Guillem saw him as he looked outside through the gate very carefully and then he came back very nervous.
“There is a group of ugly guys outside, they have a few ladders and are putting them against the wall to get in here.” Whispered Xavier.
“Let's go find the guards and tell them.” Whispered Maria.
Everyone agreed so they went toward the guard shelter, it was located on the far end of the faculty, just next to main entrance, so their race there felt endless. The faculty corridors were completely deserted, sometimes they managed to see some people peeping through doors and windows, but they quickly hid trying to avoid being seen.
Finally they came out of the building and could see the guard shelter. The faster and first two to arrive where Xavier and Guillem, but what they saw made their hearts shrivel. A huge crowd was about to overpower the guards, most of them were being beaten and some were already unconscious.
“Fuck, we have to hide!” Said Guillem.
Looking back at the corridor from which they came, they saw many flashlights and torches coming just behind their friends so it was impossible to get back that way.
“Let's go to that construction site!” Yelled Roberto while pushing Xavier and Guillem toward an old building that had been under construction for the past few years.
That building was supposed to be the new laboratories for biology, but they were never completed. They just finished the main structure of four levels including columns, floors and staircases, but it was still missing its walls and any sort of finishes.
Reaching the building was just a matter of running a few more minutes, in the way Cristobal picked up a sledgehammer he found laying in the floor, it was a huge tool which looked just in place between Cristobal's huge hands and the others followed his example by picking up some useful tools or building materials that they could use to defend themselves. Roberto in particular found a deteriorated, but still functional portable nail gun.
The first to reach the top floor was Xavier, as soon as the others where arriving he sent them to different locations in the floor as he was saying.
“Spread yourselves and watch the surroundings, but please stay within sight of someone else, it is very important. Maria, please can you stay here at the top of the staircase and see if anyone is coming up. I am going to pile up some bricks next to you so you can throw them just in case anyone comes up.” The others distributed themselves over the floor as Xavier suggested.
“You seem to have been in this sort of situation already.” Said Maria with a very sad expression.
“Me? Thank God no. But through out the years I have seen this happen many times.”
From upstairs they could see how the crowd entered the faculty while the second crowd closed in from the building, the guards were all unconscious or were being beaten. The crowd coming from the inside of the faculty were bringing many restrained people with them, there were both women and men, most of them were still conscious and trying to break free, but they all looked very hurt.
The prisoners were being put together close to the entrance of the construction site terrain, a group of 10 troublemakers stayed with them while the rest went into the faculty once more to check the place.
On the other side of the construction site was a huge land in which students used to play Rugby, it was completely deserted and on the other side of it was the main street of Los Chaguaramos. There was a lot of activity on the street, they could see many flashlights, torches and car lights moving around and even a few cars on fire. They could hear many women screaming and some from men as well, their sound tore their hearts apart, people yelling slogans against the oligarchy, something they called the 'emaciated' people and quite a few gun shots.
After the majority of the troublemakers went out of the faculty the group decided to get together at a point of the floor from which they could see the held prisoners held below them.
“Ok, what do we do now?” Asked Tom.
“We could stay here I guess or we might be able to reason with them, I am a bit worried about those prisoners they are holding, we should help them if we can.” Said Guillem.
“We could jump the fence to the Rugby field, cross it, jump the other fence and go to the stadium to pick up our cars. There are plenty of places to hide in the way between all the rubbish left behind by this stupid mob.” Said Xavier.
“But you are still forgetting about something, what are we going to do about the people they are keeping prisoner down there? I mean, those women can at best expect to be raped multiple times.” Said Guillem.
“I am with Guillem. We must do something.” Said Cristobal.
“If experience on this sort of situation says anything, is that it is a very bad idea to play around in this sort of situation, there have been many cases of people getting killed for doing stupid things like saving others.” Said Xavier.
“Everyone has a time to die. Let's go and help them.” Said Lucio.
“Yeah Xavier, it is not stupid to help someone survive.” Guillem said.
“There is too m
uch people watching them. What if we attract a group of them here while someone of us goes to the prisoner group and frees them? But that person would have to take care of anyone left there watching over them.” Said Maria.
“And then what? A group as big as that is going to attract too much attention. If we do as you suggest we will have to hide here and defend ourselves and I do not think we can do that for long.” Said Xavier.
At that point they heard a few excited male voices and a couple very panicky female screams. A group of 9 of the troublemakers were taking two of the women into the construction site while screaming things like “Let's go sweety, you will like it” and “What? I am more than enough man for you!”, the women were trying to resist as they could, but all 9 of them had the women immobilised, after a few meters one of the guys turned towards the women and hit one of them with all his strength leaving her unconscious. The other one stopped resisting and started crying without control.
They left the rest of the prisoners being watched by only one guy, but he was tying them all together back to back forming a circle with the prisoners.
Religious Fangs, a novel Page 2