#The lingering awareness of Gideon in this passage makes me !!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

homeinvasionent-blog · 6 years

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Excerpt (Chapter 2) "Today's a Miracle, Tomorrow's a Blessing"

Flashback After serving two tours in Iraq I was honorably discharged from the United States Marines Corps. Eight years of getting my hands bloody, feet muddy and soul ugly, beyond redemption for a country that didn’t love me. And I returned to the States only to learn how cancer had ravaged Grandma’s insides, shrunken her body to mere bones and sagging skin. How tremendous pain marked her last days and how she’d repetitively asked for me on her death bed ... … Her dying wish. Hadn’t even been back from the Raq a month, and I was right back in the mix, right in the thick of the whip. On the Dominican side of the Pichon River, eying Haiti on the other side through nighttime binoculars. I didn’t regret my time in the Marines. Neither did I cherish them. Although I did cherish certain memories, lessons and certain men I’d been privileged to serve with. I took the good with the bad and undoubtedly came back a better man. The Marines instilled in me a level of discipline, efficiency, precision, method and execution, a civilian or criminal life would of never allowed me to achieve. And under pressure of all-out war, I learned what I truly was made of. Learned I could stand in my father’s shadow. I didn’t understand how in eight years my brother only managed to upgrade wholesalers twice. From Antonio Alvarez, a shrewd and ruthless Washington Heights supplier, to his Santo Domingo based cousin, Juan Louis, to a Cite Soleil based Haitian on the other side of the island. It was no secret that it had been a shift in power base. The Mexicans were the key players. Couldn’t comprehend why my brother hadn’t connected his extension cord into a Mexican plug, with multiple outlets. The USA shared a 2000 mile border with Mexico, excluding the Gulf. And thanks to all the alliances between the Mexican and American governments and the Mexican cartels and the North American crime syndicates, the powers that be, came up with organizations like NAFTA -the North American Free Trade Alliance- that abled the drugs to freely flow across the border through every major border city dense with eighteen- wheelers, under the legal veil of free trade and commerce. Yet, Haitian Dave and me, cladded in black paramilitary gear, Second Chance body armor, and armed to the teeth with AK74’s were on a clandestine nighttime border crossing into Haiti! As if the DEA hadn’t been pounding the Caribbean route for decades. Fuck hustling backwards, we were smuggling backwards. Meanwhile, my brother was in the Garden, courtside, watching the Knicks getting scrapped by the Nets. Between the corrupt Dominican Border Patrol sergeant we had to bribe, the blood- thirsty mosquitoes treating me like a blood bank and the bands of roving Haitian militias with even stricter tax sanctions then Uncle Sam, it was a mission meeting the connect at the coordinates in the pitch black woods. Under the glare of the full moon we completed the transactions by showing the army lieutenant in jungle camouflage the money and his grunts showed us the bricks press-stamped with twin canons. We promised to increase the order next time. And In turn were promised even more consignment on whatever we purchased. Instead of the current one for one, we’d receive an additional two on consignment for every one we purchased. As long as we copped a minimum of fifty bricks. The lieutenant, a slick spoken bilingual Haitian with a gold tooth and a Wyclef Jean hairline, said that his boss, Monsieur Dieudone guaranteed passage safety in and out of Haiti, in addition to consistency, reliability, quantity and of course quality. Claimed Monsieur Dieudone was the Mont Blanc of snow. The communication man with the military- grade radio laughed. Dave and me headed back towards the Dominican Republic, slithering through the barren woods, each of our backpacks twenty kilos heavier, determined on not losing any weight. As we neared our extraction point at the Pichon River, which marked the border with the Dominican Republic, it seemed as if we’d be forced to shed some weight ... In the form of NATO .5.56’s. Have to dump some of our hundred round drums. The sudden stench of nicotine smoke, laced with cocaine paste lingering in the night alerted us of a hostile presence. A squad of militia men laid in ambush right at our extraction point. They wore jungle camos and were armed with AK47’s, a couple grenade launchers and machetes. What really grabbed my attention was the communication man on the military-grade radio. Dave looked at me. In the deep darkness I couldn’t discern his expression. Didn’t matter. His train of thoughts were on track with my own. We’d departed the same depot and were headed to the same destination. One of the lieutenant’s less honorable, but, more opportunistic men had betrayed his boss by setting us up. In all likelihood the radio man was the culprit. I clenched my jaw, wondering how deep the treachery went. We evaded the ambush sight, performing basic evasive maneuvers. The following evening found us inside a clapboard house in the dangerous and decrepit Capotillo section of Santo Domingo. The unventilated house reeked of anxieties, sweat and depression. Dave sat on a ancient rocking-chair, reading his pocket-sized Gideon bible, his cousin Jean Jacques field-stripped a M-4 carbine. I lounged in the shadows blowing a cancerstick, alone with my thoughts. Lala oversaw the twenty mules practicing with baby carrots, easing them down their throats with lemon yogurt. Next they began swallowing the cocaine pellets, fourteen grams of pressed coke, machine- wrapped in wax paper and latex. Each mule swallowed a total of 142 pellets- two kilos. Lala gave the mules strict instructions in Spanish. “No soda. No orange or lemon juice. Because it can wear out the pellet- wrappings. Then the coke dissolves inside you and you die foaming at the mouth and convulsing. Then we gotta waste time gutting you like a fish to retrieve our product. Nobody is getting taken to the hospital and they ain’t no doctors on call.” Lala paused to frown at my cigarette, extract a Chinese fan from her straw handbag and fan herself with all the dramatization of a New Yorker. “ So as a course of business, don’t eat anything. Stick to water. “Her cold gaze swept over the mules and her tone became forewarning. “Do not use the toilet thinking you’ll shit the pellets out and then re-swallow them. Because airplanes and airport toilets flush automatically. And if any of you lose our material ...” She let the severity of that notion hang in the oppressive air, corrupted by the musk of hopelessness and poverty. Giving the mules a chance to let their imaginations run wild. “ If you lose our shit because of your own stupidity, one thing is certain, we retaliate on your family members in the States. And our associates here, ride on your relatives in D.R. “She smiled without any warmth. “None of you have been forced into this. You each hired out your services aware of the requirements and risks and pay. So ain’t no excuses. We’re all professionals, with free will. So stick to the script. “ She flashed another smile, which I translated as bipolar medicine deprivation. “On that note play your position. “ Fear, stained the house. The mules were petrified. It was Lala’s desired effect. The stench triggered ugly memories of a sex slave ring we broke up in Sadr City in Baghdad. Instead of the IED maker we came to kill we discovered young boys and girls forced into heinous sexual acts. I suddenly felt sick with myself. Needing air I left the house haunted by misery, ignoring Lala’s derogatory remarks, sneers and laughter. Yet, I couldn’t ignore grandma’s voice descending Heaven. “Alberto, show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are. “Grandma’s words played in my head over and over like a broken record. I walked around the ruined streets of Capotillo tormented. Feeling as trapped as the residents Another sleepless night haunted by the ghosts of pass battles passed and we were inside JFK airport in Queens waiting on the five mules from the American Airlines flight to clear Customs. My brother Vendetta posed with his legs spread, arms crossed, pythons flexing, emitting wild energies that I found unsettling. The mules had divided into four groups of five, four different flights to four different airports. LaGuardia, Newark, JFK and. Thus far the ops went without a glitch. The first two mules cleared Customs. Then things took a turn for the worst. Some overzealous Customs agent that suspected three of the mules and two outraged Dominican nationals of being swallowers, detained them inside naked rooms containing non-flushing toilets and ordered them to swallow laxatives. Without a word, my brother bopped out the airport dispelling combustible energies. I trailed from a distance not wanting to be the focus of his eruption. In that single interception we lost six kilos to the U.S Customs. I stifling silence seized the Navigator as we made our way to the East Tremont section of the Bronx. Germaine No-Brain was maneuvering the Navigator through a pile- up near the Triborough Bridge and I was trying to make myself invisible, while Vendetta issued harsh threatening words into a prepaid. Suddenly he blew a fuse. Crushing the phone in his hand, no doubt envisioning the caller’s neck. By nightfall the situation completely deteriorated. Tension choked the Echo Place apartment. The laxatives had taken effect, all the mules had moved their bowels, each releasing the 142 pellets swallowed in Santo Domingo. All but one mule; a young and pretty, non English speaking Dominicana with a air of innocence and wide, confused brown eyes, was having difficulties. She only managed to release eighty-two pellets. The bathroom was jam-packed with violent traffickers with bad personalities, stale breaths and distrustful dispositions. The dark energies, threats, shouts and snarls created a evil wave that had the bathroom steaming. Loca, looking way too far gone off her meds, laid in the bathtub, restraining the half naked Dominicana in a Full-Nelson. Rock pinned her legs, a derisive glow in his mean eyes, undoubtedly enjoying himself. And all along, Frankie Noodles giggled like a lunatic, his beloved surgical knives, scalpels and saws, gleaming eerily in the harsh light of the medicine cabinet. “Bitch, if you do not produce our product in sixty seconds flat Frankie Noodles is gonna give you a C-section! Gut you like a pig, and open you up like a cantaloupe! “ Vendetta seemed the least bit interested. “Val, give the girl some time. She’s probably having some kind of internal difficulties. Its obviously that time of the month. Look how much she’s been menstruating. “ I tried to talk sense with my brother, but he completely disregarded my reasoning. Vendetta placed no value in human life. I figured it was better to talk his language of pounds and keys, because if it didn’t make dollars it didn’t make cents. “ Val , You told me yourself that this isn’t the first time you used the girl as a mule. Don’t you value her commitment and loyalty? Why the fuck would you depreciate the value- no completely destroy one of your proven mules because she’s having a little trouble. Shit man, give the girl some more time before- “ “Time is running out. “Vendetta made a show of checking his Breitling. “Soon the pellets might burst. Then we lose the girl and the product. “ He shrugged. “Better save one than lose both. She knew what she was getting into when she signed up. Knew the risks and the rewards. She did the math. In her estimation the rewards outweighed the risks.” Sensing the Grim Reaper’s macabre presence drawing closer, I spoke with urgency. “Let me just take her to the hospital. “ This evoked laughter. Frankie Noodles, Rock, Loca even my brother laughed. Hollow and evil laughs that sent shivers up my spine. I knew the sound. Heard it before. Hoped I’d never heard it again. “Fuck it, I’ll pay for whatever she short on. Out my own pocket.” Since no one replied, I gave them better incentives. “At the full street value. Retail price. “ Looking bored my brother said, “You missing the big picture lil bro. She’s not carrying coke, she swallowed two keys of China-White. Sixty- five percent pure." I did the math, a key of sixty-five percent China-White- the premium and most expensive heroin on the market- went for no less than $150,000 wholesale. And could be turned into eighteen bricks that each had a retail value of $150,000. “I’ll pay whatever! “I reached for the Dominicana. “Tell me how mu…” “ Hold the Fuck up Al. “Rock jumped in my way, placing a restraining hand on my chest, blocking my path with his impressive bulk. “You buggin…” I reflexively connected a swift, two-inch punch with his chin. As his head rebounded off the medicine cabinet, fragmenting the mirror, I stuffed my Glock in his face. “Fuck out my way Rock! Before I knock that block off your shoulders. “ Aggression has its own momentum. In a blur of overwhelming force I yanked the Dominicana out the tub, placed her behind me and backed out the bathroom, holding my family at gunpoint. “Do not try to stop me! “ They never even attempted to stop me. My brother shook his head in disappointment. Frankie Noodles giggled. Rock massaged his jaw. Lala called me a clown and a sucker for love and tried to spit on me. Unable to witness, much less partake in anymore heinous acts of butchery to those I deemed the innocent, I took a irrevocable course of action and fled the tensive and explosive apartment with the half naked Dominicana, almost tipping one of the many buckets of sulfuric acid. “Let’s go girl. Stop crying. “My Glock lead the way as we tumbled down three flights of rickety stairs, littered with purple 58×58 baggies. “Yo-yo! Hold up Al! “ A thug on security detail materialized on a landing trying to be diplomatic. “Come on now, you not being rational with. ..” I fired a shot so close to his head, it parted his nappy Afro, and melted his hair grease. Paralyzed by fear he froze. The remaining thugs, camped out in the blunt-strewn lobby reeking of malt liquor stood down. Anger, bewilderment and confusion playing over their faces, body language conveying uncertainty. Some starred at the half-naked petite, but, curvy Dominicana in lingerie, others at my smoking Glock. I saw the sergeant on a Walkie-Talkie, heard my brother’s voice barking orders to stand down coming out the speaker. The sergeant gave me an imperceptible nod to keep it moving and grudgingly told his goons to give us passage. We hit the street at a frenetic pace, searching for a way out . My best friend Joe was on the sidewalk posing on his Kawasaki with his arms crossed, indignation and disgust creasing his pretty face. “Fuck wrong with you Al? Bringing heat to our shit cause you felt a urge to throw your cape on and save hoes on some sucker for. ..” I kicked my best friend clean off the bike, hopped on the crotch-rocket, pulled the Dominicana onto the seat behind me, still in her lingerie. “Hold on tight girl! “I revved up the Ninja, rabbit started it and peeled off down 179th street, swerving around the contours of Echo Park, freefalling down the curving hill. Over the engines 998cc’s, her shrill of shear fear echoed in my ear as we jetted between a tricked-out Denali knocking ‘One more chance’ and a Mr. Softees ice cream truck and then hooked a daring right on Webster. Wind beating us ,trying to pulverize us as I swerved in and out of lanes, weaving oncoming traffic, headlights as blinding as prison search lights, flying through red lights on the run. The high-octane ride came to a skidding stop in front of a dusty-brown high rise building on 167th street in Park projects. “Come on girl. “I noted that the Dominicana’s mocha hue had a ghastly pallor. “You don’t look too good. Don’t worry my tia is going to put some bacalao in you." “Thank you so much. “She cracked a weak smile. The light in her eyes dimming. “You saved my life from those. ..”She faltered and fell off the bike. “ I got you. “I caught her before she could crash over the broken glass littered sidewalk. As I held her in my arms she begun to convulse, eyes rolling, lids fluttering as she foamed at the mouth. The force of her violent spasms almost knocked me down. “Oh shit! “My eyes swiveled looking for transportation. A chromed-out, candy-painted ’67 Camaro pulled up to the curb, bumping Drake’s ‘305 put my city’. A bear of a man in a Carolina-blue Jordan tracksuit with the matching patent-leather Jordan’s hopped out releasing a purple-haze scented hurricane. It looked like he had the whole galaxy around his neck. The Ice dripping off his Cuban-link looked like Star Wars special effects. “Yo big man give me a hand. “ I know he heard the note of distress in my voice, but was much more interested in the Dominicana’s figure and lingerie. “She’s O.D‘ing. Give us a lift to the hospital. Please." Screwing up his mug he barked, “Fuck that got to do with me ? I don’t save hoes. But I can put her to wo. ..”I pointed the Glock at his face. Up close and personal letting him smell the burnt gunpowder from the recent discharge. His voice dried up like a raisin in the sun. Fear instantly relaxing every muscle in his screw-face. “Just take the car kid." “Leave the keys in the ignition and back the fuck up before I let you hold something and leave you to die alone in the gutter, praying help comes fast enough." My tone of voice had a more chilling affect on his big-sss than the Glock. The bear wordless complied, legs visibly buckling under the weight of the 147 grain, hollow- point bullets in my Nine. “My bad man I’m sorry about...” I silenced him with a graveyard stare. I placed the Dominicana in the passenger seat, secured her with the seatbelt, certain that at least one of the heroin pellets had ruptured, and jumped behind the wheel, crushing the gas pedal. “Hold on girl! “I mashed the gas, revving the motor towards 4500 rpms, tires squealing and smoking. “Keep fighting! Don’t welcome death!" Right before the light turned green, I popped the clutch and the Camaro skid sideways for about a half- a-block, burning tires skid-marking the street. When the whip hit 6500 rpms, I rocked to 2nd gear and was fishtailing wildly when I slammed for 3rd. We hopped in 4th, and leapt forward, zooming up Webster, bobbing and weaving in and out of traffic, jumping lanes, avoiding oncoming vehicles by hair fractures, making split second decisions, pumped with adrenaline. Fascinated kids and excited hustlers cheering us on as the Camaro melted through lights. Big V8 engine growling as the muscle car Deebo- ed the road. “Be strong girl! “I was amped up by a sense of helplessness. The girl’s health was deteriorating at a critical pace. The foam bubbling out her mouth was as thick as paste. I smelled the heroine on her dying breath, smelled it pumping out of her pours. “You got to fight it!” I locked the brakes up, next to a traffic cop, yanked the wheel and made a dangerous bat-turn at about 55mph, drifting onto 174th street, zipping by the Crosstown bus, downshifting from 4th, 3rd, 2nd, squeezing between a bread truck in a orgy of scrapping paint and sideswiped a family van ,losing a side-view mirror as I shifted back through the gears to 3rd. Rocketing up 174th like a meteor, I jumped in fourth gear and hit a buck-ten, on one of the main arteries in the Bronx. The Dominicana was choking on foam, complexion deathly grey as she spasms and thrashed like the girl on the exorcist, twisting her neck with so much force I feared she might snap it. The ghastly wheezes escaping her constricted airwaves gave me goosebumps. I slapped her upper back, she coughed and sprayed foam and bile and heroin oil. Obtaining a instant of respite she sucked-in one long scrapping breath, before the next flood of foam clogged her airwaves. “Please don’t let her die like this God.” With one hand I handled the wheel, with the other I struggled with her to keep her neck at a downward angle so she didn’t choke on the foam. “Stop fighting me girl! Please God help. I’ll trade my life for hers.” Before the Camaro came to a screeching halt on Elliott I was out the vehicle, retrieving the Dominicana and running into the Emergency Room. The Dominicana was dying in my arms, body getting cold, skin waxy, eyes filming over, leg twitching. I called upon the Lord again. I barged in Lebanon hospital’s Emergency Room radiating unstable energies. The crazed-look on my face warranting immediate assistance from the nurses and orderlies whom rushed the girl onto a gurney and wheeled her away. Chest heaving, breathing heavily with every muscle taunt, all I heard was the baseline of my own heart beating, everything blurry and disorienting as the E.R spun beneath my feet, vision coming in and out until I retained caption. Fighting to regain my bearings I squeezed my temples, doing a full three-sixty in the waiting room, making no effort to disguise the fact that I was storing every witnesses face to memory. My eyes came into full focus on the square-face of a man with the mark of the beast. Our eyes locked for a moment and I saw his resolution steel, the muscular plainclothes cop’s body language got combative as he came for me. “Eh you! Come. ..” I stiff-armed the cop’s face, palm squeezing the mark of the beast I pushed him to the floor and mobbed out the E.R, daring anyone to try and stop me. I leapt in the Camaro and merked off burning rubber in a wild quarter-donut, leaving nothing but smoke and tire marks behind. Time lapsed. Had no idea how I got there, yet I was trooping around Crotona Park, blowing a fat Dutch stuffed with haze. In a dark gloom I followed the moon straight to my doom. I meditated on hate mind taking me from one dark place to a darker one. My deployments in the Marines landed me in many shitty places devoid of all hope. All across the globe seeking just a little piece of mind to hide from the evil murmurs resonating in my ears. All I encountered were religious fanatics, butchers, fuckin cannibals, false prophets perverting the gullible minds of the youth, leading whole congregations to the depths of Hell, shackling poverty, bands of warriors committing unspeakable atrocities in the heat of combat fever, crusading generals with ulterior motives, greed, famine, and pure unfiltered evil. And the world over, women and innocent children suffered, were slaughtered, raped, enslaved, maimed, massacred, sold, abused and traded with total indifference; the strong making a living off their misery. Clearing the foul taste in my throat, with deep tokes of the Marijuana smoke, I gazed up to the night, looking for the Lord my Grandma had praised till the day cancer sent her to the grave and saw nothing. I waited, hoping for a sign that He’d taken me up on my offer to trade my life for the Dominicana’s, but all I discerned were dark night clouds converging on the moon, obscuring his glow. And took that as a sign. So I called up on the devil, knowing from experience that the thief would come on the run to take my offer, relishing the sum. A few teens on a park bench, ciphered blunts and forty ounces, 2Pac’s ‘Never be peace’ pounding their boombox. Pac the prophet had been right all along. And like every single prophet before him we denounced his prophecies and killed him. They could never be peace. I was avoiding the cones of light illuminating the pathway, sticking to the shadows when my internal alarm went off, suddenly warning me of danger. A moment later, a duo with all the menacing characteristics of stick-up kids, emerged out of the pitch black woods, swaggering towards me like gunfighters, reminding me of Diamond District jewelers the way their bloodshot eyes appraised the diamond – flooded king Tut medallion dangling from my Cuban Link . “Yo duke shinning. “The short, and stocky kid with the red bandana, pointed from my Reds cap down to my matching Air Max 95’s and spat, “Eh yo duke, what that red be like? “ Without preamble I flashed my Glock-19, flipped on the laser-beam and red-dotted his face. “This what that red be like lil homie." The aspiring stick-up artist froze, ten toes cold, eyes wide recognizing there was nowhere to hide, realizing that he wasn’t ready to die, one arm up like the Statue of Liberty, lips mouthing peace, yet, releasing no sound. His codefendant jetted as if he’d heard the shot from a track meet’s starter gun. Heels kicking up leaves, Nike-Flights giving him wings. The teens on the Benches got ghost, conscious that witnesses also got the business. Leaving a shattered bottle of Ol English in their wake. The brown paper bag sponging up the malt liquor. “I should shoot you in the ass for pump faking. Then shoot you in foot for half stepping.” I smiled in a glare of moonlight. “Or shoot your dick off cause you look like you about to piss yourself.“ Eyes as bright and wide as the moon, with his mouth open, the stick-up apprentice was on pause, mouth on mute, hoping a slug didn’t eject into his open tape deck. “School’s out. Where you been at? You must of cut class. Don’t worry kid I’m the substitute teacher. This night school! “ I was about to order the kid to run off only to teach him an invaluable, once in a lifetime lesson from the school of Hardrocks, by shooting him in the ass, when class was interrupted by the bell. I looked at my ringing Nextel figuring it was the devil coming to claim his end of the deal, since the incoming text confirmed that the Dominicana was in stable conditions. But when I answered the phone I heard a whole another tune. “Que unda loco? It’s me guey. You missed me? “I recognized the callers voice as Omar ‘Blanco ’Perez, a Chicano, Marine pilot from El Paso, Texas. “I’m back guey!" “Oh shit! When you got out Blanco? “I spoke animatedly, holding the stick-up novice at gunpoint, shifting the beam from his arms, head, legs, back to his head only to let it rest on his groin. “Man I thought you was still wrapping up your final deployment.“ “I was Guey. Some bullshit popped off in Afghanistan around Jalalabad about some poppies and Uncle Sam gave me the boot.” Blanco sounded like a East L.A gangbanger. “Almost twelve fuckin years of my life and them people in JAG wanted to convict me of running dope after all I did for this country. “He sighed heavily and I felt the weight of his pain and resentment. “So I swallowed my pride and took the dishonorable discharge!“ The beam had the stick-up rookie sweating. “Man that’s fucked up!” “Tell me about it guey.” A moment of reflective silence came over the line. Back in Iraq, Blanco piloted the ‘Bird’, helicopter, that often flew us into ops. When your squad was taking heavy fire and Command Center okayed an aerial extraction you hoped and prayed with supplication that Blanco was the pilot. It didn’t matter what type of firepower the enemy was unloading, didn’t matter if surface-to-air missiles, lit up the sky like the Fourth of July, Blanco placed no value on his life and no value on the multi million dollar helicopters, he was coming to pull you out the kilo zone. One of those dare devil pilots that stayed getting his ass chewed out by the C.O himself. A soldier's favorite soldier. “Why you didn’t call me any sooner?" “Cause I was getting my shit together guey. Opened up a little flight school in Frisco Texas." “Word? Congratulations kid. “I smiled at the frightened stick-up Fuck up, the beam dancing over his center mass. “At least you did what you always said you was gonna do. I’m proud of you." “Yo Al, remember all those war stories I kicked back in the Raq?” On many nights we stole a bottle of the gunny’s Jack Daniel’s and got pissy drunk. A couple swigs of Jack and a few puffs of gold and black hashish and Blanco was thrilling us with the adventurous, humorous and dangerous drug runs he’d made I’m his little Cessna for the Mexican cartels back in the world. The clandestine take-offs and landings on the little hidden runways up in Golden Triangle’s Sierra. The daring diversionary flights that served as decoys for the land based radar screens and the highly sophisticated DEA Orions, crammed with state of the art technology. The fancy aerial maneuvers, eluding government and law enforcement choppers. The low altitude flights across the border. The times he sandwiched his own product with the cartel’s. “Of course I remember. How could I ever forget all those George Jung stories, that filled my mind with wild cocaine cowboy fantasies." “Good. Because it’s going down in seventy two hours. I need a few you good men.“ A pregnant pause. His following words gave me all the incentive required. “Erika will be there.” Erika, short for America, was our codename for America’s favorite white girl. Cocaine. Ecstatic, I repeated, “Erika?” “Yep, good ol reliable Erika and about four hundred of her sorority sisters are throwing a bash at the university of Sinaloa. Real freak bitches guey. “ It translated into four hundred kilos of coke from a Sinaloa outfit. “Whaaat?” stupefied by the major league prospect, I lowered my Glock. The stick-up dimwit looked dumbstruck. But not dumb enough to try his luck. “You serious Blanco?" “The question is; are you serious, Al- Qaeda serious?“ “I’m deathly serious.“ “Good guey. That’s what I needed to hear. My niece Melanie will be there too. She made prom Queen last year. This her freshman year. She has a 4.0. Time to celebrate.“ Melanie was the codename for Meth. 4.0 meant it was A-1. “We made Melanie this beautiful crystal crown, coated with ice. What till you see it in the light Al.“ Meant it was Crystal meth and Ice. “On my way Blanco." “Get the red-eye to Mazatlán airport. I’ll be waiting.“ Blanco ended the call. I was stuck. Basking in the moonlight, feeling I kind of hope I hadn’t known since cancer claimed Grandma. I even saw a night rainbow arching across the black sky. I blinked making sure it wasn’t an illusion. The stick-up kid seen it too, by the way he was glowing he must of interpreted it, as sign of hope, like maybe it was salvation from the damnation in my hand. Lala always said that there was gold at the end of every rainbow. Problem was, we could never found where the rainbow actually started. And you’d never know where you was going if you didn’t know where you came from. In that instant I had a moment of clarity. The rainbow started with Blanco in Mexico and ended with Erika with me in America. Erika ... my most loyal and dependable girl had America by the nose and lungs. I shouted up to the rainbow. “Thank you Lord! This is the sign I been waiting for!” Feeling like I had to make a sacrifice I took off my chain and tossed it at the stunned stick-up kid. “Catch!” “Wh-wha-what? “He was too afraid to catch the chain. Let alone touch it , probably reasoning that the blood diamonds were cursed. He refused to even sneak a peek, turning his face as if King Tut’s ruby eyes belonged to Medusa. “I- I don’t want it!” “The shines yours lil homie. You can have it. Since the price is going to be steep. You about to pay in blood. ” Some kind of supernatural force caused me to pause from my critical course of action and really look at the kid in another light. I peered deep into his eyes, and in that moment the windows of his soul revealed itself and I saw that all his fears, insecurities, doubts and confusions about his place in a society that preyed on him were no different then my own. I mind as well of been looking in the mirror. This stilled my gun hand. Instead of lightning him up, I decided to shed a different kind of light on him. “The chain is yours. Here’s the real priceless jewel you need to secure in your treasure chest. Talk is cheap and air is free. Actions draw a picture worth a thousand words. Next time to skip the word play. Let the gun on your waist get your point across.“ The kid’s eyes widened as they traveled to the concealed handgun on his waistline. In the face of death he’d forgotten all about it. “Go to summer school. Get a G.E.D or something. You trying and failing badly to play a game that has no winners.“ I turned my back on him and bounced off. “Thanks big homie. That jewel was priceless. “The kid shouted, “It's going in the vault." I stopped in my tracks, looked back at him over my shoulders. “Iron sharpens iron.” “True, but my little sister got eat. Mom dukes smoked-out. So all she got is me. And my iron is my only means to feed her. Lead or silver is my model.” I had to laugh at the kid’s analogy. “Shit gets greater later. The change gone come.” “Yeah that Sam Cook shit a record I been hearing all my life. “The kid shrugged in a manner that conveyed that he felt trapped, that he was street-poisoned, resigned to the ghetto’s mindset that there was no way out.“ Things change only to come full surface.” I turned to face him, suddenly seeing him in a much darker light. “Wait long enough and in due time anything will realize it’s full potential. Coal becomes diamonds. Sand becomes pearls. Death row cons become Peace Nobel Prize winners. Lifers become presidents of nation’s.” My tone became sarcastic. “Angels even fall from Heaven. “I lost the sarcastic edge.“ A couple murderers that spawned from the same stretch of Hell where we dwell and bust shells became the Lord’s instruments.” I winked at him. “ Every gem is forged under pressure and tried in fire. If it wasn’t for bad times we wouldn’t value and remember the good times.” “Facts! “The kid seemed to grow taller. “I’m not going to wear this shine.“ He picked the chain off the floor, the stones flashing like strobelights.“But I’m gonna wear the jewels you just blessed me with. Stand on them. Use then as the foundation.“ -----////-----////-------////------////-----////--- The next sunset found me sitting under palm and mango trees, dining on escamoles and tacos de pollo at a sidewalk café in the resort town of Mazatlán. As I watched the sunset painting the sky burnt orange, Blanco told me the Catch-22. Should of foreseen it. His deal had been too sweet not to turn bitter. Between swigs of Tecate and puffs of Marlboro, Blanco told me the truth ... and it hurt like a bad tooth. True enough, he was transporting drugs for a narcoboss in Sinaloa. He was also sandwiching his own product with the cartel’s. Basically using their corridors. His flight school in Texas made it easy. Above all, his pretty, but dumb-as-a-rock sister Isabella, had finally married. Married into a crime fighting family. A lieutenant in the SIEDO, Mexico’s organized crime investigation unit. The lieutenant was crooked, and in the habit of losing evidence, pinpointing witnesses, hampering investigations and warning cartel men of oncoming raids. He also was in the dangerous habit of stealing from the cartels. A four hundred kilo bust in Reynosa resulted in the lieutenant only reporting half. Another big seizure in Matamoros with heralded headlines on the front page of the Reforma, praising, Calderon’s SIEDO for killing a wanted Honduran trafficking gang in possession of a arsenal of automatic assault rifles and three hundred bricks of coke. The lieutenant pocketed the other unreported three hundred bricks. Aware of his brother in law’s corruption, Blanco reminded him of his flight school and air strip in America. The rest was history. In essence the SIEDO lieutenant was the plug. We left the sidewalk café, strolling down the boulevard deep in drug politics, and halfway through my cancerstick the scenery changed drastically. We entered a dangerous port side barrio that reeked of foulness, failure and frustration. The air oppressive with violence. Derelict apartments and desolate people hoping against hope. Inside a decrepit apartment, Blanco showed me a hundred fifty kilos of ice, seized from a meth lab up in the Sierra by the lieutenant’s men. He then said what was really on his mind. “Yo Al, if the cartel finds out that I’m double dealing, our entire families are history. No one will be spared. “He took a long drag, trying to decimate his Marlboro in one pull, exhaled, and the question came through the cancer smoke. “You know the risks involved, are you down?" I did the math. The profits outweighed the problems. Lured by the filthy Lucre and the prospect of never again being separated from my favorite girl Erika, I signed my entire family on as unwitting accomplices. Seventy two hours later, on a starless Mexican night in Altata, Sinaloa, Blanco piloted his Grumman G-73 Turbine Mallard. A low altitude flight skimming the Gulf, avoiding the Hemispheric radar system which scans air routes between Colombia and Mexico, especially the isthmus of Panama. Lala and me along with two Mexican longshore men, were on a shrimp boat serenely floating in the dark. The refreshing breeze tanged with salt, combed my hair and freezed the cold anxiety sweat dotting my hairline. The boat swayed, rocking to the slow pace of my heart. In spite of the darkness I felt the weight of Lala’s discomfort so I squeezed her hand. During a special ops in the Persian Gulf, I learned how the ocean transmits sounds and voices differently at various times. If the moment is right you could hear exactly what was said, miles away. Same thing with lights. The crew was silent. One of the Mexican longshoremen kept his face plastered in the rubber cone that concealed the screen of the eight-mile radar. Suddenly we heard the engines of Blanco’s plane. A couple moments later his Grumman dropped out of the night, crossing the full moon. I aimed a infrared signaler in the plane’s direction, waited a beat and received a infrared response. On Blanco’s second pass the Grumman’s underbelly opened and the bombings begun. Sixteen, twenty-five kilo packages wrapped in fiberglass and strapped with GPS and floatation devices dropped in the water. Two minutes later, while Blanco’s Grumman was heading to a hidden air strip in the Sierra, the timers on the flotation devices expired and bales of cocaine floated up to the surface. During that night expedition, the shrimp boat brought back a lot more then shrimp. The catch marked a milestone in my life of crime. Signifying the greatest catch up till that point. One of the longshoremen, a short, squat man with strong Norteno features said, “Thank God we made this catch. “His tone went from one of praise to one of dread. “God forbids Don Juan or any of the narcos ever finds out about our double dealings. “ The other longshoreman whispered, “No worry Emanuel, I offered up a Pacifico and a cigar- a Cuban- to Saint Malverde. Asking him to make sure Don Juan never finds out. “ I stored the name Don Juan to memory. I held Lala close, comforting her anxieties with a neck massage in the sea breeze, under moonlight, inwardly hoping Don Juan never got wind of our involvements.

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