DAMIAN AND RAFAEL WERE YOUNG, but they weren’t as young as some of the other kids the cartel used to serve its purposes—kids who smuggled heroin and cocaine across the border, who served as disposable diversions or inconspicuous messengers. Some of them did it willingly, seduced by the lure of money and power. Others were forced into it. Their parents had been killed or kidnapped, or they were destitute and desperate. They gave each other nicknames that gave them a sense of belonging, of being strong and invincible in a big, bad world: Slim Luis, Teflon Marco, Eddie the Lamb, Two Scars.
The first time they called Damian ‘One Eye Damie’, because he slept with one eye open, he gave them a look so chilling that they backed off. Damian was fierce, a lone wolf that no one dared to cross or disturb. There was no downtime for Damian. While the rest of them sang along to boastful lyrics over oomph-oomph narco music, Damian lined up pop cans and target-practiced with a slingshot. If the comandante made them do a dozen pull-ups at the training camp, Damian came home and did three dozen more.
The only one who wasn’t afraid of Damian’s dark, relentless intensity was Rafael. He trailed Damian around, content to watch, accepting the silences. He didn’t ask Damian about the cigarette box that Damian held on to every night, or the newspaper clipping he pulled out to read when he thought no one was looking.
Every day, new recruits came. The girls and women were taken to the third storey, the rough, hardened men occupied the ground floor, and the second floor was assigned to boys and young males. Every day, some left and never made it back. The ones who had been personally recruited by El Charro had one thing in common. They had all been screwed over by someone: family, friends, their boss, their boyfriend, society or someone more powerful than them. They lacked opportunity. They were angry and uneducated, with no prospect of a job or a future. They were the ones who were most pissed off at everyone.
Regardless of how they got there, everyone had a role to play. Damian, Rafael, and some of the other boys were training to be sicarios—hitmen. Sicarios were the foot soldiers of the cartel, responsible for carrying out assassinations, kidnappings, theft, extortion, and defending the territory from rival groups and Mexican militia.
Caboras was the perfect ground for the temporary training camps that the cartel set up, in dust-whipped squatter’s domains, scattered among the urban sprawl of concrete and metal. Here, young men and women practiced in live firing ranges and combat training courses, that were then abandoned or used intermittently. An elite few, who showed promise and had a steady hand, progressed to special facilities where they learned how to work with explosives. Damian fit the criteria perfectly. Years of folding paper into the sharpest creases, and creating intricate shapes and forms, made him a natural for making and diffusing bombs. He learned the difference between C-4 and TNT and gunpowder and fireworks; he learned about blast radius and circuit boards and timers and triggers.
Damian took some of the questions home with him. He was wrestling with the calculations when Rafael found him.
“I’ll be right back,” said Damian.
When he returned with the calculator, Rafael had filled in all the numbers. Damian double-checked.
“How the hell did you do that?” he asked. Every single one was correct.
“In my head.”
Damian looked at him incredulously.
“I like math,” Rafael replied. “It kept me busy when my parents were at the cantina.”
“How about this one?” Damian pointed to another question.
Rafael smiled. He was happy there was something he could do to impress Damian. The two boys put their heads together and worked through the rest of the calculations.
The recruits started getting real-life tasks to complete: follow an informer, steal a car, rob a store. Every time they succeeded, they were rewarded with money, drugs, alcohol, clothes and weapons. Those who got caught were carted to prison, became victims of vigilante justice, or ended up bleeding in the gutters. If they made it back, they were shamed.
Damian knew the real test would come when they were summoned to El Charro’s ranch, in a desolate location near the mountains. That was where the men were separated from the boys, where El Charro either allowed you into his inner circle, or cut you off. While everyone carried on like there was no tomorrow, Damian prepared for that day. He had to get into that inner circle, destroy El Charro and then get out. On his days off, Damian disappeared. He bought a panga and a fishing rod, and spent hours on the water; he learned how to tie knots and how to read the sky and the water. Damian loved the solitude of the ocean. It was vast and endless and merciless—like the hole where his heart used to beat. Sometimes when he closed his eyes and lay back in his small canoe, he could hear the sound of MaMaLu’s voice in the wind and the waves.
One day, when Damian returned from his trip, he found Rafael curled up in a corner. Damian felt his blood boil at the sight of his beaten and bruised body. Rafael was not like the other boys. The memory of his parents’ death still terrorized him. It instilled in him a deep fear of firearms. He flinched every time he heard a gunshot, and he hated himself for it. The other boys bullied and ridiculed him, calling him a faggot and a coward.