People loved El Surfo as much as they feared him. In Mexico, death was philosophy, mysticism. And Surfo was its boy king. They thought he was some Pancho Villa figure, some hero of the poor. Shit. That van was there to accomplish one thing: feed the fear. They kept two brilliantly painted surfboards bungeed to the roof rack. If he hadn’t wanted to steal it so badly, Benigno would have set it on fire.
The Surfer. What a fool. Looking at him, Benigno was sure he couldn’t even swim. He’d sink like a hog. Well, Benigno himself couldn’t swim. So what. He couldn’t drive either. He had found out that he was a good father—father to about thirty stinky-butt street urchins and Abigail’s three kids. Everyone knew not to mess with his kids. Even bullies were afraid to steal their shoes or schoolbooks. It took only two or three visits from Benigno to make their colonia a peaceful kingdom for the orphans. It was amazing what a broken leg and a bloodied parent could accomplish. He liked it. He even liked the Baptistas calling him Brother Benigno.
He was almost a Christian.
It had started to go sour when El Surfo beat a hooker with some rebar.
Benigno was on the go-team when the whistles started blowing. They charged into the stampede of running criminals, following the sound of screams. That fat bastard was standing over a sprawled woman with three feet of rebar in his hand. She was dead, they thought at first, but Benigno found a pulse. Her head was battered into a strange shape, and her eyes were rolling. Nobody knew her name.
They pointed their sidearms at him, but he just laughed and went back to his rooms. He didn’t have a cell. He had rooms. His cartel had paid thousands of dollars. Inmates called it the Penthouse.
The guards carried her to a storehouse outside the walls and laid her on the floor. Nobody knew who would get in trouble. It was clear that word had come down from outside that her injuries could not be blamed on the cartel. Important men were arranging Surfo’s fate, and nothing should stand in its way. Freedom. The officers and guards were told to go back to work. So the doors were closed and she was left there to dream her life away.
Benigno didn’t like being told what to do. And he didn’t care for Surfo’s smirk when they’d suggested they were going to shoot him. Too bad about the woman, of course. Yes, that wasn’t very good.
After dark, he checked on her—still breathing. “Damn, girl,” he told her, “you’re as hard as I am.” He heaved her onto his shoulder. “You don’t weigh a goddamned kilo!” he said. “That fat asshole had to use an iron rod to win a fight with you!” He smuggled her out during the evening Bible study and hid her in the Baptists’ van. The pastor took one look at her when he was done and nodded to Benigno and threw a blanket over her and drove them out of the lot. They got her treated at a clinic outside of the city. Incredibly, she survived. He moved her into the orphanage. It took her months to stand, to eat. Benigno had surprised himself by feeding her baby food with a plastic spoon until she could do it on her own. He changed her diapers. It was all a mystery. He had cared for only one other creature like this—a goat, when he was small. Mother had cut off its head and cooked it.
Abigail was furious. She was sure Benigno nursed the prostitute only so he could see her naked when he bathed her. But he ignored his wife and refused to allow others to help him.
When the woman finally came around, she was like some ghost. Her head was all lumpy, bits of her hair missing forever. She stood silent in corners and covered her eyes with her hand. He called her Maria. When he said it, she laughed. She laughed when she saw him naked too. But she could not talk. If he gave her a broom, she swept. Otherwise, she covered her eyes. One morning, Maria woke him with her shoe, hammering his face with it until blood was flying.
“Maria,” he said. “No! Bad!”
So at night, he tied her to her bed.
“The only good thing I ever did,” he said to Abigail.
Of course, the prison discovered it was he who had stolen Maria, and of course this good deed had cost him his job. Bastards took away his pistola and badge.
Benigno limped into the village of Guadalupe in the afternoon. He’d been walking since dawn. He threw a couple of kicks at the street dogs threatening him in the dirt alley. He spied Wilo’s yonke ahead. The old junkyard. Wrecked cars were stacked behind a rattling chainlike fence. In a shabby corral beside the main office hut, Panfilo the mule hung his boxy old head in boredom. One ear swiveled toward Benigno as he approached.
“?Qué onda, pinche mula?” he called.
Panfilo lifted his head and peeled back his lip and waited for Benigno’s carrots. Benigno always brought carrots from the damned Baptists’ larder. He hated carrots. He patted the mule’s neck and went inside the shack.
“?Qué onda, Wilo?” he said.
“?Don Benigno! ?Qué hay?”
“Aquí nomás.”
Benigno sat down and picked up a Mexican magazine featuring vividly crimson dead bodies basted in their own blood. A poster of a topless woman was taped to the bathroom door.
“Got pliers I can borrow?” he said.
“Sure.”
Wilo shuffled over to a workbench and rattled around. Guy looked like a vulture, Benigno thought. Wilo handed him the pliers.