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hausofmamadas · 1 year ago

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| To live and leave fast |

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Pairing: Andrea Nuñez x Horacio Carrillo

For @narcosfandomdiscord NarcOctober - Day 16 (+ a bit of Day 15 tbh)

Prompt: Day of Surprises (+ a smidge of Day of Absolute Filth) - create a fanwork that focuses on dreams (+ a smidge of character's moral corruption)

Word count: ≈ 2.3K

TWs: Canon-consistent violence, Real Big Sad, angst with some smoochin'

What was he doing here? He couldn’t answer her. The blankness of before was all he could conjure up and that vast emptiness set him on the edge of panic. okay sjsjs the way I told myself that I was gonna stop at 800 words and it becamekfjs this. So again, imsorryforeverything but uhh yea, I barely proofread this so the Spanish is prolly rough and so is everything else but hey! We can just blame it on it’s all a dream, right ….? Right??? Anyway, enjoy some shockingly non-antagonistic and sometimes tender back-and-forth btwn these two and probably the most ooc Carrillo to ever exist bc I’ve never written for him before. Idk why I’m so obsessed with this crackship but I am and it is what it is

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Her voice rang out, “So, tell me. How long do you really think you can go on like this?” almost in time with the flashing red light that cut through the half-broken blinds, filling the dank, dingy room.

Carrillo tried sitting forward from where he must’ve fallen asleep slumped against something, presumably the wall of someone’s living room. No, not someone’s living room. No one’s living room. Because the place was a mess, covered in old takeout wrappers from Tijuana’s finest dining establishments, broken glass, cobwebs, and dust that would’ve been more befitting of an ancient tomb than this place. The smell of vodka or maybe rubbing alcohol burned his nose but he couldn’t pinpoint where it might’ve been coming from.

Was he even still in Tijuana? Huh. Well, that would have to wait till later. Anyway, he didn’t need to know what city he was in to know he was in an abandoned safe house. Which narco faction it belonged to didn’t make a difference. This one had to have been empty for at least a month, probably more, judging by the disarray. That and the insect activity. From Escobar to El Señor de los Cielos, the pace of the narco-lifestyle only lent itself to living and leaving fast, and whatever got left behind was usually beside the point.

Okay, but how’d he get here.

Maybe if he asked her, she’d stop looking right through him from where she stood across the room, arms crossed, leaning back against a mostly empty bookshelf that housed a few old books, some technical manual for car engines, and what looked like some old issues of Penthouse or some other stag magazine. High brow reading. He wondered if sicarios knew how much of a cliche they all were. Just once he’d like to meet one who enjoyed basketweaving, or birdwatching, or who was sentimental about their girlfriend. Anything that broke type. Then again, when it came to breaking type, he wasn’t in the best position to judge.

“Ay, por favooor, cabrón.” Startled, he jerked forward at the sound of her voice. “Remember when I told you that you were straight out of Central Casting for a war movie?” Clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, she scoffed, “Who are you to talk about breaking type, hombre?”

What the hell. How’d she– He didn’t– Or, had he— Was he talking out loud this whole time?

He sat up straighter and a pain lit up his right side, going from dull to blinding. Hands already at the damp spot on his shirt, trying not to scream, he could tell the wound there was bleeding more now from the pressure of sitting up. Wait no, that was good. Actually, he could use that. Inhaling with the strength of his whole body, he pressed his fingers down, jamming them into the wound, and let the pain accumulate in his chest and ribcage, then exhaled, hoping his breath would send the sensation up further to his face, his forehead, activate the muscles there to share the load of his heavy eyelids.

He didn’t think he was talking out loud, but then, he must’ve been since she’d answered. That meant something, he knew. He couldn’t focus though. Why couldn’t he focus? What’d it mean? Oh right, blood loss. It was worse than he realized. But why wasn’t she helping him? No matter how furious she was with him, that wouldn’t have been like her, standing there while he bled out.

“Ay pinshe Carrillo, no seas mamón. I was helping but you fought me the minute I started trying to clean the thing. And then,” brows knit in his favorite it-is-what-it-is position, she pointed to a puddle by his feet, “you knocked the bottle out of my hands,” then shrugged, looking around the room absently. “And vodka was the only thing I could find in this place that even comes close to sanitary. So, I had to wait for you calm down or pass out before I could do anything.”

He had no memory of that. In fact, he had no memory of anything before that dingy little room. Which was weird. He’d been hit in the head enough times that lapses in memory weren’t an altogether foreign experience, but usually he could remember something from before. Sometimes it might be hours before whatever disaster, but he at least remembered. Now, it was just blank. It occurred to him that he might be–

“–and you might be in shock,” she finished aloud.

Jesus, was he saying everything he was thinking? He watched her and waited, seeing if she’d answer more questions in his head.

That light outside kept flashing, bathing the room in a deep shade of red that danced off the broken glass, creating macabre shadows that skittered up the walls, across the floor, the ceiling. Through the blinds too, it cast alternating stripes of red and black on her face. It would’ve been beautiful if it wasn’t so sinister-looking. Well no, it made her more stunning, in a haunting, alien way, even though she looked how she usually did: hair messily pulled back, a few strands hanging in her face, wearing a tank-top and that button-up he’d found at the Salvation Army in San Ysidro. He couldn’t focus. That’s right, he’d gone to drop off some old dining chairs he had no use for, caught it out of the corner of his eye hanging with the rest of the men’s button-ups. And instantly thought of her. Why couldn’t he focus. The pain finally reached his eyes.

Again, she answered his thoughts. “Well, as much as I wanted to fight you for fighting me,” she looked down, pinching the collar of the shirt and wiggling it back and forth like a dollar bill, “I didn’t get far enough in the process of dressing your wound to ruin it. And it is one of my favorites. I have to give it to you, tigre. Your attention to detail is the stuff of legend, and they were not wrong.”

At that, he smiled tiredly. She rocked forward, kicking off the bookshelf, and strode over to him, bits of glass crunching under the gummy, rubber souls of her boots. Doc Martens. So practical. They really were, the two of them, the same sometimes.

“Andrea,” her name came out in a whisper and a wince as he clutched at his side. He looked down in a daze that no matter how many times he blinked, how wide he forced his eyes open, he couldn’t shake. “How’d th– what happened? What are you doing here? How’d you– ,” he grunted, shifting his weight to his good side, “mm– get here?”

“Te he seguido, obvio.”

What? She follo– he hadn’t even briefed anyone on the raid at Agua Caliente until right before. Trujillo would never. Walt? No, after the debacle in Juarez, he was too wrapped up needing this win to jeopardize it by talking to a reporter. Even one as dogged and persistent as Andrea. And yes, she was resourceful. But resourceful, not psychic.

It felt like a lifetime of sitting there trying put it all together and he didn’t remember when she’d started making her way towards him, but she was already kneeling next to him now, slowly removing his hands from his side. Her eyes and forehead pinched in such a way that would’ve amplified his concern if he weren’t so out of it.

Her fingers felt cold around his neck. “Árre, we need to get this off,” she said, unbuttoning the collar of his uniform.

He was alarmed when his hands brushed hers and he saw they were covered in some dark substance. Oh, blood. Strange, it looked pitch black in this light. Andrea continued working her way down, pulling each button gingerly, so as not to hurt him more. The closer she got to his stomach, the more her hands began to resemble his, covered in black.

“Dale, mija. ¿Me vas a explicar lo que haces aquí ya o qué?”

He wanted to rub his thumb across her lip as it curled up in a smug smile. “Why? Should I not be here? You want me to leave? Sure,” she craned her neck around, and called out into the empty room, “I’ll just be on my way then and let someone in this massive crowd of eager, good samaritans help you.”

He chuckled thinly. When she faced back to him, she began untucking his shirt as delicately as possible. It hurt like a sonofabitch but it was going to hurt no matter what they did, so he softened the corners of his eyes, trying not to make her feel bad.

She continued. “The better question I think is, what are you doing here?”

Once he was free from his dress shirt, she grabbed both sides of the hole in the white shirt underneath and tore it wider to get a better look at the wound. Blood leaked out in streams down his stomach to his waist. It appeared to be a large gash from some kind of shrapnel. Much too jagged for a knife. The harsh sound of air through her teeth was a good indicator of what kind of shape he was in.

Alright so, shrapnel. But he couldn’t remember an explosion and there was no evidence of one having happened there in the room. What was he doing here? He couldn’t answer her. The blankness of before was all he could conjure up and that vast emptiness set him on the edge of panic.

He’d been doing a passable job not reacting too viscerally with his face, but when she started rifling through his pockets on either side, he grimaced, growling, “Ay, Andrea! Qué coño estás haciendo, porfavor.”

Paying him no mind, she held out her hand like a surgeon waiting for a scalpel. “Knife.”

He jutted his chin toward his feet. Spotting the shiny silver clip, she grabbed the knife from his boot, flicked it out, and made an incision in the hem of his uniform shirt. Catching the free section in her teeth, she tore down the length of the initial incision, and started packing the vodka-soaked gauze that she’d managed to hold onto after his freakout onto the wound and tying it with the strips of cloth cut from the shirt. When she pulled hard, securing the final knot, he nearly keeled over.

“Aycarajoperdónperdónperdóname,” she said, catching him by the shoulders.

She stayed there, acting as his scaffolding until the pain subsided. He lifted his chin to rest his forehead against hers and catch his breath. Just in her wanting to help him, the assurance of her fingertips against his shoulders, he felt her helping him. He couldn’t remember a time he was so grateful for another human being. Grateful in the way only she could make him feel.

Speaking half to her and half to the ground, he tried putting the pieces together, “I don’t know what I’m doing here. For some reason–“ but lost the words when he’d barely gotten started.

“What?”

“I don’t know. It’s– I have this strange– I have a feeling we’ve always been here. And will … always be here.”

Andrea nodded, eyes closed, like she knew exactly what he was talking about. It might feel like a trap if they didn’t have each other. She was always more than enough.

After a beat of silence, she pulled back and looked at him sadly, like she knew something he didn’t. Which was odd given what she asked next. “Horacio, por favor, necesito saberlo. Why? Why did you do it?”

Why’d he do it? Why’d he do, what?

“I know it’s in there, I know you remember. You have to, or you’ll never make it out of here.”

He shook his head, squinting his eyes, confused and cranky like a kid prematurely woken up from a nap. “Make it out? I’m not gonna make it out. Not unless you help me. Look at–“ he motioned to his side, “Ni siquiera puedo andar, mija.”

“Yes, you can,” she insisted calmly, her eyes full of an inexplicable mix of hope and resignation.

What did she know that he didn’t?

“I don’t know anything you don’t know. You just don’t want to know it. But you have to try, tigre. Eso es la única manera de vengarte a él. No more cutting corners. No more deals with the devil. Eres mejor que eso, ya lo sabes.”

The devil. The devil. The flashing red light. Deals. Deals with the devil.

Ah. Calderoni. That. That fucking deal.

His own C.I.s in exchange for Calderoni’s intel on Agua Caliente, el Hipódromo, Carlos Hank Gonzalez. A bigger fish than the Arellanos. Even though he knew exactly what the family would do to the informants. They’d have to stop building bridges in Mexico to hang people from. He showed up in Tijuana to clean up Rebollo’s mess and gone ahead and made his own.

Still, she was never part of the deal. But he could guess how that happened. In some boardroom meeting he conveniently wasn’t present for, somehow “journalist” and “informant” got conflated. They were wise not to include him. Not only would he not have agreed, he would’ve ensured not a single one of them made it out of there on two feet and breathing.

So, is this what it’s like watching the boulder come crashing down the mountain for the hundredth? Thousandth? Millionth time?

Carrillo’s face fell with understanding. “But I can’t lose you.”

“Sí, pero lo tienes que hacer. You have work to do. Because I love you. And you love me. And you owe me. And,” she rolled her tongue along the inside of her cheek, and then flashed a dangerous smile, “I want you to burn the whole motherfucking thing to the ground.”

Then, cradling the back of his neck with both hands, she leaned in, lips christening him on the forehead, each of his eyelids, the tip of his nose, coming to a close at his own. There was a finality to the kiss that made him dig in deeper as if he could hold her here without lifting a finger, an urgency she returned so fiercely, when they broke away both their lips were swollen and flushed. Not without passion, but it wasn’t carnal so much as the pure desperation of goodbye.

“Going after those pinshe shingamadres is the least you can do.” He hadn’t even registered tears at his eyes until she brushed one with her thumb that had escaped down onto his cheekbone and mused, “After all, you are the reason I’m dead.”

∴

Slapped with a blast of air, his whole body jolted back to life, as he came to in a cold sweat, ceiling fan taunting him from above while he gasped for air and shivered against the damp sheets. He was so used to waking up violently like this, it didn’t even scare him anymore. Confused him a little, maybe. But reassurance was quick to follow and his breathing slowed as he relaxed, because ah, yes, he knew how to deal with the nightmares now.

Like clockwork, he reached for his life preserver, turning and throwing his arm over to the other side of the bed, expecting to feel the warmth of her back, her shoulders, hear her steady breathing next to him. But his hand sailed straight through empty air and landed on the cold, vacant spot of the mattress instead.

He almost doubled over. Pain unlike anything.

Worse than when Trujillo first delivered the news to him in his office. Much worse. The perpetual renewal of shock that this was real and the place in that dingy room in his head was not, only sharpened the blow each time. But he deserved to be wounded and wounded like this over and over again. After all, he was responsible, she was right about that.

She wasn’t here to help him with the nightmares anymore. Now, she only lived in his.

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taglist: @narcosfandomdiscord @ashlingnarcos @drabbles-mc @narcolini

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proceduralpassion · 1 year ago

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How Do You Do This Shit For Fun?

Day 2 of Narcoctober - Create a crossover for the OG Narcos show and NMX, featuring at least one character from each.

Characters: Javier Peña x Walt Breslin (DEA besties)

CW: language, discussion of drugs

WC: ~1k

A/N: Another day of Narcoctober down! Played a little fast and loose with canon and events bc there's no rules to this fandom shit. If you see any spelling/grammar errors, no you didn't. Enjoy some humor and a twinge of angst.

There’s something to be said about feeling out of one’s league when you’re comparing yourself to the guy who’s got like ten years on you.

Javi meets Walt a few months after his training period since becoming a DEA agent. He’s working out of El Paso, not on one given assignment, but working on multiple cases in the efforts to prove himself. He’s skirted by without much hazing or abuse as the new kid on the block, but he still draws the short straw and assigned the paper trail-intensive type of cases. It’s nothing you can seek your teeth into, but he bares it because this is the road to proving himself.

Walt’s able to transition out of his desk job in Sacramento and joins the crew down in El Paso under Kuykendall’s command. He takes a liking to Peña and brings him up under his wing, so to speak.

Javi’s heard the rumors, listened to the rumblings of what happened of the airfield disaster. He’s already been warned to be wary of Breslin for fear of having his own new DEA career in the hairs of being flushed down the toilet. On the other side of the spectrum, he’s heard guys rave about how much they admire the ballsy moves he’s willing to make to smoke traffickers out. Javi pays it all no mind though, wanting to form his own notions of the guy before passing judgment.

And so far, the guy’s an enigma.

He’s got a subtle way of making people feel inferior to his own thoughts and intentions. Not in a spiteful kind of way, but Javi can tell he’s probably pissed off a lot of people across the border with his aloof attitude and superiority complex. He’s found that when working with Mexican law enforcement, the ethnocentrism steaming off of American officials pisses them off more than the actual cartels sometimes. But Walt also seems to care deeply. He puts in the work, willing to go the extra mile. He’s quick to get back up after being kicked down to the ground. He takes the time to show Peña the ropes, genuinely wanting to share gems that’ll help him down the road as he continues on his journey.

They start running together in the mornings, Breslin’s way of making sure Peña stays sharp and non-complacent in his paper trail cases. Running, itself, is a relatively new hobby for Walt, something he wanted to pick up now that he’s serious about quitting smoking.

He gets up to five miles and Javi feels like he could die before he’s two miles in. What’s worse is that Walt is just talking as usual, spewing off random pieces of advice and sharing new developments about the rising beef between the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels. Javi can’t get anything but grunts and squawks out as he voices acknowledgement that he’s listening as they run along.

Even his fucking jogs in between his sprints are fast as shit, Javi thinks to himself. It may be off hours, but he’s not going to be outdone by this guy. Call it a chip on his shoulder or just a guy thing, but it wasn’t happening even if his lungs felt like hot ass cotton right about now.

His descent to the ground is less than graceful when they take a break in the midpoint of their run. Walt simply sits on the nearby stoop while Javi stumbles and then flails his legs open on the ground. It’s a quiet area in the neighborhood, but he’d just have to get hit by a car if one happened on this silent road because he simply wasn’t moving.

He heaves in heavy breaths of air, fiending for oxygen much like the addicts that kept the cartels rich.

He opens his eyes when he hears movement and the sound of grunts next to him. They widen when he realizes that Breslin is doing fucking sit ups on the sidewalk. Peña curses to himself when he gathers himself up to start right alongside him.

“Gotta work the full body out,” Walt remarks.

This time, Javi makes no effort to hide rolling his eyes, but Walt doesn’t notice because he’s striking up another conversation about Gallardo possibly being the key to getting intel about just how expansive the cartel’s pockets were when it came to influence and corruption. At this point, Javi isn’t even trying to be engaged in the dialogue anymore. He’s just ready for this workout to end and to lay prone on his bed for the rest of the day.

It’s only when the discussion veers from work to the potential idea of their workouts becoming a regular occurrence that Peña finally snaps.

“How do you do this shit for fun?!”

His elbows scrape against the concrete like a vinyl record cutting off suddenly. He tells Breslin “fuck you” in his head when he looks over to see him still doing sit ups with perfect form, no less.

He has the nerve to fucking shrug as his reply to Javi’s question before finishing up and finally standing. He gives him a hand to help him rise along with him, which the younger DEA agent takes. “Call it a vice,” Walt shrugs again and looks down, almost as if embarrassed, “This job’s gonna suck the shit out of you. Better to have running as an outlet or shit instead of something else.”

Javi rubs at his elbows and watches the way Breslin morphs his face back into neutrality after the grim lacings in his tone just now.

They finish running the rest of their trail and Javi thinks that maybe he’s cracked a piece of the Breslin Rubik’s cube. The one-track mind when it came to tearing down cartels. The failed operations and burnt bridges. The occasional whiff of alcohol he emanated at random times throughout the work day.

This crusade might be the death of him.

Before he goes down, he wants to make sure the game doesn’t take others down too.

“There’s another way, Javi,” he says on another run, “There’s always gonna be another way, a better way to win.”

A/N: This was originally just gonna be a funny little fic but somewhere along the way, it became a mini character study as well? Sawry bout it. Click here if you wanna be added to my taglist. Taglist: @asirensrage @narcosfandomdiscord

#narcos #narcos mexico #javier peña #walt breslin #javier pena x walt breslin #narcoctober

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omorales81 · 3 months ago

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Narcos México was criminally under—advertised and marketed by @netflix. It’s super compelling and well done. Season 3 in particular. 🇲🇽 #NarcosMexico #VivaMexico #Netflix #Streaming #OriginalContent #ElChapo #Tijuana

#narcos mexico #netflix #streaming #viva mexico cabrones

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kammartinez · 1 year ago

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By Luis Alberto Urrea

I was born in Tijuana and spent much of my boyhood in a neighborhood — “colonia,” in TJ-speak — called Independencia. There was an ersatz European-style castle at one end of our street, a tamed bear living at the bottom of the hill, a madman next door who regularly got drunk and shot his pistola at the moon, and a yard with bananas and a tall old pomegranate tree. Sounds tropical. Sounds like Gabriel García Márquez. Doesn’t sound on the surface like the deadly desert, like the frightening shadow land of crooked policías and narco hit men.

The borderlands are the most interesting book in the world, being rewritten every day. Currently, I can attest that much of that contested region, from coast to coast, is alive with tourists seeking good food and cheap medical care, a developing street scene of boutiques and gourmet eateries, baristas and art galleries, vivid music and literary movements, ballet companies and symphonic concerts and, in my hometown, the best street tacos on earth.

The Mexican cultural journalist Jaime Cháidez Bonilla recently wrote this on Twitter (I’ve translated from his Spanish): “I like it when evening falls over Tijuana, a poetic act. A city so defamed, a city so generous.” I dare say most people don’t think of any border city, on either side of the wall, as generous. I have been fortunate enough to write about Tijuana and the border for many years, and of course I have read a library’s worth of other authors wrestling with the region. My favorite border pop song is by Nortec Collective (more on them below), and it’s called “Tijuana Makes Me Happy.” Yeah — the border makes me happy. A tip: Expect the unexpected.

I need to pause here in recognition that immigration is the relentless theme of this area and this era. But I do not believe that immigration stories are a subset of the literature of the borderlands: Though there is some cross-pollination, I believe immigration literature is a genre of its own, deserving of its own spotlight. I do not include it here.

What books and authors should I take with me?

One grand feature of border culture is the lure of a bargain. For decades, the clarion call of cheap muffler (“mofle”) shops drew tourists south; now, it’s cheap dentures and Viagra. So let us offer a one-stop classic, the anthology “Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots and Graffiti From La Frontera.” Edited by Tijuana’s greatest literary son, Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, along with El Paso’s late, great Bobby Byrd and his son John William Byrd, this wild anthology covers the good, the bad and the ugly. Many of the greatest border thinkers and writers are contained within its covers: Charles Bowden, Leslie Marmon Silko, Sam Quinones, Juan Villoro and Doug Peacock (model for the infamous hero of Edward Abbey’s novel “The Monkey Wrench Gang”), among others. Funky, funny, literary, angry — it will show you things you may have wondered about and things you might not have imagined.

What writers or books will help me feel the spirit of this place?

Even if you do not read poetry, the borderlands require it. In a place both lush and austere, alien and homey, full of symphonies of languages and accents, smells and sounds, silence and raucous music, nothing can touch the experience of being there like poetry. It is not a coincidence that most of the writers on my list are also poets. They will transport you.

Ofelia Zepeda, a 1999 MacArthur fellow, is a Tohono O’odham poet of such elegant and exact rhetoric, such integrity of culture and vision, that you miss her quiet genius at your own risk. She gave the songs of the Tohono O’odham back to the land. Come to the chapels of her books “Ocean Power: Poems From the Desert” and “Where Clouds Are Formed.”

I highly recommend a book that gives me endless delight as a reader and endless inspiration as a writer: Harry Polkinhorn and Mark Weiss’s seminal anthology “Across the Line/Al Otro Lado.” It covers the broad and surprising corpus of Baja California’s poetry, from Indigenous chants to postmodern epics, and it includes works that reflect the flavored cross-genre/cross-cultural/cross-border adventures the writers foresee in the distance of this decade.

Arizona’s first poet laureate, Alberto Ríos, born in Nogales, Ariz., is a true writer of the borderlands. Though all of his poetry books are excellent, “A Small Story About the Sky” remains my favorite. However, of particular interest for this list is “Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir.”

No one is better positioned to affect this literature than Natalie Diaz, the director of the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and a self-described “language activist,” Diaz is brilliant and powerful, and you need to read both “When My Brother Was an Aztec” and “Postcolonial Love Poem.”

Finally, the wizard, the curandero, the presidente: Juan Felipe Herrera. A former U.S. poet laureate and son of migrant farmworkers. My homeboy from Barrio Logan in San Diego. His selected poems in “Half of the World in Light” are a magical mystery tour, not only along the border but through the universe. Herrera is a kind of psychedelic drug and he will make you see visions. His voice is the distillation of all of our journeys.

What novels will transport me?

Borderlands authors are many. One of the best and most authentic is Denise Chávez. Her milieu is the often overlooked southern New Mexico and West Texas world of frontera families, and the tall tales that flourish there. She is the queen of the generation that surged in the 1980s and beyond — a strong feminist voice free of cant and bursting with delight. Her novel “Loving Pedro Infante” will begin your Chávez collection, and you won’t want to stop. Another groundbreaker is the poet and novelist Ana Castillo and her border classic “So Far From God.” Both of these writers tell the stories of women on the American side of the line in vivid color, in many tones and in both languages.

I also highly recommend anything by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. His “Aristotle and Dante” young adult novels are immensely popular, but I regard his poetry with helpless envy. Start with his story collection “Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,” which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and his poetry collection “Elegies in Blue.”

What audiobook would make for good company while I walk around?

The oldest, most venerable literary tradition along the borderline is oral. I didn’t start out reading books: I sat at the feet of old women telling ghost stories and fanciful family histories (and recounting dyspeptic gossip about other relatives). They were my first lit professors.

In my opinion, rather than audiobooks, you should listen to the music of the border, because it will be easier to absorb and you can dance to it. Every song is a novel or a book of poems, because the borderlands don’t talk: They sing. Music transcends and leaps over border walls like wild doves. Two of the best musical portraitists of this world are Lila Downs and Nortec Collective. Downs’s “The Border” is an elegant and lively album that paints indelible portraits with depth and wit. And her album “Shake Away” is a wild ride through the sounds and tales that we will never see on a tour bus or a beach holiday. (Suggested track: “Minimum Wage.”) For dance lovers and electronica fans, the Nortec Collective duo has created a hybrid of techno music that absorbs and transforms traditional instrumentation and themes into a rollicking dance music of joy and, yes, generosity. There are few bands that spawn a huge cultural and literary movement, but Nortec has opened gates for creativity in literature, theater, dance and visual art throughout the region and across the world that are constantly bearing fruit.

I must also recommend Los Lobos from Los Angeles, Calexico from Tucson, Ariz., and two wildly rollicking bands from Monterrey, Mexico: El Gran Silencio and Jumbo.

Anything I should add to my bookshelf?

For literate thrills and occasional chills, turn to Rubén Degollado (“The Family Izquierdo” and “Throw”). A splendid collection by Oscar Cásares, “Brownsville,” gives the inside scoop on a place in Texas that you may not think of without an author’s guidance. And Sergio Troncoso is such a beloved writer of the borderlands, there is a public library branch named for him in El Paso. His “A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son” is simply brilliant.

Luis Alberto Urrea’s Borderland Reading List

“Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots and Graffiti From La Frontera,” edited by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, Bobby Byrd and John William Byrd

“Ocean Power: Poems From the Desert” and “Where Clouds Are Formed,” Ofelia Zepeda

“Across the Line/Al Otro Lado,” edited by Harry Polkinhorn and Mark Weiss

“A Small Story About the Sky” and “Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir,” Alberto Ríos

“When My Brother Was an Aztec” and “Postcolonial Love Poem,” Natalie Diaz

“Half of the World in Light,” Juan Felipe Herrera

“Loving Pedro Infante,” Denise Chávez

“So Far From God,” Ana Castillo

“Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club” and “Elegies in Blue,” Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“The Family Izquierdo” and “Throw,” Rubén Degollado

“Brownsville,” Oscar Cásares

“A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son,” Sergio Troncoso

#books

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adiariomx · 6 months ago

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La Fiscalía investiga a exdirector de policía por fiesta lujosa para su hija con Los Tucanes de Tijuana. Ciudad de México (ADN/Staff) - La Fiscalía G...

#México

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deadlinecom · 8 months ago

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mexicodailypost · 1 year ago

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Alliance between the Arellano Félix and Los Chapitos? Narco banners prohibiting fentanyl hang in Baja California

Residents of Tijuana and Ensenada shared photographs of the narcomantas, allegedly signed by the Arellano Félix Cartel (CAF) A little over a week after residents of Culiacán, Mazatlán, Guamúchil and Ahome reported the presence of narcomantas in which Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, prohibited the production and sale of fentanyl, the event was repeated, but now in Ensenada and…

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#baja california

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shahananasrin-blog · 1 year ago

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[ad_1] Mexican pop star Peso Pluma has postponed his show in Tijuana after the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel began posting ominous banners around the area threatening his life. Pluma, 24, whose real name is Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija, is a popular “Narcocorrido” singer, or an artist whose work glorifies drug cartels in songs often labeled “narco ballads.” Many of Pluma’s songs, for instance, have celebrated drug cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Still, his narco ballads do not sit well equally with all cartels, if the banners supposedly signed by Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación” (CJNG) are any evidence. On Thursday, Pluma’s record label, Doble P Records, told fans that his Oct. 14 show in Tijuana has been canceled out of an abundance of caution, according to the Los Angeles Times. Authorities arrested a man in Tijuana for hanging banners threatening Pluma’s safety with a message reading in Spanish, “This is for you, Peso Pluma. Refrain from appearing this October 14. Because it will be your last presentation.” It was signed CJNG, authorities reported. Several other similar banners also appeared in the town just south of the U.S. border between California and Mexico. Pluma has postponed shows in Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Birmingham, according to The Messenger. Whatever the seriousness of the threats, the municipal president of Tijuana, Montserrat Caballero Ramírez, had little sympathy for Pluma. “Singers like Peso Pluma glorifies crime, so there are certain groups that get upset and unfortunately those who suffer the consequences are the citizens who want to attend their concerts and then are put at risk. In the next few days we will determine whether the concert goes ahead or not,” she said, according to Billboard. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston [ad_2]

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garudabluffs · 1 year ago

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Threats to Peso Pluma point to cartel wars

Sep. 14, 2023 "Early Tuesday morning, three banners emblazoned with threats aimed at the wildly popular Mexican singer Peso Pluma were found hanging from bridges in the Mexican border town of Tijuana. Author Sam Quiñones talks with The World’s host Marco Werman about the genre of music known as the “narco-corrido” and how Peso Pluma’s music has become entangled in cartel warfare."

LISTEN https://theworld.org/media/2023-09-14/threats-peso-pluma-point-cartel-wars

After Threats in Mexico, Peso Pluma Postpones U.S. Concerts

The breakout musician has not given a reason for rescheduling the dates. The authorities in Mexico are investigating the credibility of written threats against him.

Man arrested for allegedly hanging banners threatening Mexican singer Peso Pluma

Tijuana police have arrested the man allegedly responsible for hanging banners with messages threatening the life and safety of musician and singer PesoPluma.

Peso Pluma's Chicago concert postponed after singer reportedly threatened by cartel in Tijuana

An upcoming show for singer PesoPluma that was set to take place in Chicago has been rescheduled after he was reportedly threatened by members of the Jalisco cartel.

READ MORE:An upcoming show for singer Peso Pluma that was set to take place in Chicago has been rescheduled after he was reportedly threatened by members of the Jalisco cartel. READ MORE: https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/peso-plumas-chicago-concert-postponed-after-singer-reportedly-threatened-by-cartel-in-tijuana/

#drug cartels

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kamreadsandrecs · 1 year ago

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By Luis Alberto Urrea

What books and authors should I take with me?

What writers or books will help me feel the spirit of this place?

What novels will transport me?

What audiobook would make for good company while I walk around?

I must also recommend Los Lobos from Los Angeles, Calexico from Tucson, Ariz., and two wildly rollicking bands from Monterrey, Mexico: El Gran Silencio and Jumbo.

Anything I should add to my bookshelf?

Luis Alberto Urrea’s Borderland Reading List

“Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots and Graffiti From La Frontera,” edited by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, Bobby Byrd and John William Byrd

“Ocean Power: Poems From the Desert” and “Where Clouds Are Formed,” Ofelia Zepeda

“Across the Line/Al Otro Lado,” edited by Harry Polkinhorn and Mark Weiss

“A Small Story About the Sky” and “Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir,” Alberto Ríos

“When My Brother Was an Aztec” and “Postcolonial Love Poem,” Natalie Diaz

“Half of the World in Light,” Juan Felipe Herrera

“Loving Pedro Infante,” Denise Chávez

“So Far From God,” Ana Castillo

“Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club” and “Elegies in Blue,” Benjamin Alire Sáenz

“The Family Izquierdo” and “Throw,” Rubén Degollado

“Brownsville,” Oscar Cásares

“A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son,” Sergio Troncoso

#books #book recs

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hausofmamadas · 2 years ago

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| Always short to the gate |

⁂

Pairing: David Barrón & Enedina Arellano Félix

For my df, dear friend, and fellow writer @purplesong1028 - Candyhearts Exchange 2023

Word count: ≈ 7.8K

TWs: Canon-typical violence, descriptions of violence

✷Disclaimer - This is an AU version of Barron, to the point that mans is essentially my OC. So, for purposes of morality/sanity/all that is holy, we disregard Nmx - S3, ep8, Last Dance. For more details, refer -> here. On a similar note: if I have to say “not condoning/glorifying the real people” aka “I don’t sanction the real-life actions of drug cartels,” I implore thee, look where you are. You’re in the wrong place. Best take that elsewhere porque no hay bronca, for civility's sake, we will not be going there✷

Still, these were all things to wish for, not to have. What was left now? What if some things were better dreamt than done? David Barron is in love. He's in love and he does care who knows it. Particularly, if the brutal, savage cartel-boss brothers of the woman he loves, Enedina Arellano Felix, know it. But what’s he to do when he's taken by another powerful cartel leader, in retaliation for Dina's secret side-project moving coke across the Tijuana/San Ysidro border with fellow drug baroness, Isabella Bautista? In the face of a potentially more imminent death para su rayo de luna, can Dina afford to keep both him, and the business she built from the ground up, a secret?

⁂

So, this is it. I finally made it. Staring at the crowd, all the bigwigs laughing and clinking their champagne flutes, and now that I’m here, I can’t figure what all the fuss was about. Because in my whole damn life, I’ve never been to a party like this. Frankly, I’d sooner hit up a barbecue at Chato’s grandma’s trailer or a tailgate in Chicano Park, than show up willingly to a place like this.

The guest list is a family tree of Sinaloan-born narcos and an obnoxious who’s-who of Mexico City elites. Men come down from the ivory tower to grace all the thieves and plebes. Fat cats in pressed gray suits. Although, the champagne-glass pyramid is pretty cool. And somehow, this isn’t even as lavish as last year? At least according to Ramón. When we arrive, he explains that there was still all of well ... everything. But last year kicked off harder because Güero and Co rolled through with a life-size train and a tiger in a gilded cage. A fucking tiger.

“Pendejos only did it to kiss Miguel’s ass, que sean tan mamónes,” he growls, shooting a dead-eyed stare at Chapo across the lawn.

I laugh into the highball glass I’m sipping from. I don’t normally drink at events like this, and on the off chance I do, always a Corona with a lime ‘cause it reminds me of home. But thank you, no. I would not like to keep my tab open.

Except this time, the over-interested hostess practically forces a drink on me when we get there. No clue who she is either, except she must’ve been a high-roller herself or at least married to one, based on the obscene dress she’s wearing. Fuck if I know a thing about designer shit, but I can spot the difference between black-tie and fuck-you money. And I’m not in the habit of saying “no” to fuck-you money. Even if she is smiling and touching my shoulder too much.

My eyes wander, looking for Dina, brooding an invisible SOS into the night air, hoping she might swoop in and save me, but she’s nowhere in sight. Neither is Mín. I smack Ramón in the chest with the back of my hand. “Oye, dónde está tu hermana?”

He shakes his head.

The fuck did she go? The only reason I’m even at this glorified peacock-fest, and— oh wow, yeah, there are actual peacocks wandering around on the lawn by the lake. No tigers, but of course the night isn’t complete without some form of exploited wildlife. No, the only reason I’m here is because she asked me. Or rather, because of what came out when she asked me.

✺

Dina sat on Mín’s desk, legs dangled over the side, smoking a cigarette like always, and eyeing me slyly from across the room as I buttoned my shirt back up.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you?” I asked, readjusting my collar.

“What?”

“That it’s rude to stare.”

She threw her head back, laughing.

“Yeah, they must’ve had some lesson at whatever charm school you probably went to.”

Her mouth dropped open in mock outrage, “Charm school? No me digas esas shingaderas, hombre. I wasn’t as poor as you but we didn’t have that kind of money.”

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, “Ah, tu lo sabes? Tienes razón. ‘Cause the working-class shit I’ve heard outta your mouth?” and shook my head. “They wouldn’t have let you in the building.”

She snapped her fingers. “Sí, David. Now he’s getting it.”

“Well, then that would explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“Why you don’t know it’s rude to stare at someone like that.”

Her voice shot up half an octave into the range of feigned innocence. “Like what?”

“Like they’re dessert.”

“Es solo porque eres tan dulce. Maybe I just can’t get enough. Maybe I have no choice.”

I looked up at her, smiling wide, all love-struck-stupid ‘cause I couldn’t help myself. “‘Can’t get enough,’ like you didn’t just get a three course meal.”

She kicked her heels against the desk, then hopped off and strolled over. I made a face when she flicked her cigarette on the ground and stamped it out. “Your brother’s gonna hate that.”

“Ya lo sé, y no me importa ni una mierda.”

“Oh, sí? Pues lo haría tampoco pero the second he sees it, he’ll think I did it.”

Voice dropping just above a whisper, she came closer, “If he does, he can take it up with me,” and slid her hands under my shirt. “It’s as much mine as it is his. More even.”

They felt cold through the thin, ribbed fabric of my undershirt, gliding around my waist, creeping around to brush my lower back with her fingertips. At first, I thought she was going for my pant pockets, until her thumb hooked around the handle of the gun in my waistband. It startled me in spite of myself.

She smirked, practically presenting it, barrel pointed up at the ceiling. “Sorry, were you gonna need this? Or can we remove the ‘fire’ hazard.”

Taking the gun and grumbling, “You know there’s a safety, right,” I leaned over and set it on the filing cabinet against the wall.

When I turned my attention back to her, she tightened her grip around my waist suddenly and backed me up against the door. She tried bracing with her other arm so I wouldn’t fall back too hard. It didn’t work. A second thud, my head smacking the door, followed the first of it slamming shut. Still, the though that counts, right? My pained smile complemented a look of amused pity on her face.

Laughing, she winced and mouthed, “Shit, sorry!”

“So, this is how you treat your employee—“ she cut me off with a few well-timed, remorseful kisses.

She pulled back breathlessly, grinning, almost electrified. “Yeah, why do you think I took your gun away?”

“Mmm, yeah, would’ve been a hazard.”

“That, yes. But mostly I didn’t want you to feel like you were on the clock,” she murmured against my mouth, “this isn’t meant to be company time,” then caught my lower lip gently with her teeth.

I sucked in a harsh breath, not a chance in hell of suppressing the feral rumble already escaping the back of my throat.

It might’ve been fine. I might’ve been able to tear myself away, because we’d already been there too long, nevermind it was never long enough.

Until her lashes brushed my cheek and I heard, “Ah, how I love to hear you, guapo.”

My heart bottomed out in my stomach. I got ahold of the collar of her jacket on both sides. Rocking her back, easy and gentle, I slid it slow off her shoulders. Goosebumps followed the path of my fingertips across her neck, collarbones, down the backs of her arms. The metal buttons clinked against the floor. A bell announcing another round.

And all of a sudden, I couldn’t get at her fast enough.

I swept my arm around her waist, hand sliding into the curve of the small of her back, the other palming the spot between her shoulder blades to flatten her against me. If I could just bring her close enough for us to melt together and into the wood grain of the door, the better to freebase the air she breathed, the smell of her hair, the blood rushing to her face.

How many nights had I spent awake, staring at the cracked plaster ceiling of my cell, dreaming of moments like this. I’d lost count a long time ago. And okay, maybe not exactly like this. The feeling. The wholeness to it. But not the details. Like I never could’ve predicted the boxy radio with the giant antenna that played from its sketchy spot on the window ledge, too close to the edge, day in and day out while we worked. Or the way the sun lit the dust in the air like the office was an attic in an old house that wasn’t ours. And Dina, all nimble fingers now, working my belt buckle. No way I could’ve dreamt her up. She was too complete for that.

Still, these were all things to wish for, not to have. What was left now? What if some things were better dreamt than done?

Suddenly self-aware, I wondered what it’d be like if just now, she could feel that inferno of memories at the tip of my tongue, burning through my lips to hers. If she could learn, inhaling every breath I took, things I’d share without saying a word. I wished she could. Maybe that’s why her kisses were so urgent now. Sharp, demanding, like she couldn’t get close enough. Like she’d occupy the exact same space if she could.

Let me in. Anything. Tell me anything.

She was funny like that. Didn’t even know how far she’d gotten. So much further than most.

Lips still locked to mine like cross examining a witness, her hands grazed my jaw, my neck, practically mauling the collar of my shirt to get the buttons undone. I should’ve known not to bother earlier. This was the way it went with us. Part of the ritual, pretending we were done. Getting ready to leave, all raw nerves in the afterglow. Anxious awareness, never far behind not-near-enough satisfied. Because no matter how careful we were, there was a chance we’d be caught all the same. But we were never ready. Not really. So, we’d stall enough to justify starting up again. Living in each other as much as we could. Wringing out every last drop to bottle it up, a fail-safe supply for later. Another bump, another hit to tide us over. ‘Til next time. If we got one.

She’d only made it two buttons down when we both froze. A crashing sound, loud echoes of metallic clanging. Fuck. Someone on the main floor. We repelled to opposite sides of the room before we could think long enough to be disappointed.

I fixed my shirt, then grabbed Dina’s jacket from the floor and tossed it to her. “You said no one was supposed to be here till tonight?”

She caught it, draping it over one arm so she could get her cigarette holder out of one of the pockets. Trying her level best to look composed, she took one out and lit up. But I could see the tells; beads of sweat on her forehead; that too-quick rise and fall of her chest.

Eyes wide, she shrugged, at a loss. “They’re not. Pancho’s with Món at the racetrack. Apparently betting against some new horse Güero and Chapo brought up from Mazatlán. Mín’s taking Ruth to one of her appointments.”

I walked to the window and looked out onto the main floor. It was easy to make out a head of black hair bobbing just beyond the giant, industrial-sized forklift, partially blocking my view. My eyes followed it along the top of the forklift’s arm until Nestor came out from behind it, puttering around and practically strangled by a few long chains from one of the trucks. He swore, dropping them again. Poor guy. The links jittering against the cement floor filled the warehouse with what sounded like twisted, metallic laughter. Mocking him. Us.

“Who is it?” She asked it like she wasn’t looking out the same window.

Without a word, I turned and walked back toward the door. She followed, “Pinshe Nestor, este wey,” waving her hand dismissively at the window.

I couldn’t resist. “Mmm right? Fuck that guy. Yea, go yell at him, chew him out, tell him why you’re annoyed.”

She narrowed her eyes but in that way she did when she was stifling a smile. When she knew I was right.

“You know, it didn’t occur to me until this moment.” Sighing and cupping my chin gently, she turned my face from side-to-side to examine it. “But I think I just realized why you’re so quiet.”

My eyebrow shot up, not a clue where she was going with this.

“It’s this smart mouth of yours,” she mused, grazing my lip with her thumb, “gotten you into too much trouble.”

I brought her hand from my cheek to my lips and hummed into her palm, “Mm, mhmm,” before nibbling a few besitos across. “Funny coming from you, always trying to get me to talk. But only when you like what I have to say.”

“Ay chulito pues, I didn’t say I minded it,” she winked. “Just not when it’s used against me.”

“Mm yea, don’t play that way. I’m an equal opportunity offender.”

At that, she laughed, eyes closed, full-out, no doubt loud enough to be heard on the first floor. Remembering Nestor, I let her hand drop but held onto the tips of her fingers. I couldn’t be sure how long we stayed like that, twining and un-twining our fingers in silence; every once in a while pressing palms together; two kids in the sandbox, comparing to see whose were bigger. If we’d never stopped, I wouldn’t have cared a lick.

Something must’ve hit her though because her face fell. Serious. Troubled. Thoughts descended in real-time, only I couldn’t make out what they were.

Until she breathed out, “Oye.”

It wasn’t like her to retreat but when I looked up, she said nothing else. Just chewed ferociously on the inside of her cheek. I waited, eyes drifting back down to watch our fingers and knuckles, still rhythmically locking and unlocking.

Breaking the silence, she gave it another shot. “Miguel’s party is on Saturday.”

“Yeah.”

There it was again, another retreat. What the fuck was she gonna say that she was so nervous to say it?

“And?”

It came out soft like a secret. “Go with me?”

Huh. Whatever I thought she might say, it sure as shit wasn’t that. Not … asking me to the dance? Disbelief chipped away at my usual poker face and without thinking, I blurted, “What? Why?”

Zero-to-sixty in four seconds flat and now she was fuming.

“Why? What do you mean ‘why?’”

Senseless. I knew it then. Should’ve walked it back. Found a better way to ask. But still, it was the only thing that came out of my mouth and all too matter-of-fact.

“I mean like ... why.”

Her jaw cocked to one side. She looked like she wanted to slug me. Because despite the fact that I wasn’t family, had never even met Miguel, had no business being there, somehow it was the dumbest question in the world.

“There’s—” I fumbled for words, raking my hand up and down the back of my head. “I just— why would I be there? You don’t need security. He’s the main man. No doubt he’ll have his own.”

“Because.”

“Because,” I shot back flatly.

“Because.”

“Think your brother, my boss, is gonna need more than ‘because.’ Even from you.”

“You’d be surprised.” She cracked a smile.

That’s right. Stubborn. Impossible. And she knew it. Like a reflex or muscle memory, my face settled into that thousand yard stare, the one she and so many others felt the need to decode.

She conceded, “Because. Okay?” throwing her hands up and letting them fall. They smacked her hips on the way back down and the rest came out in practically one breath. “Because even though he’s a genius and he’s technically family, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo is the most insufferable man in all of Mexico. I can’t stand him and I can’t stand almost everyone else on that fucking guest list. Así qué quiero que estés allí porque ya todos los odio. Pero a ti te quiero.”

Wait, come again? She didn’t just— no, but she did.

Pero a ti te quiero.

“Oh.”

I turned around, fell against the door, pressing into it with my forehead, and didn’t say anything for a long time. Mind searching for an explanation: the timing, why now? What day was it? What date was it? What was different about now?

I’d woken up in the same bed in that cramped apartment just down the street from Parque Teniente, the first one I could find when I got to Tijuana months ago. Woken up the same damn person. As far as I knew, so had she. There was nothing especially extraordinary about today. If anything it was routine, sneaking into Mín’s office when we knew no one would be there, away from prying eyes: Alicia, Ruth, their mother, the gaggle of Arellano women who always seemed to be at the house. Away from Pancho, who’d made a habit of passing out, snoring until three in the afternoon, on the pull-out couch at my place.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more it sank in how unremarkable the day was. Maybe something happened. Some earth-shattering event she hadn’t told me about yet, something that would explain the sentence that just left her lips and turned reality into something like the dimensions of a funhouse mirror.

Shit, how long had I been standing there with my head against the door? How long had she been waiting? No idea. Did it matter? Of course it did. This wasn’t something silence could solve. Or even put off. Not that there was anything to solve.

I turned back around to face her, half-wincing, anticipating her fury. A satisfied smirk had settled in the corners of her mouth. She wasn’t mad. Just leaned against the desk, puffing away, which was ... odd. I scanned her face for any indication, clenched jaw, flared nostrils, blazing brown eyes, some sign of impending apocalypse. But no, she looked serene. Smug even, tickled at how surprised I was. No, she wasn’t mad at all.

Oh.

And it hit me. I could see it so clearly now in the way she stood with her hip out and how she held her cigarette off to the side, wrist lax, nothing to worry about. Why she wasn’t mad. She knew there was nothing to worry about. This wasn’t a confession. No grade-school picking petals off flowers, ‘he loves me, he loves me not.’ She hadn’t said it in the hopes that in return, she’d hear the same. Because it was plain as day. Fucking obvious. Not a doubt in her mind.

It was funny too ‘cause that had been sealed away in a vault in some deep, dark corner of my mind, cordoned off by an electric fence, wrapped in several yards of barbed wire and caution tape. WARNING. POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS. I barely knew because I barely allowed myself to. That came easy as it always did. Or easier anyway than feeling and not knowing what to do, where to put it. So I barely knew. Maybe it was now that I only just realized it, in a fully-formed thought.

A ti te quiero también.

But it felt wrong, seemed to make the moment small somehow, if I were to say it out loud back to her. Forced for obligation, ceremony’s sake, and altogether pointless when she already knew.

So I just said, “Fine.”

Her eyes lit up, filled to the brim with, you really mean it?

“Yeah, fine, I’ll go.”

She beamed. My own personal sun.

“But you figure whatever fake reason to tell your brothers. I ain’t sayin’ shit.”

She squeezed my hand. Any tighter and it would’ve cut the circulation. Not quite the deliverance that launching at each other would’ve been, sweeping all the papers and supplies off of Mín’s desk, not giving a shit what broke as it hit the floor, buttons popping loose from my shirt and rolling on the ground as she tore it off, taking each other carnally hostage right there. But with Nestor still downstairs, it’d have to be enough.

✺

So here I am. And she’s missing in action.

A hand comes down on my shoulder. Ramón’s. “Mira nada más,” he chuckles pointing to Ms. Fuck-You-Money. “Esa chulita been eyeing you all night.”

I roll my eyes.

Món chokes out, laughing through a sip of champagne, “Ay qué duro, cabron. Good answer. Attention from a woman like that? That’ll get you killed, or worse.”

Lost, I shoot him a look of confusion. “What’re you talking about?”

“Wait d— you don’t know who that is?”

I stare at him through half-lidded eyes.

He can barely contain his amusement and I could bust that Cheshire-cat smile wide open for it, the chistoso. See, ‘cause it’s something I’ll never understand but Ramón lives for shit like this. How many times I wished I felt the same or could at least access some similar well of couldn’t-give-a-fuck charisma that allowed the kid to cut loose, no matter where he went. Unless he was in one of his moods. Still, his glee is infectious if not foreign. So despite being miffed, I’m grateful he’s here.

“That’s— okay, that’s Miguel’s wife, Daniela.”

“Thought her name was like Marta? María? Something else?”

“Oh nooo, no, no, no.” Ramón jiggles his head back and forth. “That’s his first wife. This is his second.”

My eyebrows shoot up.

“Yeah, right?” Món shrugs. “Tío moves fast apparently. Upgraded to a new model already. Personally, I don’t get it. Should’ve stuck with the classic. And María,” he looks at me and whistles, “qué clásico.”

We both watch Miguel work a group of sleazy-looking politicians. I don’t need to be up close to imagine how badly they reek of too-expensive, tacky cologne, or how clammy their hands are, sweating because they’ve been mainlining too much sauce and blow. My eyes drift to Daniela who’s pointing around theatrically to the outdoor decor. Like her husband, she’s smooth-talking another group of guests.

That’s when it clicks. As she dances from a group of Senators, to a group of financial hacks, to a group of mid-level distributors, I can’t help but think how busy bees flit. Flower to flower, pollinating each one. Stroking the right egos, smiling, leaving a hand on a shoulder just long enough to make them think they might have a shot with the big man’s wife. From everything I’ve heard about Miguel, he might let them, for the right price. That fact fills me with equal measures of sadness and relief. Sad for her. Relief to know it’s a hustle, an award-winning performance. Though why she’s been wasting time on me, a friend of the Arellano family at best, low-level Arellano goon at worst, is anyone’s guess.

“Seems she’s like that with everyone.”

“Oh no, carnal. With you? That shit’s real. She knows you’re with us.” Ramón reaches for my face like he’s about to pinch my cheek. “Not some rich politician’s secret love child.”

“Ey, no mames, cabrón.” I swat it away with a smirk, so he knows we’re simpatico. “You and Pancho always fixin’ to get me in more trouble than I’m ever looking for.”

I think of Dina just then and how it’s possible for lies to lag like that sometimes. Feeling like truth ‘til the words are well outta your mouth.

As if anxiety’s summoned her to me, out of the corner of my eye, I catch Dina walking toward us. On her way over, she grabs a drink from a guy standing by the bar holding two champagne glasses, someone she mistakes for a waiter. Based on the beet red look on his face, he turns to be a guest. He flips out and at first, Dina looks ready to apologize and move on. No big deal.

It’s not until he starts pointing his finger in her face, “Qué verga, vieja? No soy un pinshe mesero,” that I glance at the ground to hide a smile. I know what’s coming but this poor bastard doesn’t. It’s always satisfying to watch Dina work, handling men who make mistakes like that. No doubt it’d be a scathing indictment but never done in the same way. Refreshing, that kind of variety. I always respected it.

She leans back, eyeing the guy up and down, then walks over, purposely slow, all the time in the world, to a real waiter holding a tray. Grabbing a new glass, she walks back and shoves it into the guy’s hand, taking extra care to make sure it spills on his jacket. Beads of sweat and outrage pour from him, as he looks down at his damp lapel in disgust.

She waves her index finger back and forth between them, “Listo, pues. Ya estamos?” and points at Ramón next to me. “Or shall I have my brother, Ramón—“ she waves, “Hi Món! Yeah, that one. The tall one over there. Shall I ask him to step in, help mediate the matter?”

Everyone’s eyes shoot straight to Món who, on cue, flashes a smile so diabolical, the devil himself would’ve tipped his hat in appreciation. Still fuming, the guy brushes the front of his jacket and straightens his collar but says nothing.

“Aye,” Dina punctuates with a dip of her head. “Es lo que pensaba."

And that seems like the end of it until she a twenty out of her wallet in that impossibly tiny purse. “Ey, next party you go to, if you want to avoid being confused with the catering staff, maybe don’t wear a dinner jacket. It’s a nice house, sure. Not the fucking Met.”

The guy is mute, shocked as she slips the bill in his breast pocket and glides away. Even a few feet away, I can already see her rolling her eyes and giggling as she makes her way to us.

Ramón says, cackling, “I thought maybe you were going to ask for a bottle there, crack him over the head with it,” as she gives him a kiss on the cheek.

“No, no. We couldn’t embarrass our tío querido could we. Besides,” she gives a cavalier wave toward the guy, “Drastic measures like those are reserved for Chapo. Or Cochi.”

I look at the two of them standing with Güero on the other side of the DJ platform. They look like they’re enjoying themselves about as much as I am.

I make eye contact with Güero briefly before I feel another hand on my shoulder. Dina’s?

“What no hug for me?”

I catch her awkwardly with one arm, stiffening as she pulls me in too close and for too long.

“Woo,” Món hoots. ”Creo que Enedina ha tomado un poquito demasiado."

She bats him in the arm. “Ay que no, if you’d had the conversation I just had with Mín, you’d be chugging this,” she knocks back the last few sips of champagne, then holds up the glass, “like water too.”

“Why? What happened?”

”Oh nothing, he just–“ she lets out a hefty sigh. “Just rolled over for Miguel like he always does.”

Before Món can ask anything else, Dina’s face lights up at someone behind him.

All drunk swagger, Pancho waltzes over, a drink in each hand, yelling, “Estos cabrooooones. I been looking all over for you.”

He sidles next to Ramón, who reaches for the other drink in his hand. He pulls back. “Qué shingadas? I didn’t bring this for you.”

Món pulls a face like Pancho just kicked over a sandcastle he spent hours building.

I hold my hands up in defeat, chuckling, “Ey I didn’t ask him to bring me anything. Knowing this pruno-king, I bet they’re both his.”

“Y esto? Esto es porque es mi compa. Él me conoce,” Pancho slurs, with a tipsy smile, eyes half shut.

“Qué pedo, is everyone drunk here besides me?” Món catches me smiling and rolls his eyes. “Tú no, rarito. You don’t count.”

Glancing at the crowd around us, Pancho asks “Where’s Mín?” and stumbles back, nearly planting his ass on the lawn.

He grabs Món for support, who already looks startled as Dina shoves her empty glass at him. “Who cares? Yo quiero bailar,” she declares, grabbing my hand.

She yanks me with such force, I wonder if I look like one of those Loony Toons characters, a regular Beaky Buzzard swept offscreen by Bugs Bunny with a giant cane.

Behind us Pancho and Ramón are busting up laughing. “Panchito, I think she might be drunker than you are.”

Pancho holds up one of his drinks in salute. “Aaaaaayyy órale, mi brujita!”

My hand firmly in hers, Dina shimmies around the other couples on the dancefloor. When she finds a spot she deems satisfactory, she turns and snaps me towards her, gliding her hand up my right arm to my shoulder, and moving my left around her waist. I’m lost in static. My heart’s beating fast. Too fast, like a hummingbird caught all up in my chest and each beat of its wings jolts my rib cage, while it tries to jailbreak outta there.

And it’s not the proximity that’s got my blood up, really. It’s her. It’s rare to see Dina overflowing with this kind of reckless joy. So rare in fact, there’s a gravity to it, a pull magnified by irregularity, that makes it harder to resist. In tandem with the music, I’m goner, already falling into it. But what does any of it matter, when I know how she feels now. Just the same as me.

✺

We finish with a dip, and the blurry wall of lights and onlookers, among them the suspicious face of Mín, the curious face of Ramón, and the drunk glassy eyes of Pancho, become crystal clear again, as I bring Dina back up. The song changes and I let go, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. Making my way off the dancefloor, she follows close, reassuring in a low voice, “It’ll be fine, amor. They know I’m tipsy.”

“Yeah. And they know I’m not.”

Although— I look over at the bar. Fuck it, I could fix that now. Before we can reach Mín, Món, and Pancho, standing by the DJ booth, I tear through the crowd, right to the bar. Fuck any rules. This is Def Con One and that lapse in judgment could only be reasonably explained to the Arellano boys by both of us being shitfaced. I flag down a bartender.

“Shot of tequila.”

“What kind?”

I eye him coolly. “Whatever. Dealer’s choice.”

Willing myself not to be too twitchy, conspicuous, I glance around to make sure Benjamín hasn’t sicced Món on me. That look of disapproval on his face is going to be seared to the backs of my eyelids for days. Maybe weeks. Not a chance in hell that he’d overlook that display. As far as Ramón, who looked more intrigued than anything, jury’s still out. Might be he’d follow Mín’s lead. That is, unless Dina were to intervene, which– that’d be something she’d have to do. I’d never ask her. Not an option. That leaves Pancho who’s unlikely to give a shit. Or if he did, he’s too drunk now to make a show of it. But no, even sober, we’ve been homies through and through. He’d have my back. Maybe the only one.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Christ, all of it, already a fucking mess. It hasn’t spilled out entirely from my head onto the world, but only a matter of time.

A whistle from someone a barstool away interrupts the game of 3D chess I’m playing with myself, trying to compute then varying combinations of factors and events that could end me. I’m so in it, it takes me a beat to even realize they’re whistling at me.

“Ey, dónde aprendiste a bailar como eso?” someone asks quietly, in familiar but strangely-accented Spanish.

I turn to shoot a fuck-off stare to whoever, but when I’m met with the sight of an odd-looking, half-bald, ginger dude in jeans, a denim jacket, and a pair of Jordans that probably cost more than my first car, I’m taken aback by the expression on his face. Strange-like, fondly admiring, but more like he’s observing a zoo animal, exotic as those peacocks waddling across the lawn, than a person.

“Viene de familia.”

All the odd guy says is, “Ah,” and then proceeds to fiddle with the toothpick in his mouth and survey the crowd.

Based on how he’s dressed, it’s clear this dude isn’t a regular guest. If I had to put my money on anything? Sicario. No question. Because even though he doesn’t have the trademark hyper-vigilance, coiled up tight, a piston ready to pop, the strange little homie does have a cracked look I recognize. Like he doesn’t need to be on-guard because he’s past the point of feeling much beyond general amusement.

I’d come up with a couple guys like this back home. Met even more of them in prison. You could tell who they were because they didn’t pretend to be concrete copies of themselves. Already born steel people, they never needed to bother with the mandatory, self-imposed identity mutilation necessary to survive in the Petri dish of the California Department of Corrections. But the most interesting thing about them? Scary as they could be, they’re also some of the more honest criminals I’ve dealt with. At least, those who’re murder-for-hire, not murder-for-fun.

Spotting the shiny, engraved handle of a pistol in his waistband, I whistle, “Nice, .357?”

He doesn’t take it out to show it off, just flashes a slinky, joker smile. “You got a good eye.”

“Likewise. Dope piece.”

Yeah, definitely more than your average muscle. The real pros don’t tend much to show and tell. But who the guy works for, I can’t figure exactly. Given that I had to give up my own weapon before we came through, I’m guessing he’s Miguel’s muscle. Looking over at a doorway filled with the broad shoulders and Fabio-like hair of Miguel’s top security guy, Tony, I try picturing these two working together and have to stifle a laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Eh, it’s too hard— it’s nothin’.”

The strange homie responds with an amused snort but doesn’t press further. We go back to our mutual but silent surveillance. I can’t see the Arellanos anywhere, but I do spot the Sinaloa crew making their way to the exit by the bar. The weird little guy waves at them like they’re the oldest of friends. I nearly give myself whiplash, looking back and forth from Strange Homie to Güero and Cochi’s pained smiles and an outright look of disgust from Chapo.

“Those are the guys who brought the tiger last year,” Strange Homie helpfully explains, still waving.

“Man, everyone keeps telling me about that tiger. Guess I missed out.”

“You weren’t here last year?”

Still looking around for Ramón, I shake my head, stating absentmindedly, “Haven’t been to any kinda shit like this in my life.”

If Benjamín hadn’t already put him up to cutting me into little pieces, I would’ve at least expected Món to be hot on the heels of the Sinaloa crew, if only to berate, and harass, and swear at them as they’re leaving. And yet, he’s nowhere. Shoot, maybe Mín decided not to even bother chasing me down, and they just bounced. Left me there. Dina would be pissed but all things considered, I’d be getting off lightly. Compared to other possibilities. Could I be so lucky?

I turn my attention back to Strange Homie.

A jackal-like grin brightens his whole face. “Yeah, you did miss out. I got to feed it.”

“Big animal fan, huh?”

Strange Homie considers the question seriously as though it requires an answer, deep or existential in some way. But what he comes back with is relatively simple. “I guess, apex predators, yeah.”

“Easiest to relate to?” I joke.

The jackal smile back again as he exclaims, “Exacto!” Only this time, it bears sincerity that makes it more endearing than unsettling.

I raise my shot glass, saluting, “Makes sense to me.” An implied given what I know about you, unsaid in the air as I knock the shot back. Strange Homie likely knows, has probably been profiling my own profiling this whole time.

“So, you are not from around here?” Strange Homie ventures, as I catch the bartender’s attention to order another shot.

“From Guadalajara?”

Strange Homie shrugs and nods.

“Nah. You?”

He says with a knowing smirk, “Do I sound like I’m from Guadalajara?”

I shake my head, chuckling to myself. The bartender brings another shot and I put it away, perfunctory, then bite into the lime. It’s so sour, I feel shooting pangs in the sides of my mouth and tongue. The sensation of pain, concrete and tangible enough to focus on, brings me back to me.

I wipe my mouth and clear my throat. “You don’t sound like you’re from Guadalajara, but I got a few camaradas back home who sound kinda like you. Colombianos.”

“Good eye. Good ear,” Strange Homie notes, a hint of approval in his voice.

“The melting pot of America.”

“Ah, entonces eres un gringo?”

“Te has visto, hombre? De donde vengo, eres más gringo que yo.”

I half-expect Strange Homie to be offended but he just snickers and nods in agreement. “Pues, tal vez tengas razón. Supongo que quiero decir que eres un gabacho.”

“Close enough.”

“Well gabacho, un placer. Yo soy Navegante.” He reaches out to shake hands.

I extend mine tentatively, “David Barrón.”

As we stand there, forearms bobbing up and down slowly, a look of calculation and sorrow fills Strange Homie’s eyes. Something about it, and the way he says, “You seem like a cool guy. I wish we hadn’t talked so much.” I can’t quite put my finger on why it makes my stomach drop.

Fuck. Dina. Where are they. The Arellanos. Makes no sense. Been nowhere this whole time. Fuck. The empty spot where my gun usually sat in my waistband screams at me like a phantom limb. I try freeing my hand from Navegante’s, who holds on like a vice and laments, “I am glad you got those shots of tequila in though. Since we both know how bad this will hurt.”

My teeth grind into my lower lip so hard, I taste blood. And yet, it still does fucking nothing to ease the sting of surprise as the knife sinks into my stomach.

✺

Everything after that happens in slow motion. He must’ve carried me out at some point and anyone who saw me doing shots at the bar just assumed I was wasted. I don’t know how much blood I’ve lost. Enough that it feels like I’m moving through molasses when they chuck me in the backseat of that town car. Or is it a limo? The seats are facing each other like in a limo. Or maybe I’m molasses because of the booze. If not the booze exclusively, it definitely isn’t helping, blood thinning as it is. Fucking stupid. So stupid. In my life, had I ever been so stupid?

Although, I have to give it to Strange Homie— what was his name again? Navegante? — it’s been ages since someone got the jump on me like that. Since I was a kid probably. He’d been decent enough about it too, although I could’ve done without the stick in the gut. A few inches higher, he might’ve fractured a rib, but I might have more my full faculties. But no, this guy knew what he was doing. It’d landed exactly where he’d wanted it to.

Fingers wrestle with the tie at my neck, ripping it off, and it’s not until I bring it down to put pressure on the wound in my stomach that I realize those fingers are mine. The other courtesy Navegante had done? Strange Homie left the knife in. Although, whether that’s so I wouldn’t bleed out as fast or if it’s so he could further torture me by twisting it, is unclear. So much of it is unclear. I try going back, retracing every step leading up to the point I’d been stabbed but my brain’s stuck in quicksand. If I live to see tomorrow, I’ll have to take some kind of blood oath to never touch another drop of alcohol again. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Dina. Where is she. The Arellanos. They’d disappeared. Where the fuck was Dina. The panic, the cortisol, like a defibrillator at my chest, shocking me more awake, as I pack the fabric of my tie around the knife to soak up the blood. Forgetting myself, I reach behind for my gun and grumble at the empty spot where it normally is. Should be. Stupid. So. fucking. stupid.

I hear voices outside the car. No gun, no way out, no idea where anyone else is, where I am now, no choice but to accept it. So I just lean back against the seat, keeping pressure on my stomach and wait patiently for what’s to come.

When the door finally opens, I expect to be met with Strange Homie, Navegante’s jackal grin but instead it’s a taller man, a lot more normal looking, with dark eyes and a full head of hair. No one I recognize though and he’s someone I’d remember, considering he’s one of the most sharply dressed motherfuckers I’ve seen outside a movie. He slides in to sit across from me and grabs a file that had been laying on the seat next to him.

He reads from it calmly, soothingly business-as-usual. “I do apologize for the harsh introduction, Señor Barrón Corona. Navegante said you were nothing but gentlemanly prior to his stabbing you.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat and on reflex, the muscles in my stomach clench around the blade. Like I’ve stepped onto the worst elevator ride, my throat feels like it’s in my head. Just blistering, white-hot agony. A jagged inhale drags down the back of my throat and I try not to pass out. “S’funny,” I cough out, “was just thinking the same thing.”

“Please know, this isn’t personal. Or rather, not for me. I suspect it’s very personal for your employer.” He looked up from the file, smirking. “Or I suppose, that’s the idea.”

My employer? The fuck was Benjamín going to be upset about? Me with a knife in my gut in the backseat of whatever big-shot, cartel guy’s car?

“Banking on the wrong strategy there,” I hiss through gritted teeth.

The man looks up from the file again, waiting for me to explain further.

“No love lost between my employer and me.”

“Hmm. Is that so?”

He says this with such assurance, it becomes apparent that this whole scheme, whatever it is, whatever game this guy’s playing, this shit is well above my pay grade. No point trying to outmaneuver when my head’s still in quicksand and I don’t even have the fucking rulebook.

“But you answer to the whole family, no?”

I roll my eyes and slump my shoulders, too tired to summon a real response.

“David Barrón Corona. From Logan Heights, San Diego, California. Says here you were born in Tijuana, but your parents are naturalized citizens. Which would give you—” he licks his forefinger and flips a page. “Ah yes, dual Mexican-American citizenship. Oh, your father was in the navy? Why does it seem the best sicarios come from military families. Someone should do a study.”

“Eh, eres un soldado either way.”

The man smirks and continues reading. “Two brothers, one older Matteo Barrón Corona, deceased. And one younger, Julian Barrón Corona, incarcerated, life no parole. And your mother— hmm, we don’t have much on her.”

I clench my teeth so hard, it feels like I have a charlie horse in my jaw. Willing my stomach muscles to relax, I ease off the middle console with my elbow to lean against the window and breathe out a, “Wow.”

The man takes out a cigarette and pops it between his lips, mumbling, “Qué?” as he lights up.

“Just— I dunno. Seems a lotta paperwork for somebody who’s nobody. Whose asset are you, DoD, CIA?”

The man shakes out his match and cracks a window on his side to toss it out. “Ah, see, but that’s the thing, David— may I call you David?”

I nod listlessly.

“David, do I seem to you like someone who’d waste so much time, go to all this trouble if you were a complete nobody?”

“Can’t say. We just met.” We’re well past politeness. I’m already bleeding all over this guy’s Oxford leather seats.

But instead of insulting him, he cuts up, laughing deep and full. “Funny, discerning—tonight’s little encounter notwithstanding. And from what I hear, an excellent shot, a competent sicario.”

I snort loud enough that he pauses to say, “What is that? False modesty? Don’t bore me before we’ve gotten started.”

“No. I am as good as you’ve heard probably. But that’s not the point.”

Dragging slowly from his cigarette, he brushes a bit of ash that’s fallen on his pant leg, then looks up, fixes his eyes on me, and says, “Enlighten me, then.” He’s the cat. I’m the ball of yarn. It doesn’t even matter.

“Any sicario worth a shit knows it doesn’t matter how good you get.“

“Why’s that?”

A gotcha-type smile spreads across my face for the first time in what feels like ages. “’Cause however good I may be, I’ll always be expendable. Guys like me are always short to the gate.”

And just when I think I’ve got him, for some reason, that warms up those cold brown eyes of his, as though I’ve proven his point more than my own. He bobs his head toward the window where Navegante stood guarding the car. “Well, that may be true of most in your line of work. But I asked my man out there, and he seems to think you’re good people. I’m putting together the picture of you, beginning to understand the appeal, what she sees in you.”

“Why. You hiring?”

“Oh no, no,” he chuckles lightly, “you’re of no use to me that way. No, the fact of the matter is,�� then clicks his tongue against the inside of his cheek, “you’re right. Some are more expendable than others. But at the finish line, when death comes to collect, really, we’re all expendable.”

If this guy doesn’t reach some point, some punchline soon, I swear I’m gonna yank this knife out myself, happily bleed out all over the place just to reach some definitive conclusion.

”But here and now? To one with a little power and something I need? You David, are much less expendable than you think.”

The hell is he even talki— oh, fuck.

What she sees in you.

It echoes in my ears until it detonates, like pulling the pin on a grenade in my head, shrapnel ricocheting on the inner walls of my skull, just as I’m trying to piece it together.

My boss. Personal. Dina. You answer to the whole family, no? The guy’s practically been explaining it from the beginning. I’ve just been too dead in the head to make sense of it.

“Ah yes, there it is. And now that you’re caught up with the rest of the class, allow me to formally introduce myself.” The man places his hand on his chest, bowing his head. “I’m Pacho Herrera.”

Yup. This is way the fuck above my pay grade.

#narcos mexico #narcos mexico fanfic #enedina arellano felix x david barron #dinarron #enedina arellano felix #david barron #timeline divergence #also this is separate from my dinarron russian novel #but this place has everything #angst so mild a white man could handle it #smooching #stabbing #with KNIVES #forbidden love/secret relationship #seeeeeeeeeecrets #Dina - a woman who will actually pay to step on you #Barron - a man being accidentally hot at every turn for no good reason #Pacho - a sly and suave and snappily dressed mf with a plan #the most bizarre buddy-cop duo we didn't know we needed #like shit you not it makes no actual sense but somehow works??#there's also dancing #during which you should bust out Spotify or Youtube or wherever tf #and put on a little ditty called 'Guajira del Mar'#to set the mood #to get the feel #to establish the Vibe #also to that one anon who likes dinarron stuff - here's a new thingy to feast on #until i get my shit together with the asslong novel i've been working on for them sksksjflkdajlsdkj

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