Everything Is So Political (16 page)

Quitting Colombia

Jim Conklin

A
ndres Latorre poured himself through the bar door, with a head full of cocaine and a gun in the back of his pants. He stood at the door, straightened himself up, kicked his head back, and inhaled deeply. The smoke clouding the bar seemed to clear by half. Andres went straight to the bathroom without saying hello to Camilo the bouncer, or the people he knew in the place. Eyes followed him amidst stalled conversations. Patrons who weren't smoking started, and the music in the background seemed to fade.

I didn't want to see Latorre. I shouldn't have been at the bar. I hadn't been there for about six months so I
wouldn't
see Latorre. It was supposed to be a new start for me. I had my visa and I was leaving the next day. All I wanted was to have one last drink. All I had to do was stay out of trouble. But there I was, and there he was shocking the life into, or out of, a room. And that's why I didn't want to see him. If it was good it was great, but if it was bad, everything fell apart. Lately, things were falling apart. I had known him since we were young, and I knew where he was going now, and I knew how it would play out.

The bathroom will be too clean for him. It should be dirtier. One faucet will run, the tap broken, spinning without resistance, and the water fills the sink, but hasn't overflowed yet. Andres will straight-arm the stall door, snapping it open, and close it behind him quickly without locking it. He'll take out his pack of
Pielrojas
, place them on the small shelf that has been put there for this purpose, take out a matchbox-sized envelope of coke, and cut up three chunky lines of powder on his cigarette pack. He'll take out an already curled 20,000 peso bill from his wallet, re-roll it, and devour the cocaine. One line for his right nostril, one for his left, and another for his right. He'll lift his head and pinch-wipe his nose. And now I can see him exhaling that fog of smoke that he held in his chest. At the mirror, he'll bring his face within inches of his reflection and try to shake his head clean. He'll see his eyes and mumble something under his breath. He'll splash his face with water from the now over-running sink, unclench his jaw, and smile at himself. Convincing himself.

And there he was again, outside the bathroom door, breathing oxygen back into the room. With Latorre re-coked, the bar could exhale. A man with tattoos sat at a table with his girlfriend. He stared as Andres walked to the bar, then slowly replaced his arm around his woman's shoulder. “I want to talk to you,” he said. Andres looked at the man and said nothing. Camilo the bouncer stood up from his stool and crossed his arms. Cuban salsa played.

Juliana owned this bar. She was sixty or sixty-five, but her dancer's posture and dark eyes kept her strong and striking. She danced ballet first, at the national theatre, and when she was thirty moved from Bogotá to Buenos Aires to dance tango. She once showed me pictures of her and her blond Argentine husband. She was deadly gorgeous. Apparently he was the tango king of the seventies. He was so good looking I wanted to punch him. But he left her for a younger dancer, and she moved back to Bogotá and opened “La Catedral” in the year that the M-19 killed eleven judges at the Palace of Justice. I could have loved this woman, but she never would have loved me. She was too beautiful.

Andres and I were sixteen, drunk, and cutting school on a Friday when we first met Juliana. La Catedral was new to La Candelaria, our neighbourhood, and when I saw this woman sweeping her patio I spun myself around a lamppost just to look at her again. Andres just stopped and stared. “We're having a drink in there,” he said. I tried not to stare at her, but Andres observed her hungrily wherever she went, unafraid to stare. She didn't seem to mind. By the time it was dark, I had convinced her to teach me how to tango. I was still a boy then. A drunken, somewhat charming and mischievous boy who was obviously infatuated with this woman. “I will lead. You are the man, but you know nothing, so I will lead.” She danced me around the floor with grace, smiling at my willingness to hold her close. “Maybe not that close,” she said. The other patrons watched us (the men jealous I'm sure), and cheered when songs ended. I bowed deeply and she gestured to me with false adulation. Other men asked her to dance, but she refused politely and changed tango records behind the bar. Andres and I talked to her sitting on the stools across from her. We bought empanadas for her at a stall across the street, and continued to drink beer in short glasses. Then Andres asked her to dance. “Of course,” she said. Andres was not a boy then. I don't know if Andres was ever a boy. When the song started, Juliana smiled. When it became apparent that Andres would not let her lead, her smile faded into something else. Andres did not know how to tango, but he could dance, and he had watched us for forty-five minutes. He slid her around the dance floor with simplicity. Slow and subtle rhythm followed them through the room, his arm tight around her waist. Although the dance they danced was not strictly tango, they moved together like she was not forty-five and he was not sixteen. And when the song ended, people clapped without shouting, appreciating the thing for what it was.

La Catedral was different then.

I stood up, walked to the bar and stood behind Andres. I put two fingers to the back of his head. “Police, punk. Give me all your money.” He turned around slowly, and caught me in his eyes. “Fuck Santiago. How are you man? Where the fuck have you been? It's good to see you.” I thought for a moment he might cry. It didn't make any sense.

“You too, man. It's been a while, huh?”

“Yeah, too long, brother, too long. Where've you been?”

“Just trying to get my shit together. I've got a real job, and I just hooked up my visa so I can get to Miami.”

“Shit, man. You're leaving. I guess all those trips to the embassy paid off, huh?”

“Yeah. Two years of that shit. It was a pain in the ass, but my sister's husband has his green card and we finally got it all sorted.”

“So, what? You're a citizen now? You can't hang with your people any more?”

“No, man. I had to get my shit together.”

“I hear you. So you're finally leaving huh?”

“Yeah, I can't take it anymore. Everything is just pissing me off now. Those fuckers blow up El Nogal, the government can't do shit, or won't do shit, I hate it. There's no ideology anymore with these guys. This isn't about fighting for the campesinos, it's just about making money now. I love this place, but it's making me crazy. I'm getting out.”

“I hear you, man. I hear you. But what the fuck are you doing back in this place? It's not where I'd be if I was leaving the country.”

“I talked to Juliana the other day. She said she'd buy me a drink and give me one last tango before I left.”

“God I love that woman,” Andres said.

“Me too, man. But I guess I missed her. I got here late and Camilo said she left an hour ago. He said she might be back later.”

“That's shitty.”

“What about you? What have you been doing?”

“Same old shit. Selling, hanging with Mariana and the rest of them. Just tearing it up. Invitro on Thursday, Gotica Friday, and La Catedral tonight. We miss you, man.”

“Yeah, I miss you guys. Where is everyone?”

“It's been a binge for the past three days. Mariana just popped a couple of Valiums and she's sleeping at my place, and the rest of them quit me before coming here.”

“Not a bad idea, man. You look like shit.”

I knew where Andres was. Three days, no sleep, and too much coke in the system. His crash now would be monumental. So it was pop a couple tranquillizers, hit the bong, and pray for sleep, or hang on for a couple days of self-loathing. Watching TV or lying in bed, doing whatever. But just hating yourself for what you've done. So Andres just keeps going. He would because he could. Why would you do more blow?. “Because I can,” he would say. Why would you stay out when everyone's gone home? “Because I can.” Why do you live like this? “Because I can.” But Andres was beginning to show wear. Five years ago his eyes wouldn't be half-shut, his friends would still be there, and he'd have a woman at his side. This wasn't fun anymore. This was to avoid the crash.

“Fuck it,” he said, “I still got some left.”

“Alright, let's get some more beers.”

We talked about him wanting to quit dealing and me wanting to quit Colombia. We talked about women, and how it was starting to feel like we might be getting older. We talked like we would have three years ago. And then the guy with the tattoos stepped up.

“You gonna talk now?”

There was no friendship in this man. His ten-gallon head rested on a cinderblock neck, which stretched out into biceps that were covered in occult tats. If he wanted to talk to me, I didn't have much to say about it. But Andres was having none of it.

“No. I'm talking to Santiago now.”

“Fuck that, I'm not waiting anymore. We're talking now.”

This is why I stopped hanging out with Andres. He was a hate magnet. Angry people always sought him out. He was a hard man, but also smart, and all of the low-rent thugs hated him for it. They wanted to bring him down a notch. They wanted to see how they stacked up. In my twenties this kind of excitement was fun, but I was well into my thirties and I was tired of this shit. But I wasn't going anywhere.

Andres tilted his head and looked up at the man from his stool and waited. I faced them both but avoided eye contact. “Listen, go sit down with your pretty girlfriend, and I'll be over in ten minutes. You understand?”

“Fuck you!” And the man went to poke Latorre in the chest. But before he could even make contact, Latorre grabbed the man's finger with his fist, turned it down and in on the guy, and had him bent over with his shoulder leaning into Andres, his hand hanging near his boot. Latorre whispered into the man's ear, “Now this can get real fucking ugly, or we can just sit down at our own chairs and talk in ten minutes.” Even with all the coke in him, Latorre kept his shit together.

The man slowly started rising up saying, “OK, OK,” and Andres released his finger. As he stood, the man came up with the knife from his boot, and slashed at Andres' chest. Latorre jumped back with his arms spread, and in one motion he bent his left arm behind his back and came out with his gun. He levelled it at the man and took a deep breath.

“You wanna fucking shoot me? Shoot me you mother fucker, youcocksucker, youfuckingbitch! It's a whole new world of hate if you touch me you motherfucker. Fuck you!” The words came like rain on sheet metal. Latorre's cocked eyebrow dropped, and his brow creased into a crooked web. His face turned red and his grip tightened on the handle. The man took another forward swipe at Latorre, his arm crossing his own chest. But again Latorre stepped back and this time grabbed the man's right wrist with his right hand, spun him so his chest was pressed against the man's back, and hammered the butt of the gun into the bottom corner of the man's skull. The man dropped quick, like light to dark with the flick of a switch. And Latorre was on him, gun-whipping the man with the flat side of his 9mm. The man's nose erupted with blood through the trigger guard and Latorre hit him twice more before Camilo was over to stop it.

The tattooed man's people left with him around their shoulders and the girlfriend screaming. Camilo picked up tables and waited for Andres to calm down. It would take a while. “I hate this shit. This machismo bullshit. These punk motherfuckers thinking they got to get the best of me to pump their shit up. You saw me, man, I gave him a chance to back down. I didn't start that shit. Fuck!” And he slammed his hand down on the table.

“I know, man. I know.” I went to the bar and got two more beers.

Camilo came over. “Listen,” he said, “we got people leaving this bar bleeding and screaming. You got to get out of here guys. It's the smart thing to do.”

“We're not going anywhere, but to that back table.” Andres gestured over his shoulder with the bloody gun still in his hand.

“OK,” said Camilo, “fuck it, you guys are friends, what am I going to do? Go back there, but Andres, at least get rid of the gun.”

“OK, OK. I'm sorry about the mess. That guy's an asshole.” Andres tipped the gun over, his finger still in the trigger guard, and I grabbed it. I wiped it down, and put it in the back of my pants. “It shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't be like this,” he said.

It wasn't always like that. I met Latorre in school when we were fourteen. It was the year that Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was assassinated for forcing Pablo Escobar out of Congress. Into the third week of school, I watched two boys reduce Maria Lucia Contreras to tears. She didn't have as much money as everyone else in the school. Although we all wore uniforms, you could still tell who was what. Her hair was messy, her uniform was dirty, and she rarely made eye contact. She was a perfect adolescent target. In the hallway between classes, Maria Lucia managed to trip and scatter her books all over the corridor. This earned her the expected laughs from those around her, but then things got nasty. As Maria Lucia bent over to pick up her things, one of the morons from the football team kicked one of her books away from her. She followed the book across the hall hunched over, and as we all should have expected, another one of the football idiots kicked it back to his friend. Maria Lucia stood up and looked at the floor.