Dear Reb,
I’m sorry I never wrote back, like I said I would. I’ve been too busy lately trying to understand what’s been happening and what I can do to feel better. I started seeing a therapist.
Anyways, I finally finished reading this book today about this young girl that lived, or rather was from, Cd. Juarez – the city on the other side of the border. It hit close to home since it was about the violence in the city throughout the years. Mom says it’s always been violent. When Calderon was president, and we’d visit often since my nephew didn’t have papers yet, I was always scared that I or one of my relatives wouldn’t make it back home alive.
One evening, on our way home from Cd. Juarez, mom said, “No los mires a los ojos.” Don’t look them in the eyes. “Them.”
Miriam, my sister in law, had once called mom because “they” had taken my brother Turi. “They” were asking for money. But they ended up letting him go; he was all beat up. Purple.
“They” are los federales. But “they” are also hit men that work for narcos. Or narcos themselves. Or gangsters from the neighborhood we grew up in. Or the government. Or el presidente. Or your cousin. Mom says you can’t trust anyone.
“Being Mexican is a weird thing. A shared experience if you’ve lived on the border. Doesn’t matter if you’re more North than South, or more South than North,” mom tells me. She says we grow up with fear, but it’s innate so we never notice it.
I remember when Miriam’s brother, Julian, had been killed. I must have been like 9, maybe a little older. Supposedly he had tried to run away by jumping the gate, and so they shot him five times. One of those was on his forehead. My cousins and I had gone up to see what he looked like in his casket. You could see where the embalmer used a lot of makeup to patch up the bullet hole left on his forehead because there was a mauve ring in between his eyebrows. We never got to see the bullet holes left on his back and abdomen.
“Why are the houses here broken?” My 6-year-old nephew once asked. Most, if not all, the houses are cement shacks, or something like it. You can’t have nice things. Not in a city like this. If you do, people think you have money. Narco money. Any money. And so they kill you. That’s why people have to deceive others. The houses may be hideous on the outside but they’re actually really stunning on the inside.
Our house was green. Two-story. It’s abandoned now. Well, not exactly. David, my other brother, lives there all by himself now ever since he got deported. Just the other day el Bola called Turi to ask where he was.
“Estoy en Juarez.”
“No salgas,” Bola said. Don’t come out. “Van a quebrar a alguien.” Quebrar. To break.
I’ve never heard anyone use that word to mean “to kill.” Bola knows these things because he has family and friends who work for “them.” But he lives on this side.
Turi called mom. Mom panicked and called David. She called Tío Carlos. Tío Manuel. She called everyone.
“No Salgas.”
Just two hours later mom and I saw it on the news. The guy they had killed was someone from the neighborhood. La Mexico 68.
Mom said she knew the mother of the guy they had killed. Turi had grown up with him. She said all her children were now dead. All killed by people. By “them.” Except for her daughter – she and an aunt had been killed in a car crash. She told me the mother was also a fatherless widow, her father and husband had also been killed. She said the guy who had been killed had stabbed Turi’s hand with a pencil when they were both in first grade. That’s how she met his mother.
Most of my brother’s friends, or kids he knew from the neighborhood, have all been killed. Or have killed.
Mexico 68. That’s the name of our neighborhood in Cd. Juarez.
I hope to hear back from you soon. Again, I’m sorry it’s taken me months to respond to your last letter. I miss you so much. I can’t wait to reunite once this pandemic has calmed down a bit.
Hopeful prospects.
Your friend,
Santi
Diana Torres is from borderland El Paso, TX. She studies English at New Mexico State University and is one of DiN's poetry editors.
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