A Year Inside MS-13 by Juan José Martínez d´Aubuisson

Author:Juan José Martínez d´Aubuisson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949017168
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 2019-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

El Loco, A Game of Chess, and Little Down’s Spots

SEVERAL YEARS AGO in the last neighborhood on the hill, on any old day, Little Down strolled with his black shirt down to his wrists, his amulets dangling from his neck, and a gun at his waist. From a balcony, a man peered out. The one that people say was made crazy by a witch. The man started yelling at the gangster, told him to go back to Lucifer and the Sihuanaba.23 Little Down reached for his revolver without hesitation, closed an eye, and landed a bullet within centimeters of his head. The old man took off howling.

“See, he’s not as crazy as they say,” reflected the gangster on his experiment, and put the gun away.

Today, the heat is excessive. The sun makes everything bright and we sweat with the smallest of movements. Far away, on one of the neighboring hills, we can make out a fire. It slowly burns up the dry hill and its flames threaten to spread.

The communal house bears a sign: No tutoring today. That, and no more. It is Gustavo’s handwriting. Some kids show up, read the sign, wait around a few minutes, then run off in any direction. It never ceases to amaze me how kids manage to disappear into the neighborhood. Within a few moments, there are no signs of them. Occasionally you can make out their laughter down by the soccer field, if you make out any sign of them at all.

Before the house stands Jazmín with her juice. She is glum. She greets me then drops her eyes to the ground. It is clear she has been crying and it looks like she will resume at any minute. She tells me that the clica faces more trouble.

Yesterday, another police raid made its way through the area. They were silent, and undetected, taking Guanacos Criminales Salvatrucha entirely by surprise. The gangsters know their territory well, and managed to run for the hills or hide in the alleyways. However, El Noche did not manage to escape, and after a long public beating, they ripped off his shirt, threw him into a pickup truck, and took him down the hill. He won’t be out for some time. He told me days ago he had a warrant out for parole violations.

Jazmín doesn’t hide her distress. The other women in the community had murmured about an old relationship between her and El Noche, some years after the murder of her husband, Hugo’s father.

“That is why I tell Hugo, ‘Look, just look what happens!’ Bunch of dumbasses, getting into trouble, watch them complain later. Now he is gonna be trapped in there god knows how many years,” Jazmín says, more to herself than me.

The police are the third element in this war, a shared enemy. The police force the gangs to operate in semi-clandestine ways, and complicate their plans. Destino is convinced Barrio 18 and the cops around here have an alliance. I don’t know how much of

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