Luck and Death at the Edge of the World, the Official Pirate Edition (25 page)

“One—Two—Three!”

Their hands come up, all of them moving with the same practiced, fluid motion. Their arms snap back over their shoulders, then forward. Ten knives fly toward the door. When they strike, they cluster just about where Suarez’s heart would be if he were standing there. The only knives that don’t sink into the door are the few that bounce off of others which have already embedded themselves in the same spot.

“Good. Very good. Retrieve your weapons.” The 
Suerte
 run toward the door and gather up their knives, then trot back to us, eager but calm, obedient, or maybe simply cooperative, but in any event apparently care-free.

“Now,” 
Suarez
 announced “this time I will be standing in front of the door. You will do exactly the same thing. You will try your best to hit me directly in the heart. Now, 
I
 know you will do as I ask, but Mr. Burroughs here will think that we’re pulling a trick on him. He will think that you are missing me on purpose, so here is the rule: anyone who misses me will be punished. You will aim true, throw hard, and do your best to kill me. Is that clear?”

All of them nod. They don’t look surprised, or even worried. If I have to guess at what their expressions mean, I would say it’s irritation bordering on anger. They don’t seem to be concerned about hitting Suarez, they’re concerned about missing him, about being punished just to prove a point to some stupid Cali gringo. Still, they line up again as Suarez jogs toward the door and places himself in front of it, his arms held out in a cruciform pose. Despite their animosity toward me, I move close behind them so that I can see better. I want to know if they’re really trying to hit him. The man who has lived for over a hundred and fifty years, and who clearly expects to go on living, shouts out the count without hesitation.

“All right. One—two—three!”

Once again their arms come up in the same perfect unison, then fly forward. Every motion is as precise as before. From where I stand it certainly seems as though they’re aiming directly at Suarez’s heart, but not one hits him. The knives don’t drop in midair, but seem to follow paths that are not as straight or as accurate as the previous time, as though ten expert knife-throwers have somehow, simultaneously, had the misfortune of making a bad throw. Some knives fly at angles that look accurate at first, but turn out to be a bit off—a small miscalculation which magnifies over the course of its flight so that by the time the knife reaches the door it misses Suarez altogether. Other knives seems to fly along a slight arc, like a curveball, so that they, too, miss their target in the end. Two knives that seem to be precisely on course to kill Suarez graze each other in mid-air as they race toward the same target, throwing them off course. One way or another, not one of the knives finds his heart, although all end up embedded in the wood of the door except the two that collided. Close, but not close enough. The nearest one nicks his sleeve, leaving a small, neat cut in the material, but doesn’t touch his skin.

The 
Suerte
 show no more surprise at their failure than they had when Suarez first made his strange request. Resignedly they walk to a nearby wall and—men and women alike—begin removing their shirts. I turn to watch them, then realize that Suarez has appeared behind me, looking past me at his people with a grave expression on his face.

“Why are they taking off their shirts?”

“Punishment,” he says simply. Several others approach, removing the leather thongs they use for belts. The knife-throwers lean against the wall in front of them, hands and feet spread slightly, waiting.

“You’re going to whip them?”

I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m not anxious to watch.

“I told you, you don’t understand our life here. It’s not only death that is woven tightly into our lives, into our beliefs, but pain too. Endurance. Atonement. There is more to our movement than your Angelino news sims would have you believe.”

“Is this necessary?”

“I told them they would be punished if they missed. It was meant to be a real inducement for them to try as hard as they could, even though I knew they would never succeed. Now, to keep my word, yes, it’s necessary. And when they threw their knives they accepted the challenge I had laid down, so it is necessary for them to live up to their word as well.”

“You may not be a general,” I say acidly “but you punish like one.”

He takes no offence, and answers without anger.

“No, life punishes. We take life as it is, not as we wish it was. In real life, pain is inevitable.”

Then Suarez begins counting out loud, slowly, and the whipping begins, equally slowly, the moment between each blow drawn out, as though to allow the victims time to anticipate the next installment of pain. I can see their torsos shuddering, the skin and muscles moving against their will, twitching against the pain. The one nearest to me is a young man with longish hair. I can see the perspiration on his back, his side.

“Six... seven” Suarez intones stonily.

“How many lashes?” I ask.

“Thirty-nine,” he says quietly. “It’s a traditional number, left over from Catholicism.”

At fifteen or sixteen lashes they start to bleed. Behind them the murals of murder and death rise high above their heads. I remind myself that these are 
their
 murders, it is them who 
caused
 the mayhem, but it doesn’t make watching the spectacle any easier. Behind the faces of these killers I can’t help but see the faces of the ghetto children they once were, the desperate, hungry teenagers they became, willing to do anything, even kill, if only it would improve their lives. I imagine being in their position, parents unable to provide for them, parents dead or simply gone, no better hope for the future than collecting tin in the garbage dumps or selling themselves to rich foreigners one night at a time. I imagine seeing this fortress in the center of the squalor, this clean, well-kept citadel where others have escaped from poverty to become powerful, to become recognized and respected, or at least feared. I wonder if I would resist its temptation if I were in their place and, honestly, I doubt it.

“If their good fortune protects them, why don’t the whips miss them?” I ask.

“The same reason their 
suerte
 didn’t allow them to hit me with the knives,” Suarez answers between calling out lashes. “My power was greater than theirs. In the same way, the ones who are administering the punishment are senior and have more power. Their fortune overwhelms the ones who are being hit.”

Suarez keeps patiently meting out the punishment. At the count of twenty-five, one of the men falls, then gets up again. Is he angry? Ashamed of having fallen? Can he think of, or feel, anything beyond the pain? A young woman falls next, but like the man before her she forces herself back to her feet and resumes her position against the wall. By now their blood is spraying with each stroke. Not a lot of it, but enough to stain their leggings, the wall, the ground, even the people wielding the whips. I look at Suarez. If anything, his face is serious and a little sad.

When the last blow falls I see them each sag a little, no longer having to brace themselves for another lash, but they remain on their feet and turn slowly around. Adalia did not fall and for some irrational reason I feel proud of her. Why I should feel anything about her, I have no idea. Suarez goes to them then, speaking with each one, touching each one, comforting them with a touch on the shoulder or cheek. Friends approach them and offer them back their shirts. They slowly disperse, holding their shirts in their hands, not wanting to put them on and stain them with blood. When they’re gone, Suarez claps his hands loudly.

“Practice please,” he calls out, and the remaining members of the group return to sparring. Then he approaches me.

“Where are the others going? The ones who were whipped?”

“To clean themselves up. They’ll be back in a few minutes. They’ll resume their training. I don’t expect you to understand us Mr. Burroughs. I don’t expect you to approve of what you see here. But I imagine your doubts are gone.”

“It was impressive,” I say, unwilling to commit myself to belief entirely.

“
Suerte
 is impressive, but that isn’t the point,” he says, not turning to face me but watching his people resume their training. 
Why do something so cruel?
 That’s what you’re really wondering. You think I’m some kind of despot, crazy, whatever. I will tell you. The point of our movement is to celebrate 
all
 of human existence. Being human can be ecstasy, and we indulge ecstasy, but it also means pain. It includes death as much as it includes life. To cut yourself off from any portion of that spectrum, from any of the colors of life, is to amputate yourself. It makes you less than human, and we won’t settle for that.” He shakes his head emphatically. “No, if anything, we would like to be more than human, but if we’re stuck being human we’re certainly not going to do it in half measures. We want the whole thing, Mr. Burroughs, every taste, every fragrance, every emotion, every sensation, all knowledge, all experience, all power, and life everlasting.”

“Amen,” I say, not being entirely facetious. He turns his head then, just enough so that I can see his eyes. His expression is calm, but those eyes are alive with a fierce faith.

“You can ‘amen’ ten thousand times and it won’t be enough.” He turns back to look at his people. “Look at them. These children come from nothing, from nowhere. They’re born to dogs in the street, to ghosts, to the wind—certainly not to parents who can protect them and care for them. When they get here they barely exist, cringing and growling and pissing themselves all at once. Hungry, dirty, mistrustful but needy. Here they take control of their lives. The point is to 
be
 someone Mr. Burroughs. To have an identity, authority, a place where you belong. And the point is to swallow life whole, not in tiny bites.”

He pauses for a moment, as though he hadn’t meant to enter into this sermon, then his mood turns light again.

“I will tell you one thing, the point is certainly not to put on shows for foreigners. Generally no one comes here. The few times journalists dared to approach us, shaking in their boots, we simply sent them away.” Finally, he looks me directly in the eyes. “It isn’t a matter of showing off, it’s a matter of survival, and character, and dignity.”

“And life everlasting.”

He smiles.

“Yes.”

“We have life everlasting too,” I say.

He looks thoughtful.

“Of course, in a way. You have the vats and the shells, decanting your 
ka
 over and over. But of course first one must have money, true?”

“True.”

“These people can’t afford anything like that. They can’t even afford a dentist. And then of course 
your
 life everlasting is tenuous, I would say. The shells are not indestructible. What if a person is in a car accident, for instance?” I can’t tell whether or not he’s making an oblique reference to my own past, to the death of my parents. “Or what if a person is shot? I understand you were involved in an incident before you came here. Many people died.”

“That’s true. I didn’t kill them but I saw them die.”

“I’m sorry that it troubles you. Still, the point is that 
suerte
 helps to protect against such eventualities, not just old age, but accidents and attacks.”

“Life everlasting,” I say, starting to believe.

“Amen, Mr. Burroughs. Amen to that. Now, come and wash.”

I leave the compound washed and wearing a fresh shirt, donated by the 
Suerte
. As I walk through 
el Paraíso
, I think about what Suarez said: born to dogs in the street. The hive of humanity around me—all of them struggling, begging, working, fighting—feels suddenly claustrophobic, and I have an intense desire to be back in L.A., or at least in a clean, air-conditioned room at one of the airport hotels. Maybe the abrupt change in the weather is a factor: the sky has clouded over in the last few minutes and the air has the heavy, close feeling that comes before rain.

I look around for a taxi but there are none in sight. In fact the only vehicle I can see is an old pickup truck, the back half-full of vegetables, sitting by the side of the road. A young man lounges against the truck’s flank, smoking a joint as he waits to make a sale. He’s wearing a bright orange bandana like a kerchief on his head, no shirt, dirty jeans and sneakers. I head toward him.

“How’s business.”

His head jerks back slightly and I realize that, like the girl, he’s probably never heard a machine translation before. Maybe on TV, if he has one. Still, he only pauses a moment, then expels two streams of bluish smoke from his nostrils.

“It sucks,” he says in Spanish, correctly assuming his words will be translated. He gestures toward his truck. “Wanna buy some shitty tomatoes?” He takes another long hit off the joint and smiles at me around a lungful of smoke, holding it in.

“No thanks.”

He exhales and laughs.

“How about some really good weed.”

He takes a last drag on the joint, then pops the roach into his mouth and swallows it.

“Tempting, but no. I’ll tell you what, though. I need a ride to the Cordoba.”

“Downtown? That fancy place?”

“That’s the one. I’ll give you fifty pesos.” He quickly sizes up my need and my ability to pay.

“Need gas money too,” he says.

“Fine, seventy pesos.” That much gas would take us to the border and back. He smiles a huge, toothy smile and bangs the side of his truck.

“Fuck man, I’d drive you there for free just to pull up in front of the doorman in this shitbox.” He laughs, then looks serious and points a finger at me. “We made a deal though.”

“Seventy pesos,” I confirm.

“Cool. I’m Ramon. Get in man. It’s gonna rain in a minute anyway.”

He opens the driver side door and climbs in.

“Does the weather always turn this quickly?” I ask, opening the passenger door.

“In the D.F.? Does this every afternoon, man. It’ll rain for half an hour and then get sunny again, you’ll see.” He breaks into a cackling laugh for no obvious reason except that he’s stoned. Still, he seems competent behind the wheel as he starts up the truck and begins driving. He swerves expertly back and forth, avoiding pedestrians, stray dogs, and potholes. The seats are overly springy and we both bounce slightly whenever we hit a rut or a depression in the road.