SIEMBRA
A Sequel to Narcos
Chapter 2 : Men in Exile
Title: Men in Exile
Rating: 18+ (M)ature
Warnings: Some mentions of violence and sex, a bit of language
Word Count: 2425
Pairing: Javier x Female OC
Masterlist || Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
A/N: I had a lot of fun weaving together different historical events and highlighting their impact on Mexican culture and society. It makes me happy to share a part of my culture with readers. I guess it is what got me into Narcos in the first place – the series exhibited multiple perspectives both north and south of the border. As you can tell, the story jumps between two narratives. It will all come together in time. Spanish translations are at the bottom.
By the nineties, the Mexican border became prime drug trafficking real estate. Classicism, Catholicism, and a feud between pre-Hispanic versus European values meshed with an authoritarian government. The result was a new era of corruption with no tangible end in sight.
There were a few things Javier needed getting used to on the new job. One, he couldn’t sleep with his female students. Second, he couldn’t intimidate his male students…like the way he did to Stoddard. Not that he had any intention…to do either. It had taken several weeks to prepare the curriculum with the sociology department. He had managed to voice his thoughts on some aspects of the course structure and was relatively content with the upcoming semester’s readings and lectures. Grading, however, was something he was not looking forward to, but he figured he didn’t have much else occupying his schedule. That was something he hadn’t been able to come to terms with since returning to Texas.
If anyone would have asked him twenty years ago, when he first started college, if he’d see himself at the professor’s podium, he would’ve laughed in their face. But then again, if anyone asked him twenty years ago if he’d see himself taking down two of the most powerful cartels, he would’ve given the same response.
It didn’t matter to Javier that he hadn’t been in Kingsville since the seventies. He remembered the streets and the shortcuts; and when the smell of roast pork and beer hit his nostrils, it triggered the memory of late Saturday nights with his buddy John at Polly’s Cantina. They barely had enough money for two beers and a platter then.
Jenny laughed as Javi told her the story of the stolen chicken leg. He sat at the same spot where he witnessed it eighteen years ago, from the corner table of the Cantina.
“So he ran out with an entire bucket of chicken?” She asked in disbelief.
“I think the bigger part of the story is that he was naked…,” Javier chugged from the beer bottle.
“Well yea but he was drunk…I mean I’d do that too if I was drunk and starving.”
Both Javi and Jenny seemed to operate on a silent agreement after that brief phone call a few months ago. He admitted he wanted this to work out and she agreed to be understanding. Still, there was no title to their relationship, but it’s not like he had anyone else in his bed. And if there was one major perk to moving to Kingsville, it was the private apartment. There was no more sneaking out of her ma’s house in the early mornings or Chucho discretely pretending he didn’t know Jenny had spent the night at the ranch.
“By the way, your pop wanted me to give this to you.”
Javier squinted before immediately recognizing the chain attached to the gold engraving. There was a tinge of melancholy in his smile as he took it in his hands.
“Was the necklace my ma got me for my baptism. I left it at home when I left Laredo to come study.”
Jenny listened quietly.
“When I got back, she passed away.”
“I’m sorry, Javi.”
“Guess pop’s tryin’ to give me a message… don’t leave home without it again…”
•••
La Nueva Capital – Donde la verdad es central
That has been the tagline of La Nueva Capital Newspaper since it was founded in 1994, the same year that NAFTA was established. Despite its promises of free trade amongst the United States, Mexico, and Canada, more than a million agricultural jobs were lost in Mexico. Men immigrated to the United States in search of work, causing an increase in female-led households, and raising the overall poverty level south of the border. With NAFTA phasing out tariffs across North America, the drug trade got just the boost it needed. It was the perfect opportunity for cartels to smuggle at higher quantities with only ten percent of border inspection seizures. With miles and miles of open border, the war to control the trafficking routes became bloodier, and the first mass casualties of that war were the Mexicans.
In the effort to spread the truth about the levels of corruption in the government, many Mexican journalists lost their lives. Others hid and others fled the country. Once a country that harbored exiles from the dictators of Chile, Argentina, Germany, and Spain, by the nineties Mexico had become a shadow of its former promises for a progressive future.
In the two years since its existence, La Nueva Capital gained traction both among the influential upper and lower classes of Mexico. Inspired by the agrarian revolts that took place during La Revolucion Mexicana, the newspaper heavily published stories about the struggles of the country-dwelling lower class and the Mexican government’s abandonment of its people.
Eduardo Gallegos was one of those columnists. The grandson of Spanish exiles, he was dedicated to the transparency of information. He had visited Spain as a little boy a few years after the death of Francisco Franco, but his heart was fiercely in Mexico. It was his home, and if he had any say in the matter, it would also be the place where he would die. That is why, right before he crossed the US Border Patrol Checkpoint in McAllen, Texas, he collected a small bit of the dirt in Reynosa, Mexico and sealed it in the small empty cologne bottle that belonged to his grandfather. Eduardo was now an exile too.
The middle-aged man driving the white Bronco didn’t talk much. Not that he was rude. It was still early in the morning, and he hadn’t had his morning cup of coffee. Neither he nor Eduardo were in the mood for conversation, but the immense feeling of solitude that fell upon the new exile had been too much to bear.
“Do you know why I’m here?” Eduardo asked the man with glasses.
“You’re not the first one to flee Mexico, son.” The man looked straight ahead at the dark road.
“I didn’t flee…”
“No…and I didn’t just help you cross that checkpoint with falsified documents…,” the man mocked him.
•••
“Are you nervous?” Jenny asked Javier as she set the cup of coffee in front of him.
“Hmmm?” He was consumed by the report in the Sunday paper.
“Gettin’ in front of a bunch of students for an hour and a half…teaching…all that…”
He folded the paper and tossed it on the adjacent chair.
“I don’t really see it like that. It’s more of a… Think about it like this, there’s a class of students that, for one reason or another, are taking this class. I assume some want to be lawyers, other sheriffs, hell, I would imagine, some want to join the DEA. And if there’s one thing that’s true, it’s that there’s a lot of people out there in those positions that don’t know how to do their jobs. Not excluding myself….I’d call it collateral – sharing what I know so that the next ones that take my spot don’t make the same fuck-ups I did.”
“I’m sure they didn’t hire you because of your fuck-ups, Javi.”
“That’s exactly why they hired me,” he exhaled the cigarette smoke. “It’s just a matter of fucking up the right way. At the right place. At the right time. If you get the right results, you’re golden.”
She didn’t know how to respond. It seemed like he was talking more to himself than to her. She stood up to go change out of her robe. He followed her into the hallway.
“Jen, I’m sorry. I guess it’s just the stress.”
They had spent the weekend in bed, eating leftover food, and watching tv. After months of sleeping over and having Javier drive her back to Laredo, Jenny had begun to expect an invitation to stay longer. The only time he swore her any fidelity was in bed as he tightly squeezed her hips and breathily whispered how much he desired her into her ear, more a result of momentary passion than anything else. Not that she complained…but she was longing for more intimacy than that could provide. Sure, he stuffed his pantry with her favorite snacks and even filled the vase on her bedside table with fresh flowers. Yet for the life of her, she could not understand why Javier would not open that final door to his heart. Sometimes, when she let her mind wander, Jenny questioned if there was another woman although she abandoned the idea soon enough. He was fond of women, but he wasn’t a cheater. Not that Kingsville was the place to meet women. But that morning, the reality became more evident. He called it stress. To her, it sounded like disillusionment. And that hurt her more than she could swallow…not because he was disillusioned with his current life circumstances, but because somehow, her presence in his life, just wasn’t enough.
“Jav, you said you wanted to make this work…It can’t work if you don’t let me in.”
“And I’m working on it,” he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her shoulder.
“D’ya ever stop to think that you may end up loving it? Becoming a professor… for the long-term?”
He shrugged. There was something about that idea that was just too…static.
•••
In Mexico, few men made fortunes without colmillo. They had to get in bed with the right officials, create relationships that were mutually beneficial. If you wanted to expose them, they’d want you dead. And it wouldn’t be too hard to get the job done. After decades of ironclad alliances and connections, these men knew a guy who knew a guy who could get the job done. Make you disappear without a single whisper. However, that became harder because of the pushback from newspapers like La Nueva Capital.
The international press publicly condemned the murders of Mexican journalists throughout the nineties, bringing attention to the state of narco-terrorism in the country. People lived in terror and despite the pleas for justice, many citizens, and journalists alike worried that if they dug too deep, they’d find elected officials connected to the bloodbaths.
Eduardo understood this. A man with two master’s degrees, a tract record for honesty, and unbiased reporting, he spent most of his twenties absorbing as much information as he could about life in the Mexican countryside after graduating from La Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. He turned down a few prestigious publishing houses after completing his thesis on the lasting societal effects of political propaganda used during the Mexican Revolution. Eduardo was, by birth, an optimist. While he wanted to be a part of the change in his nation, he was dissuaded by the PRI Party’s elitism. High concentrations of wealthy families gained more power as the breadbasket regions of the country were taken advantage of.
He was slightly surprised then to see that even Mexicans residing in major urban cities like Guadalajara were not any more immune from the incompetency of their own government. On April 22nd, 1992, more than two hundred and fifty people died in downtown Guadalajara because of a gasoline explosion in the sewer system. Those that survived with injuries were not compensated while private companies and city officials pointed fingers at each other.
Eduardo was twenty-six at the time. He was in Guadalajara meeting with a former professor, Mauricio Pedrazas. After years of teaching literature at UNAM, he’d grown disgruntled with the way the country used literature as a means of squashing the mass dissent movements that bloomed in the sixties and seventies. Writers like Carlos Fuentes and poets like Octavio Paz were put on a pedestal – not that they did not deserve the recognition, but to Mauricio, they were not provocative. They had become comfortable on their pedestal and didn’t challenge the status-quo, the turbulent reality of Mexico. And in the effort to prevent a literary movement that would expose the immense inequality of the country, the Mexican government funded several scholarships for budding writers in the hopes that they’d get comfortable in their plush desks and produce works that boosted the public morale, fostering a society that was proud to be Mexican, but that didn’t really know why they were proud to be Mexican.
“I’ll tell you, I think you did good turning those cabrones down,” said Mauricio.
“I’m not interested in writing novels,” Eduardo traced his index finger over the tapestry on Mauricio’s kitchen table.
“How’d your grandfather take it?”
“He doesn’t know…I called him a few times whenever I stopped at a new hostel. He says I need to stop wandering around and take a job…that I’m wasting my talent. But writing novels? A la chingada con esa mierda. “
“If you’re still committed to reporting, I know a few stations that would be happy to add you to their team. I can put in a good word. A few of the editors are former students.”
Eduardo paused as if remembering something. “Mexico’s been good to him, he says. He thinks I’m being ungrateful by writing those news articles. It’s ironic. Just when I think I know him…he comes out with something new.”
“One man’s waste is another man’s gold…,” Mauricio smirked. “Mexico isn’t what it was when he first came here…and it would be a damn disservice to this generation to perpetuate that belief…Por Dios, the city has been sinking for centuries...Tell me something, does he call himself a Mexican or a Spaniard?”
“He proclaims to be a Spaniard exiled in Mexico.”
“So then write. What’s stopping you?”
Eduardo sipped from the mezcal as he considered the proposition.
“I want to choose the stories I write…and you already have a good idea of what I want to report.”
“Mira, el Doctor Almira and I were talking about starting our own newspaper. It’s still an idea. Hell, we don’t even know if we’d open an office here in Guadalajara or in Mexico City. His wife wants to stay in Cuernavaca and the kids…anyway, I have a handful of journalists interested in writing, there’s some funding from a few colleagues, and I’m asking you to consider. Get your feet wet first. See how you like it…and if it turns out you want to continue, I’d be happy to bring you on board.”
“I’ll consider it. Let me get settled back in Mexico City first…I want to see how things are looking at the university...see some old friends...”
“Orale mijo, but don’t be a stranger. The door is always open here.”
“At least tell me you already gave this project of yours a name,” Eduardo laughed as he got up from the chair.
“La Nueva Capital.”
Next Chapter
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Translations:
Donde la verdad es central – where the truth is central
Colmillo – cunning
UNAM – acronym for la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
A la chingada con esa mierda – to hell with that shit
Mira – look
el doctor – in the context of this chapter, it means professor
Orale – Mexican slang used to acknowledge something
Por dios – for god's sake
Cabron - bastard
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