#rene*

[ghoulluck]

The passage way looms before the side of the sand and clay. She was here in a place of sacrilegious worship. Santería was the rebirth of something old and new, a devotion to the goddess Mitecacihuatl who answered all prayers at a price. His bag stunk. He did not believe in god, the Christian faith had never answered, but she had and he knew it deep in his heart. He touched the bag at his side as he marched forward from his horse tied to the little bit of shade provided by a dried tree. 

The very first of the hall was dark, however he could see a red light at the end and a figure not much further then that. As he walked slowly, he noted the hallway had been carved from the clay itself. Every devotional statue in her image was dressed liked a bride, each one had their own little papers of prayers and hopes, some had beautiful jewelry and some had candles and toys. 

He turned his head up to the red candles above him that illuminated the secret cathedral this place of worship was meant to be. At the end, the figure behind the red veiled curtain sat. He could make out that it was not a statue, but a mestiza woman with red painted lips and a white dress. In her hands her weapon cast a high shadow over what he knew had to be his throat.

Rene came down to his knees before her, taking the stinking head from his bag to see it at her bare feet that peaked out from the curtain of red. He drew out a bar of gold, heavy in his one hand as he lifted her foot with delicacy to place it on the gold bar. He placed one for each foot and offered with his head bowed the final piece to her. He did not look up, if he displeased her he would gladly take the scythe over failure. 

He felt the weight of the gold taken from his hands and he saw her in a place very much like this. He could see she was hurt. Bleeding openly from in between her thighs as she dragged a rope. She could barely walk and the rubies of her eyes replaced the browns he had seen. She hushed the horse as she came to it, placing the rope around Its midsection as it calmed for her. She walked it as far she could before the goddess was forced to crawl to secure the rope around the man’s neck. Her wail of pain shattered the peaceful night as other women around her were revealed to be as vengeful as she was. The horses ran, dragging the drunken conquistadors to their deaths. 

Rene shut his eyes against the vision as he managed to bring himself to his knees before her, her hands firmly in his as she brought him to her lap as he cried from the raw emotion it brought him. “My friend she is like you. I am looking for her, please you must hear her pray —“ it was not above him to beg, not for Uma. She lifted his head in a pinch in her hand to look him in the eyes as she wiped gently at his face with her bloodied hands, “I heard / your / prayers. She is safe.” 

Rene cried this time in relief. He had so many questions, but the hard sun drained him and he felt weak from his weeping and knowing she was safe made all his sleepless nights come over him at once.

[ghoulluck]

When he walks through the barrio he takes careful steps with his worn military boots. He wasn’t careful the week before and he had been unfortunate to discover the feeling of a rusted nail surpassing the sole of his boot. There isn’t much new. Vendors meagerly scatter the sides and people walk on by, some stop to buy and others just look on with the look of hunger on their faces. 

He passes a few faces he is acquainted with as he turns the corner to the pitiful barber shop. Tlahuicole passes him with a freshly shaved head and the two men greet each other with a bump of the shoulder graced with a smirk. They do not spare affections or words. 

Rene watches as a few boys sprout out of beaten seats to follow the warrior. They’re as bald as he is and he gives a low whistle with a laugh. “You boys look so sharp,” he tells them and they giggle because they know it’s a compliment, but don’t know much english, “I’ll see you later.”

As far as the Mexicans are concerned, he’s not one of them. He’s the same as the Gringos visiting the tourism crowded Cancun for spring break. He’s ‘American’. In the United States his back was still wet even if he was half white and born on American soil. He wasn’t shit to either side and he fell between the cracks because he had long ago stopped trying to prove anything to anyone. 

The barber doesn’t speak to him when it’s his turn to get a fresh shave. The stubble isn’t much, but he can clearly see where the scars of his fractured skull lay out like lightening across his skull. He doesn’t like being reminded he had his ass kicked by some good old boys back in the day. The old man has steady hands and takes his time. 

The cut is always free because Rene does clean up and keeps a lot of kids off the streets or brings them home. He thanks the old man with a humble bow of his newly shaved head and hands over some pesos for their time. 

Rene checks his watch and makes his way to the bus stop. The hot sun beats down on the top of his head and he rubs it to ease the sting. An old lady offers him shade under her umbrella, scolding him in a voice too low for him to hear and he embarrassingly nods in acceptance of her lesson until her bus comes and he is once again left in the hot sun to burn.

The trip is short compared to the wait. He arrives at the consulate where there are throngs of people far better dressed then him with pockets fuller then him, but poor in heart. He produces an identification to the security who eyes him like the mud caked on the sides of his boots. He is quick to remind himself of his mother’s words, wealth is not measured by how good you look or how nice you dress.

The guards make him take off his shoes just like everyone else. He takes off his mother’s cross warily. He knows she’s in heaven now with his dad, a place somewhere other then on his face, but he can’t help the vulnerability he feels when he takes the chain off. Rene empties his pockets. He never learned to carry a wallet and the bin looks as messy as he does. He walks through the scanner with holes in his socks that makes the floor feel far too cold.

The first thing he puts back on is her necklace. He shoves his things in his pockets as people wait impatiently behind him. Privilege is a joke and he takes his time putting things on just to frustrate them. They don’t take kindly to his bullshit. He greets a trafficking lawyer’s assistant in the hall of the west wing. 

Belle is painfully pretty Indian woman. Today she is dressed in a color that’s almost blue like the sky but more green like a mint. She is adorned head to toe in traditional wear and shines like a diamond. 

“Hello, Mr. Guerra,” she greets. She thinks it is a suiting last name as it means war.

“Miss Eswara,” he acknowledged politely with his head bowed as a sign of respect. 

She always smiled to herself when she greeted him. He seemed like a hard man just from his appearance, but he was polite and kinder then most. She invited him to follow and he stepped into stride with her as she fingered each file before handing them all over to him. The only thing that remained in her hands was her tablet where she had copies of was in his hands. 

The consulate had tried to modernize him, give him computers and things of the sort and Rene always refused. He didn’t have the means anyways to support those kinds of things. His generator barely could keep his air conditioner on.

Rene opened the first file. She could hear him hold his breath as he started flipping rapidly through photos of college students. He stopped the more he flipped through them with a growing pit of dread in his stomach. He always seemed so personally affected as if these people were his family, his friends, his people.

He looked to her and she pointed towards a private conference room that wasn’t in use at the moment. It didn’t take him more then minutes to spill the folder’s contents across the table to start sifting through the evidence. Some of the students were found dead, other’s were missing, some had been recovered through trafficking. The case had to be at least eight years old. 

It was embarrassing how behind the consulate was. The severe censorship of the media’s missing and trafficked while graphic images were spread across the newspapers and television screens was baffling. The assistant had been forgotten and when she tapped his shoulder she could see the burning rage with which he had been not so kindly dubbed ‘el diablo’.

Rene collected himself, his rage and his things. He filed them very neatly and even posted sticky notes where he was already making connections. “I will take the case,” he told her politely as he tucked the thick bundle under his arm. 

[ghoulluck]

Rene sat in the steps of the compound. His head was bowed and he almost looked as if he were praying had it not been for the gun in his hand. Various men came in and out of the house, but no one bothered him. They were dressed like him, shades of washes out black, layers of Kevlar that made them sweat their wounds and a grim look on their face that mirrored his own.

He had not found Uma.

He touched his face with his shaking hands. Rene’s knuckles were raw from the interrogation or rather the beating he had inflicted to forcefully draw the information he needed from every man that had been found during the raid.

It was too late. Uma was in the wind.

Rene did not believe in god. He believed in his mother and her love for god, but never god himself. The man kept his head bowed as he knit his hands together with the gun clasped tightly between them.

“Keep her safe.”

 The wind carried his words to an old reaping goddess. The prayer tickled her thick veils that shielded her skeletal form from the revealing sun. The men working in the field raised their heads, acknowledging the shift in the in the air as she pointed towards the horizon where the sun was setting with a gilded bejeweled finger.

[And your devotion?]

Rene pinched the gun to his face as he forced himself to stand. Every second, every minute, every day, every week, every month, every year that passed made him lose hope he would ever find her at all.

He brushed these thoughts away. He had promised Vee he would find her. He had never broken a promise before. His stomach turned at the idea of failure.

Rene pushed himself to his feet with his rage burning inside of his gut as he walked towards the fence on the horizon. Beyond the barbwire were the fields of workers harvesting rice from a flooded field with a widow at the head. Beside the weak division, the men were lined up to lay on their stomachs with zip ties around their ankles and arms. 

It didn’t take him a second to pick the automatic from his side instead to fire a round into every single one of them. They were useless pigs and deserved a worse fate then he had just given them.

The Mexican consulate always applauded the gory show of examples. He took the thick knife tucked towards his boot to crudely start cutting the first head from it’s body. It was a nasty work. His stomach calmed in the repetition of it. He posted each head slowly one by one on the posts of the compound. It was a calling card he had developed after the US had fucked him over and he had started selling his skills to the continental and ultimately the Mexican government.

Mictecacihuatl watched from far as her husband manifested like water at her side. The man had provided sixteen different sacrifices and she intended to answer his prayers. Ehecatl blew his wind across the plain, relieving the man of the Mexican heat. Rene could almost hear a voice in the wind. He closed his eyes trying to focus on what language it was speaking in.

Rene felt almost heard. He couldn’t quite explain it. He didn’t care what answered his prayers as long as Uma was found safe. He would have to visit Uma’s sister. He always tried to give the news in person. It was a difficult task although he felt it was almost an insult if he did it over the phone to leave the receiver with the raw new wound he had left them with his message.