Trigger warning: Story contains adult themes of violence and drug use.
“Wood rot? Man! How did that happen?” the customer asked, eyes wide, voice bouncing off every stone-tiled surface in the kitchen. The facade of his home was polished, but the customer had been fobbed off.
I felt shabby in contrast. My hair was prematurely graying, but my beaten-up work boots still held their ground while I negotiated. “The roof let water seep in for… a long time. That caused rot underneath. Now we have to replace some of the decking, sir, in order to keep your house up to code. I’m sorry.”
The customer looked like he very much wanted to say ‘no.’
“The decking is the weight-bearing part of your roof. We can’t do the work halfway. It will collapse on you – it’s just a matter of time.” I was about to show him more pictures on my phone, so he could see how lucky he was to have caught it in time before such a disaster occurred, when I heard part of a conversation through the open window and went still.
“I hope it does take a while to explain, impressing the customer with big words as he goes. The more of this we can get set up without him, the safer we’ll be. He doesn’t belong on the roof. Why don’t we just leave him to do sales and supplies? He cuts a great deal, but,” Ignacio’s voice dropped, “I don’t trust him on a ladder.”
“There isn’t enough of that kind of work to keep him busy all day,” Mateo said. “We’ll have to teach him how to be safe up there. That or fire our little sister’s new husband.”
The estimate felt heavy in my hand, and my arm slowly dropped. We’d been married five years. Was I still the “new” husband? Liliana loved gangster movies, so she meant it with lust and maybe a little greed when she called me her Capone. I was the dealmaker who could help customers see the reasonableness of investing in their roofs, even if it was a stretch past their spending limit.
Ignacio sniggered. “Have you talked to her lately? Liliana’s not happy. She complains that she feels like she’s raising another husband. It won’t be long. You should start counseling him on his performance–and document it.”
The customer interrupted my eavesdropping. “OK. I get it. Let me see that estimate.” He blew out an explosive gust at the worksheet where I had done the math in pen. “OK. I’ll make it work,” he croaked. The guy looked like I felt. Gut-punched.
“You won’t regret it, sir.”
Just as my in-laws predicted, there was not enough work on the ground to keep me occupied. Eventually, I had to face my fear of heights and get up the ladder again. “Roberto,” called Mateo, the more optimistic of my brothers-in-law. “Would you bring the circular saw up with you?” Ignacio shot a dirty look at Mateo for that dumb idea. I appreciated Mateo’s vote of confidence, but I also wanted to survive the day.
At the top of the climb, Mateo reached for the tool, so I could use both hands the rest of the way up. Maybe I was in a hurry or trying to prove myself. I don’t know. Somehow, the saw slipped, and the absurd thought crossed my mind that it took longer to heal from things now that I was almost forty. I must have shifted my weight to dodge the falling saw, but I can’t remember doing that. The ladder lurched, and there was a moment of weightlessness, when I was beyond recovery. Then, something very hard rushed up and hit me before I could form another thought.
Head injuries are so tricky, I can’t say what exactly happened. When my eyes opened, there was heat. It was too bright. I was sweating through what felt like an expensive suit. My hands looked strangely smooth and uncalloused, yet strong like those of a young man. They tremored with a fear I couldn’t quite name. The manicure looked so foreign, I couldn’t decide if it belonged to me. But the man standing in front of me felt more familiar, and gradually a word bubbled to the surface of my thoughts–padre.
“Get up, payaso” my father growled at a man on the ground gasping for air, doubled over. I tried to recall how I knew that my father was skilled at degrading people who had failed him. And how he could then move right on to dinner after a meeting like this. I was somehow sure of it.
The payaso began to beg on his knees, and I imagined myself in his place. Just because I was the only son and presumed heir to the cartel didn’t mean I would always be immune from my father’s vengeance. I’d been lucky so far, but only a fool would think he could avoid mistakes forever.
“You can’t even get up, you rata sucia! You lace my product with fentanyl? You put Miami on the news when we’re in the middle of buying out the Tampa trade? We’re about to run all the drugs south of Orlando, and you put a foco gigante on my business!” His kick lashed out like a snake bite, splitting the man’s lip.
I seemed to recall when a local headline had scrolled by with a death count. My father had thrown something at the television–wine or coffee, maybe. We didn’t thrive on publicity. The man’s face, though, remained fuzzy to me, and nothing I did could bring him into focus.
I suddenly recalled that my childhood nanny–I called her Nana, but my father called her muchacha–was still somehow employed in the house. She was the only mother-figure I recalled having, even though I couldn’t be sure of that. My nanny had raised me to respect God and to converse with Him in my head. Nana didn’t know how involved I was in the business, or, if she did, perhaps she understood and forgave me. Disappointing my father wasn’t an option, not until I had an escape plan. I’d like to imagine that God understood that, too. I think I loved Nana more than anyone, and I tried to guess where in the house she might be right now. As long as she wasn’t here, I decided, she was safe.
“Hijo,” my father said.
I thought I would be relieved to know the reason I had been summoned. “Yes?” I replied, trying to sound indifferent rather than terrified.
“He’s yours.” And my father pulled his SIG Sauer, handing me the grip.
With no outward hesitation, I took the gun. My brain worked furiously to decide: Who was I going to shoot? There were too many men loyal to my father for me to fight my way out and escape. There always were. Perhaps I needed to come to terms with my death, because I needed to be the kind of man who never disappointed Nana. To do that, I had to turn back from this path I was on. I would have to betray my father. If I didn’t, my father would eventually ask me to prove my loyalty on someone who didn’t deserve to die.
This was not that day, I decided.
Pop.
I’m sorry, I thought, directing myself to God. It isn’t my place to decide who lives and who dies. I didn’t have much choice. And the emphasis was on “much,” because Nana had taught me, “We always have choices,” even if it didn’t feel that way.
My father put his hand out, a request for his gun. Instantly, I complied. “Good work,” he said, pleased with me, still testing me though. He feared that I was weak, and from his perspective I guess he wasn’t wrong. I was already in touch with the DEA about turning in both distributors, my father and his competitors. We had a business meeting coming up soon to buy them out. The DEA would then catch both families, and the Witness Protection Program, also known as WITSEC, was on the table for my cooperation.
I told myself that I was going to have a life after this. Nana’s God would protect me. I couldn’t let myself dwell on what would happen if my father found out–it would make me too jumpy. No matter what else that life entailed, so long as I spent it with safe, decent people, I would never miss this life or regret what I was about to do to my father.
My father accepted the gun, but his eyes–so similar to my own–narrowed shrewdly, focused on my face. I returned the gaze as indifferently as possible, as if waiting for another order. But I was skittish as a mole on mowing day. And at the same time, I was sad to be leaving behind the only family I had, the only people who would ever understand me so deeply. In some ways, my father and I were so similar. Still, it was the right thing to do.
Just as I was congratulating myself, I heard a whimper from a door to a shadowed hallway rarely occupied. Nana! Years of practiced silence kept the shout in my mind and my face impassive.
Nana was staring, hands over mouth, at the mess on the terracotta floor. When her eyes met mine, her face twisted in anger. I had never been on the receiving end of Nana’s anger before–not that I could remember. “Mi hermano!” she shouted. But that couldn’t be right, I thought. I hadn’t realized she had a brother, or I had never wondered about it before, which isn’t the same thing. No, this man was nothing like Nana, it occurred to me, so it didn’t seem like they could be related. I scrambled to reassure myself. And yet she tip-toed forward, sobbing.
I thought I heard grass crunching under her feet, and I looked down to find a woven grass mat more suited for a patio than this opulent room. I could have sworn there was bare terracotta tile just a moment before, but this rug must have been under the man the whole time. It was getting soaked and would need to be thrown out.
I took a steadying breath and then turned to my father for explanation or solution, I wasn’t sure which. My father loved his games. I couldn’t tell whether he had done this on purpose, but my head pounded with the effort to figure it out.
My father’s face gave away nothing. I made sure that mine followed suit. But Nana was getting more and more worked up. She came at me like an hada llorona–a kind of banshee. I thought I heard a crackling signal—maybe my father’s police scanner—and a monotone mumble I couldn’t make out. It was buried in the sound of Nana’s accusations, “Sin verguenza!”
She kept struggling, trying to kick, wailing, and carrying on in Spanish, “You are nothing! All my love I pour into you, and still, you are nothing!”
Explanations and apologies would have to wait until later, when my father wasn’t standing by. For now, I needed her to stop making a scene. My father hated displays like this. Nana had lived here for almost two decades. She had to realize the danger she was in. With my eyes locked on hers, I willed her to understand me and be calm.
Nana tried to kick me, stumbled instead, accidentally throwing herself to one side. I stayed rooted, because I was supporting her weight. I didn’t want her to fall. But when she juked and I didn’t, my father had a clear shot.
Pop.
It was over so fast, it took precious seconds to process that my Nana was gone forever.
“You didn’t need a nanny anymore anyway. I was keeping her on out of loyalty. That time has passed, obviously.” My father’s voice was dismissive. The incident already behind him.
I held her body partially upright by her forearms, unsure how to position her in a way that wouldn’t look grotesque. It was no use. Squatting next to her in my tailored suit, I shut my eyes and took a steadying breath. I clenched my jaw so hard, my teeth hurt like they were going to crack. I forced myself to take a deep breath and relax. If I looked at my father, I knew I would kill him. And then I would die by one of his men.
The idea had some appeal. But Nana–a good Catholic–would be disappointed, and whatever came next, it was going to be for her.
It seemed to me that the world should belong to people like Nana–normal people who did honest jobs and didn’t murder other people. But the world allowed monsters–apparently including her brother–to dominate instead. I had a sense of hatred for myself that felt borrowed, like a coat that was too big to be mine.
What felt clearer was the malice I held toward everyone who had contributed to making me a monster. They would all continue to be monsters, I realized, with or without me, and the killing would continue. Taking out my father and myself really wasn’t enough. I wanted to make a safe world for people like Nana. She was gone, but I could do this in her memory.
I resolved to take out as many of us as I could. This goal held the promise of atonement, and I clung to it. So I bided my time until the meeting, when I would turn over all of southern Florida’s drug trade at once. It only vaguely occurred to me to wonder whether I would go down with them. I was still halfway convinced that I didn’t deserve to make it, either.
Then again, part of me reasoned, if I became the person to take out so many criminals at once, didn’t that exonerate me somehow? Perhaps it made me a different kind of person. If I survived all of this, maybe it meant that I should forgive myself. I couldn’t have told you what I intended to do with my extra lease on life, though.
I arranged for Nana to receive a decent burial and for her brother to rest next to her. But I didn’t have the luxury to grieve, because my father and I were preparing for the buyout meeting.
“Find out why they really want to sell and retire,” my father ordered. He wanted to know whether we would be inheriting problems. I could understand if they were just tired of the fight, but my father never would. He reasoned that there had to be problems that would lessen the purchase price, if he found out in time.
We opted to meet at a restaurant serving an opulent marina on an island off the southernmost tip of Florida, a halfway point for both parties with every exit strategy available. The feds accepted this plan with great reluctance, because it would be impossible to get civilians out of the way for a clean takedown. Very likely, the feds would turn our classy business meeting into a shootout.
The marina was too well-lit to do business in the open, even if there was plenty of cover noise emanating from the fancy soirees on the yachts docked around us. One of them had a blue and white strobe light, and it was a relief when a siren noise cut off. My father and I walked at a relaxed pace with a handful of trusted men, not drawing attention to ourselves.
We arrived before the Gambinos at the private wardroom of a restaurant called Davy Jones’ Mess. We took only four men inside with us. The dim, murky restaurant seemed muffled, like the bottom of the ocean. The gloom settled oppressively like a bad omen, but then I already knew I was in danger. We took the opportunity to search, as best we could, for bugs, bombs, or anything else out of the ordinary.
Every bump and rattle caused me to jump, convinced that my father knew what I was doing, but he never returned my gaze, never trained his gun on me. He was intent on searching the room. The Gambinos arrived only minutes later, and we had found nothing.
The competitor patriarch was annoyed to have arrived second, and the fact that I could read him so easily told me a great deal about his level of burnout. It seemed that he was selling because he was tired. Why didn’t he pass the trade on to one of his sons? One at a time, I assessed each of his three sons for a reason, finding an intelligent glint in every eye and enough discretion in each face to hide the notion that they’d like to flay you. Their father did most of the talking, but I could discern nothing obviously lacking in any of them as we sat for dinner and negotiations.
By continuing to observe our dinner company, I avoided looking at the waitstaff. Some or all of the latter were federal agents. For all I knew, my handler would be among them. I didn’t want to flinch in front of my father–but then again, he was quite preoccupied. When he looked to me, it was for confirmation that we should go ahead with our business, that I saw nothing amiss. I gave the nod. My father looked pleased and took the lead, while I stayed quiet and observed the Gambinos.
My father brought up specifics of volumes, routes, number of paid employees, and so on, obviously looking for the vulnerability he had been missing, the thing that would lower the asking price. He came up empty.
I was too on edge to follow the numbers, but I had to speak up eventually. “You’ve built a thriving empire,” I complimented Gambino. My father scowled at me, but I had intended the comment for him. There was no point in delaying the deal. Go ahead, I was telling him.
“Thank you,” Gambino acknowledged.
“I can only imagine how much work it is to keep such a complex trade going for so long.” The subtext for my father was a reminder of my theory that the Gambinos simply wanted out of this life. But Gambino appeared offended at my unintended implication.
“You’ll handle it well,” my father interjected, cutting off Gambino before the man had drawn a full breath.
Then, I realized what my father was saying. “What do you mean?” I thought I understood, but I needed to hear it.
“The west coast is yours. I’m buying this for you,” my father said. A gift. Space to be my own man. This was the most sensitive thing my father had ever done for me. He was calling me a man. He would be far away, no longer my employer but a business partner. His pride in me–now that I knew he had any at all–and the promise of a free life without betraying him was nearly shocking enough to make me shout that we all had to get out of here. Federal agents were about to descend on us. But my throat felt choked off, and I reached for my water glass as I tried to clear it with little grunts and coughs.
Gambino returned the conversation to the subject at hand, offering to give an orientation period and a warm hand-off to suppliers and the high level distributors under him. My father waved off the need and simply asked how to get the contact information. Water went down the wrong pipe, and I sputtered. It was as if my father were working for the feds himself.
While Gambino replied, a waitress nervously lingered over refilling his water glass. I saw the moment my father registered her intentions. She was listening and therefore dangerous. His head swiveled, taking in the rest of the staff present and just as he pulled his gun, his eyes locked onto mine. There was no surprise on my face, and I knew that my impassive face–so practiced, so steady–had given me away. I comforted myself that there had been a moment, just before my father decided to shoot me, when he had loved me in his own way. But I was not prepared to shoot my father, so I did not reach for my gun.
Pop! Pop-pop. My father’s chair toppled backwards with the impact, face frozen in a mask of surprise, three holes blooming red blood onto a white shirt so widely that it appeared to change color entirely under his tailored suit jacket. Then a throng of bullets swarmed as if to seek revenge for a dead queen. I failed to stand, to cry, or to move in any way, as if my mind had escaped my body. The shooting lasted a few seconds, and then my handler appeared at my shoulder urging me to get up. I couldn’t believe I was still sitting in my chair. As I gathered myself, I realized the men we had left outside would be coming at a run. I had to disappear.
Gambino was face down on the floor. All three of his sons were probably already dead, and he was wailing the way you imagine David’s heart cried out when news of Absalom’s death reached him. One of the waitstaff, who I assumed to be an agent, had been nicked in the shoulder. And my father’s most trusted security man, Gerardo, was lying prone but had his face turned, flashing with that red and white strobe light–all the way from the yachts? Hadn’t it been blue and white before? It was amazing, I thought, that the light could reach here.
Gerardo’s eyes were laser-focused on me as I made my getaway. The click of his handcuffs was so loud, it seemed to wake me, and I could move my feet again. The agent with a blonde ponytail, the same girl who had been pouring ice water for too long, began reading Gerardo his rights.
My eyes moved of their own volition to my father’s broken form, crushing me with unanticipated grief. He was gone. I was the cause. I could never take that back or explain myself. And he would never have listened anyway.
My handler, who gave his name as Smith, was still urging me to move faster. Stumbling, numb, following Smith, I traded my suit jacket for a cheap waitstaff jacket. Somehow, we were overlooked by security men for both families. They rushed into the building, and let us scuttle away like rats.
All I managed to say to Agent Smith at the helicopter was, “Gerardo saw. He knows.” I tried to shake my head negatively, but I found that it was stiff, as if I had temporarily lost the ability to move my head. I reached for my neck, but Smith’s hands captured mine, placing them in my lap.
I forgot about my stiff neck as quickly as Agent Smith replied, “It’s OK. We’ve got you. We’ll take care of you.” Something relaxed in me, and I was finally able to breathe, as if the air had been knocked out of me for a long time. I felt a rush of oxygen to my brain, and I know I took several reviving breaths as the helicopter rose. I tried to wave, realizing I had never said ‘thank you’, but I couldn’t tell whether Smith saw it. Then, it occurred to me how high I was. I’d never been afraid of heights before, but the adrenaline drop hit me at the same time as this view. I was never able to face heights without my stomach lurching again.
Later, I read that Gerardo died in the shootout, and there was no record that he had lived long enough to be arrested. I was a lucky man to have been given a fresh start and a new, smaller but honest life.
My eyes opened–or maybe they had been open and my vision was suddenly restored–, and I saw my wife, Liliana peering down at me along with two EMTs. Feather-light and usually nurturing, you didn’t want to get on her bad side. Liliana could come at you like an hada llorona. Just now, she looked angry with me, which seemed unfair, since I was obviously sick. I was lying on the crunchy, dry grass, no idea how I had come to be here.
“All my love, I pour into you, and still, you are nothing!” In Spanish, she whispered it, but her brother, Ignacio, heard her and silently agreed with a tightening of his face. Where was Mateo? I tried to lift my head and discovered that I was in a neck brace, unable to move my head. Nonetheless, I flexed my back and found Mateo’s broken form just a yard away. Police surrounded his body, and the EMTs were only working on me, rolling me onto a backboard and strapping me down.
“Mateo fell trying to save you,” she hissed when she had a view of my face again. He had fallen headfirst, I realized. “He is dead,” she spat at me.
“We need to go,” said the EMT closest to me. With great effort, I thought I read the nametag ‘SMITH’, but the letters refused to sit still.
His face came into focus, and I told him, “I forgot to say thank you.”
“No problem.” Smith lifted my feet, while his partner lifted my head from behind me. They strapped my backboard and me to a gurney and rolled me toward the ambulance. A world class escape mission.
As the cot bumped and clacked into place on the ambulance, the leaky roof came into view again, and my mind slipped back to how much better off this customer would be once the damaged section was removed and the rotten decking had been replaced. The damage was creeping, like a monster had taken up residence in the attic and was slowly growing to fill the space. No matter the cost, the safe choice was extraction.
My thoughts were as mushy as the rotten roof, unable to support the weight of who I was—or what choices had ever been mine.