Black and White Town

"Please," She begs. "Don’t.."

The time ticks 1616 as Pancho presses the barrel of his pistol against her skull. There’s a black lushness to her hair that reminds him of his mother, a practised poise that reminds him of his own.  

Same age. Same heritage. 

"Aren't we acolytes of the same god?" She says, in the echoes of his prayers. "Aren't you a holy man?"

Her whispers fight the adrenaline storm of semi-automatics chorusing in the distance. 

"You have a choice." She says. "You don’t have to do this."  

She is right. Pancho knows she is, so aware now of the gargling bike engines quickly converging on her. The other Sicario are here. 

He has a choice, finger on trigger.

In every moment, there is a choice.  

The prayer echoes in thought. 

***

"Right then," Atrutro Leviya said. "Who here has killed a man?" 

He spoke to a band of tiny bones cooking in dry sunlight. 

The trainers parted as the bearish capo stalked forwards, the barrier they made against the horizon falling to the sides of the cliff’s edge, abandoning the boys to the abrasive scatters of harsh sunlight attacking Jojulta's chalky heights.  

Pancho Gutierrez, dared not look away. He knew what happened when you looked away from capo's talk. 

 "Answer me, boys." Arturo said. "Who here has killed a man?" 

The dark slit of his lips receded on the opulent whites of his teeth. 

"None of you?" 

His shock was the same the white boys had when they saw Pancho’s house.

 "Surely, one of you has killed a man." The black pits of the capo's stare found him. "Really is different for the young over here, isn't it?" 

Pancho nodded, eyes straight. 

"You all know what this is, at least?" He lifted a thing as familiar to the boy as the holy book was. A slender shape of straight sharpness. 

"Yes Sir.” The boys shouted.  

Wasn't a single boy in the Black and White Town who hadn't seen a machete before.  

"Good. You made me worried for a moment." He slipped back into his easy smile. "How many of you have seen a man killed, then?"  

Few hands finally shot up, Pancho's not one. You didn't see much death on the edge of the city. Heard of it, of course. Feared it. Never saw it.  

But watching Arturo's imposing glare study the other boys, Pancho felt a sudden urge to lie. Especially when Arturo's stare settled on his side of the line, on the boy by his side. 

"Santiago." Said the capo, an easy stride to place a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You've seen a man die?" 

"I have, sir." 

Lies. Pancho knew. But it was no surprise. Santi had a year's more courage than Pancho, but a decade less wit. You don't lie to a capo. Especially, if you are as shit at lying as Santi. 

"You've seen a corpse before?" 

"Yes, Sir." 

It was painful to withstand the dazzles of the capo's clothes in the light. The golden embroideries decorating his white silks aimed a dozen piercing twinkles into his irises. But he would not look away. 

"Come, then." Arturo said, his free hand guiding Santi forwards." I have some work for you."

His voice was gruff as a growl. The girth and grizzle of him embodying the name the young traffickers whispered when he arrived. 

The Bear.  

Closest thing to a bear they’d see.. 

Closest thing to a father too, skin kissed deep by the sun, the baked browns of a rich culture lost half a world away.

A man. His mother had mused, watching the golden convoys patrol the town. A real man.  

The aura of said man left Pancho chewing his lip, wishing he hadn't been raised with lying as the first sin. 

His stomach churned, seeing Arturo thrust the machete into Santiago's hand.

"Take this." Arturo told the boy. "This will be easy."  

To the edge, the trainers of the Phantom's cartel dragged and dumped a shadow into the spotlight of the sun. 

Even squinting hard as he could, Pancho couldn't resolve the black mound in the glare.

It was Santi who saw it first, with a shortened breath and scuffed step. Arturo Leviya moved his guiding hand to the back of the boy's skull, a quick command.   

"Dismember that body." The capo said, simple as a morning greeting. “Do it, now.”

His words quickly sharpened Pancho's eyes to the shape. 

His words turned the morning cold. 

Shit was suddenly real.   

 But this was not technically the first body Pancho Gutierrez had seen in his young life, technically not the first of Santi's, either. 

 They'd both been in Del Amo boulevard listening to the sermons of Morelo Capella when the white four-wheeler pulled up and riddled the Police Chief with 2 dozen bullets.  

Pancho was rustling through his loose change to pay for an ice cream when he heard the first crack. 

By time he turned, the silver sherberts were already melting onto cobbles streaked with crimson gush, and the mayor and his men were a party of vacant stares. 

He couldn't say he had seen Morelo dead, and neither could Santi. Both had run for their lives.  

Still, they should have had no problem seeing a naked corpse after that.

The local gunners said they were numb to it. Treats the dead like a piece of furniture.  

An object, to move and probe A job to do.  

Pancho reckoned they would see a corpse in a whole different way, when told to dismember it. 

"Move, Santiago." Arturo said. 

Santiago was still. 

Pancho heard his own gag, body catching up with thoughts, acid in his throat. Blanco's breath was wheezy by his side.

"Move, Santiago." Arturo said. "Do not disobey." 

But Santi did disobey. 

Long enough for Arturo to take a weary, dramatic sigh and lift the barrel of a gun to the back of the boy's head. Heckler & Kock Mark 23, probably. Phantoms used the new school pistols, untraceable, but he couldn't see enough of the weapon to truly know. Not that he needed to see anything. Arturo's next words told them all what was happening. 

"Dismember the body, Santiago." 

 The shift in the Capo's voice, the sob in the boy's throat…

They all knew what was happening. 

"5," Started the capo. "4,3,2..." 

And after one grand shake of his thick skull. 

"1." 

Santiago was gone. 

One shot.  

The boy, a body. 

Friend, son, survivor. Furniture, now.  

Pancho looked anywhere but to that body, he'd spent countless hours besides.

 So glad, now, for the burning sun, and the blackness of Arturo's eyes. They absorbed his attention as they fell on him. 

"Pancho." Arturo said. "Come. Dismember this body."

His name was a meaningless word. 

At that moment, he was numb.  

Gloria Gutierrez always taught her son that the two greatest sins in life were falsehood and hesitation. 

Ask no questions of the path the Corazon presents to you. You move, and you shape his will.  

Pancho's mother had been too busy to second guess her son's trip to the city, to apply for the new secondary schools.  

The mothers of Santiago, Blanco and Pancho were all busy crooking backs and huffing cancers to question anything. 

 They crammed the boys in the back of the shoddy van with their buckets and brushes, waving the boys away with a smile and a hope. 

There is no greater sickness or shame than lying to your mother. But it was no lie, Pancho had told.

This was his chance to get her out, make sure she never needed work another day. 

To be a Sicario, and run this town. 

So, when Arturo Beltran told him to dismember a body, he walked forwards with 2 flimsy hands on the handle of the blade, dropping to his knees without hesitation. 

How do you dismember a body? 

No questions. 

Pancho closed his eyes, stomaching the vomit. Couldn't hold the piss, though, as the cold barrel touched his head. 

"81 type" He knew by the feel of its shape. 

And that was the last thought he remembered of that time, clinging to the memory of his mother's bony touch on his spine, he struck the first fatty part of the cadaver. 

13 years of prayers, every night. For his protection. 

He let fear take all but the memory away. Until his body was the object, and he was the golden sun above, watching this boy get to work.  

When a quick, cold tap on the shoulder brought him back, the clouds were thick and the air was prickling. A buzzing sensation returned to his hands, cheeks and lips. 

There was a stickiness all over him. 

All but the blood had ejected from his stomach. 

Silver spittle on crimson gush. Like the ice cream. 

Well, that's how it should have been. 

Pancho saw no colours as he opened his eyes. The Sun, the stones, the steel. All was blank. 

The 6 boys besides him were black. The men who welcomed them with heavy jeers black too. The landscape of the town showed them on the horizon was all white. 

Black was the rear window of a converted plantation crammed in the centre of the Town. Halfway up the third of 4 floors, the black curtains of the only bedroom in the flat were drawn. 

 His mother was resting, before the second shift of the day. She’d have prayed, definitely. Sleeping now, believing her God watched over her son. 

The world was vacant, now.  

No golden sun. No warmth. 

Above, behind and beyond, all was dreary. No neon promise from the city beyond, no promised world that waiting 

That was, Pancho Gutierrez would say, the day that all colour drained from the world. 

***

Boy, I hear you messing with that damn Janomo again. 

How many times I have to tell you, 

that Torres family are bad news. If i know it, you damn well should too. 

 I'm sorry bout what happened to your Amigo. 

Just when we think it's getting better around here, the worse comes again. 

I know you'll be needing People. Get help around you, but you make sure they are the right ones. 

You better be staying away from that Clarise's house, too. 

I know you been over there, by Del Amo, lurking with them hood-rats again. 

How many times have I told you to stay away? 

You think I won't know?

 You think the neighbours don't tell me they seen you? 

 Don't lie, and say you ain't. 

They seen you and Blanco outside the Penny Mart, selling portraits from the bonnet of a gold plate, Country-wheeler. 

What you needing to sell Blanco's paintings for, don't you work hard enough? You earn enough!

You go speak the good book, give them people down there what they need. 

But don't you be mixing with them dregs, when you go down there, boy. Don't you be missing morning prayers and telling pastor Raul you been trapped in dirty sheets with the denizens of the dark. 

Yeah, I heard that, too! 

I damn prayed six dozen times for you that day.   

Pray for you more than myself, P. I always do. Every night, by your bed, kept as it was for when you feel like coming back.

I still see you there sometimes. I reach out, I think I can feel the curve of your spine as you sleep, like I used to.  

 I be speaking to the icon on your wall, and our Corazon keeps me company, but I can never know if you hear my prayers. Do you feel them? Do you feel his protection? You ain't returning my calls to tell me. You ain't come to see me... 

I know you working. I know it's how it is. 

Just let me know you're praying, at least. 

 If you ain't, let me do it for you. 

Just listen to me, boy. Listen, and whisper along with me, wherever you are... 

Speak with me, to the Corazon." 

************

"Corazon, O Corazon." She prays. 

With her words in his ears, Pancho exists. 

He is real.  

"This boy is a temple of your word." She says, as Blanco rips the XT600 around. 

"My son is a Kingdom of your grace, to which I come."

The tiny hand on Pancho's watch ticks to 1605, as he pulls loose the ties of his bobble and lets the drapes of his hair fall over the ears. 

"Corazon, Oh Corazon."

She spares him the racket of the anti-social engine, and Blanco's shouts. Gone are the days that he can see the fine shades of this bike's body, but his heart still flutters for the blood-red, matt black finish. The golden highlights. 

you see those colours, you run. 

The other 3 pairs ride black coverts, but when you're slick as Blanco, you can ride whatever you like. They won't see the Phantoms coming until it's too late.    

"Corazon, Oh Corazon." Gloria Gutierrez says as they breeze by the first cross-roads. 

Welcome to Del Amo, say the signs leading up to the boulevard. 

Blanco skips the pavement, leapfrogs the traffic clogging the junction, and the people run from the bike's dirty growl.

"See, my son, Corazon." Comes the prayer. "A heart blessed by Sacred Flame, a soul brightly burning by the hues of your glory."

A chorus of sirens try to drown out his mother's Petition to the God. Pancho belts her words over the noise. 

"I know not what he does, only for who he does it."

It is for you, Corazon!"

It's in the heart of a liveried convoy where she waits. 500 metres away, a triangulation of chequered vehicles like an orbit around a pristine white sun. Blanco slaloms, and Pancho closes his eyes to the wind, reaching for the holster inside his jacket. 

He sees the colours of this place as they were in memory. A mosaic of pulsing lights, skin shades and dirty paint jobs. 

A black impala slides ahead of them, pins the police vanguard, giving the spotters a boner and setting their radios abuzz. 

A red civic slips up two lanes over. And as the trap is set, Pancho prays.  

"Corazon, Your finest servants are shielded in your shadow, their paths illuminate in your light." 

They hit speed under the bridge, where a black silhouette hovers on the wrong side of the barriers, mulling over their choice. 

 The fall won’t kill them, anyway. 

The first covert flanks the convoy. Plated vehicles, padded army, against a bike and a pistol. 

It's all so dull, until the first silvers sound. 

One moment, and the world comes alive. 

The second flanker flies up the other side as charges behind. 

People against police. 

Pistols against Automatics. 

Six bullets against 60. 

Just another Wednesday in this Black and White Town.

The mark flees the vehicle, armoured bodies dropping as they make flesh shields carrying her to the other lanes. The last covert is already there. Blanco too. 

They fire at the front as Blanco flies from the back. Pancho finds her hair, yanks her away. She crashes hard into the closest steel-door, as he says his prayer.  

"Corazon, I receive you, to take my life, and let me live with you from this day forward." 

Her eyes stick wide as she hears the words. As if the sun itself bares on her souls, but she knows she cannot look away from the brightness. 

"For you, Corazon," Pancho shouts. "Who saved me with your precious blood."

He wheels her against the vehicle and presses the pistol to her head. 

"Please," Her voice fights his mother's prayer. "Aren't we acolytes of the same god?" 

 The police chief's daughter is the same age as him. They trapped her on the way back from school.

 "Corazon," His Mother sings, and Pancho shouts.  "I repent for all things not serving your Way." 

"You have a choice.” She says. “There is always a choice!"   

Time ticks to 1616 in Del Amo, Gloria Gutierrez speaks a single word. 

"Amen." 

Pancho asks the girl a question. 

"What colour are your eyes?"

She turns her cheek, she shows him. 

Their Golden. 

"My choice," He tells her. "Is between you, and the only angel left on this Earth." 

With a touch, he turns her chin. Holds her, looks her in the eye. "And I would kill the whole world 5 times over for her." 

"Pleas-" Her voice cracks. 

"I kill you, or they do." 

The other Sicario arrive. 

"Spare yourself such scars they would leave on a soul." 

She looks to them, and to him.

"Always a choice." Pancho says. "Always a reason."

"For what reason does my God give me this choice?" She says. "This end?" 

Her voice is the only noise, now. 

 "What kind of Fate is this?"

 This is the last choice a person can make.

Go in peace, or go in despair.  

"What God bids me to live and die in this place, killed by a nameless grunt?"

One final fight in her voice, before the end. 

"What reason, Holy Man?" She begs, again. "Tell me!"  

The world is blank but for the gold of her eyes, and Pancho is lost in them. 

"Become the salt of the earth," He tells her. "Become the winds that reach mountaintops away from this place." 

She shakes her head, the tears fall .

"Feed the Sun above, and arrive again, as deemed." 

He touches the gun to her head. 

"And take a lesson with you, for when Corazon bids your return to this world again." 

There is the shiver of an impatient soul passing through the body as she closes her eyes.

"Should you find yourself arriving in a place Black and White as this Town again," He tells her. 

The prayer stops, the world falls to silence. 

"Next time, make sure you're the one pulling the trigger." 

With a finger’s touch, the world illuminates. 

A bullet's silver flash, a golden sun, crimson trickles. 

"Remember." Pancho says. 

“Amen.”