Chapter Seven

Maricio

Two Weeks Since Leaving Chicago

 

For fourteen days, I had traveled. Stopping here, staying there, I continued on. I never stayed anywhere long but I never went very far. I constantly was on the hunt for more drugs. My every movement was based on getting the next high. If I didn’t think I could find a city with some sort of connection to score, then I didn’t travel that direction.

It wasn’t a solid plan and it would probably bite me in the ass, but it was all I had.

The white powder taunted me. The power of everything was in this dust. I inhaled the line. It burned. Breathing deep, I sought the calm. As my body took it in, it was like razorblades settling in my lungs. It was a feeling I was accustomed to. In moments, the drugs would hit my bloodstream and flow throughout my body.

I had this pain inside me without them.

I couldn’t explain it.

I needed the high, though. It was my only escape.

Sitting back against the shit-ass headboard in the shit-hole hotel I was in, I let the drugs work their magic. The voices were getting too loud. They wouldn’t stop. I needed the chaos inside me to cease. I needed it all to stop.

Yesnia’s obituary was written beautifully. I read it from beginning to end multiple times. The online condolences reminded me that my niece was loved greatly. I read every note left on the webpage. Her friends from college in North Carolina wrote of her free spirit. Her childhood friends from Texas all remembered her caring nature. The more I read, the more I needed the drugs. I took her life before it could truly get started.

It ate at me.

Every high I chased the escape from the guilt, but it still found me.

I shouldn’t have read the obituary. I should have left everything tied to my niece, my sister, my existence alone. It could be a set up. A way for Javi to track me. He was coming for me.

There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that he would find me.

My days were numbered.

While I wanted to die, I didn’t want it to be by Javier Almanza. He was everything I could never be. My pride was too great to let him be the one to take me out.

The fog filled my head.

The voices that constantly spoke were silenced.

For the moment I had peace.

I could have quiet.

As the euphoria built in me, I leaned back and closed my eyes. The same memory that appeared to me in the early moments of every high came once again.

“Born a saint, die a sinner,” I muttered as I snorted the line of cocaine in front of me.

“Wish you wouldn’t do this shit,” Javi said the same thing he said every time I got high.

I let the powder burn through my nostrils. My mind blanked. Everything stopped. I was free. I was fearless. I was powerful. Javi was always on the right side of wrong. Sure, what we did was illegal and to most people we were morally corrupt. Javi, though, he stood by his code. He always did the right thing, even when the wrong thing was easier to do.

“Come on Maricio, you don’t need that shit,” Javi told me as my eyes rolled around in my head. “Fuck!” He shook me.

I laughed. Opening my eyes and struggling to focus, I could see the concern on my best friend’s face. Javi was always the good one. He had my back, while I would stab him in his if it came down to it. He had a code, I had not a damn thing. My soul was gone, my heart never existed. I was a shell. Without the drugs, I just wanted to die. With the drugs, I felt like I could take on the world.

“Just simmer down, bro. It’ll be alright. Just a bad batch. Let Paco know so he’ll cover it with Miguel,” I told him as the world began to spin in my head.

It was truly a bad fucking batch. Mixed toxic and I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t focus. I felt the drool roll down my chin. I could hear my voice making a humming sound, but couldn’t stop the almost strangled noise from emitting on its own accord.

Sitting down on the ground, I tried to stop the motion sickness building in my stomach. I dry heaved as I rolled to my side. The pain was excruciating in the very pit of my abdomen. I curled into myself.

We definitely would be taking a hit on this batch. Miguel wouldn’t be happy. I thought it might be time to switch suppliers, but they didn’t let me make those kinds of calls. I was just a kid to Miguel Silvia. Even though we had worked for him for years, I didn’t think he would ever view me as more than some street punk. Javi, he saw potential in, me not so much.

I couldn’t focus my eyes when I opened them, so I shut them tight again. The coke was laced. And whatever it was laced with wasn’t good shit. The reality of my situation was settling into my mind as I kept thinking this was a tainted batch of dope. It was on repeat, like a broken radio.

This was bad.

My heart beat irregularly in my chest. I heard each thump resound through my ears like someone beating a bass drum.

For the briefest of moments, I wondered if I would die. A smile formed on my lips as I thought about taking my last breath. In death, I could maybe find peace.

“Don’t you do it, Maricio,” Javi yelled, shaking me again. “Don’t you fuckin’ die on me or Mari.”

Always worried about Mari. Javi was going to take such good care of her, even with me gone. Mari, she would miss me. She’s had enough pain. She would struggle, so I needed to snap out of this. I needed to keep breathing. Not for me, though, only for her.

Then everything went black.

I was seventeen the day Javier Almanza saved my life. My mother had died. I was suddenly responsible for Mari. I didn’t know what I was doing. Up, down, left, right, I couldn’t figure out what to do next. Paco stepped in and handled the wake and service while Javi took care of my sister. Even with Javi and Estella taking us in and Javi helping cover expenses for Mari to go to school, I was lost. I had no direction other than staying alive for my sister.

I wanted to die.

When I knew I couldn’t kill myself because Mari would be a mess, I turned to my escape. I couldn’t find a way to leave her behind without being the asshole that left his sister alone. I had no conscience with murder, hookers, drugs, or anything else in the world of the cartel. Leaving my sister to fend for herself, well, it ate at me on the inside. The only way to stop the worry and stop all the negative thoughts about myself was the drugs.

Cocaine.

Meth.

Heroin.

Honestly, anything that would stop the voices inside my head I tried.

The voices that constantly told me, my sister was better off without me. The world was a better place without scum like me in it. Javi was the better man. Javi worked harder. Javi made better decisions. Javi would always think everything through keeping Mari safe. Javi was stronger. Javi was meaner. Javi was fearless. Javi was everything to everyone. I was nothing.

I went from one high to the next chasing those voices away.

It was a continual repeat in my mind. Javier Almanza was everything I wasn’t.

I shook the thoughts away. I got high to avoid the shit-storm my life had become. Really, the shit my life was from the beginning. I never had a damn thing put together. Javier Almanza, he had drive, ambition, and the integrity to succeed, which was what got him through. I had to stop thinking. I had to turn my brain off and enjoy the drugs. This was my escape after all. No need to fuck up a good thing.

Except I closed my eyes and the roaring in my mind didn’t settle. It was like this water rushing sound in my ears with an underlying steady buzz. The room felt hot and cold at the same time. My heart sped up then slowed down. I was high. I was low. I was all over the place.

And I could see her eyes.

Her beautiful brown eyes.

The long dark hair my sister lovingly braided so many times.

Her love, her passion for life. Yesnia was haunting me. She had crawled in my mind and made her home. Her spirit wouldn’t release me from what I had done. She was in me and not about to let me go.

“Tio, watch,” Yesnia instructed as she looked up into the sky. “I’m flying my kite all by myself.”

The day was warm with a slight breeze we didn’t often see in Texas. Typically, it went from a dry, hot air that was still to a crazy wind with no in-between. For two hours, she ran with that purple kite trying to get it launched on her own. It took a bit, but she finally had gotten the hang of it. We had this great picnic, Yesnia, Mari, and me.

“The sky is always the limit, hija,” Mari said proudly.

“One day I’m gonna fly like this kite,” Yesnia declared. “It will have to be on a plane, though.”

We all laughed.

That was a carefree moment we didn’t often share. I wasn’t home when Yesnia was awake on a regular basis. When Paco was in charge, I worked for the cartel. Then Javi took over and I sometimes took side jobs from Paco, but mostly I took to the streets for work. Dealing drugs kept a roof over our heads and food in Yesnia’s belly. I didn’t get to spend as much time with my niece as I wanted. We also didn’t get to have a normal relaxed family life because of the decisions I had made. I wasted my life and hers, too.

Blowing out a breath, I readied myself for the high to take over. I waited as the seconds ticked by. Instead of relief, I was flooded with more memories. This was my penance. A lifetime of her filling my head with all of the moments we shared.

“Tio, Mamá made us Tres Leches Cake. She said it was your favorite,” Yesnia shared excitedly.

I looked to my sister. “Why?”

“Why what, Maricio?” she asked me as she plated the traditional milk cake that our mother had made me for every birthday.

“Why would you bake this cake for me?” I questioned her motives.

“Tio, she wanted to make you happy. Lately, you’ve been so angry. I asked Mamá to help me make you smile.” Yesnia handed me a card she had made. “I even made you a card that I filled with so much love.”

My heart softened at her kind thoughts. At seven years old she could read me. She only wanted everyone around her to be happy.

My heart raced. Tears filled my eyes. “Yesnia, forgive me for bringing you pain. I had to make him hurt. And you were the only way,” I muttered to the nothingness surrounding me.

The room was stale. It smelled of mildew. The bed was hard and unforgiving. I didn’t deserve comforts with what I had done.

I didn’t want to shoot her. Javier, though, nothing shook him.

Even taking Mari away, he didn’t back down. He didn’t slow down. He continued to climb through the ranks year after year. I tried to take out Paco and still Javi did the right thing by saving him. At every turn, he made the right choices while I made the wrong ones.

My chest hurt. Pains went down my arm. I wondered if I was having a heart attack. Resting my head against the headboard, I took it in.

Would this be my end? Would I die in some random shit-hole alone?

It was what I deserved.

I closed my eyes as I felt my heart beat irregularly. One second I thought it would beat right out of my chest and the next I wondered if it had stopped altogether.

“Tio, why do you not have a wife? Or kids of your own?” Yesnia asked me as we sat on the couch. She was getting over the flu. In the process of her sickness, Mari had gotten ill so I was watching Yesnia while my sister slept.

“Some people are destined to be alone. I have you and I have Mari. That is all I need to make my life keep going.”

“You need love, Tio.”

I laughed. “I have love, Yesnia. You love your uncle, right? You love your Tio.”

“Of course I do, silly, but a wife would be a partner. That’s what Alejandra said. A wife is a partner. She would help you do work and feed you and love you, Tio.”

“I have you to help me work and your Mamá, she feeds me. I don’t need a wife. You’ll love your Tio forever, right, Yesnia?”

Her little arms wrapped around my neck hugging me tight. “Of course, Tio.”

I couldn’t help but wonder after what I had done now, did my precious niece still love me? I didn’t love me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a good thing to say about myself.

I had been so lost, I was sure I could never be found.