On the Feast of Saint Joseph he came to town with bottles of aguardiente and guerrilleros holding guitars and drums. Abelito’s father brought Abelito to see, and though Abelito’s father listened carefully to the Carpenter, he didn’t let any aguardiente touch his lips.
The Carpenter was a big man with a rough face, pitted like pumice stone, weathered from a life lived moving from place to place, sleeping in guerrilla camps, lacking a true home. It was a serious face, a face Abelito found impressive, admirable. He wondered what it would be like to live a life that would earn such a face.
The Carpenter said he defended the truth. He said the people deserved respect. Every district should have a clinic, every large town a hospital. The people should own their own land, and the children should have an education. Everything should be free and the government should give us work. Then a guerrillera stood up. She was tall and very fair skinned, with black hair tied tight into a bun and an angry look on her face. She said after her father died her mother had taken up with a man who abused her every night. She had taken the abuse until her younger sister had her first bleeding, and then she had no option. She’d stabbed that man in the neck and gone off to join the guerrilla, and the revolution became her mother and father. The revolution, she said, was a true mother and true father. It had given her thousands of brothers and sisters. Then she sang a song in a voice many years sweeter than the look on her face. The people drank and the guerrilleros sang more songs, and Abelito decided he liked the guerrilla much more than the paracos who used to ruin his games of cinco huecos. Later, with his friend Franklin, they would play guerrilla. And Franklin, always brash, would pretend to be the Carpenter, and deliver judgments that were cruel and just.
A month later the guerrilla came back to the village and took Alfredo, who was four years older than Abelito, and Matías, who was three years older, to join in the revolution. This is a paraco town, they said, and it must pay a new “vaccine,” which is what they called the tax they were imposing on the people. They were much angrier than they’d been before, and no one was sure why. Some people blamed Marcos Ardila, the butcher, who they said still had ties to the paramilitaries. Others blamed Chepe, owner of a bar. Whoever caused it, the price was paid in the children they took. The guerrilla would have taken Abelito, too, but they didn’t, they said, because he was too much of a faggot. Here is what happened.
Abelito was playing with his smart sister, Maria, when the guerrilla came down the road. Tall, thin Alfredo, who was always sick, and short, ugly Matías, who was kind, were following behind them with big, scared eyes. Maria ran and hid, but Abelito was curious and stayed. The men with guns surrounded him. Do you want to join the revolution? Abelito looked at Alfredo and Matías, who were looking down at their feet, trying not to cry.
One of the guerrilla pulled a grenade from his vest and asked Abelito if he knew what it was. Abelito said yes. The guerrillero handed it to Abelito and told him, “Pull the pin and throw it. Prove you are a man.”
Abelito started crying, and the man said, “Look, a little faggot.” And they laughed, all the guerrilla laughed except for Alfredo and Matías. All the guerrilla had eyes like flat stones, except for the leader, whose eyes were like sharp little knives. “Throw it, throw it,” the guerrillero shouted. But Abelito just stood and held the grenade and cried, and the leader took the grenade back and said, “Go to your mother, little faggot.”
Abelito, weak as he was, ran to his mother. He should have pulled the pin and thrown it like in a game of cinco huecos, carelessly, so it landed close enough to kill him and the guerrilla and all the worthless games of the future.
Of course, he did no such thing, and once the guerrilla had complete control of the towns around Abelito, once the paras became a memory, the guerrilla brought in the paisas, and the next game started.
When the paisas arrived in town, they brought briefcases and seeds and promises of a new business, the coca business, in which the townspeople could not lose. Many people became excited—planting, picking crops, working the land, and making money. The paisas paid what they said, and on time. And both the townspeople and the paisas paid the vaccine to the guerrilla.
Mother and Father would argue during this time. Father wanted to make money, Mother thought this was dangerous. An ugly business. Grandfather had told her terrible stories about it. In the end, the family did not join in the business that was helping so many of the people around him buy radios, new clothes, and other things. But still, they were happy.
This went on for two years, and during that time the villages along the river changed. Grandfather complained that all the little towns had become no more than bars with streets running through them, and that all the little girls had grown up to become no more than prostitutes. Mother said that Grandfather should be happy that all the towns were bars—he could get drunk anywhere he chose now, and not just in front of Abelito and his sisters.
There were elections, and then after the elections, gunfire, and half the people of a neighboring town left in fear. The paisas showed up with men with guns, and they were very angry. They said they would only pay so much for coca
