Warriors in Paradise (2 page)

Charlie had never lost a fight. He had no doubt that he would hardly break a sweat before putting down the arrogant prick.

***

The Mexican came at Charlie fast. Charlie reacted by feinting with his left and then jabbing hard with his right. The Mexican made a slight side movement, taking the punch aimed at his chin on the shoulder. However, instead of stopping or moving back, he continued forward, stepping hard on Charlie’s foot, bending down, grabbing the bottom of Charlie’s pants, and getting up in one swift motion. Charlie came off the ground and fell hard on his back. Charlie softened the impact of the fall by slapping his arms hard against the pavement, but, because of the angle, he could not prevent striking the pavement with his head.

Charlie was out cold for a blink of an eye. When he came to, the Mexican was trying to separate his legs to step down on his testicles. Charlie half turned and kicked up with all his might at the Mexican’s chin. The Mexican’s legs wavered and he stepped back, allowing Charlie to stand up and recover.

They looked at each other with respect. Each had met his match.

They went at each other. Charlie threw a long jab that almost caught the Mexican on the head. The Mexican again rotated and raised his shoulder so that the punch bounced off. The Mexican moved in behind it, placing his forehead on Charlie’s chest and pushing him against the wall while kneeing him on the thighs and pelvic area. Charlie brought his elbow down on top of the Mexican’s head.

The Mexican managed to grab Charlie’s wrist and waist, bringing him down to the pavement. Charlie made a rapid movement from the waist, raising his knee and grabbing the Mexican by the hair before he could pounce and pound on Charlie’s face.

The Mexican punched Charlie’s ear. Charlie placed his forearm under the Mexican’s chin and swiftly pushed him off to the side, rolling in the opposite direction and standing up again.

They looked at each other with renewed respect. Both of them had tried their winning-gambit moves unsuccessfully.

They realized that they were in for a very long fight.

This time, both of them smiled.

***

When Charlie was in training at Army Ranger School, one of the hand-to-hand combat instructors tried to put him down. The trainer was mad at Charlie because he had been able to defend himself from all of the trainer’s moves. The instructor was a simpleminded bully of a sergeant who believed he had to bring all of the recruits down as hard as possible to build up character. He was not smart enough to recognize somebody who already had character. The sergeant thought that Charlie was making him lose face with the recruits, which he felt would undermine his authority. He came at Charlie with blinding fury, trying to hurt Charlie. Charlie used the trainer’s anger against him, choke holding him into oblivion.

There were no consequences. They were Rangers.

The captain immediately saw the value of Charlie and Caleb, handpicked their trainers, and recommended their deployment after training to one of the most problematic areas in Afghanistan, the Afghan-Pakistani border, where alliances shifted continuously.

The Mexican was nothing like Charlie’s army ranger instructor. The Mexican was better by far. He was neither mad nor afraid. The Mexican was actually enjoying himself.

Charlie was beginning to like the little fucker.

***

They went at each other for an excruciating ten minutes. The Mexican was pushing forward the whole time, trying to get inside, invading Charlie’s range and minimizing his effective blows. Consequently, Charlie was having difficulty connecting hard, solid punches with his long arms.

The Mexican knew how to fight a taller opponent. He tried to avoid the danger zone by staying outside the reach of Charlie’s long jabs. Whenever he attempted to cross the danger zone to land his own bombs, Charlie would try to nail him with his jabs. The Mexican avoided most of them by bending at the waist or stepping back. However, he took some major punishment to the arms and shoulders.

The Mexican feinted and crossed into the danger zone. He threw an overhand right starting from below Charlie’s head and tried to land it above his head, away from Charlie’s field of vision. Charlie sensed it coming and rolled with the punch.

The Mexican was inside the firing zone, where each could hit the other but where Charlie had the disadvantage because of his longer arms. The Mexican threw a flurry of body shots, while Charlie started attacking his exposed head with his elbows.

Caleb was enjoying the fight, shouting encouraging words to Charlie: “Come on, Charlie, finish him off! You have him! Another right and he’s history!”

Charlie stepped sideways and got some distance from the Mexican. He threw a clubbing right into the Mexican’s solar plexus, but the Mexican bent his knees, taking it on his powerful pectorals. The Mexican jumped, trying to connect an elbow to Charlie’s face, which Charlie partly deflected by slightly turning his head.

Charlie was getting tired and started gasping for air. He felt the Mexican was also tiring. They both had taken considerable punishment on their arms and shoulders. The left side of each man’s face was beginning to swell.

The Mexican stood back and said, “Have you had enough?”

Charlie laughed and responded, “Is this what you call a Mexican standoff? Shooting off your mouth to get out of a perfectly good fight?

“OK, you little shit, I am tired of kicking your sorry ass, so why don’t you take on Caleb now?”

“Ah,” exclaimed the Mexican. “So you are Charlie, and he is Caleb. What an unusual way to be introduced. My name is Santiago. Happy to make your acquaintance.”

Caleb responded, “You can keep all your happiness.”

Santiago said, “I admit that I am a little weary and there’s no clear winner, so, Caleb, why don’t you meet me here tomorrow at the same time to do the honors?”

“Fine,” said Caleb. “I’ll be here, but I doubt very much that you will.”

Santiago answered, “The only way you’re going to find out is by being here tomorrow, when I’ll kick your black ass to kingdom come.”

Caleb said, “Promises, promises…”

Charlie and Caleb both said at the same time, “Good-bye, you lucky beaner!”

“Good-bye, you gringo bitches. And just remember: you were outnumbered by a smaller force of men,” Santiago said with a smile.

All three of them raised their middle fingers as a farewell gesture and parted ways.

Part 1 – Santi

Chapter 1: Fighting in Paradise

Morning

A
capulco has been blessed by the gods. Its natural beauty and never-changing weather always amazes me. Winter or summer, the temperature ranges from twenty-six to thirty-two degrees Celsius, which is about eighty to ninety Fahrenheit. After it rains, Mother Nature brings out a huge vacuum cleaner, immediately drying the golden beaches and gray streets. However, once in a while, nature conspires. This time, two tropical storms were converging on Mexico, Manuel coming in from the Pacific and Ingrid from the Gulf of Mexico. When they collided, the country would be drenched by torrential rains.

My day started early. I swam from my house to the island of La Roqueta and back. All in all, a good hour’s swim in a nice, cool sea. There was a persistent drizzle, and a respectable current pulled me toward the open ocean. I noticed that the clouds on the horizon were growing and turning darker. September is a good month in Acapulco; there is always some rain to lower the temperature and a cool breeze off the Pacific. Alas, it is also a very busy month weather-wise when hurricanes threaten Mexico’s coastlines.

I took a long shower. There was no need to heat the water. Our new hot-water heater had arrived at the house and remained unused until it rusted itself into an early grave. The municipal water always came out at a nice even temperature of eighteen to twenty degrees Celsius, quite refreshing given Acapulco’s ever-present heat.

I put on some loose shorts and my UNAM T-shirt. I felt good. Mom was still sleeping. I thought about waiting for her to wake up before breakfast, but it was already eight o’clock, and after my swim, I was starving.

***

I asked Sandra for a combined juice of
marañón
, orange, and lime. The
marañones
come from our neighbor’s tree, which extends partly into our yard; the oranges from the market; and the limes from our two lime trees. I asked for
enpfrijoladas
, three eggs, and coffee—enough to keep me going until lunch, which we usually have at around two thirty in the afternoon.

Sandra was not really our maid; she was more like my mother’s personal assistant. Back in the day, she had been a rural schoolteacher. My mother had helped her out of a legal jam some twenty years back, and she had been living with us ever since. She took care of the house and hired and paid the maintenance workers and gardeners. She took care of me on and off as I was growing up. I call her Madrina—godmother. She was quite a character, and you didn’t want to get on her bad side.

The enfrijoladas were slightly fried corn tortillas, filled with ham and Oaxaca string cheese and then bathed in black-bean sauce. Sandra drizzled the enfrijoladas with sour cream, added the eggs, and topped them off with some chopped onion and cilantro. My culinary contribution was to add a few spoonfuls of green chili sauce, enough to give my breakfast a little punch and a bit more color. I have never liked insipid food, either visually or gustatory, and real Mexican cuisine is neither. Once I had finished eating and had brushed my teeth, I was ready to hit the books.

I had been studying economics for three years at the National University of Mexico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
UNAM. The more I learned about economics, the more I liked my chosen career. I saw economics as ways in which people should work, businesses should produce, governments should govern, and nations should trade so as to improve our welfare. I was impressed with the graphs and mathematical models, the abstract representations of markets, and the way economic systems worked.

I loved reading about past economists, the Cervantes and Shakespeares of our profession, such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, and others.

***

I am six feet two inches tall, which is pretty tall for a Mexican. I have always liked fighting and sports. I am not a bully and I have never been one, but I enjoy fighting them. When I was thirteen years old, I started exercising at my local sports club, where I focused on bar and parallel bars, weightlifting, and Greco-Roman wrestling. I made the national wrestling team when I was seventeen. A year later, I won first place at the national bodybuilding competition, winning the title of Mr. Mexico.

I was invited to join the Mexican Kickboxing Academy, where I learned mixed martial arts. I became a brown belt in guerrilla jujitsu under Tito Wroblewski and a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu under Nelson Araujo. I made my debut in the MMA circuit when I was nineteen with a TKO in the first round against an undefeated Chuck Castellanos. My second and last bout came a month later, winning via TKO, also in the first round, at the four-minute mark against veteran Chucho Alarid.

I realized that I had a better future as an economist than as a professional MMA fighter. I gave up the circuit to the lamentations and reproaches of my trainers and to the satisfaction and encouragement of my mother.

I had a younger half brother, with whom I barely got along. My father divorced my mother before I was born. I didn’t see him often, but I knew I could always count on him every time he needed me. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, and I hoped to keep it that way.

In spite of my family’s shortcomings, life was good, and the future looked promising. I was ready to take on the whole wide world. I felt unstoppable. Scientists would attribute my feeling of invincibility to a high level of testosterone coursing through my body; my mother and Sandra just thought that I was delusional. What did they know!

Today, as usual, my studies were interrupted by my daydreaming. This was normal for me because I was born under the sign of Pisces, and Pisces are incorrigible dreamers. Also in this way, the hours devoted to study passed more quickly, and I suddenly realized that it was 2:30 p.m., and lunch was waiting for me.

I didn’t like keeping anybody or anything waiting.

Lunch and gym

I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I started eating. I had a nice vegetable soup spiced with chipotles, rice with fried bananas, a fillet of sierra in
epazote
leaves with jalapeño slices, and a salad. Such a meal needs to end on a proper note, so I had fruit salad with mango sherbet. The mangos come from our trees, which are big ones that produce large mangos. And, of course, to finish, I had my not-so-little espresso.

My mom also enjoyed the meal. She relished seeing me stuff my face. She could be very funny, especially when she didn’t realize it. During our lunch, she told Sandra and me that in the middle of the night, she had awakened in need of a trip to the bathroom, but the electricity had gone out—it happened a lot with our revered public electricity monopoly—and she couldn’t find the toilet but instead realized she was in the kitchen. I shouted that I now knew the reason why the food tasted kind of funny. “Mom, you probably peed in the refrigerator!”