More than two weeks after Rocky attended the joint LAPD and DA press conference in the park, a taste of the shitshow remains.
Qué yo guardo tu sabor, como tú llevas también
Sabor a mi...
Pigs at the trough, he thinks. These motherfuckers take Salvadoran and other gangs as slop to feed their fucking law enforment careers at any cost. Every other word at that ridiculous press conference in the park was “terrorist,” the police chief reassuring everyone that he would do “whatever necessary to stop these barbaric criminals terrorizing the community.” The mayor adopting that smug, self-righteous tone about how “terror won’t stop the people of Los Angeles” and other shit like that. Terrorist tu madre, cerotes.
Even the white supremacist president and his attorney general mentioned Arnulfo’s murder in a glitzy Oval Office press conference last week, complete with “most wanted” pictures of the tattooed faces of gang members, even though most Salvadoran gangs stopped sporting facial tattoos more than ten years ago. The president’s presser also included maps of the US with big red flags where MS-13 was alleged to operate.
Terror, Rocky thinks, I’ll show you terror, cerotes. I grew up hearing that fucking word thrown around El Salvador like it was holy water at a baptism or burial. Terrorist students. Terrorist priests and nuns. Terrorist guerrillas. You think this is terror? I can take them back to lugares donde asustan, the places that really scare, places that make the worst of South Central LA look like the Baywatch episodes Arnulfo and me used to watch as kids in El Salvador and think it was the real LA.
Rocky considers Paul Yagoda the worst of the pigs. Yagoda is an undersheriff running to be the LA County sheriff. Recalling the Italian-suited, well-coiffed Yagoda as he droned on at the press conference about “getting to the root of the terrorist gang problem” makes Rocky want to vomit. The sensation worsens at the thought of the candidate’s TV commercials featuring him speaking directly at the camera while Latino kids play in the background, saying, “Our kids’ safety comes first. I’ll fight the gangs and other threats for them, and for you.”
Weeks before the murder, Yagoda was put on the spot during a debate. One of the moderators asked him about tattoos he’s alleged to have, tattoos of a Viking with a .357, the logo of the Norsmen, a white supremacist gang that’s operating within the LAPD. Yagoda admitted to having the tattoo, but not to any affiliation with the Norsemen.
On top of everything else, the whole thing seems off to Rocky. To begin with, he calculates, the gangs haven’t resorted to killings with machetes since the early days, when Arnulfo and he worked at the refugee comite in Pico Union. The only ones who keep talking about maras and machetes are the media and politicians who also use outdated images of tattoo-faced gangs. The kids used to buy the machetes at Liborio’s market less to terrorize people than because they couldn’t afford the AKs, Uzis, and other weapons favored by the Mexican Mafia and the other gangs that operated south and east of here. Why would anybody want to resurrect the machete decades later?
We Salvadoreños know how that “terrorista” takes on its own life when there’s no opposition to it. It will continue to rule like a king, unless somebody gets in its way. Somebody wanted to kill the peace by killing Arnulfo. The question is, who benefits from continued war? Arnulfo’s murder threatens everything he spent his thirty-plus years in LA building.
The thought of these hypocritical pigs is too much to bear. Fuck it, he decides, I’ll take the case. I may not share Arnulfo’s dreamy Star Wars Jedi code in the causa, but I will investigate.
They’ve got this thing wrapped up too nicely in the material realm. Seems like this Guardado kid did do it, but the evidence is nonetheless questionable. The killing of Arnulfo in the middle of the park, the use of the machete — it’s all staged, but not by a Salvadoran director. The script doesn’t feel like a Salvadoran wrote it either. He needs to find a witness.
For the next week, Rocky keeps coming to the same spot at the same late hours, parking his car, listening to boleros, in the hopes of finding a witness, a clue, something that will confirm what the music led his gut to believe about the questionable circumstances surrounding Arnulfo’s murder. Then one night, looking in the direction of Slauson Park, he notices a young male leaving the rec center building off the basketball court.
Holy shit, he thinks, it’s after midnight! Before Rocky can start his Toyota, the kid speeds off in an old Chevy.
The next day Rocky returns to the rec center to ask about the guy. He’s greeted by a young man and woman. They’re dressed in the blue-and-white shirts of the Parks and Rec department. He quickly sizes them up and concludes that their demeanor, physical appearance, and especially the way the woman uses her mouth to point, indicate Salvadoran ancestry.
“What say you, young compatriotas?”
“Compatriotas?” the young woman replies.
“Yes,” Rocky says, “I notice you’re sporting the national colors and figured we’re compatriots.”
The two young people laugh. Rocky knows it’s nice to be recognized as Salvadoran, a people who live in anonymity, oppression, the culture of secrecy imposed by a country with a long history of military dictatorship, and, in the US, the faceless nothing of being “Latino.”
“My name’s Rocky,” he says. “I’m a private eye looking into the murder of Arnulfo Cartagena. I’m sure you’ve been asked about this before.”
“Yeah, the cops questioned us once,” the young man says. “But that was it.”
“So, you’re a real detective and Salvadoran?” the woman asks.
“Yes,” he says, and shows them his license. He looks at the posters of Che Guevara and the Salvadoran poet Roque Dalton in the corner of the rec office. “You know that we had detectives in El Salvador, including in the Frente?”
“You were in the FMLN?”
“Yes. We had compañeros who, in addition to being guerrilleros, were doing counterintelligence work.”
“You mean like chasing spies and infiltres?” the increasingly excited young man says.
“Yes, and there were many compañeras who did the work too. We also investigated crimes among members of the Frente — you know, rape, beatings, and even killings committed by some of our soldiers.”
“Wow. You were a guerrillero detective!” says the young woman. “That’s sooo cool.”
“So, what can you tell me about the people who use the gym at night?”
“Well,” the young man says, “the main people who use it are basketball players, mostly young guys playing pickup games and this one team that uses it once a week. Them and the church group from across the street that practices music here Mondays and Thursdays.”
“Church group?”
“They bring guitars, an electric drum set, a bass, and singers.”
“Who leads the band?”
“The guitar player. I think his name is Alfonso, a guy with a bunch of tattoos. I think he was in a gang. He’s the one we gave the keys to because they asked permission to stay late. And, you know, they’re in a church and they’ve always been respectful.”
Rocky heads to the church, acting like a feligrés, one of the faithful looking to reconnect with God after backsliding. Sure enough, he quickly locates Alfonso Mejia. He and the other band members use the space at night to rehearse songs of redemption with the blood of Christ.