Wifebeater Update

This movie, called El Gringo, is now
showing in Hermosillo.

When I lived in that trailer park Arizona I created a blog called "On Silver Wings". I was new to living in an Airstream, new to living in the desert and just so damn excited about my new life that I blogged enthusiastically - and honestly - about pretty much everything. I never wrote negatively about anyone (except for "the sheriff") but still, when people started reading my blog and identified themselves, it got awkward and I killed the blog. When I first got to Kino, I created another blog but kept it anonymous - I never mentioned the town I was writing about nor my name or other identifying information. Now with this blog everything's out in the open and I face the same problem here - writing about a small community while more people in that community are reading the blog. I am constantly self-editing. How honest can I be about some of the things here? About the people? Especially the people in my trailer park? Most the time I think "fuck it" - I have to write honestly or the writing is stilted. Or I don't write at all.

So here's an update on my trailer park neighbor who tried to kill his wife. People in Kino who read this blog know who I'm talking about. And, hell, maybe someday the attempted murderer's wife will even read what I write here. Fuck it.

The asshole's still in prison - the old, tough and scary prison on Hermosillo's eastern edge. If I didn't despise him so much, if I wasn't so repelled by the thought of seeing his now-thinning face with its over-sized gleaming white false teeth making him look like a Day of the Dead skeleton, I'd go interview him about his life in that scary Mexican prison. Sometimes I think about him and try to imagine how he spends his days there. I know that he greased some palms and got moved to a better part of the prison. I know that he complains to his lawyer about the food. (No shit, dude. You shoulda thought about that before you tried to kill your wife. Pendejo!) People joke that he's finally learning Spanish. I know that his family get his medicine and toiletries and stuff like that to him via friends of mine. And, boy, does that piss me off.

It pisses me off that they use my Mexican friend - well, they don't "use" him, they pay him - to take these items to the prison because, unfortunately, he knows how to maneuver through the system. And it pisses me off that my gringo friend acts as intermediary. Last night when I told el gringo how I felt, he said "well, he [the asshole] is really sorry." Well fuck a duck, all wifebeaters are sorry afterwards. And, frankly, from what I've heard he doesn't seem sorry. When one of the people who was present that horrific night gave his deposition to the judge, the asshole had his lawyer bring him a slip of paper with all these biblical sayings on it, things like "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Does that sound like a man who has faced what he's done honestly?

I was very happy to learn that the person who had agreed to be the mail drop wrote the family and said he was no longer interested in playing that role, they'd have to find someone else. I have another friend who comes down here regularly and I'm afraid they'll approach her and she'll say yes. I hope beyond hope that she won't do it. Not very Christian of me, is it? Well when my Mexican friend was in prison and we were trying to get him out, the asshole refused to help, saying that he needed to learn his lesson. Karma, cabron. You need to learn your lesson.

El gringo who acts as intermediary with the family wasn't there the night of the beating. I think if he had been - if he'd heard the wife screaming, if he'd seen the husband come out and bear-spray spray and machete the neighbors - if he'd seen all that, maybe he wouldn't be so quick to help. I was there. Which is another reason I won't face him in prison because I'd be tempted to take a machete to his head then I'd be in that hell hole.

What's the latest? Well he wasn't extradited as some people believed would happen. They said Mexico won't want to deal with him, the possibility of this Americano dying under their watch, so they'll ship him out. Didn't happen. The process through verdict and sentencing takes about eight months and it looks like he'll be in at least that long. Should he be found guilty on two counts of attempted murder, he could face 15 to 20 years. Can he buy his way out? That's a possibility but it won't be cheap. People estimate 60 to 80 thousand dollars.

I can't imagine what it's like for this man to be in that Mexico prison. But I get enjoyment picturing him there. Yeah, yeah, maybe bad karma on my part. Fuck it.