The Sicario’s Daughter
Elliott Turner
Marisol Ramirez was probably from a drug family, but Marco didn’t care. She was the center of his universe, even if they never had shared more than a few words.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, the two of them packed into a worn-down, double-wide trailer for Chemistry class. Everybody complained about the confined space and weak A/C unit hanging out the window, but Marco loved it. He sat right behind Marisol and could sometimes sniff her perfume, a cheap Gucci Bloom knock-off that left him smelling jasmine for hours. It was the highlight of his day.
Marco’s focus and mood varied greatly over the week, depending on Marisol’s attendance. When she missed class, he filled his notebook with copious and orderly notes. But he breathed through his nose loudly and sighed at inappropriate times. When she appeared, he didn’t even bother to open his notebook. He caught glimpses of her from the side of his eyes when the teacher was lecturing with his back turned. Marco could learn the Periodic Table better at home with less distractions, he reasoned.
In early March, the trailer’s air conditioner broke down. Despite open windows and a slight breeze coming in off the Gulf, the temperature outside hit 85 degrees, close to 95 degrees inside the trailer. Marisol pulled off a black fleece to reveal a white tank top. Every other student complained about that horrid day for years after, but Marco felt lucky and would never forget his glimpse of Marisol’s shoulder blades.
After Spring Break, though, Mr. Wintz concocted a seating chart that separated Marco from his lady-love. Marco, furious, spoke with him one day after class and Mr. Wintz hinted at “a lass” and visibly suppressed a grin.
This enraged Marco further. He had no clue that his interest in Marisol had been so transparent. He stomped out of the meeting and the next day his irritability infected the entire class. He rolled his eyes when called upon. He cracked jokes at inappropriate times. His ire only grew worse over time, and D’s started showing up on his homework.
Separated from his lass by a tyrannical row of chairs, Marco felt impotent. He finally had to ask himself a nerve-wracking question: could he muster the courage to talk to Marisol outside of class? About something other than Chemistry?
He didn’t know the answer just yet.
~
Yes, Marco wanted to maybe date Marisol, but she also intrigued him to no end. She didn’t share much on social media. Her Facebook hadn’t been updated in months, her Instagram was locked, and allegedly she didn’t even have Snapchat. She didn’t do Band, drama, sports, or choir.
She came to school, rarely spoke in class, and presumably got good enough grades. She sat at a lunch table with a motley crew: one friend, Amber, had dyed green hair and talked all day about “Mangas” and “Yuri On Ice” dubbed vs subtitles. Her pal Melody’s pierced lip was intimidating, but Melody’s family ran a puppy mill from their trailer and she smiled at everyone.
Marco could deduce nothing about Marisol from her friends, aside from a taste in eccentricity. But was he eccentric enough?
And what did her and her friends do outside of school? Beneath the pretty surface, Marco asked, who was she?
In addition to looks, he felt she was way out of his league. Marco was a León. His mom was a teacher’s assistant at a grade school and his dad a humble albañil. His lot in life was to marry another water carrier with a last name like Rodriguez or Ramirez. Criollos and hidalgos still stalked South Texas, and surnames often traced the limits of occupation and love. If you weren’t a Guerra or a Garza, then you were a nobody.
But you couldn’t just date anybody. Even nobodies have dignities to uphold. Even nobodies tried not to marry or date into narco families.
There was circumstantial yet convincing evidence that Marisol’s dad dealt drugs.
Marco talked to a few of her friends, gleaned what he could from Facebook, and nobody knew how Marisol’s dad, Jorge Ramirez, earned a living. Also, he paid for everything in cash and spent months-at-a-time in Mexico.
Of course, Marisol’s dad could just be another sleazy produce importer. Those guys were paranoid, rarely spoke about their businesses, lived on cash due to IRS tax liens, and normally had a (hush hush) second family in Mexico.
However, social media evidence punctured a few holes in this theory. First, most produce importers cycled through (American) wives and businesses with regularity. They got divorced every five years and dissolved an indebted LLC every two years or so. On Facebook, Marco had seen that Marisol’s mom was still in the picture and had been with dad for a buen rato.
Marco found an image of Marisol’s mother in a lovely white blouse with her arms draped around her husband’s shoulders. He pictured himself and Marisol in their places.
~
“How” was now the question. Even his mom’s chicken mole and tamales de raja couldn’t distract him. After a quick dinner, he left his family’s cramped apartment to wander along Old Port Isabel Road. The street filled with minivans ferrying elderly folks home from their adult day cares. Old Dodge Caravans and Chrysler Town & Countries with peeling white paint zoomed by, their sides featuring names such as “Bonita Hacienda” and “Nuevo Amanecer.”
He crossed Coffee Road and sat under an oak just outside the temple of the Testigos de Jehova. The parking lot was empty. The sun started to set, yet the humidity lingered. His black t-shirt stuck to his chest. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but could feel the hot air pressing against his forehead and temples. Then the mosquitoes came out in full force. One piquete. Otro piquete.
It was no use. His head was a mess. He couldn’t concentrate anywhere. He slowly got up and then walked home.
At the complex, he strolled up rickety old wooden steps to his family’s apartment on the second floor. The door was unlocked and he let himself in, heading straight to his room. He stripped off his clothes and took a shower with lukewarm water. He put on a pair of boxers and tossed himself onto the mattress that loitered in one corner of the room sans frame or box spring underneath.
It came to him. He would ask her to “get a bite to eat.” Humans ate food, he reasoned. Often in groups. Plus, the ambiguity made the plan resistant to easy blow-offs like scheduling conflicts. They could grab a bite either after school or, Marco profoundly wished, over the weekend. Whatever suited her.
The downside to the general plan was, of course, the possibility of total rejection. But Marco was feeling optimistic. He turned onto his right side, pulled the sheets up to his chest, and turned on a small fan beside his mattress. He visualized Marisol saying “yes” or “sure” or even “sounds like fun.”
The hum of the fan and sound of her voice drifted him off to sleep.
~
The next morning, Marco awoke with a clear head and a smile. He combed his hair, put on a crisp navy blue polo shirt and jeans, and stepped into the kitchen. His mom had already left for work, but had left him some breakfast tacos from Stripes.
He slowly ate his machacado con huevo so as not to get any sauce on his clothes. He brushed his teeth, checked the clock on the fridge, and then dashed to his bus stop on the corner of Fairwind and Robin Hood Drive. Though a sophomore, he still rode the bus on Wednesdays because no friend could give him a lift.
The bus was notoriously erratic, and arrived later than usual. The thick air outside already felt like an oven, though the sun had barely cracked the horizon. Marco arrived at first period Chemistry in less than ideal shape: late and sweaty. He stared at the ground to avoid Mr. Wintz’s angry glances, walked to his seat, sat, and looked up.
Marisol’s seat was empty. Where was she? He glanced around the room. There was no sign of her. In fact, he didn’t see her around school the entire day. Or the next day. Or the day after that.
~
Marco worked up the courage to speak with her friends, and they said Marisol had called a few of them a few nights ago and said her family had to move, like, immediately. The details were scarce. Nobody knew where she was. Or her family. Her cell phone had since stopped working. Her social media accounts laid dormant.
“We live near a border, darling. People come and people go,” the counselor said to Marco. No teacher could or would tell him anything. He tried to track down her dad’s phone number online, but quickly got sick of awkward conversations with the wrong Jorge Ramirez. He even called the police to file a missing person’s report, but hung up after the first question: “Family or friend?”
The school year ended without a trace of Marisol, but Marco couldn’t stop thinking about her. That summer, a tio hooked him up with a job cleaning the bathrooms at the Gladys Porter Zoo (under the table and for cash). With some of the money he earned, he was able to pay an online fee at the Cameron County website and they emailed him PDF versions of the property titles for every guy named Jorge Ramirez since 1950.
After sifting through deeds at the school computer for about a half hour, he found one with the names of Marisol’s mother and father. The plot was pricey and located off Country Club Road. It also had a few IRS tax liens. He texted Hugo.
-FOUND IT!
-Wha?
-the house
-??
-Marisol’s place
-u sure?
-100%
-like rly?
-yup
-then lets check it out
-when
-nxt week i got my sis’ car
-orale ya sta
~
As Hugo and Marco cruised around in a dinged up, white 2004 Ford Focus, residents in narco-mansions peered through curtains. No cops showed up, though, and at least the area wasn’t gated. When they got to the Ramirez residence, the front-lawn was a tangled mess of weeds and uncut grass. There was no “For Sale” sign out front and all the windows looked intact.
They circled the block three times, unsure of how to proceed. Hugo thought they should just knock on the front door, but, for Marco, even parking out front was too conspicuous. They eventually left, but resolved to return at night in a few days. If there were any lights on, then somebody must live there. Then, Marco promised, they’d knock on the front door. If there were no lights on, then the place was abandoned.
They never returned.
Marco continued to check Marisol’s Facebook, but no updates. He thought about sending her a message. If he’d thought of it earlier, then he could have used her absence as an excuse to offer her notes from Chemistry class. That wouldn’t fly in July. He sent her and a few of her friends friend requests. To his surprise, two of her friends accepted him almost immediately.
Days turned to weeks, and his pending request to Marisol hung around him like a millstone. It was the first thing he checked on his phone each morning. He and Hugo spent the better part of August at the Sunrise Mall, a hangout spot for Marisol’s clique. One of the girls who had friended him, Yessica, posted funny stuff on Facebook and he always gave it a like. When they saw each other in person, they’d say “hi” and she’d even smile at him.
The school year started, and no sign of Marisol. Marco still thought of her often, and the monotony of the school day didn’t help. He didn’t have any classes in the doublewide, but he’d glance out the glass doors, see the trailer, and think of her. Those sweltering afternoons from just last year lingered inside him, bubbling to the surface at every opportunity.
Then, one Monday, Hugo texted Marco about something importantísimo. It was urgent. About Marisol.
~
Marco stared at the P.C. screen, but the information still didn’t register. Hugo had commandeered one of the computers in the school library, and a Google Search for “Jorge Ramirez” had returned a hit. Marco read the article in The McAllen Monitor about a jailbreak just across the border in Matamoros, Mexico. A riot between rival cartels had broken out, and, amidst the chaos, some high profile folks had escaped. Among the fugitives was a Jorge Ramirez, described as a “brutal sicario” who allegedly had ambushed a Governor in the Yucatán and even attacked a convoy of federalis in Nuevo León.
Marco said nothing. Hugo cracked a grin. “Hombre—you almost dated a sicario’s daughter!” He raised his fist for a bump, but Marco was having none of it. Four months had passed since he’d last seen Marisol. He’d hung out a few times with that Yessica girl, but part of him couldn’t stop dwelling on his prior sixteen years of life—about 5,840 days—when he could have, and should have, spoken to Marisol.
Marco snorted, rolled his eyes, and turned away from Hugo. That story probably wasn’t accurate anyway, he thought as he walked off. After all, there were lots of people named Jorge Ramirez.
And for Marco, there would only ever be one Marisol.
Elliott Turner is the author of The Night of the Virgin, one of “the top ten fiction books of 2017” according to TheLatinoAuthor.com. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Atticus Reviews, VICE, Fusion, and SplitLip Mag.
Éphémère is a concept; two visions of the same sphere. Both are multidisciplinary Mauritian artists—designers and illustrators—influenced by nature and culture. They attempt to convey a part of their dream-like, somewhat playful world through their art and products. (Photo credits: Céliliphotographies)
