Poole let him simmer for a few minutes and watched his hands stop shaking. Damn, Marcus, you’re so lucky to be alive. No luckier than anyone else.
After that, Marcus explained he was on the move, roaming the desolate terrain, hiding his truck beneath bramble or under rocky overhangs. Hatchet found a way of life so removed that for the majority of his days he forgot the cities and the populations and the concerns of a brick and mortar, circuitry based world, becoming a species introduced for no reason other than exfiltration, like any other animal forced from its natural habitat by development. The site of any conglomeration of housing seemed alien and cancerous. He felt altered. A beast constructed for the purity of survival rather than the pursuit of happiness. He told Poole of hunting small lizards with handmade traps and grilling cacti after extracting their juice and hiding from various vehicles or aircraft that happened to enter his sphere, forever ready to defend himself. For all the guilt and disgust he had experienced with the violence he had involved, he knew he could kill again. The fact that he possessed the will further confused the notion.
Why though? Poole asked him, why there? you could’ve gone anywhere; especially after all that crap. It’s cheap, first of all and it was familiar after being in the park; dangerous sure but I think the chaos of it all may have saved my ass a few times; nobody wants to go in there. Hatchet shook his head and smiled, closed his eyes. And I have taken so many photographs, Dexter, good ones; I’ve got some amazing stuff; I’ve been to some amazing places, seen incredible things. But you could have gone anywhere, Poole repeated, I still don’t get it. Maybe I don’t either, man, originally, the plan was to drive to Ecuador, ya know? sell solar modules to Eurotrash, maybe find a brown girl, start a bean farm, breed myself a baseball team. Cute, Marcus. But things got complicated. They always do. Shit hit the fan and I thought I could disappear; I was wrong.
Hatchet gave an account of a standoff between Mexican police and the small village of Podrido after a young boy was killed by a policeman who also happened to be a member of the Asesinos. The negotiations lasted for three days and then the shooting commenced. Hatchet watched ambulances swim through the fluid distance to carry away dead and wounded policemen followed by more negotiations followed by more bullets followed by more bodies and more failed communication. He watched the final shootout last twelve hours, watched grenades thrown at women and children, watched people burn in the dusk, watched people executed at dawn behind a wall while a caravan of news crews sat blocked two miles up the shimmering two lane blacktop curling like a satin ribbon across the yellow and olive swells of Coahuila.
Here, Hatchet removed a folded piece of paper from his wallet, I printed the story that ran in El Toro; fucking incredible.
Two days later, on a road west of the town, a distant pillar of black smoke tilting from the shell of the church in Podrido, Hatchet encountered a raggedy group of children ranging from seven to nineteen. They were walking deeper into the darkening desert as Hatchet approached and they waved him down, jumping and screaming in the dust. The oldest had worked in Texas one spring and knew enough English to tell Hatchet their story. His name was Julio and he had a round face made rounder by a voluminous grin. The police and the Asesinos had made them orphans and they voted to go to Ojinaga where they heard children could make money and support themselves. Although he knew the money they would make and the work they’d perform might be worse than starving in the desert, Hatchet agreed to drive them the entire distance.
After that, Marcus explained he was on the move, roaming the desolate terrain, hiding his truck beneath bramble or under rocky overhangs. Hatchet found a way of life so removed that for the majority of his days he forgot the cities and the populations and the concerns of a brick and mortar, circuitry based world, becoming a species introduced for no reason other than exfiltration, like any other animal forced from its natural habitat by development. The site of any conglomeration of housing seemed alien and cancerous. He felt altered. A beast constructed for the purity of survival rather than the pursuit of happiness. He told Poole of hunting small lizards with handmade traps and grilling cacti after extracting their juice and hiding from various vehicles or aircraft that happened to enter his sphere, forever ready to defend himself. For all the guilt and disgust he had experienced with the violence he had involved, he knew he could kill again. The fact that he possessed the will further confused the notion.
Why though? Poole asked him, why there? you could’ve gone anywhere; especially after all that crap. It’s cheap, first of all and it was familiar after being in the park; dangerous sure but I think the chaos of it all may have saved my ass a few times; nobody wants to go in there. Hatchet shook his head and smiled, closed his eyes. And I have taken so many photographs, Dexter, good ones; I’ve got some amazing stuff; I’ve been to some amazing places, seen incredible things. But you could have gone anywhere, Poole repeated, I still don’t get it. Maybe I don’t either, man, originally, the plan was to drive to Ecuador, ya know? sell solar modules to Eurotrash, maybe find a brown girl, start a bean farm, breed myself a baseball team. Cute, Marcus. But things got complicated. They always do. Shit hit the fan and I thought I could disappear; I was wrong.
Hatchet gave an account of a standoff between Mexican police and the small village of Podrido after a young boy was killed by a policeman who also happened to be a member of the Asesinos. The negotiations lasted for three days and then the shooting commenced. Hatchet watched ambulances swim through the fluid distance to carry away dead and wounded policemen followed by more negotiations followed by more bullets followed by more bodies and more failed communication. He watched the final shootout last twelve hours, watched grenades thrown at women and children, watched people burn in the dusk, watched people executed at dawn behind a wall while a caravan of news crews sat blocked two miles up the shimmering two lane blacktop curling like a satin ribbon across the yellow and olive swells of Coahuila.
Here, Hatchet removed a folded piece of paper from his wallet, I printed the story that ran in El Toro; fucking incredible.
Two days later, on a road west of the town, a distant pillar of black smoke tilting from the shell of the church in Podrido, Hatchet encountered a raggedy group of children ranging from seven to nineteen. They were walking deeper into the darkening desert as Hatchet approached and they waved him down, jumping and screaming in the dust. The oldest had worked in Texas one spring and knew enough English to tell Hatchet their story. His name was Julio and he had a round face made rounder by a voluminous grin. The police and the Asesinos had made them orphans and they voted to go to Ojinaga where they heard children could make money and support themselves. Although he knew the money they would make and the work they’d perform might be worse than starving in the desert, Hatchet agreed to drive them the entire distance.
Edit 12.17.2018